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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years ago

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Big Think - Male inequality, explained by an expert - Richard Reeves

A number of people warned me against writing a book about boys and men because it's such a fraught subject, particularly in politics right now, and because so many people were afraid that merely drawing attention to the problems of boys and men was implying somehow less effort being paid to girls and women; that it's framed as zero-sum. And it's sort of a who's side are you on question: and you have to be on one side or the other, rather than just being on the side of human flourishing.

One of the real challenges here is that if there are men missing from certain crucial areas of our society and our economy, that makes it harder for other men and boys to flourish in those areas.

We have an education system that has a dearth of male teachers. We have a labor market where the jobs that are growing fastest are ones where we have the fewest men- and in families there's the growth in what you might call the 'dad deficit' or 'fatherlessness.' As men are struggling in each of those areas, what you'll see is it'll be harder for other men to follow in their footsteps.

It's harder for boys to flourish if their fathers aren't engaged. It's harder for men to enter occupations where there aren't men. It's harder for boys to do well at school where there are no male teachers to be seen. And so, there's a very real danger that unless we act quite soon, that we will set in train something of a vicious cycle.

I'm Richard Reeves. I'm a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and my latest book is "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is struggling, Why That Matters, and What to Do about It."

The overall picture is, that on almost every measure, at almost every age, and in almost every advanced economy in the world, the girls are leaving the boys way behind, and the women leaving the men.

Men in education

What nobody expected was that girls and women wouldn't just catch up to boys and men in education, but would blow right past them and keep going. Everyone was very focused, quite rightly, on getting to gender equality, getting to gender parity.

It's not that long ago where there was a huge gender gap the other way, and there was huge focus, correctly, in the 70s and 80s to really promote women and girls in education. But the line just kept going-and nobody predicted that. Nobody was saying, "What if gender inequality reemerges in just as big a way as now, in some cases bigger, but the other way around?

And to some extent, everyone's still trying to get their head around this new world where, at least in education, when you talk about gender inequality, you are pretty much always talking about the ways in which girls and women are ahead of boys and men. And that's happened in a very, very short period of human history. So if you look at the U.S., for example, in the average school district in the U.S., girls are almost a grade level ahead of boys in English, and have caught up in math. If we look at those with the highest GPA scores, the top 10%, two-thirds of those are girls. If we look at those at the bottom, two-thirds of those are boys.

When it comes to going to college, there's a 10 percentage gap in college enrollment; a similar size gap in completing college, conditional on enrolling. And the result of those trends is that the gender gap in getting a college degree is now wider than it was in 1972, but the other way around.

So in 1972, when Title IX was passed to promote more gender equality in education, there was a 13 percentage point gap in favor of men getting college degrees. Now there's a 15 percentage point gap in favor of women getting college degrees. So the gender inequality we see in college today is wider than it was 50 years ago- it's just the other way around.

There's quite a fierce debate about the differences between male and female brains. And in adulthood, I think there's not much evidence that the brains are that different in ways that we should worry about, or that are particularly consequential. But where there's no real debate is in the timing of brain development. It is quite clear that girls brains develop more quickly than boys brains do, and that the biggest difference seems to occur in adolescence.

So what happens, is in adolescence, we develop what neuroscientists call the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex of our brain is sometimes known as the "CEO of the brain." It's the bit of your brain that says, "You should do your chemistry homework rather than going out to party." It's the bit of your brain that says it is worth maintaining a high GPA 'cause it'll help you get to college, which might help you in the future. And that bit of the brain develops considerably earlier in girls than in boys, between one and two years earlier. Partly because girls go into puberty a bit earlier than boys and that seems to trigger some of this development.

What that means is that if you have an education system that rewards the ability to turn in homework, stay on task, worry about your GPA, prepare for college, and so on, then, just structurally, that's going to put at an advantage the group whose brains have developed earlier in those particular areas- and that turns out on average to be girls. I think it's a great irony of women's progress that by taking the brakes off women's educational opportunities and aspirations, we've revealed the fact that the education system is slightly structured against boys and men, because of these differences in the timing of brain development. But it took the women's movement to show that, because the natural advantages of women in education were impossible to see when women's aspirations were being capped by a sexist society. Now that those caps have been largely removed, we can see that it's boys and men who are at disadvantage in the education system.

At the risk of sounding boring, let's collect the data first so we know what we are dealing with here.

I do think that we should be strongly encouraging boys to start school a year later than girls. I think that should become the default in many school districts because of the developmental gap that there is between boys and girls. Because boys brains mature more slowly, then them starting school a year later would mean that they were developmentally closer to being peers with the girls in the classroom.

We need a lot more male teachers. It's striking that the teaching profession has become steadily more female over time. Only 24% of K-12 teachers, now, are male- that's down from 33% in the 80s- and fewer men are applying to teacher training year on year. And so, we've seen this steady shift towards a close to an all-female environment; that has all kinds of consequences for the ethos of the school, for the way we deal with different kinds of behavior among boys and girls, for example. And so we need a very serious and intentional effort to get more men into teaching.

The third thing I would do in this world where I have significant power to dictate policies, would be significantly more investment in vocational education and training: That is an area where we do seem to see better results for boys and men on average, and one that's woefully underinvested in in the U.S. The U.S. has really bet most of its dollars on a very academic, a very narrow route towards success, and less emphasis on vocational training. And that has actually put boys and men at a disadvantage- so apprenticeships, technical high schools, are actually a really good way to help more boys and men.

I think one of the challenges with this debate is that if you're talking to women and men who are, say, at the top of the economic ladder- four-year college degrees, decent incomes- they look around and they don't see some of these issues. But that's not the same for working-class men; that's not the same for men lower down the economic ladder. So there's a danger that we're so busy, to borrow Sheryl Sandberg's phrase: "So busy leaning in that we don't look down." The reality for men further down the ladder is very different.

Men in the workforce

The economic trends for men have turned downwards along four dimensions.

One is wages: Most men today earn less than most men did in 1979.

In employment, with a drop in labor force participation of eight percentage points, which means nine million men now of prime age are not working.

We've seen a drop in occupational stature, and so, there are now more men working in employment areas which are seen as lower status than they were in the past.

And we've also seen a drop in the acquisition of skills, the kinds of skills and education that boys and men need. If boys don't get educated and men don't get skilled, they will struggle in the labor market.

And across all of those domains, we've seen a downwards turn for men in the last four or five decades. And so the way in which social class divides have opened up, economic inequality has widened, is really important to understand in the context of gender inequality.

If we only focus on gender gaps, then we miss the fact that both men and women at the top have done increasingly well. But that's much less true of everybody else, and especially it's less true of those from lower-income backgrounds, working-class boys and men, and black boys and men. You see many of those trends are amplified, and so those boys and men are really at the sharpest end of many of the social and economic changes.

On the one hand, we have a huge and successful and laudable effort to get more women into STEM jobs. So 'science, technology, engineering, and math.' On the other side, we have what I call "HEAL jobs." So that's 'health, education, administration, and literacy.' Almost, if you like, the opposite side of the coin to STEM jobs- and that's where a lot of the jobs are coming from.

Health and education alone are huge and growing sectors in the U.S., and so by my estimates, for every one job we're gonna create in STEM between now and 2030, we're gonna create three in HEAL jobs. But those jobs are at least as gender-segregated as STEM jobs, but in the other direction, and unlike STEM becoming more so over time; so if you look at the HEAL sector, only 24% of the workers in those sectors are male, and that number is falling.

And in particular sectors, we are seeing a really precipitous drop in the number of men. We have a drop in the number of male teachers. We have a very sharp drop in the number of male psychologists; that's dropped from 39% male to 29% male in the last decade alone. And among psychologists under the age of 30, only 5% are male. So we roll that forward, and we're going to see psychology becoming essentially almost an all-female profession.

So these jobs, which are both crucial, I think, for society, and where it'd be very useful to have more diversity, are actually becoming more gender-segregated, and so we have absolutely no effort to get more men into HEAL jobs, which is where I think the future lies, and where we should be helping men to move.

Men in the family

One of the problems that we face is what I call in the book a 'dad deficit.' And that can be seen in various different ways: So one in four fathers don't live with their children. If parents split up, they're much more likely to lose contact with their fathers than with their mothers- and so one in three children, if their parents split up, don't see their father at all after a few years post the separation. So this fatherlessness is something that's very, very specific.

And when 4 in 10 children are born outside marriage, and most children, to less educated parents are born outside marriage, then we have to reinvent what it means to be a father, because right now men are still being held to an old standard of what it meant to be a successful father in a world where that is neither possible for many of them, or even desirable, because what we've seen is, as women have grown in economic power and economic independence, then of course they're going to choose to be with a man rather than being forced to, as in the old days.

This is probably the greatest liberation in human history, honestly, that women can now choose whether to be with a man or not. More than 2 out of 5 households in the U.S. now, a woman is the main breadwinner. 40% of American women earn more than the average man. These are huge economic changes, and all for the good, but it does pose some really sharp questions about what fathers are for.

And until we escape the obsolete model of the breadwinner father, then we will continue to see more and more men being left out of family life. And the kicker is that boys in families that don't have a father presence suffer much more than girls. And so then what happens is that male disadvantage can become intergenerational because if the fathers are struggling, and therefore not really involved in their kids' lives, then the boys are the ones who suffer most, who will then go on to struggle themselves in education, and in the labor market.

It's clear by now that marriage and social institutions and a sense of purpose matter to men. And so as we've seen these real challenges faced by men in education, work, and the family, you're seeing some really difficult and troubling health consequences. And so, the so-called 'deaths of despair' from suicide, overdose, or alcohol, three times higher among men than among women. Suicide itself, three times higher among men than women, and rising very quickly, especially among middle-aged men and younger men.

So we can see these as symptoms, I think, of a broader malaise, which is what's troubling boys and men. And for men in particular, this sense of purpose is very important. I think it's a human universal that we need to be needed. There's a wonderful piece of work by an academic called Fiona Chan, who looked at the last words that men had used to describe themselves before committing suicide, or attempting suicide. And the top of the list were "worthless" and "useless."

I think if we create a society in which so many men do feel like they're not needed, then it's no surprise that we see these deaths of despair. We see problems with opioids- opioids are a much bigger problem for men than they are for women- and one of the great tragedies of opioid deaths is the death rates are higher in part because the users are on their own. And so, in some ways, the opioid epidemic is a perfect illustration of a whole series of things we are talking about: which is a loss of role in the family, a loss of status in the labor market, turning to drugs, and being isolated and withdrawn. And so in that example, I think you can see a symptom of this broader, male malaise that we just need to take it more seriously.

And we have a cultural responsibility, as a society, men and women together, to help men and boys to adjust to this new world- because, right now, many of them are really struggling.

#Richard V. Reeves #Of Men and Boys #gender inequality #inequality #systemic inequality #gender gap #higher education #male suicide #education #suicide #male disposability #depression #fatherlessness #fatherless #religion is a mental illness

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returntosaturn271995 · 1 year ago

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Sunday, September 10th: Girl talk, girl work

"I will form good habits and become their slave."

Dramatic? Of course. Whose journal do you think this is?

Today I consoled Cole on the ending of his relationship with Lisa and in the spirit of remembering some of my favorite relationship-ending gems here are my favorite texts that I sent:

Erin Burks: Someone doesn’t have to be a life partner to be one of your soul mates. You learned from each other.

Cole: Yeah exactly and they’ve been checking in on me and explaining their perspectives from when we were all together. Just all reassuring that this was the right thing to happen.

That’s really well said. I like that statement a lot

Erin Burks: I like it too. I feel like there’s a lot of unhealthy, inflexible rhetoric about love You built a relationship with someone you loved and it didn’t last forever. That’s still beautiful. And next time you’ll know yourself a little more. Relationships can end without failing. And tbh, a lot of the time they fail without ending and that’s how you get old people screaming at each-other on the sidewalk. Basically: You didn’t waste time, it wasn’t a mistake. It’s okay to feel off-center and unsure, but you will love again. And one day she’ll be an old girlfriend you tell a wild sex story about to your son so he knows his dad was a big pimp back in the day.

-----

Erin Burks: I hope you get so much pussy there’s just like a chalk outline of your bed like “here’s where the murder took place” Lisa’s sweet, but you’re going to meet some fucking BAD BITCHES

Cole: Hahahaha

Erin Burks: And watch like 2 1/2 to 6 months from now she’ll send you a text like “hey can we talk?” And you can be like “mmmm I can emotionally support you when I’m done getting a blow job from someone who is really trying to impress me”

Cole: You are something else hahaha

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Cole: Yeah that’s what my family told me too. And to be happy this didn’t happen later like you said too

Erin Burks: I was gunna say, your romantic purpose has been in healing someone else while your needs weren’t being met That’s a mindfuck

Cole: Yeah it definitely made me question my self worth a lot through out that time

Erin Burks: That’s natural, I do it too But sooooo not a reflection on you The more space you get and the more positive experiences you get the more you’ll wonder why you tried so hard

Cole: That’s what I really hope will happen

Erin Burks: And that’s right around the time she’ll hit you up for emotional support Like that’s exactly what will happen

Cole: You know what’s funny, my dad said that would happen too

Erin Burks: Because that’s human nature ---------------------------

Also going to start including more texts in here. Maybe a daily text that I find funny.

Of me. That I said.

Duh.

I'm proud to say I also hit all of my goals today. Zero alcohol imbibed. I finished up my daily recovery run and hit 15 K for the week. Also have hit my fastest mile time yet: 8:15. Lame? Fuck you. That's a decent mile time.

Seriously who am I arguing with? One day this journal is going to be used as evidence of my descent into madness.

Anyways, for dinner, I made teriyaki steak and roasted brussel sprouts and had some alarmingly-teal-colored boba milk tea from Hannah's supply. While I cooked I also listened to a podcast that absolutely shredded the book "God and Man at Yale", it's interesting as an early relic of conservatives hating universities for "indoctrination" and the threat to individualism...while demanding that schools do a top-down structure that enforces the preaching of conservative rhetoric and hammer down on any dissent.

The irony, much like my passport, was lost due to the owner's intellectual hubris.

Which reminds me, I'm going to check in about getting my passport renewed and actually going on the Amsterdam/London trip. Martyn said he would host me for a couple of days and I frankly would love an adventure right about now.

My hair is currently washed and in tight braids for some beach waves and I'm wearing a two-piece silky tropical pajama set. I just spent the last four hours putting together a PowerPoint for work that I thought would be able to squeeze in before our meeting tomorrow. Yep. Idiotic.

Feeling like procrastinating? Put it off for a bit. Trust me.

Now I'm going to eat some grilled cheese and read a chapter of The Rachel Incident before bed because I am very le tired and have been a tre good person today. (Compared to who I could have been, a hungover monster creating her own chaos.)

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engie-ivy · 3 years ago

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Marlene’s little brother has a thing for Sirius, because who doesn't have a thing for Sirius? Marlene is freaking out, and everyone thinks it's just hilarious. Remus would've thought it was hilarious too, had Marlene’s little brother not been very close in age, cute, witty, and oh so bloody charming.

Somewhat longer fic that will be added to my Crush Confessions Series! 3756 words, so not that long. Wolfstar Fluff, of course😎

Muggle Charms

James Potter’s garden party is the event of the summer. Everyone gets together at the Potter estate for a day of listening to music, swimming in the lake (yes, there’s a lake on the grounds of the Potter estate), and playing friendly Quidditch matches. Mrs Potter walks around with all sorts of delicious foods, James and Sirius fly their brooms above the lake and make bets who dares to jump off from the greatest height, Mary and Emmeline are sunbathing and make bets who will need to be healed first.

It had started the summer after first year with just the four Marauders, but every year, their number has grown, and this year is the largest group thus far.

Marlene McKinnon is last to arrive, and, as usual, her arrival doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Everyone, come meet my little brother!” She shouts across the field.

The McKinnons have four children. Marlene’s mother and two of her siblings are Muggles, while the rest have magical abilities. Marlene’s sister is the oldest of the siblings. She’s a Muggle who works as a primary school teacher. Despite growing up with a father who’s a wizard, she has always felt slightly uncomfortable around magic, but she loves her family fiercely and is very protective over her younger siblings. As she’s much older than Marlene, she has always been more like a second mother.

Next comes Marlene’s older brother, who’s wizard, but has finished Hogwarts long ago. He now works in the Sales Department for a company that develops novel potions against levitation- and portkey-sickness. According to Marlene he’s a serious businessman by day, and a giant goofball by night.

Last is Marlene’s younger brother. He’s a Muggle, but where Marlene’s sister likes to pretend magic doesn’t exist, he thinks it mighty fascinating. He and Marlene are incredibly close, writing each other constantly and hanging out as often as they can when Marlene was home from Hogwarts. She has never brought him to James’ garden party, though. He works in the Food Service Industry, and the bright summer days on which James plans his parties are the days on which he most likely has to work. This year, however, he had managed to get the day off.

The first thing Remus thinks is that the McKinnons have good genes. He can’t really tell which of the two siblings is older, which means they must be very close in age. The boy has the same thick, blond hair and bright blue eyes as Marlene, as well as the same freckles from the sun. He’s short for a guy, barely taller than Marlene, but he’s quite muscular, with broad shoulders. All in all, Marlene’s younger brother is a very cute guy.

“Everyone, this is Miles!” Marlene says, when everyone has gathered around. “Let’s see... Here we have James Potter, he’s the host.”

Miles grins at James. “Some house you’ve got here, mate. Thanks for having me!”

James grins back and lifts his beer. “Cheers, mate!”

“James is Lily’s boyfriend,” Marlene says. “You’ve already met Lily-” Miles gives Lily a warm smile “-and of course you know Dorcas.”

“Hullo Dorky.”

“Hiya Miley.”

“And here we have my other girls, Alice Fortescue, Mary McDonald and Emmeline Vance.” Marlene points each of the girls out, and Miles gives them all a friendly nod.

“And these two are the Prewetts, Fabian and Gideon- don’t worry about who’s who, none of us actually knows.”

“Oi!”

“And this is Caradoc Dearborn, and this Benjy Fenwick, so miraculously you’re not the shortest guy here.”

“Marlene!”

“And here we have the rest of the renegades, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black.”

The chance in Miles is instant.

The polite smile he was wearing turns into a coy smile, as he gives Sirius a not-so-subtle once-over, though Remus doesn’t think it was ever meant to be subtle. Miles takes a step forward towards Sirius. “Well, hello there.”

Remus can’t blame him. He would’ve reacted the same had he been in Miles’ position (alright, maybe he would’ve turned into a blushing, stuttering mess and forget his own name if he were suddenly faced with a guy like Sirius, instead of step forward with an enticing smile and flirtatious greeting, but that’s beside the point). Sirius looks bloody amazing. His swimming trunks are clinging to his legs, and his damp hair is hanging over his bare chest, with little droplets dripping down his muscular body.

Sirius grins knowingly at Miles. “Hi.”

Marlene’s head whirls around from Miles to Sirius to Miles and back to Sirius, so fast Remus worries she might get a whiplash.

“No,” she says. “No, nope, uh-uh, absolutely not. Not. Happening. No.”

She steps between her brother and Sirius, facing the latter, and jabbing a finger against his chest. “You are not going to try anything on my little brother, got it?”

Sirius holds up his hands and takes a step back. “I only said hi.”

Marlene looks at him suspiciously, like she suspects Sirius saying hi is some sort of secret seduction technique (which would actually explain a lot).

“C’mon Marls.” Miles moves to stand next to his sister, and throws an arm over her shoulder. He winks at Sirius. “We all just want to have a good time, don’t we?”

Marlene’s face is getting more red by the second. Her fingers are clutching her cardboard plate, causing it to rumple. She’s clenching her jaw, while intently staring at the pair a bit further on the field.

“I can’t bloody believe it,” she hisses. “If Black thinks I’ll let him hook up with my little brother, he has another thing coming!”

Miles had managed to catch Sirius when he went to grab a drink, and they have been chatting apart from the rest of the group for about half an hour now, to Marlene’s great distress, and everyone else’s amusement. Well, everyone else except for Remus, but he thinks he’s been hiding it quite well.

Remus doesn’t know how the guy does it, but Miles somehow manages to stand closer and closer to Sirius. He’s looking up at him through his lashes, with those big blue eyes and that damned smile, sometimes even going as far as to bite his lip. Sirius has definitely been blushing at some point!

While Remus is the only one who can emphasize with Marlene’s distress over the situation, he really doesn’t like how she’s blaming it all on Sirius, while evidently its her brother who’s acting like a little minx.

“Honestly, Marlene,” Lily says, shaking her head. “Didn’t you talk to Miles about there being an incredibly hot, single gay guy present?”

Remus agrees. Marlene should’ve known what would happen when she decided to introduce her brother to Sirius! You cannot bring him here knowing Sirius is looking like he does, and expect him not to react!

Marlene huffs indignantly. “My little brother is a precious angel who’s not interested in such a thing as ‘hot, single men’!”

Lily looks at Miles and Sirius. Miles seems to be laughing at something Sirius said, and touches his upper arm while doing so, letting his hand slide down Sirius’ bicep. Lily turns her head back to Marlene and raises her eyebrow.

Marlene just folds her arms over her chest and pointedly looks away.

Later, when Miles reaches up to brush a strand of hair from Sirius’ face, Marlene’s face has taken on a more purple colour. By this time, she has started angrily chewing on her cardboard plate.

Luckily, everyone’s too busy making fun of Marlene to notice Remus looks like he’s going to be sick.

Normally, a day at the Potter estate flies by, but Remus is positive this day lasts at least three times as long. But Remus has been getting through it. He hopes that after today, he won’t see Miles McKinnon of ever again. Well, he mostly hopes Sirius won’t see Miles McKinnon ever again, he can admit that . To himself, that is.

Currently, he’s sitting down with James, having a butterbeer. Just when he thinks he might make it through these last hours without further additions to his misery, Marlene comes striding their way, Dorcas on her heels.

“Potter,” she says, stopping in front of them and placing her fists on her hips. “You’ve got something I need, and I want it now!”

“Sorry McKinnon,” James says with a smirk. “I’m a one woman man.”

“In your dreams, you wanker,” Marlene snaps. “You’ve got an Invisibility Cloak, no?”

James takes off his glasses and starts polishing them with his robes. “I may or may not possess such a thing.”

Marlene rolls her eyes. “After seven years of going to school with you, I think I can safely say that you do. Well, I need you to use it. Miles asked Black to take him on a tour around the lake.” She scrunches up her nose. “And you have to follow them so you can report back to me whether Black has kept his paws off of my little brother!”

“More the other way around,” Remus mutters, but Marlene hears and glares at him.

“My sweet and innocent little brother would never do such a thing! He simply... wants to see the surroundings and needs Black for directions.”

Dorcas throws her head back and cackles loudly. “The only directions your ‘sweet and innocent little brother’ is interested in, is the fastest way to get into Sirius Black’s pants!”

Marlene directs a deadly glare at her.

Just when Remus thinks at least Dorcas knows what she’s talking about, she continues. “C’mon Marls, Miles can make his own decisions. Let the boys have some fun!”

Let the boys have some fun? That’s not a good idea! That’s the opposite of a good idea! That’s a terrible idea!

“Well,” Remus says, managing to sound surprisingly calm. “We’re on Mr and Mrs Potter’s property, and Miles has only just been introduced to the gang. I mean, he and Sirius barely know each other. I’d say it’d be rather inappropriate if something happens between them here and now. You don’t want Marlene’s brother to give off the wrong impression.”

James sighs. “What if I lend you the Invisibility Cloak, and you can follow them yourself?”

“Oh, no!” Marlene holds up her hands and takes a step back. “There are certain things I don’t ever want to see my little brother do, or hear my little brother say. If I were to... accidentally stumble upon them, I’d either have to Obliviate myself, or be scarred for life.”

Remus snorts. Not so sure about her brother being so innocent after all, is she?

“Well, Padfoot’s my brother!” James argues.

“Remember when I put in a good word for you with Lily, and finally got her to agree to go on a date with you?” Marlene plays her final card, and effectively.

“Fine!” James puts down his butterbeer and gets up. “Remus, let’s go.”

“What? Me? Why?”

“Because you got me into this, Mr ‘it’d be inappropriate’. And besides, I’ll feel like some perverted Peeping Tom spying on them alone.”

“So better to have two Peeping Toms?” Remus argues, but he knows it’s an argument he’s not going to win.

That’s how Remus finds himself in the place he wants to be least of all, crouched down under the Invisibility Cloak with James, and, after casting a quick Silencio over their footsteps, following on Sirius and Miles on their ‘casual, totally not romantic, definitely not a date’ stroll.

“-and once I’ve gained enough experience, I’d like to come back to London and open my own restaurant!” Miles finishes.

“That’s amazing, Miles!” Sirius exclaims. “I’ll definitely frequent!”

“As long as you don’t expect any free food just because you’re so handsome,” Miles teases.

Sirius gasps in pretend-shock. “I would never use my looks for such purposes!”

“Right,” Miles chuckles. “You be careful, Sirius Black. A face like yours is a powerful weapon.”

“Wow,” James whispers admiringly. “He’s good!”

Remus grits his teeth. Of bloody course Miles McKinnon is all charming and smooth, chatting Sirius up.

“What about you?” Miles asks. “What are your plans for the future, now that you’re some kind of strong and powerful wizard?”

“I’m starting my Healer training soon!” Sirius beams, and Remus can’t help but smile at the pride in his voice.

“That’s... like a doctor, right?” Miles asks.

“Yeah,” Sirius replies. “But without the cutting people open.” He shudders. “Definitely no cutting people open.”

“Oi!” Miles protests, bumping his shoulder against Sirius. “Doctors cut people open to save lives, you know. They don’t do it for a laugh.”

“I’m sorry!” Sirius quickly says. “I didn’t mean to offend. It’s actually very impressive what Muggle doctors can do without magic, and the things they’ve come up with! I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Miles says, glancing at Sirius. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sirius smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s just... I was raised in this really conservative pureblood Wizarding family. I’m always afraid I’ll say something Muggle-phobic without realising.”

“It’s okay, it wasn’t that bad, honestly.”

“Good,” Sirius says, relieved. “I’m just... trying to be better.”

Miles smiles softly at him. “Just the fact that you’re trying already makes you better.”

They walk in comfortable silence for a moment, until Miles speaks again. “That must’ve been hard though, growing up in a family like that. Marlene already mentioned you’re living here now. Is that why?”

Sirius nods. “I ran away from home the summer before. Best decision I’ve ever made.” There’s a tightness in his voice, though, and an emotion in his eyes that makes Remus want to run towards him and pull him into a hug.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Miles says sincerely. Then he gives Sirius a teasing smile. “Though I must say, it’s a good look on you, the whole ‘sexy rebel’-thing.”

Sirius barks a laugh, and the pained expression slides off his face. “Well, I’m glad my issues at least fit my anaesthetic!”

Remus doesn’t know whether he wants to bless Miles McKinnon for being able to turn Sirius’ mood around and make him smile, or whether he wants to curse Miles McKinnon for being able to turn Sirius’ mood around and make him smile.

“I bet you love provoking your family, don’t you?” Miles asks.

“That might just be my most favourite pastime,” Sirius replies sincerely.

Suddenly, Miles stops walking, so Sirius stops as well and turns back to face him.

Miles takes a step towards him. “I bet it would really provoke your family if you were to make out with a boy, a Muggle boy at that.”

Sirius swallows and his face slightly flushes. “That... That’ll definitely do the trick, yeah.”

Miles comes even closer, now almost standing chest-to-chest with Sirius, and he tilts his head up and leans in.

James still looks mighty impressed with Miles’ flirting tactics, while Remus wonders if the sound of his heart shattering might give them away.

Suddenly, Sirius steps back. “Wait, stop. I... I can’t.”

Miles looks disappointed, but not too shocked. “Why not?” He asks. Then he jabs his finger against Sirius’ chest, much like his sister did earlier. “And I swear to god, Sirius Black, if it’s because I’m a Muggle you can stick that wand of yours up your-”

“No, no, no!” Sirius quickly says, whilst letting out a breathless laugh. “It’s not you, really, it’s me.”

Miles gives Sirius a stern look, while placing his fists on his hips, making Remus wonder whether they’re sure Marlene and Miles aren’t twins. “If you’re gonna give me that lame excuse, at least elaborate what it is about ‘not me, but you’ that makes you reject me. I mean, I’m not proposing a marriage here!”

Sirius sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “There’s... someone else. I mean, there’s not really, I don’t have someone else, but I have feelings for someone else. So therefore this-” He gestures between himself and Miles. “Just doesn’t feel right.”

Remus exchanges a look with James, who looks just as stunned as he is by this information.

Miles, though, just folds his arms over his chest and looks at Sirius thoughtfully for a moment. “So, Lupin then?”

Remus freezes. What? Him? Oh no. He’s not sure he can bear to hear Sirius’ denial. ‘Lupin? Remus? No, of course not! What in Godric’s name gave you that idea? Why the hell would I fancy Remus?’

However, Sirius just sighs and looks down at his shoes. “I’m that obvious, huh?”

Remus stares dumbfounded. It’s... true? He feels an eruption of butterflies in his stomach. Well, he always feels some butterflies when he sees Sirius, but now it’s like all those butterflies had babies, and those babies had babies again, creating an immense flutter.

“Nah,” Miles says. “If I had known for sure, I wouldn’t have made a move. I only had a suspicion, but I decided to take a chance anyway. I’m not too surprised by this turn of events, though.”

“It’s really the only reason,” Sirius says. “Because you’re bloody great, you know that? You’re gonna make some guy really happy one day. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Miles groans. “ ‘Its not you, it’s me’, ‘anyone would be lucky to have you’. Shall we go before you start telling me we can still be friends?”

Sirius grins. “Normally I’d suggest we at least pretend to have had a good snog, just to see if Marlene’s face can get any more purple, but I don’t want to give Remus the wrong impression. Not that he’d care,” he adds with a mutter.

Miles stops walking again. “What? Are you seri- No, Marlene warned me not to say that. Really?”

Sirius just blinks at him.

Miles shakes his head. “I mean, you asked if you were being obvious, well, you were nothing compared to Lupin. Although, that could just be me. I couldn’t help but notice when he’s looking at me like he wants me to catch fire every time I come near you. Wait. You wizards can actually do that, can’t you?”

Remus huffs. He wouldn’t have actually set Miles on fire! At least he doesn’t think so.

Sirius frowns at Miles. “You must be mistaken. Remus is nothing but pure kindness! He always makes everyone feel welcome! You can’t help but like Remus!”

A warm feeling spreads through Remus’ chest.

Miles just looks at Sirius, shaking his head. “You’re actually in love, aren’t you?”

Sirius blushes and looks away.

“Well,” Miles says. “You should tell him how you feel. He clearly feels the same. Then you can both stop this pining.”

James, who just had to process the shock of one of his best friends fancying another one of his best friends, now has to process the shock of his best friends fancying each other. He’s staring at Remus, and consequently trips over a rock. He does manage to catch is balance, but he lets out a loud yelp.

Miles stares at the empty spot behind them on the path, surprised, but Sirius’ eyes narrow in suspicion. He lifts his wand, and the next moment a gush of wind blows the Invisibility Cloak off of Remus and James.

To his credit, Miles recovers pretty quickly from seeing two people appear seemingly out of nowhere, including the person they were just talking about. He blinks a couple of times, then says “I suppose this works as well.”

Remus and Sirius are just staring at each other.

“Uhm...” James says. “I was sent here by miss McKinnon to escort the younger McKinnon back to the estate.” Because apparently awkward situations make him talk like he’s an eighteen century nobleman. “Off we go, young lad.”

Miles doesn’t protest when James grabs his arm and starts dragging him away, but he does turn around to give Sirius a thumbs up.

“We were sent here by McKinnon,” Remus quickly says, when he and Sirius are alone. “She wanted to know if anything would happen between you and her brother.” Remus takes a deep breath. “And maybe I wanted to know if anything would happen between you and him myself as well,” he says softly.

“Were you jealous?” Sirius asks. It sounds curious, not angry, judgemental or smug, just curious.

Still, Remus can’t help but pout, and he looks away. “Of course I was jealous. Bloody Miles McKinnon, with his big blue eyes, batting those ridiculously long eyelashes at you, and being all cute, and witty, and charming.”

“You know, if you want Miles to snog you instead, you should hurry and you can probably still catch him,” Sirius says irritably.

“No!” Remus quickly says. “No. I just mean, I wish it was me. When he calls you handsome, when he brushes your hair away from your face, when he leans in to kiss you... I wish it was me doing those things.”

“Why don’t you?” Sirius whispers, staring at Remus intently.

“Because!” Remus says desperately. “Because I know how to be your friend, but if I even think about flirting with you, I turn into an awkward, rambling mess.”

The only thing that can possibly be going through Sirius’ mind right now is how the hell he let the sexy, confident, flirtatious boy walk away, to be stuck with the flustered heap of awkwardness that is Remus Lupin.

Remus stares down at his shoes. “I mean, I like you a lot, and also because I feel comfortable around you, I do, but when it comes to flirting, I suddenly get scared that you’ll laugh at me or something. I even think it’d be easier if you weren’t my friend, if we didn’t know each other so well. Then maybe I could-”

Remus stops talking when Sirius gently cups his cheek and tilts his head up. Slowly, ever so slowly, he leans in, giving Remus enough time to pull away had he wanted to. Which, for the record, he absolutely doesn’t. Sirius presses their lips together. And it’s...

Well, it’s not awkward at all.

It’s fireworks, and symphonies, and the sun breaking through the clouds. It’s a sense of belonging, and knowing all is right with the world, and a feeling of coming home.

Both boys are a little out of breath when they pull back, more because of the intense emotions than because the kiss had been that passionate.

“See?” Sirius smiles at Remus. “If I want you to stop rambling, I can always just... interrupt.”

“Rude,” Remus mutters, before pulling Sirius back into another kiss.

#my tumblr writing #crush confessions #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar fic #marauders #marauders fanfiction #marauders fic #sirius black #remus lupin #remus x sirius #james potter #marlene mckinnon #wolfstar fluff

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rockingrobin69 · 3 years ago

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Heat Exhaustion

Almost a reblog, but not quite. 1.1K, less fluff, more pining. LOTS of pining.

Languid movements in the sun had his brain halfway melted. He stared, dazed, at the hand that was previously sheltering bright eyes – not lowering but dripping, bit by bit, onto criminally-bare skin. There was something decidedly wrong about the picture. Malfoy shouldn’t even be here, clad only in a jade-colored bathing suit and popping every eye on the beach out its socket. He should be – somewhere posh, somewhere cold, where his pallor suits the weather and he’s properly covered, Jesus. He made even sweltering look expensive; drops of sweat glimmered on his skin like condensation on a bottle of Dom Perignon. Harry wanted to lick him clean. He was out of his damn mind.

“I think it’s time for a dip,” Malfoy said, even his drawl lazy. Sunlight shimmered on his skin, a dazzling display of long limbs attacking Harry’s eyes as he stretched into a stand. “Coming, Potter?”

As if he could stand watching him walk away. Harry tottered behind because he simply couldn’t help it, head dizzy, hands aching to grab. God, Malfoy’s arse would fit so perfectly in his palm. It’s like it was meant for it. It’s like he was meant for –

Harry stopped the thought right there, before it got too dangerous. He’s been down this path for far too long not to recognize the alarm bells. Malfoy doesn’t feel the same way. Beautiful, charming, devilishly clever Malfoy doesn’t feel the same way. That’s why he slipped away after Harry kissed him – accosted him, more like. And that’s why he’s keeping at arm’s length now. Harry needed to fucking learn that already, it wasn’t funny anymore. It was too hot for his heart to ache this much.

The water was a godsend, cooling the fire to a tolerable sizzle. Harry didn’t wait a second before he submerged, desperately hoping it would help. He’d take whatever assistance he can get. He had no more energy to fight it, and their friends all ditched him here. Alone. With Malfoy. Fucking Malfoy. No, not fucking Malfoy, no matter how much he might like to – a nudge to his shoulder made him raise his head, startled.

“You all right?” Malfoy asked, far too near. “Scared me a little there. Thought you were trying to drown yourself.”

“What? No. Yes. I mean – I’m fine.” Which was a lie, because he wasn’t, he was never less fine in his life. Malfoy looked even better up close, some bloody how. His hair was pulled back, smoothed, similar and very much different to how he used to wear it. Back then he looked like a prat, and now… now he just looked perfect. With his jaw, and that tiny little scar on his temple, and his lips. His lips. And his eyes, fuck, not only reflecting the light but emitting it, Harry would swear on it. Fuck. He was so fucked. He couldn’t stop for one bloody minute.

“Are you sure about that?” Malfoy’s very voice was enough to drive Harry to ruins. How many times had he listened reverently, not even grasping whatever it was Malfoy was trying to explain? Not caring about not grasping it, either, because it meant he could ask him again? So Malfoy would talk again? And maybe get that little exasperated smile too, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes which Harry used to believe meant fondness? “Hey. Harry.”

“Huh?” there was a drop of water at the top of Malfoy’s neck, making its slow and torturous way down his throat, and Harry was a goner.

“Harry.” Something was happening, a huge shift of tectonic plates, a tsunami starting deep within the ocean – oh, no, it’s just Malfoy’s hands on him, grabbing both his shoulders. Far more terrifying. “Whatever is wrong, you’re going to tell me right now, Potter. I’m not kidding.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Harry said, which meant everything’s wrong, because you don’t want me the way I want you, and my love for you is no longer only pathetic, but now actually tragic.

“You’d think,” Malfoy’s tone altered to annoyance, and Harry’s heart beat sickeningly fast in his chest, “that after all this time, you’d be better at telling a bloody lie. I thought I was meant to be a good influence on you.”

“You are,” Harry blurted, stunned and a lot panicked to discover Malfoy’s hands still on him. “You so are.”

“Evidently,” Malfoy shook his head. “What is it, then? Still don’t trust me?”

“What?” Harry’s voice softened immediately, the traitor. “Of course I do.”

“Then why won’t you tell me what’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing – “

The earth shook again, this time nauseating, because Malfoy’s hands slid off him and he floated a step back. “Come off it, Potter. There’s obviously something. I thought we had put the past behind us, but if you still hate me so much that merely looking at me causes you grief, then – “

“Malfoy,” Harry cut him off, shocked, and then at his hurt look, “Draco. I don’t hate you. Of course I don’t hate you.”

“No?” the dirty bastard had the nerve to look shy, and Harry couldn’t take it anymore.

“Draco – fuck, for such a brilliant bloke, you sure are an idiot sometimes. You know I don’t hate you. You know that for years now.” Draco’s insecurity was the fastest way to break his heart, he’d checked.

“Is it… about the kiss?” Malfoy asked, quiet all of a sudden. He looked away, and then quickly back at Harry like it was punishment. “I can explain. I didn’t mean to – it wasn’t something – I didn’t plan – “

“It’s okay,” Harry said, because it wasn’t, and Malfoy looked like a scared rabbit. His bottom lip was actually twitching. It actually really fucking hurt.

He came nearer again, and was the sea air always so thin? “I thought I knew what you – I’m sorry, Harry. For some reason I thought what you were saying meant that you felt like I… but I didn’t mean to presume, all right? I’m your friend, I know that. I’m happy even just being your friend. I don’t need anything more.”

“Good,” Harry spewed, crushed, far too frazzled for an actual thought. Although it sounded a bit like…

“Back out, then? I think I left my book in the room.”

Harry tilted his head, checking, but no water came out of his ears. He must have heard right. He caught the sight of a jade-colored bathing suit and his heart stopped dead in its track. Just? He’s happy even just being his friend? He thought Harry felt the way he – fuck. Fuck.

Harry was suddenly very happy he agreed to go on this vacation.

“Draco! Wait!”

#drarry #fic #an improved version if you'd like #it's hot it's summer y'all #pining harry #insecure draco #lotsa pining #RockingRobin69

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peachdoxie · 3 years ago

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I had a dream that I was writing a very elaborate BNHA fanfic. The basic premise was that Class 1-A had graduated from UA but were sent ten years into the past and to a different part of Japan to help fight a war. It was also kind of an epic fantasy AU because they were fighting against five trios of immortal women who wanted to...well, idk what, but the 1-A students mostly had the same powers. They were joining a bunch of other superhero teams from across the world because this war was apparently that important.

The plot was convoluted because it was a dream, but here's some details:

Jiro was the one who sent them to the past, since her power was to create portals that could teleport people through time and space.

They needed an anchor at the present so they left Mineta behind.

They were mostly trying to protect a massive tower from an invading force coming through a valley where people lived.

It was a serious war to the point there was a scene where someone in the tower was laying out body bags in preparation for casualties.

Uraraka and Midoriya were co-leaders of their team, which acted like a special forces group for the war, along with several other superhero teams.

The superhero teams were assigned to find and destroy the five trios of magical women in order to prevent the war from starting. 1-A managed to kill two of the women in their assigned trio, but then the remaining one started to cause serious problems for them.

In one of them, 1-A came across a magic portal and accidentally got sucked in, which trapped them in a soccer game in a magic bubble in the valley. The only one who wasn't sucked into the portal was Uraraka and an OC, who had to find a way to free them.

The OC was named Snow and had dark pink hair and ice powers. She mostly didn't participate in Class 1-A because she was shy, but also because she was half-feral. She was clearly inspired by my sister's cat we had growing up named Snowflake, who was skittish and volatile, but not pink.

However, in the process of freeing 1-A, Uraraka was tricked by the magical woman and turned into a child (inspired by Baby Doll from Batman: the Animated Series) and loses her memories. She thinks she's the daughter of a man who runs an orange tree farm and loves alligators, who she now lives with.

Snow is also tricked by the magical lady and lives with Uraraka, orange tree guy, and his other daughters, but she's aware of what's going on, just unable to break free from the charade (this is probably inspired by WandaVision).

Midoriya, Iida, and Bakugo (who has seriously mellowed out) free the two girls through unknown means.

However, they also discover that orange tree guy is actually a doppelganger wearing the corpse of the actual orange tree guy and who is working for the magical woman.

This discovery involved a scene where Uraraka, Midoriya, and Iida are walking through the woods to rescue someone unknown and have to avoid stepping in rotting corpses on the ground.

Some incoherent stuff happens and they end up back at the tower, preparing for the first battle of the war to start. 1-A and another superhero team are going to be sent out first to disrupt the train system and other infrastructure to make it harder for the enemy to travel effectively, since this involves urban and suburban warfare.

The other team is led by a guy with non-combat powers but my dream never specified what. He also really loves trains. Uraraka (who is now the main POV) realizes he is probably a doppelganger too, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it other than she keeps smelling vague wafts of decomposition (definitely inspired by a reddit thread about the smell of decomposition I read yesterday).

After the initial attack, both teams head back to the tower, but they're then informed that an electrical station is still working and then need to destroy it. Midoriya and Iida volunteer to go alone and destroy it since they're the two fastest people in and their partner team.

Right after they leave, the leader of the other team is called away by the tower's leadership for scientific testing, and Uraraka realizes that the smell of decomposition left when Midoriya and Iida left, and she figures out (in the fic's big twist) that the two of them are actually doppelgangers wearing the corpses of her friends.

She then leads 1-A and the other team (whose leader returned somehow) to go confront the Midoriya and Iida doppelgangers, with Bakugo and Todoroki as the primary combatants since they're the only two who might be able to defeat someone with Midoriya's powers.

However, in the second plot twist, it's revealed that the Midoriya and Iida doppelgangers, who have the memories of the people they replaced, decided to betray the magical woman and fight for 1-A and just pretend to be Midoriya and Iida for the foreseeable future, which is why they actually did destroy the electrical station they were told to. The reason is that Midoriya and Iida were so dedicated to being heroes that their memories prompted the two doppelgangers to defect to team 1-A.

This entire confrontation takes place on an elaborate catwalk bridge system over a river.

The revelation of the doppelgangers deciding to pretend to be Midoriya and Iida for the rest of forever prompts Kaminari to propose a bunch of philosophical questions of the nature of the mind and soul and identity.

The climax of the fic involves the two doppelgangers being attacked by the magical woman for betraying her, and Uraraka decides to send 1-A to defend them because, even though they killed and replaced her friends, they're on her side and it's the right thing to do. It's a pretty epic battle and shows how good Uraraka is at leading a superhero team.

Although 1-A can't touch the doppelgangers' skin because then they too will become doppelgangers, so it's a challenge to save them (probably inspired by me thinking about Kaz Brekker's backstory yesterday).

Scooby Doo and Fred show up briefly at this point and I don't know why.

After rescuing the doppelgangers and winning the first but battle of the war, the two superhero teams are trying to figure out how to handle the fact that Midoriya and Iida are now doppelgangers. It's also revealed that Uraraka was right about the other team's leader being a doppelganger, but he's been one for several years and that's why he no longer smelled like a corpse. He decides to defect as well.

The fic ends with someone on the other team proposing a way to merge the souls of Midoriya and Iida with their doppelgangers' souls and the two teams deciding to track their souls down with the doppelgangers' help (undoubtedly inspired by me geeking out about the symbiotic possession trope yesterday).

It was quite the entertaining dream, though I doubt I will ever actually turn it into a real fic, especially since I have spoiled the plot lol.

#anecdotes by peachdoxie #bnha #makes me want to catch up on bnha

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tobiosmilktea · 4 years ago

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umpah umpah! smau

↪︎ bokuto x f!reader x iwaizumi

[021] — like a storm!

masterlist | prev. | next

a/n: swear my writing hasn’t been that good recently and i blame it on my lack of freetime 😔 anyway here’s 4.5k words of trashy word dump that i wrote in 2 hours ;)) also peep the tlc reference

in theory, this picnic blanket was much too small for the likes of fitting a webtoon author, an editor, and a beefy volleyball player all at once, and yet, it still managed to fit two more to come join—tightly bunched up in the park at night as the crisp air temperature slowly drops. having a picnic at the cusp of autumn and winter was a definite mistake, but then again, perhaps they were used to it by now.

it wasn’t like the cold was bothering bokuto at this point anyway as his blood simmered with a boiling hot ichor. he had a death grip on his phone as satomi left him on read. all the volleyball player could do was roll his eyes and scoff as he taps your shoulder. akaashi, who sat on the other side of you was in the midst of speaking to you, yet was interrupted by the bright white light from the screen shone across your faces.

your eyes scanned the texts, feeling your lungs desperately yearning for air. her words suffocated you, crushing your airways as you struggled to breathe. perhaps you have forgotten how to at that very moment. they say it takes about three minutes for someone to suffocate from the lack of oxygen and if akaashi didn’t shake you, that probably would have been you. the fact that seeing that damn photo made your heart shatter more times than you could count over a course of the past few days. you couldn’t catch a fucking break, could you?

you had to look away. if you had stared at satomi in iwaizumi’s bed any longer, you would’ve screamed your head off.

“god, these cookies are so fucking good. i would literally marry these if i could,” kaori moaned into another bite of a matcha shortbread cookie. she practically threw herself over yuko’s lap as she reached in her little baggie for more. “these cookies are a godsend, (y/n), where did you get them?”

“this bakery right next to onigiri miya, apparently they make good lemon macarons as well.” you mutter. the semblance of seeing those texts was still evident upon your expression.

yuko doesn’t fail to notice the way the timbre of your voice had changed within a sudden moment. she gives you a look, “what’s wrong?” her words, careful and genuine filled you with something somber as bokuto handed his phone to her.

kaori grunts slightly as she lifts herself off of yuko, yet her body was still leaned over to skim the texts along with her.

it was a nervous habit of yours to fiddle with your fingers, picking and scratching at your chipped nail polish until it was all gone. you don’t remember when this became a habit, but you always did this whilst you waited for something you dreaded to hear the answer to. as if the nerves within you pooled into a wave, crashing back and forth like a tide until you either get dragged along with it or somehow manage to survive.

their expressions contorted into a nasty mixture of disgust and absolute horror. even kaori who has seen the despicable sweet-tongued manipulations of nicotine-stained fingers of incels had to shake her head and push the phone away.

“i never liked that girl from the start,” yuko scoffs. she hands the phone back to bokuto, watching him switch it off and dropping it onto the cushioned picnic blanket in annoyance.

“god, the amount of anger coursing through my body right now...” muttered bokuto, “i can’t believe she would do this.”

“at least she didn’t do anything to iwaizumi,” akaashi tried to reason. things were already so messed up, it was the least he could do.

kaori shakes her head, clearing her throat from the dryness of the shortbread cookie. “doesn’t matter,” her words were venomous and cutthroat, “she’s still a terrible person considering she got him drunk and made him tell her shit that wasn’t any of her business. what a fucking snake.”

you pursed your lips slightly, wanting to close your eyes and make this all disappear the moment you wake up. the chill of the night air had finally struck you. it was that sudden urge to run away as fast as possible, to escape the words you wholeheartedly wanted to leave behind continued to follow you like haunting poltergeists. and as if the tingling phrases of whispered memoirs of your mistakes weren’t enough, your own decisions whether it was right or wrong lingered back to both iwaizumi and bokuto. it’s heavy baggage you so dearly wanted to get rid of, but the solutions seemed so skewed and out of place for you to comprehend properly that even the chill in the air started to burn.

bokuto glanced at you with worry coated the emotions in his eyes. his hand reached for yours, lacing his fingers through your own as his palm—though rough and calloused—was warm against the biting cold of your hand. it comforted you more than you had expected with the way it was hidden from the others, almost melting when bokuto started to rub his thumb in little circles on the back of your hand and over your knuckles.

your hands were so soft, he had forgotten how much he liked holding them. he could memorize each and every detail just by admiring the way your hand looked so tiny next to his, yet they fit together like a glove.

you swore your heart was ready to jump out of your throat then. you weren’t sure if bokuto could even feel the way you squeezed his hand slightly as a silent answer.

“we should do something about it,” you say after a few beats of silence had passed, but it only comes out in a hushed mutter.

bokuto squeezed back, “like what?”

“i don’t really know,” you shrug while you shook your head, “just something that’ll make her learn a lesson or two.”

kaori gasps, “we should sue her!”

you and the others gave her a look.

“like seriously, sexual assault allegations are terrible especially since she’s a famous sports team’s physical therapist!”

“there probably isn’t enough evidence for that to work, kaori, considering they only made out.” yuko says matter-of-factly, “besides, suing someone is expensive and we don’t have that kind of budget right now.”

kaori braids over arms over each other in disappointment, “that’s lame.”

“yuko’s right.” you sighed, “i don’t want things to get out of hand and end up going public either. iwaizumi is already mad at the fact that i used him for a webtoon and surely being part of a lawsuit would only make it worse.”

it had come to a point that you had noticed how far everything has come. you wanted to laugh at how fast everything went downhill within a matter of months. the skeleton of your mistakes was just waiting for its last bits to fall and crush you.

there had to be a way to just make this—whatever this entire thing is to just end already.

akaashi opened his mouth to speak after keeping his thoughts to himself this entire time, “what if we just... get her fired?” he finished the last of his words in a blazing hesitance as if we would absolutely hate the idea. granted, it wasn’t much to work off of just by a simple proposal, but it had potential.

“we could, but how exactly are we going to do that?” bokuto asks curiously.

“didn’t you say that tomas recently got injured?” akaashi starts, earning a nod from bokuto to have him continue, “well if we want to be discrete as possible we could do it the old-fashioned way.”

yuko furrowed her brows as she asked, “which is?”

“if she keeps missing work or arriving late, she could potentially lose her job.”

kaori bursts out laughing, heaving a heavy snort as she mused at akaashi, “seriously? is that really our best option?”

akaashi rolled his eyes as she teases, “since you wanted to go the legal route, technically, it is.”

the girl’s laughter came to a slow cease, cocking her head in interest as she waited for one of them to elaborate.

“no yeah, there’s still a chance for this to actually work.” bokuto starts without a second thought. hell, he even forgot he was still holding your hand. “professional sports teams require their medical team to be at every game whether it’s real or just practice since the players are always at risk of getting injured. satomi’s known to be good at being there every day on time, so if yoji and their boss sees that she’s consistently missing work now for... let’s say—iwaizumi—and tomas isn’t getting treated asap, they’re allowed to replace her. and if you’re replaced, there’s basically no going back even if it is just temporary. and if that happens...” he pauses as he holds back a smirk, “she’s going to be fined legally with negligence—worst-case scenario, she’ll probably be fined for nonfeasance too.”

“whoa there, those are some big words, sir.” says kaori, “someone catch me up here?”

akaashi lets out a sigh, “nonfeasance means failure to do what’s expected.”

the sound of awe left kaori as she nods in understanding.

“is this really necessary? it seems like a lot of work just to get back at her.” yuko has always been a rational person, just like akaashi, but the only difference between them was that she liked to do things the fastest and most easy way.

“if we play our cards right, i think we could do it.” says bokuto.

“then i think we need all the help we can get if we really want this to work out.” akaashi said, craning his neck towards you to ask, “should i tell semi and suga about it?”

it’s not even a question for you to answer considering how obvious the answer was. of course, you had to tell them. they basically knew everything already, and if anything they’re the only ones who could make this plan actually work.

“i can also tell my team about it to help.” bokuto adds in, but you cut him a look, “only atsumu, sakusa, hinata, and tomas of course. i promise i’ll only tell them what they need to know. what do you think?”

“as long as satomi gets what she deserves.”

you hated the way your thoughts were an endless motion of suffering. it had been keeping you awake all night as you tossed and turned. you couldn’t rest now as if a giant cinder block of forbidden serendipities would clash-boom-bang back onto you as it was being held by a teetering string of floss. it was bound to snap at any second. you yearned for even just a few minutes of rest as maybe these suffocating feelings would disappear once you woke up in the early morning.

it was still dark out—three a.m... maybe, but all you knew was that it was late and your flurrying thoughts were giving you so much residual energy that you needed to extrude. it wasn’t a form of adrenaline or a sugar rush, no, it was something else. your body was well beyond fatigued, but rather your mind was running like a brain on drugs.

there were so many things rushing through your head that it morphed into a jungle of tangled vines of plenty. it was a storming blizzard that couldn’t be calmed down as you finally pushed yourself off your bed, forcing your sheets off of you and sitting on the side of the matress. guilt was eating you alive, gnawing at your hollow chest as your semblance withered while the minutes passed. you just wanted for everything to just stop. please just stop.

maybe this is why you never told any of them. the stress, the consequences— you knew damn well that shit would hit the fan if you did, and yet it’s inevitable. the truth would have come out sooner or later.

ugh, why are you like this? you thought to yourself, dragging your fingers through your hair as you sighed out.

the answers were obvious, but it was the tingling of your lips that sent waves of heat to your cheeks as you recalled the kiss... the kiss! holy shit, the kiss. it hit you then when it played back in your head from a few hours ago when bokuto dropped you off at your door. something melted in bokuto’s eyes the moment you looked back at him, heat emanating from every inch of his skin as you tracked the tension in his body. he leaned over with his face just a few centimeters shy from yours and you swore he could probably hear your heart punching against your ribcage. bokuto could feel the warmth of your breath fanning against his chin and for a moment the world and all the problems in it seemed to disappear for a brief moment. before you knew it he kissed you gently as if it was his last. it certainly would be for a while, anyway.

“dammit,” you cursed in a harsh whisper, leaning over to switch on your bedside lamp in a swift flick.

you slapped your cheeks to force the thought out of your head as you made your way to your desk. you turned your desk lamp on with it’s bright yellow hue flickering slightly over your messy work area. it was scattered with paperwork and miscellaneous notes that it was surely beyond your mood to even fix-up.

usually, you tend to be pretty clean and organized with your desk space, and yet with recent events, you’ve been letting the work pile up instead. you’ve always liked the saying, this is something future (y/n) can deal with, but for once you hated yourself for it. besides, look where it got you.

a sigh escaped your lips when you plopped yourself upon your chair. your delicate fingers traced along the edges of the neatly bonded sheets of love cemetery’s storyboard. you started it earlier today with the help of the rest of the ddd team after the director of the project gave you the freedom to do so as usually, he would be in charge of making the storyboard and such. despite being rather chaotic on a daily basis, you were glad to be surrounded by people who always put a smile on your face while still getting work done. those were the best types of people to work with—friends that cared about you.

you guys managed to get the first fifteen pages done and you needed twenty completed panels in less than twenty-four hours. you were used to this type of pressure, especially while you were working on your webtoon. you were surprised how many times you sprained your hand from constantly working that the aching pain between your joints and your wrists were second nature at this point. surely, you would have carpal tunnel by now if akaashi wasn’t there to always nag you to take breaks.

with a few wrist stretches and cracks of your knuckles, you flipped to the next scene—the day you and bokuto met. your heart tugged slightly as you envisioned the scene you drew in your webtoon, slowly converting it into a movie scene in your head.

oh, how things have changed.

your hand ached for mercy by the time seven a.m. struck. the sun had already peeked through the horizon, sending rays of sunlight through the blinds of your bedroom window as a greeting for the new morning. you had been sketching out the storyboard for five nonstop hours (give or take a few minutes in between trying not to let the different events in the story get to you).

you’ve always had a strange habit of ignoring the pain in your wrist, but now it was certainly unbearable. the lead pencil that was hot to the touch from the heat from your hand dropped onto your desk in a clatter. your eyes flicked down to your palm as you could feel the fatigue darkening your eyebags. your hands were practically alabaster from the constant pressure that it took a good moment for the circulation to run back into your hand.

you left your bedroom and made your way to your kitchenette. it was like your body was moving on its own, grabbing a mug, turning on your kettle, and tossing teaspoons of sugar in your cup for your morning tea as if you were on autopilot.

silence had surrounded you for far too long, you needed some form of sound to keep you sane from staying up all night and leaving you alone with your thoughts to just take over. sounds from the television hummed through the quaint air of your apartment in the lowest possible volume, just beneath the whistling of the tea kettle atop your stove.

you poured out the boiling hot water as your eyes followed the way the tea steeped through the liquid like a spreading storm.

the doorbell rang then, causing your head to swirl towards your door with slight confusion filling your expression. who would even come by so early in the morning?

the floorboards of your apartment creaked at your light steps as you trod towards the door, almost flinching at the cold surface of the handle as you unlocked it. you pulled the door open. there was that infamous morning chill in the autumn air that bit at your bare arms and legs. the heat from your apartment escaped at the motion as your breath hitched within your throat.

he looked out of breath and filled with fearful tension as his broad shoulders relaxed a bit at your sight. his usual soft brown locks that are always styled was tangled and woven into each other like a basket weave. hell, he looked as if he rushed immediately here the moment he woke up, all disheveled and almost desperate. poor guy didn’t even think to put on a coat before coming.

what the hell is he doing here?

“iwa—?” you attempted to say out loud in a harsh whisper that could barely leave your body in the first place. and yet, your voice disappeared into his chest as he pulls you into him, warmth engulfing you like burning ember.

you swallowed the lump forming in your throat as you froze. call it shock or just plain confusion but you couldn’t bring yourself to move your arms from the way iwaizumi’s embrace trapped them to your sides. just the plain sensation of the heat rising from his skin was enough to simmer down your awe as you finally managed to wrap your arms around him.

“i’m sorry,” he mutters into your shoulder.

you captured your bottom lip between your teeth. “i’m sorry too,” you say in the same matter, yet your voice almost sounded hoarse from the dryness in your throat. “i should’ve told you the truth.”

“and i shouldn’t have said those things that i said to you...”

a response would usually follow right after, but you couldn’t piece together the correct words and all of the nuanced phrases in your head to say into the air. your thoughts were too far cluttered and chaotic to even say anything more other than, “it’s okay.”

iwaizumi could only pull you in closer, hold you tighter, and leave his arms around you as if he feared that you would disappear out of his reach if he were to let go even in the slightest. he made the mistake of letting you go that one night many years ago and he has learned his lesson since them. he’s not going to take any more chances.

you two have been in each other’s arms for a while now, but you couldn’t find the strength in you to let go. you haven’t felt iwaizumi’s hugs in so long that perhaps you wanted to savor it a bit longer as well. like a little treat—a reward of a few minutes of peace after a thunderstorm of misunderstanding where all that’s left is the aroma of lingering petrichor of bittersweet nothings. you would like to call this a small victory, but something was off.

“iwa,” you say once you finally pulled yourself into your senses, “what’s wrong?”

“i did something bad, (y/n). i fucked up.”

you pull away from him slightly, just enough to be able to look at him in the eye but still be in the comfort of his arms. “what happened?”

“i was so fucking stupid, i shouldn’t have agreed to go with satomi.” oh, you thought as the words left his mouth. you pursed your lips together, forcing yourself to lock your gaze onto him as he spoke. “i ended up getting drunk and telling her everything that happened by accident.”

it’s okay, i already know. i already know, i already know. the words rang inside your head as you fought to say the words, but nothing was coming out. you did nothing wrong, it’s okay, it’s okay. there was so much hurt and betrayal lacing iwaizumi’s copper eyes that you feared anything you say (regardless if it was in his favor) would obliterate everything that just happened into dust. seriously, how bad would it sound telling a person that you were already aware of what they did? iwaizumi already had so many trust issues that you were treading on thin ice right now.

it really all came down to the question: do what’s right or do what’s easy?

right or easy, right or easy?

for years you have been choosing the easy route to undermine your problems. you always thought to yourself, if you had ignored the problem long enough, eventually it’ll all go away. it might have worked for the tiniest of things, but you should’ve known it would never work when you were fucking up other people’s lives from your own selfishness.

you didn’t want to be selfish anymore.

“we ended up sleeping together.”

you scrunched your brows in confusion, “what?”

did satomi lie then? did they actually sleep together?

“i-i don’t even remember how it all happened!” iwaizumi exclaimed in such urgency. he certainly didn’t want to make the gap between you two any bigger, “all i remember was that we kissed but before i knew it, i woke up to her in my bed but she was fully clothed.”

you sigh with a huff, trying to piece together the disarrayed parts together as you recalled bokuto’s words from last night, satomi doesn’t lie when it comes to sleeping around. the sentence wandering your thoughts as the boy before you continue to ramble. so maybe satomi didn’t lie after all, “listen, iwa—”

“you gotta believe me, (y/n), i didn’t mean to do it. when i said that i still love you the last time we texted i meant it—”

“haji, i said listen!” you huffed as you grabbed his arm. the sudden name change was enough to shut him up and possibly cause a surging red tint to his ears. you found it adorable, but you had to cut him some slack since you hadn’t called him that since high school. “last night i was with akaashi and bokuto.”

iwaizumi was already making a face before you could even start. “why were you with them?”

“just hear me out okay?” you pleaded.

he saw the aggression in your eyes and immediately shut up, nodding for you to continue.

“while i was with them, satomi texted us about everything that happened. she said that you guys only made out and didn’t do anything beyond that.” you explain, watching the slight relief softening his expression, “she ended up just sleeping over instead that’s why she was in your bed.”

you didn’t expect him to say anything when you finished your thought. it was a lot to sudden comprehend as you two just stood there waiting, swallowed up in your own thoughts.

“don’t blame yourself, okay?” you attempted to break the silence, “what satomi did was wrong.”

iwaizumi’s wandering gaze flickered back to you, fist curling up into a tight ball until his knuckles turned marble white. but as quickly as he felt the aching of his nail digging into his palm did he let go and let his shoulders drop. he sighs while he ran his hand through his tangled hair. he didn’t know what to say and the silence was punishing.

you parted your lips slightly as the words tickled your tongue. “this, um, might be too much to ask and you don’t have to say yes, but we need your help with something.”

“who’s we?”

“bokuto, akaashi, kaori, and the rest of my team.” you answer truthfully, “we’re trying to get satomi to face the consequences.”

iwaizumi nods, not hesitating for a second. “alright, i’ll do it.”

well that was easier than you thought.

you held back an amused laugh, hiding your smile behind your hand as you pull away from him. you made your way back to your kitchen as you had forgotten about your cup of tea from earlier.

“but...” iwaizumi trailed behind you as you sipped from your mug. “i was the one who made a move on her first.”

“oh,” you say. you definitely didn’t know about that small detail that sent ivy-like jealousy through your veins, “i mean... you were drunk so it makes sense.” you tried to justify without making your envy too obvious.

you turned away from him, fearing that he could see right through you.

“i kissed her thinking it was you,” he states.

your eyes widen then, slapping your cheeks that heated by the second. there was a grip around your swiftly beating heart, aching within your ribcage as you attempted to calm the roaring serendipities that threatened to bloom prematurely.

a composed sigh leaves you as you pull yourself together, turning back around to face iwaizumi with a meek smile. “cool,” you mused awkwardly as your brain search rapidly for a way to change the subject. iwaizumi moved closer to you, sending you into a mild panic, “have you had breakfast yet?” you asked out of the blue.

but before you could even fathom what he was doing, he cups your face between his hands and pulls you in.

your heart flutters and stops when iwaizumi pressed his lips against yours, soft and delicate as if you were the most fragile thing within his grasp. and you were. his touch against your jaw was light as it trailed down your neck. he could feel the raging ichor that soared through your veins like a wildfire while your hand that was splayed against his broad chest could feel the thumping of his heart against your own palm.

you pull away from him as he says, “no, i haven’t.” but it wasn’t to let him answer, rather, it was the thought that iwaizumi came second place again.

fun facts! —

yes. y/n did kiss both bokuto and iwaizumi within a span of a couple hours 💀 queen shit fr

after iwaizumi left, y/n immediately facetimed kaori and akaashi and told them what happened

it was definitely awkward between bokuto and iwaizumi when they saw each other, but it was harder to avoid satomi

(also by saying “iwaizumi came second place” means who was able to kiss y/n first not who won her feelings over)

taglist: (closed!)

@moonlightaangel @elianetsantana @k4tiepie @memorableminds @wheeshllumi @suhkusa @kitsunetea @airybby @noeminemi @truly-a-snitch @keichan @cosmicmermaid25 @bap-kingdom @saturnfarie @kwdflash @ennos-baby @dinablossom @chrisrue15 @seikamuzu @nestlevanilla @chasekudo @yammmers @pixcldust @iwaizluv @h0ngh0ngh0ng @emogril @tiredandkindaoverworked @tsumue @underratedmage @bokutosuwus @kellesvt @unstableye @oh-tapeworm @scrappyfka @alittlebitofrain @mxngy @tpwkatsumu @atsumuwoah @macchiatoast @dicerawr @kageyamasbabygorl @some-random-stranger-007 @vhskenma @wntrmn @little-plants @stargirlara @kissungjae @je11yfishwriter @sbaepsae @apollochjld

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smau #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader #bokuto scenarios #bokuto imagines #bokuto smau #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi scenarios #iwaizumi imagines #iwaizumi smau

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pascalpanic · 4 years ago

Text

Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Javier Peña x f!Reader)- Chapter Six

Summary: Javier is in trouble.

W/C: 2.2k

Warnings: language, blood, graphic injuries and descriptions of them, discussions of bombings, so much angst, oh god so much angst, mentions of death

A/N: Well, things can’t go right forever. This was so hard to write but so interesting at the same time! I hope you guys like it, even though it’s not exactly happy. Big thanks to my boo @remmysbounty as always for being my brainstorming helper/idea generator/Colombian culture expert! I wanna say enjoy but that feels mean also uhhh hi I don’t know shit about medical stuff. I try to keep it as vague as possible to avoid inaccuracies but there might be some unrealistic stuff in there.

also!!! I have over 300 followers now??!?!?! thank you all for following me I love u guys so much I wanna give each of you a kith on the forehead post covid!!

previous chapter | next chapter

A week or two passed. You didn’t see Javier. It wasn’t surprising, you were both busy people.

One morning, something happened. The entire building shook a little. Not much, just enough to rattle the medical tools on the tray, to make a little splash of the water on the patient’s bedside table. There was a noise, though, through the open window. A giant crash.

A few minutes later, the hospital’s fleet of ambulances was deployed, sirens blaring. The hospital erupts in chaos around you as you leave your patient’s room, nurses running and readying beds. You find Connie at the nurses’ station and she looks just as frantic as everyone else. “What’s going on?” You ask, her panicked face making your heart rate rise.

She shakes her head, aggressively pushing buttons on the desk phone. “There was some kind of explosion. I don’t know what or where but you heard and felt that, right?” She asks, shoving the phone between her ear and shoulder. “I’ve tried calling Steve five times and Javier three and neither of them have responded. I’m just praying they’re safe,” she murmurs, and your heart stops. You hadn’t even considered that Javier could be involved in this yet.

Lorena rushes past the two of you, wheeling an empty bed. “Connie, Ana, let’s go. Our medics are saying they have 12 filled ambulances coming our way,” she calls out to you two.

“I’m trying to reach Steve,” she shouts back. “I’ll be there once he picks up.”

Lorena looks mad, already filled with adrenaline and frustration, but she can’t deny her that. “Better hurry,” she groans and keeps rushing down the hallway. “Lucia said it’s all hands on deck to the ER. That includes us!” She calls behind her. “Bring any empty beds you can get.”

Neither you nor Connie is processing correctly, but you bite your lip. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. Hurry down when you’re done,” you tell her and follow Lorena’s lead, grabbing an empty bed and speed-walking it to the nearest elevator.

The ambulances begin arriving and the ER is filled with nurses and patients, people in varying states of injury. People were even beginning to enter through the front now, those who could make it to the hospital in a car or on foot.

It’s chaos, people flooding in faster than you can count or bring back. Some nurses start ordering people by severity of injuries, making sure that those in ambulances receive beds first and that the worst injuries are treated fastest. You’re going to start running out soon, you think to yourself, but you silently hope that you’ll have enough. Both you and Lorena get people into rooms, frantically rushing back to bring people to rooms once your current patient is properly settled.

All of a sudden, your world freezes and your blood runs ice cold. As you walk past the unloading ambulances, you see a man with a large piece of shrapnel protruding from his abdomen. It looks god awful, and you rush to help, only to see Steve Murphy emerge from the ambulance. There’s a terrified look on his face as he looks down at the man and oh no, oh fuck, you’re not sure if you say that aloud but you might as you realize that the man on the stretcher is Javier. Your Javi. From your throat comes a strangled cry, and it takes all of the conscious energy you have not to drop to your knees.

Steve’s eyes meet yours and you’re filled with an adrenaline rush, taking the stretcher from the EMTs and thanking them, flying into action. A nurse comes to take him and you immediately get him moving, past her. “I’m overseeing this one personally. Take the blonde to Connie and take her patient from her,” you shout at her, nodding towards Steve. Connie’s already behind you, and you hear her shout her husband’s name and run into his arms.

Javier’s eyes are fluttering, and you’re unsure if he can hear you, but you try. As you rush along with the stretcher, you can’t help but wince at the massive piece of some material buried deep in his abdomen, the way his face is drained of color. He’s covered in blood, the wound creating a dark red stain on his shirt. It’s bleeding uncontrollably. This is probably the worst injury you’ve seen, you think to yourself. The wound is bigger, but it reminds you of the woman you lost from Escobar’s hit, the one you couldn’t save, who reached out to you when she was dying. You couldn’t save her, and that night is a heavy and anxious presence in your mind- the night you met the man you’re currently very close to losing. You can’t help yourself: you start crying, murmuring reassurances to Javier as you wheel him through the winding halls of the hospital.

At this point, you need to get upstairs. You push the cot into the elevator, frantically pressing the button for the right floor and then the close button. As the doors slide shut, you take one of Javier’s hands and stand over him. Teardrops fall from your face to his as you finally let yourself stop for a moment and sob, pressing his knuckles to your lips. He must be somewhat conscious, you realize, as he grips your fingers back.

To your surprise, his ash-covered and bleeding lips part and begin to move. “Está lloviendo,” Javier murmurs, his eyes darting about beneath their lids.

“No, Javi, it’s me. It’s not raining, it’s just me, you’re safe now,” you murmur into his hand, clutching it even tighter. His lips find a soft smile and he squeezes your hand tight.

“Ah,” he croaks as he hears your voice, seeming content. “Mi hermosa. Te quiero, ¿lo sabes?” he asks, making you cry even harder. He can’t possibly mean it- he’s lost a lot of blood and his body is most definitely in shock, but those words wrench your heart even harder.

The elevator opens and you drag the gurney out, into a room that’s unoccupied. Javier’s losing quite a bit of blood from the massive impalement in his torso, and you have to admit that you’re absolutely terrified. The terror is evident in your voice when you pick up your walkie-talkie, holding down the button. “Room 639. Please send Lorena or Connie, please, it’s Ana and I need you,” you sob into the little machine. “It’s Javi, oh God,” you manage out before another sob overtakes you, and you toss the device onto the counter.

You need to make a decision and it has to be quick. The shrapnel will have to stay in until you can get him into the operating room- you grab the machine again. “Is the OR taken?” you ask.

“No, we’re clear. You got a patient who needs it?”

“Yeah, I’ll wheel him down. Massive shard of some kind of metal in his abdomen. Might’ve impacted an organ. There’s a lot of blood,” you say into the thing, already pulling Javier’s cart along and breaking into a jog. “Headed down now.”

The people lining the halls make way as you rush through them, tears streaming down your face. Javier babbles incoherent thoughts, reaching a hand up for you. “No, Javier,” you tell him softly and push it down, pushing his hair from his face instead and resting your hand on his cheek. It’s all too familiar, just like the way the girl reached out to you just before she died. “Don’t move too much. I’m right here, I’ve got you,” you tell him, trying to be reassuring but your voice cracking. You push through the swinging doors to the OR and find a team ready for you, including Lorena, which makes you sigh in relief. The doctor takes over, and she and several nurses get Javier onto the operating table. They strap a mask around his face for the anesthesia, and you rush to his side, holding his hand tight and standing over him.

His hand squeezes yours back, his eyes still shut. They flutter open at the sensation of the mask being strapped around his mouth, but you squeeze his fingers and kiss the tips softly. “It’s okay Javi, they’re going to put you under so it doesn’t hurt as bad. Okay?” you ask, brushing the ash and blood from his face.

He nods a little, then grunts at the effort it took. As he opens his eyes once more, the operating light makes a halo above your head. The air starts to smell different, he thinks, but it’s not what’s most important to him right now. You are, standing there and looking like the epitome of his saving grace. “Mi ángel,” he murmurs, a smile beneath that plastic mask. “Te quiero, mi ángel,” he murmurs before his grip on your hand goes slack, the anesthesia putting him under.

Down the hall, Steve sits on a hospital bed, looking annoyed. “Con, I told you I’m fine,” he shakes his head. “You already bandaged up the scratch,” he says, gesturing to the gash that required stitches but is now neatly taped on his forehead. “Discharge me already.”

Connie shakes her head, sliding the curtains closed to the room. She sits on the side of the bed and takes Steve’s face in her hands, kissing him deeply and passionately. “You idiot!” she exclaims as she breaks away. “The one day you and Javier get off your asses is the day there’s a fucking bombing!” Connie kisses him again, just as deep and lovingly. “I was so scared,” she admits, her voice cracking and her blue eyes welling with tears. “I called your desk seven times, and Javi’s five.” “Speaking of-”

“He’s in the operating room, I just heard it over the radios. Doctor’s worried. He’s lost a ton of blood and it looks like it’s a really nasty wound,” she admits, still holding Steve’s face in her hands. “I’m scared,” she says honestly, the tears starting to fall from her eyes. “But you’re okay,” she says with a small smile, caressing the side of his face. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she says, voice watery as her emotions switch from relief to anger. “You’ve been kidnapped, you’ve been shot at, and now we might lose Javi. No more,” she begs, clutching at his arms now.

Steve sighs and shakes his head. “I can’t promise that, Connie. Escobar’s still out there.” “Then the second you idiots get him, I’m booking us a one-way ticket to Miami and I’m never turning back. With or without you, do you hear me?” She tells him forcefully, though they both know it’s an empty threat, and if Steve says yes, it’ll be an empty promise.

He simply nods and Connie kisses him again, deeply, putting all of her love for him into it. “I’ll go sign the discharge papers. Will you go get some stuff from our place and Javier’s?” She asks after she breaks away. Steve nods and she kisses him quickly, one last time.

“Go check in on the operation,” he tells her and kisses her forehead. “I love you,” he tells her honestly, squeezing her hand before she stands.

Connie gives a small smile in return. “I love you too, Steve,” she says before leaving the room.

The second Javier succumbs to the medicine, your lip quivers as you hold back tears, setting down his hand. The doctor gets to work, ordering the other nurses around. “Lori. Ana. Out.”

“No, let her stay,” Lorena says quickly. “This is her boyfriend. She’s a qualified professional. She won’t operate but she has to stay.”

The doctor sighs but nods. She has a point. “Fine. Out of the way then,” she says and gestures to the corner. Lorena takes your arm and drags you over, your body complying despite your mind reeling and still hovering over Javier.

You’re shaking, you realize, as Lorena wraps you in her arms and squeezes you tight. You hug her back, her stable body making you shake even harder. You finally let out a sob into her shoulder, wailing as loud as you need to, now that you know Javi can’t hear it. Lorena just holds you, letting you sob into her and squeeze her as tight as you need to. Your body wracks with the sobs, your agony and fear being let out into her body.

As the tears slow, you give one last shuddering sob and just rest in your best friend’s arms. Your breathing is shaky but comes back to normal. “He told me he loves me,” you whimper into her chest, breaking away and wiping the tears from your face. “He hasn’t done that yet, but he just told me it twice.”

You turn back to look at the operating table, wincing as you see the amount of blood on the hands of the nurses and surgeon. It’s a godawful sight, the man you love in this situation. A shiver runs down your body and you pull Lorena into another hug. “I love him too. I didn’t tell him that but I do. I’m so scared, Lori. He needs to hear it, he needs to pull through this so I can tell him that I love him too.” You look up from her shoulder to the table, and whisper your plea. “Please, Javi.”

Translations:

Está lloviendo- it’s raining

Mi hermosa- my beautiful (girl, partner, etc.)

¿Lo sabes?- do you know that?

Mi ángel- my angel

Te quiero- I love you

taglist:

@diogodxlot @wonderlandgabby @yooforia @blo0dangel @sara-alonso @dodgerandevans @pedrosmustache

#javier peña x reader #javier peña #javi peña #javi peña x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #blood sweat and tears #pascalpanic

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jacarandabanyan · 3 years ago

Note

📚for the fanfic plot ask thing!📚

Okay so- plot of one (of many) fanfic I haven't written (because to be honest, I don't have the skill to pull this off yet) but often daydream about:

I would love to write a This-Is-How-You-Loose-The-Time-War-inspired spy-vs-spy KisaIta fic. It would feature baby ANBU Itachi trying desperately to find a solution to the tensions brewing between his family and the village (massacre was still a few years off when he first joined ANBU, I believe). This eventually leads to him hunting down all reports/intelligence related to the night of the Kyuubi Attack and finding a few small scraps of information that hint at the existence of the Masked Man.

(He is a pre-teen, so he doesn't really *get* that finding a different scapegoat/"revealing the truth of what happened that night" probably isn't going to fix issues that are rooted in three generations of Village Policy and History, because he may be a genius at killing people but his education has not emphasized critical thinking)

He eventually tracks what little (extremely scant) evidence he has to Kiri, where he comes to believe the Masked Man is operating.

He gets himself sent on endless missions to the Land of Water in pursuit of his pet project, gaining himself a reputation in the process. There are no shortage of missions- the Land of Water is rapidly devolving into three different simultaneous civil wars, and resentment over the last Great Shinobi War lingers enough that Kiri and Konoha will likely never be friends in Itachi's lifetime.

(This is gonna get really long, so here's a read more)

At the same time, recently-made-ANBU Kisame has been mostly assigned to intelligence-related missions, as in canon. However, over the course of his first few months worth of missions, he comes to suspect that there's a leak in ANBU, and he sets about trying to find it and silence it. He slowly develops a reputation for ruthlessness even among ANBU, a cut above the normal Kiri ruthlessness, as he secretly works to get his fingers into every hidden nook, cranny, and conspiracy until he finds the disloyal one.

(And maybe he's projecting his issues/self-hatred related to killing other Kiri ninha just. a little bit. on this mysterious leaker. How dare this person sell out the Village? How dare they give out the information that gets other Kiri shinobi killed? It's easier to hate the faceless traitor than it is to hate himself. And at least he still *has* values. He killed the Few to protect the Whole.)

Over time, as the two develop their reputations, their respective villages start pitting them against each other in the field. Konoha has an unofficial policy of trying to off Seven Swordsmen hopefuls before they can get powerful enough to actually get a blade, and Kirigakure knows that the unstoppable Konoha operative is a Sharingan-user, and Obito-controlling-the-Mizukage is always down to take down his estranged family members.

Danzo is less eager to have Itachi take care of the Uchiha for good, not out of any particular maneuvering on Itachi's part, but because he also remembers the last Great Shinobi War, and how brutal Kirigakure was during it. He sees their ongoing civil strife and fears that one faction will eventually WIN and turn their attention on their neighbors. Itachi has made himself the best operative at getting into and out of Kirigakure- if he wants to interfere from the shadows and keep the civil strife going, he needs to keep Itachi in the field. (Don't worry, he finds other ways to be awful/keep the pressure on).

Itachi and Kisame are a good match-up. Itachi might be a natural genius with a fancy kekkei-genkai, but Kisame has way more experience than him. Also, unlike laser-focused Itachi, Kisame is actually keyed into the intelligence world, so he always has more information than Itachi.

They clash over and over again over several years, and slowly learn more and more about each other. They mature into seasoned ANBU operatives, have epiphanies about themselves and their villages. And slowly come to like each other.

Itachi has his sexual awakening when he sees Kisame rise up out of an ocean of blood, shirtless, effortlessly hoisting a struggling Jonin one-handed over his shoulder, big tooth-filled grin on his face.

They infiltrate each others' villages and insert themselves into each others' missions in disguise. Itachi genjutsus a Kiri team to think he's one of their teammates, whom Kisame secretly has orders to eliminate. He feels a surge of relief when the teammate he'd known since his Academy days dissolves into a murder of crows moments before his sword pierces their chest- his teammate is still dead, but at least this time they were killed by an enemy, not Kisame himself.

Kisame knows his mysterious counterpart is a Sharingan-user, so he infiltrates the Uchiha compound to tease out what the situation is with the clan in Konoha right now (and maybe see if he can figure out who his counterpart is).

While he's in the village, tracking kekkei-genkai users, he discovers Root and exposes it. This is both a huge win for Kiri Intelligence and put Danzo in a tricky situation, since he supposedly disbanded it.

Eventually Kisame figures out that some of the leaked information is making its way to Danzo, so he goes to kill Danzo and try and figure out who he's getting his information from. This is right around when Danzo's started making threatening noises towards the Uchiha again, since Root was just rediscovered (by foreign intelligence, no less!) and he needs to redirect attention off himself and onto the Uchiha. He's even considering the total elimination plan again- Itachi's work in the Land of Water is valuable, but not more valuable than consolidating control over the Village.

(Or perhaps he doesn't need Itachi for this- Shisui is also a talented ANBU operative, after all. Sasuke was originally supposed to be the spare Uchiha left alive in the village, so they wouldn't loose the precious Sharingan, but it's becoming increasingly clear that while he's good, he's not as good as Itachi. Why keep the subpar tool and throw away the masterwork?)

Itachi develops a humorous problem where he's leading three different fake lives, and is covering up with by genjutsu-wammying anyone who might notice anything suspicious in the timing of his long absences. He's infiltrated Mei's rebellion as a spy who needs to disappear a lot to go do spy stuff, while at the same time pretending to be an official in the Water Daimyo's court, while also posing as a regular Kiri Jounin.

His Regular Kiri Jounin act is so solid, they give him a genin team. One of the genin is related to the civilian official he's impersonating in the Daimyo's court, and she constantly comes to see him and tell him all about her sensei. On of the other genin on the team is related to a the Mizukage, and Mei orders him to kidnap that genin away from their sensei, which is also him, so that he can be used as leverage. The third genin turns out to be a secret kekkei-genkai user, and actually wants to be kidnapped away to the rebellion so that they won't have to live in fear of being discovered, and also because they hate the current government. This genin who wants to be kidnapped is constantly fighting with the genin he's actually supposed to kidnap, and whines that "Sensei, you're not supposed to play favorites! Why do they get to get kidnapped but I don't? They don't even want to get kidnapped!"

(Itachi the Regular Kiri Jounin, who is Unquestionably Loyal and Totally Not a Radical Who Would Join the Rebellion, ends up dating Kisame, whose identity as an ANBU is technically a secret. This relationship runs on willful ignorance.)

Kisame and Itachi would end up taking each others' places at some point to take down each others' mentors- Kisame walks right into Danzo's office looking like Itachi, and no one blinks when they sense the genjutsu because Itachi is always casting genjutsus. No one even realizes anything's wrong until Danzo's dead and "Itachi" is making his getaway.

Itachi would be approached by Fuguki at some point with an offer to sell information, and immediately realizes that this is Kisame's leak. He argues to Danzo's replacement that the value of Kiri's ANBU turning on each other is greater than the value of having someone willing to sell the occasional nugget of info. He has to work not to laugh behind his ANBU mask, because Konoha nin just don't get how down Kiri nin are to turn on each other at the drop of a hat. "Turning Kiri ANBU against each other" please, as if the Seven Swordsmen don't regularly train their own murderers. As if one of the fastest ways to gain cache isn't by offing your superiors. It's like Konoha Intelligence knows nothing.

He wins his case, and reveals what he knows to Kisame, who goes and kills Fuguki like he did in canon. Obito reveals himself, same as in canon, and Kisame immediately knows how he's going to pay Itachi back. He's still disillusioned with the Shinobi world like in canon, but he had his initial Pit of Despair moment years ago, when he figured out there was a leak in ANBU and that truly there were lies everywhere. He's learned how to compartmentalize since then.

He pretends to join Obito so that he can feed Itachi information. Together they take down Obito, revealing his crimes to both Kiri and Konoha.

It should be over then- Kisame found the leak, Itachi cleared his family's name- but it's been around a decade at this point. Both of them have played so many roles as spies that they don't know how to go back to who they were before.

Itachi's almost spent more of his life in the Land of Water than in the Land of Fire at this point, and he certainly knows more people there than in the Land of Fire. He's passed his twentieth birthday by now, and he's no longer a pre-teen with no concept of the world and his place in it outside of Konoha Propaganda/Brainwashing. He doesn't know how to relate to Sasuke's fierce, uncomplicated desire to grow up to be the best Shinobi, because how can he think that's a good thing at this point?

Meanwhile, Kisame still kind of hoped that killing the liars/traitors who had sent so many Kiri-nin to their deaths would make him feel better about all the comrade-killing, but it doesn't. He can't seem to reconcile his absolute loyalty to the Village and its ideals with his disgust at everything they do.

For a brief while, he and Itachi join Mei's rebellion for realsies (Itachi still as one of his undercover roles) and help her topple the Bloody Mist government and install a new one, but it's not enough. What she's proposing is still a Ninja Village. It's better than what there was before, but that's not really a ringing endorsement.

Itachi's the first one to decide to walk away. He lets Kisame "kill" him on a random mission in a way that doesn't lend itself to a body being returned or retrieved, then settles down and builds himself a life as a secret kekkei-genkai child who grew up hidden like Mei, but never learned to be a proper shinobi. He spends his days at a quiet house outside Kiri proper gardening and making jam by the side of a lake Kisame made during one of his fights with Itachi. There's a ghost town near the lake, emptied during the Civil War years. He develops a reputation as a ghost.

Kisame walks away not long after. He can't really leave, of course- unlike Itachi, he has no desire to settle down in a foreign country, and too many people know him here- but he does step away from active duty. He "kills" Itachi The Regular Kiri Jounin-Sensei and takes his genin team for himself. The kids know something's up because their Sensei still visits them sometimes, though he half-heartedly tries to convince them he's a ghost. They help spread the story about the ghost living by the lake anyway, just in case anyone starts investigating.

Kisame quietly moves out of his shitty Kiri apartment to join Itachi by the lake. Some of the seven swordsmen do come investigating then, but when they discover that Kisame's just moving in with his squeeze who he really sexily fake-murdered, they decide not to do anything about it. Besides, they like Itachi and don't want to have to write up a report about how dangerous it is to Kiri security that he lounges around a lake all day, drawing birds and cooking elaborate meals in an attempt to blend the comfort food of his youth with the produce and spices native to Kiri that are honestly more familiar to him at this point than the ones that grow in the Land of Fire.

Itachi sometimes goes and visits Sasuke and Shisui back in Konoha, but mostly he hangs out in his new home and lives out his soft, domestic, non-violent dreams with Kisame and his cute little genin. It's a sappy ending.

#naruto #fanfiction #kisaita #kisame #itachi #This is totally different from my other Kisaita Spy AU because in that one only Itachi is the spy

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years ago

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HASO “The Best Outcome.”

Just wrapping up a few loose ends from the past few months stories. I hope you all like it. And feel free to give me some ideas on what you want to see, or who you want to see more of. I will try to do my best :)

Breaking News tonight from the Apollo 11 memorial landing site as Admiral Adam Vr and Captains Warren Richarards and Mary Chavez were rescued from the Pacific Ocean following a journey that was supposed to be historical, turned harrowing. Amy Grey comes to us this morning with the story.

Thank you Julie, it was only a week ago here on the historic Cape Canaveral launch site, that the reconstructed Saturn V rocket was launched by the UNSC International Space and Aeronautics Division on the two thousand and fifty first anniversary of the original Apollo 11 mission. On board The reconstructed rocket were astronauts Fleet Admiral Adam Vir head of the UNSC deep space exploration division, Captain Warren Richards five year veteran and historical aeronautics expert, and Mary Chavez six year shuttle pilot veteran, and communications specialist.

The reconstructed Saturn V rocket took off thirty minutes behind schedule at 10:03 GMTJuly 16 after delays attributed to engineering standbys. However, reports by UNSC investigation early this morning indicate that the delays were called for by engineering head Jade Clein who noticed something strange during her final checks of the Saturn V recreated rocket. In an interview early today, flight director, Aaliyah Seif of the Apollo re-creation mission informed outlets that there was evidence of attempted tampering on the hull of the Saturn V rocket. The tampering case in the shape of these small silver tape strips covering loosened bolts along one of the Saturn V side panels. Engineers stated that the tape was not heat resistant and would have burned off in time to rattle the bolts loose and, likely, cause a devastating spin that would destroy the rocket.

While this attempted tampering was thwarted, the mission would only become more dire. A sudden and shocking report by Mericanda News 5 showed an uncut image of an unknown alien hybrid woman claiming that the UN President had ordered th attempted assassination of Admiral Vir, in conjuncton with an audio recording by Admiral Colter Massie, Head of the Galactic intelligence division an known isolationist, that admitted to the attempted assasination of Admiral Vir, and the acquisition of twenty thunderhawks which were used to harry the Satern V on it’s way to the moon. Admiral Kelly, long time friend of Admiral Vir, corroborated the story, saying she caught General Massie just after he ordered the deployment of the twenty thunderhawks. During their conversion he attempted to kill her before being detained by two members of Admiral Vir’s crew, and was later seen being escorted into custody by Military Police.

Indeed footage has been captured from the hull of the Saturn V showing approximately twenty thunderhawks attempting to destroy the rocket while Rundi remote piloted drones and an unknown group of what appear to be racing jets, fought back to delay the attack while word was sent to the UNSC to deploy F-90 darkfire pilots to assist. This all after communications between Houston and the rocket were sabotaged shortly after leaving orbit. The F-90 darkfire pilots were able to arrive on time to rescue the rocket, though a hole was reportedly torn in the hull sucking Admiral Vir out into space, though he was later recovered and returned to his ship without any injuries. Patch teams were then able to repair the torn hull and the astronauts completed their mission landing to crowds on the moon and returning to earth on time on time landing in the Pacific ocean only nine miles away from the waiting ship.

All three astronauts were recovered and are reported to be in good health.

The investigation into the UN president’s involvement is still ongoing at this time, however preliminary reports from the Global Bureau of Investigation suggest evidence is both staggering and damning to the current UN president, who earlier today, attempted to cut all ties to the sabotage efforts saying she was framed. Political experts report that, even assuming her innocence, she will likely not last to the end of her term.

International News Network was able to interview Admiral Vir shortly after his landing while still on board the rescuing ship UNSS Victory.

Here is what the Admiral had to say.

“I find it…. Really very disheartening that someone we all trusted, and someone that we all should have looked up to could do something like this. It really is a heinous demonstration of what political corruption can lead people to do.”

“And how do you feel, personally about all of this.”

“Personally, I…. well to be honest I am hurt and appalled. Not to mention that I fear for the safety of my family and my friends. Every day I wonder if my involvement with them is going to get someone I love killed…. The thought haunts me, but I hope after all of this is over I… and all of us can breathe a little easier.”

“Were you scared?”

“I don’t think that even needs to be a question. Of course I was scared, getting sucked out of your spaceship isn’t ideal.”

“What do you hope will happen now?”

“I hope that justice can be upheld to those who deserve it.”

“What do you have to say to the UN president.”

…

“I have nothing to say. Wouldn’t want to waste the air.

****

What followed would be one of the largest scandals in recent political history. At some point an unknown number of classified government documents was leaked onto the internet, and after that it was all over for the Presidency. Thousands of enterprising humans, and aliens alike, viewed the documents to discover all the underhanded and dirty things which had been going on in the UN governmental body over the past few years. Forensic accounting experts (mostly Tesrtaki) uncovered plenty of fiscal tampering which shed light on plenty of isolationist related projects and bank accounts. There was even evidence that they had something to do with the original assassination attempt against Admiral Vir so many months ago. The drama had even managed to capture the attention of Rundi political experts and Vrul computer science geniuses, and together they unearthed a world of unfathomable, but not unexpected corruption. The process to remove the UN president from office was probably one of the fastest movements of human government ever seen by UN congressional leaders, who were likely trying their very best tro distance themselves from association with the president, who despite not being the only one involved, had become the political scapegoat for everyone else that had a supposed link with isolationism.

Even the VP fell under suspicion and was watched closely for the rest of his term.

Admiral Massie and the UN President were placed under arrest and set up for court dates in the nearing future, though everyone saw a long and arduous litigation process ahead. Even Ramirez’s family had filed for damages against the government after the news came to light confirming that their son had been shot as collateral in one of the UN presidents plans to assassinate Admiral Vir. They settled out of court to the tune of an unknown, but impressive sum of money.

No one really knew how much, but a couple months later Ramirez’s younger sister was seen training at one of the most prestigious olympic academies on earth.

Ramirez himself was suddenly able to afford housing on the moon in a condo just next door to his best friend, though no one else inquired further.

The Rundi chairwoman came forward with her own investigation admitting to being suspicious for a long time though she feared accusations without proper proof. Admiral Vir was seen having lunch with her not so many months after the events took place, suggesting that the trust between the two of them had not been completely dissolved. With much of the isolationist element gone from government, public policy began to lean heavily towards integration with the alliance. The occasional isolationist demonstration or protest was held, but none of them managed to gain traction.

Admiral Vir was finding himself more important than ever, though it was to his chagrin that his ship was grounded for the intervening months while the investigation continued.

No one was entirely sure what the future held.

***

Admiral Vir stepped into Admiral Kelly’s office. The last time he had actually visited her here had been over a few years ago before his promotion to captain of the Harbinger. It seemed so distant now, and he never expected to walk into her office with a star on his shoulder. She stood as he entered, and the two of them shook hands, ignoring all the stuffy formalities that usually come with the meeting of two military officers.

The wall behind her was decorated with a myriad of metals and awards she had received over her career, and he couldn't help but note the slight tinge of grey he could see forming in her hair. He knew that feeling, he was going prematurely white much to his chagrin. She stood and the two of them shook hands.

“Vir.”

“Kelly.”

She motioned him to sit and he sat sighing lightly as he had been on his feet all day consulting with political figures and other members of the UNSC.

“A strange couple months wouldn’t you say.”

“Tell me about it.”{

Kelly reached under her desk and withdrew an amber bottle which she placed between them, “I always forget; Do you drink?”

“On occasion.”

“Well consider this an occasion.” She said popping off the top and pouring two glasses for them. She handed his across the desk and he leaned back in his seat cupping the cool glass in both hands.

She swirled the amber liquid around in her glass, “So what are your plans after all this.”

He took a sip of water warmed by the burning liquid, “Hoping things will go back to normal and I can go back to traveling the galaxy.”

Kelly grunted, “A simple man with simple motivations.”

He laughed , “Sometimes I think a stupid man with simple motivations.”

She chuckled then grew serious, “A lot of people make the mistake of assuming simple people don’[t have the intelligence to match. Some people assume that trusting means gullible means dumb. Just because we are trusting and expect others to do the right thing is not necessarily a fault. I believe there is a kind of beauty in assuming the fundamental goodness of humanity.”

\Admiral Vir shook his head, “How can you after seeing what we have seen.”

“How can you not?” She shrugged, “We always knew that politicians were corrupt, but think about everything else we have seen.”

Admiral Vir nodded slowly, “The enthusiasm for the Apollo 11 recreation mission, the people who flew up to help us. All of those people who went digging through years of information just to uncover the truth.”

SHe raised her glass, “Precisely. Goodness in humanity is all around us, but we tend to overlook the good in favor of the bad.” She placed her hat on the desk and sighed, “It is up to good people to keep their goodness going even when it might seem easier to give into the bad. I I have and will always believe in the fundamental good of humanity. Some may call it naeve, or even stupid. Others have said I have a romanticized view of a species that is fundamentally broken.” She turned her head to look out the window a contemplative expression on her face before turning back to look at Adam.

“You understand me, I think.”

He nodded slowly.

“People need to be believed in. You tell someone for long enough that they are fundamentally bad at their core and they will begin to believe you. For thousands of years pessimists have gotten it into our heads that we are no better than animals, worse even since animals don’t fight in wars. But I believe that is wrong, I have seen people, I have met people, and I have interacted with people who prove to me that humanity cannot just be fundamentally bad or else these people wouldn’t exist.” She tapped her nails against the glass, “I think it is easier to corrupt purity than wash away a stain,”

He listened quietly as she continued.

“Humans are born good, Adam, and life stains us. We aren’t born stained while some of us are wiped clean. “ She shook her head, “Doesn't make sense to me.” She caught him with a look pinning him to the spot with her intense stare, “People like you convince me of this every day.”

“Me….”

She held up a hand. “Adam Vir, I am convinced that the best outcome this universe ever had, was when a happy go lucky science fiction freak was lucky enough to be the first man to meet aliens. Any other way things would have gone horribly wrong.” She leaned across her desk, “The universe needs men and women like you, and not only that but the universe needs people who are going to support men and women like you.” She sat back, “Which is why I have made a decision.”

He raised an eyebrow in curiosity not entirely sure where this could be going.

She smiled, “I have decided to run for President.”

He nearly spit his mouthful of expensive scotch onto the table but managed to choke it mostly down.

Eyes wide he set his glass down, “Are you serious.”

She smiled, “Seriously serious.”

“Well shit, you have my vote for sure.” He raised his glass to her, “I couldn’t think of a better outcome.”

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kalgalen · 4 years ago

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Day 4: spirit, garden, summoning

They have to be careful; the nearer they get to the castle, the more guards they see patrolling. In groups of four, clad in tarnished armor, they comb through the streets with undivided attention, and more than once it's only Martin's quick reflexes that saves them from stumbling into the sentinels.

"The windows are all barred, so we can't swim directly to the top of the tower. The fastest, easiest way to sneak in will be through the gardens," Martin whispers as they weave through the streets of the submerged city. Despite the danger, Jon perks up. An underwater garden? He is curious to see it.

"What kind of flowers grow under water?" Jon wonders sotto voce. "Anemones?"

Martin grimaces. "I wish my father was content with anemones."

Jon doesn't have the time to ask for an explanation as they stop in front of a rusted gate; beyond it lies a vibrant garden of luminous greens and blues. Martin puts a hand around one of the bars of the gate, and turns to Jon.

"Here we are," he says. "Hum - don't touch the flowers, please. I don't know what could happen."

Jon nods, intrigued. Martin pushes the gate, and it swings on its hinges with barely a sound despite its state. Jon steps into the garden as Martin closes the door behind them; the flowers are glowing, beckoning him, and it takes all of his will not to run to the nearest bush to check it out.

Without a word, Martin takes his hand and leads him down an overgrown alley. There isn't a sound as they walk the mossy cobblestone path, and yet Jon feels something calling to him, tugging at his very soul. His eyes keep going back to the flowers around them, and they're moving too fast to distinguish the details of them. They don't look like any of the plants he knows, whether they be terrestrial or aquatic. If he could only stop and examine one…

"Martin? You're back!"

Yanked from his thoughts, Jon jumps. Martin does as well, pulling Jon closer, pushing him behind him, but he relaxes when he sees the two people that have rounded the corner in front of them.

"Tim! Sasha!" he exclaims, forgetting all precautions. He drops Jon's hands to run toward the two peoples, and Jon clenches his fist a few times, feeling strangely abandoned. Instead of paying attention to this sentiment, he peers at the newcomers.

As far as he can tell, they're both in their early twenties - a man and a woman, sharing the same ghostly complexion and pale eyes, though they're evidently not related. Something about them is off, like a mirror that would show you your reflection with a slight delay; uncomfortable, Jon looks away.

He's standing an arm's distance away from a flowering bush. Martin is still speaking to the ones he called Tim and Sasha, so Jon decides to investigate. What's the worst that could happen? They're just flowers.

Strange, shapeless, luminous flowers. They sift and twist, never keeping the same number of petals from one moment to the next. Now that he's closer, Jon can hear the call more clearly; it's as if the flowers themselves are begging to be touched. Before he can stop himself, Jon reaches out.

"Careful!"

A hand yanks his arm away, and he finds himself staring into the woman's cold, unsettling eyes.

"You don't want to touch those, believe me. Unless you wish to stay here forever?"

"Sasha," Martin says, distressed.

"What are they?" Jon asks. Now that he's seeing her up close, Sasha's eyes are the same colour as the flowers.

Sasha sighs. "They're us."

"What do you mean?"

Tim has approached as well; he puts a hand on Jon's shoulder, and gently pulls him away from the bush.

"Each of those flowers you see -" he gestures at the rows and rows of vegetation - "isn't a flower at all. They're - have you heard of Saint Elmo's fire? Some folks say it's the manifestation of a saint, others that they're the souls of drowned sailors. Take a wild guess at which those might be."

"Souls?" Jon says disbelievingly. "Come on -"

"Look at us," Sasha interrupts. "Look into our eyes. We're not that far gone yet, but we're on our way. One day, all that will be left of us is one of those flowers. "

Jon shivers. In the low light, Sasha and Tim's pupils glow the same bright blue as the flowers. Behind them, Martin is looking miserable.

"You were human?" Jon asks. Tim nods. "And those spirits… I think I can hear them calling to me…"

"Because they are," Sasha says. "You've made your first step into the world underwater. You can't feel it yet, but it's got its claws in you." The woman is looking past Jon as she speaks, as if she's talking to herself. "It's going to suck you dry from your life and your memories and your love and it's going to leave you a husk, a shell, a flower only fit to decorate the King's gardens. And then - nothing. You won't be anything anymore."

"Sasha, please -" Martin interrupts. He looks a bit queasy.

Tim puts a comforting hand on Sasha's shoulder, and she sighs. "I'm sorry. I was - away."

Martin and Tim exchange a glance. Jon doesn't quite understand the conversation that takes place before his eyes, but he sees the concern.

"We should get going," Martin says after a beat. "Before my father summons you and makes you tell him where I am," he chuckles nervously, suggesting it isn't that much of a joke.

"You should," Tim acquiesces, throwing a look to Jon. "Hey. You still have a chance to leave, don't mess it up. And, uh, if you ever meet a Danny Stoker, tell him - tell him his brother loved him."

Jon's throat clenches in sympathy for Tim's grief, and he nods.

"Take care of Sasha, okay?" Martin says.

Sasha seems to wake from her trance then, and offers him a pale smile. "Take care of yourself, Martin."

He nods. "I will."

Then he takes Jon's hand, as if it's the most natural thing in the world, and starts walking toward the stone walls of the fortress.

#tmafantasyweek #the magnus archives #jonmartin #fic tag #art tag #drowning #arranged marriage

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silvia7272 · 4 years ago

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Miraculess Ladybug Salt AU: You Always Liked To Play With Fire ~ The Prologue

Hey everyone, this is a new story I wanted to introduce to you all.

I’ve been putting everything in a massive word doc because I had so many ideas and finally settled on putting it out today because it's my birthday. 29th, I may have updated it late.

Yay.

So as a special treat, here’s a new series with a few original characters, ones you know or have been changed ever so slightly to fit, in a Miraculess world. (haha, you see what I did there? No… I’ll leave)

Also for anyone new, I’m a multi-shipper so I ship my characters with a bunch of other people, as I like Lukanette (Fandom Version), Daminette (Fandom Version), Felinette (PV Fandom Version), Marichat (Fandom Version) and I guess Rosannette. What’s Rosannette? Well, I guess you’ll have to find out, won’t you? (also no that’s not a typo, it is Rosannette)

Also, I guess this will just have the usual salt, maybe more, I don’t know. I kinda want it to just be about these two.

Word Count: 3912

Note: I haven’t tagged anyone just in case, this is a different series from my other, I just got really excited and wanted to write it. If you still wish to be tagged for this story please say and specify.

Also: This is a salt story, it will have OOC moments from everyone so it will be classed as an AU. If you don’t want to read that’s fine, and have a nice day.

Well, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

This is for all the people that might prefer Rosinette (like from the songfic) instead, I don’t mind but it won’t be in my main series, so I hope this will satisfy you.

(Word of warning, I believe this will be an AU where the Miraculous don’t exist, and non-canon to my official story and I believe mentions of a panic attack might be lightly mentioned, don’t know if it is, but if someone could check and I’ll make the warning clearer that would be nice)

Summary:

(Fire doesn't exactly have anything to do with this story I just really liked the title)

Note: This book contains OOC scenes of Miraculous Ladybug as well as a ton of salt, so if you don't like that stuff you may scroll past and have a nice day.

In a world with no Miraculous, no Hawkmoth and no Ladybug, how does our little heroine do?

Well, it usually would be hanging out with her friends, as any other teenager would do...

But, of course, this wasn't normal.

This was reality. It was cold, hard and definitely not welcome.

So, when this girl wishes to have some kind of adventure in her boring, mundane life...

How long does it take for her to regret it?

***

Memories, it's such a simple word yet it holds so much meaning. One could either wish to forget everything from their life, and simply move forward so they could pursue their dreams. Or, simply relish in the past when they remembered how great it was, all the friends they had made, all the moments they had which were too good to let go.

But, I guess sometimes, you did have to let go. But let go of what exactly? Let go of all the happiness once you knew how it would end? No that would be too harsh and you’d turn bitter. Let go of all the sadness? But, wasn’t it an important life lesson to learn, sometimes, you just have to be sad because of the situation at hand. No amount of croissants or macarons would be able to lift your spirits back.

Or maybe that was too much of a specific example.

That was what Marinette had thought, staring at an empty glass so intently the man behind made himself disperse from the amount of time the unblinking woman just stared and never flinched.

She guessed it hadn’t all been bad, she at least had some form of happiness before it was violently ripped away, but part of her wondered, what would’ve happened if she never felt that type of happiness before? Would she have felt like she had for so long, was it the fact that she knew what being happy was like before worse? Because, as depressing as it sounded, if she hadn’t been as happy, would she have been as upset?

She would never know, she couldn’t go back in time since that was impossible, but the thought always came and went whenever she was alone with her thoughts.

So… Maybe it was for the best, that she was able to remember what real happiness felt like.

The tight feeling in your chest, butterflies in your stomach, face being so red anyone would worry if the bluenette had caught a cold instead-

Wait- this was an oddly specific kind of happiness she felt, surely she must’ve gotten mixed up with some other felling right?

Right!?

So, how come she was feeling this- incredibly bright heat from her cheeks when she felt a hand on her shoulder?

We may need to go back several years.

***

In a classroom in Collège Françoise Dupont, a young pigtailed girl sat at the back, tears silently falling onto her knees and bawled up fists. She didn’t see any use of wiping them away, since they would just come back anyway, and it would be useless to just repeat that endless cycle. She hadn’t looked around to see anyone else’s faces, they would either just ignore her, or taunt her for just crying, for just being human.

Now you may be wondering why she was so upset? What possibly could’ve happened to make our very cheerful and sunshiny girl become so hunched over she was practically crying her eyes out? Well, the answer lies on the one girl at the front. The one girl sitting in an all too familiar place. The one girl who just ruined all of her newfound friendships.

Lila Rossi.

And boy had she hated that name.

She couldn’t stand that smirk, that thief, that scandal!

And what exactly did she do?

She lied.

Now you may be thinking that may not have been all that bad, but it was.

Every time she opened her mouth, everyone would fawn around her, even Alix, the one who seriously couldn’t care about anything to do with glamourous celebrities, was hanging on the edge of her seat to hear one of Lila’s so-called stories. She just had to guess Lila held up a treat over her head to keep her being obedient enough.

She hated Lila so much because she was just using everyone to get an easy life at school, the fastest way towards popularity she guessed, but why she thought this was the fastest way was beyond her.

She hated Lila because she had spread so many lies, so many rumours, all about her. All so out of the realm it was such a surprise they all believed her without a shred of evidence.

It had happened so fast, one day, they were all friends, smiling and laughing like there was no tomorrow, the next, she was surrounded by those faces, those faces of disgust and hatred. As if she had committed even the worst of crimes, more so than Chloé, speaking of, who was absolutely enjoying this show.

But undoubtedly. What she hated about Lila the most.

Was that technically, she didn’t have to do that much.

After so many sessions of crying, and just not believing that they could possibly leave her, a friend, like that, she started to reason with herself, that maybe it wasn’t just Lila that pushed them all away.

She thought back to before.

Before they were friends, before Alya even came to Collège, she had been alone. Chloé had always gone out of her way to relentlessly bully her, and no one wanted to be friends with her with Chloé around. So she accepted it, just hoping one day, karma would seek justice and she’d be put in her place.

So she waited.

And waited.

And-

Gave up.

She accepted defeat after all the years. After the meaningless conversations with teachers that she should try and be the bigger person and rise above all of her hatred for her. Simply because they couldn’t do anything. They had no power over the mayor's Daughter. So they just let her continue her reign over the school.

She didn’t have any powers to stop her.

But then, a light of hope came.

The new girl, with ombre brown and red hair, glasses and hazel eyes. A striped t-shirt and an undeniable Aura that reeked of confidence.

As Marinette was being targeted by Chloé yet again, she came in, and for once, stood up to her. Chloé! No fear in her eyes as she, Alya, grabbed her, Marinette’s, hand and walked off to the desk at the front.

She couldn’t believe it, someone stood up to Chloé! She thought it had only been a myth, a legend, but that right there, it was real.

They became friends faster than the speed of sound.

And soon, she too was able to stand up for herself. Reclaiming her original seat back, and citing a quote her new friend had said… Then everyone had wanted to become friends… And, she felt ecstatic.

Finally. It finally came. The day she had prayed for had come. She felt nothing but pure joy.

And she didn’t want that feeling to go away.

She was terrified that the feeling would go away.

So, she thought of making sure that feeling wouldn’t go away.

That’s why she made so many ‘spare’ macaroons to give away, she didn’t spend her free nights staying up and making them, no way.

That’s why she provided so many free gifts to her friends. What? Her hand has a plaster, no she just tripped and hit herself, it had nothing to do with the gifts. Don’t worry, try your gloves on, do they fit?

That’s why she was late for class. Huh, no I’m fine, I’m not tired… But I might just rest my eyes for a bit, wake me up when something important happens.

That’s why she was so happy to realise Adrien wasn’t as bad as Chloé, the small gentle soul that he had, to graciously provide her with his own umbrella, how selfless.

And that’s why she held onto the idea of Adrien so much. The idea that he was perfect. The idea that she was in love with him.

So, she held onto it.

No, she clung to that idea because she didn’t want any chance to let go. So, she may have gone a bit overboard, with the whole, schedule thing, and the phone… And the schemes. But she believed it was harmless. No one else seemed to have any problems with it, so she believed she was in the clear.

Until she wasn’t.

And Lila used that to her advantage.

She remembered that day so vividly, just like all those other memories. The day she came. The day she would find herself in the same predicament from before, it hadn’t been that long since she had been friends with everyone in fact. She was still getting used to it, and her feelings grew as each day passed by.

She remembered when Lila introduced herself to the whole class, and at first glance, anyone would just think she was an innocent little girl. But behind that smile, behind those eyes, held a sinister intention.

She, in less than an hour, had everyone wrapped around her little finger.

Even her.

She’d been on a private jet?

Had a song written about her?

And saved Jagged Stone’s cat?

There was no way Adrien would fall for her now.

…So maybe she had been jealous of that girl before she had done anything. But she had every reason to. She, Lila, was pressed against Adrien who was happily talking to her. The love of her life! She had to do something, even if Alya had given her a disappointed look she just had to stop them from confessing their love to each other, it was inevitable now, so she followed after them to the park. If they even got too close, she was sure she could just conveniently interrupt, she just had to wait for the perfect moment, she only had a couple of hours before they would fall in love, get married, have three kids and a hamster named-

“Wow Adrien, you’re so nice to me. Y’know I really thought moving here would be just like all the other times. But you’ve really made me enjoy my first day Adrien.” She smiled so sickly sweet Marinette wanted to hurl, how dare she just hold onto his arm like that, so affectionately!

“Its no problem Lila, that’s what friends are for.” She smiled, hugging him so fast they almost lost their balance from sitting on the bench, before seemingly giving him a quick peck on his cheek, only for Adrien to turn his head towards her.

And they kissed.

However, it wasn’t a simple quick kiss, by all means, Adrien should’ve realised his mistake and pulled away.

But he didn’t, what felt like forever lasted a minute. One minute to realise that it should’ve been an accident. But they stayed like that.

It- it was over, wasn’t it? This wasn’t her being melodramatic, she just knew how it would turn out. They were going to fall in love so soon, she wouldn’t have a chance.

If only she had seen the look Lila gave, spotting her retreated form from behind a small trash can, the smirk would’ve given her shivers.

***

Getting back to Collège had taken longer than expected. Maybe it was the small amount of dread knowing she may have lost her love for good. Sure, there might have been Kagami as well, she had tried to sabotage her chances with Adrien too, but it always worked out in the end, Adrien always smiling as Kagami’s cheeks burned with redness. But to say they were friends afterwards.

Marinette would cringe at the fact she always felt so relieved afterwards reflecting years later at her choices. But she had always believed she would still have a chance.

Until today.

Lila came, and took him away, within hours.

And she couldn’t stop it.

Walking along the stairs to her class she had to keep her head held high, if she showed weakness, that would mean she was sad, she wasn’t sad, she couldn’t be sad. She still had all of her friends after all.

Maybe now, they could do more activities, after crying and eating a ton of ice cream of course with cheesy movies to brighten her mood up.

But, this would only be the beginning of that negative feeling.

Opening the door, she would be fully aware of something terribly wrong. At the front of the classroom, a crowd had formed, and a crowd that would soon become a routine in this classroom.

But a crowd formed around a girl, the new girl, Lila. She had seemed to be covering her eyes, water dripping down her eyes, no wait they were tears. What had happened?

She didn’t realise she had spoken those few words before heads turned around, looking- no glaring at her, why were they-? What had she done?

“Marinette I knew you could be a tad jealous but to actually do something like that” Huh? Oh no, Lila must’ve noticed she followed them, how embarrassing, and definitely not the best first impression she could’ve made.

Before she could apologise, before she could explain she really didn’t mean any harm. She didn’t have time to.

“To threaten her to never talk to Adrien again because she likes him. Well, I never thought you’d put your jealousy out like this.”

What!?-

No- she didn’t- she, just saw them kiss.

She didn’t even speak with her.

Why would she say this?

Why didn’t she say anything?

Why wasn’t she defending herself?

Why was she letting them believe that so easily?

Why

Why.

Why was it so hard to breathe?

Running out of the classroom was easier than looking at all of those faces. Those accusatory faces. She hated it, she couldn’t do- defend- explain.

She- just-

She-

She was in a room?

The bathroom.

It didn’t matter why, as long as she was alone, she could cry to her heart's content.

The fear seeped over her just like that first time, knowing Chloé had won and would never stop, she had lost and lost everything.

Everything she had worked so hard to obtain.

Everything she had worked so hard to keep.

To make sure she didn’t have to let go.

And now it had gone.

Because it was then Marinette realised. That girl, those tears hadn’t been real, there she saw her eyes hadn’t been red or puffy, the tears’ dried up rather quickly, and the inconsistent wails made it very likely she was only doing them for effect and sympathy.

That girl. Was lying!

That must’ve been it.

No way could she be telling the truth. And no way could ‘I saw her around me and Adrien’ be translated to ‘she threatened me, I’m so scared of her’

Maybe, maybe with that, there was hope.

If she could just simply convince her friends that she was lying, then everything would be all sorted.

And maybe she and Adrien-

Wait, she was getting a little ahead of herself there.

Wiping her tears away she proudly opened the door, ready to face her fears.

Too bad her fears were much much stronger.

No matter how many times she would try to prove her innocence, it became worse.

When she tried going to the teachers, they bat an eye with her responses. Obviously not taking her seriously, and just believing it to be some teenage drama, she was pushed out of the classroom and told to try and just be nicer and make friends with her.

That was harsh but expected.

She tried talking with Alya, she turned away from her. Not wanting to hear anything come out of a crazy stalkers mouth.

That had hurt.

She tried talking with any of her other friends, y’know, the ones who ‘always’ had her back.

They too turned from her. Believing Lila without a doubt, I mean, they knew how jealous Marinette could get, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think she would jump to that, considering the situation.

That felt like a punch to her gut.

She tried talking with Adrien, even if she did stutter and always lose her words around him. But this was more important, than a silly crush.

She wasn’t used to saying that.

But, the way he looked at her, it felt like- pity.

He told her he already knew.

He already knew? Wait- then why didn’t he say anything?

Because, as the naïve little boy stood so tall and ‘innocent’ he simply wanted to help her through his own way.

“She was only lying for attention,” He said.

“Once she finally makes some real friends, she’ll stop,” He said!

“In the meantime, you should really drop this, it would be just awful if you were to hurt Lila again. After all, she hasn’t hurt anyone, she doesn’t mean any harm”

She stood in shock.

This was the boy she had fell for?

This spineless- foolish- Son of a-

“So please Marinette, don’t cause too many problems for her, you shouldn’t be so harsh on her. If you really value our friendship, you’ll do it.” He smiled before walking off, leaving her to her thoughts.

That felt like someone had walked over to her, ripped out her heart and squashed it in the palm of her hands, all while grinning.

Why, why wasn’t she able to see before? Did her heart want to deceive her by falsifying all of his qualities? Was she just blind to bear witness to him not being as perfect as she made him out to be? Was it because she just couldn’t entertain the thought of letting go?

She didn’t know, she just hated this negative feeling. It felt so familiar. She wanted it to go away.

Unfortunately, that feeling would only grow for months.

And it was about to be worse.

“Huh? Marinette? Why are you crying? If this is about what happened this morning, don’t worry, I’ll forgive you” She was crying? Huh, when did that happen?

Whatever, more importantly.

“W-What, no you don’t have to forgive me because I did nothing wrong” Lila’s worried expression faltered for a bit before she grew ‘scared’

“H-Hey, I didn’t realise you felt like that. Oh, you poor thing” Her eyebrow snapped, she seriously didn’t like being called a thing.

“Save it, I can’t prove it but I know you’re just lying to everyone here. And you need to stop, you’re going to hurt everyone when they find out. You need to confess” Her face faltered again, but it never recovered, her once innocent eyes hardened as she smirked, a look that seemed almost natural, as if she had perfected it by looking into a mirror countless times.

“Oh, so you’ve finally figured it out? Figures, I was told you were the smartest one, and it seems like I wasn’t wrong”

“What?” Lila sighed, maybe she had put too much faith in her being the smartest.

“Ugh, you’re so young Marinette. I haven’t told the truth all my life, why the hell should I start now?” Marinette was stunned, why, why was she telling her this?

“Honestly, and I thought Adrien was naïve. Look, I’m not here to play games, I have this whole routine wrapped up. So just sit back, stay out of my way and I might consider making another lie that would benefit you.” It was an offer any reasonable person wouldn’t refuse.

Unfortunately for her, she didn’t want a reasonable offer.

Marinette stared, she was- she was fully aware of what she was doing?

“B-But you’re going to end up hurting everyone, you need to stop, please!” She begged.

Lila frowned.

She was just like all the rest.

“I don’t care”

Huh?

“I said I don’t care, seriously don’t you get it yet? I’m here to win by all means necessary. You were in the way so I took you out. They are just little trophies to remind you of my victory. You had your chance”

She stood still, this situation felt so familiar, but she had to stay strong, she couldn’t give up now. If reasoning with her won’t work, then maybe understanding might, and she could work with that.

“Why are you doing this, do you really not care about when you get caught? About how everyone will feel when they know you promised nothing in the end?” She hoped she would see some sense. They were good people, they shouldn’t be manipulated into this, she was sure they would’ve been friends regardless of what she had promised.

“It’s because I can”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, dear sweet Marinette, is that because I am able to, I can. I’ve had years of practice with this, and the result always has me at the top, all that oppose me either stay at the bottom or beg for mercy from moi. It's always a delight to see their hope diminish. To realise they would do anything but to be alone.”

Alone- that word, that word stuck with her so much.

She didn’t want that- but she didn’t want her friends to be tricked either.

“Besides, you made it so easy for me, in reality. You only have yourself to blame”

“What- I didn’t even-” A finger was wagged in front of her face.

“Ah ah ah. You really should know better than that. A calendar full of Adrien’s schedule? A box full of presents for Adrien? Sabotaging dates? You’d think I’d have made it all up, it only made the end result so much greater. Seriously Marinette, I don’t even know if I’m the bad guy here, what you’ve done really isn’t appropriate behaviour. But I do know of a great therapist, they helped me through such a hard time” Lila continued to talk as Marinette zoned out. She was the bad guy? No- no that couldn’t be, that was just a harmless crush, that was just what normal teenaged girls did.

But- if it was. Then why didn’t anyone tell her it was wrong, she didn’t mean for it to be wrong. She just didn’t want them to leave, she just didn’t want to be abandoned again.

Why didn’t they say? Why didn’t she realise?

Why did she know?

Lila must’ve seen the shock as she giggled, not at all innocent.

“It was so easy manipulating all of them into telling me about this ‘crush’, once they realised just how crazy it actually was, they had no problem seeing you for the crazy stalker you are.” Lila flicked her hair up away, only for it to come back, but it didn’t matter, she made her point.

Not having the energy to look up, she would’ve noticed Lila had left her behind, laughing too, because no one had been there to overhear their absolutely private conversation. Her overall plan would not be undiscovered today, tomorrow, or the next. It wouldn’t be discovered ever.

Because she was in control.

Marinette, wasn’t in control.

Just like before, that hollow feeling from before, it was back.

And so much worse.

She hated Lila, because she made her realise, she was right. All along. And she just had to accept it.

And gave up trying.

She reverted back to how she was at the beginning of the year.

The quiet girl that no one paid attention to, alone, in the back, with nothing but her sketchbook.

Gone were the childish pigtails, it was for the better, no one said anything about then anymore.

Because she realised.

She wasn’t a child anymore.

She couldn’t be, not after this.

***

Hey, so I guess this was more like another prologue, so I’ll have to apologise if it seems just like the other one, but the premise is still the same so yeah.

And I think I might like the idea of a non-Miraculous world; it seems interesting since I feel like Marinette wouldn’t have as much of a confidence boost since she wouldn’t be Ladybug, please tell me that would make sense.

I think it’s interesting for how much would change and stay the same, and my OC will be making an entrance next time, however, here they are all like 13-14. The next chapter will have a time skip of 3 years, oh and Lila came in late, like around Season 3 late ok? So they already know about Kagami and Luka.

Also if you’re confused about anything feel free to ask any questions.

Cya next time.

Note: Please tell me if I should add anything else to the card, there will be one of these cards for all 15 chapters, however, because I have uni work all updates will be slower because I really need to focus on the uni stuff, then I might be able to upload quicker.

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years ago

Text

The Cowboy - Part 10

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol) -- swearing, and I’ve never been to a rodeo in real life so I probably didn’t make a fully realistic scene, so don’t hate me, it’s fiction lol

Word count: 2281

This series will be updated every Thursday and Friday.

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

It truly was another world. The country music was playing live from the stage nearby and the endless row of stalls selling assortments from horse gear to food overstimulated you. You had lost Avery in the crowd, the tall man crossing paths with a group of women from high school.

Jaehyun smirked. “He’s always been the popular one.”

“And you the troublemaker?” you offered and Jaehyun laughed, shaking his head.

“You’re the troublemaker. How do you propose I deal with worrying about you when I’m warming up Trickster soon? Maybe you should come with me.”

“I’ll be fine exploring whilst you do that. I’ve seen you ride so much now, I’m convinced your butt is a perfect shape to mold to any saddle seat.”

“Well, you should know, having seen my butt how many times now?”

“Jaehyun!” you gasped, slapping his upper arm and looking around yourselves. You relaxed, realising you saw no familiar faces nearby.

He seemed to read your mind. “Avery knows about us. He’s helping me out by keeping his mother clueless.”

“Would anyone else come from Blayne today?” you asked, and Jaehyun shook his head.

“Not really. It’s more so people from the town over that will. And whilst you’re a household name in Blayne, you’re not on familiar terms yet with others. Which means…”

“Which means?” you repeated, grinning when Jaehyun reached for your hand, interlocking your fingers. You looked down at the gesture. “I felt that tremble, Jaehyun.”

“What tremble?” he feigned innocence for only a moment. “Maybe I have some butterflies about today. I want this to go well.”

“It will. I know it will.”

“Because I have your support?” he teased, and you shook your head, trying not to roll your eyes.

“Because it’s a passion of yours. I can tell you want this opportunity.”

“It would be real nice. Joey told me if I qualify, he can help me with the training. I’ll need to find extra time to do it, maybe travel to his barn a few times a week for evening training but it’s doable.”

“You’re so cute, you know that?” you said, recycling one of Jaehyun’s lines. He picked up on it and laughed. “I like seeing you this hopeful.”

“I’m hopeful about us too.”

“You are?”

“If I win today, my Dad will be pretty chuffed. Maybe we could tell him about us.”

“No more acting like teenagers over this. We’re grown adults, Jaehyun. Regardless of if you win or not, let’s tell him. I’m planning on meeting with him on Thursday for my business proposition, so if that goes well, I doubt he’ll have any concerns about us.”

“This is my Dad we’re talking about. There’s a whole lot about him, about us, that you don’t know.”

“Are you hiding someone in the attic?!” you asked, gasping dramatically. Jaehyun rolled his eyes. “You’ve got an entirely different life kept behind closed doors? How about being the culprit to-”

“Here you two are,” Avery interrupted, eyeing your linked hands with high interest. “Is this why you wanted to come today, Y/N? Away from the prying Blayne eyes, you can finally go on a date with your beau?”

“A date?” you pondered before looking up at Jaehyun. He grinned. “We’ve been on a few of those already in Blayne.”

“And no one knows that you two are together? Woah, I’m impressed with how well you’ve covered them up.”

“Not for long,” Jaehyun announced and you smiled happily, nodding in agreement. “But I am mighty glad you’re back, Avery. Can you keep an eye on this one? I’m sure if left to her own devices, some of the sellers in the market here will have her pulling out money she doesn’t need to spend.”

“You’re insulting my judgment so easily!” you called after Jaehyun’s departing back.

Avery grinned. “Well, you chose him over me. I’ve been doubtful of your taste this whole time.”

“Avery McConnell?”

Spinning to see another woman approach you both, you grinned. “He’s all yours. I’m going to go watch from the stadium.”

An hour had passed by, and you were struggling with the concept of being at a rodeo. On one hand, it was thrilling to watch but also reckless. You knew there was a danger behind the sport, as there was with most sports. But you didn’t realise how easy it was to fall off at this calibre of competition.

You gasped as a young girl, no older than fifteen hit into a barrel and her horse was deep in the turn, losing its footing and the pair fell, the horse landing on top of her. With bated breath, you watched as she managed to get back to her feet, albeit with an evident hobble.

“Your first time?” an older woman asked knowingly, and you nodded. “Not from around here?”

“Originally from the city,” you admitted sheepishly, and the woman laughed.

“Called that by a mile.”

“Do I stand out that much?”

“You’re no country pumpkin like me, that’s for sure.”

“Ah.” You looked her over and smiled. “I think you’re lovely.”

“I wasn’t meaning how we look, love. You’re here to support your boyfriend, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“And he’ll come out here soon, and you’ll be the type to cheer. Don’t. It’s really tacky and could throw him off. Do you even know what barrel racing is about?”

“Some. There’s three barrels, and you have to make it through the sequence with the fastest time and without touching them.”

“It’s a dangerous sport. The horses are trained athletes. It might be all over in fifteen to seventeen seconds, but during that time, it’s a race against their life. They need to move without any issue, carry the weight of their rider perfectly, and dig deep to get around and then gallop off again. And the riders are just as focused. It’s more than just a sequence. Everything counts.”

“Wow, and he had a chance to go pro for this?”

She laughed loudly then. “All cowboys will tell you that, sweetie. Who are you rooting for?”

“Jung Jaehyun,” you mentioned and her amused expression dropped, scooting closer to you. Leaning back from her sudden invasion of your space, you laughed weakly. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, he’s good. He’s back on the circuit? He took time off ever since the fire. I didn’t think he’d be back to this level.”

“What fire?”

“Blayne’s fire,” she replied, her eyes now peeled to the catalogue, checking out Jaehyun’s details. She gasped. “Joey Newman’s horse?! He didn’t come to mess around today.”

You smiled politely at the woman, slipping into your thoughts. You knew this was a big thing for Jaehyun, but was he that big of a deal in this world? The new information explained the nerves, but he had downplayed this to you all day long. The barrel racing was one of the last sports on the schedule for this rodeo, and for hours beforehand, Jaehyun had assured you it was like a training event. Yet, this woman now had you believing otherwise.

“Can I ask something?” you enquired, coming out of your reverie and the blonde woman nodded. “What happens if he makes the top five today?”

“He’ll be scouted. Perhaps he already is getting calls. He held the fastest time for five years straight in this region. Everyone wanted a piece of him before his father pulled him out.”

“Pulled him out?” you breathed, blinking rapidly. “Why did he-?”

“How about you ask your cowboy that you’re having a fling with all about it, once he’s done racing the clock, if you have further questions.”

“It’s not a fling,” you corrected and she smiled sadly at you.

“Darl, I was dating Billy Burke. You might not know that name but everyone around here did. He went pro, won the Nationals and become a million dollars richer.”

“A million dollars?!”

She shrugged. “I was pregnant with his baby at the time he got offered to go pro. We were supposed to get married. But, you know, it was his dream to go pro. When given the choice between love and the race, he chose the latter. So what if he has money? He has all that fame now too. All I have is his kid who hasn’t met his Daddy once. Let me warn you, cowboys might charm you with their country hospitality but they all have bigger goals than the farms they run back home. Once Jaehyun is given the chance, he’ll forget that Blayne even exists.”

“I doubt that,” you defended. “I’m sorry to hear of your circumstances, and even if Jaehyun and I end, I can confirm Blayne means more to him than-”

“You really don’t know what he did to Blayne, do you?” Pity for you emerged in her eyes. “What do you know aside from his body then?”

Getting up, you stormed out from the bleachers you had been sitting upon, feeling foolish for being so worked up by a stranger. Before you could leave, however, Avery leapt up towards you and clapped his hands together. “He’s next up. Where are you going?”

“Oh, I uh, need fresh air.”

“Worried about him falling off? Don’t be. He’s the best here today, you’re about to see it. No one else can go from being a farmhand to a decent barrel racer without practising than Jaehyun. Come on, you can get air after his run.”

Nodding numbly, you allowed Avery to push you along, taking a seat again. Avery greeted a few of the people around you, and you watched the horse and rider before you now, finishing their run with ease. You looked to the sidelines, wondering where Jaehyun was.

“I thought you said he was next.”

“He is. He’ll be making his way in any second now.”

The grating voice of the commentator muted as soon as you saw the spotted horse come racing into the arena, your eyes peeled on the pair heading towards their first barrel. Clasping your hands together, you watched on intensely, praying Jaehyun and Trickster would make it around safely.

The woman had been right. It was a sport that relied on precision and speed. You had always considered a minute to be such a short period of time, but as the seconds went by, you found yourself changed. Every second counted now.

Jaehyun and Trickster rounded the final barrel and galloped to the exit, Avery’s screams and sudden shaking your arm jostled you out of the blur that had been your vision towards the end.

Fifteen seconds was all it took to give you clarity on your feelings.

“He made it! That lucky son of a bitch!” Avery rejoiced, and you stood up jarringly, walking down the aisle to the exit. Avery was still full of energy at your side. “He’ll be cooling Trickster down, Y/N. Come this way to the holding pen.”

You followed along in a slight daze, your heart thumping with the thoughts within your head. You disregarded all the information, the warnings that stranger had given you. When you saw Jaehyun walking the heavily breathing animal around and patting his neck, you almost broke into a run to reach the side of the pen faster.

Noticing your arrival, Jaehyun grinned and walked the horse over. “Well, what did you think?”

“I think I’m in love you,” you announced sincerely.

“After seeing only one run?!” Avery joked, but Jaehyun’s expression grew serious, not shifting away from yours even as he continued to walk the horse around.

Distractedly, Jaehyun called out for the groom of Joey’s ranch and dismounted, walking over to you and ducking under the metal bar that separated you from him. “You mean what you say?”

You nodded, choking on the sudden emotions that had come with your confession.

“You can’t take it back after I give you this chance, Y/N. You mean it?”

“I love you,” you repeated, and that was all it took for Jaehyun to crash his lips upon yours.

There was no thought to the professionals around you, nor Avery who had stepped aside to give you albeit a tiny amount of privacy. You didn’t care at all who watched you lock lips with Jaehyun right now.

Because it felt right.

You hadn’t expected to arrive in Blayne and find yourself looking in different directions for your life. It had always been well-planned out. You would build your career and work hard during these years, so when you had achieved all you set out for you could relax into love and create a family.

The country didn’t work like that. The values were so different from what you had experienced in your fast-paced life. And now that you had been given the opportunity to slow down a little, to take in the world outside of an office and not be attached to a screen day in and out, you were finding your desires were changing too.

You liked the idea of waking up in someone’s arms and falling asleep whispering sweet nothings to one another. During those fifteen seconds, you imagined your life without Jaehyun in it, and it made you want to do absolutely everything in your power to remain at his side.

You meant the love confession. You had never spoken of love to another person before. It was liberating, fulfilling. As Jaehyun burned his lips into yours, you knew he felt the same.

It hadn’t been long between you. But this summer romance was shaping your world more than you believed it had for his parents all those years ago.

You couldn’t imagine going back to the city now.

_________________

Part 11

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