#while i think those aus' concepts are cool as hell and have their place

[furbearingbrick]

more and more deltarune fanartists are starting to draw the addisons as fur-covered mammals with padded digits

[miceysfandomcreations]

After drawing straight through a dnd campaign session! I’ve finally finished! Happy early Lunar New Year @itoshisoup!

What do you get when you cross a Hell Fic alternate universe with a tragic ending, a Touya with bad coping mechanism, and a multiverse-hopping quirk? HTTM DTTS: HELLVERSE!

Ok, so, I finally read Hell fic which is really good! I’ve been keeping up with the blog for a while, so I was a witness to the 2022 descent into Dabi Hell along with the bajillion Hell fic aus that popped up. Earlier this month, I hit my mha phase, read Hell fic, and understood what the hype was about. I kept thinking of those aus and how they were perfect for a spiderverse-style crossover epic. So fueled by writer’s block for a completely different project, I made a mockup poster of the concept!

general art notes:

this was hard. Dabi’s anime hair is stupid hard to draw. The flame effects covered so much. I’m glad I didn’t do shading. Also, super proud of myself for figuring out a way to draw anime hair! I took inspiration from an across the spider verse poster with all the characters facing the camera head on. Because I had less characters, with designs similar to each other, I had to modify the poses to give some more character. Not sure how well I did on that. The white shape in the center represents MC, and I wanted it to look like the shape’s been erased from the canvas, cutting through all the Touyas.

the touyas (top of left column to top of right column, like a horseshoe), individual art notes, and story notes:

Normal fic!Touya. From default/default adjacent Hell fic universe. Don’t have much variation to go with, so he’s a ‘normal’ Dabi. Not much to say here. I think I drew him last? Was weirdly hard to finish.

jjk curse au!Touya. None of the other Touyas know what the fuck he’s talking about. What do you mean curses? What do you mean you’re dead? In universe, he and MC are HS second years/16-ish, so I made his eyes bigger, face softer, hair fluffier, tried to make him look youthful. I think you noted that this Touya didn’t look much different than normal, but as you can see, I made him blue. I think it’d be cool if he had fire glowing from beneath his scars. I thought about replacing with burned skin with exposed muscle (also blue), but decided against that for ease of drawing. His uniform’s white, because, y’know, death.

Villain au!Touya. From the au where Touya and MC ran away to become horny villains together and Touya makes a ‘no bitches’ joke to Shigaraki. He gets a matching tungsten ring and a smile! I envision him as the first alternadabi to pop up in Normal’s dimension for some reason. Maybe because he’s the most similar?

Pro-Hero!Touya. Is miffed and yet not surprised that so many of his counterparts are villains. The most well-off financially of the Touyas. The Touyas raid his agency’s fridge at some point. There are so many awesome hero au designs floating in the fandom. I came up the outfit on the fly and it probably needs to be redesigned a few more times before I’m personally happy. Still, it serves its purpose. This Touya gets gold-plated piercings because he’s worth it.

Toxic WLW!Touya. TBH I don’t remember much about this au. Does it take place in the MHA world or is it a mundane au? Either way, this Touya was the first one I had concepts for. I think every Touya is a trash gremlin no matter the gender, and I didn’t want her to lose that aspect. I gave her a new, pushed-back hairstyle because I didn’t want to draw 6 versions of the same hair, and canon Touya looks really cute with his forehead exposed. The nose piercings are replaced with eyebrow rings to take advantage of that.

late 20s!Touya. From that concept you had about an older Touya having a happy ending. This one is stable, happily married, and is a good parent. The others totally aren’t jealous at all! Why hasn’t the rogue Touya who started this mess try to take over his life? Uh…something something this reality too unfamiliar to him…too used to destruction and dying young…can’t fathom having a life like this where he builds instead of destroys…would rather tear open the multiverse than face the prospect of internal change. This Touya is more often than not the holder of the sole braincell and is trying to wrangle his younger selves in more positive directions. Assigned Responsible Adult (tm) despite not hitting 30. Wears sweats the entire time.

- I see late 20s!Touya as entering the story in 2 ways. Doing laundry and getting sucked into a portal waiting for the washer to finish (1). Seeing his alternaselves in the distance, calling his MC, and being like ‘I’m gonna need to leave for a week I have to stop myself from doing something stupid’ and following after (2).

misc notes:

I thought about doing a version of this for MC, or Shouto, but I never had a solidified design for MC, and Dabi was the funner brother to come up with concepts for.

The Touyas without the flames:

[lawful-evil-novelist]

A modern AU sounds cool! Who out of the knife polycule do you think would adjust to modern life the fastest? What kind of real world jobs and hobbies do you think they might have?

Honestly if you isekai-ed anyone of the knife polycule into modern day we all know Jarlaxle would be the fastest to adapt. It's functionally the best tool in his arsenal.

And the knife polycule happens to be what I focused most on when constructing the AU, ironically. I was focused most on Artemis' storyline when constructing it initially so a lot of focus went into Jarlaxle and his entourage. I'm about to ramble so for everyone's sake I'll stick this in a read more.

As a real quick setup of how the Modern AU works: It's still Faerun, but moved forwards to where there's modern technology. I centered most of the concept in Silverymoon, since it's close enough to Menzoberranzan and Mithral Hall that you could, conceivably, see how those three places could eventually become functionally sister cities as time wears on.

Jarlaxle mostly lives surface-side but keeps a dedicated apartment in Menzoberranzan whenever he visits home, which is almost never so that's where Kimmuriel lives while at university. Technically, he's still old money via his family but he is, in fact, working, mostly to keep from getting bored. House Baenre I imagine plays a lot of politics so Jarlaxle has to keep up some level of propriety and attend at least a few public events, but I also imagine he prefers his own ventures. One of those being that he runs a few high-end nightclubs in Menzo and Silverymoon, which gave me the opportunity to keep the names of the two bars he canonically owns: The One-Eyed Jax and the Oozing Myconid. Since he lives in Silverymoon most of the time, he has friends mind the Oozing Myconid while he's away.

I like to think outside of his work, Jarlaxle's canon interest in fashion holds true, he is regularly the best-dressed person in the room. I think he has an interest in music, and I also think Jarlaxle just likes to read really pulpy romance novels.

I mentioned Kimmuriel is in university in Menzoberranzan, most probably because K'yorl wants to keep an eye on him and make sure he's not doing anything he's not supposed to. Living off-campus is probably the most freedom he's gotten in awhile. As for a job itself, Kimmuriel probably works at a library, his friendship with Jarlaxle is mostly through their families, and it's definitely how they met. Kimmuriel, like Jarlaxle, probably has family obligations too, but much more academic ones. Kimmuriel probably keeps a meticulous calendar, and at least once every two months there's a lecture by his mother or a sibling or someone his mother mentioned in conversation that Kimmuriel knows he's expected to attend.

As for hobbies, I think Kimmuriel is an avid reader with a wide interest in genres. I also imagine he likes puzzles and trivia games. You could say he has old man hobbies but Kimmuriel strikes me as the type that would tag along to a nightclub because Jarlaxle and Rai'gy want to go, not because he wants to go.

Zaknafein...Well aside from whatever's going on between him, Malice, and the polyandry agreement from hell, he's the bar manager at the One-Eyed Jax. This is really good for him because he gets time to himself that Malice can't argue about because he's making money. This is also bad for him because the front of house manager is Arathis Hune, and a modern AU does not mean either of them like each other. There is a position at the One-Eyed Jax called the Bar Minder and they are just there to keep Zak and Arathis from trying to shank each other in the middle of a shift. They will, and Jarlaxle has quickly learned he is not a sufficient deterrent to serve as a shield. He has the stitches to prove it too. It was an interesting emergency room visit.

Zaknafein's athleticism had to go somewhere and I'm not totally sure about everything but I wanna say he kickboxes at the bare minimum. I also imagine he likes strategy games like chess, something he and Kimmuriel have in common and is one of the few things they bond over.

Artemis, meanwhile, starts off this AU living in a poorer section of Silverymoon, working odd jobs for under the table money, not all of which are legal. When he meets Jarlaxle, that turns into being that Bar Minder because turns out an effective fight deterrent is a scruffy-looking college kid that looks just enough like Zak and Arathis' own teenage boys that they don't want to try stabbing him. Jarlaxle has found a medium with which to exploit their paternal instincts is what I'm saying. I don't know what Artemis thinks of this job but I do know he spends a lot of time reacting to Jarlaxle like "Rich people are insane" and really, looking at House Baenre, is he wrong?

Not sure if it counts as a hobby or just "I learned to do this to escape the cops and now I find it fun" but Artemis is probably really good at parkour and sometimes if he really gets the instinct he'll just start scaling a building. He's gotten in trouble for this before. I also think Artemis likes reading, but doesn't have many books of his own until he gets the job with Jarlaxle. Prior and even after I think he just frequented libraries.

[lxvislxdy]

Imagine Bakugou x stoner!reader

So... maybe I got carried away, and maybe this turned into more of just you and the bakusquad being besties, but I literally love this concept and will 100% be writing more.

Warning(s): obvious mentions of drug use, and some language. All characters are 18+.

So, let’s say, just for the hell of it, that this is a quirkless!college!au 

just imagine...

- you befriend Sero and Denki first, meeting them in a class, and they love you right off the bat

- you’re personality just meshes so well with theirs, you become bffs almost instantly

- the three of you raise hell in that class, I’m convinced, like RIP to whoever sits near you goofs

- you slowly start to hang out outside of class. maybe it starts as a study sesh, but let’s be honest here. the three of you can’t focus to save your life, and eventually Sero asks if you guys wanna smoke

- and, to their complete surprise, you outsmoke them (Denki later bows down to you, literally, and proposes to you with a ring pop. he’s such a dork I love him)

- this becomes a weekly thing, as it should, and the three of you are practically attached at the hip

- your favorite part of hanging with them is, of course, all their crazy stories about their friends

- so of course they want to introduce you to the bakusquad, and you are just as eager to meet the rest of the group, if not a little nervous

- Denki and Sero assure you they’ll love you (”c’mon, you’re just like us, they’ll adore you!!!”) and they take you out to lunch with Mina and Kirishima

- now, if you thought you, Denki, and Sero was a chaotic trio, just wait until you add Mina to the equation

- Kirishima lives for the chaos and thinks you’re adorable, but the guy has his hands full keeping the four of you out of trouble, that’s for sure

- (when Bakugou’s not around, Kirishima is in charge of the braincell, I don’t make the rules)

- Mina immediately kidnaps you for a girls night, and is ecstatic about having a girl to hang out with her and the boys 

- (SIDE NOTE, Mina introduces you to Jirou, and the three of you are THE baddest bitches around, thank you. the three of you definitely have girl nights and either kick the boys out, or force them to join, face masks and all)

- anyway, you finally get the opportunity to meet Bakugou

- and, as always, he’s in a sour mood. but! you don’t let his grumpiness upset you, in fact, you take it in stride and throw his attitude right back at him

- you aren’t mean, and you certainly aren’t going out of your way to bug him, but if Bakugou makes a snide comment? you better believe you’re throwing one right back at him

- and at first, Bakugou is annoyed, and thinks you’re mocking him. like, who do you think you are? 

- but the more he gets to know you, he realizes that you’re way too sweet to be that mean. you fit right in with the idiots he’s friends with.

- and, to be honest, it drives him nuts. because he likes you. he likes you, and he likes when you snap back at him, and he likes watching you goof off and laugh with his friends

- in true Bakugou fashion, though, you’re convinced he hates you. it’s just the icing on top of the cake when one night you notice that every time you’re there, and Sero lights up, Bakugou disappears 

- when you finally tell Mina this, she laughs. actually laughs! and you’re just like ....what?

- turns out, Bakugou hardly ever smokes with them, and he’s just like that. 

“Trust me, babe,” Mina tells you, “It’s not you. Bakugou just doesn’t know how to relax, he’s got a terrible case of trust issues and a bad attitude to top it off. But he likes you, trust me! He’ll come around.”

- you weren’t so sure about that, but you take her word for it. 

- and then, one night it’s just you, Denki, Mina, and Bakugou, and he stays!

“Someone with a brain has to make sure you idiots don’t do something stupid.” He says, when you ask.

- that night ends up being one of the funniest nights of your life. the three of you are high as a kite, and everything is funny. seriously, you can’t stop laughing!

- then, you find out Bakugou’s birthday is on 4/20, and you have never been so excited in your life (so you say). it’s the funniest, most ironic thing to you

- you go up to Bakugou, grabbing both his arms by the biceps, and are going on and on about it, bouncing on the balls of your feet and giggling, and Bakugou just listens to you talk and he blushes 

- you’re adorable, and he can’t lie to himself anymore, he likes you. he really likes you. and this realization really freaks him out (he calls Kirishima later that night absolutely freaking out, and he has to totally calm him down. Kiri ships it)

- over the next month or two, he tries his best to not give himself away, but it’s so hard. 

- he starts sticking around when everyone smokes together, and sitting next to you during movie nights (because you always fall asleep, and theres a good 80% chance you end up leaning on his shoulder), and he offers to help when you complain about a class you’re struggling with

- and it all comes to a head one night when he gets jealous. 

- he was definitely reading too much into things, but he swears you’re acting clingy with Sero, leaning on his shoulder, and grabbing his arm when you laugh, and playing with his hair. he definitely has himself convinced Sero is making a move on you, and he’s pissed.

- at some point during the hangout, he gets up and storms out of the room, and no one really notices but you and Kiri. after a minute or two you’re curiosity gets the best of you, so you go after him

- he’s in the kitchen, glaring at this plant Denki and Sero have (that is totally, 100% dying, and probably can’t be saved) and he’s pouting

“I don’t think staring at it is gonna bring it back to life.” You say, and he just looks at you weird and asks what you want

- you say you’re just checking on him, and he asks why you care. and you’re just like dude ??? i care about you? hello? we’re friends ??

- and Bakugou, being himself, snaps at you and makes some kind of rude comment

- so you snap back, offended because you’d just wanted to check on him

- and halfway through you telling him what a jerk he is, he kisses you

- he kisses you like his life depends on it, because he’s still pissed off about Sero and, come on, Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t do anything halfway

- and maybe the two of you make out in the kitchen for way longer than you want to admit

- and maybe you laugh and call him an idiot when he tells you he was jealous of Sero

- and maybe Denki catches the two of you, and screams like a little girl on christmas morning

- cue protective Denki and Sero telling Bakugou he better not EVER hurt you... and then crying happy tears a minute later because you’re so cute together

- after that, Bakugou is literally never seen without you by his side. he walks you to class, cooks you dinner at least once a week, helps you study and takes you out every time you ace a test. this man knows your coffee order, and has your schedule memorized, it’s impressive 

- god forbid he see’s you eating junk food

- listen, he knows how Denki and Sero eat when they get the munchies, okay, and that is absolutely not allowed. this man is such a simp behind closed doors, he will literally make you homemade snacks for when you go smoke with the guys. 

- he’s not the greatest with words, okay, but he loves you and he shows it through small things like that. he’s always pushing you to do your best, and bragging about you, and doing little things to remind you how much he cares

- he’s also a little over protective, but he means well, and cmon it’s kinda cute when he get’s jealous, sometimes

- but overall you guys are just the cutest couple. like the bakusquad is absolutely obsessed. (you make Bakugou soft, but don’t tell him they said that)

- and sure you fight over little things every once in a while, but you learn how to handle Bakugou’s attitude quick, and it never lasts too long. 

- if you do have a big fight, you take a step back and let each other cool down, and then you make Bakugou talk it out. he hates it at first, because sharing his feelings is so not something he wants to do, but it does help and he knows it.

- if, on the rare occasion, the two of you have a bad fight you can’t resolve on your own, therapist Kiri is there to save the day

Bonus:

- now, let’s get down to the whole reason i made this au in the first place

- the first time the two of you celebrate his birthday after getting together, he makes it clear that the day of he just wants to spend it with you

- so the weekend closest to his bday, the whole squad goes out and celebrates, but when it comes to his actual bday? Bakugou has a surprise for YOU

- you show up to his apartment, not really knowing what to expect, and this man pulls out a pan of brownies

- yeah, those brownies

- turns out, he and Sero used to sell them in high school

“What? Sero already sold, and I can cook, so we just... did it. It was good money.”

“How could you keep this from me?! Have I told you recently that I adore you?”

He just laughs, “You’re such a dork.”

- so you have the PLEASURE of getting high with Bakugou for the first time

- and let me just tell you, you’re in for a treat

- Bakugou. is. so. clingy. as soon as it hits, you know, because he’s wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into his lap

- he’s speaking so softly?? and he’s just relaxed, and content with holding you and talking about anything and everything, just cuddling with music in the background

- high! makeout sessions! with Bakugou! that’s it, that’s literally it. he is INSATIABLE 

- the man just wants to kiss you, for hours, okay? give him what he wants!!

- he used to get super paranoid, that’s why he doesn’t smoke much, but with you he’s calm and comfortable, and not anxious

- it becomes tradition to make brownies on both of your birthdays, and you look forward to it all year

- and every once in a while, Bakugou will smoke with the squad, and they quickly learn that he can’t keep his hands off of you when he’s high. they tease him relentlessly, and Sero and Denki definitely have asked him (aka whined to him) to stop hogging all your attention

- also, he definitely lights the bowl for you, because he is a gentlemen

- shotgun kisses. yup. that’s all I have to say.

before I get carried away again, this is the end. Thank you for reading! I literally can’t get enough of this au I’m in love with it!! I’ll be writing more of this au soon, hopefully, and my requests are open!! 

[thetriggeredhappy]

recently rediscovered your blog and read the fic from your dad spy au where scout starts out as the "guard" and then becomes scout from there and lemme tell you that shit put me on some s-tier brainrot. like a cranial decay type beat.

i had a concept in my head that instead of being hired as a guard, he could have been hired as a right hand man to the administrator like pauling, because i think hed be awesome in that position. like imagine having a personal merc who can get in fast and out even faster. but maybe he would stay in the base like the rest of them, sort of like a secret on call intel gatherer, who also maybe sometimes has to dig a couple graves. and also like, nobody on the team expects anything from him at first because its this 20 year old newbie kid. hes dressed in his formal clothes and he talks like somebody from relatively around boston but not quite. i can just imagine one day he comes back during a team dinner with his shirt half untucked and stained with blood, hair disheveled as he asks soldier if he can borrow his shovel, or him debriefing them for a mission when miss pauling is busy. same vibe as the fic i mentioned before but scout gets to have a job as cool as miss paulings. honestly id write it myself if i didnt have the attention span of a fly

anyways your scout content gives me life thank you

scout teamfortress but 20% more competent standing next to miss pauling teamfortress while she's doing her job and doing like silly quips and otherwise contributing nothing like it's a buddy cop film is literally my fucking ideal

(warnings for some canon-typical violence)

-

“Oh, Pauling, it’s good to see you again,” greeted the chairman, smiling in an imitation of a grandfather and clasping her hands perhaps too-kindly considering she barely knew him. “Young as ever, and still so stylish, I see. And who’s the new fellow?”

“He’s just here to help with transport, Mr. Montgomery, nothing unusual,” Miss Pauling replied, returning his smile and adjusting her glasses. “Heavy cases, you know how it is.”

“Of course, I remember you almost toppling clean over last time we made a trade!” Montgomery agreed, frowning at the memory. “You’ll pull a muscle that way, better to be careful. It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man. And your name?”

“Mr. Normandy, sir,” the new kid replied easily enough despite his slight East Coast accent, giving the man a firm handshake, expression neutral and stony, the picture of professionalism. Internally, Pauling breathed a sigh of relief.

“Firm grip there, young man,” Montgomery praised, nodding approvingly. “Tennis player, perhaps? Or golf?”

“Baseball, sir,” he replied, still evenly. “First baseman.”

“Ah! Of course! Were you any good?” Montgomery joked.

“At everything but playing in front of the crowds, otherwise I’d be in the major leagues,” he replied, tilting his head just slightly to imply that he was joking, his sunglasses glinting at the movement, and Montgomery barked a laugh.

“I like this one, Miss Pauling!” Montgomery said, and Pauling just barely caught herself from physically relaxing at it.

“We do too, Mr. Montgomery,” she agreed. “I was under the impression that you’re very busy today, so we won’t keep you for too long, we just wanted to sort out the final details surrounding the manufacturing rights for the—“

“—Pacific Northwest branch, up into British Columbia and Alberta, of course,” Montgomery agreed, nodding faintly. “Of course, of course.” He turned to regard his own man in a dark suit, the one standing to the right, who appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to stare down Normandy, who was completely ignoring him. “My briefcase, please.”

The man handed over the briefcase, and Montgomery put it on his desk, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers. “All our requests are submitted and approved, at this point we just had a few dustbins to take care of regarding initial percentages and making sure everything is wired to the correct accounts, which names are undisclosed, things like that,” Pauling explained as he glanced through the papers.

“Right, right, everything looks good here,” the man murmured, nodding to himself, sending his long-white hair just ever-so-slightly out of place. “I’m assuming these more sensitive documents should be sent some way besides through the mail?”

“If you finish them today I can take them with me, otherwise either me or Mr. Normandy can return to pick them up at your convenience,” she replied, to which Normandy gave a singular nod.

“Oh, it would only take me a short while,” Montgomery said, waving a hand. “We have a lovely lounge just down the hall from here if you’d prefer to wait there, it should only take me ten, fifteen minutes at most. In the meantime, I do believe there’s also the manner of payment for services rendered.”

Miss Pauling tilted her head just slightly to one side, confused.

“I arranged with Helen already,” Montgomery explained, not looking up from where he was initialing a few things. “The payment, rather than being wired, she asked to be made in material investment. A venture of mine from years ago that she’s willing to sit on. Rather than gold or bonds, she agreed to take some old currency of mine that my family collected, from early 18th century New Zealand and Australia. Monetarily it’s worth around the same, and I’m quite a bit attached to it to be entirely frank, but it was at her request to buy the whole collection from me, and after years of the work we’ve been doing together, well, I’d never trust it with anyone else.”

He gestured to the other man, the one on his left, who stepped forward to hand him a manila envelope, which he passed to Pauling.

“Inside is both keys, the door alarm codes, and all other security information for the building where the collection is being stored. They’ll ask for a few codes and confirmation of identity, only because several other art collections and artifacts are being stored there by other affluent individuals such as myself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling said, taking the envelope gratefully.

“Think nothing of it, my dear. Helen talked me into it all her own,” he said easily enough. “Now, gentlemen, if you would let Miss Pauling and Mr. Normandy into our lounge? I should have these wrapped up before any of us can even think about lunch, eh?”

One of the suits showed the two of them through the doors and down the hallway, through two doors bracketed by similar suits who simply nodded politely at Pauling and ticked their chins at Normandy as they passed them.

Normandy posted up beside the door for all of three seconds before they shut and Pauling pulled her glasses up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and making a vaguely distressed noise. He then promptly relaxed, instead leaning his hip against an armchair probably worth the same amount as a small car. “So, uh, we’re glad that he’s giving us a bunch of commemorative coins from when dinosaurs still walked the earth?” he asked just below normal speaking volume, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. Very glad. Because unlike about six people total on the planet, he hasn’t figured out yet how valuable those are.”

“What, is a picture of a kangaroo on some copper really gonna make up for a couple hundred thousand American dollars?” Normandy asked, sounding doubtful.

“Not copper. Something else,” she replied. “I can’t tell you much more about it other than that, but these coins are made of something priceless to us. And to the Administrator.”

“…Love? Memories? The magic of family?” he joked, cracking a smile, and she rolled her eyes, moving to open the envelope and start reading the papers inside. “Hey, uh, not to question whether my job should exist, but what the hell am I doing here, exactly? Besides carrying a briefcase. Like, chivalry isn’t dead but I really don’t think you need me carrying your bags and holding the door for you.”

“You’re helping with security, basically,” she replied, adjusting her glasses to squint at tiny handwriting about the collection. “Mr. Montgomery is trustworthy, but he mostly hires out to… well, people like us. His security detail is mostly people we’d rather have screened, freelancers, stuff like that. A lot of people we contract out to are like that. Most of them have heard about me and know better than to try and pull something, since I can hold my own pretty well, but if they haven’t, seeing a second person might persuade them to think it over again.”

“Oh, so I’m like, uh, when it says ‘tow zone’ next to the no parking signs even though nobody checks, or when they’ve got a camera in the corner of the store that isn’t even plugged into anything,” he said, and the looked up at him, confused. “Like, uh, what’s the word… I’m a casual deterrent.”

“Sure,” she said, because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, shuffling the papers back away and closing the envelope again, making a note to ask the Administrator if she should change their current containment procedures to be closer to Mr. Montgomery’s. “Just… if there’s a fight, you deal with it, otherwise you just stand there and look like you’re paying attention.”

“That’s what the sunglasses are for,” he agreed. “I was blinking morse code at the guy across from me literally the whole time.”

“You know morse code?” Pauling asked, surprised.

“Just the alphabet, ‘S.O.S.’, and ‘ass’.”

She rolled her eyes again, and that’s when the door opened.

She expected Mr. Montgomery, not one of the men in suits. “Excuse me, both of you, if you don’t mind,”the man said, accent having the slightest English tilt to it, a Londoner if Pauling had to guess. “You’re Miss Pauling, the Mann Co. affiliate, yes?”

“That’s me,” she agreed, hesitant, and glanced at Normandy.

“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. Mr. Montgomery have you the wrong envelope on accident,” the man said apologetically, extending a hand forward. “We apologize for this unfortunate mix-up, it’s really quite embarrassing, but those documents are sensitive and we’ll be needing to see them back now.”

Pauling looked at him, and within a moment, shifted her expression. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she agreed, nodding. “No, right, of course. These aren’t the papers for the currency collection?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Brit agreed, head tilting just slightly, hand still extended, moving a fraction further forward.

“Well, thank goodness we figured out now and not with us halfway back,” she joked, and moved to hold the folder closer to her body. “I’ll take this right back to Mr. Montgomery, then.”

“He’s sent me to correct the error,” the man explained simply.

“Right,” she said, and saw in her periphery that Normandy had already started sneaking a hand in towards his primary, clearly having pieced together something she was only suspecting. “We can bring this to his office, then, right down the hall.”

“You misunderstand,” the man said, taking a step forward again. “I’ll be taking it to his office myself.”

“That’s funny,” Pauling said. “I didn’t realize you had clearance to be in there. Or to be carrying a semi-automatic instead of a standard handgun.”

The Brit reached for the semi-automatic, and before he could even get it out properly, Normandy hit one clean shot to the side of his head and another to his thigh, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Pauling had only as far as pulling her own handgun free, thumb on the safety, and breathed a sigh of relief, glancing over at Normandy, shifting to more comfortably hold her gun. “Quick reflexes,” she noted.

“Just noticed a lot sooner, maybe,” he shrugged, stepping forward to glance over the body, tucking his gun back away.

“What was your hint?”

“He’s here to give us the right folder, yeah? Well, why were his hands empty, then?”

She was just starting to nod and realize that as well when a second man shouldered through the door, holding a gun at the ready. Normandy scrambled to draw his own, but Pauling fired a shot into his knee, shoulder, and neck to send him dropping before he was even close. “There’s quick on the draw, and then there’s prepared,” she said pointedly. “Gotta think of if there’s more than one, new guy.”

He nodded, and drew his gun again, bending to hit the guy on the ground at the temple hard enough to knock him out if he wasn’t unconscious already. He then glanced up at the sound of a shout from the other side of the door, two men shouldering through, guns drawn but lowered. It was only the firm eye contact they made with both her and Normandy that made her pause the millisecond it took to realize these ones weren’t trying to kill them.

“Pauling, what on earth is going on here?!” Montgomery demanded, entering the room and staring with wide eyes at the bodies on the ground. “What could’ve possessed you to—“

“He was trying to run off with these documents,” she explained quickly, gesturing with the envelope. “He knew whatever was in here was valuable.”

“He drew his gun, sir,” Normandy added, tipping his head down towards the body, and Pauling glanced down as well and found herself a little surprised. He’d rearranged the man just slightly, apparently, adjusting the arm to be holding the gun a bit further outward. “Other one was aiming to kill.”

“My, my,” Montgomery tsk’d, shaking his head as he surveyed the scene. “What a mess. My apologies, Miss Pauling, Mr. Normandy.”

“It’s alright, but you need to start doing more thorough checks on your staff, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling stressed.

“He’s only been here two weeks, sir, he was one of the men we hired in a hurry after the incident last month,” one of the bodyguards said, and Montgomery shook his head.

“Thank goodness nobody was hurt,” he sighed. “Mutiny, and besides that, they’re bleeding on my carpet. Here are those papers, Miss Pauling—what a day, eh?”

“It’s really alright, we handled it,” Pauling assured him, giving her bravest smile, a little exasperated now.

“Right, right, you and the first baseman,” he agreed, and Normandy fought back an actual smile.

“If you’d like, we can take care of those for you,” Pauling said, gesturing at the bodies. “To pay you back for the carpet and the scare.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Montgomery agreed, clearly relieved.

-

“My dad’s gonna be pissed, by the way,” Normandy was so helpful as to say on the way back up the path to the base. “And you’re fielding that.”

“About the suit, or the fight?” she asked, glancing at his clothes where he was somewhat covered in a fine dusting of mud and grime from the gravedigging, shovel still in his free hand.

“Both. Mostly the fight. Your fault for saying it’d be an easy one to start with,” he said.

“If it was going to be that much of a problem, you wouldn’t have gotten this job. I’d just have made you go do dishes all day or something,” Pauling replied.

“Point taken,” he said, walking ahead to get the door, holding it open for her. “Wait, we’re allowed to mention what we do, right? Just not names?”

“Or locations, even with travel distance. Round up to the hour if it comes up,” she replied.

“Sure, sure,” he agreed, trailing a step behind her as she led the way through the base.

In the common area, there was a bit of a ruckus happening. Soldier, Heavy, and Demo appeared to be having some kind of arm wrestling competition on a rapidly-toppling table, the Engineer was on a stepstool trying to fix the ceiling fan, and Sniper appeared to be half-watching the beginnings of an argument between Pyro and the Spy regarding use of the oven as Medic patched up a burn on his arm.

“Hullo,” Sniper greeted the two of them, sounding a little bored, Medic giving them a brief, polite nod. Normandy’s eyebrows were raised pretty far as he surveyed the room.

“Hi, Sniper,” she greeted in return, then cleared her throat, raised her voice. “Team meeting in five minutes! New mission for next week!”

Groans from the room at large, the eight mercenaries starting to finish up what they were doing and filing out. Spy moved over, glancing over Normandy and starting to talk to him in rapid-fire French, picking smaller bits of gravel off of his suit as they walked.

“Alright,” she addressed the room, Normandy peeling off from getting mother hen’d by Spy to stand next to the blackboard with her. “Monday, you’re all going on a transport mission. Getting the truck from point A to point B with everything in the boxes intact. Already we’ve had to put up with some people trying to get ahold of these things, so bring your guns.”

“Oh, our guns, you said? Lads, this is a serious one, keep your heads on a feckin' swivel, she’s sayin’ we might even need guns, can you believe it?” Demo faux-gasped, and chuckled when Spy bopped him on the arm, rolling his eyes at the Scot's theatrics.

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved off, flipping through the papers a bit. “So Engie, I’ll need the keys to the truck, me and Normandy are going to be loading those tomorrow, all of you need to be at this drop point bright and early.”

“How early?” Heavy rumbled.

“Six. Hour and a half of drive from here.”

Some complaints from the room that she sighed at.

“Hey, hey, calm the hell down,” Normandy cut in, and she glanced over at him where he had his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. “You chuckleheads get to have all eight of you to unload the damn thing, me and Miss P gotta do all the rest of this on our own and probably kill twenty guys on the way there and back. She had to be up at 6 AM, workin’ since 7 AM, lunch break at noon and nothin’ else, and we just got back now at, what, fuckin’, 10, 11 PM? Any of you work her shift and then see if you even got the energy to complain about wakin’ up early, how about that?”

The room went utterly devoid of complaint or backsass. “Thank you, Normandy,” she said politely, and he just nodded once, glancing off to the side. “Anyways, anything new on this end? Spy, how are you adjusting?”

“Very well,” he said simply. “I have nothing pressing to say. Once I’ve been updated from the stock weaponry provided here to my requested preferred weaponry, I believe I should do just fine.”

“I see you already have Herr Normandy digging graves,” Medic chimed in. “Straight into the hard labor, ja?”

“Eh, hey, y’know, it’s why they keep us young people around,” he shrugged, grinning, and there was a brief uproar to drown out Medic’s entirely offended scoffing and Spy’s snort-laughing.

“Get ‘im, lad!” Demo cheered, and Normandy indeed looked fairly proud of himself.

“Monday, transport mission,” Pauling noted over the noise, writing it up on the chalkboard to hide her own smile from the room. “Normandy, you and me are doing the boxes tomorrow. Everyone on the same page? Good. Dismissed. Oh, and Pyro—stop taking the fire alarms down when they beep. They’re beeping because you light things on fire in the base. Do that outside.”

“Oh, hey, uh, helmet guy, All-American Beef,” Normandy called, and Soldier straightened up. “Here’s your shovel back. Gettin’ my own tomorrow.”


Soldier walked directly over to him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a high honor, Cadet,” he said, tone grave. “Do not take this responsibility lightly.”

“I, uh, I won’t?” he said hesitantly, and blinked a few times as the shovel was carefully taken from him before it was promptly marched from the room in double-time. Only then did Normandy look over at her. “So he’s always like that?”

“You’ll get used to it,” she assured, dusting chalk from her hands. “You should get to sleep soon, we have to be up early.”

“Sure thing, Miss P.”

[thebigbadbatswife]

One Single Thread Of Gold Tied Me To You

Summary - Everyone is tied to their soulmate with a red thread tied to their wrist. All except Y/N’s, who’s thread is gold. Tired of waiting for her soulmate to come and find her, she decides to go and find them. It doesn’t go quite how she expected it to.

Warnings - A little angst

[A/N] - This is a soulmate au where you and your soulmate are attached by an unbreakable red thread (or, in this case, gold), tied to your wrist. This was inspired by the song 'Invisible String' by Taylor Swift.

Word Count - 4k

As the early morning sun slowly filtered into your room, through your blinds, you carefully examined the thread attached to your wrist. Everyone had one; it was your link to your soulmate. Yours was different to everyone else though. While everyone had red, yours was gold. As you turned your wrist, it caught the sunlight and glistened a little.

Everyone you knew had always been fascinated by it. As was nearly every stranger you met. Why was it gold? What exactly made you and your soulmate so different to everyone else’s? Questions you had often asked yourself as well. Why were you two so different?

Your family had a theory that whoever it was, they were rich. Very rich. That was surely the reason it was gold. Nothing else made sense to them. Meanwhile your friends were completely convinced that your soulmate was some kind of God.

“Come on, Y/N! It’s the only thing that makes sense!” Tracey said before taking another sip of her third glass of wine. Her usually bright emerald eyes were glazed over from all of the alcohol. “Why else would it be gold?”

“You gotta admit, Tracey might be drunk right now, but she has a good point!” Skylar joined in. She took her brown eyes off the blonde and looked over at you before continuing. “Oh! What if your soulmate is like Wonder Woman or Superman or something! How cool would that be?”

You rolled your eyes and took a sip of your own glass of wine. “Stop it. You’re both being ridiculous,” you had told them because they really were being ridiculous. There was no way your soulmate was a member of the Justice League, let alone an Amazonian Princess or the Man of Steel.

You were, of course, curious of your soulmate yourself. Who wouldn’t be curious of the person they’re destined to end up with? But you didn’t think up the crazy theories your friends and family liked to come up with. Instead you wondered things like, what kind of hobbies do they have? What’s their favourite colour? What type of music do they listen to? Were they a cat person or a dog person? And other things like that.

Another thing about the thread that tied you to your soulmate was that, while everyone could see the thread around your wrist, only you and soulmate could see where it led. While you had always wanted to follow it, you had decided that it would be better to focus on having a decent job and place to live first.

During that time a small part of you had hoped that maybe your soulmate would come looking for you, but since they clearly weren’t, maybe you should? After all, you had a well paying job and a great apartment, so why not? Every job was legally required to allow people time off to go search, so that wouldn’t be an issue. It was paid time off as well so you didn’t have to worry about money. You also had a car so you wouldn’t have to spend a shit ton of money on travel. At least, you hoped you wouldn’t. In truth, for all you knew, your soulmate could be in a completely different country. Now that would certainly complicate things.

Shaking that thought away (because there was no way fate could be that cruel), you got out of bed and set about putting the wheels in motion that would allow you to start following your thread

‘ Welcome to Gotham City! ’ the sign read as you drove past it. When you had told those close to you, your plan, they had been super supportive. Now, if they knew where your thread had lead you, you doubted they’d be as supportive. Hell, even you were rethinking things now. Out of all the cities for your soulmate to be in, it just had to be this one.

How did you know it was this city that they resided in and it wasn’t just another stop along the way? It was hard to explain, but you had a feeling deep within your gut, almost like a sixth sense that just yelled “Yep! This is the place!”.

You felt extremely uneasy as you drove through the city. It was night-time as well which did absolutely nothing to help. Honestly, of all the times to arrive in Gotham, night-time was definitely the worst. Well, there was nothing you could do about that now, you just had to keep on going, so you did.

The golden thread snaked through the gothic city and went from the “posh” part of the city all the way to the worst part of the city. The buildings were run down and most of the windows were boarded up. Each turn you took there were shiftier and shiftier characters on every corner. You started to get the feeling that you really shouldn’t be here. Plus you were starting to wonder if you really wanted to know who your soulmate was if they were hanging out in neighbourhoods like this.

You brought your car to a stop in front of a particularly dark and sinister looking alleyway. A particularly dark and sinister looking alleyway that your golden thread lead straight into. Coming to this part of this city was already a bad idea. Continuing to follow that thread to what had to be your certain doom was even worse. Yet, at this point in your mission, you were pretty much committed.

You couldn’t help out a quiet and very nervous laugh as you climbed out of your car. ‘ This is fucking insane ,’ you thought as you stepped out of your car. Before shutting and locking it (though you doubt that would do much to protect it in this area), you grabbed your pepper spray. ‘ I really hope your worth all this .’

As you followed the thread down the alleyway, you heard a sudden loud bang. A gunshot. You stopped in your tracks and you could feel your heart pick up its pace. Your thread lead in the direction the shot had come from. ‘ I really hope you weren’t involved with that .’ Taking a deep breath, you continued down the alleyway.

The alleyway lead out onto another street. There was a small crunching sound as you stepped out onto the street. Taking a step back, you looked to the ground to see what you had just stepped on. The ground was littered with small shards of glass. Looking up, you figured the shards of glass were from the bulbs from the streetlamps. Something had broken them. It didn’t take you long to figure out what, or rather who ,was responsible.

Further down the street, taking on group of ten men, was none other than Gotham’s Caped Crusader. The Batman.

You quickly ducked back into the alley you had just left. You then carefully peered around the wall, so you could watch the fight. You were well aware of the fact that your thread was leading straight toward the fight. Which meant that your soulmate was involved.

You watched the fight intensely, both intrigued and terrified to figured which one of the men was on the end of your thread. There was a voice in the back of your head praying hardcore that it was the hero in the centre of the fight.

Batman was a blur of black and dark grey as he rapidly made his way through the group of men. With a variety of different punches, kicks and gadgets, he made short work of them. During his combat flow, you followed your thread with your eyes and a small gasp left you as you realised who the other end was attached to.

Holy fuck. You’re friends had, kind of, been right. While your soulmate wasn’t Wonder Woman or Superman, like they had suggested, he was apart of the Justice League’s ‘Big Three’. Your soulmate was Batman . At least now you knew why he hadn’t come looking for you. He’d been busy saving the world.

Now you had to figure out how to approach him before he ended up disappearing into the night.

Exiting your cover, you took your thread between your finger and thumb and gently tugged on it a couple of times.

Batman looked at his end of the thread curiously as your tugs had gotten his attention. Then his head drifted upwards, following where it lead till his eyes settled on you.

If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. He just stood there, his eyes never leaving you. Part of you wanted to cower away from the intense stare, but you willed yourself not to. He was your soulmate, and you weren’t a criminal,  you had no reason to be afraid.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, finally ending the silence between you. His voice was deep and almost robotic sounding. Probably some sort of voice modulator to help hide his identity, you figured.

“In Gotham? Yeah, this place really sucks,” you replied, thinking about all the things you had heard about this city, “but I came here to find my soulmate; to find you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” His voice was sharp and serious as he spoke. He also sounded irritated at your sudden appearance, which caused you to frown. That couldn’t be right… could it?

“What?” You hated how meek and pathetic your voice sounded, but you couldn’t help it. Wasn’t this supposed to be a happy moment? One of the happiest in your life in fact. Instead you felt like you were being scolded rather than meeting the person who was supposed to be your other half.

“I didn’t want to meet you. Now I suggest you go home. It’s not safe here.”

What? You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. There was pressure behind your eyes and your throat tightened. You took a shaky breath as you took a step backwards away from him. It quickly sunk in that the man you’d been destined to be with, the man you had thought about since you were old enough to understand the concept of a soulmate, wanted nothing to do with you.

“I-I’m sorry I disturbed you.” Your voice broke as you fought back the tears that threatened to fall. You weren’t going to give him that satisfaction. You then turned around and ran back toward where you had left your car.

As fast as you could, you started your car up and made your way to a safer part of the city. It didn’t take you long to find a somewhat empty parking lot to park in. Once the engine was off, you screamed and aggressively slammed against the wheel as you let the tears freely fall.

You felt like a complete and utter fucking idiot. Of course he didn’t want you. You’d probably just get in the way of him saving the world or something like that. Besides, what was that article you had seen a few months ago? Something about Catwoman and a relationship between the two? While it happened very rarely, some people in the world had been known to reject their soulmate because they had found someone they deemed better. Is that what had happened? Whatever the reason, you could feel your heart breaking.

You had used to think that, out of all the members of the Justice League, Batman had been one of the cooler members. Now all you could think was that he was a massive jerk.

Maybe it was your own fault for romanticising the whole thing and thinking that your meeting would be something out of a fairytale. Apparently fate was far crueller than you could have ever thought it to be.

Bruce watched as she ran away from him, back down the alleyway she had come from. A small voice in the back of his head told him to go after her. To grab her, hold her close and apologise, tell her that he hadn’t meant it. He ignored it and headed off in the opposite direction, back to where he had left the batmobile.

Over his comms, he heard a barely audible sigh and he could easily picture his butler and lifelong friend shaking his head in disappointment. No doubt he was going to get an earful once he got back to the batcave. Well it certainly wasn’t the first time.

As the batmobile pulled up in the batcave, he could see Alfred waiting for him. ‘ Here we go ,’ he thought as he got out of his car and removed his cowl.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he stated as he walked past him and toward the batcomputer. He set his cowl down on the desk. Even as the words left his mouth he knew he had wasted his breath. If there was one thing that Alfred had done consistently since Bruce had started down this path, it was letting him know when he disagreed with something he did.

“Was that really necessary Master Bruce? She’s come all of this way…” Alfred started, but ended up trailing off. There was a small moment of silence before he continued. “You know, I remember a small boy who couldn’t wait to go out there and find…” Before he could finish what he was saying, Bruce promptly cut him off.  

“What would you have me do, Alfred?!” His voice echoed off of the cave’s walls and disturbed some of the bats still hanging on the ceiling. Bruce gestured toward his equipment and the display cases that held some rather badly damaged batsuits. All of them testaments to injuries that had come far too close to killing him. “Would you really have me force this life on to her? The dangers, the no guarantee I’ll come home…” He took a deep breath and rested both his hands on the surface of his desk. “She deserves so much better.” His voice was quiet, but still easily heard in the, almost, silent cave.

“With all due respect, sir, I believe she should be allowed to make that decision, not you,” Alfred replied before leaving the batcave, not giving Bruce a chance to respond.

He looked in the direction of the stairs that lead up into the manor. The direction that Alfred had headed in. Was he right? Should he be leaving it up to her to decide what she wanted? But with all the dangers he faced nightly… No, it was better for him to stay far away from her.

Over the following week Bruce found himself distracted. It didn’t matter where he was, what he was doing, he couldn’t focus. And considering what he did once night fell over Gotham, to say being unfocused really wasn’t good was a complete understatement of the situation. He had been having far too many close calls recently.

He couldn’t get it out of his head. The way she had looked at him as he told her he didn’t want to meet her, that she should leave. Alfred’s words echoed in his mind and he found himself questioning the decisions he had made that night. Something that Bruce rarely, if ever, did. Everything he did was meticulously planned and there was never any doubt when he made a decision. Was this what happened once you met your soulmate and rejected them?

Bruce was sure that the rest of the Justice League had taken notice. With how off beat and slow to react to certain things, it would be hard not to. Of course, if they had, none of them had mentioned it to him. Apparently they knew better. For the time being, at least. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before they did try to pry into his personal life.

Which lead him here. On the roof of the building opposite of Y/N’s apartment building. He hadn’t needed to do any extensive research to find her, or learn her name, because he had been in this exact spot a couple of years ago.

Two years ago Bruce’s own curiosity had gotten the better of him. He blamed Clark and his soulmate, a reporter by the name of Lois Lane, for it. He had seen them one too many times in the Watchtower together and had found himself wondering who exactly his soulmate was and what they was like. As a result, he had gone looking for them. Not because he wished to finally meet them, but so he could make sure his soulmate was safe and happy. And she was, so he had left. Only ever checking up on her every now and then to make sure she had stayed that way.

He looked down at the golden thread that came out of his gauntlet and lead down toward the apartment he’d been watching. Both as Bruce Wayne and Batman he had made sure to keep it well hidden. With its unique colouring he couldn’t allow anyone to see it. It would be all too easy for his enemies to find her if they did see it.

He knew that by being here he was easily undoing everything he had done to keep her safe, but, then again, had she not done exactly that when she had tracked him down in Gotham? Besides, and while he would never say it out loud, Alfred had been right. It should be up to Y/N to decide whenever or not she wanted all the baggage that came with him being in her life. Baggage that had driven more than one person from his life…

He shook that thought from his head and got up from his crouched position on the roof. Bruce then leapt from the roof and allowed himself to fall for a couple of seconds before opening up his cape and let it catch the wind that was rushing past him. He silently glided over to her apartment’s balcony.

Y/N was in her apartment alone. She was sat on her sofa, the light from the tv was the only thing illuminating the room.

Bruce was unsure of how exactly to go about this. Back in Gotham he had originally thought of approaching her as Bruce Wayne, but quickly discarded it. Bruce Wayne showing up at an out of the way apartment building was sure to garner attention. As would Batman using the front door, so the balcony had seemed to be the best option. But now that he was here, he wasn’t entirely sure it was.

Should he just knock? That seemed like the best way to go about this. It was going to scare the everloving daylights out of her, but he could deal with that.

He gently rapped the glass of the balcony door with his knuckles. As he had expected, Y/N leapt up from her seat. A bowl and the contents of the bowl followed her and scattered across her carpeted floor. She spun around and when she saw him, the look of shock on her face quickly turned to anger. Her eyes narrowed and he swore that glare would be enough to make even the toughest of Gotham’s thugs would cower at its intensity. Maybe she would deal with his life better than he thought.

After a minute of glaring at him, she turned around and walked toward the lightswitch. At the same time, she gestured for him to enter.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” she demanded as soon as he had entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. The rage in her voice was evident and Bruce was sure he could cut the tension in the room with a batarang.

“I came to apologise,” he said, his voice gentle despite how distorted his modulator made it sound. Y/N scoffed immediately. He didn’t blame her. If he was in her shoes, he wouldn’t believe him either. After all ‘Batman’ wasn’t exactly known for making apologies.

“Yeah right.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m being truthful. I… I shouldn’t have said what I said. It wasn’t right.”

“Then why did you say it?” A fair question and one he had an answer to. Before he even said it, Bruce was aware how cliché it sounded.

“I wanted to keep you safe. This life isn’t for everyone.”

“So without even meeting me, you decided that it wasn’t for me.” She shook her head. “That’s not your decision to make!” she yelled at him.

“I know. It’s been pointed out to me before.” In fact that night in the cave wasn’t the first time Alfred had told him that. “But that’s why I’m here now. To give you all the information you need to make that decision.”

You listened intently as Batman explained the dangers of the life he was leading. The dangers that effected the people in his life in one way or another. He also made it a point to reiterate the fact that when he left at night or was summoned by the Justice League there was no guarantee he would return. You asked the occasional question, but for the most part you just listened to him to talk and let his words sink in.

You got it. You understood the very clear concerns that Batman had about this whole thing, they concerned you as well, but you weren’t about to let it deter you. You wanted to know your soulmate. Even if it ended horribly, like he was saying it would, you felt it in your core that you would regret not knowing him, especially if the worst truly did happen. And you told him so.

“Even if you’re not wearing a mask, this life is dangerous. Anything can happen.”

“Anything could happen to me when I leave my apartment each day.”

The superhero life wasn’t special in that regard. As you spoke, your voice was a lot calmer than it had been earlier. In fact, as he had spoke and explained you had found your anger slowly fading. You still wanted to slap the jerk superhero before you, but that was a considerable downgrade from your overwhelming need to deck him when you first saw him standing on your balcony.

“It won’t be easy.”

“I’ve never backed down from a challenge before.”  

You admired his commitment to deter you, but it wasn’t going to work. You were too stubborn to let it. Something you were positive he was learning very quickly.

“There’s nothing I can say to convince you that this is a bad idea, is there?”  

“Nope.” You made sure to pop the ‘p’.

Batman sighed deeply. You watched as he looked away from you and toward the golden thread that linked the two of you together. You could almost hear the gears in his brain turning as he thought. Then he was looking back up at you.

“In that case then.”

You watched as Batman brought his hands up to his cowl. Your eyes widened and you couldn’t help the small gasp that left you as he removed the cowl and revealed his identity to you. Bruce Wayne. While you didn’t live in Gotham City, you were well aware of Gotham’s favoured son. You would’ve had to have lived underneath a rock to not know who he was.

And apparently your family had been right on the money, literally. Not that you cared about the money, you weren’t superficial like that. Personality was far more important than the material items someone may or may not have. In your eyes, at least.

You both stood in silence, his blue eyes studying you, probably trying to gauge how you were going to react. To be truthful, you weren’t entirely sure how to react. Except maybe…

“Well, it’s… it’s nice to meet you Bruce Wayne. I guess this is the part where we forget about what happened and start over?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Yeah, sure, this was probably going to end horribly, but you were looking forward to the adventure that lie ahead.

[asterroidd]

cotton sweatshirt

↬  College AU

↬  Pairing: Levi Ackerman/Reader

↬  Word count: 2.6k

↬  Synopsis:  Fatigue was slowly consuming you, luckily your roommate is there to save the day

↬  Notes: Thank you so much for the request anon! I apologize it took so long before I wrote it. Anw, I hope you enjoy it!

↬  no proofread whatsoever, capn’

5th and 12th prompts: “Give me back my keys! I’m fine!” and “Did you know that you talk in your sleep?”

    It was too much. All too much; the endless tasks, the studying, and numerous all-nighters that you had pulled by now.

    It was so taxing that your body couldn't keep up; eyes blood shot red from restless staring at the laptop screen, sunken cheeks due to the insufficient meal you are getting, and dark bags under your eyes that are evidently visible even from afar. If one would see you in such a state, one would assume you are a zombie or the living dead.

    Chewing your bottom lip, fingers anxiously taped against the wooden desk. Drained yes boring into the laptop screen as you tried your best to understand the text displayed in it. Your professor just had to be missing in action that week due to health reasons and as such couldn't attend most of the classroom session to teach. The replacement is just as worse—having no mastery over the lesson at hand that it only made it more confusing than before. So, you had to self-study for the sole sake of having a passing grade this semester. Finals weeks is looming around the corner and it's best that you understands the lessons beforehand so that you wouldn't have difficulty in studying once again later on.

    Your study session was supposed to be done before noon, yet here you are still hunched over the desk. A pencil at hand in attempt to take notes in the filler notebook. Your other hand curled up a fist full of hair, then ever so often tugging it in frustration. True, you did try to search online for other readings and videos that could potentially help you in your dilemma. Alas, you find yourself scratching your scalp and pulling your hair in frustration as you failed, yet again, to grasp the concept of the topic.

    Perhaps a book, you thought to yourself. There is a local library nearby—suppose a ten minute walk, could be even seven if you walked fast enough. For sure there are a handful of books there that could finally help you in understanding the lesson. And so with a drained sigh, you closed the lid of the laptop and stood up.

    You took in your surroundings; which was an utter mess. Eraser shards littered on top of your desk that some even fell to the floor due to you hastily sweeping them off. Mountains of books scattered around—some opened with a random item on top to act as a makeshift paper weight. Sticky notes plastered all over the walls and stacks upon stacks of paper everywhere. In short, your room looks like a battleground.

     Which it is; an academic battleground, that is.

    That said, you swiftly stuffed a handful of notebooks and pens into a small backpack so you could continue the study session at the library. Perhaps a change in environment would ease you off and clear your mind. When you exited from your room, you were surprised to see Levi lounging off the living room. A bowl of popcorn on his lap whilst lazily popping one in his mouth every so often. His eyes glued to the TV screen as it played a series, The Confession Tapes you presumed. Ever since you showed him the first episode a few days ago, he was so intrigued and thus became so hook with the story line.

    Oh, to have freedom and time for leisure activities like Levi. You would willingly kill just to have that.

    "I'll be heading off to the library for a while," you uttered under your breath. Levi turned his head towards your direction, slowly munching on the popcorn. "I might come home late so I'll bring the keys with me."

    He paused the movie momentarily to narrow his eyes at you. Levi looked at you from top to bottom, assessing and processing the current state you are in. Which was hell. You looked like a vampire that crawled out of your coffin after decades of isolation. Of all the years he and you had been roommate, Levi had practically memorised most of your mannerism and behaviour so much. And at the moment, he knew all to well that you would be, yet again, working yourself to the grave.

    With a sigh, Levi placed the bowl of popcorn on top of the coffee table before approaching you. "Can't you see yourself, idiot?"

    You scrunched up your nose in confusion. What does he mean by that?

    "When was the last time you ate?"

    You racked your brain for answers. When was it truly that last time you had a proper meal besides energy bars that you bought from the convenience store. You went silent for a moment, eyes cascading down.

    "I had instant noodles I think? Last night," you answered after a pregnant pause.

    "Then that means you have not eaten anything since this morning?"

    You only nodded in response, all too tired to argue back with him. All you wanted to do was to finally leave the apartment and resume your study session in the library. Where, in hopes, you could finally progress in.

    Levi clicked his tongue. No wonder you look like a living dead. You are barely getting any nutrition in your body at all! Being studious is a great thing—but being all too unforgiving and torturing one's body too much is an unacceptable habit.

    As swift as a fox, he snagged the keys from your hands. You, in your drained state, reacted poorly and sluggishly. Though, you gave him one ferocious glare.

    "Give it back, Levi." You held out your hand.

    "No. You should rest. You look like shit."

    "Give me back my keys. I'm fine!"

    Levi, much to your surprise, had a hint of worry in his eyes. Silence fell between you and him, eyes focused on each other. You thought of kicking him on the shin, then took the chance to grab the keys. But you find yourself unable to as your body slowly slumped over.

    You let out one tired sigh, eyes closing every now and then in drowsiness, but you can't give in. Not now. Not at least you'd finally understand and finish writing your notes. Still, exams is a couple of weeks away. Surely a brief break wouldn't hurt?

   You groaned, the floor beneath your feet swaying as you struggled to keep yourself upright. It was only then did you notice the ever growing itch in your throat which signifies tonsillitis, mucus flooding your nasal passages, and increased body temperature.

     "I'm fine. . ." you inhaled sharply. "Just—" you continued but was caught short when your knees buckled under your weight, causing you to lean forward. Luckily enough, Levi caught you just in the nick of time before you fell face first into the wooden floor.

     "Tch. Look at what you got yourself into," he huffed, palm pressing against your forehead. "You also have a fever, dumbass."

    Did you now? You let your head rest into his touch, relishing his cool touch against your flushed ones. Maybe you really need a rest.

   "How about you take a seat on the couch while I brew you a cup of tea?"

    "Sounds good. . ." you uttered under your breath.

    That said, Levi practically dragged your body towards the couch and helped you settle on it. Making sure that you are comfortable enough by placing pillows behind your head. The male crouched down to your level, bringing a hand up once again to your forehead to properly estimate your temperature this time.

    "Looks like a bad one. . ." he muttered.

    "You tell me. I feel like shit," you've managed to crack a joke despite your conditions. Levi rose his brow at you, shaking his head at your idiocy. Then you watched him as he removed his cotton sweatshirt that hung loosely on his figure. Suffice to say, you were beyond perplexed when Levi placed the article of clothing on top of your lap.

    "You're cold aren't you?" he shrugged his shoulders. "Wear that for the time being to keep you warm."

    That said, he soon disappeared inside the kitchen to perhaps brew you a cup of tea much to your delight. It is practically known that the male had an immense skill in brewing and perfecting the art of tea. And as his roommate, Levi practically forced you to learn how to brew yourself; mainly because he doesn't want you wasting precious tea leaves that are far too expensive to be wasted. You recalled the time spent with him, hours upon hours inside the kitchen while trying your best to not burn your hands as you, yet again, try to perfect boiling tea. Levi stood beside you, a scowl present on his face as he frowned at your blend.

    Do it again, he snarled. The temperature is not right.

    It was little moments such as those reminds you of how much of a stuck up bitch Levi is. Nonetheless, the male still have a special place in your heart as your roommate and perhaps crush.

    Gingerly holding his sweater in your hands, you took one deep whiff of his scent—despite mucus flooding your nose—relishing the soft floral scent of the detergent that he bought about a week ago. Yet, Levi's natural aroma gradually overflows your nasal cavity; refreshing and clean with a hint of musky scent. It was pure heaven.

    Blood rushed to your cheeks as you let his sweatshirt hug your body, encompassing you more with his scent. Truth to be told, it was your long time dream to wear one of Levi's clothing. Suppose it was the thought of you in his clothes that brings butterflies to your stomachs, or the pure concept of his smell flooding your senses. Either way, you liked it.

    "Hey. . ." Levi's voice boomed which slightly startled you. The male placed a mug full of tea on the coffee table before kneeling down and opening a pack of fever patch.

    "What flavor did you brew?" you mumbled.

    "Chamomile," Levi replied, brushing your hair away from your forehead. For a brief moment, he stopped to stare at your glossy eyes due to the fever. Small patches of sweat that peppered your skin that glistened slightly under the light. Not to mention your lips that he oh so long to get a taste of for months—but he wouldn't tell you that out loud. Red dusted his cheeks ever so lightly that you would've missed if it weren't for your keen attention to detail.

    Levi bit the insides of his cheeks, slapping himself internally to focus at the task at hand which it to place a fever patch on your forehead. That said, he carefully set it against your temples. Making sure that it is adhered on firmly as to not fall in case you tossed and turn in your sleep. A smile adorned your features as soon as the cool hydrogel rested against your skin. You mumbled a quick gratitude towards the male before snuggling deep into his sweatshirt.

    "Levi. . ." you started to which he hummed in response, helping you sit up. Then, the male gave you the mug with hot tea. Its heavenly aroma making you sigh in relax. "Come sit with me?" you asked, patting the space next to you.

    The male opened his mouth to argue; to refuse your request because he doesn't want to catch your germs and be sick himself. Though, with one look at your puppy-dog eyes and pouting lips, Levi knew that he wouldn't be able to resist you. "Fine. . ." he begrudgingly replied.

    You let out a small cheer of victory. Placing your head on top of his shoulder the minute he sat beside you. Even for just a moment—just for this day—you want to delve into your fantasies and revel in the company of the male. Levi looked at you from the corner of his eye, admiring how his sweatshirt that embraces your form. Due to him being quite short in stature, his clothes were not too big. So, naturally, most of his wardrobe would probably fit you. Which he has no complaints about.

    "Can we watch Kitchen nightmares?" you asked, taking one small sip of tea as to not burn your tongue.

    Levi shrugged, "Why not?" That said, he adhered to your request. Playing that one episode in the series that he knew you enjoyed watching despite the countless times you've already seen it.

    You relaxed back into the couch, letting more of your weight press against Levi as your hands cupped the warm mug in between. The brutal and fierce howls of criticism of Gordon Ramsey brings a small smile to your lips, and oddly enough, as well as Levi's. Watching Kitchen's Nightmares (as well as other shows that the iconic chef starred in) was a guilty pleasure, so to say, of both yours and the male's. There is just something so satisfying how the chef makes people humble down and admit their mistakes.

    One great thing that comes from watching his series was that Levi could learn a thing or two in cooking. Even though he was already great from the start. The male picks up a recipe or two just by watching the series, much to your satisfaction. Between you and Levi, he is the mother of the household, if you will. While you're just one lazy couch potato who would receive an ear full of scolding every now and then.

    Soon enough, you felt your eyelids closing involuntarily, yet you fought to keep them open. It was getting into the good part—the climax—of the episode and you didn't want to sleep through it. Though, you find yourself giving in and finally letting your eyes rest for once. You exhaled, rubbing your cheeks against Levi's shoulder blades in attempts to get more comfortable. The male shifted on the couch, allowing you to be cozy and warm with him beside you.

    In your dazed state, you swore that Levi slowly rest his head on top of yours. Nevertheless, you couldn't conclude if it was true since the sweet embrace of sleep consumed you. For the first time in that week, you finally had a good night's rest.

    Levi relaxed under your touch, finally relieved that you gave in and let your body get the rest it deserves after days upon days of continuous work. He contemplated whether to turn off the television so that the noise wouldn't bother you in your sleep, or keep it open since a part of him wants to finish the episode. Though, his thoughts were caught short when you murmured.

    "Levi. . ." you mumbled in your sleep, hands gripping his sweatshirt.

    "What?" he humored, despite knowing that you are in deep slumber and is probably sleep-talking.

    Then to his surprise, you whispered a phrase that he never anticipated would slip past your lips.

    "I love you. . ."

    He was taken a back, eyes wide while his mouth slightly hung open. Levi blinked once, then twice, trying to process if what he heard was real or was his imagination deceiving him.

    "Did you know you talk in your sleep?" Levi said, testing to see if you were truly asleep or was just toying with him. When he concluded that you were—in fact—knocked out and catching some Z's, he breathed lowly the three words he oh so wanted to tell you for months.

    "I love you, too. Brat." He snaked his hand around yours, intertwining his fingers around your hand.

    Little did Levi know, you were half-awake during his confession.

[falsegoodnight]

these are the fics I read or reread and enjoyed this month! like last time, i’m separating it into different sections: main list, podfics, wips, and non-1d. rereads will be included in the main list and marked with *.

*note: this list encompasses the fics i’ve read from the 1st to the 25th and any fics read after will be included in next month’s fic rec list because otherwise this is going to be obnoxiously long. 

—

main list ~

✰ black cherries and chocolate by @harryanthus​ | NR | 666 (intense and jarring in the best way. this leaves you with that heart-racing feeling and panic crawling up your throat)

There is something or well, someone in the walls.

✰ keep secrets just to keep you by @hadestyles​ | T | 1k (loved this so much!! and need 1000000 more royalty abos from rori immediately)

“With the elements as my witness, I take you to be my husband. My heartbeat begins with you and ends with you, Louis Tomlinson.” Louis sinks to his knees as well, salty tears mixing with the pure rainwater. “And I take you as mine. My heart beats for you and with you.”

✰ bitter coffee and sweet love by @dontfuckwithmyotp​ | G | 1k (so cute and sweet!! proud of you ari for getting your first fic out and excited to see what you do next!)

“Hello! Welcome to The Busy Bean! Are you new?” Louis blinked in surprise at the voice and looked around to find the source. “Behind you,” The person tapped his shoulder once and he whirled around at the unexpected touch.

“Hey! Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to interrupt a person—” His rant stopped when he finally faced them. It was a guy—Harry Styles, according to his small black name tag. His eyes widened in embarrassment.

✰ turn your mic off, baby by @vogueharrystan​ | E | 2k (i love when lilli writes harry’s pov. this was so hot!)

Louis walks around the house naked all day and ignores Harry to play video games instead. Harry gets tired of it.

✰ This Could Be Love by mulletharry | G | 2k (such a cute and perfect little valentine’s day fic! put the biggest smile on my face <3)

Harry and Louis have been together for four months. They spend their first Valentine’s Day together.

✰ you appear as my soul by @hadestyles​​ | T | 2k (so gorgeous and raw)

He aches — not as much as Louis, he could never imagine all that he bears quietly — and as cruel as it sounds, it keeps reminding him of how fragile they are.

✰ the energy from your body by sweetielouis | E | 3k (hilarious, hot, and cute!)

Harry and his friends have a popular podcast, for the Valentines Day special they get a bit drunk and talk a bit too comfortably about their friends arses.

It's a good thing Louis doesn't mind it all that much. 

✰ look how i remember by @harryanthus​ | M | 4k (this left me speechless and aching)

He hates it, he wants to scream and tell Harry as much. Kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me as if we are in love. Kiss me like you will never do it again. Kiss me with so much hatred that it turns back to love.

✰ Things Unsaid by @londonfoginacup​ | G | 5k (so so cute and funny!!)

"That chunky oversized sweater is like a clown outfit made for winter."

It feels like time slows down.

Those words echo in his mind, familiar. Why are they familiar? The— the sweater he saw last week. The one with all the knit squares.

The train slows to a stop and Louis just— he doesn’t move. He feels frozen in place as people surge around him. Suddenly everyone is moving too fast and then just as suddenly the car is near empty, taking off again.

The man is gone.

His soulmate is gone.

✰ reckless serenade by @thepolourryexpress​ | E | 4k (adorable and funny and amazing!)

Harry's Google search history may or may not look like 'my girlfriend doesn't know we're dating.'

✰ dancing in the moonlight by @outropeace​ | E | 5k (need 100k more of this immediately, thanks. so wonderful)

Louis’ fuck buddy gets a date for Valentine’s day and he discovers that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

✰ The truth is, the stars are falling by larrysbeanies | E | 5k (hot!!! walking-in trope that i love so much)

Harry knows Louis is gay. Hell, he came out to Harry exactly two months ago (when the dreadful dry spell started) because it was becoming increasingly hard to hide the fact that his one night stands were men. And, you know, they’re best friends so there aren’t supposed to be secrets and all that.

Thing is, Louis told Harry he’s gay ergo, Harry is aware that Louis likes men. Why the fuck did he act so normal while fingering him three days ago, then? Is this something straight guys do to their gay best friends in Harry’s world?

Louis would really like to know.

✰ to be used and to be in love by @thelesserneptune​ | E | 5k (blessed that this is a series. really hot and cute!)

Louis doesn't know why his filthy best friend turned into a vanilla boyfriend and thinks of the perfect birthday present to solve that problem.

✰ on the borderline by @princelouisau​ | E | 8k (the way danielle writes... poetry. this broke me down and then stitched me back up <3)

Louis makes his choice.

✰ One Step Closer by agrinwithouthiscat | G | 12k (reading asexual hl fics is instant comfort and this was lovely)

The one fake relationship AU where they don't end up together.

✰ i glow pink in the night by @raspberryoatss​ | E | 12k (hybrid louis perfection, beautiful writing, characters, and story as always!)

Harry reads a lot of articles about hybrids and Louis is determined to prove them wrong.

✰ The Thinker of Tender Thoughts by @speakingwithink | G | 13k (asexual hl again! this one made me cry) 

Louis sits on his hands to stop them from shaking as he adds, ‘and I’m ace.’ If only he had glitter, he thinks. Coming out deserves a bit of sparkle.

✰ Kiss Me Once, Kiss Me Twice by @harriblou​ | M | 13k (enemies with benefits to lovers goodness! so hot and entertaining)

“You’re a fucking brat, you know that,” Harry muttered through clenched teeth, bones already burning with the pure desire and hatred mixing in his body. It was an intoxicating rush of adrenaline and something else that probably came with fucking Louis Tomlinson. He squeezed his neck just a little tighter. “I can’t stand it.”

Their lips were brushing against each other, just moving with the ragged movements of their mouths and harsh breathing.

“You’re a lying piece of shit dickhead,” Louis muttered right back. That was all he did, challenge and nag. He loved to have the last word and Harry let him because he used all his energy to fuck him mindless.

✰ hold onto your stars by vashtaneradas | NR | 16k (this writer’s atmosphere/prose draws me in every time. such a lovely story)

Harry's in the army, Louis' back home, and ninety days is a lifetime.

✰ The Future is Now by @jacaranda-bloom​ | E | 16k (love fics in this five times format and this one was so unique and cool!! and the friends to lovers aspect = chef’s kiss)

Five times Louis follows the fortunes to seek out his true love, and the one time he realises that what he's been searching for might've been right in front of him the whole time.

✰ Visceral Heat & Carnal Highs by @theisolatedlily​ | E | 18k (the prose in this... gorgeous. so fucking good and addicting. delighted that there’s going to be a sequel and excited for whatever lily does next!)

Louis is a demon at a house party prowling for a meal, indulging in horrendous sins to satisfy his hunger. Harry is the talk of the night, beckoning all eyes on him and the reason why Louis’s plan goes awry.

✰ deFENCEless by @solvetheminourdreams​ | T | 27k (this was so cute and so funny and i had the biggest smile on my face the entire time. not surprised since stef always evokes that in me with her writing)

When Louis butts heads with his new neighbor who loves to garden a little too much, all he can do to protect his yard (and heart), is keep on building up his fence(s).

✰ darling, you give love a bad name by snowcaplou | M | 29k (been waiting for this one since summer and i wasn’t disappointed! so wonderful and real!)

Louis’ has been best friends with Gemma all his life in this stupid little town he’s grown to hate. What happens when, after one night together with his best friend’s brother, he falls pregnant? Surrounded by small minds and conservative cultures, Louis has to deal with parents that demand they do the “right” thing. Get married before anybody finds out.

✰ The Haunting of Louis Tomlinson* by @helloamhere​ | T | 31k (will never not be an all-time favorite. louis’ character is my absolute favorite - gothic heroine indeed - and harry is the best dramatic gay ghost ever <3)

Louis is a plucky Gothic Heroine, Harry is a Mournful Spirit, and Big Country Houses are full of mystery and suspense, as Big Country Houses ever are!

✰ begged and borrowed time by @bottomlwt​ | M | 40k (this concept was so unique and so cool!! loved the medieval setting and the time travel and how everything fit together in the end!!)

“It wasn’t until 1568 that it became time for Prince Harry to find a queen and prepare to rule. However, the day he was set to choose his bride-to-be, he mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again despite the multiple search parties that went on through the years. To this day, historians still do not know what happened with the infamous Prince Styles case..."

✰ Lidocaine and Palm Trees.* by @daddyharrie​ | E | 45k (definition of ris comfort read - on nth reread and still love it wholly. makes me miss la which is an astonishing feat in itself) 

Heat, fake tans and lots of traffic.

Harry never expected to earn his living this way when he moved to LA.

Louis didn't think he could ever be the same after his divorce.

A lighthearted story about two guys trying to find themselves in the vibrant, sprawling city of Los Angeles, with a side of technical porn industry stuff.

✰ haunted by the ghost of you* by @missandrogyny​ | E | 49k (perhaps my favorite fic of all time? the humor, the characters, the angst?!?! all the britney spears!! and pink ouija boards and wikihow!!)

He’s tall—that’s the first thing that registers in Louis’ head when he spots him, standing with his hands behind his back. Tall, with curly hair, staring at them with the widest, greenest eyes Louis has ever seen. And wait, are those dimples? Louis didn’t know ghosts could have dimples.

Because he’s definitely a ghost, this boy. At first glance he looks normal, standing there pigeon-toed in a band shirt (The Ramones, Louis can’t help but note incredulously), dark jeans, and some boots, with rings on both hands, and tattoos littering his left arm—a sleeve made of anchors and names and roses and other completely unrelated things. But he’s also a little bit translucent; if Louis focuses, he can see the outline of the furniture, the design of the wallpaper through him.

“Hi,” the boy—the ghost—says to Louis. His face shifts; somehow his dimples dig deeper into his cheeks. His eyes flit from Louis, to Niall, to Liam, and finally to Zayn, and his face goes from shocked to elated. “I’m Harry.”

At in that exact moment, standing between three of his best friends and staring at a (quite handsome) ghost, Louis can only think one thing.

Nick Grimshaw was right.

✰ like real people do by @eeveelou​ | E | 64k (this was... so amazing. the characters were so wonderfully written and so was the journey of healing and growth that louis undertakes over the story :’) loved the contrast between l and h’s lives and how they fit into each other still so perfectly)

Jessica Jones AU in which the dead stay where they belong, featuring Zayn as the high-powered lawyer with a hopeless crush on his assistant Liam, Niall as the constantly stoned but strangely insightful neighbor, Harry as Manhattan’s media darling, and Louis as the never-was hero who’s just trying to pick up the pieces.

✰ Black With Autumn Rain by whimsicule | T | 93k (i actually can’t remember if i’ve read this before??? either way - it was wonderful! loved the setting and atmosphere and the supernatural elements! i was so intrigued from the first sentence onwards)

Harry is a journalist, Louis has lots of secrets and the moors aren’t exactly the ideal place to rekindle a lost romance.

podfics ~

✰ tall stories on the page by @soldouthaz​ & read by @softlouislove​ | T (hannah’s voice is so lovely and perfect for reading aloud - and ofc the fic itself is amazing)

Harry's tired of being interviewed by people that only care about the same pointless gossip. Louis is a nice change of pace. 

wips ~

✰ Truth Behind Golden Eyes by @lwtisloved​ | E | 60k | 6/16 (just caught up fully today but i’m really enjoying everything! this is everything i’ve ever wanted in a fantasy fic)

Louis is a royal servant born with magic in a kingdom where his sole existence is outlawed with a war he has no idea he has a part in upon him. Harry is the prince on whom the burden of mending a broken kingdom falls upon and he might be willing to risk it all for a simple servant if only he admitted it to himself.

✰ ‘cause all our tomorrows lead the way by @loubellies​ | E | 39k | 3/10 (having a blast reading this one!! i’ve never seen the bachelor in my life but in fic-format, it’s so fun!)

So maybe Louis’ in over his head.

He had signed up for the Bachelor on a whim after his second bottle of wine and well, here he is. He’s just been announced as the twenty-sixth Bachelor and his ass is sweating. Like, literally sweating. He’s positive that if he was to turn around, the entirety of Bachelor Nation would get a nice peek of his ass sweat.

✰ The Night Still Whispers Sins of Old by @toomanydreamers​ | E | 6k | 2/? (loving this so much, as expected. can’t wait to see how everything unfolds)

Two and a half years have passed since the fateful day when Louis and Harry were crowned Triwizard champions. Confronted with misunderstandings, wounded pride and heartache, Louis stumbled away from the possibility of a future relationship with Harry. Instead, he buried himself into relentless work as a junior Auror and refused to let himself be vulnerable with another person. Circumstances change that force Louis to confront his feelings - and Harry. Stolen glances, picnics at sunrise, thrilling adventures, original spellwork, midnight feasts, soft lips and cautious second chances culminate in an unforgettable mission - but will it be enough to mend their relationship?

non-1d ~

✰ like a bullet needs a gun by @millsxwriting​ | T | 21k | wilds au (despite me having no context, mills still got me to fall in love with toni and shelby. this was so cute and lovely!!)

Toni doesn’t expect to fall for anyone in her senior year. Least of all for Shelby Goodkind, the new girl that arrived in town just before the end of summer. In fact, Toni can’t even look at her for longer than two seconds, or listen to more than three sentences coming out of her mouth without wanting to accidentally push her off a cliff. 

Cue a group project and endless bickering, and suddenly Toni finds herself with an unbearable crush.

If you read any of these beautiful works of art, remember to leave kudos and comment to show your appreciation!

*if i made any errors, please let me know :)

enjoy!

[expositions-of-malicision]

Welcome to Malcision

Well I've had this blog for a while now but haven't gotten around to using it. Guess it's time I get around to that.

It just so happens that today July 14th is the day I arbitrarily decided can be relevant to this Homestuck troll AU that's been living rent free in my head for the better part of 2 years. Because ya know 714 seems like a good number for an Evilliousstuck au!

So welcome! Does the idea of Evillious Chronicles characters as homestuck trolls interest you? Do you too like putting way too many brain cells into thinking about troll lore both fanon and canon? Alternian and Repitonian? Do you just like the concept of trolls as a species? Well then this AU may be for you!

Welcome to the Expositions of Malcision!

Under the cute I'll get some basic questions out of the way:

What tf kind of word is Malcision?

I really just tried and "trollify" the name Evillious Chronicles. Evillious is already a made up word so I made a new made up word with but with a synonym for evil. Since troll words involve a pretentious use of synonyms.

So are all the characters on Alternia now?

This AU takes place neither on Alternia nor Vast Error's Repiton! It is literally just turning the "canon" world of Evillious into a troll world. One that developed completely separately from the world of Homestuck. My mind really latched onto Vast Error's use of trolls as a concept in their own universe was like "ok cool what if I transplanted trolls onto of Evillious?"

So this is basically just EC canon with a troll coat of paint?

More or less yeah. There are changes by the necessity of trolls working different than humans and how Evillious as a world would have to be shifted to accommodate that. So a lot of the family relationships are either excluded entirely or vastly different. The lore sorta started spiraling out of control when I started thinking about all the little world building details. At this point it's like part canon and part headcanons for both EC and troll worldbuilding. 

Many of those headcanons have also managed to spiral out in full on plot diversions from where I either didn't personally like how it was happened in canon or again had to be changed for the troll setting.

So part EC canon with a troll coat of paint and part EC rewrite/au.

Ok cool. So that's the Evillious side of things down, what about the troll lore? How does this particular troll world work?

My brain decided to cannibalize lore from both Homestuck proper and Vast Error so the trolls work as a sorta mixture of both, but leaning more towards Repitonian. The biggest example is that I'm using Vast Error's hemospectrum system rather than Homestuck's. This is mostly cause I think it's neat for the hemospectrum to be an actual proper spectrum of possible colors instead of 12 distinct ones. The hemospectrum itself as an oppressive caste system still exists, though, unlike on Repitonian where the social aspects of it seem to have been mostly abandoned.

There is actually an entire post to be made just explaining how exactly these trolls work compared to Homestuck and Vast Error, so I'll leave it there for now. When I do make the post I'll link it here though!

Alright alright alright what about the AU itself? What is this some kind of fic? A fan comic? Is there anywhere I can read it?

It exists as a fully formed MSPFA in my mind but currently in the physical realm it only exists as my scattered worldbuilding ramblings. Someday I do hope to write it into a complete fic! Or at the very least write some smaller fics that take place in the au. 

Right now I really only have the energy to make infodumps of my ideas, both to get things organized and to get things out of my brain. I'm trapped in megaproject hell of my own creations basically.

I will say I am at least currently planning on doing a rewrite of SCaP for the AU. As a sort of “proof of concept” for more large scale fic. I actually wanted to have that written for today.... buuuut sometimes the executive function machine is broke.

[yami-writes]

The Underworld - AoA Mythology Event

(✨) paring(s) — Hades Shouto Todoroki x f!reader

(⚠️) warning(s) — some angst, talk about devils, hell and stuff, mentions of execution, fires and buildings burning down, major character death (nothing graphic)

(💌) yami's note — my contribution to Attack on Academia’s Mythology AU event! hope you enjoy- even though i know close to nothing about mythology :sob: also this isn’t a specific AU/theme or anything, i was pretty lost on what to do so i just went off what i knew + a bit of my own shit ( this is my first work in a while, i'm a bit rusty lmao )

Y/n, never to be held back by the rules. You always preferred to do things your way, bending and breaking rules to do what you wanted. 

“I’m supposed to be executed next month.” You took a bite out of your mashed potatoes while Denki choked on his. “What!? How could you say that so casually!?” 

“I don’t care. They’re supposed to be executing all the lifetime prisoners here as some sort of offering to the Devil or some shit.” 

You spent the better half of your life as a wanted criminal, committing acts left and right at your will. You never had a reason to commit crimes, it was more or less the ‘You Only Live Once’ mentality, as well as your own curiosity that drove you to be a bad person. For better or for worse, you enjoyed your life of crime. It was a never-ending adventure, a game. What crime will you commit this time? How many cops would show up this time? How far will you have to go to escape them? It was all a fun game to you.

“I’d rather be executed than spend the rest of my life in this place. We’re not even treated like humans. More like rabid animals that could attack at any moment. At least if I get executed I’ll be dead.” 

“At least if I eat food I won’t starve.” Denki mocked. “But is it true? Are you really going to be executed?” 

“Yeah.” you take another bite out of your lunch. “The guards hate us, they’ve been wanting to see our heads on a stick for a long time.” 

“What!? But if you die I won’t have anyone in here to keep me sane, y’know!! We’ve only been talking for a few days but I like you!!”

You merely nodded. 

“Hey, Y/n!” Mina poked your cheek. “What is it this time?” 

“Have you ever heard the term ‘yolo’?” 

“The fuck is a yolo?” 

“I said it’s a term!” Mina laughed. “It’s an abbreviation for ‘You Only Live Once’.”

You Only Live Once. Those four words touched your soul. They told you to go, do the things you never thought you’d do. Commit the crimes you’ve never even thought of committing. They told you nobody, not even the law could tell you what to do, only you could tell yourself what to do.

Time was passing fast. Minutes, hours, days passed and your execution only got closer. 

You didn’t care, but word sure did get around fast. Two weeks until the execution and everyone knew. You received weird looks wherever you went, which was normal, but these were different. You couldn’t explain what made them so different though. Maybe it was the way they lingered for longer than you’d like, as you had gotten used to the quick glances.

They were getting cocky. 

You ate your lunch in silence, Denki was nowhere to be seen but you couldn’t be bothered, you just hoped he wasn’t doing anything stupid. As your execution came up you had been thinking, mostly of your past, your decisions, your life. Specifically, that one night...

It was a quiet Sunday evening. After being passed around in foster homes, enduring abusive foster parent after abusive foster parent, you were put into an adoption center, where you were finally being taken care of. You never made friends with anyone, you were scared of them. You thought they’d hurt you, abuse you, call you names. You didn’t want to go through that again. 

“Hey!” A girl called out to you. She sat in front of you on the floor. “My name’s Mina!” The girl had messy pink hair, it was hard to tell if it was natural or not. You stared at her for a second, unsure of how to respond. “Hello.” Was all you could choke out. 

“You’re y/n, right? I think you’re cool, wanna do this puzzle with me?” She took out a puzzle of a cat wearing a wool hat.

“Sure.” 

“Yay!!” Mina cheered, quickly dumping the pieces on the floor.

From that point on your friendship with Mina flourished. Countless days and nights spent together. Laughing, talking and gossiping, together. You didn’t want it to end the way it did. 

Months later, you never imaged standing in front of the adoption centre, the building ablaze and falling apart due to fire damages. Your friend, Mina, nowhere to be seen outside of the building. Was she still inside? The entrance to the building had already caught fire and looked about ready to collapse. You weren’t quite sure if the emergency exits were available, but if they were Mina would’ve used them by now, she was always quick-witted. 

“y/n..” The adoption centre staff that had escaped with you puts her hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry, but… They’re gone.”

You understood the concept of death very well, you’ve experienced losing someone before, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Hello, y/n.” A lady walks up to you, waking you out of your daydream. Her hair is up in a tidy ponytail and she’s wearing a prison uniform, she’s a prisoner too? “What? I was hoping to enjoy my lunch alone.” 

“My apologies.” She sits down beside you. “I just wanted to talk to you before your execution, I think you’re very interesting.” You continue eating your lunch, minimalizing socializing with your prison mate. “Have you ever heard of ‘The Underworld’?” The lady asked. 

“The Underworld?” 

“Yes. It's where lifetime prisoners like us are bound to wind up. Lemme tell you about it.” She makes herself comfortable on the bench. 

“If he deems you to be a bad person, the Devil will bring your soul down to The Underworld as a way to punish you for the sins of your past life. It’s a large, dark place, filled with the souls of people like you and I, who have committed horrible crimes and now have to deal with the consequences forever.”

“I see... And why are you telling me this?”

“I’ve been telling everyone about it! We’re all gonna go there!! It's good to be informed. Anyways, I’ll leave you to your lunch now. It was nice talking to you, y/n.”

“Okay.”

You pondered for a while after listening to that woman. She seemed pretty nice but it was obvious she had some screws loose. 

You also thought about her teachings of The Underworld. If you enjoyed your life to the fullest, did it really matter what happens in the afterlife? You asked yourself that question often. You were more curious than you were afraid of the underworld. 

You’ve heard many different interpretations of it, although the most common seemed to be one of suffering. Eternal suffering at the hands of Satan. The supreme ruler of Hell torments your soul for longer than the human mind can comprehend as a means to pay for the sins of your past life. The cold-blooded Devil rests on his throne as he listens to the tortured screams for mercy, to be set free.

The thought left your mind soon after, although you never seemed to get that woman off your mind. She was interesting, to say the least. 

Two days. Two more days until you’re to be executed. As the days went by you became more and more curious. You had been thinking of the woman often. 

She was a kind, yet mysterious lady. You’d gone around and asked other prisoners about her, but they all had nothing. Some people said something about her being pulled from a mental hospital and into jail but those seemed to just be rumours. Who is she? Where could she have gone? The prison was relatively big, so finding a specific person would prove to be pretty difficult, but almost two weeks of searching should’ve yielded at least some sort of information. You had given up on finding anything about her, she was just someone who wanted to speak to you, there was no need to spend the last few days of your life on her. 

You never stopped thinking of The Underworld, or whatever it was called at this point. You wondered what it was really like. What really happened down there? Are bad souls really tortured for eternity? Is there even an afterlife? You wanted to know. 

You went to bed thinking about it. About your afterlife. 

You opened your eyes, a dark blue sky looking back at you. Outside? Your head was pounding and your throat was dry. Your body ached. 

You could hear an eerie ambiance in the distance, this was truly an odd place. Ignoring the pain, you got up, taking a good look around you. The ground was made out of a mix of rock and dirt, around you seemed to be lakes of water. The sky was a dark blue colour, almost like a night sky, although there was no moon, stars, or sun. 

“Hello.” a voice called out to you. You turned in the direction of the voice, a hooded figure stood before you. “Who are you?? Where am I??” 

“Woah woah, calm down.” a hooded figure tried to calm you down. Their voice was rather kind, leading you to believe they weren’t a threat to you, they seemed to calm you down a bit. They wore a black, hooded robe and grasped a long stick with a red gem on the top. Behind them was a river, as well as a boat. “Was it a rough fall?” 

“...Yeah,” you looked up at the gloomy sky, “I guess so.” 

“I’m sorry about that, I'll ask him to add some sort of cushion here.” the mysterious person takes off their hood, revealing green hair and a rather cute freckled face. “I’m Izuku, I’ll be bringing you to the mainland.”

“Mainland?? Wait where even is this place, why am I here?? I’m supposed to be in prison right now-” 

“Oh! You’re in The Underworld now. You’re dead, I'm sorry..”

“Dead!? How!? I wasn’t executed yet!” 

“Your questions will be answered once we get there, so come with me into this boat and I'll take you to the mainland.” Izuku leads you to the boat, preparing it to sail once you get in, and soon enough, the boat starts to move onward.

“We might be here for a while, mind telling me about your past life? He never tells me anything about the souls that wind up here.” 

“Uh sure, I guess. My parents died when I was still young, so I was tossed around in foster homes until they just stuck me in an adoption centre… One day one of the ladies that worked there caused a fire and it got burnt down, only me and that lady survived. After that I moved to the next town over and started a life of crime, I enjoyed it. Eventually, the police caught me and I was sentenced to jail for life for all the crimes I committed, they planned to execute me tomorrow but.. Y’know, I’m dead now.” 

“Hm.. what an unfortunate life you’ve lived, although that story isn’t very new around here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard the stories of most of the souls down here, their lives began to tumble after a traumatic event. The loss of a loved one, car crashes, tragedies, I've heard it all before, but it doesn't get any less saddening.” 

“I see..” you sigh, slumping over the side of the boat. You stare down at the water, watching your reflection. The water was almost as dark as the sky, tinted a greenish colour. ‘I’m kinda tired…’

“And~~ we're here!” Izuku announces, stopping the boat. “Sure did take a while.” You step out of the boat, taking a look around. It looks identical to where you first woke up.

“Follow that path, it’ll take you to Hades. He never asks to see anyone so you’re special!”

“He asked to see me!?”

“Yeah, I'm not sure as to why, but you better hurry! He doesn’t like waiting.” 

“Oh, okay! Thanks!” 

You immediately make your way down the path, concerned as to what Hades himself wanted from you. The path seemed to stretch on forever, turning corners before another straight, long extension. It almost left like you were going in a long circle. 

At this point you had been in The Underworld for 30 minutes, although the sky hadn’t seemed to change at all, was there no time here? 

After a long 15 minutes of walking, you made it to a large palace, tall gates of steel keeping unwanted guests from entering. A button rested on the side of the gate entrance. You pressed the button, unsure of what it would do. You wouldn’t be surprised if it summoned another hooded figure like Izuku to escort you into the palace, this place was unpredictable. 

A loud ‘buzz’ sound erupted from the button upon being pressed, followed by a “Who’s there?” The voice on the other side was definitely different from Izuku's. It was deeper, but pleasant. “I’m y/n, Izuku told me Hades wanted to see me?” 

You heard another buzz sound before the front gates opened. You anxiously walked in, not sure what to expect next. Your mind raced with thoughts as you wandered through the halls of what you assumed to be Hades’ palace. It was surprisingly bland on the inside, though. Maybe he wasn’t good with interior design. 

After making your way through the halls, you were met with a surprisingly small room, with the classic long, expensive red carpets you would only see in movies. You felt somewhat bad for stepping on it, it looked expensive. 

You looked up to see someone, a humanlike being sitting upon a throne. 

“Hello?” you called out to them, inching closer. 

“Ah, you must be y/n.” They acknowledge, standing from their throne and walking up to you. Was this Hades? 

He looked more human than you thought he would. His face is what caught your attention, he was incredibly handsome. The type of man you’d only see in your dreams. His hair split in the middle, his left red and his right white. There also seemed to be a red mark on the left side of his face, it looked like a burn scar… 

“Uhm, why’d you call me here? Shouldn’t I be like... Suffering? With the rest of the bad souls that ended up here?” you questioned him, trying to ignore his beauty. 

“No. I’ve been watching you for a while, y/n. If I'm getting to the point, I want to marry you. I killed you prematurely so those awful people didn’t get the chance to, and so I could get to see you early.” He smiled. His lips looked incredibly soft, the kind you’d want to kiss forever. 

“What!? Marry me!? But-” 

“You mustn’t worry about the details, y/n. I love you, everything from your beauty, to your personality, I feel drawn to you. I would like you to be my wife. We could live happily together.”

The way he never elaborated didn’t make it any easier to take in, but an idea came to your mind. “If I marry you, will I still have to suffer? Like to pay for my sins…”

“Of course not, my love. Let’s say marrying me is enough to pay for them.”

You were curious to know what would happen if you didn’t marry him, or if you had a choice at all, but you decided you were better off not knowing for once. 

“Alright, I’ll marry you.” 

“Wonderful. Please feel free to explore the palace, and pick a room. I know you’re probably tired.”

“Thanks.” 

After exploring the palace, you settled for a cozy room on the second floor. You liked the colours and arrangement of the room. 

You lie in bed, pondering what had happened in the first few hours of your afterlife. You spent your life thinking you’d be sent down to meet Satan, an unforgiving force meant to punish evil souls for their wrongdoings, but was met with Hades instead, a God that was not only kind, but had at some point, fallen in love with your character. He had promised you an easy afterlife with him, an eternity you could spend however you wanted. Do the things you never got to do in your past life as a spirit. 

You were beyond grateful to him, choosing to not only have mercy on you, but make you, a criminal who’s committed many crimes, his wife, another ruler, God of The Underworld. 

Everything turned out quite different from how you originally thought.

[dayseternal-blog]

Hi Days! I'm a huge fan of your work and your tumblr blog bc you give so many naruhina fanfic recs and talk about your stories, etc.

To sum it up, you're my favorite person lol, I'm a bit shy so I'm asking this as an anon, but I wanted to tell you something random just because I've always just thought about it and maybe you would agree or comment on it.

Have you ever listened to mitski? If you haven't I recomend you do bc she's amazing, but anyways I was listening to a song of hers called "washing machine heart" and it reminded me of naruhina, like the fic "together you and I" but different you know, like naruto only married hinata because he couldn't have sakura, she was his second option and every time he looked at her he wished and pretended it was Sakura, so Hina tries her hardest to look pretty and try to be the person he wants, always getting saddend by the idea that she isn't the one he wants, she knows his heart will only belong to Sakura. She let's him trample all over her heart and use her because she loves him unconditionally, maybe cry to her on some nights because he longs for Sakura's love that will never come.

I've read so many fanfics and I've never encountered one using this concept, I'd write it myself, but I'm not good at writing, maybe I'm reaching but it could inspire an angst story made by you or just a prompt or idea/concept for anyone to use. The hurt in this could be inmaculate and I bet a good writer could bring everyone to tears if they read a story like this. You don't have to do anything ofc I'll love you either way, I'm not meaning to push you to write a whole story with this concept by any means or to even post this ask, it's just something I made up/ related to this certain song, so I wanted you to see it, perhaps share your opinion or thoughts on it or just think about it. I love pain a lot hahaha bc I'm not a narusaku shipper in any way, I actually dislike the ship a lot.

Thank you for reading this and pls keep up the awesome work!! I'll always be a fan and support you and your spectacular writing❤️❤️

GAH What an awful fic idea you have 💔

“The Ring that Binds” by softwind - Rated M, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Incomplete.  Naruto and Hinata are married.  So why is Naruto calling “Sakura” in his sleep?

“Girl No 10″ by meeiwen - Rated M, Modern AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. Naruto makes a mistake with a dancer one drunk night.  Years later when he meets her again, he begins realizing his perfect life is a lie, but he’s too late to fix it.

And

“Territorial” by @bunny-hoodlum - Rated M, High school AU, Multi-chapter, Complete.  When Hinata takes advantage of Naruto’s desperation for love, they’re both a little too much for the other to handle.

Are similar to what you have there.

HERE’S MY VERY QUICK AND INCOMPLETE STAB AT YOUR PROMPT IT’S UNEDITED UNREVISED CANON-DIVERGENT AU RATED T FOR LANGUAGE BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE WHAT I COULD COME UP WITH 😘  THEY ARE NOT MARRIED BECAUSE I WOULD BE TOO SAD

...

Naruto finally makes it to the Hokage’s office, having had trouble shaking off fangirls on his way.  He can immediately tell he’s the last one there, even though it’s the eve of the Rinnegan Festival.  Tense expressions greet him, the atmosphere somber.

Sakura whips her attention back to the desk before them.  “Rokudaime, with all due respect, I don’t think Naruto belongs on this mission.”

Her behavior has confused him all night.  First moving away from him so that Hinata would sit between them at Ichiraku when Hinata could have just sat on the other side of him.  Then pushing him to follow Hinata back home.  He said aloud that he’d be seeing her later, and that he wanted to catch up with everyone first, but Sakura just glared at him...

She’s been pushing him away, more and more every day, breaking his heart to smaller and smaller pieces...whether knowingly or not, he’s not sure about that, but she’s never rejected him from being her teammate on a mission.

Worried, he meets Kakashi’s gaze.

“I understand your concern, Sakura.”  His tone is heavy.  His usual careless attitude nowhere in sight.  “Call it just my gut-feeling...you’re going to need Naruto’s strength for this mission.”

-

Hanabi was kidnapped.

Hiashi and Hinata are nowhere to be found.

“What do you mean...?” Naruto finds himself asking.  “I just saw her.  We just saw her.  Not even an hour ago.”

“When Sai reported Hanabi’s kidnapping, believe me, Naruto, we moved to notify her family immediately.  Anbu can’t find them.”

“What?”  The last memory he has of Hinata abruptly leaving dinner and running off without hardly a word nags at him, inexplicably tightening his chest.  “She’s fine.  Hinata’s strong.  She can take on anybody.  No one would dare-”

“Naruto,” Sakura interrupts, her gaze cutting sharp.  “She’s nowhere to be found.  And as much as you believe that, no one is invincible.  Not even Hinata.  We need to form a plan, otherwise we’re losing precious time.”

“No one is invincible.  Not even Hinata.”

An emptying numbness invades his insides, discomforting slickness muting him.

This isn’t his fault, is it?

-

What if she needed to tell him something?

She was acting strange at Ichiraku.

Quiet, unusual for her as of recent...

But how was he supposed to notice?  Should he have followed after her, like Sakura said?  But they were supposed to meet at his apartment later on anyway, so why did she have to come out early like that and ruin the good time he was having?  She knows how he hasn’t given up on Sakura.

She knows everything about him.  She’s been his rock after Sakura tried to shut him down for good.  So how can it be that she’d just disappear?  There’s no way.

There’s just no way that she disappeared right after she left...

-

Hours.

Hours of wandering around in abandoned, desolate, war-stricken villages in god-knows-where, and nothing.  No one.

He’s asking for the hundredth time, but he doesn’t care, he’s past the point of desperation, and anxiety-laced tension fills the air.  “Taku, you really don’t see anything?!”  The Hyuuga they have on their team led them into this godforsaken wasteland.

Taku turns on him aggressively, getting in his face in reaction, and yells, “What about you??  You think I’m not trying my best?!  This is my family!  Just because you’re Hinata’s boyfriend doesn’t mean you’re any more worried than the rest of us!  You don’t sense her??”

No.  He doesn’t.

His Sage Mode has never been so useless.  In fact, he senses no one besides them in this place, and it’s with terrible unease that he begins to entertain the thought that she’s gone for good.

“There’s no one even here besides us!  Nothing!  Why’d you take us down here?  Where are we even?!  How do we get out of here in the first place?!” he argues back.

“Sakura-san was right!  You don’t belong on this mission!  I don’t know what Hinata-sama could ever see in you, I haven’t seen her smile in months!”

“What do you mean by that?!  She smiles all the time!  I’ve never seen her act so cheerful in my life!”

“So you fucking know it, too!”  Taku glares at him with an incredulous expression.  “That she’s just acting!”

“What the hell do you mean by that-”

And he doesn’t know what happened next, but Sai’s grabbing onto Taku and he himself is locked in Shikamaru’s shadow manipulation.  Chakra’s sparking off his own hands, while blue embers warp along Taku’s.

“Calm down,” Shikamaru orders both of them.  “We’re not getting anywhere if the two of you keep fighting.”  He waits for Taku to loosen his stance.

Sai lets go of him.

Taku throws an insulting glare around before sauntering off.

Shikamaru sighs.  Hard.  “Go cool your head, Naruto.”  He retracts his shadow, and Naruto wastes no time walking off in the opposite direction, far from wherever Taku is heading.

Yet Taku’s ridiculous words ring in his head.  “That she’s just acting.”

But she said that she’s happy to be with him.  That she doesn’t mind that he’s still in love with Sakura.  She said that she’s just happy to be with him.

She said that.  She did.  And she wouldn’t lie to him, right?

She was just acting?

“You’re not going to finish your ramen?” he asked her on their date last month.

“No...”  Suddenly, she smiled brightly, something she’s been doing more often ever since he mentioned that he’s always liked how genki Sakura is.  “Do you want the rest of mine?  I’m dieting.”

He scrunched his eyebrows at her.  “Dieting?  Why?”

“Well...”  She looked thoughtful for a moment before seeming to come to a decision.  “Naruto-kun, you like thin girls, right?”

He knew she was talking about Sakura.  “...I guess...”

“I want to make you happy,...” she started.  She bit her lips for a hesitating moment before continuing, “so I’ve been trying to lose a little weight.”

“Oh.”  He didn’t know what to make of that.  Unbidden, he looked her over. 

“Can you tell?” she asked, her characteristic shyness lowered her lashes, yet she didn’t fidget under his examination, and he could tell how she was trying her best to have that confident persona he admires in his former teammate.

Despite her recent changes in attitude, Hinata’s still been so physically small compared to himself and everyone else.  Under her jacket, he couldn’t tell if she looked skinnier or not, and even if she was, he doesn’t think she really needed to be skinnier.

But then she looked up at him with that heavy, hopeful weight in her gaze, and he couldn’t let her down.  Not when she’s trying so hard for his approval.

He fibbed easily.  “Yeah.  You look really good.”

She shined another smile at him that made him feel good.  Even if their relationship wasn’t traditional, he could at least still make her happy.  He could at least tell her some sweet words and see her sweet smile and-

She was lying.

She wasn’t happy?

He never made her happy?

Then what was the point of any of it?

No, she must have been happy, right?!  She said so!  She told him so!  Many, many times!

After all, he asked her.  All of those times he thought she was faking her smile, he asked just to make sure, and she vehemently told him that she was really happy to be with him.

She said he could talk to her about all of it.  That she could take on his heartbreak because her feelings were so much bigger than...

“Uzumaki Naruto.”

The unfamiliar voice has him leaping to his feet.

A man as pale as a ghost with piercingly icy eyes is floating down to him on some strange platform.  “You’re really as pitiful as I expected.”

“Who the hell are you?!”  He readies his stance.  He’s not in any mood for games, and he’s ready to let loose some of his stress on this very suspicious character.

“Hinata’s fiance.”

“Hinata?!”  Fire races through his veins, heating his feet, and he’s ready to leap at this guy.  “Where is she?!”

“With me.”

His heart rate exponentially explodes, beating into his ears, his skin practically bristling.  “Let her go,” he demands, and the threat of his words leaks from every pore of his being.  “Now.”

The man almost snorts.  “What makes you think she wants to see you?  You only ever used her, broke her...”  His collected expression hardens, and Naruto can sense that he has no intention of releasing her.  “I’ll make her happier than you ever could.”

Several thoughts fly too quickly through his mind to properly process any of it, leaving only residual uncertainty and that deepening sense of his culpability in her sudden disappearance.  But he doesn’t linger on the unpleasant sensations.  “What the fuck do you know?!”  And he’s charging at him, a Rasengan heavy in his hand.

The enemy is far more powerful than he appeared, immediately blowing him back with some kind of focused chakra.  “Weak, pathetic.”

“GIVE HER BACK!”  He replicates himself a dozen times, each of them throwing Rasenshurikens at the man.

Yet more of that strange yellow chakra protects him.  He’s unscathed even under his shadow clone onslaught.  “No.  I gave her a choice, and she came with me.  I’m just here to get rid of you, take revenge against you for her sake.”

He hardly comprehends the nonsense spewing out of the enemy’s mouth, and he rallies his clones into close combat, but the man manages to avoid many of the attacks while landing hits of his own.

Clones poofing away only to be replaced by more, frustration and fury starting to blind him into sloppier and sloppier moves.

“I love Hinata.  That’s why I deserve her.”

He chokes on his own breath, and in his momentary loss of concentration,...

He’s falling.

------------------------*

aaannnnd that’s as far as I want to go with that.  Imagine the rest of the team arriving in time to notice Toneri making his escape toward the sky, and I guess the rest of the story would sort of follow the rest of The Last...Naruto self-reflects a lot in a bundle of depression for a long time and yeah.

...ahhh...  I encourage you to write the fic you want to see in the world ❤️

[feeling-weirdy]

Bidding For Attention Pt. 1

AU request from @carouselunique and her friend <3

Tony has a bachelor auction and Hope Van Dyne bids on Vision to upset her dad for fun and then Hope and Vision hit it off and keep hanging out which makes Wanda realize her feelings for him have changed.

Part 2 coming soon <3

"And our next Avenge-A-Bachelor is one I know many a lady have has their eye on...the one, the only, accessories included, The Vision!"  Microphone in hand and with a long swipe of his hand, Tony introduced the synthezoid who stood begrudgingly beside him.

Vision stood stale-faced, eager for this night to end. He had unwittingly been roped into this Win A Date With An Avenger charity auction or whatever Mr. Stark had coined the event.  He had preferred to skip the experience altogether, but apparently Stark had other ideas.  Dressed him head to toe in one of his old suits and placed him in front of this crowd that looked none too pleased or willing to bid on a mechanical man.  Had he been human, this little charade would cause embarrassment.

Things had been going well with Wanda, yet despite his desire to move their relationship further, Wanda seemed hesitant.  Even in the crowd, she avoided his eye contact, happily keeping her attention glue to Miss Romanoff beside her.

Mr. Stark wouldn’t have heard his pleas even had he tried to explain the situation.  It was all “for the children” or whatever creed they had decided on.  Vision cared little for this type of charity.  They were superheroes, not dolls.

“Oh, come on ladies!”  Mr. Stark egged them on.  “Who wouldn’t want their own personal vibrator, eh?”  He laughed, tightening his face when he glanced over in Vision’s direction who was not amused by the comment.  Yet again, his thankfulness for being anything but human knew no bounds.

The crowd was silent, nervous glances shot back and forth.  The only chatting came from Wanda’s table, who was still thrilled at the conversation she was sharing with the others who surrounded her.

"$500.”  A woman’s voice rang out above the others.  The bright lights in his eyes shielded her face, but he was certain her voice sounded familiar.

“Coming in with a bid.  Way to go, big guy.”  Stark smacked Vision’s shoulder, once again receiving a look in response.  “Any others?  Once, Twice, sold to Miss Hope Van Dyne, our very own The Wasp.  Be careful with him now, might need to keep the oil handy.”

Vision quickly disappeared behind the curtain, anxious to be free from the prying eyes of the attendees.  He had heard of Miss Van Dyne before, but he was certain they had never interacted before.  Mr. Stark kept ample tabs on everyone he deemed entertaining, so he had certainly gone through her file as he studied his comrades.

With a heavy sigh, Vision made his way down the stairs, ignoring the comments thrown his way by those tending the curtain.  He just wanted to get this date over with and be done with the whole event.

Hope stood waiting for him in the corner once the bidding came to a close. 

“You’re...Vision, right?”  Hope trailed off, her eyes narrowing.  It had clearly been a formality after spending so much on a date with him.  She had to have known exactly who he was.

“Indeed,” Vision answered respectfully.  “It’s a pleasure.”

“Great.  I hope you don’t mind.  I honestly could just use someone to help get back at my dad.  Plus you looked upset.”  She frowned, pouting playfully up at him as she looked around at the guests that had suddenly started to crowd around them.  Several women with their awarded dates had already begun pulling them out the door and none of the Avengers looked all too thrilled by the arrangement that Mr. Stark had set up for them.  Even more so as he mysteriously wasn’t on the docket himself.

“Hardly.”

“One word kinda guy, huh?  Great...great.”  She nodded her head, her eyes scanning the crowd.  “Well, I did pay for a date.  If you’re happy to go ahead and do that now, that’ll help ease some stress.  I don’t know, you just looked like someone I could talk to that wasn’t some stuck-up asshole like your friend over there.”

Hope nodded toward Tony who was shaking hands and continuing his inappropriate comments towards each of the bachelors he had auctioned off.  They had put together a solid amount of money, with himself being the lowest bid.  The concept being utterly ridiculous seeing as how his pinky finger cost more than 10x times the amount they raised during the event.

“It is interesting that he did not put himself up for auction with his ego.  Though I would assume Miss Potts had more to do with that than some may realize,” Vision chuckled.  He caught Wanda’s eye as he scanned the room, though she quickly turned away upon the occurrence.  Vision frowned, turning his attention back to his supposed date. 

“You’re right about that.  He seems pretty wrapped around her finger.”  Hope folded her arms, her eyes focusing in on the couple who had somehow made their way back onto the stage to perform their next bickering act.

“You have no idea.”  Vision took a deep breath, a light chuckle escaping him as he smiled down at her.  “Well, Miss Van Dyne, shall we be off?”

“Please call me Hope.  That just sounds like a mouthful and it gets old fast,” she scoffed.  “I’d much prefer we be on a first name basis with you, if that’s alright.”

“Very well...Hope.“  Sliding her hand into his outstretched arm, she smiled up at him.  “This actually gives me the perfect opportunity to pick your mind.”

“Oh?”  Her eyebrow raised a grin spreading along her face as he began to pull her down the hallway.

“Your suit is absolutely fascinating.  I was told you and your father crafted the shrinking technology used in both your suit and The Ant-Man, is that correct?”  

“We certainly did.  And here I was worried we’d have nothing to talk about.”

-------

Wanda leaned forward, trying to keep the two in her line of sight for as long as possible.  Once they turned the corner, however, Vision and Hope disappeared.

“They hardly know each other and she’s already hanging all over him.”  Wanda frowned, turning back around in her seat with a huff.

“Doll, I don’t know what to tell you,” Natasha started, twirling the straw around in her drink.  “You could have bid on him if you were going to be this torn up about it.”

“Yeah, but then we’d have to actually go on a date...”  Wanda huffed, pushing up against the back of her chair as she nibbled on her bottom lip.  She hadn’t expected to be so worried about this.  She knew full well this was going to happen the moment Tony brought it up, so what the hell was wrong with her?

“That is kind of the point.”  Raising the glass to her lips, Nat tried to hold a steady conversation with her, but even Wanda could see that her mind had been elsewhere.

“It’s just not that simple.”

“Seems simple enough, but that’s on you.”  Standing up, Natasha gave Wanda a pat on the shoulder.  “You sit here and wallow, I have my own fish to fry.”  Wanda watched as she disappeared in the crowd, the swagger in her step telling the young witch all she needed to know.  She had her own date.

“Good luck...”  She stated reluctantly.  Wanda sighed, her eyes peeking back toward the corridor where the pair had disappeared.  She hadn’t expected anyone to actually bid on him, hoping desperately that they would go home together and could spend another gabbing about whatever they could think of.  It was her own damn fault, really.  She could have easily won that time with him and since she hadn’t, she would have to suffer the consequences.

Consequences sucked.

Wanda pushed herself to her feet, taking one last sip of her drink as she turned to make her way out of the event hall.  Bidders and their Avenger dates had been paired off, as if she needed anything else to cause her any more pain.

The men had all dressed up nice for their dates, their nerves easily seen even from this distance, but the girls who bid on them didn’t care.  It wasn’t every day that they got a date with an Avenger and who could blame them?  

“Hey...”  Clint stopped her, grabbing her wrist suddenly.  “You heading out already?  There’s a whole lot of party left.”

“Y-yeah.  I should really be getting back.  I think I’d just put a damper on the party if I stuck around, so...”

“Well...if that’s what you want.  I can walk you back to the compound if you’d like.”

“Pretty sure you have your own date to tend to.”  Wanda winked, nodding back towards the table with the brown-headed woman.  She seemed eager to have Clint come back to the table as she ran her tongue along the toothpick to the two olives that were speared on the other end.  The woman kept constant eye contact with Clint, a move that clearly worked as he found himself unable to look away.  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Wanda chuckled, leaving him behind to fend for himself.

Wanda walked out, slowly making her way back to the compound on her own two feet.  While flying would have been the preferred option, the cool night breeze ran along her skin in a way that teased and clouded her mind.  It gave her the perfect opportunity to take her time getting back home, allowing her mind to wander and think about the relationship she had formed with Vision.  

Clearly, whatever they shared between the two of them had blossomed in some way, but she was scared, worried that was going on between them would shatter at the first opportunity.  Just as it had time and time again throughout her lifetime.

Making her way into the front door, she stopped in the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee.  Why was she so bothered by the fact that he had a date with her?  He didn’t even know her.  It wasn’t like they were going to form some romantic connection within the past hour they had spent together.  It didn’t make sense.  Raising the cup to her lips, she allowed the hot liquid to slide down her throat.  Regardless of how she tried to swallow her feelings and push the notion that nothing was going to happen out of her mind, the thought remained.

Vision was charming, sweet, and almost other-worldly in the way he spoke to you…any woman would be a fool to pass up that kind of opportunity.  

Her hand fell, resting the cup back on the table as she stared off into the vast windows on the other side of the room.  Wanda’s mind had wandered so far off that she didn’t even hear Vision’s light chuckle from the other side of the door.  She froze hearing the woman’s laugh following swiftly behind his.

“It’s just absolutely fascinating to me just how much you were able to accomplish,” Vision prattled on, completely engrossed in their conversation.

“Yes well, someone had to pick up the slack from my father.  He was certainly able to put together the foundation, but the rest was practically up to me.”  Hope genuine excitement seemed to flow out of her as she continued their conversation as they entered the room, the woman still latched onto his arm.  Hope’s eyes widened upon catching her standing silently in the bathroom.  “Oh, hi there!”

“Hello,” Wanda responded quietly, taking another sip of the cup she daintily held between her fingers.  Her eyes unintentionally shot up to Vision, offering him a small smile which he returned wholeheartedly.

“Hi...”  Vision’s voice fell, his eyes softening as they locked eyes for the first time since she could remember.  She had tried so desperately to stay out of his way during the event, that she had nearly forgotten that they hadn’t spoken.

Rather than answer, Wanda pursed her lips, her eyes falling back down to her cup.  

Check out my other drabbles here or feel free to request some!

[volturialice]

okay so i was just typing up a 'thoughts on' ask about a jalice au that explores alice being james' bloodsinger but then i thought that would work pretty well with the human!alice au you wrote a while ago!! so,, thoughts on that if you ever continue that series?

hmmmmmmmm anon you've got me THINKING here

I actually have a few more cool ideas for that au (which I titled Perihelion which now feels waaaaayyy too close in appearance to Perdition oops), just not enough to justify writing out the whole thing yet.

the goal with that one was to try and hit the major plot beats and certain other elements of twilight (all the way down to "clumsy allusions to classic lit that don't quite make sense") but explore how they would play out differently with different protagonists, and allow me to put my own spin on things. which will inevitably end up being a commentary, me in more overt conversation with the original canon text than I've ever been in any other piece (except Tragedie, but that one had very different goals lol.)

but (and this is CRAZY considering it's me we're talking about here) I actually haven't put that much thought into how the james confrontation would play out in Perihelion yet! there are tons of questions to answer.

a long list of questions

would they still leave the baseball field without a physical fight? (definitely not, this is jasper we're talking about.) what kind of casualties would both sides suffer? (ie, how the hell would james leave the field alive?) would there still be a flight to some other city? would james be able to get to alice through her family? (I'm inclined to go with "yes" but make it more thorny and complicated than bella's selfless sacrifice.) and, tbh, would I even make alice james' blood singer in the first place? as a non-vegetarian, it seems like he'd be forced to try and attack her on the spot were that the case, which leads into its own set of (not necessarily bad) issues.

I'm always just as interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this stuff, incidentally. I should probably read more old "jalice twilight" AUs, but I'm not always in the mood for those.

tbh I'm most interested in the whole james/alice blood singer conflict in the context of canon, mainly because canon raises so many questions without answering them. in this case, my thoughts mostly manifest as a long list of questions, with different answers I play with in a suuuuuuper experimental wip doc that may never see the light of day for all we know.

another long list of questions:

what does the concept of a Singer mean to james in 1920? has he heard of them? had any others? formed preconceived notions of who or what they're supposed to be? how does he come across alice's scent in the first place? why can't/doesn't he kill her immediately, when she's in this incredibly vulnerable and isolated position? do they ever interact? what is his relationship with her creator? do they clash repeatedly, or only once? how does their final confrontation play out? are victoria and/or laurent involved in any of this?

and my personal favorite, why the hell doesn't james kill alice mid-change?

from alice's side: how aware is she of james? does she see horrifying visions of her own death at his hands? does she prevent them from coming true somehow? what does she learn or discover about james, and from what sources? how does she feel about becoming a vampire? why didn't her creator change her sooner? does she have preconceived ideas of what vampires are like, or is her memory so destroyed that she's lost that cultural context? canon!alice has a strong belief in fate and destiny—how does she feel about being someone's blood singer? is it fate? what is that connection like for her, and how does it (obviously) differ from bella's connection to edward or emmett's connection to Random Lady Hanging Laundry?

for some of these questions, I have Cool Answers I really like. for others I have no answer, or it still needs to be workshopped, or there are multiple satisfying ways it could go. for me, the challenge is always choosing the Most Interesting Answer that still manages to feel true to the characters and doesn't directly contradict canon. it's an exercise I love doing.

anyway. sorry I went on a huuuuge tangent there, but I wanted to look at the (very excellent) question from all sides.

[ruzek-halstead]

misery loves company

pairing: luke patterson x julie molina

everyone knows luke and julie are in love with each other, except them. when luke gets sick with the flu, it becomes the little push they need.

slightly au (boys are alive)

"you're not about to tell me something like that and walk out, julie. that's not how this works."

masterlist || ao3

requested by: @5sosmukefan​ 

They were an hour into their band practice, and one thing was becoming increasingly obvious.

Luke was losing his voice.

At first, they thought he was trying something new; he always liked to experiment with what he could do and he was always practicing the levels of raspiness he could use, like he did in Bright. But by the end of the last hour, it was clear that wasn't the case.

"Luke, I love you bro," Alex started hesitantly, twirling his drumstick in his fingers. "But what the hell is happening with your voice?"

Luke frowned. "I hear it too."

"You seem to be sweating a lot," Julie noted and Luke raised an eyebrow. "Much more than usual. Are you feeling alright?"

"Of course I am. I don't get sick," he scoffed. He took off his guitar and placed it back in its stand, grabbing his hydro flask to rehydrate. In truth, Luke was looking a little pale, but denial was a powerful concept.

Reggie snickered, blanking his face when Luke turned to him with a stormy glare. "Either way, I think we should call it. You're sounding rough, my man."

Luke rolled his eyes in defiance, but Julie truly didn't like his colour. She walked over to him, setting her palms against his cheeks. He went slightly cross-eyed trying to look at her and question what she was doing. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead.

"Not sick my ass," Julie mumbled, "Luke, sit down, you're definitely catching something."

Luke's eyebrows furrowed together; the coolness of Julie's palms did wonders for his skin. "But I don't get sick!" He repeated in a whiny voice. Julie solely rolled her eyes and pushed at his shoulder so he'd fall back on the couch.

"You two should probably go," Julie redirected her words to Alex and Reggie, who looked confused and slightly offended (Alex). "Don't give me that look. You three were the ones who refused to get the flu shot like I did, and now you're going to pay for it."

Reggie's eyes widened. "Luke has the flu?" They'd never seen him put his bass down so quickly. "Peace out buddy! I'm steering clear of you like the plague!"

"So, you're going to stay with him?" Alex asked Julie with a raised eyebrow; she nodded. "You hear that, Reg? Julie is going to stay and take care of Luke! Isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever heard?"

Julie's gaze flickered between Alex and Reggie, who were both wearing devious grins. "I don't know what your tone is implying, but your presence is annoying me. Make yourselves useful and go get some medicine or something."

"She's touchy today," Alex whispered in Reggie's direction. He narrowly missed getting hit by the pillow Julie lodged in his direction. "Fine, I'm going! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Reggie snorted, "that's not much then." Alex smacked him upside the head. "We'll be back! Feel better Luke!"

Julie wasn't an idiot. She clearly knew something had changed between her and Luke recently. Since the very beginning, it was hardly platonic. There was always that chemistry between them; they just didn't know where it would lead. And to be honest, she still has no idea. Things between them hadn't progressed in the way she wanted in the slightest. The only difference was that everyone seemed to suspect something was going on between them (re: Alex, Reggie, Flynn, Carlos and her dad), which explained Alex's smartass comments. But the most that had happened were small touches here and there as they wrote new songs. And their songs hadn't changed much either; she had been writing more romantically charged songs on her own, but every time she came together with Luke, he steered them in the complete opposite direction.

She honestly didn't know where she stood with him.

Luke was currently laying face down in a pillow, shivering. Julie rolled her eyes, almost certain it was because he refused to wear shirts with sleeves. She grabbed a blanket from the back closet and draped it across his shivering form. He turned his head to the side and peeked open an eye, mumbling a soft, "thank you." She took this opportunity to feel his forehead again, and he was still burning up; he groaned at the coolness of her touch.

"I'll be right back," she told him. He mumbled something unintelligible in response. Julie pulled up Netflix on the television and chose the first show that appeared (Modern Family because Alex was obsessed with Mitchell and Cameron, naturally). She escaped back into the kitchen where she grabbed a bowl filled with ice water and some small hand towels.

When she entered the garage again, Luke was sitting up on the couch, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was matted against his forehead from the sweat and the angry pout on his lips nearly made her drop the bowl of ice water. "Julie," he groaned, beckoning her to come closer. "Is this what dying feels like?"

"You are such a baby," Julie snapped, sitting down across from him on the coffee table. Luke shot her an affronted look. "If I can go on with my day while Satan's ripping apart my uterus, you can handle the flu."

Luke looked as if he was going to retort, but a small smile appeared on his lips instead. "Yeah, you're right," he replied, "you're a badass, Jules."

"Don't I know it," she sighed, taking one of the hand towels and placing it against his forehead. He instantly leaned forward with a satisfied groan, resting his palms against her knees. They didn't have much room between the coffee table and the couch, and their knees knocked together. "How does that feel?"

"Like heaven," his eyes literally rolled into the back of his head. "Thanks for staying and taking care of me, Jules."

Julie dipped the cloth in the bowl to avoid meeting his gaze. "Yeah, of course," she muttered in response. "I'd do anything for you, you know that." She wasn't sure what prompted that confession, but now it was out there.

Luke’s gaze narrowed on Julie’s face, even though she was looking everywhere but into his eyes. “Yeah. I mean, me too. I just — you’re my best friend. Couldn’t do this whole life thing without you.”

She wasn’t expecting to feel anything when she heard the word friend. It should have been fine, because they are, in fact, best friends. But her chest constricted and she squeezed the cloth absentmindedly, dripping water onto Luke’s lap.

“Shit, sorry,” Julie apologized, avoiding eye contact as she bit her lip. She wasn’t generally a crier, but she was unable to stop her emotions from displaying all over her face and she didn’t need him seeing that. She placed everything back onto the coffee table and hastily stood up. She knocked her knees against Luke’s and his hands fell from her knees as if his touch burned her.

Luke was confused. Julie flipped off like a switch, and he’s only seen that happen a few times before.

“Uh — what just happened? Did I say something?”

“No,” Julie forced out a laugh, “no. Everything’s fine.”

Luke frowned. He wouldn’t fall into the trap of basic girl talk. Again. “This seems like one of those situations where girls say everything’s fine, but it’s really not fine, and next thing you know, they’re cutting up all your clothes."

"You already do that," she shot back, pointedly looking at his absent sleeves.

"I know you're not complaining because you get to look at my amazing biceps every day. And don't think I didn't notice you're changing the subject."

Julie rolled her eyes, busying herself with grabbing the bowl and dumping it out in the bathroom sink. Luke followed her, groaning in pain. He looked like absolute hell; pale, sweaty and determined to get an answer out of her.

"Julie, talk to me, please."

She avoided his gaze, skirting past him. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Bullshit," he snapped. His eyebrows furrowed together and his signature pout adorned his lips; he was starting to get annoyed. "Are you forgetting I know you nearly as well as you know yourself?"

That small statement lit a fire inside of Julie.

"Clearly you don't," she fired in response and Luke took a step back in surprise. "Because if you did, then you would know what's wrong. You would know that being your friend absolutely sucks because that isn't what I want! I want more and shit, I thought you did too!"

Everything came spilling out of her at once.

In any other situation, she would rather choke on pure air than confess her feelings for Luke, much less like that. But it happened. And now he was staring at her with wide, bewildered eyes, and Julie didn't know how she should go about it now.

So, bolting seemed like the correct option.

She was halfway to the door, when Luke grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. He was still pale and looking ghostly, but his eyes were shining bright as they focused solely on Julie.

"You're not about to tell me something like that and walk out, Julie. That's not how this works," he told her in a serious tone. All traces of his usual goofy nature were gone and Julie cursed herself for ever saying anything in the first place. Everything was too serious and too real, and she just didn't want to deal with it. "Don't you want to hear what I have to say?"

Julie pursed her lips, staring at his collarbone, rather than up at his face. "Not really. Can we just forget I ever said anything?"

"What if I don't want to?"

At this, Julie looked up. She was surprised to see his eyes focused solely on her; they softened when they met her gaze. "Julie, you mean the world to me. I just didn't want to do anything that would make things weird in the band. Plus, it's hard to know what you're thinking."

He still wasn't being exceptionally clear, and Julie wasn't entirely sure what to make of his statement.

"Well, I wasn't intending to say anything now either," she admitted quietly.

"I'm glad you did," he replied quickly. His grip on her wrist travelled down to hold onto her hand. "One of us should have the guts to admit how we feel about each other."

She hesitantly bit her lip. "You know, I haven't heard much of anything coming from you."

Luke's smirk widened. "You're right," he conceded. "I should probably let you know that I think you're the most beautiful girl I have ever seen and I've been into you since I first saw you in school. And I'd really like to kiss you right now, but I'm not entirely sure your flu shot will protect you from whatever the hell I have."

Heat instantly rushed into Julie's cheeks and she resisted the urge to shy away, because this was real and this was happening. "So, what does this mean?"

"Well, I guess I should start with asking you on a date."

For someone who avoided talking about their feelings for so long, he sure was doing a fantastic job.

"Julie, would you like to go out on a date with me?"

"Yeah, I'd love that."

Luke broke out into an excited smile, wrapping his arms around her and crushing her into his chest. He couldn't kiss her right now, but he sure as hell could show his affection in other ways. He pressed his lips against her temple, enjoying the quiet. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he could hear Julie's breathing start to slow. It's been a long time coming, and he still wasn't where he wanted to be, but they were getting there.

Their quiet moment was interrupted when the garage door slid open forcefully.

"Reggie! It's happening! It's freaking happening!"

Luke groaned at the sound of Alex's voice.

"Reggie! Get your ass in here now!"

Julie turned to the door, staying tucked into Luke's chest.

Alex was shooting them an excited grin, slapping Reggie's bicep repeatedly when he finally joined them.

"Oh, finally! Carlos, get in here!"

Julie let out a squeak of indignation at the sight of her little brother staring down Luke.

"Well, it's about time," he said coolly, surprising both Luke and Julie. "Boys, I want my money by sundown, or else."

Reggie stared after him as he walked away, scratching the back of his neck when Julie sent him a withering glare.

"So, we may or may not have placed a bet on you two," Alex explained. He didn't seem sheepish in the slightest.

Luke chuckled. "Who's 'we'?"

"Literally everyone," Reggie replied.

"Carlos, Flynn, your dad — literally everyone," Alex smirked. "Honestly, you two are pretty clueless."

Julie hung on tighter to Luke, enjoying his warm embrace. She thought it might feel weird in front of their bandmates, but surprisingly, it didn't. The proud and giddy expressions on both Alex and Reggie's face was enough to relax her and help her realize that this was what she was missing all along.

"Yeah, we are," she mumbled with an upwards glance to Luke and his bright smile.

"Oh my god! I need to call Willie! We're going on a double date!"

x

i hope i did this request justice!! i had a bit of trouble with the ending so sorry if it sucks tehe, but i’m a sucker for luke and julie confessing their feelings for each other!!! hope you all enjoyed!!!

stay safe everyone x

[bandaged-writer]

“you are my soulmate.” || dazai

lyric prompts are still open ^.^

➤ Requested by: nonnie (I accidentally deleted the ask instead of saving it)

➤ Lyric prompt: "You are my soulmate."

➤ Pairing: Dazai x Reader

➤ Genre: fluff, romance, soulmate! AU, friends to lovers-ish(?)

➤ Warnings: none

➤ Word count: 2k

The remains of steam trickled down the foggy bathroom mirror while you were busy rubbing your wet hair dry, the smell of showering gel and shampoo lingering in your nose and relaxing your tense nerves. It had been quite the rough week at the agency; a couple of fights, tons of paperwork which your back hated you for and more than enough complaints from the neighbors about the noise and damage. Of course, you couldn't help but reward yourself with a nice, long shower.

Wiping the steam away from the mirror, you tilted your head at the monochromatic reflection staring back at you. There were no colors whatsoever, only a gloomy mix of black and white painted your world once again. Suddenly, you were reminded of the time your mother had told you about soulmates who would paint you a clear blue sky overtime, but what the hell was blue? What did it look like? You were already in your 20s, you doubted that your soulmate was close by - for all you knew, they could live across the globe or died already. Fate wasn't always kind, after all.

Shaking these memories away and wrapping a fluffy towel tightly around your torso, you finally stepped out of the comfort of your bathroom only to be greeted by a pouting mummy lazing around on your couch. "[Name]! Good that you finally finished your shower, the remote control isn't working anymore!" Dazai whined dramatically and held the defective device in his hands as if it had committed a felony. "I've been stuck having to watch a documentary about dogs! Dogs of all animals! Only your beauty can cure my eyes from what they had witnessed-"

Embarrassment heated your cheeks up while your hands were clutching your towel to your chest, your friend's words fell on deaf ears. "What the hell are you doing here?!" you yelled at the brunette and swung a trained leg at the suicidal man whose hand easily grabbed your bare ankle. "My sweet [Name], don't you know how lonely I am without a pretty lady to spend a Saturday with?," by then, you were already used to Dazai's flirty antics and only rolled your eyes at his sugar-coated words for they were nothing more but just that. "That gives you no right to break into my house while I'm showering!," you were beyond flustered, although even this wasn't exactly new. Dazai had seen you half naked numerous times over the course of your friendship and it had never gotten under your skin so deeply. "It's not breaking in when you showed me where the spare key is," a smug expression settled down on Dazai's handsome features as he showed you the glimmering key which was usually hidden in the flower pot in front of your door.

Just as you were about to give in, something weird happened.

For a moment, you could see Dazai's eye color, the shade of his hair and clothes. It was a mere flicker of faded paint filling your vision before your world went back to its monochromatic state and left you staring at your friend like a deer caught in headlights.

"Earth to [Name]," Dazai snapped his fingers in front of your eyes and whipped you back to reality where everything was very much black and white and not colorful. "Wait here, I need to get dressed," pulling your leg from Dazai's grasp, you made a run to your bedroom, slammed the door shut and let your back collide with the cool wood, small gasps leaving your lips as your breathing picked up in a horrifying realization.

The one person you were closest to made you see colors. The one person who knew you better than the back of his hand, knew every little flaw and imperfection and was the epitome of a suicidal womanizer.

No, it had to be a mistake. A simple miscalculation, a cheap trick of the eye. Yes, nothing but a mistake - you had heard of some people seeing colors from birth or they randomly gained the ability to see them without developing feelings towards anyone.

This would be a disaster.

_____________________

And oh boy, were you right.

With each passing day, the dreary monochromatic life you were used to, gradually disappeared and tainted your vision with colors you didn't want to see, because you could finally see that everything your co-workers had told you about Dazai was indeed true.

"What does Dazai look like?," doodling on a random sheet of paper and with coffee resting next to your computer, you threw the sudden question at Naomi who was one of the few people at the agency who could see colors. The ravenette raised a fine eyebrow, looking at you like you had lost your mind. "You don't suffer from long-term memory loss, do you?," a teasing cadence laced in her voice. Letting your body slightly slide down the chair, you leaned your head back against the furniture and pouted. "I know what he looks like! But like..what colors is he made up of?," it was a funny question - you considered Dazai your best friend and yet, you didn't know the color of his irises, of his coat, of the silly pendant he always carried around his neck. You wanted to see your friend.

Naomi's gaze softened at that, a tender curve finding home on her lips which made her eyes smile. It was a question so trivial that only few people worried about, and yet there you were, oblivious to the feelings that were so painfully obvious to everyone at the agency.

And so, Naomi told you about every color that was Dazai Osamu: from the black shoes, to the beige coat, to the blue pendant and his brown locks.

"I envy you for seeing so much more, Naomi."

Those words turned out to be a blessing and a curse alike.

On one hand, you could faintly make out the sparkle in Dazai's coffee-colored orbs but on the other hand, that sparkle was reserved for the pretty waitress of Uzumaki's whose hand he was currently holding, his mind smitten with the mere idea of committing a lover's suicide. You wish you wouldn't see them light up even though the color you saw was barely there, washed out.

"Would a fair maiden such as yourself allow me the honor of you accompanying me to the afterlife?," a moonstruck smile stretched Dazai's lips, his calloused thumb stroking the delicate knuckles of the waitress who remained unfazed by Dazai's attempt to woo her. It was a typical sight, yet why did it bother you? You had witnessed such scenes countless of times and even acted as the brunette's girlfriend just so he could get rid of another woman's unwanted affection. "Hmm, maybe if you have a life insurance," the waitress twinkled, clearly uninterested in Dazai's proposal.

You realized that not even a soulmate could tie Dazai down.

"Are you alright, [Name]?," Atsushi pulled your attention to the matter at hand which was assigning several cases to different colleagues, but even Atsushi could tell that you weren't really with him. He saw the way your gaze would travel to the counter where Dazai was keeping himself busy with the waitress, he noticed the way you'd only ever give him an occasional "mhm" or a short "yes".

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm good. Don't worry, Atsushi," you waved a dismissive hand in front of your face and put on the ghost of a smile which never reached your eyes.

"I was just thinking about how blue the sky is today."

_____________________

"Have you ever seen colors, Osamu?," mindlessly, you stared at the sake in the small cup held by your fingers, your body resting on Dazai's floor with the wall supporting your back. It was a lazy night of having a few drinks at the brunette's place, talking about anything that came to mind or letting silence and unspoken words fill the space.

Dazai effortlessly downed a shot and let the liquor burn his throat. At least, the drinks were less bitter with you around. "Well, have you?" Ah, that bastard once again avoided your question by asking his own and putting the spotlight on you. It was such a painfully obvious tactic to dodge personal questions, but it still worked every damn time. Or maybe you just needed to get some thoughts off your chest and run the risk of Dazai figuring out the secret you had only told Atsushi about.

"What do you think about it?," stupid how the two of you danced around the topic like it was poison which could bring death upon the both of you.

Sitting down opposite of you, Dazai scanned your face. The way your gaze was fixed on him like a magnet, the missing makeup, the slightly disheveled hair from work and the way your lips shone thanks to the lip balm you always carried with you. "You're a curious thing, aren't you?," a chuckle caressed your ears and you wished it was a bit more lighthearted, a bit less closed off. Dazai rested his elbow on his propped up knee in a lazy manner as he gathered his thoughts; it was something he had never talked about.

"I don't think I like the concept of a soulmate. After all, your soulmate can be dead or be against the beliefs you hold on to so tightly. It'd cause unnecessary conflict over and over again until both individuals grow tired of each other and eventually break up, no?," Dazai paused then sighed, his eyes drawn to the night sky outside. "Isn't it a bit mean to gift color only those who feel something like love towards someone?"

Those words were as bitter as the liquor scorching your throat, but could you really disagree? A soulmate was only a partner suggestion given by the universe and whatever created it. Many soulmates eventually got tired of one another, yet no one broke things off since having someone to come home to was comfortable. It was comfortable, but it was no longer love. "It is. I've been dying to see what colors you are," you admitted softly, hoping he couldn't tear through the lie and discover that you saw the color of the cut that he got from an earlier fight.

At that, Dazai smiled at you with tender eyes and tilted his head to the side, brown strands of hair framing his stupidly dreamy face. "Honestly? I've been wondering what your eye color is."

You swore the world just got more colorful.

_____________________

The day the colors reached their peak of vibrancy was the day your heart skipped a beat for the first time in quite a while.

In the background, you could hear Kunikida scolding Dazai and threatening to kill him with his own bony fingers jus because the brunette was trying to shove his reports to Atsushi. "I swear I'll make you see the end of your life!," the blond man yelled, clearly fed up with his colleague's antics and non-existent work ethics. "At least let me die with a beautiful woman by my side!"

You couldn't help the chuckle that left your lips. Their arguments never failed to squeeze a laugh out of your lungs even when you didn't feel like laughing at all. The agency was your safe place, it was your home.

"Oh, I spent an entire minute dealing with your crap although we should get going. Let's go, Dazai," Kunikida let go of his partner's collar, dusted off his pants like nothing happened and grabbed the keys for the car; no way in hell would he ever let the suicidal maniac drive, again. "Punctual as always, Kunikida," Dazai mock praised the blond and crossed his hands behind his head, a smile on his face.

"Ah, good luck, guys!," you called after Kunikida with quite the stack of paper in your hands and smiled up at Dazai who just..looked at you. You were about to tell him to hurry up and head out before Kunikida would scold him again, when he spoke in a hushed tone which was only meant to be heard by you.

"I like your lip balm. Red suits you."

[electricshoebox]

writing tag

Tagged by the lovely @adventuresofmeghatron, thank you!

Tagging: @junemermaid, @molliehaswords, @desynchimminent, @valkyriejack, and @mercurymiscellany​, if you’d like to do it!

1.  How many works do you have on AO3? 

39. Holy shit. 

2.  What’s your total AO3 word count?

533,274 words. Holy shit.

3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?

How to Share a Bed Without Killing Each Other: a Love Story (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, 5 Chapters, Complete) The trials and tribulations of literally sleeping together.

Rivers in the Sand (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) The Hissing Wastes unsettles Bull’s memories, and when he and Dorian are trapped together by a fallen pillar, Dorian helps him deal.

a soft place to land (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) When a letter from his father sets him off, Dorian turns to Bull for a distraction.

Always Good at Bad Ideas  (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) Bull gets injured fighting a dragon, which leaves Dorian frantic enough to blurt out the one thing he was trying to keep to himself.

Flashpoint (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) “One time he got so excited he set the curtains on fire.”

4. Do you respond to comments?  Why or why not? 

Yes, always! I’ve seen various opinions on whether authors should, but to me, engaging with and getting excited with readers is half the fun and half the point. I also just really want people to know how much it means to me not only that they read, but that they take the time to leave a comment. Comments are hard to write. I completely sympathize with that, sometimes you just don’t know what to say or how to say it, and I absolutely don’t begrudge anyone that doesn’t. It just means a lot to me when people do, even when it’s literally just “This was cool!” or something, and I want them to know that it’s appreciated!

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm. I guess that sort of depends on your definition of angsty. None of them have directly tragic endings, it’s just not in me to write that way, but I have one or two with open or less definitely, obviously happy endings. The rarepair DA2 oneshot I wrote for Merrill/Orana, Counting the Cost, has the most open ending, left completely up to interpretation. The Inception AU DAI fic I wrote for Dorian/Bull, In the Shadow of Dreams, has what I think of as an optimistic ending, and less a happy one. I tried to end that one with more romance, but it just didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the fic, so a quiet ending that signals a road to recovery was what I chose instead.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Most all of my oneshots have pretty happy endings. I guess I’m tempted say A Line in the Sand, my Deacon/MacCready start-from-scratch slow burn novel, just because it goes from antagonists to lovers and has the longest road with the most earned happy ending. I feel like the long struggle to get there makes it feel happier. 

7. Do you write crossovers?  If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really. Instead I’m sometimes tempted into AUs based on other media, but not full blown crossovers with actual different characters meeting. Even then, I’m really picky in what I enjoy. I’ve only written one, the Inception AU for Dragon Age that I mentioned above. Honestly, it requires no knowledge of Inception at all. I really just stole a bunch of concepts from it and then made my own modernized Thedas around them.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Thankfully no! I’ve received one or two kind of odd comments, but otherwise I’ve been very lucky and everyone’s been really nice.

9.  Do you write smut?  If so, what kind?

Hell yeah! I’ve written many kinds, really, whatever I feel like or whatever fits the fic. I’ve done plenty of your typical smut. I branched out into light BDSM with several of my Dorian/Bull fics, as well as waxplay and praise kink. I’ve also done some roleplay in the vein of “established relationship pretending to be strangers meeting at a bar” for Deacon/MacCready with By Any Other Name.

10.  Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. 

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Two of my Dorian/Bull fics, Wishing Stars and No Patron Saint of Silent Restraint, both by the same lovely person: landanding on AO3. I don’t think I stopped flailing for a solid day when I got the request for permission either time.

12.  Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not since pre-AO3 days, beyond collaborating in a tabletop setting. I’m not completely opposed to the idea but it would have to be someone I felt really, really comfortable with and with whom I have really good communication. I’m really particular about my writing, and I’d need to know someone’s emotional comfort level with trading and changing and even eliminating ideas.

13.  What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh god that’s honestly really hard. I’ve written the most for Dorian/Bull and that ship will always have a special place in my heart. But I did write my first full-length novel for Deacon/MacCready, and they’ve already got me in the middle of my second. So they’re the ship that taught me I could do that, and they’re my beloved rarepair. There are a few more I absolutely love, but I think those are my top two right now.

14.  What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Definitely Uprising. It was the first time I tried longform fic, and it was meant to be an entire retelling of DA2 with Velanna as the Justice-bearing character, rather than Anders, because after learning the developers almost took DA2 in that direction, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had a lot of plans for it, for how Justice might develop differently, for what it might have looked like if elves had been more of the battleground issue instead of mages vs. templars, for some angsty bittersweet long distance Nathaniel/Velanna and some complicated Fenris/Hawke and Merrill/Orana. But I drifted away from Dragon Age fandom in interest a long time ago, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get the steam back for it. I’m proud of how far I did get, though.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I feel pretty confident with dialogue, I can usually make a scene flow with it pretty well and I spend a lot of time trying to be meticulous about character voice. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on my descriptions, which I appreciate and wouldn’t have considered a strength, but my readers have been kind. I think I’m pretty good at including body language, too, though maybe to a fault.

16.  What are you writing weaknesses?

Much as people have been kind on the feedback, I really feel like action scenes are a weakness for me. I don’t enjoy writing them and I struggle a lot to make them feel like they’re flowing over just bulletpointing. I also feel like I struggle to make them exciting. I feel like I struggle with exposition scenes as well, and keeping them interesting over info-dumping. 

17.  What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’m generally in favor of including them, but with the caution of doing thorough research if it’s not a language I speak. I shy away from it if I can’t be completely sure it’s accurate, because I don’t want to risk putting off a native speaker reader, or saying/doing something offensive. I’d expand that to include anything about another culture, really. For example, I’ve been slowly picking away at writing a Fallout fic for my Sole Survivor Anthony and Preston, and part of what has been slow going is just making sure I’m getting Anthony’s culture right. His parents immigrated from Vietnam, and I want his experiences with them and with his culture to be as accurate and respectful as possible, not falling into any stereotypes but also being allowed to be complicated. 

18.  What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Depends on what we’re measuring. The first fandom I ever wrote fic for of any kind was Sailor Moon. The first fandom I actually put fic on the internet for was Lord of the Rings, on good old fanfiction.net. The first fandom I published on AO3 for was Dragon Age.

19.  What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

God this is such a hard question to answer, my feelings on my writing change so often. I think it’s hard for A Line in the Sand not to be my favorite for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s my first successful novel-length fic, I accomplished a lot with it and learned a lot from it, and it’s a rarepair I got to kind of develop from scratch in my own way. 

But if I look back at my whole repertoire so far, just to branch out from the usual answer, I’d say I’m also really fond of To Have and to Hold, which was the first time I ever participated in a minibang, or really any kind of writing challenge. It’s a Dorian/Bull established relationship fic set during Trespasser, and it’s kind of a meditation on Dorian’s past and present and how they’ve shaped his feelings on love and commitment and marriage, all while he’s trying to decide his future. I’m proud of how it came out, and I think my Dorian voice still holds up okay. Plus I had two incredible artists working with me who put together stunning work for it, and how could I not be super grateful for that? 

It’s funny, most of the top ones up there for kudos are ones that I don’t personally think are my best, it’s a lot of my very early offerings for Dorian/Bull that I think I could improve on a lot of if I tackled them now. I’m grateful people like them but I feel like they’re more an accident of timing, being published early in the ship’s popularity.