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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years ago

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The Sommelier (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 3

A certain redheaded tabloid journalist tracks y/n down at work. Y/n finds out how persistent she is when she makes her an offer she just can’t refuse.

Trigger warnings: Christianity, stalking, survivor’s guilt

You made it out alive, and that was more than could be said for some.

Your consolation prize was a ghastly scar on your hand that you kept bandaged up as to not scare small children. You did get some worker’s comp after all; enough to pay for your medical bills and a little extra to make up for the lost workdays. All things considered, you were the lucky one. Four people lost their lives that day and three more were injured far worse than you. You should have felt grateful to be alive.

But somehow that was even worse. You got a couple stitches and some time off. It wasn’t worth four people’s lives.

Your therapist explained it to you very gently. You were experiencing a phenomenon known as "survivor's guilt". She encouraged you to join a support group, get outside and familiarize yourself with your new experiences.

This was good advice and all, but yours was the newest, hottest crime. You couldn't go anywhere without being hounded by reporters looking for whatever details you had somehow left out. Dr. Bloom encouraged you to take some time off work until the media circus died down, but you had bills to pay.

"I feel like there should be some rule about re-opening a restaurant within a week of it being an active crime scene." Charissa observed as she wiped down a table. "If anything, it's a health hazard."

"Are you serious?" You scoffed. You'd been tasked with refilling the salt shakers. Appropriate, because there was plenty of salt to go around. "Demand for this place has never been higher. Everyone wants to see if the blood is still on the carpet."

"Hooray for capitalism." She rolled her eyes. "Are you gonna be okay, [F/N]?"

"'Okay' is a very relative term." You forced a laugh. "I think I can make it through the shift if that's what you're asking."

"Aren't you behind the bar all evening?" She asked.

"Yeah, but that means I'm trapped." You folded your arms. "First thing you see when you walk in is the waitress who survived the- what are they calling him?"

"The Baltimore Butcher." She answered with a voice full of vitriol. "Do you think they ever consider the ramifications of giving literal murderers these weird superhero names? Like, no wonder we get copycats, they treat these guys like celebrities."

"Holy shit, right?!" You slammed the salt shaker down on the table. "Y'know, last night on the news, they used the creep's graduation photo and kept saying that he was a good Christian young man with a lot of prospects."

Charissa stuck out her tongue in disgust. "I saw that. And how he was 'corrupted' by crack cocaine. Once again, blaming a drug that was used to villainize poor Black neighborhoods in the 80's as some kind of corrupting agent."

You nodded furiously. "Instead of understanding that Christianity is a violent imperialist religion that lets violent white men absolve themselves of any guilt."

"And they knew it wasn't crack." Charissa added. "I heard that shit was completely uncut. You know he spent a lot on it."

"And I will say this until the day I am put in the goddamn ground," you tensed up. "The only reason the fucker escaped is because he is white."

"Hey y'all." Another waitress walked in for her shift. "What are we talking about?"

"Cocaine." Charissa answered. “Also white privilege.”

"Great." She said dismissively. "Hey [F/N], can I scoop up that bar shift? I could really use the tips."

"Madison!" Charissa scolded. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What?" Madison shrugged and glanced at you. "I didn't get any paid time off. I need the money."

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Charissa scowled. "Are you seriously joking about her trauma?!"

"It's fine, she can have it." You rolled your eyes, then turned them to Madison. "Just know you're the reason I have survivor's guilt."

"Well now I feel bad." Madison frowned.

"Good." You and Charissa said in unison.

It was sort of comforting to get back to the script. Almost nostalgic. It provided the illusion of normalcy in an incredibly abnormal new reality.

You approached the first table in Madison’s block, hoping for a new beginning. A young woman with fiery red hair sat alone by the window.

“Hi!” You greeted, with a smile as genuine as you could muster. “My name is [F/N], I’ll be your waiter tonight.”

The woman smiled back. “Evening.”

You couldn’t tell what, but something was off. Perhaps you were trying too hard to force normalcy. Or maybe it was the borderline predatory way the woman was looking at you; like a shark following a trail of blood. Either way, the vibes were rancid.

“Can I start you off with a drink or is water okay?” You ask.

“Could I possibly trouble you for a glass of chardonnay?” She asked, lowering her eyebrows.

“Of course.” You nodded and reached for your pen.

“Actually,” She corrected herself. “If you could bring a bottle and two glasses, I’m expecting company.”

“Absolutely.” You scribble the order down on your notepad. “Do you have a preference?”

She thought for a moment. “Oh, dealer’s choice. Whatever you prefer.”

You soon returned to her booth with a bottle of your favorite chardonnay and two stemmed glasses. You poured a small bit in one glass to let her taste.

“You have wonderful tastes.” She complimented, filling her glass. “It’s very delicious.”

You rocked on your heels. “Would you like to place your order now, or do you want to wait until after your guest arrives?”

“Actually,” she repeated, filling the other glass. “My guest is already here.”

She slid the glass across the table and gestured to the other seat.

You felt stupid, but there was no way to avoid this. You couldn't just not do your job. She cornered you by the confinements of your profession.

"I really can't, I'm on the clock." You said, apologetically. The wine beckoned you. "I'm sorry, maybe another time."

"Oh, bummer." The woman placed her chin in her hand and pouted. "Well, I'm sure there's something that would make your boss look the other way."

She glanced down at your bandaged hand, then met your eyes. "The bandages are a dead giveaway, [F/N] [L/N]."

You then noticed a wire sticking from her pocket. Undoubtedly some kind of recording device. You looked at the ground. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave."

"But who will drink all this wine?" She asked, raising her glass.

"Ma'am." Your voice hardened as you tried to bite back an overwhelming rage. "Please leave the restaurant. I'm not going to ask you again."

Your manager, Matthew, passed by. "What's going on here?"

"This waitress is being very rude." The woman complained. "I ordered chardonnay, and she brought me chablis."

"Chablis is a type of chardonnay." You corrected. Even you found it strange that this was the hill you were willing to die on. "She asked for my preference, and I prefer the unoaked varieties."

Matthew looked confused. "Well, she's right."

You gestured to her pocket and he caught on immediately. He narrowed his eyes. "Ma'am, please leave the premises or I'll be forced to call the police."

The woman stood up, rummaged through her pockets and slapped a handful of bills down on the table. She then proceeded to drink both glasses of wine and walk away.

Matthew looked at you apologetically as he collected the bills. "Are you sure you want to be here tonight? I can call in someone to cover for you."

You shook your head and grabbed the bottle by its neck. "No, it's okay. I appreciate the concern but I really just want things to go back to normal."

"Hey!" A woman from the adjacent table called out. You prepared to immediately recant your statement about not going home.

"We like chablis." The woman said, gesturing to herself and her friend.

Her friend joined in. "And if that nosy reporter lady isn't gonna drink it..."

You glanced at Matthew, who shrugged. "Sure. It's yours."

The women exchanged delighted looks as you placed the bottle on their table. Matthew handed you a couple of clean glasses and you began to pour.

"For this wine, I suggest any of our wonderful seafood dishes." You explained, your cheeks stinging with a smile. "It also pairs quite nicely with chicken and game bird."

"Thank you." One of the women said. "If you don't mind, we'd like to take a look at the menu, please."

"Of course." You nodded. "Just flag me down whenever you're ready."

"This is why I put you behind the bar, by the way." Matthew gently scolded you as you collected the soiled glasses.

"Didn't you hear?" You said. "Madison needs the money because we can't all have paid time off."

"You should have come to me first." He sighed. "She has no right to say those things to you."

"Never stopped her before." You shrugged.

"I'll talk with her after the dinner rush." He said. "Just... try not to get cornered tonight, okay?"

"I'll do my best." You answered, flatly. “Because that’s definitely something I can control.”

The rest of your shift went smoothly, or, as smoothly as could be expected given the circumstances. The nosy reporter was right, your bandage was a dead giveaway. You had to dodge a couple of questions, but most people had enough decorum to know the wound--metaphorical and literal--was still fresh.

You said goodbye to Matthew and Charissa, collected your things and walked out to your car. You put the key in the ignition, only to find your gas tank was completely empty. You had just filled it that morning.

You bit back a scream and fought the urge to slam your head against the steering wheel. Throwing the door open, you mentally prepared yourself to either make a long trek to the nearest gas station, or beat someone up.

“Looking for this?” A smug voice said over the cicadas.

You turned around and saw the nosy reporter from before holding up a canister. A deep, blistering fury overtook your face as you slammed the car door. “You siphoned my fucking gas?”

“It’s not like you left me with much choice, [F/N].” She crossed her arms. “You’ll get it back once you answer my questions.”

You threw your head back in disbelief. “You’re Freddie Lounds, aren’t you?”

“I see I’m not the only one who does my research.” She said, looking a bit impressed. “How’d you know?”

“It’s the first thing that comes up when you search ‘unethical crime journalists Baltimore’.” You answered. “There’s a whole flair dedicated to you on the subreddit for murder survivors.”

Freddie seemed proud of herself. “Need a ride?”

“I’d rather drive off a cliff.” You said, honestly, before turning around to leave.

“Where are you going?” She walked after you.

“To get more fucking gas, you evil bitch.” You shouted back. “Are you gonna follow me to the BP too?”

“Look, I heard what you were saying to your friend.” She called out. “About white privilege.”

“Yeah,” You rolled your eyes. “It’s the same privilege that allows you to siphon a stranger’s gas and sit in a parking lot all night without getting arrested.”

“And I agree with you.” She hurried to your side, her chunky platform boots clacking against the asphalt. “They did you dirty and they’re shooting themselves in the foot by not listening to you.”

You turned around and threw up your arms. “Why didn’t you just lead with that?”

“I invited you to sit down over a bottle of wine, did I not?” Freddie chuckled.

“Cornering me at work is not a gesture of goodwill.” You huffed. “And I actually do want to put my story out there, but all you’re accomplishing by stalking me is guaranteeing you won’t be the one to do it.”

“Are you really in a position to be that selective?” Freddie smirked and placed all her weight on one hip.

You groaned. “What?”

“The Baltimore Butcher is still out there, and you won’t be the hot new victim forever.” She grinned sadistically. “Soon enough, him or some other psycho is going to strike, and your fifteen minutes of fame are up.”

“Good. Then I can go back to living my life.” You said.

“But what if his next victim is a Christian?” Freddie grabbed your shoulder. “What if the next person who narrowly avoids getting their throat slashed decides to go on record and say that he doesn’t represent ‘real Christianity’?”

You went quiet. You hadn’t considered it, but the thought of anyone downplaying his faith as a motivation made your blood boil. You looked into the man’s eyes and saw a person driven to kill for his god. A god he shared with the crusaders, conquistadors and slavers.

“...but it does. Christians colonized half the planet for--”

You stopped yourself when you saw Freddie’s smile.

“You want to get on your soapbox, now’s your chance.” She bit her lip. “Take control of the conversation while you still can.”

“Fine.” You spat. “I get off work tomorrow at four.”

Freddie shoved the gas can into your hands. “I’ll see you then.”

#hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x reader #hannibal x you #freddie lounds #tw christianity #will graham

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6blackfilin9 · 3 years ago

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I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

#my art #naruto #naruto shipuden #akatsuki #naruto akatsuki #akatsuki kakuzu #kakuzu #naruto anko #mitarashi anko #kakuanko #they are very entertaining disaster

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cher-writes · 4 years ago

Text

Silver Screen / Silver Pole | Robert Sheehan x Reader (18+)

Summary: A night of celebration in a LA strip club takes an interesting and unexpected turn when a contrarian actor winds up offending the wrong stripper. But night is long and the possibilities are endless, where will it take them?

Word Count: 7.3k

CW: Mention of sexual harassment, Consensual slapping, NSFW smut

A/N: This one is surprisingly not bloody at all and the smut isn't wild either so like most everyone can read it. Although it's emotionally very heavy. So, get ready to feel some shit. Hopefully you'll enjoy.

Special thanks to @crisis-of-joy for being there for me the whole month I took to complete this emotionally taxing fic and also for being my kind beta reader & editor.

Burning on it’s way down, the third glass of whiskey finally gave her some life she desperately needed. Deafening music throbbed throughout her veins, drowning the club in the background. She wanted to drown with it too but she couldn’t, she was there to work and rent for the month was already due. The fourth glass was on the verge of meeting with her bitter mouth when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t drink so much, you’ll trip on the stage,” Coco practically shouted in her ear. Coco was the only friend she had in that goddamn place and It wasn’t a very rare occurrence that Coco had to drag her blackout drunk body out of the club. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say she had a problem. Considering that she was already on her third strike of the month and the third drink of the night, Coco knew better than to let her get drunk this early.

“I can’t stay here and be sober at the same time,” she shouted back at Coco, “especially after...nevermind,” but decided against talking about it and instead focused her energy on finishing the fourth glass, which was gone just as quickly as the words stopped coming out of her mouth.

She could read the concern on Coco's face and sense the questions brewing behind it as Coco spoke up, “I want to know what the fuck is up with you but I have to go now, Caleb came home from school hours ago, it’s pretty late and I have to cook him dinner.”

“What happened to Larry? Can’t he take care of the kid? He’s fucking jobless anyway.”

“He got in a bad fight again. I can barely afford Caleb’s school fees and now the medical bills.”

“If only you had divorced him, you wouldn’t need to worry about it.”

“And if only you had been less violent towards customers, you wouldn’t be on the verge of getting fired. But, here we are.”

She furrowed her brows at this sudden sharp stab of truth by Coco and dealt with it the only way she knew how to, by ordering another drink. Coco crossed her arms letting out a deep sigh and said, “Look, I'm only trying to help you, (y/n). Sam wanted me to go up. You see that group seating in the fifth VIP booth? Up there. They are celebs and celebrating something so, ya know, good money. I said no cause, as I said I gotta go home, but I convinced him to let you go up there. It was hard given your recent less-than-favorable behavior, but I managed to.” Coco snatched the already empty glass from her hand and continued, “So stop drinking, go up there and get that money. And for the love of God, behave yourself or this might be your last night here.”

Giving her hand a quick but tight squeeze, Coco got up then soon after disappeared into the crowd. She thought to herself about how a last night there wouldn’t be so bad if she could afford it, and wanted another drink immediately to kill that thought, but Coco's words haunted her ears. She looked over her shoulder to see three men sitting in the booth, laughing.

------------

Her head was in a violent swirl, vision blurry. She was way too drunk to be spinning around the pole, but she had an audience to entertain and had no one but herself to blame.

When you walked around your house wearin' my sky blue Lacoste, the song was thudding against her skull. Pulling herself together, she counted every second, waiting for the song to end. She could feel the eyes on her, sticking to every bit of her, just as invasive as it was the very first day yet, she couldn’t care less. She had to live through it if she wanted the money and she needed the money if she wanted to live. The room was dancing circles around her as the tips came flying in, she kept counting the seconds, sliding down the pole, and your knee socks.

------------

She was swaying dangerously on her way down from the stage. If the song didn’t end when it did, she would have thrown up without a shadow of a doubt. At that point, she didn’t even know how or what she danced, only the awful sickness in her stomach let her know that it was more than she could take.

She needed to chat up the men, try and convince them to buy a champagne room before the next song came on, which she feared was way too soon for her liking. Nevertheless she tried to steady herself but the big glass platforms messed with her earnest efforts, nausea kicking her in the stomach once again, letting her know of her limits.

She didn’t ever really look at the men who sat in front of her, leering at her, they all looked the same, smelt the same and talked the same. So she followed the same old routine, bending down just enough to give them a view up her tits. Pressing her arms closer, she slurred, “What are we celebrating, gentlemen?”

She absolutely hated how she sounded pandering to men, two pitches higher. “My friend over here landed a role in a Spielberg film!” the middle one spoke up and pointed to the one sitting on the right side. The one in question grinned in response and repulsion licked the back of her neck at the sight of that. Yet she needed to please him, “That’s amazing! I’m sure I’ll be seeing your face on the billboards everyday now while driving,” she said and fantasized about having enough money to burn down all the billboards in LA and maybe LA with it too.

“Hell yeah you will!” the one in the middle spoke up and broke her reverie so she pretended he was supporting her fantasy instead. “Oh please! Speak for yourself!” the one on the right perked up in his seat and continued, “He’s literally working with Fincher AND he got engaged!”. The one in the middle gave a revolting smirk at the very humble revelation of his accomplishment and it was enough to turn her stomach or maybe it was the alcohol, she couldn’t really decipher.

“Oh really?” she looked at the man, tilted her head and said, “And you came to a stripclub to celebrate your engagement?”, her face deadpan. Notes of contempt stuck out like thorns from her voice, making her sound way more intense than she intended to.

He tensed up visibly at her sudden razor-edged tone and, even though she didn't want to, she had to ease the situation. I can’t piss off these bastards again, she kept repeating to herself like a mantra. “Boys will be boys!” she said, not being able to think of something better that wasn’t inherently insulting, and laughed the most disgusting laugh of her life. If she could she would pour gasoline down her throat just for uttering those words.

She couldn’t bear to linger at that conversation point anymore so she turned her attention to the man sitting on the far left. He looked distant and foreign, staring but not really looking at her. There was a peculiar absence behind his distinct green eyes, which she would even call beautiful under different circumstances. And that, something about that absence, made her want to zero in on him.

“And what about you? Did you win an Oscar or something?” mockery ringed clear in her voice, which brought his attention back to the presence. Startled slightly, he straightened his posture while saying, “No, not really... not yet at least,” he smiled sheepishly and continued, “I’m just here with them”.

“Come to think about it, I’ve never really seen you anywhere,” she said without thinking too much. In fact, she didn’t really pay enough attention to how he looked to recognize him even if she did.

Something intense flashed his eyes for a brief second. She couldn’t quite put her fingers on what it was but she could feel the energy shift very quickly between them.

“Oh I’ve been in things but I’d be surprised if you did see any of them,” his voice now stripped of the delicacy it previously held. She could feel the air between them getting unusually heavy, his words penetrating through her skin a bit too effortlessly, a bit too swiftly that it was unsettling.

“And why exactly would you be surprised?”

“You know...cause people like you don’t usually watch the kind of films I do.”

“What do you mean by ‘people like me?’”

“You know...people of your...stature,” he trailed off. Blood rushed the back of her neck as soon as the words hit her ears. She could feel her vision burning, a hot wave washed the crown of her skull, something unruly building at the base of her being. Clenching her jaw so as not to let it take over her, she said, “Stature huh? Fancy! I reckon from your accent that, wherever the hell you’re from, people get a kick out of looking down on others with such wispy language.”

She could sense the same unruly substance dancing behind his chest, but he was far better at keeping it on a leash.

“I wasn’t looking down upon you. What I was merely getting at is that some people aren’t cut for apprehending particular types of films,” he sounded snarky but calm, the type of calm that’s tainted with scorn, which only sent ripples of rage down her ribs.

“Oh so you think just because I’m a stripper by profession that I wouldn’t understand your low-budget dumb indie movies?” she was getting visibly worked up now. Traces of her seductive posture vanished long ago but there was a new hostile energy flowing through her stance.

“I didn’t say that -”

“No, of course you didn’t say that, you only meant that. You meant what you think and every one of you think that we aren’t people with brains and emotions. No, no, we’re just sacks of meat to ogle at in exchange of money, and then grope when you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“I think you're trying to put words in my mouth, this is -”

“God! you think you’re fucking better than me, don’t you? You contrarian little shit!” she could feel it in her bones. She knew what was coming. There were people behind, or maybe beside, her, trying to talk to her, probably. She could hear no one, not even the previously unbearable blaring music. She had tunnel vision and it was fixed on him. The air she breathed chafed her nose. Her nerves thumped as her heart leapt at irregular rapid intervals.

“Excuse me! but i neve -” he said as his body went alert. Posture anticipating something violent, flight or fight.

“You think you're better than me because I'm a stripper and you got enough money to buy me?” her voice was icy as she spoke, “You LA people are all the fucking same. You get a little money in your pockets and you think you own the world and anyone who isn’t jerking off to your pretentious bullshit isn’t worthy enough to deserve basic fucking decency. Huh is that it?” she quickly jumped on top of him, straddling him.

He was frozen under her as she leaned in and murmured, “Well then allow me to show you”, she pulled away, her left hand clutching his shoulder as right fist rose the air, “HOW FUCKING BETTER THAN ME YOU ARE!” then her fist crashed on the side of his mouth with all the force she could muster, releasing a knot built in her chest since she checked in with the manager in the evening. Hot, sweltering adrenaline was coursing through her veins.

The impact resulted in him burying his face in his right shoulder so she grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to face her. His lips were starting to swell up so she decided to help it. His eyes went blank as her fist met his face once more.

Involuntarily, her hand was raising in the air again when she felt a strong pull from behind. The security guard, twice her size, yanked her away from him. People gathered around them staring at her, the music stopped to her relief. The guard twisted her arms behind her back, enough to leave bruises that’ll sting for days to come. She couldn't move, her sight went hazy yet she felt this strange cool serenity soothe her tensed muscles. His friends were crowding him, probably consoling him. She could neither hear them nor make out their faces from her almost closed eyelids. She was pretty sure she was falling asleep in the guard’s painful hold until she heard a certain voice and the hair at the back of her neck stood up.

“What the fuck! She’s at it AGAIN? Sir, I'm so sorry -” Sam, the manager’s voice pierced her ears as he rushed into the booth. As he was talking to them, commotion rose in the background. She could feel blind rage beating with every thump of her heart. If it wasn’t for the guard holding her in place, she would have skinned him alive by now. She was struggling to free herself when Sam turned to her and said, “You! That’s it!” pointing his left index at her. “I’ve had just about enough of your drunkass assaulting fine gentlemen. You’re fired. Get out right now! And be grateful we’re not reporting you to the police.”

Suddenly everything went quiet in her head. She smiled, nothing behind her gaze. Grinning ear to ear like a maniac, she said, “I’m fired? Aww what’s gonna happen to you now Sam?”. She cooed, ''Whose tits and ass are you gonna grab from now on? Stella? I wonder if she’ll compare to me though.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam almost hissed at her.

“Ohhh right! Of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said while still tussling with whatever little strength she had left to loosen herself from the guard’s excruciating grip. “You don’t know anything about how you sexually harassed me day after day, how your disgusting, slimy little hands grabbed my body against my will at every chance that you got. You knew how much I need the money from this job and you used that against me to keep me silent, threatening to fire me every time I made even a sound. But guess what fucker? I’m fired now! And I’m gonna tell everyone about HOW YOU TRIED TO -”

“Take her to the staff room!” Sam cut her off, “NOW!” And, as soon as the words left Sam's mouth, the guard put his palm over her mouth and started dragging her back. The hand over her mouth muffled her screams and she glanced at the man, now with swollen lips, looking at her with eyes filled with, what looked like, concern.

As she was getting dragged, she finally managed to sink her teeth into the guard’s palm resulting in him withdrawing his hand just enough to give her a small window of time to scream at Sam: “YOU MOTHERFUCKER I’LL BE BACK AND I’LL PEEL THE SKIN OFF OF YOUR SCALP FUCKING SON OF A BITCH I’LL -” Before she could finish, her voice got cut off again and she faded into the dimly lit passageway at the back of the floor.

------------

The cherry of her fifth cigarette shone brightly in the shivering cold as the smoke drifted up in the air and sluggishly faded away. Mouth agape, her eyes meticulously followed the faint trails left after their disappearance. She wondered where they went, where she’ll go. If it wasn’t this late, and the water wasn’t so cold, maybe she could have gone for a swim in the ocean. If the water wasn’t so cold maybe she would have let it swallow her even. She was calculating the probable temperature of the hypothetical water she’d marry someday when the sound of slow approaching footsteps entered her field of perception. She would have preferred to ignore it but the, somehow already familiar, voice spoke up, “Hey erm...” and left her no choice but to look. And there he was, the foreign man with the swollen lip, looking culpable. There were distinct imprints of guilt in his voice as he continued, “I saw you across the parking lot…um I was actually just leaving with my friends,” he pointed at a black Mercedes parked at the far end of the lot. “They’re waiting in the car anyway so I decided -”

“So you decided now that she’s fired from being a stripper, she's probably a hooker! Lemme go ask the price she’s selling at,” her gestures and voice was comical, “you know, dude if you’ve got a kink of getting beaten up non-consensually then you’re really good at getting it cause I might just be up for round two.”

He stared at her for a good few seconds with a perplexed face, as if trying to process her stream of logic. When he started speaking, he sounded genuinely hurt, “No! Jesus Christ I came to apologize. Can you just not be defensive for one second? I’m not a monster ya know!”

His sincerity caught her off guard. She had about five thousand ways of dealing with assholes prepared and ready to go but an actually decent person? Now that was rocky territory for her.

“Well, uh, that’s a first. Go ahead I guess?” she shrugged her shoulders.

“I apologize for saying what I said back in the club. I shouldn’t have insinuated that you aren’t intelligent enough to understand my films just because of your choice of profession. It was really shitty of me to say that, and nothing can justify it either. And I feel like I caused you to be fired, that’s also weighing heavily on my soul and I don't know how to make it up to you. Just, I hope that you can forgive me and, again, I apologize, earnestly. Please tell me how I can make it up to you,” he said and looked at her with a rueful expression.

She was at a loss of words. It had been years since anyone apologized to her, let alone that sincerely. After a considerable amount of silence, she gathered her fragmented thoughts and spoke up, “Whoa, whoa man, chill. You didn’t murder my family or anything so calm down,” she held up her open palms, the cigarette almost at it’s end. “Apology accepted, okay? And don’t feel bad, I would have been fired sooner or later given my questionable behavior ever since I joined, so it’s not on your conscience. And I’m sorry too,” her index and middle finger holding the cigarette gestured at his lips, “for, um, punching you so let’s call it an even.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “yeah okay,” sounding clearly more relaxed than before.

“You know it’s a miracle how long it took for me to get fired,” she mused, “oh no it wasn’t a miracle it was sexual harassment, ah I see now. Wonder what Sam saw in me though that was worth not firing me for this long even though I pulled so much shit,” she took a long drag of her weary cigarette. “Maybe I've got a talent for getting harassed or something...who knows?”

His face tensed up again as he said, “That’s...not right,” eyes pooling with the same worried look as before.

“I was joking, chill. Humor is an excellent way to deal with most everything really, especially trauma.”

“I am sorry for what you had to go through, it’s gut-wrenching. Can’t you lodge a complaint to the police?”

“Going to the pigs? As a sex worker? Who just got fired for being drunk and punching a man in front of many eye witnesses? Now that was humor, you’re quite good at it actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Besides, that’s like one of the first things you gotta learn to put up with if you’re working in this business. As unfair and grim as it is, men, no actually, people don’t see sex workers as human beings and I’m just too obstinate to accept that simple fact, or maybe too much of a pussy, depending on where one’s priorities lie.”

“I…don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say.”

It was just setting in for her how beautiful he actually was. His crestfallen face was graced by two stunning green eyes, lush unruly curls sticking to his forehead, sharp jawline kissed with a scruffy goatee and the swollen lip throwing off the symmetry just right to make him look captivating, to say the least. In the chilly December ambience his face was a soothing sight to her eyes, his sweet voice kind to her drudging ears, his presence warm to her existence. And she wanted to hold onto the warmth, just for a bit longer.

“You said you wanted to make it up to me, right?” she said as the cigarette fell on the ground then died out under the crushing embrace of her cruel heels.

------------

“Well I'm Ro -” he said leaning against the passenger seat window, sitting half facing her.

“If you’re trying to say your name then don’t,” she cut him off quickly without averting her gaze from the road.

“Why?” he asked, staring at her intently yet without any emotion in particular.

“‘Cause it doesn’t matter. It’s better if we don’t know each other’s name. Names individualize people and that’s not necessary for tonight,” she answered nonchalantly as the neon lights of a passing by road sign illuminated her face and then faded into the past just as nonchalantly.

“Okay.”

She could feel his eyes on her, but it didn’t bother her, it wasn’t tainted. There was this unusual tranquility in the atmosphere of the car, this obscure but consistent serene rhythm. She felt a bizarre comfort in his presence and she could drive like this forever, on a never-ending road spiraling towards heaven or winding down pandemonium or just dissolving into the ether, with him sitting lazily on the side.

“Do you ever feel like that?” he spoke up absentmindedly, breaking into her almost fever dream.

“Huh?”

“The song, I feel like that often.”

She didn’t realize the radio was on, playing at quite a significant volume. She wondered if he had turned it on at some point and how long she was driving for without being present mentally.

This place will be the end of me. Take me out, LA. Take me out of LA, the voice from the radio filled the car to the brim.

“I don’t feel like that, I know that. I know I'll die here, kinda intrinsically...do you hate this place?”

“No, not hate. I just feel like I don't fit in here. It’s the way of life, it’s quite significantly different to what I was used to. The people and the city, it all feels hollow sometimes and every now and then i catch myself yearning for what I left behind me.”

“I see. Beautiful people and their beautiful problems.”

Silence fell in the car again. Except for the voice through the radio, Well this place is never what it seems.

“You don’t have to make small talk, you know. I'm fine with silence,” she said, finally looking at him for a brief second.

“Oh I know,” he was looking right into her eyes, unruffled. “I wasn’t making small talk, I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all.”

------------

The bleak fluorescent tube above buzzed in solidarity as the fatigued clock on the chipped convenience store wall dragged its hands and finally managed to tick at 2 am. The attendant was leaning on the counter, trying not to fall asleep when her voice echoed in the store: “$20 on pump 2.”

“I’ll pay”, he cut in, reaching for his wallet. “Okayyy...” she replied, narrowing her eyes at his benevolence and looked around the store which was significantly emptier that other nights. She closed her eyes for a second and the memories flashed behind her lids. She used to come here frequently, around this time, with someone when everything in her world was right, just right enough for her to not to seek out falling stars every night and wish for death over and over again. When she opened her eyes a shiny pack of Parliaments caught her gaze and she quickly gestured behind the counter, “Since you’re paying, can I get a pack of those also?”

“Sure”

“I remember surviving on those alone while writing my thesis papers,” she said wistfully, “good times.”

“You went to college?”

“University actually, but yeah.”

“Good lord.”

“But I had to drop out so I couldn’t complete my Master’s in Biochemistry.”

“Why?”

“Life.”

“I flunked out my first year of college so you did way more than I did in that regard.”

“Welp, look where that got me.”

“Don’t say that!”

“What?” she scoffed.

“Anything else?” the attendant interjected, visibly tired and clearly annoyed at their conversation.

She swiftly grabbed a lighter, “Can I get this too?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“That’ll be all,” she tossed the lighter towards the attendant and continued, “You’re clearly doing way better than me in life.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I meant that seriously. I’m the one who fucked up my life and that’s a fact. Say, how did you know what you wanted to do?”

“That’ll be $30”, the attendant interjected again.

“I don’t know. I started acting as a kid and it just seemed right. It’s all I've known really and I can't see myself as anything else,” he said as he passed the money to the attendant.

“I envy that.”

“I do sometimes ponder what I would have been if not an actor.”

“Wondering too much isn’t good,” she grabbed the goods and shoved them in her coat pocket, “It might make someone into me.”

She stopped right before the glass door, pulled the lighter out and flicked it on, “I’ll use it later,” she leaned in close to him with a frivolous smirk and whispered, “to burn this city down.”

He chuckled at her sudden gaiety, “I’d gladly assist.”

Pushing the door open, she continued as he followed behind her, “Did you see the way that dude rolled his eyes to you? He definitely thought you were with a blabbering hooker and to be honest, my make up probably didn’t help either. Oh well it's not like -” her voice slowly evaporated into the gloomy gas-station lights.

------------

“So beautiful,” he said with awe looking over the vast and apparently endless ocean which the full, eternal moon bathed with its silver glory.

She clutched at her coat sleeves as the chilly wind sent shivers down her body and said, “I know right? I’ve always found the sea to be peaceful during this time of the night.”

“It’s lovely, I’ve never been to this beach before.”

“It’s my favorite spot actually, I used to come here pretty often,” melancholia dripping from her voice. She paused for a little while as if going over a mental checklist and said, “let’s go sit down there,” and pointed towards a vague place in the distance.

They walked down the beach for a bit side by side, knuckles occasionally brushing against each other’s, making them want to hold hands, feel the warmth of another being. But the hesitance of the yet to be known, the uncertainty of a nameless stranger clouded their minds and prevented them from reaching out.

She stopped, sat down and gestured to him to do the same by tapping the cold sand beside her. He sat a bit too far for her liking so she huddled up closer to him saying, “You blaze right?”

“Sure.”

“Cool,” she said, taking out a small bag from an inside pocket of her coat, “keep an eye out for me while I roll it.”

They sat in silence as she rolled a joint meticulously. The waves kept crashing on the shore as if fulfilling some ancient duty. Wind rustled through the empty beach. Sand glimmered sporadically under the warm light of the moon, creating a transcendental atmosphere.

He sighed and thought out loud, interrupting the intoxicating stillness of the night, “Where do we go from here?”

“Other than plotting the murder of Sam, I don’t know about me,” she replied without looking up from the task at hand, “Don’t really wanna think about it tonight. That’s why I took you along with me. I wanted someone to keep me distracted from my thoughts and I had no one to go to...then you came to apologize, like my knight in shining armor.”

He smiled wryly and said, “I see.”

“What about you? What are you gonna do about your not fitting in or what was it?”

“I don’t know either. I just miss my people. I’m not meant for here, I think.”

“So can’t you go back there? To your home I assume?”

“I can...”

“Then go. Why the fuck would you stick around if you had the option to go back?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh! I wish I had a home to go back to too.”

She could see him from the corner of her eyes, clenching his knees tight with his fingers at her words, bringing them closer to his chest. She looked up to see him staring at her with his big, beautiful, hurt-puppy eyes.

“Did that make you sad or something?” she asked, almost amused.

“Yeah...yeah it did.”

His apparent empathy for a literal stranger who also punched him not so long ago struck her as odd and oddly enticing. He looked unreal to her in the strange moonlight, as if a remote but vivid memory. She felt as though if she reached out and touched him, he’d turn to dust and drift off with the wind. Those intense eyes and his fey beauty were getting too much for her to bear so she averted her gaze towards the ocean and said, “There’s no use for your or anyone’s sadness. You see, sadness changes nothing. Unless you can start a capital R revolution tomorrow, everything will be the same. It’ll be the same day with slight variations over and over again, things will repeat and go on and on and on until one day humanity just goes poof somehow and then the universe will go on as if we never even happened. There’s no significance of our lives, there’s no point in feeling sad about anything in this set up. One must always imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“That’s quite pessimistic, isn’t it?”

“Kinda absurdist actually, but It’s hard not to be pessimistic or defensive, when you have to lead a life like mine.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, “Glamour Boy,’” she said, licking the rolling paper.

He put his hand over his chest and feigned being hurt which made her laugh; a clear, hearty laughter. The beach echoed with a faint sound of the laughter of two stray souls as he joined in.

The joint hanged from her lips, sensual and reckless like an erotic magazine model, burning bright as she took a long drawn-out drag.

“Say, do you think the water is cold?” she said, passing the joint to him.

He took in a drag, inhaling some of her used up smoke with it too, tasting her cheap but obscenely sweet fruity lip gloss at the filter tip, “Yeah...very much so”.

She huddled up even closer to feel the heat of his body as he passed the joint back to her. Taking in another drag, she leisurely put her head on his shoulder.

The sedating smoke sank into their lungs as the sand anchored them from floating off in the elating static of the enveloping darkness.

------------

“Is this it?” she said, pulling up to a posh apartment complex, something she wouldn’t be able to afford even after paying off her debts.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied absently and unbuckled his seatbelt.

She was looking ahead at the road, expecting him to get out of the car, but he sat in silence. She looked at him and saw him laid back on the seat as if being consumed by it, tracing the edge of the left air vent softly with his fingers. He sighed and said, still looking at his busy fingers: “I feel strange and fucking awful.”

“It happens sometimes after coming down a high.”

“It’ll be a pain in the arse going to bed feeling like this.”

“I know,” her eyes travelled down the flow of his posture, giving birth to an urge of some aboriginal origin in her loins, “but you don’t have to.”

He turned his head towards her slowly, lethargy clear in his slow breathing pattern, “What do you mean?”

“Push your seat back.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

He furrowed his brows, alarmed by her sudden gratuitous command. He looked at her; motionless as if not even breathing awaiting his compliance and her eyes glinted with expectancy. He pushed his seat back, as far as it could go then parted his lips to say something but before the words could get out, she virtually jumped on top then sat astride him.

A deathly stillness engrossed the car as her previous bellicose energy returned to the atmosphere, only this time rather ardent in nature. His heart, instantaneously racing, almost audible to her.

“You know,” she said taking off her top, “dopamine is a hormone and neurotransmitter that’s an important part of your brain’s reward system, and it can elevate your mood and make you feel really good.”

Eyes wide with surprise, he struggled to keep his gaze fixed on her face as she unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingertips snaked up and down his smooth chest as if caressing a sumptuous painting one is not allowed to touch. She felt his taut muscle tighten at her touch, veins kindled with a hot rush pulsing under. Burying her face in the hollow of his neck, she felt the heat of his body as she pressed her chest against his. His breathing picked up it’s pace even more at the contact with her flushed skin.

“Do you ever get lonely?” she spoke up letting her lips skim over his bare shoulder.

“Terribly,” his voice breathy as he placed his hands on her hips hesitantly, not possessively, but affectionately.

“I do too.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Maybe we don’t do anything.”

“Maybe.” he said resting his right cheek against her head, “or maybe we keep each other company.”

“But for how long?”

“However long we need to.”

A mirthless laugh rippled from her lips then through his skin. She pulled back to look him in the eyes, curious green mixed with an unfamiliar kind of sorrow, a sorrow too costly for her. “Lust and attraction shut off the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which includes rational behavior,” she said, knocking softly on his temple.

“Makes sense.”

Cupping his face, she stroked his swollen lips with her rough thumbs, making him wince in response. The purple bruise steadily forming on the side of his mouth marred his flawless complexion yet his allure only enhanced. Her thumb rubbed on the bruise with reckless abandon, his flinches testifying to that. Withdrawing her hands from his face, she left a light peck on the bruise and said, “Slap me.”

“What?”

“Slap me, come on, I'm giving you a chance to get back at me for earlier.”

“No!”

“Prude!”

“Hey! I just don’t want to hurt you, especially not as revenge or what not,” he sounded genuinely offended.

She leaned in, “But I want to get hurt, silly,” her lips ghosting over his as she whispered, “Endorphins are our body’s natural pain reducer and it so happens to increase when we engage in reward-producing activities, such as eating, working out, or having sex.” She pulled away and continued, “So hit me. Hard.” His adam’s apple bobbed up then down as he searched at her face, as if trying to find some sort of sign. His fingers dug in her hips, indicating the upcoming crude impact. Her palms laid flat against his chest as his left hand rose then crashed against her face. Her fingers curled in response as she gasped weakly, eyes shut closed but the tensity clear in the lines on her eyelids and forehead.

“Ah... that was good,” she said as if talking to herself, caressing her cheek. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring with uncertain eyes, the doubt readable in the way he bit his lips.

“Just like that, once more,” her firm voice ringed in the vehicle. His hand cruelly collided once again with her face, leaving her face warm and red.

“Good boy,” she cooed as the sharp sting eddied on her cheek and then through her whole body, easing her off some unknown yet intrinsic discomfort. Her chest pounded in sync to his as she spoke up, “Do it for me once again, won’t you?”

Pressing his teeth even deeper into his lips, he struck her once again, with as much strength as he had. A white light flashed before her eyes, her ears ringed as she sat in silence for a bit. When her vision became clear, she held his face between her palms. Leaning closer, she rested her temple against his and murmured, “Such a good boy.”

Sweat dripped down as her nose grazed up the side of his neck, she could feel him growing hard through his pants. She buried her face in his curls and breathed in. He smelt sugary, sweet to the extent of almost making her nauseous. She whispered against his ear, “You’ve got a boner...it turned you on this much to hurt me?”

“It’s, um, n-not really that part it’s the -” he stammered in embarrassment.

“Ugh men,” she cut him off and rolled her eyes playfully. “But since we’ve got a situation at hand, and you’ve been so good to me, I think you deserve some relief for yourself,” she said, tugging at his waistband. To which he responded eagerly, elevating his hips just enough so she could slip his pants off as much as possible. His head sank back into the headrest as her hands wrapped around his cock. Her hand gilded up and down his length as her other hand ran through his hair, pulling lightly. Resting his forehead on her shoulder, he quivered and moaned softly as she lovingly yet mercilessly worked on him. His breath hitched sharply as she stroked the tip of his cock with her thumb, making him groan and twitch under her touch. She was about to pick up the pace when he grabbed her wrist abruptly. “Wait!” he rasped, “I wanna...feel you.”

He panted, trying to catch his breath and said, “Let’s take this inside, there might be people around.”

“Why? Are you afraid of getting photographed with a hooker by the paparazzi, Mr. Actor?"

“No”, he answered, the same hurt as earlier could be heard in his voice, the type of hurt when one is misunderstood by someone they love, “I just - I just want it to be nice.”

“Let’s not make it too nice lest you fall in love with me,” she said sternly. “Besides, you should be more concerned about getting STDs. There should be some condoms in the glove box and also tissues for later.”

He brought his face closer to hers, looked at her lips and said, “You’ve got such a mean mouth, you know that?”

“And you like it?”

“Perhaps”, he replied then kissed her, deeply. Holding her face in his head, he bit her lips which made her moan in his mouth. After running out of breath she pulled away, still tasting his saliva on her tongue as he reached behind her and rifled through the glove compartment. Having found what he wanted, he turned on the radio then returned his focus to her; she was hiking up her dress and awkwardly slipping off her panties in the short space.

Heavy bass filled the car, I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust, as the sky started to light up with shades of azure and tangerine. Her tongue blended with his as she took his cock in her. Their bodies pressed and flushed against each other as a steady rhythm flowed through them. Her nails scratched his nape, as he kissed her neck, nibbling at her collarbone. Her head shot back as he thrust up into her, frantic and keen. His groans muffled in her chest, her moans melting into his hair as their hips clashed against one another.

Maybe I just wanna be yours.

I wanna be yours.

------------

The sparkling rays of the breaking dawn illuminated his face as he cleaned himself off and got dressed. She marveled from the driver’s seat at the magnificence of the sight of him in afterglow. There was something in him, something innate, that made him stand out from anyone she ever came across. He was made for the screen, he was made to shine, and she wondered whether or not he’ll remember her afterwards. It was for the better if he didn’t, she thought to herself, as this was probably one of the lowest points in his life, while that night was most definitely one of the highlights of hers. The sheer dichotomy was glaring at her soul when he spoke up, bringing her attention back to the present, “I was wondering if you’d like to -”

“Look if you want my name or number, then that’s just not gonna happen,” she said with a sigh, “It’s the oxytocin flooding your brain. Increased levels of oxytocin facilitate attachment and bonding and shit so, like, don’t be fooled.”

“But it’s not that, I feel a connection between us...something I haven’t felt with anyone here before.”

He averted his eyes from her and looked out the window. His hand lingered on the door handle for a second before he stepped out of the car. Turning his back towards the car, he walked into the apartment complex, without saying anything further. Her foot pressed on the accelerator, as the car drove past the buildings. A Parliament washed out the leftover taste of him in her mouth as she rolled down the window to let the nauseously sweet scent dissipate into the cold morning air.

“It is that. Believe me, I know. There is nothing between us. Whatever connection you feel is your hormones doing bullshit things.”

“You’re just evading me”

“I’m not. I do actually know. Okay, for instance you feel really tired and sleepy right now, right?”

“Yeah”

“That’s the parasympathetic nervous system down-regulating your body and a shit load of vasopressin coursing through you”

“But that could also be because we stayed up all night and got high and just had sex”

“Why don’t you understand? It’s all chemicals, everything! There is nothing called love and whatever the fuck people feel is just their chemicals doing somersaults. There is nothing between us, we don’t know each other. There can be nothing either, look at the circumstances. People like you shouldn’t have to do anything with people like me unless it requires a monetary transaction.”

“But i can help, with whatever you’re dealing with”, he said reaching to place his hand over hers, “we can help each other”

“and what exactly do you think i’m dealing with?, she asked, withdrawing her hand, eyes narrowed at him.

“I don’t know yet”

“Exactly. You don’t know anything. I’m not some sad little girl who went to college then got depressed but in a sexy way so maybe she did drugs or whatever and dropped out and now strips for fucking aesthetic reasons probably. No honey, I’m involved with shit that can drag you down faster than a meth withdrawal and my life is a living testimony of that, take my word for it. So, go get some rest. Sleep out your saviour complex and live out your promising life when you wake up.”

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obeymeluv · 4 years ago

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Could you do one with an MC who is rich and has two butlers and they happen to arrive out of nowhere, and they start to become clingy, and they call MC ✨Master✨? How would the brothers react? And could you also please do the reaction of the undateables to? Thank you and keep up the great work!❤️❤️

What an interesting concept :0

These will be short-ish since you want to include the Undateables, too. Also, bear with me. First time doing the Undateables. Luke is excluded because he is a baby.

Lucifer:

He didn’t remember this being in your selection packet. This is unacceptable.

Is very unnerved and aggravated because...why so clingy? Have some dignity!

Literally wrinkles his nose at them and scoffs

When they address you as “Master” in his presence he tries very hard not to throw something at them or make a demon noise.

Something about them addressing you like that seems like a smack in the face, like they’re flaunting their closeness and he’s just not here for it

If they get him the right way on the wrong day, he’s going to pull rank and be like ‘I was here with them BEFORE you got here and you’re in the Devildom. MY HOME. Know your place.’

Will play their game and force them to actually be a butler, dismissing them when he’s with you or requesting things. If they don’t look like they want to do it for them, he’d call them out on whether or not they’re really a butler with that shit-eating smirk on his face.

Mammon:

Is pretty excited. They’re basically his butlers now too, right?! He’s your best man so you share, right?!

If they shut him down, ignore him, or dismiss him, Mammon’s going to be super butthurt about it

Their whole clingy ‘Master’ bit is really not sitting right with him. It’s doing a number on his desire to be greedy and snap up all your time or attention

Is most likely to trick them, like sending an illusion of you down the hall just so they follow you. He’ll make off with the real you! Hey, it’s not his fault you have dumb human butlers, okay?

May just outright lie to them and convince them that they need to work odd jobs in the Devildom to support you (”Uh, yeah, no, they’re broke here. Human money doesn’t transfer, you know?”) because these simps would do it. You get more Grim and he gets you, it’s a win!

Levi

Weirded out but really interested. He’s not super close with Barbatos so this is a chance to find out exactly what being a butler entails. It’s kind of a mystery profession, he thinks

Is also convinced they may not be human butlers because he saw that in an anime once. This sends Levi on a small (constant) spying expedition to see if anything non-human happens

This may be where he realizes he has a sub kink because hearing them call you ‘Master’ makes him blush and feel some kind of way?!

The magic dies a bit when they’re dismissive and kind of protective, seeming to guard you from the bros

Gets jealous because they’re obviously close to you and that’s basically a pet name and why can’t HE have that?

They may or may not be scared by his demon form if/when he sulks around

Might trick them into playing an intense butler/serving VR game and trap them in it for a little bit. He feels like they’ve disturbed the peace of the house.

Satan

He sees their game and he’ll play it. If they’re your butlers--and good ones--they’ll cater to him, who is your company.

Lives for every moment he can catch them on a technicality and they have to include him on anything

Thinks it’s cute they call you master. If they get snippy with him, he’ll be happy to explain how that term originated with demons and it will take nothing short of their master to call him off of them

If he’s bored or just feeling some kind of way, he’ll ask them to help fetch books (at your behest, so they do it) and watch them struggle with ancient tomes that may have been enchanted to weigh a little more than normal.

Satan lowkey feels on edge because they feel like intruders in their home, in the space they’ve let you share. Does not want them here.

Asmo

Butlers?! How quaint and cute! Seems like a scene from a book! Have you ever had a wild love affair?!

Charms them without using his powers. They somehow accept him. He appears to be tolerated more than the rest of his brothers, though he undoubtedly plays second fiddle to you. He understands.

Thoroughly enjoys pissing off his brothers via the butlers, toasting with little glasses of drink while the two of you have a private party. Oh, it’s so fun!

Will poke fun at how much they use ‘Master’. “Some people really enjoy that, you know? Is it projection or just your thing?” (It gets on his nerves because, yes, it can be overused.)

It’s a nice peek into something he doesn’t have in his life but it does lose its charm eventually. He’d much prefer the House of Lamentation go back to the way it was.

Will probably charm them right back to the human world. No need for butlers here, you have seven demons!

Beel

Almost eats one of them because he thinks random humans just showed up in the house.

He honestly thought it was some reverse summoning gone wrong and they’d be totally free game to eat. They might have bad intentions, you know?

Once he realizes they’re here for you, he apologizes but is wary.

Are they here to take you away? To check in on you? Why would they do that? You signed all kinds of paperwork stating you’d be safe in the Devildom and stuff!

Lucifer gets aggravated with them floating around and attaching to you (and lowkey trying to clean/rearrange the house) so he asks you to put them on cooking duty. You seem to want a break from them so you agree. Beel tries not to abuse this too much, but he’s glad to have extra bodies ready to cook!

Doesn’t really get the ‘Master’ thing but won’t say anything. Will idly go ask Satan if that’s a thing in the human world. He feels like it should’ve gone out of date a couple of centuries ago.

The one to ask, point blank, if you guys decide to date or get married do they then become his butlers?

Will leave alone if he’s left alone, but if they start to get hostile or sabotage his ability to hang out with you, he will think of a very passive/casual way to show his strength and why he shouldn’t be messed with.

Belphie

Almost attacked them too, but for a different reason. He’d been sleeping when they arrived and no one thought to update him. When he saw random people in the house, he thought someone may have broken in.

Cow man will defend his territory

Will definitely make fun of them when they call you ‘master’. (”Seems like something a lesser creature would do.”)

They may be here for you but they’ll learn his rules. Mainly: do not, under any circumstances, touch his cow pillow.

Couldn’t care less but if he thinks his family is being pushed away because of them, he and Satan may form a smaller ‘Butlers suck’ club and test out some new pranks for the ‘Lucifer sucks’ club.

Will doze in your lap just to hear you defend him and shoo them off. May slap one of them with his tail ‘in his sleep’.

Solomon

Butlers, hm? It wasn’t something he expected

Has no outward animosity for them. Lowkey charms them; he wants them to open up and let their guard down because he is extremely interested in body language. What are they really feeling and thinking?

May show them a few spells to break the ice

If he feels they’re stealing up your time and blocking him, he’ll play their cat and mouse game. He and Satan have a lot in common in that respect.

Secretly wonders if you can make them try his cooking. He doesn’t think it’s half bad!

May ask them for tips on cooking

If he’s bored and you both want to have a laugh, he may find a way to spike them both with truth serum and have a fun time

Secretly wants to have a real tea party-type date

Simeon

What an act of labor and love! How adorable!

He considers them to be the human version of guardian angels and he’s just so touched by it. He thinks its very cute

Dotes on them a bit, almost like they’re puppies instead of people

He is polite and literally angelic, but he is not a pushover. Should they deny him your presence out of spite or distrust, he will give them a mini-schooling (scolding) on politeness and how he prays for their heart

Probably wins them over by being his usual neutral kind of polite self

Doesn’t quite care for them calling you master and warns them of false idols and such

Diavolo

Is very amused. You also have butlers? What a small world!

Do butlers like to hang out with other butlers?

Basically tries to arrange a butler play date

Genuinely laughs when they try to prevent him from being with you in any capacity. (”They may be your master but I am a prince. Soon to be king. Please step aside.”)

He appreciates that they’re protective of you but there IS such a thing as overdoing it and he can excuse them from the Devildom any time he wishes.

Overall takes their presence with grace because you having butlers is like him having Barbatos. They’re just very young and stubborn. He understands. They’ll mellow out soon.

Barbatos

Finds the whole thing laughable, especially when they try to prevent HIM from seeing you

Boy has been a butler for THOUSANDS of years, he knows all the dismissal tricks!

Barbatos will idly wipe a gloved hand over something they’ve cleaned (comes from being head of cleaning staff for thousands of years) and in butler code that SMACKS of judgement and disrespect

He knows this and sometimes he does it on purpose

Barbatos is the very quiet, sly kind of petty

May send the butlers into a cleaning frenzy just because they THINK he’ll say something or they THINK he gave them the side eye

Those humans may work themselves sore and oh, what’s this? You’re suddenly free and unattended? Well, he can’t have that, can he?

Probably saw this happening in one reality or another, so he takes it like a champ. There’s just that nasty bite of pride that refuses to let him be out-butlered.

Hope you liked it, Nonnie!

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xuyaa · 4 years ago

Text

Age gaps

Ahh... I dread this but I'll speak anyway. I keep seeing people have a problem with big age gap couple in fandom. Now before your nostrils all fluff up let me say this, if you can't have an open mind or too fragile for my input please take your leave. This would be wasted on you.

About age gap on fandoms couple (canon or crack) I personally have no problem as long as both parties consent (without child grooming or forced relationship aspect) and considered legal at the start of their relationship and the legality here is not referring to our modern standard but on the couple's world and time. I'll try to explain but it might get long and boring but if you're still okay, continue.

I'll give an example, during the age of samurai if the situation permits like Uesugi Kenshin they can join battle at age 13 and there are still other examples of other famous child samurai. We call it child now because time change but during that time they were considered an adult once they enter battlefield. Why? They already trained years prior to kill and to protect their lord. Example of this in anime would be Himura Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin. His first marriage was when he's around 16 and that was an acceptable age at that era since he was considered adult at age 14. So even though I find it icky if modern day teenager marry at that age, I can understand Kenshin's situation. If I'm still okay reading about him killing people around at even younger age I'm not gonna complain about him wanting to marry (although it's not that simple white and black for him).

You get what I'm trying to say?

More example of the acceptable norms in past era. During certain era in certain place like for example Victorian England and prior, 14 year old boys and 12 year old girls are passable for marriage depends on whether the family want it or not as it's more political than anything else. Same in China for example during the Manchurian Dynasty 14 year old girl is considered adult enough for marriage. And usually the age of the husband is always older by few years up to few decades (officials and emperor). But of course over time all of the above would change. Not by much maybe? Depend on the country I say.

Still we can't just hold the old days custom and norms on our modern day standard that would be akin to the present you calling your two or three year-old self a moron for defecating and not wiping your own ass. Or like when you do something stupid at your young age (pick whatever stupid situation that you have take as a lesson. Done?). You just didn't know better back then but now you do and from your failure you learn, although it would be better if you learn from other's lesson but I say pain is an effective lesson for oneself. Would you rather have that memories of your lesson be removed or ignored? I wouldn't. I don't know if I might do the stupid thing again just to find out whether I can or not. Same as this this whole age gap, young age marriage in the past and present in some customs thing. Don't erase the fact, don't gloss it over because people have and can still learn from them. My grandma married at young age and I came to be as the result of her choice.

Have you ever seen high schooler called Robert D Jr handsome? I've seen it recently on youtube. They call him very handsome and another video talked about cool and handsome senior male models. I've scrolled through the comments and no one seems offended that these high school girls simping for male old enough to be their granddad. These girls called them daddy and commenting how hot they are and the comments either agree or saying the girls reactions are cute. Huh... reverse the situation if these old models commenting female korean idol for example and calling them cute or hot what would people think? "creepy" "pedobear" even though senior female might think the same lines, heck maybe even we think the same lines. See the double standard people use? Maybe not everyone, but the loud ones are there. They're so loud I don't even know if they're majority or minority. I have celebrity crush too when I was young and as it happen, he's my father's age and to be frank, I would not mind an older partner if said partner is compatible and emotionaly mature. My sister is 17 years younger than her husband and they turn out well because her husband is matured enough to understand her ups and downs emotion back when they're dating, even before. Are all men mature emotionally as they became older then? No, just as not all oranges is sweet. My sister is 10 years my senior but she's more bratty than I am sometimes. Is it wrong of my bro in law to be with my sis?

Oh you're just trying to defend pedophilia anywayヽ(`Д´)ﾉ.

No stupid, I'm trying to make you think. I don't accept pedophilia, shotacon or lolicon. My sis is old enough to be called spinster when they go out. Anyway, when you follow a certain series, try to see it from their era and custom's perspective. Some era is okay with 16 year old marrying. Some tribes in Asia allow marriage between cousins while others and the majority of the world frown upon them. That's just how they see and do things. For me as long as both side consent without pressure and not in the case of 'parents sending their child for marriage without their input' thing I'm okay to leave that alone, I'm pretty much sure we're on the same page there. I hope.

So, just as when you come to another country, you adhere to their rules and norms or you have no right to complain if they deport you out for not learning beforehand and breaking their rules. Or when you have a guest come to your home and they suddenly start demanding you to do stuff their way, you should kick them out if not slapping their face. Or if you want to be kind, explain how you do things in your home and hoping they would understand and respect it.

I'm jumping around but see what I'm trying to say? I'll get to another anime example.

In Naruto for instance, they became genin at 12 and killing people left and right. People are okay with that right? Yeah well, since it was soo popular I suppose... besides it's pretty glossed over in both manga and anime. But the same people that's okay with children killing left and right, would they be okay if suddenly the mangaka put in story about one of the chara going on seduction mission? If it's carried out well as in the chara being bamf, maybe no problem. But if things went south for the chara? I'm sure there will be outrage, especially if that's a female chara or worse if it's one of the main like Sakura. See? People hold the characters, the series and the mangaka to their own convenient double standards. Back to the age gap when shipping, I pick Naruto as example because apparently Sakura was just so shippable that people actually ship her with Kakashi and even Madara and she makes easy example. Don't ask me why she's shipped with Madara and I don't ship any of the two with Sakura. Anyway, if Sakura is mature enough to choose to kill as a teenager (and don't give me crap about Sakura never killing on screen. Their line of work involves lots of death and she's been through war) she's mature enough to decide her romantic partner even if it's suddenly Orochimaru(ㆆ_ㆆ) (did they even exist?). You can say her taste is terrible because he's an asshole but don't say it's gross cause the age difference because apparently Orochimaru can just rejuvenated to new body and be as good as a babe (I wish I could too). Anyway saying it's about age on these kind of chara is just straight up lie on people's part. Another example I can think of atm is snk. I've seen people against pairing the 104th with the veterans because of age gap. Now I'm not trying to be rude, but hear me if you please. The whole 104th are trained child soldiers and they're killing titans and even humans. You're all okay with that? If you still follow the series far enough and liking it maybe you enjoy seeing the action sequence, drama and intrigue? The fact that you still come back to the series after this long proves that you're still okay with all the gores and blood spilled with all the glorious child soldier most of all. They become soldier because of circumstances you say? I'm glad you think so too! Although I must point out, the 104th did CHOOSE to be soldiers (just as Naruto and co choose to be ninja). They could be farmers or thugs for all we know. All the soldiers in snk choose their occupation, thay all trained and decide to join the Survey Corps, in fact the only one that join reluctantly in the first place is the former thug although he continues in the end. That aside, their circumstances certainly are different than us don't they? They don't even know a car and blip exist before Marley... They must have a whole lot of different mindset and norms than ours too for a civilization whose life are about survival against titans that's 100 years behind than other civilization in their world. Ever think of that?

Seeing modern day teenage in romantic lights are indeed hard as I'm sure the majority can't even survive without their gadget and parents' money. I certainly can't at that age. Immature. Even those in their twenties and thirties are immature these days. But now when one of those child soldier who have a whole lot of different mindset and maturity level is being shipped with older chara, you're against it. Okay. Maybe it's indeed easier for you to see 15 year olds regardless of their profession to commit act of violence and even kill than to love... (does that sounds okay to you?)

...I'm not saying killing mindlessly is alright because it is NOT. But that would need a whole lot different threads and time to spare and maybe someone else can do it or already done it before me.

But here's the good thing, even when the ship starts when they grow and at the modern legal age of 18 and 19, or even far above like centuries, it's still not okay for some people to ship them. I don't mind if it's your preference and you don't go disturbing other's corner when they don't even enforce their ship as words of god and even acknowledging that 'yes, maybe it's not canon and just our bits of fun' but sometimes it got to the point of belittling those who do ship age gap couple and treat them like a criminal in need of help or wishing them death. Seriously? Yes. People are that immature.

If you don't like a ship because you think your own is better, fine. Do your thing in your corner but don't go to other people's corner just to talk shit without even knowing why they ship what they ship. Most of this ship is just in our head in the end, and even if your ship is canon it does not make you any greater in real life.

I can't think of anything else to say now, but thanks for reading with open mind. ◝(⑅•ᴗ•⑅)◜..°♡

Now before anyone waste their time typing out comments, I refer to my first paragraph. Here's some imaginary flower for you all🌷

Apparently I'm not clear enough so I fix my wording. I'm here not defending minor and old people relationship but age gap couple who happen to be aged up to acceptable age despite their profession. Here's some choco🍫

#shipping #again apparently #kakasaku #madasaku #sasosaku #rivamika #rivahisu #hopurai #don't know what else to tag

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green-socks · 3 years ago

Text

Hungry Eyes chapter 4

Pairing: Benny Miller x OFC

Summary: Dirty Dancing but Benny is Baby and the dance instructor is a female OC, Jolene. Benny goes to a holiday resort with his family and somehow ends up spending his time dancing and falling in love! This is their first practice! Probably a boring filler chapter but I'm excited about this.

Words: 1,390

Warnings: none

Notes: Still a long way to the dirty, but we got to the dancing!

Chapter 3 | masterlist

The next morning Benny had his first dance lesson with Jolene.

They had agreed on a training schedule of sorts, which basically meant squeezing in practice any time Jolene had free time between her work. They had also all agreed that Patrick would help whenever he could, because it would be useful for Benny to get tips from the one who knew his part of the choreography best after all. But first Patrick would need to rest for a day or two, so this first practice was just him alone with Jolene, who appeared to have her game face on.

Benny had wondered last night when trying to fall asleep if this would be a disaster, or if training would be super awkward. It probably would, he thought, but that’s what it means to practice - it is awkward and clumsy, and you can’t expect to succeed right away no matter how frustrating that may be.

He had also wondered what to say to Will and the girls, because they were bound to notice his absences during the next week of hard training. He could easily spend the evenings practicing after the girls went to bed, since Will and Kelly certainly wouldn’t need him then. But during the day it would be trickier to avoid them knowing what he was up to, and he felt bad to lie to them.

So when Will had asked him just a half an hour ago where he was going, Benny had truthfully answered that he would be training, and had politely declined Will’s offer to spar with him. He knew he would have to take his brother up on that at some point, though, or it would be too suspicious: they often sparred or went running together, and Will might even expect that during this holiday. Under normal circumstances Benny would have too.

--------

Jo still didn’t know how she felt about all this, but she had stayed up late last night and planned the whole thing, so there was no turning back now. Especially not since they were about to start their first practice. She stood, Bluetooth speaker and notebook ready in her hand, in a stifling hot barn of all places. She wasn’t happy about the lack of mirrors, among other things, but they needed a secluded place for practice where they wouldn’t be disturbed.

“Okay, so, how are we gonna do this?” Benny asked, rubbing the scruff on his jaw.

Jo noticed that he seemed a little nervous. She guessed that she was too - there was no denying that this was going to be a challenge, plus failure wasn’t really an option at this point.

“We’re gonna start with some warmup exercises in a moment, but first I’ll explain a few details. I’ve made some small changes to the choreo to make it a little easier for you; simplified some of Patrick’s more difficult parts, that kind of stuff. That also changes the tone a little, but that’s good, because I think you would benefit from not having to show off in this case. And I was thinking we could dance barefoot since Patrick’s dance shoes won’t fit you anyway, and it would make for a cute vibe. More down to earth, you know.”

Benny shrugs and nods at the same time, “Yeah, barefoot works, sure.”

“Perfect. You’re also a taller partner than I’m used to, but I don’t think that will be a problem. You look like you can handle it, so I’m keeping all the lifts we had with Patrick and we’re making it work,” she continued in a decisive tone. She had indeed noticed the man’s very strong-looking arms and shoulders, now that he wasn’t wearing a baggy hoodie anymore, but a t-shirt and shorts ready for workout.

“I’m also trusting you to have good coordination and control of your body given your profession, and I’m hoping we can play to your strengths,” she added, before setting up the Bluetooth speaker.

Turning back to Benny, who still looked somewhat nervous but now also determined, she said with a small smirk, “And really, if worse comes to worst, I’ll just twirl around you so that no one even pays attention to what you’re doing.”

(She missed the look that crossed Benny’s face as he imagined what exactly her twirling around him could look like.)

They started with something simple, going through her usual routines, getting properly warmed up. She had seen too many unnecessary injuries in her life to skip warmup, especially with a new dancer.

However, Jo soon learned that she needn’t have worried about Benny’s flexibility all that much - when they got to work, she noticed that he was full of surprises. Nothing like Patrick, obviously, but definitely good enough to work with.

As she complimented him on this, Benny explained, “Well yeah, I mean I have to stretch a lot when training and between fights and all that.” His tone might have been modest, but there was a tiny flash of smugness in his face.

After warming up they started going through the motions of the choreography. Jo showed Benny what it was about and what is roughly supposed to happen and where. She could see him getting in his head again - it was settling in for both of them that this was a lot to take in in such a short time.

Jo was pleased to find out that her first impression of him being a fast learner turned out to be true, as well as her assumption of him having good control of his body. Especially his footwork was nimble and coordinated, which was a huge bonus.

But he was also still very new to this, and no matter how much his athletic background would help them, it was a completely different thing to actually dance a whole routine and perform it too. She would have to get him to let loose and be comfortable with the choreo as soon as possible, otherwise the performing bit would be a nightmare.

--------

After practice Benny was tired. His legs were burning, and he could feel blisters already forming on his feet.

Because of his nerves and all around not feeling confident in what he was doing, and in addition feeling pretty overwhelmed by all of it, he had stumbled a lot and both of them had gotten a bit frustrated. Tensions had been running high - she had snapped at him about a number of things, and even though Benny was usually in a good mood around people, he certainly did snap back. He didn’t take anything lying down.

Dancing was surprisingly hard work, and Jolene was a demanding teacher, that much was clear to Benny now. She had kept yelling something about spaghetti and a whole bunch of words that were most likely French that he was magically supposed to understand and remember all of a sudden. As if his brain wasn’t already full of just the steps.

There was also a lot of five, six, seven, eight going on, which confused him. Why count to eight and not four, like in music? His head was buzzing with new things to process.

And then there was the fact that Jolene had kept putting her hands all over his body to guide his movements, which was supposed to be helping but, in all honesty, Benny felt like it had been more distracting than anything. Every time she had slid her hands down his torso or held on to his hips he had stuttered with his steps and messed up. He had even stepped on her feet more than a few times. Benny would have to get used to it and fast, maybe even get over this stupid attraction, or he would be in trouble.

He returned to the cabin that evening still running through the steps in his mind.

Jolene had promised to send him a video of herself doing all his parts in the routine to help him remember it better. He thought he would watch that before bed and hope his brain would work its magic while he slept.

Benny watched the video of Jolene guiding him through the steps with tired, unfocused eyes, and eventually fell asleep with his dance teacher’s voice still in his ears.

-------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5

tagsies: @writeforfandoms @marvelousmermaid @velocibee @starlightmornings

#benny miller x ofc #benny miller fic #benny miller fanfiction #triple frontier fanfiction #nobody puts benny in the corner #garrett hedlund fanfiction #i accidentally wrote something #dirty dancing au

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thebrownssociety · 4 years ago

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Hi, so I was wondering about the toons getting an education. You said that they didn't know how to read or write at the begining. First of all, when did they learn to read and write? And second of all, when they started learning those things, how did they do it? Did all of the toons go to school, you know, like kids do? Did they have classes and classmates, different subjects, different teachers? Or did they have private tutours?

So, first things first, thank you Ana for giving me one of my most complicated asks yet! That's why it's taken me so long to answer, I need to first of all sort through the strands of my brain in order to find the answer, and then translate it so it can be understood by normal people.

This headcanon is LONG, I hope you lot enjoy.

the majority of the toons [about 90 percent] are NOT created with the ability to read and write. In the olden days it was generally assumed that they didn't have the ability to learn either.

The other ten percent DID. They tended to be toons that were created to be doctors, lawyers or other professions that need the ability to read and write. Or members of royalty because the creators made the decision that royals would have been taught to read and write and so incorporated that into there designs. This is why Porky Pig is unusual, because he has the ability read and write, but he's not royalty and he doesn't have an official profession. Technically Porky is an anomality, it just happens that his anomality has helped him more than hindered him.

Moving onto the villains, it tends to follow the same rules as above. Grimhilde [wicked stepmother] has the ability to read and write because the creators assumed that as the now queen she had to be a princess before, therefore fit the rules.

Maleficent however, couldn't read or write [much to her frustration] because she was a villainous fairy and although she was [I think?] royalty of some sort within the fairy world the creators decided she didn't need the ability.

You might be getting an idea of the timeline from the movies I mentioned. I headcanon that the toon began campaigning to get an education during the 60's. They did this largely via peaceful means [mainly because one thing that has always been acknowledged by humans is that Toons are quite powerful and they aren't to keen to annoy them massively. The toons for their part don't want to cause massive distress to humans - they want to make them laugh! - so it actually works to a degree. During the 60's though the Toons decided something needed to be done.

The directors and other higher-ups had been promising to change the rights for the last decade and it hadn't happened. In 1965 the Toons decided enough was enough, they would start peacefully protesting. They adhered to the riles of there contracts to the letter. The LT's contract for instance says they have to arrive at least five minutes before filming starts, so they arrived five minutes before filming started when previously they'd been arriving half an hour so the director could run through everything with them.

They also left straight after seeing as there contract said they were free to go after the filming ended.

The LT's were also contracted to be available should WB ask them to do anything like help in the kitchens, but they only gave to do that for a set amount of hours each week. They worked those hours to the letter and went straight after. A few of the more devious toons even reasoned the contract just says they have to show up, not do any work, so they didn't. At first the studio got round that by asking toons who they knew would do the work properly, but it didn't take the toons long to figure out that was happening and then the 'good' toons wondered why they should bother when the 'bad' toons were being allowed to get off scot-free?

Eventually no toons was doing any work to help the general running of WB at all.

The above, I should mention, did not happen overnight. It took around 18 months, and it wasn't just happen at WB. Although Disney didn't have the exact same contract, they ran on the general principle of arriving at a set time and leaving straight after, so the toons just adhered to there contracted times.

18 months later and the companies decided enough was enough. They were having to go overtime to film the cartoons/movies now the toons weren't doing extra [previously unpaid] hours. [Which they did because the majority of them are perfectionist when it comes to the cartoons and wanted them to be the best they could be.] They were also having to pay the Human employees extra to cover the hours, often at extremely short notice. And unlike the toons they weren't contracted to come in just because the company wanted them to.

So anyway, the point of me detailing this is to explain the circumstances that meant that the companies were at there wits end and ended up petitioning the president to give the toons rights. Mickey Mouse also helped out enormously here as well. Walt Disney had died a few months earlier and Mickey was now running Disney. Which also meant control of the theme parks. Mickey decided that seeing as Toons clearly weren't valued enough to bother educating [despite being proven as intelligent] they shouldn't bother providing entertainment at the parks either.

The Disney toons also had it worked into there contracts that they had to make periodic appearances at Disney's parks [kinds like the people dressing up as the characters do now, except it's the actual toons] and are on a rota basis. Unless they're doing an events [like Halloween for the villains or valentines day for the princes and princesses] then each toon does at least one 12-hour day at Disney per year. It was this bit that Mickey was putting a stop to.

It had a real knock-on effect as, as well as the rides, most people went there hoping for a glimpse of there favourite toon. Without that...

As much of an absolute business-killer as this idea was, Mickey was more than happy to explain to anyone who would listen [read: most of the world news] exactly WHY he was doing it. With all this pressure it was really just a matter of time until the laws changed and the toons were able to gain an education. This was in 1968.

Now as fast as things work in Toontown, this was such a complicated area that it took a full 2 years for the various schools to be built, staffed and a curriculum drawn up (which followed the same basic guide as human education, but with some added stuff and some stuff taken out. It basically followed a 'would a toon actually need this in future life?' and went from there.

Here's were it gets slightly complicated. Because I mentioned before that toons age in a weird way. But the main thing is they go up and down in there age on a day to day basis until they are about 20. This makes educating them quite difficult, to say the least.

The studios solution to this was to bring in Human teachers to teach them at the grades human children would go through. So Kindergarten, Grade 1 ext. The thing was that a lot of the toons had learn some of th education already, like identifying shapes and coulors and things. And of course the ones who were professionals [Like Ludwig Von Drake and Gus Goose] already had a college-level of education, they just needed to prove it to the teachers.

The end result of this was that it wasn't unusual for a toon to be in a class for only a few months at a time while they did the work [don't forget, they only need 4 hours of sleep as well, so they could study for longer if they wanted]

It did eventually even up though and the toons ended up spending 9 months if the right class. For example, Porky Pig aced Kindergarten all the way up till 4th grade and then found he was struggling with 5th grade. This was a shock to him after spending 21 months in education [excluding holidays], to suddenly need help. Porky was forced to realise that he had centred a lot of his identity around being 'the one who can help his friends/family read.' and hadn't expanded his personality much beyond that.

So yeah, as an average most toons took about ten years to complete Kindergarten - end of high school.

Then a few of them took college courses, which lead to them getting degrees, which led to a couple of them getting teaching degrees. The majority of the LT's you see in Tiny Toons [excluding Foghorn, who decided he didn't want to be a teacher, and Elmer who took a undergraduate degree in law until 1992] did their teaching degrees from 1988 - 1992.

There's a couple of you who might had realised that they were filing Tiny Toons at the times and learning how to be parents at the same time. That was partly why they wanted to do it then, they realised that after Tiny Toons had finished the kid would need educating. Although the human teachers had been alright, they'd found it slightly difficult to cope and the LT's didn't want their kids to go through that particularly. Also, what's the point of building a school just to got rid of it after?

So here's the main schools: (After the toons gained teaching degrees)

Disney Elementary - Kindergarten- Grade 5.

Hanna-Barbara Middle School - Grade 6_8.

The Looniversity (the name stuck after the TV show) Grades 9-12.

So the Tiny Toons finished filming in 1992 and had it promptly explained to them that they would be attending school the next August [Tiny Toons were created in 1987, so were 6 by the end of filming.]

Toons don't do pre-school because there doesn't seem to be any point. Loads of Toons have coped without preschool for decades now, why would they start now?

So the TT's started Kindergarten at Disney Kindergarten, run by Snow White and helped out by Cinderella and Fairy Godmother. Kindergarten is the only school year where the toons have to do an entire year in it, the logic being they'll have longer to get adjusted to school if they're there for a year as opposed to three months.

Then it was decided which was the toon would go. Would they move upwards into Disney Elementary school, run by the Three Good Fairies? Or would they be taught by human professors? Or - the final option - they could be privately educated. [It's mainly royalty or the children of famous toons like Micky and Minnie that go down this option. The TT's were unusual in that all the LT's opted to send there kids to Disney Elementary with the hope it would help them make friends with other toons outside the LT bubble. Whether it did or not remains up for debate.

Anyway, they then go to Hanna-Barbera Middle School, which is then followed by the Looniversity. Now, despite what was shown in Tiny Toons, The Looniversity does not focus solely on Toon Physics and the like, the kids have to study the curriculum. They have options to take Toon Physics class if they wanted to, but they don't have to.

The Toons technically don't HAVE to finish High School, but they're strongly encouraged to. College is another matter, it's quite hard so only Toons who the adults know will stand a chance of passing are encouraged to do it.

Toontown University focuses primarily on The Performing Arts and Toon Physics. As well as those subjects, it offers Art, Physical Education, separate courses of Dance, Drama and Music and LAMDA.

If a Toon wants to study the likes of Maths, English and Science they can either be privately educated [A lot of the adult toons have ridiculous amounts of money due to there cartoons and the fact that until the 50's Toontown didn't exist and all there expenses were being covered by there respective directors/studios] or they could join one of the smaller colleges that specialised in what they want to do.

Push comes to shove, they find a Adult toon [over the actual age of 25] with a degree and try to mentor under them. This happens a lot.

#Looney Tunes Headcanons #Looney tunes headcanons #Looney Tunes #Asks #Education #Porky Pig #maleficent #Grimhilde #tiny toons #Mickey Mouse #Minnie Mouse #Kindergarten #Education is so complicated #Education is so important #Disney Parks #Education is highly valued by the toons #It took them long enough to get it

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pyraffin-drgo · 4 years ago

Text

All Heavy interactions in Poker Night at the Inventory.

For you to interpret however you wish.

Video Version

(They have [bootleg movies] in your country?) "I like movies, yes." (Yeah, like what? [Lists movies]?) "No. My favorite are The Dirty Dozen and the first twenty minutes of Rocky four."

(We can talk Tetris?) "Hmmph. Tetris is baby game." (Tetris Attack keeps it hood!) "Why does everybody think I love this Tetris? It is just stacking!"

"[To Strongbad] Tiny Heavy." (What is it?) "Do you get the nightmares?" (I get the jibblie nightmares. [Describes silly nightmare, shivers].) "I am talking about the visions of endless suffering. Dead doctors everywhere. Spy can not be found. (No, but that sounds like the Jibblies.) "I do not like these 'jibblies.'"

"Strong and bad. How is boxing career?" (These. Are. My. HANDS!) "I was boxer, once. In school. We have to either box or learn to herd goats." Silence, looking concerned. "I am not good with goats..." (Too much information, man.) "At first, I do not like punching other boys... But then I learn to love it." Punches his palm menacingly.

(Find any rare drops lately?) "I do not understand." (When you get a kill, you get a present?) "When I get kill, I get honor of team." Smile drops. "Sometimes... I also get nightmares. A man does not go home to his wife and children." (So, no loot?) "Oh! You mean hat! Yes, I love hats! Sometimes, I get these. They are the best."

(Hey, Heavy. You know any hot Russian spies?) "I hate spies." (But you gotta have the inside line on some deadly minxes.) "You want hot spy?" (Am I not wrestle man?) "I have friend who gets you a hot spy. (Get em on the two-way, man!) "His name is Pyro." (Tycho, to Strongbad: The spy is hot because it is on fire.) (Oh...)

"[To Tycho] What do you do with life?" (Me?) "Yes. What is possible with tiny, frail body?" (I occupy myself with simulations... of various kinds.) "What is these?" (Struggles to explain.) (Strongbad: He lives in his parent's basement.)

(So, is there a Mrs. Weapons Guy?) "No. Sasha is my only love." (Sasha kills people, I presume?) "No." (Oh?) "WE kill people."

"[To Strongbad] Maybe you and I box?" (I can't risk my beautiful face, it's the franchise.) "We spar. For fun." (I don't think so.)

"Strong and bad. You wrestle? With mask?" (No, I'm a wrestle man, not those hack wrestle-LERS.) "Not like Iron Sheik?" (No, Iron Stake is a LER.) Heavy nods. "Hmm. This is too bad."

(So how long you been with those Team Fortress fellas?) "I do not understand." (The game's been on Steam for like 3 years. I imagine there was some audition process?) "Ohhh! Yes, I understand! I kill many men VERY quickly." (Excuse me?) "I kill record number of soldiers, and I am commissioned to join RED team."

(Mr. Weapons. I am in the market for a new firearm. [Specifications].) "Hmm, for you I do not recommend minigun then. You know, there is this fast baby man that annoys me greatly with shotgun." (Oh! Oh! What are the available options? I'll spring for leather!) "Da, this is good for you. I suggest Force-A-Nature." (I'll tell them [shop owner] Heavy Weapons Guy sent me.) "It is no need. I know guy."

"I will make hat from you, little bunny." No reply from anyone. A reference for the player to the Max hat in TF2.

"You look familiar, bunny." (How closely do you follow the Manhattan Crime Blotter?) Also a reference to the hat, Tycho then takes over conversation.

(If I need someone snuffed out, what's your going rate?) "Five hundred thousand U.S. dollars." (Steep.) "Cash." (You can do it discreetly?) "Sasha... not so discreet." (That's fine.)

(How did you guys hear of the inventory?) "My engineering friend brought me one night."

(This reminds me of the time Artie Flopshark rigged an entire poker tournament to pay off his loan shark.) "I know of this. This is respectable profession in motherland." Conversation is stolen by Tycho.

(This reminds me of [story]!) "I am reminded of time Engineer kill my entire team." (Damn Heavy, that's... heavy. Sorry to hear that.) "I search entire base for him. He tries to kill me with turret and mini turret, but I crush his toys like they are made of paper." (Sounds like crappy toys.) "Then I find him. Hiding by teleporter. I take his gun away from him. He tries to hit me with wrench! Hahohoh! So I take wrench away from him. I take his wrench and shove it down his throat, all the way down to the handle." (Christ!) Heavy laughs. "Then I rip off all his fingers one by one!" He talks while laughing. "Lets see you build toys now!" He breaks out in laughter. "There's blood- everywhere! And- he's crying!" More laughter. "I think he cries out for mother, but- but-" Crumples over laughing. "The wrench is stuck in his throat! And it sounds like-" Makes choking motions and noises then laughs. "Is this not the funniest thing??" (Horrified looks) (Head shakes slowly.) (That's some bleeped up bleep, man!)

(How about you, Heavy weapons? I'm guessing you're a vodka guy?) "Peach Bellini. But bubbles can give me headache."

(Mr. Weapons, how do you like your line of work?) "It is good. There are many benefits." (Oh! Like a free pass to snuff out bad guys or a waffle bar?) "Both. And full dental."

(I wonder if this dump is haunted.) (I hope so! Roughing up who can't die is fun!) "...I do not like ghosts..." (It's okay, Mr. Weapons. I have [extensive experience]. I can handle a few ghosts.) "...You will take care of ghosts for me?" (You bet cha!) Heavy nods at him. "I like you, tiny rabbit."

[Story including a union] "I am union. RED local six fifteen." (You guys unionized?) "Eh. It was necessity for group medical."

"Tycho. This sweater, is special equipment?" (No, standard issue.) "You have no class specific head gear?" (Got a motorcycle helmet that protects from 100% of UV rays.) "This sounds beneficial."

(Why do you keep calling me 'Tiny Heavy'?) "You are Heavy. Tiny. No? You are RED team. You have killing gloves of boxing. You earn these for being great killer! You should try out for RED team." (Hmm. Guess I could join your team of ruthless killers and lame hat wearers and watch you get grenaded by 8 year olds.) "You will take many bullets before dying I think."

(Hey, Heavy. I just finished [Russian fantasy book]. Ever read it?) "No." (Oh. What's your favorite book?) "I prefer war." (Ah, War and Peace. Tasteful.) "No. Just war." (Art of War?) "Nyet." Silence. "I like 'Tsar Hunger' by Leonid Andreyev. You know this?" (...No.) "Is classic."

"You have hands like young girl." (I keep them shits moist.) "...So you are more of sneaky, stabbing type?" (In an extreme circumstance, I guess.) Heavy looks at him suspiciously. "I keep my eyes on you." (No, no no- I wasn't implying that-) Heavy looking at him angierly. (Shit.)

(Ever listen to music while you work?) "Yes! I just buy new walkman." (What gets you in the killing mood? Icelandic death metal?) "I just get Huey Lewis tape. Keeps spirits up on battle field."

"[To Tycho] You have woman?" (Not with me) "She is pretty?" (Yeah, cute, glasses, red hair.) "She has the red hair??" (No, Heavy! She is not on the other team! Don't have to kill her!) "No. But I love the red hair!" (Well, you can't have her, either.) Re-used image of Heavy looking at him angrily. (Well, maybe we can work something out.)

(Hey, Heavyman. You think you can 'take care' of the King of Town for me?) "I can assassinate king, yes. It is expensive, though." (By take care of I meant sneak in and shave off half his mustache.) "I am not best at sneaking." (Confront him in a dark alley then?) "This is better. That way blood wash away in rain."

(You have any interest in moonlighting?) "WHAT? I am not moonlighter!" (Just a little work on the side with Sam and me beating up goons!) "Oh. I can not do this." (C'mon it's fun and free!) "No, I am sure it is." (Then what's the problem?) "I have non compete." (Ah, yeah. Lawyers.)

(All these aces reminds me of [weird dream]. You have any weird dreams, Mr. Weapons?) "I sometimes dream that I am killed. There is blood everywhere. (Tycho gives him a weird look) But then I wake up and I realize this is ridiculous! Nobody can kill Heavy weapons guy! (Riiiight...)

"[To his chips] This is good Solider. This one is good Doktor. You are demolition man."

"Saaaandvich, sandvich, I love you sandvich!" (Would you like someone to order you some food?)

"Blue man." (Tycho.) "Tycho. What college do you go to? You are educated, no?" (Actually, no.) "No?" (I studied at Gygax Polyhedral if you catch my drift.) "I do not. This is good school?" (Uh. The best.) "I went to Soviet College of Mines, Farms, and Science. I have PhD in Russian literature." (Do you.. use that in your work?) "More than you think."

"Tiny Heavy, who is your favorite to kill in war?" (Those discount three-pack green helmets.) "To kill spy is glorious thing! How about you, Max? You are killing type." (My favorite enemy? Like asking me to choose between my children!) Heavy laughs. "You crack me up, little bunny!"

(Hey, Hefty Bag, you ever play video games?) "Just one." (Oh yeah?) "It is called-" (Tycho: WoW?) "Nyet. That is not popular. It is called 'Where's an Egg'." (Strongbad: I love Where's an Egg!) "Where's an Egg is as big as Tetris in homeland."

(Concerning your firearm, whay caliber we talking?) "Big." (What, we talking 300 Weatherby Mag here?) "Bigger." (50 cal, whereabouts?) "Bigger than 50 caliber. They are hand made custom tool cartridges with classified diameter." (Why's that?) "So enemy canmot use ammunition. But Sasha can chew through theirs." (Diabolical!) "I think so." Nods.

(Alright, big pretend killer man. Tell me the most awesome story you have with plenty of senseless violence!) Heavy thinks. "When I was boy, I was at camp, being trained in many ways of combat." (Assassination camp for kids! This is gonna be good!) "There was sparrow sitting on fence. Snow falls quietly around me. Without notice, another boy jumps from behind tree and kills sparrow with throwing knife. The boy runs away." (And then??) "I pick up sparrow, and hear his last breath before digging him tiny grave..." (Tycho crying) (Max silent) (That's not even a little bit funny, man.) Heavy shakes his head solemnly. "No..." Sits back. "It's not."

(So, what do you do for fun?) "Clean Sasha. Use Sasha... Clean Sasha again." (Proper maintience is crucial.) "I also collect old coins." (A fellow numismatist!) "Which I melt down to make custom bullets." (Of course.)

"I am hungry for sandvich." (Then order a sandvich, man.) "Oh, I can not have sandvich! I become unstoppable killing machine!" (Yeah, maybe order a water.) "Is best."

"You wear blue sweater." (All the time.) "What are you?" (Haven't we went over this?) "You are not Scout. Maybe very tricky blue Spy? Maybe... new class?" (I can use a keyboard to sabotage your entire team, steal your intelligence, and have your sister delivered to my doorstep in one afternoon. Yes, I'm a new class.) Heavy, shocked, "This is true??"

(Hey, Heavyman, what's your living situ-aysh?) "I live in RED barraks. Is nice. There is foos table." (How about taking a room in the house of Strong?) "There is vacancy?" (First you'll have to dump the current person in your room.) "This is enemy?" (He won't put up much of a fight.)

Hope you enjoyed, spent most of the day copying all these down. The non-Heavy lines are paraphrased for shortness. Heavy's are full, how they are in game.

#long post #tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavy #tf2 heavy #heavy weapons guy #poker night #poker night at the inventory #neat

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years ago

Text

The first sign; Jack Kline x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys well it’s been awhile since I updated my Rock angel series and for good reason too because here is where things get DARK!! As you’ll see in the taglist below I’ve started putting trigger warnings cause in this part it involves stalking, dog attacks (some people fear dogs so I wanted to be respectful). Now the next chapter after this will REALLY be insane so I hope you all buckle up cause you’re in for one hell of a ride.

Also face cast for Steve I put the gif for Joe Keery, and for the Rock Angel’s manager just look up actor James Woods (aka Hades from Hercules).

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@queendeakyy

@queen-paladin

@queensdivas

@wormzteef

@geek-and-proud

@starswin

@onebigfangirlworld

@dj-lowkey

@naturalswifty89

@isabella-bby

@bohemiansweede

@5sos-wdw

@labessieisallama

_______________________________________________________

Everyone thinks it won’t happen to me, that I’m immune to such evil. No one thinks they’ll ever experience such a thing but you’d sadly be lying, or in complete denial. At least everyone goes through this type of evil at one point in their lives. And for celebrities, it’s a living hell because the world will only watch with a bucket of popcorn and enjoy your pain and suffering.

The only ones you can depend on are your family. And don’t ever say they wouldn’t understand because they will. Had I not told my family about what was going on—you know what fuck it they were forced into this. But even so if they didn’t know what was going on, this part of my story would’ve ended very, very, very, very differently.

*2 months after the tribute concert*

I hadn’t slept in a week. I was exhausted with trying to put the final touches on my tribute album for Freddie. My manager James Woods was really putting the heat on me with trying to get this album up so that I could ring in the money for him. Wait first let me backup just a tick and explain some things first.

When I first transferred out of EMI and went to Hollywood Records, my manager at the time was a man known as Desmond Roberts. He was a generous, kind man who saw my potential as a female musician and like Miami, pushed me to do my best. He was a family man as well; at the time he had become a grandfather for the first time at the age of 52.

But earlier this year he had to retire because it was by law of the company that all representatives must retire by the age of 65. With that my new manager was his young and vibrant VP James Woods. James is—well let’s just say he’d make a better car salesman than a recording manager.

A man born and bred in the heart of Boston, he’s the kind of man who sees his own vision and wants other people to execute it for him. Hell he’s even been pressuring me to go more into Pop music as that is the rising fame of music now. Artists like Madonna, Gwen Stefani, rising star Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey. He wanted to push me to going in their direction.

But I reminded him of my original contract that I signed on between Miami and Desmond. That my image was to never, ever, ever under any circumstances be changed. Yes he even tried to make me change my stage name into the Spicy Angel (yeah that didn’t sit right with me).

To put it frank—my current manager is a stubborn, two-headed, forked-tongue, snake in the grass. Sleezy, and can make some vulgar comments either towards me or some of my roadies.

But the one step he took too far was when he hired his own nephew to be my PA (he claimed that he was trying to help out his sister). At first I was against it but with that pleading and begging persuasionistic tone of his, for some reason I ended up agreeing and his nephew Steve Harrison became my new PA.

Steve Harrison. He was the same age as Jack, had deep brown eyes, a fairly handsome face, but his crown jewel was his hair. He always bragged and fussed about his hair. Brown and fluffed up beyond anything, like cotton candy. Silky and moosed to no end. Wow and I thought I was bad when it came to doing my air before a show.

Now Steve definitely knew his way around the recording station. Made sure that every song I recorded sounded to perfection, always sought to my every need, ensured that for upcoming tours I was given updates on the schedule, and he even took my calls and wrote them down for me. He kept his work profession throughout all of 1991.

But when the summer of 92 came around, things began to change.

As I said before, I hadn’t slept a week. The Freddie Mercury tribute album was taking longer than the company expected. That’s because I wanted to make sure every song, especially the cover ones that Fred had given me legal rights to do, were perfect.

I was at the controls listening to my version of Somebody to love when the door opened behind me.

“I would’ve thought her royal highness would’ve gone home?”

“Perfectionists never stop. I learned that from the best group of men I know.” He took the empty seat next to me and presented me with a cup of coffee. I softly thanked him and went back to listening to my song.

When the last vibrato rang out on the word ‘love’, Steve sighed and said.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s shit!” I complained. “God why did he give me such responsibility to do these songs I-I-I—not I’m even worthy to do his songs. At least not without him.”

“This version is the best. Better than I’ve ever heard it been played. In fact……I think you’re better than Freddie Mercury.” I snapped my head towards him.

“Freddie Mercury was and will always be a genius. His voice is unlike any other performer’s and his style of writing will forever go down in music history as the best damn thing the world will ever know! So don’t you ever say that someone is better than him. Especially me!” I shot up from the chair, it rolled back and slammed against the wall and I turned towards the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, and breathed heavily trying to calm down.

“I—I’m sorry. I was just speaking my opinion. I—didn’t know how much you cared about him. He…..must’ve really meant something to you.” He spoke softly.

“More than you’ll ever know.” I muttered as I fingered the bracelet Fred gave me as a birthday gift. “And I’m sorry Steve I—I didn’t mean to shout. I’m……just exhausted and stressed. With your uncle—”

“Hey, I get it. Uncle James can be a real pain in the ass at times.” I turned towards him and saw him standing a few inches away from me. “Hell one time when I was 16, I had asked him if I could take his mustang for a test drive and he told me ‘kid you so much as even leave a fingerprint you’re as dead as a doornail and I don’t care if you’re my nephew’.” The two of us laughed at his uncle’s impersonation.

“And I thought I was the only one with a douche uncle.”

“Oh trust me, you think he’s demanding at work? You should see him round the holidays.” I softly laughed. That’s when I felt his finger slightly graze against the back of my palm.

My heart stopped and that’s when I noticed that he had gotten a little closer to me. Closer and closer his face came but I quickly got out of his way and said.

“Excuse me, I gotta sign off this track and ship it off by tomorrow morning.” I grabbed Steve’s chair and went straight back into my work. As I was fiddling around with the switches and buttons, I could feel that he was standing right there beside me. I tried to ignore him and focus on my work but his lingering presence grew too much.

Like a moth to the flame. Silent but fluttering around too close.

I turned to say something to him, that’s when his lips suddenly crashed with mine. My eyes widened and my body froze for a moment before my brain snapped back into reality.

I pushed him away and slapped him across the face. Standing up and my chest heaving in so many mixed emotions, but the one main emotion going out about me was anger.

“What the fuck Steve!? Why did you do that!? You know I’m happily married and have children!”

“I—I’m sorry I just…..I’ve always been a fan of yours and I just….I’m sorry. Please don’t tell my uncle. You know as well as I do what he’s like. He’ll beat me to a pulp if he finds out. Please Angel I beg of you, don’t tell him.” His eyes going fearful and tears shined at the corner of his eyes.

I wish I could say that I told him that I was going to rat him out, have him fired even but—I didn’t. He’s right I did know what it was like to have an abusive uncle. Now while my uncle never really touched my physical, he did have his temper and would throw things at me just barely missing me (that mostly happened when he was on the bottle).

“Only if you promise me you won’t do shit like that again. And never speak of this to anyone.”

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.” He said as he crossed his heart with his finger. I narrowed my eyes at him and grabbed my purse.

“Take the day off tomorrow. Then come back on Monday to work. Professionally.” I emphasized the last word and he nodded and I walked out without another word.

I wish I could take it all back. That I had fired him right then and there, if I had then what would eventually come, wouldn’t have happened. Or at least not gotten to the scale that it did get to.

*3 weeks after the kiss*

I was on the Late Show with David Letterman doing a television interview about the upcoming album as well as my tour coming later in the year.

“So Rock Angel your upcoming album ‘Fly High Mercury’ is said to be unlike your previous albums is that right? It also was the one that also took you the longest to make correct?”

“Yes it is.”

“Care to explain?”

“Well as you can tell by the title this is a tribute album to Freddie Mercury.” The audience applauded. I nodded and swallowed a lump in my throat. “Some of the songs are what I’ve written but another half of them are Queen songs that Freddie himself gave me legal rights to make a cover to. In fact they were some of my favorites.”

“Now how long did it take you to make this album?” David asked me.

“Well the songs I did, took roughly a couple of months but when—Freddie passed away I took a few months off to grieve and then as you all may have seen I was a part of the tribute concert so in total almost ten months.”

“Wow ten months.” I nodded. “And you said Freddie gave you the rights to some of Queen’s songs to cover?”

“Yes.”

“How did it feel to have that kind of pressure on you?”

“I’ll be honest it was tough. How-how do you compete with someone like Freddie Mercury? His voice and musical talents were unlike anything anyone’s ever seen or will ever see most likely. And when he asked me to do some of Queen’s works, particularly the songs he himself had written, I felt like I was going up against goliath and I was David. But—Fred has his reasons for why he does what he does, and—he must’ve felt like I could help embrace his memory further by introducing a new audience to some of Queen’s work, especially their earliest songs.” The crowd applauded.

“Well said, well said. Freddie will truly be forever missed. When we come back we have Kurt Russel joining us and then after that the Rock Angel will perform one of her hit songs from her recent album Fly High Mercury which is now available in stores. The Rock Angel (Y/n) Kline everybody!” the crowd applauded and David and I shook hands with each other as his theme song played us out on the commercial break.

I went backstage to change out from my black sequin interview dress and into some regular but dressy performance clothes. A black leather jacket, a white blouse, tight jeans, and some high-heeled black boots.

“Oh angel.” I internally groaned. Speak of the devil. James Woods soon came into my dressing room without a single care in the world (he’s lucky I’ve learned to do quick changes otherwise we’d have a problem). “Now darling please remind me again why you’ve declined Donald Trump’s hotel gig? He’s offered plenty of money for your performance especially since it’s his son’s birthday that day.”

“When I went to talk to him he also made me an offer I simply had to refuse.” I shuddered. “He’s a pig and an upright asshole with no respect for anyone but himself and his precious hotel business. God help us if he ever becomes President.”

“Fine. Instead of adding to the profit we would’ve gotten from this, we’ll take it out of your next pay how bout that?” I glared at him.

“You really wanna go toe to toe with me regarding money? Go ahead. Just know I’ve got the best lawyers in all of London on my side and they’ve been good to me for 10 years. So you better pucker your lips and do some serious arse kissing to the judge because they’ve won every. Single. Case I’ve ever had to do. From false stories to paparazzi stalking.” I stared him down even though I only came up to his chest.

Even through those cold, greedy eyes of his, I saw that he was afraid.

“Ahh court cases are a waste of time and a waste of profit. Now go on out there and give them a show baby cakes.”

“Never call me baby cakes.” I trudged out of my dressing room with my red special in hand and headed back towards the stage to sing my song.

After the show ended, I was back in my hotel room in Manhattan. I had just gotten done with my shower and soon coming into the room was Jack with some late night takeout.

“Chinatown special for the Rock Angel.” I smiled and splayed myself across the bed as he came toward me with the food.

“Mmm room service and a cute delivery boy. I am one lucky girl.”

“Well then Mrs. Kline, do I get a special tip for my services?” Jack played along with a grin. I smirked and placed my hand on the back of his head and brought his lips towards mine. His hands soon came to my waist as we separated but I kissed him again. Jack hummed in surprise. “A double tip? Well then, guess I need to be the delivery boy more often.” I giggled and took my food out of the bag.

“But serious babe, thanks for getting the food.”

“Hey no problem, anything for my beautiful rock star. I know that with your schedule firing back up, you don’t have time for a normal meal like we did before.”

“Did you call your mom about the kids?”

“Yep. Kids are safe and healthy. Well Little Jack had a slight fever but he was better within a day thanks to mama’s secret chicken noodle soup. I know that thing saved my life as a kid.”

“Well then she better……” a knock was soon heard at the door. Jack and I looked at each other confused. He stood up from the bed and answered the door. I held my robe tighter around me and soon I heard the door slam shut and Jack soon came in with a bouquet of a dozen roses. “Did you order those?”

“Nope. But I’ve got a feeling who did.” He turned as he glared to the room opposite of our suite.

Well of course I told Jack about the kiss. I know what it’s like to have been cheated on so there was no way in fucking hell I was gonna keep this a secret from Jack. As you can see he has not taken it well, in fact he’s grown very angry and jealous when Steve gets mentioned.

“Let me see the card.” He tossed the bouquet down on the bed. I sent him a glare and went to pick the card out and I opened it up. And low and behold it was from Steve. Even though it didn’t have his name on it, I recognized his handwriting anywhere. He wrote.

Fabulous performance (as always). A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Your secret admirer and #1 fan

“You should’ve fired him.”

“Oh so you’re saying this is my fault!?” I snapped.

“No that’s not what I’m saying!” Jack snapped back at me. “I just…..” he exhaled deeply trying to release his anger. “I don’t trust him anymore. Not after what he did. In fact ever since he’s kissed you he’s been sending you a lot of stuff. The flowers, your favorite German chocolates, he even gave a teddy bear to our daughter! I’m telling you something about him now is just……” I walked up to him and embraced him.

“I know love, I know. I don’t feel comfortable around him too. But—he is James’ nephew and unfortunately he wants his sister to get off his back with this favor.”

“That shouldn’t matter! If he makes you uncomfortable you should just fire him and not even worry about what that sales talker of a manager tells you.” He is right. It shouldn’t have to go on like this but unfortunately the business world isn’t on my side when it comes to choosing my PA’s, I was thankful enough to keep my touring roadies and not get some rookies or 40 year old perverts who get high or drunk.

“The likes of a woman in a men’s workforce. I wish I could Jack but I can’t. Legally anyways. Look I’m exhausted right now can we please just go to bed?”

“Alright. But we will come back to this. (Y/n) I’m only stressed about this because I don’t want to lose you. What if—”

“Hey!” I put my finger of his lips. “Don’t you dare think like that. I know celebrities are always the first to die when it comes to crazed fans. But I swear to you Jack Kline, I will not be one of those singers to die at the hands of a so called ‘fan’. I’m your lioness.”

“And no one can break you down.” We pressed our forehead together and just stayed like that for a good long moment. I then softly kissed him and went to change out of my robe into my nightdress. Jack stripped down to his boxers and we put our takeout in the mini-fridge by the bed and turned off the lights before cuddling close together.

*September 8th, 1992*

It was Kelly’s first day of 1st grade. Jack and I couldn’t believe that our little girl was on her way to 1st grade. Of course to me it was the first day of primary school but still it was a big day for her. So Jack and I were sure to be there to see her off but sadly both of us had a long day today so we couldn’t go pick her up.

I was busy prepping for my upcoming tour while Jack got backed up with the car dealership. But thankfully Jack’s cousin Jared (who was working a case at the time) volunteered to go pick Kelly up after school. Now this school was at the top with their security, only those who were approved by the Parent or Guardian could pick up the child (which was good with us).

So Jack and I made sure to list the family members down in order so we went from Kelly Kline, Misha Kline, Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon, and Jared and Jensen Walker as the adults to pick Kelly Kline up from school should Jack and I not be available.

It was late in the afternoon, around 3:30ish and I was talking with my tour manager Phillipe about where each performance was gonna take place when the phone suddenly rang. One of the assistants answered it and she said.

“Hollywood Records how may I help you?” there was a pause and suddenly her voice went frantic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa wait a minute slow down. Slow down who are you wanting to talk to?” I turned to her confused. “Okay hold on I’ll get her,” she turned to me and said as she held the phone close to her breast, “Mrs. Kline someone wants to speak to you. Says his name is Jared Walker.” I immediately shot up and took the phone and said frantically.

“Jared what’s happened?”

‘I-I-I-I went to pick Kelly up like I said I would, but when I got there they had said you had already sent approval of someone else to come get her!’

My heart stopped. They say it’s every parent’s worse nightmare come true, but it’s never fully real until it happens to you.

I dropped the phone as Jared’s voice echoed through the speakers calling out my name.

“CALL THE POLICE! CALL JACK! CALL KELLY’S SCHOOL! CALL ANYONE!!” I screamed frantically.

The search for my daughter was—one of the worst things I ever had to go through. Just who in the hell would know where exactly her school was? Not only that but who got my approval to sign off for her release?

I was frantic to the bone. I kept pacing with anxiety as every fiber of my being was buzzing with all kinds of emotions. Jack and Jared tried their best to calm me down but I wasn’t going to be calm till I had my baby in my arms.

After an hour and a half grueling search, the home phone suddenly rang. I went up to the phone and answered it.

“Hello?!” there was silence at the end of it for awhile till finally his voice came up.

‘Lose your little cub?’ my eyes narrowed and now only rage filled my body.

“Where is she Steve?” I sneered.

‘Just meet me by the spot where the first action sequence of Terminator 2 was shot.’ Then the line went dead. I hung up the phone, grabbed my keys and dragged Jared by the arm towards my car and we raced down the highway.

When we arrived at Bull Creek, I told Jared to stay in the car while I handled Steve. I got out of the car and right there at the very track where the first action chase scene of the film took place at.

Just ahead of me was a blue Ferrari leaning against it was Steve Harrison. And through the windows I could see Kelly playing with her favorite doll that she took with her to school, without a care in the world.

“So glad you finally made it Angel. Didn’t think I’d expect to see you to take my advice so quick.”

“Open the door.” I sneered.

“Gee not even a thank you?” he joked.

“I don’t have time for bullocks right now Harrison! Now open your bloody car door and give me back my baby!” he went over and opened the door and once Kelly saw me, her smile on her face grew wider.

“Mummy!” she cheered as she got out and raced towards me. I immediately knelt down and picked her up in my arms.

“Oh my baby girl. Oh thank god you’re safe! Are you okay? Look at me. We were all so worried about you.” I said as I kept kissing all over her face. She groaned and tried to get me to stop.

“I’m fine mum! Mum stop it stop kissing me! Mr. Steve said you changed your mind about uncle Jared coming to pick me up.” I glared over to Steve and said.

“Honey go in mummy’s car and wait there with Uncle Jared.” I kissed her one last time and she did as I asked her to. I walked closer to Steve as he kept talking.

“Lovely reunion. See I knew you’d appreciate what I’d done. After all as your personal—” I sucker punched him hard across the face sending him down to the ground. Blood even dripped down his nose. “Wow. Wow!” he scoffed. “I-I-I-I know that girls could punch but that…..that was—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” I snapped at him.

“You should be grateful. I did you a favor. I picked up your daughter from her first day of school.” He tried to reason with me.

“You had no legal right too! You kidnapped her!”

“Kidnapped?! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa wait time out!” he stood up and wiped his bloody nose. “Wow head rush. Okay hang on a minute. You were incredibly business with the tour manager so I knew you wouldn’t be able to pick her up. And of course Jack……” he sneered out Jack’s name with anger and jealousy. “He works now right? I mean about damn time too, can’t be the house husband forever right?” My glare deepened, “Anyways, so no one else was there to pick up sweet, little Kelly so I volunteered myself to pick her up. Didn’t want her staying at the school all by herself, now did we?”

“She wasn’t going to be alone we arranged for Jared to pick her up!” at that Steve’s face turned to shock as he said.

“Oh. Well—this is awkward.” Oh he was an incredible actor I’ll give him that.

“What is wrong with you Steve? What were you trying to accomplish here?” that’s when his eyes darkened and grew cold. His voice even changed to a possessive tone as he walked closer to me.

“Jack doesn’t deserve you. A farm boy like that? No you need a real man at your side. Someone who gets the business, someone who is always by your side. I know who you are (Y/n) Kline.”

He tried to grab my chin but I clenched his hand in mine and dug my nails into his skin. My hand shaking with rage as I stared him down.

“Is that what you think? You think by doing all this you actually believe I would leave Jack for you? You’re even more delusional than Jack painted you. Now I see it for myself.” I threw his hand down and backed away from him. “A wise man once said to another slime like yourself, ‘you just see what you want to see’. Next time you even touch or go near any of my kids, I swear to you there won’t be a courthouse that your uncle can bride with what I’ll charge you for.” I turned and walked back to the car and took Kelly home.

Of course I wish I could say that was the last time I ever saw Steve’s face again. But due to lack of evidence in the fact that Steve had given a false document allowing him to take Kelly, he wasn’t charged with kidnapping.

Plus his uncle got involved and swindled with his business talk saying that I was under a lot of pressure with the upcoming tour and that police action at the time of Kelly’s disappearance wasn’t necessary. He also emphasized that Kelly wasn’t harmed in anyway so it’s not like his nephew was an evil person. So the police believed James’ story and no charges were filed and Steve was a free man to do as he pleased.

Jack and I reinforced the school and even gave them Steve’s picture saying that if he ever came into the school again asking for Kelly again, they were to call the police because Steve Harrison does not have access to take Kelly out of school.

Little did I know that things were only going to get worse after that day.

*October 3rd, 1992. Jack’s POV*

It first began with the constant phone calls to the house. The phone was constantly ringing and everytime I picked it up, there was no one there. Just heavy breathing and then they’d hang up. It happened for hours on end, even at some odd hours in the night.

Soon enough I had had enough and decided to unplug all the house phones and I got me my first cellphone. If anyone in the family wanted to reach me, I told them to call by my new cellphone and that’s where I was talking to my Angel at.

‘Have the phone calls kept coming?’

“Unfortunately yes they did. But I unplugged the house phone so hopefully whoever it is gets the point and drops these crank calls and finds someone else to torment.”

‘I don’t know Jack. Maybe I should just come back and forget this tour.’

“No, no. Look, you nearly missed out the Angel-Queen tour back when we first met, I won’t let you cancel this tour either. Besides the world needs their Angel right now.” I assured her.

‘Yeah but—’

“What would he say right now?” I interrupted her. I heard her softly scoff and I knew she was smiling on the other end.

‘He’d tell me ‘Angel darling stop being so dramatic. There’s only room in this partnership for one hysterical Queen. Plus you’ll get early wrinkles’.’ We both laughed. ‘God I miss him so much. I can’t believe it’ll almost be a year come November.’

“I know. Have you talked to the guys at all since the concert?”

‘Not really. Figure I’d give them some space. They know my team’s number if they want to talk to me.’ I nodded and hummed in understandment so that she knew I was still listening.

“So you made it to Phoenix in one piece?”

‘Yeah thankfully. I’ll give you a call right after the show. Give the kids a kiss and cuddle for me.’

“Oh you know I will.” I said with a smile.

‘I love you Jack Kline; you know that right?’

“Of course I do. And I love you to the moon and back. Have a good show baby.”

‘I will. I love you.’

“I love you infinity times infinity there. Now you can’t say you love me more.” I heard her giggle. “Knock ‘em dead Angel.”

‘I will, bye.’

“Bye.” We both hung up and I deeply sighed.

“Daddy?” I looked up and there was Kelly in her nightdress holding her stuffed lion that her godfather gifted her.

“Hey baby girl, why are you awake?” I asked concerned. She walked up to me and sat down in my lap and said.

“I couldn’t sleep. Can you tell me a bedtime story? You know how like uncle Freddie used to tell me?” I stroked down her hair and said.

“Well, I’m not as extravagant or detailed as he used to make it but—I’ll do my best. C’mon I’ll make you some warm milk and tuck you back into bed, sound good?” she nodded. I picked her up, set her on the kitchen counter and prepared her some warm milk.

After that I carried her back to her bed and tucked her back under her covers and she took a sip of her milk.

“Okay so, what shall it be tonight? Do you want a story about—fairies?” she shook her head. “Unicorns?” again she shook her head. “Oh how about the story of a beautiful princess who gets saved by a knight in shining armor?”

“No daddy. Do you know the story of the lioness Queen?”

“The lioness Queen?”

“Uncle Freddie once told me a story about the lioness Queen who was raised by evil wolves but soon came on top as Queen of her own pride. He was gonna finish the story of how she would find herself a king but then—” she trailed off and I could see the tears prickling in her eyes. Oh that Freddie, of course he would tell our story like we were two lions.

“I think I know that story. Now again I may not be as good of a storyteller as Uncle Freddie was but I’ll do my best.” I sat down by her bedside and she cuddled up into her pillow, her stuffed lion in her arms. “Now let’s see……the Lioness Queen had reached the height of her reign. Everyone loved her because of her kindness and loyalty, but she was very much lonely. Sure she had the support of her new family but she still longed for someone she could love more than the family love she had from her new pride. So one day when she was out hunting, she was suddenly ambushed by the no good jackal. Now this jackal had particularly taken an interest in our brave Lioness Queen but she knew to not take any of his bullying. However he had brought his entire pack and they ganged up on the poor lioness.”

“Daddy don’t make it too scary.”

“Right, right, right I’m sorry angel. But the lioness Queen didn’t have to fear anymore. Because leaping from over the tall savannah grass was a dashing, handsome and powerful lion. He beat the jackals away and told the head jackal to leave and never bother the lioness again. Soon the jackal tucked his tail in like a frightened dog and fled the savannah and was never seen again. The lioness Queen was in debt to the young lion that saved her so she asked him if they could go to the watering hole together to talk and get to know each other more.”

I continued on to tell her mine and (Y/n)’s story of the day we met and fell in love with each other. Then about midway through the story I looked down and saw Kelly was finally back asleep. I smiled and kissed her forehead.

“Sleep tight my little lioness cub.” I walked out of her room and shut her door and walked back downstairs.

I walked towards the kitchen and I saw Sammy lying asleep on his doggie bed and Bucky asleep on his. But as soon as I came in, the two of them looked up at me.

“Hey Buck, Sammy.” Buck grunted as he sat up and came up towards me and sat down. I ruffled the top of his head. “Okay so what do you say last quick trip outside then time for you guys to get in your pin?” Sammy’s tail wagged as he immediately went towards the backdoor. I opened it up and he immediately went outside. “Alright Buck come on outside go out and go potty.”

But Bucky seemed tense. He lowly growled before racing towards the front door.

“Bucky? Buck!” Bucky went over to the front door and suddenly began barking aggressively and very loudly. “Buck! Buck shh! Quiet!” but he refused to listen to me. He kept barking and barking and barking. His fangs were out as he raced from the door to the windows. Growls came out of him and I noticed that his fur was on end.

Okay maybe it’s another dog or a raccoon or something, he tends to do that and we’re trying to break him of that habit. I grabbed his leash and when he was finally still I got it hooked to his collar and forced him towards his pin.

“Get in your pin now!” he snapped at him. I got him in his pin and as soon as I shut the door he started whimpering frantically, pacing around his pin letting out bark after bark. “Shhhh! You’re gonna wake the kids Buck now quiet!” I looked towards the front door and sighed heavily. Might as well just see just what’s out there.

I grabbed a flashlight and quickly stepped outside. I shined the light in every corner of darkness but I didn’t see a thing. No stray dog, nor a racoon, a cat not even a squirrel.

“That Buck is crazy sometimes.” It was then I noticed that our trashcan had somehow gone out to the side of the road. “I thought I brought that in when I came in this afternoon? Damn pranksters.” I left the front gate that surrounded our house and walked out to the curb to grab our trashcan and bring it back towards the side of the garage.

That’s when a loud purr of an engine roared through the quiet streets and bright headlights flashed right towards me. I heard the screeching of tires coming right towards me and without even thinking I ducked right up towards my driveway and I heard the sound of our garbage can being hit and tossed across the road.

The car’s lights soon turned off and sped off down the street. I panted heavily, my adrenaline now starting to collapse as I began to realize what could’ve happened just now.

Someone was trying to run me over and kill me. I knew that couldn’t be a mechanical problem cause why would the headlights suddenly come on and then accelerate straight towards me before driving normally down the road?

Only one person came across my mind as to who would go so far as to get rid of me. Steve.

I called up Jared and using his lawyer expertise he asked me various questions but unfortunately since I couldn’t identify the model of the car clear enough and couldn’t read the license plate in time there was no way for me to truly say it was him unless I could physically prove it.

But after that night I didn’t see Steve again, and I hoped that was the end of it. Until Halloween came around.

*Halloween night, 1992. 8:30pm*

I had just brought the kids in from our night of trick or treating. You know I’m glad we decided to allow the kids some time to know the American holidays cause I had to explain this to the guys as well as (Y/n) just what Halloween really was (since they don’t really celebrate it there in jolly old England).

I dressed the boys up as little lions while Kelly went as a witch this year. We all came in carrying our bags of candy.

“Candy!” Georgie exclaimed.

“That’s right buddy. We got candy, lots and lots of candy.” I told him as I got them out of their little red wagon.

“Daddy, daddy can we eat all the candy tonight please?” Kelly begged.

“You know your mother will kill me if she finds out I let you eat sweets before bedtime.” She whined before giving me her mother’s puppy dog face.

“Please daddy. Not even one itty bitty, teeny tiny bite?” I playfully placed my hands over her face which made her exclaim and shoo away my hand.

“You can have just one. Piece. But that’s it okay?” she cheered and quickly went through her bag and got out a blueberry flavored lollipop.

“Hey daddy? How come we can’t do trick or treating back where uncle Brian, uncle Deacy and papa Roger live?”

“Well sweetie, sometimes other countries don’t do the things we do. And sadly Halloween is just another day for them.”

“They should. Maybe next year papa Roger and I can be Star wars characters together.” I chuckled.

“I think your uncle Brian would enjoy that more than papa Roger.”

“But I wanted papa Roger and I to be Han and Princess Leia. Uncle Brian can be Chewie.”

“And uhh—who-who did you have in mind to be Luke?” I said brushing my fingers through my hair.

“Mommy! Cause she’s brave and strong just like Luke is! Georgie and Jackson can be R2.”

“And just who will uncle Deacy and I be?”

“Well uncle Deacy can be Obi-Wan and you’re C3-PO.” Wow she gives me the nagging droid.

“Oh so you think I’m a mindless philosopher ehh!? Come here you!” I quickly grabbed her and began tickling her which made her shriek and squirm. “Have me be Luke Skywalker or the tickling continues your highness!” I mimicked Darth Vader’s voice.

“Ne-nevheherererer!” she said through her laughter. I proceeded with the tickling till I heard the sound of a car engine coming down the street.

My mind suddenly went back to that night when I nearly got ran over. I set Kelly down on the floor and peeked through the curtains and could see someone standing right beside a familiar shape of a car that I knew well.

“Daddy? Is……everything okay?” I looked down at Kelly before quickly looking back towards the window.

“Kelly I need you to listen to me very carefully sweetheart. I want you to take your brothers and go to mommy and daddy’s room and hide in the closet. And no matter what happens do not come out till I come and get you, okay?”

“But why daddy? What’s going on?”

“Just!” I snapped but clenched my hand tightly and said as I knelt down to her height. “Please Kelly, do as your father tells you. Remember not a word or even let me see you till I tell you it’s safe, promise?”

“I promise.” I hugged her tightly and gave her a kiss and told her to go get her brothers and get upstairs. I glared at the door and opened it up before closing it. I walked towards the front gate and that’s when I heard his voice say.

“Well, well, well, Jack Kline I’ll be damned. Still around eh?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me don’t cream your pants.” I sassed bluntly at him.

“Saw that you and the kiddies were doing a little trick or treating. That’s nice of you but umm…..what are you supposed to be? A new kid on the block?” I scoffed.

“What do you want Harrison?”

“What can’t a PA come up to check on his superstar?”

“I don’t know what world you live in but (Y/n) fired you last week.”

“Yeah, you see that-that-that’s…..that’s another reason why I came here. See, I personally am the best and most qualified PA that the Rock Angel could ever have. But while we were in Pittsburg, I get a notice saying that I’ve been fired. Now she never told me why so I thought who is more jealous of me and brainwashing the Rock Angel, than her own husband? So—care to explain?”

“Guess you were dropped as a child one too many times.” I walked closer to the front gate and said in Steve’s face. “She got tired of your advancements towards her. My wife isn’t like all other rock stars cause she’s been on the end of the cheating stick. And she knows to not put me or our kids through something like that.”

“Really lives up to her angel name huh?” he smart mouthed me. “Let me tell you though buddy boy. We have fucked with each other, and boy is she a freak in the sheets.” Bullshit I know he’s lying. “We’ve even fucked with each other here at your own house when you were away on business. I mean—who can say no to this?” he gestured to himself.

“You are even worse than we thought. Now do yourself a favor and fuck off Steve before I call the cops.”

“One problem with that amigo.”

“And what’s that? Amigo.” Suddenly I was grabbed by my shirt and a punch went straight through my stomach. I collapsed to the ground and the gate opened up. Steve stood over me and he sneered down.

“The cops are working for me.” I was then kicked in the ribs and I watched in horror as Steve kicked the door in and walked right on in the house.

*3rd Person POV*

As Steve entered the Kline residence, a place he had actually been inside a lot with his uncle on the meetings with (Y/n) to discuss further progress with her albums, brandings, etc. He walked up the stairs and went straight for the master bedroom where Jack and (Y/n) slept.

He looked around as he slowly walked around the bedroom before seeing the closet at the corner of his eyes. He turned towards it and walked right up to it before slowly reaching for the door. With a quick flick, the door was opened but no one was there. He then saw some of (Y/n)’s stuff like her hats and scarves.

He took a red scarf and inhaled it before pocketing it into his back pocket. That’s when he suddenly heard a thump from the corner of the room. That’s when his attention went to the wardrobe. A smirk spread across his face and as he opened it there he saw Kelly, Georgie and Jackson all huddled together.

“Hey kids, whatcha doin in here?”

“Go away! Mommy and daddy don’t like you anymore and neither do we!” Steve laughed at Kelly’s empty demand.

“Kids today. Guess I’m gonna have to teach you some manners little missy.” Suddenly he was turned around and a hard punch sent him down to the ground.

“Daddy!” Kelly cheered.

“Daddy! Daddy!” the boys repeated.

*Jack’s POV*

Like hell I was gonna just sit there and allow Steve to take whatever the hell he wants or worse find the kids. Spitting out some blood I staggered towards the house and walked up the stairs. That’s when I heard Kelly’s voice cry out.

“Mommy and daddy don’t like you anymore and neither do we!”

“Kids today. Guess I’m gonna have to teach you some manners little missy.” Like hell you will! I raced as Steve was talking and immediately grabbed him by the shoulder of his jacket, turned him around and sucker punched him across the face. My kids cried out for me while Steve staggered to stand up.

He soon began laughing before letting out a hoot. His nose bleeding from the punch I just gave him as well as his mouth.

“Looks like I underestimated you farm boy! I took you for a pushover but now I see just what that bitch sees in you! Lion King Jack she likes to call you!”

“Get. Out.” I demanded. Steve chuckled icily and said.

“And what if I don’t?” he spat blood in my face. I then let out a whistle and said two commands.

“Sick. Em.” Soon running past my right leg Sammy attacked Steve at his ankles tripping him over. Sammy maybe all sweet and innocent but when he needs to be (especially since Steve’s been around) he knows when someone needs to get bit.

Steve fell right onto his back as Sammy continued to bite and tear at his pants.

“YOU DAMN DOG!! LET GO!”

“You gonna surrender now?”

“FUCK. YOU!” I let out another whistle and soon barking in aggressively was Bucky. And being a German shepherd he was not holding back. Sammy released Steve’s leg for a moment and allowed his brother to take over.

Bucky bit Steve’s shoulder and tackled him to the ground and I knew he was biting down harder cause Steve’s screams got louder and more painful.

“Boys come!” the boys came back and stood guard of the wardrobe growling and protectively standing guard over my kids. “You wanna test me again or shall I give them a second chance at a new chew toy?”

Even with multiple dog bites, Steve managed to somehow stand up and he glared with pure hatred at me.

“I’ll—I’ll see to it……that those mutts are put down for attacking me. My uncle will hear about this! And I’ll be sure that you’re put away for a long, long time. I know you guys have no cameras in or outside of this house, so no cameras, no proof.” His sick twisting smirk widened across his face.

He staggered out of the bedroom but I heard the sound of him collapsing down to the ground. The dogs immediately went towards him but I didn’t hear any snarling or growling, instead I heard happy whimpering.

“Stay here kids.” I told them as I quickly I came out and I was shocked to see standing before Steve with a baseball bat in her hand was my wife, (Y/n). She panted softly as she dropped the bat and then took out one of our large kitchen knives.

Bucky and Sammy stood guard of the stairs to ensure that Steve didn’t even try to escape and that’s when (Y/n) sneered down at Steve.

“From now on you are no never come near me or my family again. I don’t care what kind of connections you have; we’ve got enough evidence with you in this house without consent and a struggle going on in my very bedroom.”

“Screw you…….bitch.” Steve murmured. Then I witnessed with my own eyes as my wife took that large 7in knife and slam it right down to the floor, very close to Steve’s dick. Any further up and she would’ve removed his very identity as a man.

“SAY YOU UNDERSTAND! Say it. SAY IT!!!” She roared down at him.

“I understand.” He muttered quietly.

“You what?!”

“I understand.” He said a bit louder. Her eyes steaming with hatred and fierce mother instincts stared Steve down as she removed the knife and she looked up to me and simply told me. “Call the police.”

Within minutes the police arrived and Steve was finally arrested. The police took our testimonies and a trial date was set for the 1st of December.

Now as I’m sure my wife as explained I wish we could say that was the last time we’d ever see Steve Harrison in our lives but we underestimated just how fucked up the legal system was here in California.

Thanks to his smooth, fast talking Uncle in trying to bride the judges and the jury, Steve didn’t serve any jail time. Only that he would have a restraining order set against him. By law he wasn’t to get anywhere within 50ft of (Y/n) or our family.

Steve Harrison was once again a free man.

By the start of 1993, my wife was once again trying to contact the judge, police, and any other law enforcement about taking Steve’s advances seriously. But all the same they kept turning her down saying there’s nothing else they can do.

That the restraining order will protect her, and if Steve does violate that then and only then could they talk serious jail time for him.

“Well then I want you guys to do one thing for me, the next time you bastards come to this house will be when my body is dead on the ground with a message in blood saying I told you so!” she hung up the phone and sobbed into her hands.

I slowly walked towards her and hesitantly sat down beside her. God I hate seeing her like this, she’s been worrying herself sick over this while still going on with the tour which will resume after this week.

“I—I don’t know what else to do Jack. I……” I refused to allow her to speak again. I embraced her as tightly as I could and she wept hysterically into my arms. Bucky and Sammy whimpering at our feet with Sammy licking her feet and Bucky nuzzling his head into her lap.

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littlestsnicket · 3 years ago

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the witcher: of banquets, bastards and burials

Ciri entering Brokilon forest is pretty unsettling. Also, that’s the previous episode, but why do they shoot Dara if they don’t intend to hurt him in the long run? The sudden change in climate is a really nice touch--it feels so otherworldly and magical. Ciri’s really concerned about Dara once she snaps out of the weird trance, it’s cute. I like them.

“It swallowed that witcher whole”

“Oooooh, this is brilliant. Oh, sorry. It’s just Geralt is usually so stingy with the details. Uh, and then what happened?”

“He died!”

“Eh, he’s fine.”

This is so at odds with fanon!Jaskier. It amuses me a great deal. Jaskier does seem to think Geralt is kind of invincible, and not completely without cause.

“And now, witcher, it’s time to repay your debt.” --I think this says a lot about Jaskier, that he doesn’t feel totally comfortable asking Geralt to do something for him. It also comes off as sort of a game. I like the complexity and contradiction in their level of intimacy; it gets overlooked a bit. Jaskier also has a comfortably large ego in most situations, but I think he also is genuinely worried that he’s useless compared to Geralt (see episode 6).

I think this one is my favorite of Jaskier’s costumes. It’s a good color. The cut of the trousers with the trying to thread a needle between matching the outfit and looking “normal” to a modern audience works better here than it does in some of the other ones. Joey Batey as Jaskier seems to like leaning on things, especially posts, he’s very slouchy. (Mental note of physicality to use in fic.)

“I’m not your friend.” “Oh, you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom? Oh yeah, exactly, that’s what I thought.”

Everything about this conversation has the feeling of well tread territory. Even the deeper stuff, like they talk about these sorts of things often, in little pockets of intimacy.

(That limp wristed bath salt flick is my favorite gif of all time--it’s one of only two or three I have saved on my phone.)

I think Jaskier is genuinely nervous here--and not just about being killed by someone’s partner. Geralt is actually the one who suggests that as the cause of his bodyguarding. I think he’s quite nervous about performing under these specific circumstances. It’s probably a big deal to have gotten this gig.

The way Jaskier puts his hand on Geralt’s arm! It’s both so forceful and casual.

“Yes, yes, yes, you never get involved, except you actually do--all of the time.” Jaskier knows Geralt. That is basically the core of Geralt’s character. He says things and he means them, but he’s uncertain, flexible in the face of reality, and/or self-delusional enough that he often does the opposite.

“Do witcher’s ever retire?”

“Yeah, when they slow and get killed”

“Come on you must want something for yourself once all this... monster hunting nonsense is over with.”

That’s not a denial of the reality of Geralt’s profession, it’s a denial of the validity of Geralt’s coping mechanisms. That’s Geralt responding to something in a way Jaskier thinks is inappropriate. Jaskier is Leslie Knope to a not insignificant extent.

“I want nothing.”

“Well, who knows? maybe someone out there will want you.” *floppy gesture* *pouty face*

“I need no one and the last thing I want is someone needing me.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“Hmm.”

That conversation gets very serious for a second. I really wonder how that line was intended to be read by the author. But the stillness of how it’s shot and the intimacy that’s emphasized in the way it’s framed really supports how seriously it’s performed. The words themselves seem like they very easily could be meant to be something of a joke, but it’s not played like that at all.

Both throughout the show and in the books, it’s pretty clear that the average person is not going to immediately ping that Geralt is a witcher. His eyes are really not that unnatural to be clocked at a distance, and the white hair is both within the realm of human hair color (just incongruous with the rest his apparent age) and also not typical of Witchers. But is there a particular reason Jaskier is trying to hide Geralt’s identity? Surely he is more of a threat as a Witcher than as a “Sad Silk Merchant”.

Mousesack calls Geralt the White Wolf--that has really caught on. They are clearly friends from before the song. Team Give-Geralt-more-weird-friends!

JASKIER LETTING A MAN A WHOLE FOOT SHORTER THAN HIM BACK HIM INTO A CORNER.

“Forgive me my lord, this happens all the time. It’s true that he has the face of a cad and a coward, but truth be known, he was kicked in the balls by an ox as a child.”

“That’s... true.”

And he gives Jaskier a coin!! How humiliating!

“You’re on your own from here on” but you will note that Geralt very much doesn’t leave and is still keeping an eye on him. Geralt also is repeatedly shown to be quite good at verbally diffusing conflict. I think this gets left out of fic a lot.

Calanthe! Delightfully dirty. I am into it.

“It will be done soon. You think I wanted to marry your father? I’ll have none of your water works here, you’re the daughter of the Lioness, behave like it.” “Perhaps I should have some starving serfs brought in to slaughter then?”

Pavetta does not approve of the way Calanthe is running this country at all. I think this is an underlying source of conflict in their relationship in general. Calanthe thinks Pavetta is too soft and naive to take care of herself.

Aww, Ciri holds Dara’s hand when the dryad pulls the arrow out. I don’t actually have much to say about the Brokilon stuff without getting into my thoughts about adaptation, which would really take too much space. One day, maybe, I’ll get back to that.

Male posturing. Witchers are a threat to toxic masculinity. You have the dudes in Blaviken who are pissed off by Geralt’s existence and Renfri is just like chill, you have the bit in Nightmare of the Wolf where the dudes in the tavern are pissed at Vesimir’s existence but a whole little gaggle of women are totally chill. They exist outside social structure and the patriarchy.

“Are you calling me a liar? The Butcher of Blaviken bleats utter nonsense.”

*Jaskier makes a please don’t face*

“Perhaps the lord’s encountered rare subspecies of manticore.”

*Jaskier sighs, Calanthe laughs*

Geralt is perfectly capable of interacting with “polite society” and coming out ahead (for a given value of ahead). I think he chooses not to sometimes though.

“Any man willing to paint himself in the shadow of his failures will make for far more interesting conversation this night.” Yeah... women like Geralt (and Witchers in general cause they are outside the patriarchy)

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing, they’re gone now.”

Dara has not processed any of his trauma. I always liked him, but watching more closely, he’s actually quite an interesting character.

“As Queen I could demand it.”

“If I were one of your subjects.”

“I could torture you so very slowly into compliance.”

*Geralt is smiling, fucking kinky lunatic!*

“Her Majesty will do as she wishes. I’m not for turning.”

Yeah, they are flirting. Their powerplay dynamic is really interesting and fun. I like it.

Yennefer is so awkward and caught up in her own pain, and makes negative effort to comfort that baby. I love her.

That spidery thing is delightfully creepy. Poor Kalis, being fucking assasinated by a weird spider monster just for having the wrong gender babies. And Yennefer just abandons her. Shouldn’t she be better trained in defence? Like would that not be a reasonable thing to teach a court mage? Protecting people does seem to be part of her function. I have a theory that Aretuza does not prepare Mages very well for Court in actual practice. But we do see later that Yennefer can kill things fairly easily with magic. I guess she’s just not been in a combat situation before and kind of freaked out? That adds up.

Yeah, Calenthe is flirting. But also, woah abrupt change in topic. And Geralt actually answers her question. He does, in fact, talk about things.

“Tell me witcher, why are there so few of you left?”

“Hm. It is no longer possible to make more of us since the sacking of Kaer Morhen. Tell me your majesty, why do you risk your life on the battlefield when you can rest on your throne?”

“Because there is a simplicity in killing monsters, is there not? Seems we are quite the pair, Geralt of Rivia.”

“Hmm.” Sometimes a hmm is worth a thousand words. He is not impressed by this. But not unimpressed by this enough to take affront, which he is totally capable of despite Calanthe being a Queen.

And, of course, Geralt does get involved in the messy, violent affairs of men pretty quickly. Geralt fights to protect Duny, which is well... ironic. Considering. And so does Eist, which is... even more ironic. (It’s weird writing this stuff up now that I’ve read most of the books.)

I love the soundtracking so much! Especially Geralt’s theme, makes me very happy!

Calanthe really is quite blood thirsty, kicking her poor knight in the face before getting around to ordering everyone to stop. Goodness.

I really like how the baby has gone all white and frozen dead after the portal travel. It illustrates how unnatural tearing a hole in reality is even though Yennefer does it so seemingly effortlessly.

“Whatever windfall he came home to find would be mine.” That’s the law of surprise wording used by Duny. I wonder how many common phrasings there are.

“I bow to no law made by men who have never born a child.” Motherhood is such a thing. This deserves more thorough analysis than I am going to give it.

“Destiny helps people believe there’s order to this horse shit. There isn’t, but a promise made must be honored, as true for a commoner as it is for a queen.” Such a Geralt thing to say. And also something he is able to say because of his relationship with established authority.

Does Geralt Axii Pavetta? It’s not really clear what Geralt does to stop the tornado magic.

Ciri’s having nightmares :( About Cahir. I really wonder what they are going to do with that character. It’s one of the things I am most interested in.

“I drank the waters, it’s going to be ok.” That is really messed up. The waters of Brokilon are really messed up. Just like... cool, everything’s fine now!

“I’m sorry you didn’t have a life, but if truth be told you’re not missing much. I know it’s easy for me to say with warm breath in my lungs, and you with nothing. Still... what would you have had? Parents? Well, they’re the ones who wrote your last act, so not much loss there. Friends? Most likely fair weather. Lovers? Fun for a bit, I’ll admit but all eventually disappoint. And let's face it, you’re a girl. Your mother was right about one thing, we’re just vessels. And even when we’re told we’re special, as I was, as you would have been, we’re still just vessels for them to take and take until we’re empty and alone. So count yourself lucky, you’ve cheated the game, won without even knowing it.”

Fucking fuck. I can’t believe that people don’t feel for Yennefer. She is so disillusioned and in so much pain and she has every right to be. That is some extremely ineffective grave digging there though.

I like the hand binding marriage ceremony. Jaskier and lady-friend smiling in the background :)

“I think this has the makings of my greatest ballad yet.” already distracted from lady-friend who is trying to hand him a handkerchief for some reason.

“If you’re alive in the morning. Don’t grope for trout in any peculiar rivers until dawn.”

Why until dawn Geralt? Infidelity is not less of a problem once the sun is risen. And why that phrasing? How did you come up with that?

And Geralt is so close to escaping. But Duny has to insist on clearing the debt on his life.

“I want nothing.” Lol. You keep saying that.

“I claim the tradition as you have, the law of surprise, give me that which you already have but do not know.” (Second known wording for the law of surprise, which has nothing to do with returning home.)

Jaskier and lady friend are still holding hands, I guess the ballad writing *can* wait.

Aww, manly shoulder grab. “Be careful, old friend.” Yeah, Geralt needs more weird friends that just pop up sometimes.

And flash forward. Destiny has fucked up Cintra, if you want to read it that way. Necromantic and gut based divination. Gross. Fringilla is so poised, doing something so gross. So gross. Cannot say that enough times.

Special magic tree sap? It’s a pretty sort of opalescent color. Why is she in the desert for this vision thingy? And the tree, interesting.

“What are you child?” That’s a delightfully unsettling way to end the episode.

#the witcher #mayo blogs the witcher #i started doing episode notes back in february 2020 and am somehow only on episode 4 despite having rewatched the show however many times #i can totally finish before season 2 airs #this is really just a running list of crap for me to optimistically expand on some day #but writing good meta is so much work

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mordoriscalling · 4 years ago

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Stay or Sail Away (1/6)

Here comes part one the modern AU fake dating Geraskier fic that I talked about in this post. I’d like to post each part daily. Tagging @geraskier-trashh as requested! :D

***

It’s not that Jaskier has any problem finding someone, thank you very much. It’s just that he’s busy. Busy with concerts and composing, meeting fans at various events, travelling, internet dramas involving Valdo (it’s always fucking Valdo). There’s no time for a relationship, only for occasional one night stands that sometimes that leave him heartbroken because he actually manages to fall in love with someone in the span of a few hours. It’s fine, though. Heartbreak inspires him like little else.

Jaskier's never complained about lack of bed partners, when he seeks them out. He’s charming, after all. Still, the moment he hears “commitment”, he flees. It’s just not his way. Or perhaps he’s never found anyone fascinating enough to commit to; it takes a lot to keep his attention. He wasn’t even looking for someone like that. Not until recently.

His troubles began a week ago, during a phone call with his mum. She reminded him of his father’s 65th birthday party and asked if he would bring anyone with him. This was followed by a series of questions about his love life because, as his mum put it, “you’re 35, Julian darling, and you’re always working so hard! I worry you’ll end up alone”. In order to placate her, Jaskier might’ve lied a little tiny bit about some things. As a result, because of all the twists and turns of the conversation, he made his mother believe he had a fiancé.

A fucking fiancé.

Wanda Pankratz was ecstatic, wishing to know everything about her son’s relationship, but he dodged all the further questions by saying that she would meet his love soon enough. She left it at that but, of course, told half the family about it, if the texts and calls from his sisters and aunts were anything to go by.

Hence, The Post.

It’s a bit pathetic and desperate, Jaskier can freely admit, but he has no other choice. His personal guard Zoltan almost pissed himself laughing when Jaskier asked him to pretend to be his fiancé, and not one of his friends knows anyone who would want to do this. Not even his agent Triss could help him out.

It all drove Jaskier to log on his anonymous Facebook account (he is a pretty big name in the UK; better be safe than sorry) and post in one of the big London groups.

“I need urgent help from someone who’d be willing to act as my fiancé during a family party on February the 24th. The only thing I expect is the ability to sing praises of our love and to compliment my aunts. It’ll take around 4 hours and then we end our relationship. Age from 35 to 40. It’d be great if you knew something about the sea because I intend to introduce you as a sailor who’s never home and afterwards, you die. Can anybody help?”

Since yesterday, the post has got more than a thousand reactions (mostly the laughing one and likes) and hundreds of comments. Many people tagged their friends as a joke, which is not helpful, but Jaskier still scrolls down and down, trying not to let his hope die. Nobody seems to think his request is for real and he’s received no serious offers so far. Then, one of the newest comment threads catches his attention.

Lambert Rivia: Geralt Rivia Destiny!

Geralt Rivia Fuck off

Yennefer Vengeberg Omg 😂 Cirilla Vengeberg-Rivia Eskel Rivia you must see this!

Cirilla Vengeberg-Rivia Yesssss!! This is perfect! ❤️

Eskel Rvia Do it Geralt

Geralt Rivia No.

Intrigued, Jaskier decides to check out these people’s profiles. Lambert Rivia is a handsome red-haired man who wears some kind of black military suit in his profile picture. Looking at his bio, Jaskier already knows why Lambert didn’t volunteer himself – he’s in a relationship. Eskel Rivia is blond, even more handsome than Lambert despite facial scars, and also has a photo in a black suit, together with a white cap on his head. There’s no information on Eskel’s relationship status and Jaskier is intrigued indeed. Yennefer Vengeberg is a terrifyingly beautiful woman who, judging how professional her profile picture appears, must work in some serious profession. Cirilla Vengerberg-Rivia is a lovely teenage girl with white-blond hair. Jaskier reckons she’s the daughter of Yennefer and one of the Rivia guys.

He left the poor Geralt’s profile as the last to look at, but now that Jaskier has seen the rest, he checks this one too.

His jaw fucking drops.

Geralt Rivia is a ridiculously handsome man. His face seems practically unreal because, surely, people as beautiful as Geralt don’t actually exist? The man’s long white hair (which makes no sense considering his apparent age), as well as his brown-almost-golden eyes, only add to his otherwordly, stunning appearance. Double stunning in that black military suit he’s wearing in his profile picture, just like Lambert and Eskel. The suit looks familiar and Jaskier has a nagging feeling he really should know what kind of army it is. Google helps him out and he quickly puts two to two – Geralt, Eskel and Lambert serve for the Royal Navy.

He bursts out laughing.

This is too good.

He wonders what he should to about this. Now that he knows about Geralt’s existence, he can’t really miss the chance of meeting him, however slim. His gut feeling tells him not to let the opportunity slip and well, who is Jaskier not to listen?

When he’s in the middle of debating what to write to the man, his phone pings. There’s a new messenger notification... with Geralt’s name. With a racing heart, Jaskier opens the message.

FEB THE 18TH AT 06:14 PM Hey. Everyone’s telling me to message you and won’t leave me alone. Is your request for real? Please say no

Jaskier chuckles and replies:

Hi! I’m sorry they’re bothering you and I’m also sorry to say that my request is very much for real. I’d be forever grateful if you helped me 😁

To this, Geralt responds with:

They really won’t stop until I agree They think it’s so fucking funny

Jaskier purses his lips, already suspecting this isn’t likely to work out. He'll have to face his loving mum and admit that he lied to her about fucking having a fiancé. She’s going to be so disappointed. At the very prospect, bad mood overtakes him, but he still types what he hopes to be a cheerful answer.

Damn, so sorry mate I won’t push you but, again, I’d totally owe you one if you agree ☺️

What would I get?

Jaskier tries to reason with his hope to calm the fuck down and replies:

Money, or a favour of some sort, I have many connections Could be free tickets to my concerts Even my company for the night 😏 Just whatever you want I really need help

Fuck

For a minute or two, the three dots next to Geralt’s photo disappear, and Jaskier’s hope plummets in a dramatic fashion. Then, more messages from Geralt show up in the chat.

Free tickets seem fine My daughter loves going to concerts She’d like free tickets but I never heard of you

Jaskier starts begging any god out there that Cirilla is Geralt’s daughter. Teenagers make up a large part of his audience (which is great, actually; teenage kids are amazing these days). If she’s a fan, the free tickets are a major bargaining chip.

Well, Julian AP isn’t my stage name I don’t use it on fb

What is it? Your stage name

I’d rather not say here And you must promise me you won’t tell anyone about it too Well, anyone but your daughter

Can you call me? It’s better to talk about this on the phone anyway

Fine.

Jaskier sends Geralt his number and waits for the call. In other circumstances, he’d congratulate himself on getting a man like that to call him so easily, but he’s too anxious. His hands itch for his guitar but he doesn’t get up from his bed. He begins smoothing his hair out with his palms, praying in his mind that Geralt hasn’t changed his mind.

After the agonizing wait of six minutes, there’s an incoming call. Jaskier takes a deep breath and picks up.

“Hello,” says a gravelly baritone voice so pleasant that it sends shivers down Jaskier’s spine.

“Uhm, h-hi, Geralt,” he replies a bit breathlessly, “so, my name’s Julian Alfred Pankratz but I’m known to many as Jaskier.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Jaskier?” Geralt repeats, “the one who sings Her Sweet Kiss?”

Jaskier beams, his chest swelling with pride. “The very same.”

“Fuck,” Geralt growls, “Ciri wants to blast this song whenever we drive somewhere.”

Jaskier laughs. “She would love free tickets to my concerts, wouldn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

Geralt says no more. Jaskier has to swallow down to sop his throat from constricting. “So?” he asks, “Can you do this for me?”

The silence on the other side is deafening and Jaskier doesn’t even breathe until Geralt finally speaks up. “Fine,” he grunts, his tone indicating it’s anything but fine.

Air leaves Jaskier’s lungs in a whoosh, replaced by a flood of such sheer relief that he may as well cry. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he babbles, heady with joy, “Gosh, you’re my saviour!”

“Just don’t tell anyone about this,” Geralt grumbles.

“Not a soul, Geralt, not a soul.”

“Send me the details about when and where and let’s get this over w–”

“No, wait!” Jaskier cuts in, “My family’s very perceptive, they’ll know it’s a ruse. We should plan everything carefully.”

“You’re making me regret this,” Gerlt growls.

“I’m sorry!” Jaskier hastens to say. “Just... at least tell me a bit about yourself?”

Geralt lets out an irritated sigh. “I’m forty, serve for the Royal Navy with my brothers. Eskel’s the nice one and Lambert’s the prick. My ex-wife Yennefer works for the government.” Jaskier actually shudders at this one because he already can picture it. Yennefer seems exactly powerful like that. “We have a daughter,” Geralt goes on, his tone softening, “Ciri. She’s fourteen. We live in London but I’m away often.”

“Oh, lovely,” Jaskier says with a wide smile because, really, this man’s love for his daughter is so clear and endearing, “this is something we can start with.”

“Just make everything up about our relationship and send it to me. I’ll play along.”

“Thank you,” he breathes out, still amazed at his luck. Jaskier is almost high on the success of his ingenious scheme and his obligations are therefore non-existent, so nothing stops him from teasing Geralt. “Though, to be completely honest," he says cheekily, "you don’t strike me as the type to sing praises of our love and compliment my aunts.”

“Hmm,” Geralt replies. It doesn’t sound like a negation. “Yen says I’m not that bad if I try.”

The fondness with which he said Yennefer’s name is a cold bucket of water poured on his enthusiasm. “O-oh, ok,” he stutters out, thrown off-track, “So, uhm, would you be willing to try for me?”

For a moment, Geralt says nothing, then answers, “If you give Ciri an autograph.”

Jaskier laughs out loud. “Not a problem at all! Whatever she wants.” He pauses. “Whatever you want,” he adds more seriously.

Geralt only hmms, in a way that Jaskier’s prone-to-romanticism mind would almost call warm. Silence falls between them but it doesn’t feel awkward somehow. “Have to go,” Geralt says.

“Okay,” Jaskier replies quietly, “Thank you again. I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

After Geralt hangs up, Jaskier huffs out a shaky breath. Deep down, he already knows.

This is going to mess him up.

TBC

Part 2

#myfic #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #the witcher #modern au #pretend relationship #fake dating #fanfic #let's call this... the Sailor and the Singer AU xD #the Sailor and the Singer AU

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years ago

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Oooh yeah the first time I was playing as a female mc because I wanted to romance ava and I usually go male mc if I want to romance a man and female mc if I want to romance a woman (and I think there was one book with where mc could be non-binary so I picked that one but I didn't finished the book), and Stacy's brother felt Hetero™ in a way, like Hollywood ish (? Honestly like cinematographicly bad hetero) but I ended up really loving Andy too, and Stacy felt a little flat but also I really liked her potential, like go crazy girl, and the mom issues.

Apart but holy shit you're 10000% right about that teacher like who inmediately threatens expulsion just like that for something not violent ??? And to an honor student with way too much on his plate ??? Obviously it would have been bad with any student, but you have literally the reason of why he's doing it and as a teacher HE LITERALLY COULD HAVE HELPED WITH IT ??????? Like something teachers can't really help students because it's a family thing only or is a financial struggle or etc but it was literally because of school (and his family, but the teacher could have heloed him with the school part)

(Identity thief anon (also I go by any pronouns ahhshs))

ur valid! that's lowkey what i wish i'd do (picking female MC if my fave LI is female and the other way around, i mean) but unfortunately i always go into the stories blindly having no idea what i'll find </3 so i cant really do that doiajdiosa and then i get attached for the MC i picked so i feel bad about changing their gender/name/appearance when i replay. so what i usually do is that i pick a male MC when i get the option because A- u don't always get the option, so i end up being male half the time and female half the time either way; and B- i feel slightly more comfortable with a male identity than a female one. like i'm still nonbinary and i wouldn't consider myself male aligned or within the gender of Man, but like... when i first came out i went by any pronouns but then because im afab everyone was like "cool, she/her only it is" so i was like fuck that and stopped using she/her. so i feel slightly more comfortable with a masc MC and end up going with that

there's also the fact that it always feels slightly genderfucky to have a male MC because choices is so sexist and also always writes the stories assuming ull pick a female MC, even when they give u the option not to. so when u pick a male MC he's very like not toxically masc and some things they add to make a QuiRkY MC that are very white woman and would feel annoying are actually kind of subversive for my black and brown male MCs. so like another win for queerness /j

ILITW MC in particular i feel has HUGE nonbinary vibes like no reason at all he just does <3 maybe it's just that for once the male clothes for ILITW actually fUCK. i wanna dress in that goth outfit <3 so gorgeous ugh. i love him even tho he's a fucking dumbass

also there's a book where an MC can be enby? worm? ive only ever read one book in choices with any enby characters at all (america's most elligible, books 2-3) but they weren't even a LI which is disappointing cuz they were a billion times superior to any of the LIs. sorry america's most elligible LIs fans

also oh connor IS the epitome of white cistraight man even when u play as a man tbh, like he was just so cistraight to me daouhdsaojdasij he kind of annoys me but also i forget that he even exists until he shows up onscreen and choices starts trying to push me into his lap and i'm just like, ugh, not again

and yeah i think i feel a similar way about stacy. i don't dislike her as a character and i don't feel like she as a character felt flat, her growth was very interesting and i loved seeing her start to challenge her mom like YESSS GO GIRL GIVE US EVERYTHING, she just felt flat as a LI to me ig? like idk i didn't feel chemistry between her and my MC personally, but also like, stacy girls are valid u know

right exactly. like i don't think ppl really understand that a school that doesn't drive people to cry during finals week and feel absolutely crushed by having to be there and that makes ppl feel like they're stupid, not enough, and overwhelmed IS IN FACT POSSIBLE and actually pretty easy to make when we stop treating students like statistics that will get the school more clients/funding (depending on whether it's a private or public school). and like as a teacher getting my degree in brasil it just feels completely surreal to me that anyone would see a student who's so overwhelmed by the amount of extracurriculars and responsibilities he feels like he has to take that he starts taking drugs to help his performance despite it affecting his health, and see that as like... something morally reprehensible? like it is bad that it happened but it's not the student's fault, what's morally reprehensible are the circumstances that led to his decision, not his decision

and like it is very much a systemic problem, more and more kids are taking focus pills to be able to survive the pressure of school and have a shot at a future, either on their own or because we are actually medicalizing not existing to be productive. and if it's a systemic problem then the fault is at the system?? and like holy shit i legit don't understand why choices gave us options like being like "it still isn't enough" when lucas gets rid of his pills, what do you mean it isn't enough??? enough for what??? to FORGIVE him???? for something that only hurt himself??? for something that is very much a systemic problem and therefore NOT HIS FAULT????? literally what the fuck even is this, lucas doesn't have to "make up" for a single thing, he needs to be HELPED is what he needs

like idk i know that the school system in the US is...... extremely backwards lmao which is not a term i like to use because it usually implies imperialistic views but the US is the height of world imperialism so like actually idc. brasil has a pretty progressive constitution and as a teacher my whole education was focused on being critical of the school system, particularly the productivity obsession, and drilling into us again and again that we aren't supposed to just be teaching subjects, we are also supposed to be teaching how to be a citizen, be a critical human being, work towards building a better future, and learning and growing AS A PERSON to be healthy and happy are values of the school system

like that's easier said than done when schools are under insane amounts of pressure by companies in practice to be productivity-driven, and most teachers who actually want to do a good job end up having to live at the edge of the knife and constantly fighting back outside pressure, but at least it is very much a mandatory part of our education to become teachers and also like literally part of the constitution. so i just... i can't fathom reacting the way mr cooper did? like as a teacher i felt BETRAYED, i felt like he shat all over my profession because that is the opposite of what we should be doing, this is a kid who needs help

and just like hOLY SHIT HE DID NOTHING WRONG, what are you punishing him for??? it's not even a like, stealing bread to feed your family situation, because what he did HAS NO VICTIM OTHER THAN HIMSELF, and therefore HE IS THE VICTIM NOT THE CULPRIT. he doesn't have to repent or atone or answer for a single fucking thing, he didn't victimize others, he doesn't have to apologize, there's nothing to punish him fOR??? like i don't believe in punishment anyway cuz im a prison abolitionist but doDAUSDJADASIJDAS???????????? HE DIDN'T. HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG. WHY IS THIS WHOLE GAME ACTING AS IF HE WAS IN THE WRONG. OH MY GOD

it's like saying that someone needs to be forgiven for self harming????? like how is it that someone has been hurt continuously until it led them to hurt themselves and then they have to? make up for it to a bunch of other ppl? my god it makes me so mad and i genuinely don't understand the logic, like usually when i see someone doing fucked up shit i can see the logic but i don't agree with it, but this time i genuinely DON'T SEE THE LOGIC. my USan friends said it was because he was technically doing drugs but like i legit still don't understand

anyway any school that drives a student to do something like that needs to rethink their entire curriculum and the psychological effect it's having on kids, because lucas is 1- not even the first one according to mr cooper; 2- even if he was, that'd be the only one who got CAUGHT; and 3- even if there was really only one singular student who went tHIS far, i doubt the others weren't feeling that same pressure and dealing with it in other similarly unhealthy ways

i know that's probably easier in brasil than in the US even if it's by no means easy here because here at least in public schools the curriculum and political-pedagogical plan has to be agreed on by the school community (teachers, parents, students, workers, and anyone who lives in the area of the school) and it's updated every year, so like, you have more means to do something to change the school in a deeper way, altho of course that still has to mean swinging the rest of the community, but still. but at the very least he could have looked for counseling for him? tried to find a way to take some of the workload off his shoulders? given him some more time on assignments? motioning for all the clubs he was the president of to have co-presidents so he was less overwhelmed?

like there was just daodsao he could have done so many things and he justs DIDN'T he chose to not only punish him instead but quite literally THREATEN HIM WITH DEATH because that's what calling the police on a latino student over a drug charge is. like he might've survived but the possibility that he would fucking DIE was very much there, and i know choices didn't think of that because they'd rather die than think about the racial implications of anything but holy fucking shit. and im not even getting into how mr cooper is BLACK because then ill just start biting people like thanks for putting that threat on a black character's mouth choices. if u need me ill be foaming at the mouth

anyway SORRY god why is it that i always get to the salty part within 2 seconds of joining a fandom i promise that i actually like it lives and the way they handled most of their plot, i genuinely think it's a very well written and actually worth ur time story but i just doadosaida like i said particularly as a teacher in the context where i'm being taught, plus with all my political beliefs, i just can't let it go aaaa

also ty for telling me ur pronouns! idk if i assumed them at any time, i don't think so but i might have done so without realizing and if i did im really sorry. also sorry for the gigantic salty reply daojdsaojdaisjsajdoadsaodasj rip me i never shut up

#it lives spoilers #ilitw spoilers #it lives #salt #long post #drugs tw #cops tw #police brutality tw #racism tw #victim blaming tw #anti connor green #ilitw #lucas thomas #ask #identity thief anon #self harm tw

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machikuragii · 4 years ago

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Rank the Sohmas and explain your ranking?

Anon, this got really long, so I’ve put everything under the cut. Also I don’t have solid rankings beyond my top 2 so I went into ‘tiers’ that aren’t necessarily ordered by how much I like a character. TLDR; I love all the zodiacs for different reasons, see readmore for more in-depth thoughts.

1. Yuki Sohma

Yuki as a character is really, really important to me. I think about him so much, and how he goes from a neglected, unwanted child with no support network to a confident young adult who is so comfortable with himself and free to be happy and at ease and surrounded by those who love him. I think about how important it is that Takaya displays this journey as incremental, and not necessarily linear. I think about how Yuki’s strength comes not only from himself and his desire to improve step by step, but from the support he gradually starts to receive from the people around him. I think about just how important it is when Takaya says that it’s ok to be weak, to reach out for help, and that for some people, it is only when they DO receive the needed support from others that they are able to get better. I think about just how much it means for a boy with so little self-worth to gradually find himself in the company of people who enjoy his presence and like him for who he is, and I think about how he is able to reach out and help others after receiving the warm and foundation he himself needs, when he is emotionally ready. I think about then, how SIGNIFICANT it is to show a character who had absolutely NOTHING in his childhood go on to make sure that his own child has everything he longed for in a home in his childhood.

There’s a little bit of Yuki in everyone. Every bit of his internal monologue hits like a truck for anyone who struggles with insecurity and low self-esteem, and his drive and aspiration to find his own purpose and happiness, can be a source of inspiration to so many. Yuki Sohma is one of the best, if not THE definitely best written Fruits Basket characters, and I really wish more people recognised this. As sensei once said herself, I know that Yuki will always have his fans, but I wished that more people realised and appreciated his importance in the story and carrying the themes of Fruits Basket.

2. Hatori Sohma

This is more a remnant of a past phase, but Hatori is here because he was my first anime crush ksksksasoksks . Jokes aside though, I love Hatori because of his kindness and selfless nature that is masked by a cold exterior. As an adult I realise that Hatori’s actions are not always perfect or enough, but I still really think that he is someone who truly cares. There are so many instances that improve his character in my eyes. Can you imagine going through what he goes through with Kana, and learning of her marriage, and not feeling bitterness, but relief that she is happy? And yet he values his own happiness so little that it really breaks my heart. Or the way that he doesn’t avoid Momiji after the ordeal with his mother, but checks up on him and in a way helps raise him? Dude is more of a father figure to Momiji than his own dad. Narratively, Hatori’s backstory is such an effective introduction to the darker, more mature themes of Fruits Basket, and yeah you can bet it worked on kid me.

TIER: “These are great characters, I love their complexity but I’m also just fond of them as well” (no particular order)

Isuzu Sohma

Someone who definitely grew on me this time round. When I was a child I found it hard to understand what she was going through and didn’t really relate to her either. But oh my god, this girl goes through so much. She’s such a kindhearted character at heart, but struggles with connecting with others and receiving their kindness because of what she went through as a child. It’s so hard to watch her struggle, because we know she deserves the world.

Akito Sohma

Controversial to say I love Akito just after I said I love Rin, lol. I’ve never had an overly negative impression of Akito throughout Fruits Basket (this is partially because my friends used to call me Akito when we were little.....because I was an Asian girl... and Akito is also an Asian girl????? idk now that I’m thinking back over it...gee thanks guys), so it was relatively easier for me to accept her redemption when it came. Akito’s actions are not defensible, but I find it much more interesting to explore where she is coming from, rather than just mindlessly spew hate and wish violent things for her like some people prefer to do. Akito’s character is a tragedy, and I feel like people are way less willing to emphasise when the victim is not “perfect”, per se. Akito went through the same “broken home” parental abuse that a lot of the characters in Fruits Basket went through, but somehow people are unwilling even to extend the tiniest amount of baseline empathy towards her just because he trauma manifested in a way that hurts others. Guys, she’s a tragic character!!! A tragic character isn’t always “a perfect person who has bad things happen to them”, it can also mean “a character who becomes antagonistic because of circumstances.” Her actions are inexcusable, but there is a lot to learn when we explore WHY she became this way.

Shigure Sohma

Gonna try make this short. Shigure is a controversial character but I like him because I like characters that demonstrate moral ambiguity. The point of Shigure is NOT to be a good person, and he doesn’t have to be one to justify liking him. Once again, you can like Shigure and still know that he’s a piece of shit. The whole idea of “he genuinely cares for Tohru but will hurt her if it means achieving his own goals” is a fascinating one to me, because it shows that the idea of “good people” and “bad people” is vast oversimplification of how actual people think and behave. Still though, I’m really not fond of how Akigure was executed in canon. I think the two could have potentially had a fascinating relationship but it ended up being more disturbing and swept under the rug&uncomfortable than interesting.

Momiji Sohma

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Momiji who is just genuinely such a good person. I like the dichotomy between his outwardly ‘childish’ and ‘immature’ appearance and behaviors, versus what we gradually learn about him: that he has had to be mature and selfless at a very young age, and that he is also very emotionally intelligent and empathetic. Watching him gradually grow up before our eyes (we were ROBBED of it in the anime) but at the same time feeling more and more lost broke my freaking heart. When his curse breaks and he realises that even though he is now ‘free’, that nothing has changed and the damage was already done - absolutely heartwrenching. He’s someone I would have loved explore more of what happened post-canon, because I just want good things for him and Momo, screw whatever the hell their asshole dad thinks.

TIER: “I love these characters but don’t focus on them as much as I think the fandom does”

Kyo Sohma

I’m a self-professed “probably don’t think about Kyo that much” person haha. I know I know, sue me. I think its because out of the main 3, I love Yuki and Tohru so much that I don’t tend to focus on Kyo. I still like him a whole lot though!! I’m a big fan of the way he matures and changes throughout the series, and much like how Yuki does too, becomes a much happier person. When I compare early-series Kyo with later-series Kyo, one thing that always sticks out to me is how much more he smiles. The way he smiles at Tohru is so full of genuine warmth and happiness that it makes my heart melt, especially when I think about how this is a boy who has so much baggage, and has to gradually accept the fact that he deserves happiness before he allows himself finally to accept it.

Hatsuharu Sohma

Most of my love for Haru comes from the relationship he has with Yuki. It takes so much maturity to accept that your prejudices may be unfair, and Haru did so at such a young age. Sometimes I just think about how much Haru did and continues to do for Yuki without the need for reciprocation or even recognition and it just hits me how much of a good person Haru is. He was Yuki’s ONLY friend at a time he had NO ONE, and is the reason Yuki was able to move out of the estate and become the person we know and love. Haha sorry for making this about Yuki again, but I think their relationship also says a lot about Haru as a person.

TIER: “I like Kureno and am tired of making a thousand disclaimers every time I want to say I like him, Takaya-sensei whyyyy”

Kureno Sohma

I really like Kureno. This is again pretty controversial, but let me try to explain. I like Kureno because he’s an example of someone who wants to do the right thing that causes the least amount of harm to everyone, but inevitably ends up making the decision that causes much more damage. It’s a classic “good intentions, bad outcome” scenario and I freaking love it. I love that it’s absolutely not what he wants, but Kureno ends up doing a lot of wrong things and destroying not only Akito, but also his own life in the process. I just find the idea of an adult of his age who is so isolated from all of society that even a shopping trip is something foreign and out-of-the-ordinary, really, really sad.

On the romance side though, I hate that Takaya-sensei decided that Arisa would be his romantic interest, but I do like the idea of romance being a part of his arc. (I actually think their interactions are somewhat cute but that the overarching age gap ruins everything - i keep thinking about if Arisa was older or Kureno was younger, but touching their ages at all would affect the plot so I would rather it wasn’t Arisa at all). Just the idea of Kureno by Akito’s side, playing the part of what he thinks is her “lover” (god sensei why are u liek dis), when he meets someone on one of his rare trips outside the Sohma estate that causes him to realise that what he and Akito have is not at all what a healthy relationship should feel like - and it causes him to reevaluate the harm he is doing to them both, and take steps to leave her. That is...not exactly what Sensei did, but I always remember how much I felt for Kureno when he said in the upcoming anime chapter how it was the first time he had felt like he loved someone out of his own choice...I just felt like that one “choice” could have lead him to the realisation that he can start to make more of his own, healthier choices in life. But yeah. Wish it wasn’t Arisa because it didn’t do anything good to her character arc, and it’s creepy.

TIER: “I really like these characters but don’t go out of my way to think about them”

Kagura Sohma

Ok I lied, I do go out of my way to think about Kagura. I love her too, despite common opinion. I think her reflection of her relationship with Kyo was so wonderful. Her confession that she started to like him out of pity, but that over time they became genuine feelings. But that Kyo can’t reciprocate her feelings so she’s accepting of that, and thankful that he gave her time to express herself, although she will still go on loving Kyo. Kagura is one of those characters where Takaya-sensei once again demonstrates her ability to take a “trope” of a character and actually delve into their psyche and explains why they feel this way.

Ayame Sohma

I love Ayame because he’s genuinely so much fun! I appreciate the arc of him rejecting Yuki, but how he is now reaching out to help him, and I feel like we don’t get a good insight into just how significant this rejection was until we see it from Yuki’s perspective. I also admire how he is able to recognise his own shortcomings, and respects Hatori because of his sensitivity to other people’s feelings. He’s a character who could definitely have been explored more if desired, but isn’t underexplored or incomplete as is.

Ritsu Sohma

My poor Ritsu. In contrast to Ayame, Ritsu was definitely underexplored. Such a great potential to explore confidence, identity, and assertiveness. Ritsu as it stands though, is largely a minor character who wasn’t given the time they needed to be fully fleshed out. I would have loved to see them gradually gain more confidence over the series!!

Kisa Sohma

Love love love Kisa, she’s such a cutie pie. But I feel like there wasn’t much more to say about her that wasn’t said in her arc. Kisa is more a character who is used to show the messed-up state of the Sohma house/Akito more than she herself is a complex character, I think. I love her arc and her parallels to Yuki though, it gave us such a great quote about needing to be loved by others before learning to love yourself.

Hiro Sohma

Hiro is known to be an unlikeable brat but I love him as well!!! I think it’s really important to have characters who aren’t just lovely and receptive to Tohru’s kindness, and his character served to show an important flaw in Tohru’s character, and the way that her kindness could be taken advantage of. For Hiro himself though, I think his brattiness is alright because he’s very young, and I really appreciate his efforts to become a more mature person when he recognises his own flaws!

#fruits basket #yuki sohma #hatori sohma #akito sohma #kureno sohma #fruits basket spoilers #long post #asks #anonymous #Anonymous

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tackyink · 4 years ago

Text

The only reason I've decided to post this is that I think unless I do I won't stop anxiety-editing it and I'd like to move on to something more interesting. And maybe pick up Veleta again, because I had written more than what I posted here and I want to keep working on her.

I can only offer for context that I hail from real life Dressrosa and one day someone asked me what, as a historian, I would do if I ever came across a Poneglyph in the OP world.

— — — — — — — —

Chapter 1

In a remote corner of Paradise, outside of the main travel routes, there was an autumn island called Harlun, and on its shores there was a place called Duster Town, remarkable if only for the fact that every day was exactly the same and nothing of interest ever happened.

Duster Town was acceptably hot in summer, relatively cold in winter, and unavoidably wet and muddy the rest of the year. This had been a big reason for Alex’s stay to last as long as it had: five years and counting. She was fond of the weather because that was what living in summer islands for nearly twenty-two years did to a person.

She had been working in Duster Town’s old, old library since she had arrived there, having secured the job through contacts she had made while studying. Alex was a historian, and there weren’t a lot of secure jobs for people in her field unless one wanted to work under close supervision of government officers. She had never liked research that much, anyway – or rather, she had liked sticking her nose in archives for the sake of it, but the actual process of searching for documents, putting the pieces together and then writing papers sucked. Learning to satisfy her own curiosity was fun, being forced to share that knowledge was not. Besides, if there was an area of research that grabbed her attention more than anything else, it was that conspicuous century-wide blank in human history, and everybody in her profession knew what happened when someone tried to look too closely into that. Ohara was the biggest ‘accident’ that came to mind, but it wasn’t the only one. Things happened to people who knew too much. Everybody was aware of it, but complicit silence was a healthy tactic that her sensible colleagues employed.

Alex had opinions on that, as, admittedly, did most historians she had met, and since opinions were like assholes, she wasn’t going to be the gross weirdo showing hers to other people. Figuratively speaking or not, it was liable to get her in trouble with the law, and that was the last thing Alex wanted.

She liked her library, and even though she was incredibly disappointed that she’d never be able to set foot inside the Tree of Knowledge due to the unfortunate circumstance of having been born too late. Her job was quiet; since she wasn’t a librarian proper, they had put her at the entrance desk to check out and retrieve books, and she handled the petitions for documents researchers sent to the library. The building in which she worked dated back to several centuries, and the foundation upon which it was built, and which housed the local archive, suggested an even earlier date. It contained one of the biggest and best preserved documentary collections in that half of Paradise, so she spent a lot of time digging inside the archive to fulfill the researcher’s requests.

All in all, she thought she had had an amazing run so far, lending books, persecuting tardy neighbors to retrieve them, memorizing catalogs from too much use, and sending informative material to researchers who were actually doing important things with their lives, unlike herself. Her coworkers were few and not very nosy, which she appreciated, because she loved her time alone and wasn’t too fond of talking about the past.

She could see herself growing old in there and getting cobwebs, if sudden changes in the town hall didn’t run her out of the island, and the way things worked in moderately small towns like that, where everybody knew everybody and keeping a job was more a matter of knowing the right people and having been there for a while than being actually competent at it, meant that her position was likely secured in the long run. That said, the local mushrooms by themselves would have tempted her to stay, even without the rest of advantages. Not many of those in her hometown or Sabaody. Lots of heat and not nearly enough rain.

The sun wasn’t yet up when she woke up with an itchy nose in the small apartment she lived in, and a flurry of sneezes alerted her that she should have taken her allergy meds the night before. Navigating the place with closed eyes, she threw on the same skinny jeans and oversized sweater that she had left on a chair two days ago for yet another day at work. It took more effort than someone who had slept so many hours at her age had a right to. Like nearly every morning, really.

The last remaining days of winter had brought the cold in full force, at least for her summer island sensibilities, and after having a steaming cup of red tea that fogged up her glasses, she bundled inside her black coat and red scarf, put on a pair of burgundy gloves, and headed for the library with a thermos full of more tea, making the usual stop at the nearest bakery to buy a croissant. Her hands ached with the chilly breeze.

(She kept a kettle in the library, but there was never too much tea, in her humble opinion, and the thermos kept her freezing hands warm on the way.)

The sun had barely risen when she arrived at the building, an old stone structure that casted its shadow over a private square, though the tall iron fence was open at all times so the people of the town could use the benches and the fancy stone fountain in the middle of it. According to the records Alex had read, the whole area was built four hundred years back or so as the private residence of some rich family that eventually lost its fortune. The basement that doubled as the archive, though, was considerably older, but records stopped around 700 years back, like everywhere else, and so she couldn’t tell how old the foundations were, or what sort of building used to be there in the past without digging a trial trench in the square, something the town hall had been vehemently against when she suggested it. The refusal only made her want to do it more.

She crossed the fence and was halfway through the square when she saw someone in front of the library’s massive oak doors. That was so unusual it made her stop in her tracks. She wasn’t ready to interact with human beings this early in the morning. In fact, the baker was so used to her being absent at that time of the day that the only things she needed to say when she picked up her breakfast were ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you.’

She repositioned her glasses to peek above them and tried to focus her teary eyes on the figure before approaching it. It belonged to a man, obnoxiously tall as many in these seas had a tendency to, who wore a long black coat with a yellow pattern around the hem and a fluffy spotted hat that looked quite ridiculous but also warm, so she wasn’t going to judge in a morning like that. Since he seemed to be looking for something and having no luck, she did what she was paid for, though she was still off the clock, and approached him.

“Hello,” she said to catch his attention. Her voice came out raspy because this was only the fourth word she had uttered since waking up, so she immediately wanted to jump in one of the flowerbeds and melt into the muddy soil. She cleared her throat softly. “Is there anything you need?”

He turned around to look at Alex. He was in his twenties, and his face was kind of familiar. His earrings caught her attention, but then again, she had a bad tendency to not pay much attention to people’s faces and fixate on irrelevant details. This individual’s entire ensemble and circumstances, though, made him difficult to forget overall.

“Do you work here?” He asked.

She barely registered the question, because it was about then that she noticed the smiley yellow faces on his coat and the long-ass sword he held against his shoulder. She hadn’t been able to see them from behind, and if she had, she sure as hell would have kept her distance until he left.

That… had the potential to be really bad.

“Yes,” she said, thinking she should have not, but it was stupid to deny it when there was nowhere else to go in the plaza, she had offered to help, and the only place she could hide in was inside.

After she unlocked the building.

With the keys she was carrying in her hand.

Yeah, honesty had been the right move.

“What are the opening hours?”

That was also unexpected. “Nine AM to eight PM. It’s on the plaque—” She pointed to the side of the door, and she saw someone had vandalized it with rude graffiti. “Not again,” she sighed to herself, and then back to him, “Nine to eight.”

There were still thirty minutes to go, and she hoped to god that he didn’t plan on sticking around until it was time to open.

“I see,” he said, looking pensively at the door. “I’ll be back later, then.”

“Of course,” she replied, smiling, relieved, and then panicking inside because there was a pirate planning on coming to her workplace that morning and this was an anxiety factor she hadn’t asked to be burdened with. He had to be dangerous. People who weren’t dangerous didn’t carry swords around. Not that people who were dangerous sometimes didn’t carry weapons, but at least those had the grace of not putting every stranger around them on edge. And wait a minute, were those tattoos on his fingers? She couldn’t see all the letters, but she could guess, and after she did, she wished she hadn’t.

When she thought he was already done and about to go, she made her even more nervous by saying, “Just to make sure, I heard you have a sizeable medicine collection.”

Ah, so he was looking for something specific. It made more sense than him simply waltzing in for some light reading, she supposed. “You heard right. It’s not updated often, but it was until ten years ago or so.” Then they ran out of funding. “If you’re looking for recent studies, you may not be in luck.”

Medicine. Why medicine? This man was a pirate. Was he a doctor in his ship? She regretted more than ever having such a bad memory for names and faces. She should take a look at the newspaper archive when she went in, just in case.

“Lucky me, then. What I’m looking for is older than that.”

She noticed a bit of a northern accent. He sounded… not quite polite, but not aggressive, either. Clinical. At the same time, it made the innocent statement sound vaguely threatening. She was curious now about what he wanted to read. What if he was one of those weird pirates? There was a chance, she supposed. Like winning the lottery twice, which she didn’t count on.

“That’s good,” she replied awkwardly, and then added in a valiant effort to be left alone, “There’s a café around the corner that’s already open, if you need to kill some time.”

He looked slightly surprised at the courtesy, and nodded before going off.

And when he was far enough to be a very stupid but not totally unsafe to say, she spoke a little louder to tell him, “Excuse me! Weapons aren’t allowed inside the library!”

The dude seemed amused when he looked over his shoulder to look at her, and he didn’t say anything as he walked off.

Nobody could say she hadn’t tried.

❦

Unbearably jittery after the encounter, Alex went on to switch on the lights of the entire building, put the last few books she hadn’t returned to the shelves the day before in their place, and picked up the day’s newspaper to sit down at the front desk to scarf down the croissant and hopefully wash down all that nervous energy with a cup of tea.

If her first encounter in the morning was a sign of what was to come, she could tell her day was going to be shit. She should have known when her own sneezing woke her up.

Alex wasn’t sure when or how her anxiety had started. It just had, a few years prior, seemingly unprompted, and though it wasn’t severe, thankfully, it had a tendency to assault her when she least expected it. Like a pirate. Pirates did that, right? Not all of them, but according to her limited experience there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would, at the very least, turn out to be a pain in the ass.

Still, without any additional intel, she couldn’t think of any ulterior motives for the guy to come to the library. Since she couldn’t do anything to stop him, for her peace of mind, she decided to be willfully optimistic and believe.

Or at least she could try. She had never been too good at this denial thing.

A several bites into her pastry and a few pages into the newspaper, she came across an article about a sunken Marine warship by a pirate submarine, and she choked on her tea when she saw the same smiley face on the picture that accompanied the article. On said submarine. Accompanied by the word “DEATH.” Good on her for guessing what was on his fingers. At the same time, a coworker arrived, and blanching, she said good morning, got up from her seat and made a run for the newspaper archive, where they also kept in storage a copy of every bounty the Marines distributed with the World Economic Journal.

She didn’t have to look too far to see that yes, the face was familiar because it was supposed to be. She had classified it a few times in the last months – every time the guy got a bounty raise.

Surgeon of Death. Heart Pirates. Captain of one of the several rookie crews that were stirring up trouble that year. Those were the worst, they thought they were at the top of the world just because they had made it into the Grand Line. She could deal with older pirates, but she had yet to come across a newbie that wasn’t an unrestrained asshole.

She thought she saw something about dismemberments in the poster, did a double-take because she had surely read wrong, and by the time she was done with all the crimes attributed to the guy she just put the bounty back in place, went to the front desk once again, and told her concerned coworker, “A famous pirate will probably show up today. Don’t mind him. Let’s hope he just wants to read.”

She looked a little frightened. “Should I call the Marines?”

“If worst comes to worst. Let’s try not get involved if we can. He didn’t seem aggressive.”

“Okay,” she replied, sounding relieved. “Good luck out here, I’ll be in the back tagging the new arrivals.”

“Some people are lucky.”

She sighed and turned the page. Sipped on her tea. It was getting cold. Sipped on it again. She just had to play it cool. She was a professional. The guy had been okay to her.

She just hoped he would come soon, because she wasn’t so sure she could drown her nerves in tea anymore.

It was okay.

Everything was surprisingly okay.

The pirate, the day, the lunch she had at the café around the corner – waitress said the guy even tipped – but yes, everything had gone fine.

Alex didn’t move a lot from the lower floor because she often had to come and go from the front desk to the archive, but she made escapades upstairs to make sure everything was still standing.

She had seen the pirate sitting next to a window in the medicine section reading one of those thick tomes that looked very interesting but made her dizzy because she suffered from having a very graphic imagination.

Her coworkers, who roamed up there more often than her, gave her periodic reports, and one of them remarked that he was kind of hot, didn’t she agree?

No, she did not. The radiator was hot. The kettle was hot. The adjective could hardly be applied to a man unless he was on fire.

Though perhaps he was not a human man, because he had spent all day long sitting in the same position, staring at that book. She had to admire that attention span, if nothing else. She was pretty short on that, lately.

And so, having avoided any type of incident during a day in which she was very tense for no reason after all, it came time to close shop.

The pirate was still there.

Her coworkers were, very conveniently, not. She was sure it had nothing to do with the fact that someone had to remind the wanted man that it was late and he had to go.

As much as she wanted to go home and have dinner, the temptation to stay in her post so she didn’t have to interact with a criminal that hacked his victims to pieces was strong, and no one could blame her for it.

But then he appeared.

The massive door in front of her began to open, and Alex thought it was one of her treacherous coworkers returning to pick up something until a head peeked inside the hall.

“Hi?” The newcomer said shyly.

Alex wasn’t sure if the gross amounts of tea she drank every day had finally caught up to her and were making her hallucinate, because she was seeing a polar bear’s face.

“Hi?” She replied, to busy processing what was in front of her to come up with words of her own.

It seemed that that was enough for the bear, because it – no, not it, he? She? How deep was a female bear’s voice anyway? – pushed the door open some more, becoming more visible. A bright orange jumpsuit was not what she was expecting, but the smiley face on its chest and the sight of the sword the pirate had been carrying that morning didn’t leave a lot of room for imagination.

The creature in front of her eyes was a bear walking on two legs. A pirate polar bear. Probably a boy, with that size. Was he a mink? She had never seen one so up close.

“I’m looking for my captain,” he said, clutching the sword against his body. “Is he around?”

Words decided to come back to her, although in a rather clumsy manner. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I think so. He should be upstairs, reading.”

The bear smiled and she melted at the sight. “Can you… tell him to come?”

“Sure,” she said, sealing her fate. She had to face it sooner than later, she thought as she rose from her seat. The bear was still half-hidden by the door, his boots barely touching the tiles of the library. Curious. Was he that shy? “Why don’t you step inside?”

“I thought you can’t enter the library with weapons.”

His reasoning hit her in the solar plexus with the force of a herd of rainbow ponies. “Right,” she breathed out, wondering how something in the planet had managed to be so big and cute at once. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll go get your captain.”

“Thank you!”

Alex walked as fast as she could towards the stairs until she was out of sight and covered her face to keep her reaction under control. So. Goddamn. Cute. Was that how those pirates lived? Trying not to squeal whenever the resident polar bear was being sweet?

Steeling herself, she walked up the remaining steps, hoping the captain had somehow vanished while she wasn’t looking.

No such luck.

She stepped a little more forcefully than necessary as she approached him from behind a shelf, always staying at a safe distance, to try to catch his attention, but he didn’t move.

(The annoying voice in her head told her that the only safe distance from that man was a sea away.)

Could he have been asleep? That would have explained things. What was his name again?

“Mr. Trafalgar?” She tried. She wasn’t sure if she should have made known that she knew who he was, but the deed was done. He looked up. “It’s about time to close and… there’s a polar bear looking for you in the reception hall.”

“Bepo’s here?” He looked in confusion at her, and then at the window. It was dark outside. “I hadn’t noticed it had gotten so late. Eight, right?”

He stretched in the chair. Between the movement and the spotted hat and jeans, he reminded her of an overgrown leopard.

“Almost,” she offered.

He glanced at the book, frowning. Granted, his face seemed to be stuck in a perpetual frown and he didn’t sound angry. “Do you have the same hours tomorrow?”

“Oh, no, we don’t open on Sundays,” she replied, wondering if this was the exact point where the conversation would go downhill. She attempted to make it better. “But you can come on Monday if you want to keep reading.”

He grimaced, this time for real. “Can’t do. We leave on Monday morning.”

“Oh.” A quick stop, then. It was a thing that happened often. The recording time for the Log Pose was less than a day in Harlun. “Well, we could make some photocopies, but…” The book was way too long for that, and he seemed to be about halfway through.

“Can I take it out tonight and give it back to you sometime tomorrow?”

She appreciated wholeheartedly that he wasn’t getting mad at her, but the thought of the book going out of the library like that made all her alarms go off. “Not without a library card.” Which was only for residents, obviously.

She braced for retaliation, but it never came.

The pirate looked kind of conflicted. She didn’t know what was so interesting about the book that he couldn’t find it in another island, and she didn’t need to know the options that were crossing his mind to realize that she probably wouldn’t like them.

Since idiots had to find ways to console themselves, she would tell herself during the following hours that the only reason she made a tremendously stupid offer was to avoid the much worse alternatives.

“I’ll actually be working here tomorrow. The library is closed, but if you’re really that interested, I can let you in.”

Or maybe she was a fucking bleeding heart who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make someone’s day better for free. But ironically, at what price.

She recognized the emotions on his face. First surprise, then suspicion. “Why would you?”

Because she really was that stupid, she wanted to say. “You’re a doctor, right? I don’t want a dead patient on my conscience because you couldn’t finish a book you needed. Anyway… you’re free to come tomorrow.”

And she left him there, quickly making her way down to retrieve her stuff. The bear had come inside, at last, and he looked up from the documents on Alex’s desk. She would have been surprised if he could read that handwriting.

“He’s coming,” she said with a small smile, but she didn’t know if it showed. She had, on occasion, been asked why she was angry when she tried to smile. “I’m going to pick up my things inside.”

He looked pleased, though. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She went into the back room, taking extra long on purpose until she heard movement outside and the sound of the door closing. By the time she found the courage to crawl out of her hole, the pirates were nowhere to be seen.

She left a note in her desk’s drawer, just in case, saying that if she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Trafalgar Law was to blame. She had thought about phoning a coworker to alert her, but she wasn’t supposed to let anybody in on Sundays, much less a wanted man, and she didn’t want to risk this incident reaching the ears of the mayor.

For the first time in years, her stomach couldn’t handle the tea and she had to throw most of her cup down the drain. Damn nerves. Her hands were acting up more than usual, to the point where the warmth of the thermos wasn’t doing a lot to soothe the pain. She would have worried about that if it weren’t because of more pressing matters.

❦

Even earlier than the day before, he was already waiting for her at the door when she arrived.

Alex would admit without missing a beat that she had been an idiot for offering – never mind the very real possibility that the guy could have broken in to retrieve the book and left damages the library couldn’t afford to repair – but he was either equally dumb or exceedingly confident for having shown up. Alone. Alex could have called the Marines, for all he knew.

She didn’t miss the sword he was carrying, this time around.

She put two and two together then. Of course. He had appeared before the hour to check that the surroundings were safe.

“I didn’t expect you to actually show up,” he said as a greeting, and she reached for the key in her pocket. His tone was impressed with a good dash of mockery. “Do you know who I am?”

He already knew the answer, since she had called him by name the day before. With only two sentences, he demolished most of the halfway positive impression he had made the day before, and Alex, already predisposed to think he was a dick, decided he was exactly that.

She was tired and anxious, so she couldn’t muster up any facial expression as she said, “Should I care?” Upon noticing that had sounded even worse than she meant to, she added in a hurry, “I mean, what’s the point of asking that? Do you want me to turn around and leave the door locked?”

He didn’t seem to take it badly, thank the heavens. He looked a bit amused, in fact. “I don’t need you to unlock a door.”

“I’m well aware,” she replied in a monotone. “I appreciate you had the courtesy of waiting.” The budget was tight and changing the lock would have been a royal waste of money.

She opened the door and went in first to turn on the lights. He closed the door after going in, and she would have usually locked it again, but she really did not want to be stuck alone inside of a building with a stranger, even if the state of the lock wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“I’ll be working downstairs.” She pointed to an old, reinforced door on the wall behind the front desk. “Give me a heads up when you’re done.”

That sword was making her unnecessarily jumpy. He didn’t need to have it with him.

“Alright,” he said, glancing at the staircase to the second floor, and then he must have noticed that she was giving the sword the stink eye, because he tapped it against his shoulder and smirked. “Got a problem?”

Yeah, one about two meters tall. “None as long as you don’t use it.”

“As long as you don’t give me a reason to.”

She wanted to say a lot of things. That they were alone, that he was kind of a dick, that yes, she was as dumb as he was thinking, and to please leave her alone until he was done and only then appear to say goodbye and thank you.

Instead, she picked up a folder from her desk drawer and a lantern from the wall and left it at, “Enjoy your reading.”

He took the hint and left, and so did she.

The door to the archive closed behind her with a heavy thud, and she lit the lantern.

It was a fire hazard in a library, but it was inevitable, because the basement didn’t have electricity. After many years of pressuring the city hall for a budget increase, the council had seen fit to make renovations and extend the electrical installation to the basement. She just had to keep herself from setting the archive on fire for a couple months and the risk would be no more.

She went to the farthest area from the entrance and set the lantern on an ancient wood table. The basement was pure grey stone from floor to ceiling, making it permanently cold. She hadn’t bothered to take off her coat and scarf, but the gloves had had to go and she wasn’t happy about it. She had icicles for hands as every winter, and this year they had begun to hurt earlier than usual.

Alex had decided to put in some overtime that week because she was researching a family tree that a cousin of the mayor, a pretentious git that paid very well, had commissioned. Something about proving a blood relation to a noble family from a nearby island to have a claim to somebody else’s lands. Alex didn’t care. She had been trained for this thing, a job was a job, and she was going to do it to the best of her ability. Even if she had absolutely loathed genealogy back when she was still a student.

She didn’t think her employer would be too happy with her findings, though, because so far she’d only found a mess of marriages that didn’t bring her any closer to the neighboring island. She even found some records of a family branch that had one of those pesky Ds in the name and then disappeared from record. She supposed they just left the kingdom. She had noticed that every D. that rose to prominence was an outright weirdo, and she wasn’t sure if it was just confirmation bias because boring people didn’t make the news, but damn it they didn’t seem to crop up in the most outlandish incidents. There was the infamous Monkey D. Dragon, his father Garp, who she had seen a couple of times in person and seemed frankly overbearing, the guys in Whitebeard’s crew… And the biggest weirdo of all, of course: the King of Pirates. She’d heard from an acquaintance funny stories of him to last her a lifetime. A lot of the mystique around his figure was lost, but that was one of the things that made history interesting, in her opinion.

Sitting down on the floor to open the cabinet on the lower part of a bookcase, she took a look at the bundles of papers there. It was a seriously old part of the archive, housing documents from six hundred years back, but thanks to the cold and darkness, they had stood fairly well against the tide of time.

She reached inside and pulled out the dozen of tomes at the forefront to make sure noting was trapped behind. That part of the archive had been catalogued way before Alex’s time, after all, and not every archivist had been as careful as they should have. She had learned that the hard way, finding folders that didn’t match the catalog and misplaced pages centuries into the future. Whenever that happened, she passed the mess to her coworkers, the actual archivists, who had a tendency to curse her incessantly until they fixed the issue, but it was all in good humor.

Very carefully, she took the lantern and approached it to the cabinet. She looked inside and stared at the darkness. In fact, she had to stare for a very long while before realizing that she wasn’t looking at the back of the cabinet or even the wall.

There was an empty space there.

A secret compartment?

Work forgotten, she had a good minute of doubt, sitting on the floor. She was severely allergic to dust mites and exploring further was a health hazard. There could be spiders or rats or fungi or lethal mold. She could wait until the next day and ask a coworker to check it out in her stead.

But the temptation. There was only so much willpower she could exert in less than twenty-four hours until she ran out.

Please let it not be rats or fungi, she thought as she peeled off her coat and scarf to avoid getting them dusty, and dived in.

❦

It had been eleven years since he had any anything to remember his parents by other than the bitter memories of how Flevance had gone up in flames.

If someone accused Law of dwelling too much in the past, he would have denied it with full knowledge that he was a liar. But there was a hint of truth in that, and that was that he didn’t think of his dead family often. It was another particular piece of past that haunted him.

There was nothing left of Flevance but ashes and ruin. He knew it well, and that was why he avoided revisiting those times.

And yet.

He closed the book he had just finished, running a finger over the cover. He remembered the nights his parents spent locked in their study, writing the results of their investigations in order to share their knowledge, hoping that a cure could be found in time.

He had spent the last two days reading every word in their voices, surprising himself when he could still recognize in the wording which parts had written who.

He’d been thinking from the moment he’d found the book, the first time in over a decade he had found a copy of it anywhere, that he’d have to let it go, but he wasn’t willing to. He had considered offering to buy it from the librarian, but given she hadn’t even let him take it out the day before, he had a feeling that she would refuse. She was understandably wary of him.

Well, he was already going to hell, so proving her suspicions right wouldn’t make a difference.

He slipped the book inside his coat and went downstairs to find her. He’d at least say thank you before she could find out what he had done. He was mildly curious about her reaction, but he’d make sure to miss that.

He opened the door to the place where she’d said she’d be to be greeted by darkness and a faint light, and he immediately tumbled down half a set of stairs when he set a foot down and only found air.

Cursing under his breath, he fought against the urge to leave unannounced and, going against popular advice, he followed the light at the end of the tunnel. It got increasingly brighter the more he advanced, passing bookcase after bookcase. The way they were set made the basement somewhat labyrinthine, and he was unsure he’d be able to find his way upstairs again if he had to follow the same path he was taking.

And right as he reached the source of light… it disappeared. Briefly. As did half of the librarian’s body inside of a low cabinet in which there was no human way an adult’s torso could fit.

How interesting.

He cleared his throat, and she visibly jumped, hitting her head with a resounding plunk and an ow. She pulled out of the cabinet, looking pretty embarrassed when she faced him.

“Um, oh—Are you heading out?”

“That was the plan.”

“Okay, then,” she said like nothing had happened. Her hair, brown and chin-length, was covered in dust bunnies, as was her sweater. She took off her glasses to clean them with her clothes, revealing a set of dark circles under her eyes that could rival his. When she noticed she couldn’t wipe anything with what she had available, she discarded the glasses on top of a nearby table. “The door’s open, so—”

“What’s in there?” He asked.

“Oh, nothing important,” she said calmly, and rubbed her nose with the back of a hand. “Just old registries.”

She watched her watch him. She wasn’t budging under his stare, but Law could detect lies from miles away. Also dust allergies. He hoped she was getting medicated for those, because this town was supposed to be a quick, relaxing stop, and he wasn’t in the mood to get the corpse of a librarian added to his list of crimes. “Inside the wall?”

“I guess someone saw fit to build a compartment in the cabinet?”

“A compartment where an adult and a lamp can disappear into?”

She spread her arms, as if to make a point. “I’m fairly small.”

“Don’t you say.”

Her expression went from neutral to mildly annoyed as she dropped her arms and the pretense altogether. “You really don’t have anything better to do in town?”

The question would have been fair had there been anything out there other than mud and the tavern his men had occupied since the day they arrived. “Any suggestions?”

She conceded the point. “No, not really.” With a sigh, she nudged her head towards the cabinet. “There’s no wall. I think there’s a hidden room in there. Too wide for a passage.”

“Is this something common in libraries?”

“No, but it is with old buildings, to an extent. And these shelves may be old, but they sure as hell aren’t as ancient as the basement.” She knocked on the wood. “Someone hid that room when this basement was repurposed as an archive.”

Consider his curiosity officially piqued. “Any idea of what’s inside?”

“I was about to find out.”

“So?”

“You want to check it out?” She sounded confused and like she didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.

Too bad he wasn’t feeling charitable. “Sure. You never know where a treasure may be hiding.”

If she had been tense until then, at that moment she looked ready to shove him out with her own hands. “Any objects that may be in there could be historical artifacts and need to be treated as such.”

“And are you going to stop me if I decide to take something?”

Her frown deepened, but there was little else she could do. She had to know that, even if he left just so they wouldn’t have to put up with each other any longer, he could come back any time he wanted, key or not.

There wasn’t as much bite in her voice when she relented. “Be my guest,” she said, offering him the lamp and gesturing towards the cabinet.

“Ladies first,” he replied, which didn’t win him any points, going by her huff, but she didn’t waste more time arguing and headed inside.

And then he was left without any light on his side.

“Well?” She asked, sounding a bit nervous.

“Are you in a hurry?” He said, feeling his way down the cabinet until he found the opening. There. He saw a faint light on the other side.

“Do you enjoy making people uncomfortable?”

“It’s a job perk, so might as—” Thud. His hat fell off his head and rolled to the other side. “—well.”

“…Did you hit your head?”

“No,” he lied, crawling out of the cabinet and picking up his hat.

“That’s why I tried to give you the lamp,” she said with obvious satisfaction, ignoring his reply, and holding the lamp higher to cover as much terrain as possible with the light. “The floor and walls look the same as outside. This is an extension of the basement, built at the same time as the rest of it, by the looks of it.”

“Why do you think someone would block the entrance?”

“To hide something or someone, so there’s a good chance there’s going to be a corpse instead of treasure. In fact, I hope it’s a corpse,” she sentenced.

“You have strange hobbies.”

“You wouldn’t try to steal a corpse. At least I’d avoid a pointless argument.”

Well, that depended on its state. He was bored, and it couldn’t hurt to take a body part back for closer inspection.

“…You wouldn’t, right?”

“Technically, it wouldn't be anyone's property.”

“Just saying, you have no right to judge anybody else’s hobbies. Hm?” She walked forward a few steps, and the light revealed something square standing in the middle of the room.

“Doesn’t look like your corpse,” he said.

“Doesn’t look like your treasure, either,” she replied, but she seemed to tune him out as she approached the object, and by the time she was standing in front of it, her eyes were wide open and her mouth fell a little bit.

Law waited for her to say something, but she was too caught up inspecting the thing. He took a few steps forwards and saw a perfect stone cube with etched inscriptions that covered one of its sides completely, and whatever it was, the librarian must found it fascinating. She was running her free hand over the symbols, leaving trails in the dust, and looking at them so up close that she may as well have been head-butting the stone. He was fairly sure that he had forgotten he was there. And that had to mean something, since she had made clear that she didn’t want him there.

“What is it?” He asked. There wasn’t anything interesting to him about that stone, and the fact that she had the lamp he had refused to take just to be a smartass meant that he couldn’t inspect the rest of the room while she did her thing.

She wasn’t brought out of her reverie right away. When she finally spoke, she took a couple of steps back to look at the entirety of the cube. “It’s a Poneglyph. It makes no sense, but it has to be.”

That didn’t answer anything. “And what’s that supposed to be?”

“A Poneglyph’s a… a record of sorts. There’s an indeterminate number scattered across the world, and they contain… well. Historical records.”

“So something that makes sense to have it in an archive.”

“Well, yes, but no. Poneglyphs contain forbidden knowledge.” Her stare could bore a hole in the stone if she kept it up. “You know the Void Century? Have you heard about the tragedy of Ohara?”

“On passing.” He recalled the news about the Tree of Knowledge burning and the scientists being declared enemies of the World Government. “One of the people involved has joined a pirate crew recently, hasn’t she? Devil Child, they call her.”

“Do they?” It seemed to come as entirely new information for her, and that made her look at him, at last. Without the glasses and under the light of the lamp’s flame, her eyes looked yellow. “I don’t pay that much attention to pirate news. No one ever comes here.” The question of why was he there was left unspoken, and thus unanswered. “Anyway. They are the only remaining records of the Void Century, and its study is prohibited by the World Government. Rumor goes that Ohara’s experts were working on them.”

“World Government covering up stuff then. Nothing new.”

“Indeed.” She switched the lamp to her other hand and glanced back at the Poneglyph. “I wonder why there’s one here. They are supposed to be extremely hard to find.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know. Nobody can read them. Maybe the people of Ohara could have, but…” She shrugged. “We’re twenty years late.”

She stared pensively at the Poneglyph, the lines of frustration etched on her face showing more emotion than anything he’d seen so far from her. Then, unexpectedly, she offered the lamp to him. “You want to take a look around, right?”

Their hands brushed for a moment when he took it by the handle, and she turned again towards the stone and crossed her arms.

He was still curious.

“What are you going to do?” He asked.

“Hm? About what?”

“What do you think?”

“The Poneglyph? Did you not hear what I said? Its study is prohibited.” He tone became despondent. “And… the city hall is going to know it’s here in a few months.”

“Why?”

“Renovations. We’re supposed to get electricity in the basement. Lamps are a fire hazard.”

“So it’s your only chance. Could you decipher it?”

“With years of work and research, maybe. But that’s—nah, no way, they reduced an island to bits because of this. It’s not worth the risk. I couldn’t do it anyway.”

“Sounds to me like you’re just making excuses, but what do I know? I’m just a pirate.”

And he started walking around the perimeter of the chamber, in hopes of finding something. After a few minutes of continuous disappointment, the librarian spoke up, and she sounded oddly polite.

“Could you wait here a moment? I want to pick up some material from outside.”

It was his turn to be suspicious. “Won’t you need the light?”

“No, I can navigate this place in the dark. I’ll be right back.”

He supposed that this was too convoluted to be a trap, but he felt kind of naked having left Kikoku in the archive. He didn’t feel uncomfortable for long, though, because true to word, about a minute later and after bonking her head on the way back in, she reappeared in the room with large sheets of paper and several other packs that she stacked up in front of the stone.

“Is that carbon paper?” He asked as he approached her. He hadn’t found anything else in the room, but damn if the library’s resident gremlin wasn’t a welcome entertainment.

“That’s right.” And she climbed on top of the unstable pile of papers and started to smooth the carbon paper over the stone. “I’ll transcribe it back home.”

This was a turn of events he hadn’t seen coming. “What happened to ‘it’s forbidden?’”

“All the good things in life are unhealthy for you.” With one hand, she pulled out a roll of adhesive tape and cut a few pieces with her teeth to stick the carbon paper to the Poneglyph. “Besides, fuck the government.”

Law couldn’t help but smirk at that. “A commendable sentiment.”

“Why, thank you!” She beamed at him, whether sarcastically or not, it was hard to tell. With considerable effort, she kept sticking pieces of carbon paper to the surface. He guessed the plan was to cover it entirely.

“Do you need help?”

“Are you offering?”

For someone who had been so wary of him a few hours earlier, she was a bit of a smartass, herself.

“Good question.”

He thought he heard her snort, but he couldn’t tell if it was because she was annoyed or amused. Probably the former.

“That stack of papers looks very unstable,” he commented.

“Yes, thanks for mentioning it.”

“You aren’t tall enough to reach the corner of the Poneglyph.”

Silence, resignation, and the telltale look of someone who was looking at an infestation beyond the capabilities of pest control. “I don’t suppose you would help me?”

“If you asked nicely.”

She looked at him with a strange face, one that indicated many thoughts and the inability to pick a single one and answer accordingly.

“No?” He tried.

Her eyes narrowed as she motioned to one of the papers. “Can you hold this up for me, please?”

His reply, however, was immediate. “I’ll think about it.”

She sighed, determined to ignore him, and returned to her work like she hadn’t expected anything from him at all, which he thought was a great attitude to have. But again, because he didn’t particularly care to see her slip and crack her head against the stone tiles, he did the tremendous effort of lifting up an arm to hold the paper in place.

She paused to look at him. Stone-faced as she was, it was hard to tell if there was any surprise in there or just mere curiosity, but she smiled a little when she said, “Look at you. Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.”

He let go of the paper, but since she didn’t stop chuckling to herself, he nudged the stack under her feet to remind her who was in control here.

❦

Alex said goodbye to the pirate that had managed to surpass her admittedly low expectations, but not before filing him under the pain in the ass category. Her classification system stood the test of reality so far.

Relieved at being alone again, she locked the door, did a few stretches, and decided that she’d had a lot of emotions that day and deserved another cup of tea.

One hurdle overcome. The pirate had seemed a way bigger problem before she’d found a fucking Poneglyph in the basement. Now she had no clue what to do with the new one.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was fucked, no matter how she looked at it.

She felt oddly calm about it at that moment. She supposed it had something to do with the shock of the discovery and that the danger was still nebulous, if certain.

She sipped on her tea.

She was the only person that ventured regularly into that art of the archive, but alerting about the discovery herself was out of the question. If they knew she knew, they’d probably make her not know anything anymore.

The problem was that the construction workers would surely find the door, and now that she and Trafalgar had been walking around the room, there was obvious tampering. Cleaning the dust would get rid of the footprints and marks on the Poneglyph, but the lack of dust would be as suspicious as the sets of footprints.

The next gulp of tea scorched her throat.

So, only two options remained: stay, wait patiently and leave up to chance whether an accident happened to her, and probably the whole library with its workers, or quit her job, take a boat somewhere else and drop off the radar. The first one wasn’t worth the risk.

Two things to take into account with the remaining option: anybody with half a brain could suspect that her sudden departure had something to do with the Poneglyph, and in that case, all suspicions would fall on her. The plus side was that her coworkers would probably be spared.

What to do? It was a long way to her hometown. She could settle back there if she was spared from the government’s suspicions. If not…

Well. There was Sabaody.

Which was stupid for several reasons, the main one being that it was on Marineford’s and Mary Geoise’s doorsteps.

The ache in her hands felt especially acute, even through the heat radiating from the cup.

It would come down to luck, no matter what she did. Maybe she was overthinking the situation and nothing would happen. Workers would move the Poneglyph in the middle of the night, or seal it away while no one was looking, and that would be the end of it.

But assuming a best case scenario would most likely spell death in this situation, and she’d like to avoid that. She may not have had a super interesting life, but she was quite fond of having it.

Reality started to sink in then. Oh, god. She had to make a run for it, didn’t she?

She left the cup aside on her desk and started pacing around and up the stairs to burn energy. She could tell the city hall that a family member was ill and she needed to go back home. That would be sensible, but all the paperwork and finding a replacement for her would take weeks. At least one month would go by before she could leave the island without raising suspicions. Being able to cross the Red Line depended entirely on travel time and the wait for permissions to traverse the Holy Land, both of which would take money she didn’t have. She could probably cover the expenses to get to the Red Line, but not the rest of the way.

She’d need to pick up a quick job in between to replenish her wallet, then.

Why couldn’t she go work to a normal library? Why had this happened to her?

She hurried towards the medical section to put the book back in its place, and when she didn’t find it in the cart, she went to check the desks. All empty. Maybe he had put it back in place?

But all there was where the book should have been was an empty space, and a nervous heat started to rise to Alex’s cheeks as she realized that she had been duped and the son of a bitch had stolen her book after she’d had the generosity to open the door for him on a Sunday so he didn’t have to break and enter.

She was too full of anxious energy, with all that had happened, to sit still and fume silently. She’d never been prone to resignation where there were still options left to try, and if what her near future held for her was a one way trip to Impel Down, getting murdered by a pirate wasn’t the worst that could happen.

Harlun wasn’t big, and it was muddy outside. Very much so. Enough that Alex picked up her belongings, went outside, and, for once, was grateful that the roads were made of dirt and not pavement.

She hurried through the private plaza, carrying her bag on her shoulder, boots stomping on the cobblestones until she reached the road and saw a recent pair of shoe imprints that headed down the street.

With her black coat open and billowing in the wind, she went on Trafalgar Law’s pursue and, to her relief, his trail didn’t lead to the port, but rather to the tavern where every single sailor that stopped in Harlun seemed to spend their days in. Not like they had much of a choice.

A friendly face saluted her from behind the counter as she crossed the door. “Long time no see, A—”

“HiAl,” she said to the bartender so fast that she wasn’t sure if the words came out properly, but she didn’t care, because the bastard she was looking for was sitting on a barstool right in front of her. She couldn’t interpret the look on his face, but what she could tell for sure was that she wanted to deck him in it. “You,” she said, accusatory.

He smirked, and her irritation only grew. “What a coincidence. Here for a drink?”

She inhaled deeply, angrily, walked up to him and dropped her bag on the nearest barstool. Damn, he was tall, and so was his seat. Even sitting down, he towered above her. Not that it mattered, because most people tended to be taller than Alex, so this didn’t register as an intimidating factor. “You know what I’m here for.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You stole my book.”

“Your book?”

She had come here to embarrass herself, hadn’t she? Too late to turn back now. “The library’s book.”

“What makes you think I did?”

Oh, he was insufferable.

“Do you take me for an idiot?” She retorted. “You’re the only person who could have taken it.”

“How so? The library’s closed today.”

Alex’s mouth fell a little bit open at Law’s flippant answer under the curious gaze of Al. “Really?” She said, unimpressed. “I can’t make you return it even if I try, and that’s how you’re going to play it?”

He wore a self-satisfied smile, and he wasn’t even looking at her. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She considered what to say for a few seconds. “Okay,” was the best she could do. She didn’t know why she felt so disappointed. It wasn’t like she had expected anything good from him, from the start. He was right if he thought she was an idiot. “Serves me right for trying to help,” she said, yanking on her bag to retrieve it and turning around without facing him. “Bye, Al.”

Being taken advantage of was the worst feeling.

She hadn’t taken a second step away from him when a hand grabbed her by her left arm and pulled her back.

“Wait,” she heard Trafalgar say. When she turned around, he wasn’t smirking anymore. “What’s the name of the book?”

“You know the name,” she said irritated, confused, and offended that he was invading her personal bubble.

“Do you?”

“Effects of heavy metal poisoning on the cardiovascular system, I think?” She said, punctuating the sentence with a tired sigh. “Do you need the reference too?”

“No. The authors.”

“Are you getting at something or are you just laughing at me?”

He let go of her to search for something in the coat he had discarded on the barstool to his other side. The book she was looking for. He held it up for her, but didn’t offer it, and Alex didn’t try to take it by surprise because there’s no point in stealing when you can’t make a swift escape with the loot.

She looked at the names written below the title. “Doctor…” She muttered, and then she read the surname, and the surname below it, and she blinked a couple of times before redirecting her attention to Law. “You aren’t old enough to have written this book.”

It said Trafalgar. Twice. Family? Was this a con? Did he come from a line of doctors?

“Obviously.”

“A parent?” No, there were two. “Parents?”

“Bingo.”

Alex’s indignation and disappointment fizzled against her will. He was a thief, he’d taken advantage of her good will and was waving the prize in front of her face, she should’ve been furious!

And yet, she had to be a bleeding heart again. “And I don’t suppose you can ask them or the printing press for another copy?”

His response wasn’t immediate, but when he gave one, it was silent. He opened the book from the back, and showed her the words printed behind the back cover:

Printed in Flevance.

That was a resounding no if there ever was one. But did that also mean…? No, he couldn’t have anything to do with that incident, there wasn’t anybody left from Flevance. Perhaps his parents had been working there when war broke out. It was safe to assume that the son of two doctors wouldn’t become a famous pirate if he still had a family to fall back onto. This was a huge can of worms that she had no intentions of opening, though.

“If you’re a liar, you’re a very convincing one,” she admitted. She couldn’t even get rightfully enraged without the universe throwing her a curveball, huh? “All right, keep it. Not that you need my permission.”

With a satisfied smile, he put away the book. “Will you get in trouble?”

“Why do you—” She cut herself short. Not worth asking. “No, I’ll blame you if anybody notices,” she replied. “Al—”

“Not a word.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, and then looked at the pirate once again. “Well, Mr. Trafalgar, it’s been…” Not exactly a pleasure. “Interesting.”

A short laugh escaped him. She had to wonder if it was the alcohol what had him in such high spirits. “Leaving so soon?”

“What, you steal from my workplace and want me to stay for the party?” She asked with incredulity.

“Is it theft if you’re allowing it, though?”

The gall of this dude. “No, thank—”

Suddenly, a red haired man wearing sunglasses indoors and a white jumpsuit entered the scene, putting an arm around Law’s shoulders. “Hey, Captain! Who’s the girl?”

“She’s…”

“A librarian,” she offered. “Just a librarian.”

“Oooh, the librarian!”

“…What—”

“Penguin, come here! It’s the librarian!”

His friend, who wore a cap with the word ‘penguin’ on it that concealed his eyes, but otherwise was dressed exactly like him, walked up to them, “Nice to meet ya!” He wave at her. “You’ve got guts!”

She sensed her chance to make a swift exit was gone. “I think I’m a little lost.”

“Captain said you opened the library just for him.”

“Oh. That.” She was still regretting that. She should have never woken up. Sundays were meant for sleeping. “That’s not guts, it’s being a dumbass.”

The two men laughed, and the first said, “Aren’t they the same?”

She tilted her head, conceding the point. The tilt of their voices was similar to the captain’s, she noticed. Northerners, too. She felt small thinking that they had travelled from practically the opposite side of the world until she remembered she had done the same. The difference was that she had managed to make it boring.

“So what brings you here?” Penguin asked. “Come for a drink after work?”

“No, not really, I was just about to—”

“Come on, have a drink with us!”

“Um, I should really—”

“You live here for long?” The redhead intervened. “I wanna hear about this town. Is it as boring as it looks? Because we’ve been trying to find something to do since we got here.”

“There has to be something.”

Alex smiled a little despite herself, feeling their plight until she remembered the Poneglyph in the archive. “There’s nothing at all.” She turned her head to look at the tables for a moment, hopefully find an excuse to escape. As expected, she saw about a dozen people dressed in the same kind of uniform as those two, but she did a double take when she saw someone clad in orange.

There was the polar bear again, toasting with his friends.

“Is he a mink?” He asked the guys, who grinned at her. She saw Law hide a smile behind his glass before returning his attention to the bear.

He was laughing as he lifted a companion from a chair one handed. Everyone looked so… happy.

“Woah!” Penguin exclaimed. “Second person—”

“Third.”

“Right, third – third person who’s realized what he is since coming to the Grand Line!”

Not surprising. She had never seen any so far from the Red Line. “Is he part of your crew?”

“Yeah, Bepo’s our friend.”

“And our navigator,” Law added.

Aw. Oh, she was getting soft with age.

“Wait here,” said the redhead, “we’ll introduce you!”

“Oh, no need, we already—”

But the two were gone before she could finish her excuse and leave. She supposed there wasn’t any harm in staying a while. She had already demolished her life in a matter of hours, and she didn’t see how this could make it worse. They seemed friendly people, even if their captain was kind of an ass.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” she said quietly, more to herself than anybody else.

Law replied, though. “There aren’t many of them around.”

“No, I’ve seen minks before. I meant a free one.”

Law regarded her with a brand interest that she hadn’t received from him yet. “Are you talking about slaves?”

“You’re headed to the Sabaody Archipelago, right?”

“Eventually.”

“Be careful. Minks aren’t safe there.”

He snorted. “I assure you Bepo can take care of himself.”

Raising her eyebrows at her dismissal, “Don’t underestimate what those people are willing to do to get their hands on a novelty slave.”

“How do you know? Have you been there?”

For longer than she had ever expected to. “Some time ago,” she replied noncommittally. “And it’s dangerous enough for boring people with the kidnapping crews, the human auction, the Celestial Dragons and the Marines so close. You already stand out, but your friend? Keep an eye on him.”

He sounded disgruntled when he said, “You don’t need to tell me,” but it sounded as close to a concession as she thought she was going to get from him.

“Coffee?” Al interrupted to offer one to her. He already had a press in hand.

“Sure,” she said, giving in. She wasn’t going anywhere soon, it seemed, so she climbed on a barstool. “How did you even meet him?” She asked Law, who seemed amused by her interest in his friend. “Don’t they live in the New World?”

“North Blue. We met eleven years ago.”

That was about the last answer she expected. “He’s been with you all along? Wow.”

She felt kind of jealous. She didn’t have any friends from when she was a child. She knew people, sure. A lot of people. Some she liked, many she’d rather not have met at all. A couple of true friends here and there, but no one close by. As much as she enjoyed being alone, and she couldn’t recall a moment in her life she’d felt lonely, she had to wonder how it was like to have such good friends around all the time. It sounded exhausting and fun.

“Yeah,” he agreed, though she hadn’t expected him to, and the admission made her smile a little. “My thoughts exactly.”

#degrees of separation

48 notes · View notes

mysweetgirl2-love · 4 years ago

Text

Livestream~ (corpse_husband x reader)

Alright, I’ve skipped ahead a few prompts because I’ve been just too excited to write out this idea and I was falling behind... so I will be going back, but I’ve skipped to my day 9 prompt. Slight (SLIGHT) exhibition. To reiterate the title, this is a oneshot about you and Corpse. I want to just say that this Corpse is him as a character and not him as a person. Think of a “fanon” version of some sorts. I know that the real Corpse is a very private person (obviously) and I would hate for him to be uncomfortable if he were to ever find this. I am really just writing this for comfort and the enjoyment of others. So, without further ado, enjoy!

Word Count: 5,958

Day 9 - Exhibition (Implied)

“Yo! YO! It’s Corpse! It’s fucking Corpse, holy shit-“

“What? Literally how?”

“I- fucking- I saw you legit go into electrical with pewds, leave, for me to then go up and find his body right next to the vent.”

“He was doing the upload task, I think, cuz’ I left him there when he was alive. You definitely self-reported.”

“Toast, you gotta believe me, it’s fucking Corpse.”

The arguments while playing this game were some of the most frustrating and yet exciting conversations you’d had in ages. Especially when it came down to the final two. That was the jackpot.

“Ah… nah, Fable, you’ve been super sus this entire round. There’s no way you did card swipe that quickly-“

“WHAT?!”

The two dings from your headset indicated that the remaining players had voted which only left you. Since Toast didn’t believe you, Corpse had this round in the bag. God. Damnit.

“Fucking- Fine. Thank god for your detective skills, Toast,” You grumbled bitterly, pouting on camera as you voted for the black avatar. Corpse’s avatar.

“You’re just mad that I figured you out..” The streamer teased, you rolling your eyes in response to his unmatched “knowledge.”

“Yeah, yeah, totally… Corpse is just too fucking good at this game, I swear to god,” You continued, definitely a little irritated that the match turned on you so fast.

It didn’t help when all you could do was helplessly watch from the other side of the screen as your purple avatar launched out into space. Oh well, it was over.

“Heh… I’m just glad you admit it,” The deep voice filled your headphones making you roll your eyes.

The screen suddenly darkened, a red gleam appearing as two characters stood next to one another. Spedicey and, who would’ve guessed, Corpse. Shocking.

“What?!” Toast exclaims.

“I can’t BELIEVE you didn’t think it was him!” Lily speaks up.

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Toast,” Felix almost groans, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Seriously…” You comment, smirking slightly at the groan of confusion from the man in question.

“What? Fable, you were so sus that entire round!” Toast stressed, your headphones filling with laughter as you clicked to play again.

“What do you mean?! I Iegit just scanned my card and you’re trying to call me on it! For NO good reason!” You retorted, wanting to facepalm so hard.

“I didn’t think you could do it that fast!” He yelled back, “I thought you were faking it, there was no way!”

“The only one who really struggles with card swipe here is Corpse,“ Jack cut in, you erupting in laughter at his words.

“What?- Uh- Come on, don’t do me like that…” He essentially growled into the mic, your arms erupting with goosebumps at the sound of him once again.

“That’s not true either! Jack, you know how hard card swipe is!” Valkarae stood up for the deep spoken imposter, “…but you guys both won anyway. So, whatever…”

You all simply laughed along with one another at that, the frustration fading as you mentally prepared yourself for another round of this thought-provoking game. Or… so you thought.

“Hey, can we actually hold off for a second? I need to use the bathroom-“ Lily asked, you smiling at how gentle her voice always was.

A stark contrast to the one that followed.

“Yeah, same here. Gamer bladder,” Corpse followed.

You shook your head at the later comment, clearing your throat as before leaning in towards your mic, “So, 5 minute break then?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good!”

“Sure, I’ll just be here.”

Felix, Rae, and Jack responded.

“…Sykunno?” You asked, having not heard his voice in awhile.

“He left to use the bathroom after he finished his tasks in the last round, texted me saying something about getting a snack,” Toast replied for him, you nodding to no one in particular but your chat.

“Got it,” You pressed the mute button for discord and turned to your face cam, “Guess I’ll run to the restroom as well, stay tuned!”

You clicked a few things to allow an ad to run across your stream, labeling it for around four minutes before reaching for your headphones. You placed them on your desk and sighed, leaning back in your chair.

You heard the door in the hallway open, smiling gently to yourself before standing from the chair. You turned towards your own closed door, taking the appropriate amount of steps to open it before peaking around the doorway.

“Hm…” You walked out slightly, turning towards the closed bathroom door and smirking before creeping out of your room and over to his.

Corpse’s room. Your boyfriend.

You and Corpse had started seeing each other a month or two into quarantine during the pandemic. Having known each other a year or two from both of your professions bringing you together under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate.

He was a real-life horror story teller, taking people’s information by email and anonymously telling their tales. You? You told mythologies of all kinds through your own renditions of the stories with art. You also managed to make the stories more light hearted and funny with a few jokes now and then, and people seemed to appreciate the humor you found in some of the topics.

Your channel name had always been Fantasized Fables, a little odd but it got your content across. Since your channel hit, your name was no secret but people liked calling you Fable.

You honestly thought it made you sound a lot more badass than you actually were.

Either way, somehow you got connect through a couple of friends and instantly clicked. Corpse was… well, Corpse. You didn’t know that you’d helped him so much when he actually told you what was going on. The endless nights where you would both be up at an ungodly hour and just dm-ing one another. It started after a few nights you both saw each other online, quickly progressing into something much bigger than that.

It got deep all the time. You both had so many thoughts about life and each other’s and your own… you felt so safe when telling this faceless internet friend all your deepest, darkest thoughts. But, you knew Corpse had more. He always told you more, you almost wanted more to comfort him over. The feelings started to fester and grow… there was no stopping how you felt about him.

The day you two actually met was never going to be forgotten, by either of you. It was unintentional, almost straight from a movie. You had, at this point, exchanged contact information and had been now calling for the majority of May. Not to mention, you both found out you lived in SoCal, only progressing On this particular afternoon, you texted him that you were going on a coffee run to Starbucks… him saying he was going out for the first time as well.

Masked up and muffled, you of course could tell it was his voice from across the street. The slightly amplified “oh fuck” was the biggest giveaway you could’ve imagined. Your eyes looking up to find a man, dressed in complete black, chains and earrings, shaggy black hair- there was so doubt in your mind.

You called his name, his eyes looking up to find yours across the way… traffic laws weren’t going to stop the saint up to him and into his arms. A big, long, well-deserved embraced you knew the both of you needed. He had always been so kind… and gentle… him being physically there was just so… relieving.

The rest is history, and you honestly moved into his apartment as quickly as you could. You couldn’t stand him living alone like that anymore, and he obviously let you in without a second thought.

You both were extremely happy to have each other, and it just kept getting better from there.

You gently shut the door behind you, creeping over to his setup and sliding into his chair, humming softly as you watched the endless chat messages buildup along the screen and peering at the number of viewers he had now achieved.

JEEEZUS christ, 200k?! That’s insane! You thought, widening your eyes at the number on the screen.

Your streams only ever reached 90k, which was a lot more than you had expected. The number was slowly growing now, though… ever since Corpse blew up on tiktok for just posting videos of his hands.

Wild.

You clicked through a few comments, watching super comments flash along the chat as well as mods trying to attempt to get slow chat to work. You couldn’t help but slightly laugh at the struggle, turning back towards the game as a few of the avatars began bouncing around with one another. People were getting back to the game.

You were about to shift around in his seat, reaching for the keyboard to type something in game when two larger hands came gently down on your shoulders. They pushed you gently down against the chair, causing it to lean back with your body. A face moved next to your ear, lips grazing against the skin.

“Whattup Baby?~” That low voice growled, you gently flinching at the rumbling next to your ear.

You turned to find Corpse grinning down at you, his hands easing up off your body and reaching for your face. His right hand came in contact with your cheek, gently squeezing against it as he slowly walked around the chair and crouched down. To be right beneath your eye level.

“Hi..” You hummed, leaning over to press your lips against his forehead before leaning back to look in his maroon-like eyes.

“Why’re you in my chair? You need to get back to your own stream, silly~” He hummed, beginning to stand as he reached for your arm to pull you out of the chair.

You grinned, your head falling back begrudgingly as he easily pulled you from the comfortable seat.

“Wait…! I just wanted to see you…” You lightly whined, him chuckling in response as you stood on your two feet. Him replacing the spot where you had sat.

“Uhuh… and why’s that?” He teased lightly, you couldn’t help but scoff gently while your heart rate increased. He always had that effect on you.

“Well, I mean… I wanted to both congratulate and bother you about your… fucking imposter round-“ He erupted in laughter, you grinning along with him with a simple eye roll, “hey! Let me finish, it was a good round, I’ll give you that… but you threw me under the bus while doing it…! For no reason!”

He raised his brow lightly, his laughter coming to a soft chuckle as he shrugged, “I mean, I gotta keep my title as ‘too fucking good at imposter.’ Sorry, princess…”

You playfully glared in his direction, a stupid smirk spreading across his face. Your lower lip jutted out from your upper one, crossing your arms as you simply pouted in response. He huffed in response, his smirk turning to more of a smile as he reached back out for you.

“C’mere…” He grumbled, his hand grabbing your arm as he pulled you back down to the chair.

“Wait- Ah!” You almost fell against him, barely able to catch yourself against the arm rests on his chair. You looked up, slightly panicked from the sudden fall, to find Corpse smirking right back.

“Wait for what? You’re not ready for affection?” He asked softly, his hand reaching up to push a few loose strands of hair behind your ear.

“N-No, that’s not it…” You mumbled, letting your gaze fall to his chest, seeing the definition of his body through his baggy sweater.

You felt fingers press against the underside of your chin, pushing your face up to look back towards him. You felt your face flush in embarrassment, smiling nervously as his smirk had never faltered.

“You don’t look very sure of yourself…” he whispered to you.

You gently bit at the inside cheek, shrugging quickly, “C-Cuz’ I’m not…”

He chuckled deeply, leaning in slightly as he grabbed you by the lips, gently humming against your mouth as his hands gripped your sides.

You whimpered softly against him, beginning to kiss back as you readjusted yourself in his lap. You quietly wrapped your arms around the back of his neck as you leaned against him.

He chuckled softly, moving his lips against yours as his hands gently slipped up beneath the sides of your shirt and lovingly stroked at your now exposed skin.

“God, you’re so beautiful…” he whispered against you, catching your lips quickly as he continued, “You’re too perfect, fuck… too fucking perfect…”

“Corpse, I-..” You kissed him again, one of your hands reaching up towards his head as you tangled your fingers into the back of his hair.

He hummed against your mouth, squeezing your sides gently as his smily broke out into a grin. The tip of his nose pressed against yours as he sighed, “Yes, princess?~”

“Careful, we need to get back to the game…” You whispered, growing a little nervous as he chuckled.

“They can wait…” He sighed, leaning back in to press his lips back to yours, kissing you deeply once again.

You squeaked lightly, timid as ever before you kissed back. You felt his teeth grazing against your lower lip, gently nipping at the skin. You couldn’t help but slightly moan, pulling away from your lips as he trailed light kisses down your chin and along your jaw.

He was going for your neck, getting there before you could express any protest. You sighed loudly as his lips connected to the skin right below your ear, gently growling against you as you felt a slight wet sensation lick against your earlobe. You shivered, the side of your face falling to the top of his head as he continued his attack on your neck.

“Fuck, Corpse~”

“God, you sound so beautiful baby… you keep acting like this and after the stream? I’ll have no choice but to-“

The desk behind you started vibrating in loud, long buzzes. Both of you freezing in your spots as you turned over your shoulder to find Corpse’s phone lighting up with a phone call.

You quirked your brow, “Who’d be calling you this early in the morning?”

It was 12 pm, you both had woken up at 10 am to actually get ready in time to stream. It wasn’t early for the world, but it was early for this apartment.

“I don’t know… weird,” He leaned forward in his chair, you holding tight against his chest as he grabbed the phone and brought it towards the two of you.

You both looked down at the contact name on the screen, your eyes widening at the name that read.

“Why- hm…” Corpse quickly swiped to answer the call, holding the speaker up to his ear, “Hey Rae, everything okay-“

He stopped suddenly mid sentence, his eyes widening as his cheeks lit up in a bright red. It had to have been the most embarrassed you’d ever seen him, his eyes falling to yours as you read the panic within them.

“R-Right- shit… s-sorry- I-I’ll turn it down now… bye,“ He quickly brought the phone away, immediately hanging up as his eyes flashed towards the chat function on his stream.

“Is… Is everything okay…?” You asked hesitantly, leaning over slightly to read for yourself what people had to say. Did something happen in chat while you guys were preoccupied?

Corpse didn’t respond, his eyes just scanned what the letters read on screen. You frowned, you confusion growing by the second. He hit a button on the keyboard, did he just unmute?

A strained laugh left his mouth, falling back in the chair with you still in his arms. His eyes found yours, his lips slowly turning to a grin before he laughed one of the hardest laughs you had yet to hear from him.

Your eyes widened, completely baffled at this point.

“Corpse, please- What happened?”

“We- We- AHA! We were unmuted!! That ENTIRE time!” He cackled, his hand landing on his chest to almost support him in some way.

You, on the other hand, went from complete befuddlement to absolute humiliation. There was no way THAT was just heard by hundreds upon thousands of people. No fucking way.

“Wh-What??” You began to panic, reaching for his broad shoulders and gently holding onto them, “Wh-What are you even t-talking about?!”

He gently gripped onto you in return, readjusting you against him as he held you there. His laughter died down before he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against your nose.

You both were open that you were in a relationship, people knew… but, that doesn’t mean you necessarily wanted them to hear..

“Hey, baby, don’t worry… it could’ve been a lot worse… We’re fine~” he reassured, your brow still tensed from your worry. You knew the worst had already happened when he blew up, but how would they use his voice in that kind of tone…

You didn’t want to think about it too much. Not jealous, more just… weirded out. Who knew how people would use your voice in that tone either? You didn’t dwell on it.

“Ah, o-okay… yeah, nothing we need to worry about now,” You nodded with him, his gentle features turning to a warm smile. He brought his hand up to your cheek, his thumb gently swiping across your skin as he hummed.

“Mhm, all is fine… I promise,” He mumbled to you, leaning in softly to press his lips back against your forehead.

You sighed, pausing against him for a moment before leaning away, “Well… p-probably shouldn’t keep them waiting m-much longer…”

Corpse raised his brow gently smiling sadly in agreement with a slight nod. He gently reached for your hips once again, holding them gently as he helped hoist you back onto your two feet. You yelped softly as you let yourself be lifted, extending your two legs to meet the floor.

You stood still for a moment, your eyes meeting his as you timidly smiled, “S-Sorry about the mic thing… I should’ve stayed in my stream.”

You nervously laughed, his smile never faltering as yours broke out into a grin. Your slight guilt written all over your features.

“No, no, you’re totally fine… don’t apologize,” He hummed, his thumbs gently pressing against your hips as he kept reassuring.

“Okay, haha… now we’ll never forget to check our mics,” You winked softly, your hands grabbing onto his larger ones and squeezing them gently in return.

“Haha… never,” He nodded softly, tilting his head gently to the side as he simply watched you.

You sighed, begrudgingly pulling his hands from your hips as you took a small step away. You gently bounced on the balls of your feet, awkwardly putting your hands together behind your back.

“Hm… well! I- uh… will see you in game…” You smiled, his body turning in his chair as he leaned his chin against two of his fingers that you had freshly reapplied black nail polish that night before.

His brow raised quizzically at you, the damn smirk playing at his lips once again. His fingers flexed slightly, his hands following the motion. You could see the veins running down his wrist from where you stood.

He briefly chuckled, “Yeah… I’ll see you there, baby…”

With that, he turned back towards his screen while you didn’t hesitate towards the door. You walked over and grabbed the handle, briefly turning back to the darkened man on the screen, clicking away at the bursts of notifications he was getting from discord.

Oops.

“I love you-“ You flushed, his eyes pulling away from his screen to find you in the doorway. You could see the tint of pink along his cheeks in the darkness of the room.

“…I love you too. Hurry though, Rae is flipping out-“ He laughed, you not wasting a second more to close the door and bound back over to your recording room.

You shut the door behind you, looking up towards your brightened monitor and feeling your breath catch in your chest. You could see your chat blowing up from here, your phone lighting up with MULTIPLE notifications… God, what an unfortunate mistake for Corpse to have made.

You quicken your pace back to your chair, sliding in and putting your headphones back atop of your head. Your camera had come back on in the time you were gone, giving the device a nervous grin before turning towards the game.

“S-Sorry guys, didn’t mean to take that long- uhm…” Your eyes scanned over the chat, not surprised to find it full of caps-locked comments screaming about what happened on Corpse’s stream.

You sighed nervously, your eyes now finding your discord application notifying you that you had… almost fifty notifications?! You mentally had to roll your eyes, quickly turning back towards the camera with a sheepish smile.

“I- uh… I have to go for another minute- B-Be right back!” You laughed, turning on another ad before mentally cursing at yourself. God damnit- your eyes scanned over the viewers on your stream.

What the shit- when did I get 30k viewers?! What the hell?! Of course this is when your viewers decide to spike.

You groaned to yourself, your head falling to your hand as the other reached for your mouse. You clicked to your discord, slowly… but surely, un-deafened your mic.

“OH. MY. GOD. You FUCKING dumbass!” Rae yelled as soon as you unmuted, flinching at the pitch to her tone. It felt like you were being scolded.

“What?! I can’t show my girlfriend some love?!” Corpse replied, not yelling but a definite inflection in his tone.

“No! Nothing wrong with that! But CHECK your MIC next time!!” She laughed loudly. Oh my god.

“Jesus Christ, dude… or at least lower the sensitivity significantly…” Jack spoke up, almost sounding disappointed.

“Ey, welcome back, Fable-“ Felix spoke up, the cheeky grin evident in his tone.

What a fucking asshole-

“FABLE!”

“Oh my god-“

“You guys can’t wait til after stream?!”

“Wait, what am I joining into…?” A new voice intervened, interrupting Rae, Toast, and Lily.

Charlie, what a man, coming in at the worst time.

“H-Hey Charlie…” You spoke up in a greeting.

“Wha- Wait! Answer the question, Fable!” Lily squealed, a groan leaving your mouth as you fell towards your mic.

“I’m sorry! I-I really didn’t mean for it to happen! I had no clue-“

“Yeah, wait, this isn’t on Fable. She just went to go visit Corpse in the other room, guys, chill…” Felix actually stuck up for you, your face lifting in surprise as his words.

“Uh- yeah, actually, I guess that’s fair,” Jack commented, you nervously laughing in response.

“I… am so sorry to all of you,” You apologized softly, a gentle chorus of laughs following your meek apology.

“No, no, no, you’re so fine. You guys weren’t trying to broadcast whatever… that was…” Sykunno hummed awkwardly, you laughing lightly at his uncertainty.

“It was a poor mistake on my part, I’m sorry, Fable…” Corpse spoke up, you grinning at the sound of his voice.

“N-No worries… hey, we already went over this in person. Can we get back to the game?” You grumbled, another fit of laughter through the group at your excusing of the situation.

“Ahaha, yeah let’s get back into it,” Toast replied, the sound of his mouse clicking lightly being heard in the call.

You sighed, deafening yourself once again and turning back on your stream, “Hey everyone, yep… yep, everything’s fine. No worries, I promise, haha. We took a break for a little longer than expected, but we’re back!”

You un-deafened and were met with sound of a very very confused Charlie, “Wait… so… no one’s going to explain to me what happened?”

You all erupted into loud laughter, you falling back slightly in your chair as you cackled. The first voice to come back was Rae, shockingly.

“Don’t worry, Charlie… we’ll tell you later,” She snickered, you laughing along as you came back to your keyboard.

“So… we can start now, though?” Toast spoke up once again.

You began to give confirmations of “yes” with soft ‘yeah’s and ‘mhm’s. Lazy, but it got the point across.

“Cool, starting the next round…” He clicked play again and the countdown began.

“Alright, everyone, remember to MUTE your mics!” Jack spoke up, you rolling your eyes in response as Corpse’s laugh raised above the rest.

“Will do. Thanks,” He chuckled, a louder laugh sounding through the call once again from all mics.

Your screen turned dark, the red avatar of the Among Us character moving to shush you from the screen. You sighed, watching it turn dark again.

“Yeah- yeah, you’re welcome!” Jack played along, grinning softly at the joke as the screen began lighting up once against.

Your screen displayed your avatar next to Corpse’s, the bright red letters of “Imposter” reading across the computer. You raised your eyebrows, making sure you were completely muted on call before chuckling.

“Oh… Hell yeah. Let’s go…”

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