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wildcatofgreen · 1 year

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Stones, those overjoyous cheers.

As soon as she showed her face in the arena stage, as soon as she got past those open doors, the crowd--the overflowing crowd even, starting to cheer and jeer for her, shouting her name, waving banners with her face on it. If she looked close enough, she might be able to catch some of her friends? But it wasn't a guarantee--everyone was so far away. They'd have to be cheering insanely loud for her to pick them out.

No matter. It's not like the crowd was the focus of today's fight anyway. She wasn't fighting for them.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE ONE INCREDIBLE SHOW FOR YOU TONIGHT!!!"

She heard the announcer start up his usual bombastic affair. Something to hype the crowd up, make them even more excited than they normally are. Even though it's been a couple months now, she's gotten used to how things are run around here.

"ONLY ONE FIGHTER, ONE WARRIOR WILL RISE OUT OF THE ASHES TONIGHT. ONLY ONE WILL BE VICTORIOUS, ONLY ONE WILL WIN THE FIVE THOUSAND GOLDEN GEM PRIZE AND BECOME THE NEXT BATTLESPHERE CHAMPIOOOOOOON"

As she walked, she noticed a microphone in the middle of the arena. Just sitting there on it's stand, waiting to be used.

She supposes this was her cue.

Dashing towards the thing, she'd pounce and swipe the mic from it's stand, performing a small front flip, followed by her landing in her fighting stance with the mic pointed to her maw.

She noticed she heard a guitar riff that went in sync with her movements. Heh, now that was a first.

"Like I'm gonna let some two bit losers take that title away from me!!!"

The crowd cheered harder--they always loved how smug she could be. And of course, behind the scenes, she was told to play up that part. She was allowed to improvise most of her lines--seems like whatever she thought up right off the bat did better than whatever Zao's stupid ghost writers had in mind.

She preferred this way, of course. She wasn't censored or told what to do, how to do it, blah blah blah. She got some freedom with her actions. And maybe that's why she loved the job so much. She got to kick ass and she still got to be herself while doing it.

"LOOKS LIKE THIS CAT IS ACTING EXTRA WILD TONIGHT."

"You know it, buster!!!" She did a half shrug, crossing one leg behind the other and shutting her eyes closed. "I'm plannin' on jus' beatin' all these wimps' butts an' goin' home early. Unless," she paused, keeping herself from gritting her teeth, "Our Glorious and Wonderful Mayor Zao actually found a challenge tonight."

Yeah that... that was a part of the contract. Eugh.

Everytime Zao was mentioned, he had to be put up on the highest pedestal possible. There was no arguing around that--even when she and Sony negotiated it over, he just wouldn't budge on it.

Luckily, the crowd never seemed to mind. But it still put her in a very minor tizzy whenever she had to do it.

Suffice to say, she did not like to mention Zao much.

"YOU'D BE SURPRISED, LITTLE KITTY! 'CAUSE THIS TREACHEROUS TRIO HAS FANGS YOU WON'T BELIEVE ARE REAL!!!!"

"Then show 'em 'ta me!!!" She looked directly to the crowd, "We ain't gettin' any younger, are we?!?!"

Another roar of cheers followed, the wildcat with a very smug smirk on her face.

She is so very sure that if she didn't do that, then it would've went on for another couple minutes. Less ad space for that little red panda.

Sitting the mic back in it's place, she walked back over to her side of the arena. Put a hand on her hip and waited for her first opponent.

"THEN LETS NOT WASTE ANY MORE TIME!!!

"OUR FIRST OF THE TRIO OF THE NIGHT. SHE'S A GYMNAST BY DAY, AND A NINJA BY NIGHT! SHE USES HER KUNAI AND DAGGERS TO WIN ANY FIGHT. THIS BAD GIRL WILL NOT HESITATE TO GIVE YOU A FREIGHT!"

Huh. If she didn't know any better, she'd say that sounded like her when she was younger.

"IT'S SCARLET ROSE!!!"

The doors on the other side of the arena open, fog exiting the room and obfuscating the fighter.

The fog enveloped them, only clearing after another couple seconds.

Her first opponent was finally shown to her.

And...

She... She barely looked a day over Milla's age.

What? She was fighting a kid?

Panda girl. Long, black flowing hair, timid as hell, fully white top covering below her stomach to the ends of her arms with baggy black pants as the bottom. As well, she had a red scarf around her neck, much like the wildcat.

...

Son of a bitch--this wasn't a Scarf, was it? Did Spade get one of his cronies to participate in this shit?

That is unbelievably low.

Though... yeah it'd probably explain why the description gave her ''reminds me of myself!!!'' vibes.

This poor girl doesn't even wanna be here! Like, just look at her!!!

She looked like she was trembling. She hugged herself as she looked around the arena, as if she was trying to find herself among the audience.

Fuck, she could see the fear in this little girl's face.

"ARE OUR CONTESTANTS READY???"

The microphone would disappear out of view into the inner recesses of the stage, soon replaced with just a normal patch of floor.

The wildcat got in her ever so familiar battle stance--one arm near her face, the other near her waist, claws unsheathed.

Yet, the girl just seemed... frozen.

Hell, could she really do this? Could she really just...

"THREE"

The girl looked around again

"TWO"

Her frown started to grow wider.

"ONE"

Was she panicking? Was she--

"GO!!!!!"

The panda crouched down to the floor, holding onto her head and started sobbing.

The crowd's cheers stopped abruptly.

The wildcat herself was taken off guard.

She thinks she heard a guitar riff get cut short? It'd be funny if it wasn't accurate.

It was dead silent in the arena, save for the cries of a poor, little girl.

...

Fuck.

She can't do this. She can't fight this.

The wildcat put her hands in her pockets, walking over to the panda crouched on the floor. Once reaching her, she squatted in front of her, arms resting on her legs.

"Hey, girlie," Carol whispered, her eyes as sympathetic as they could be. "You okay?"

She didn't respond. Only more sobs and tears in her wake.

"What happened, girl? Did anyone make you do this stuff?"

She only mumbled out one thing.

"T-The scawves..."

Yeah. Yeah of course this was their fault.

This whole fucking thing was a sham right from the get go. How fucking low. How fucking dirty.

However, the feline's smile never faltered. She just went for a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"I figured. Lissen, Rose, ya dun't gotta fight me, okay? Ya dun't gotta do none of what those stupid 'lil punks say. You can leave, you can do better things. Your whole life ain't meant to be a criminal, girl. I know it ain't." She puts her other hand on her chest, "Take it from me. I used 'ta be one'a the best Scarves. But, then, me an' my bestie realized somethin'.

"We dun't need their crap. We dun't need any of it.

"We ran. We left that stones forsaken place an' we ran like hell.

"An', sierra, now look at me. I'm the damn Battlesphere Champion!!!" A proud look flashed on the wildcat's face.

The panda seemed to look... better, at least. Her little talk was working.

"Ya dun't gotta be a Scarf anymore. I promise.

"Ya can be jus'... another girl. Another cool ninja girl, from the sounds of it, but another girl all the same.

"An' hey, if those damn Scarves give ya chase, then I'll chase 'em right back!!! Okay, Rose?"

The panda nodded, a small smile on her face.

"Awesome. Now, all ya gotta do is forfeit. I'll help ya with whatever else comes next, okay?" She stood back up, offering the panda a hand. "So, whaddya say?"

Softly, just above a mumble, she started, "I'd... I'd say..."

The panda's hands move from their head to the floor below, giving her leverage off the ground. Her legs compressed themselves against her stomach, a devious smirk on her face.

"You're

"An

"IDIOT!!!!!"

Her knees extend outward, kicking the wildcat straight into the chest and sending her flying back to her end of the arena.

The wildcat tried to get her footing with a back flip to set herself upright, but the panda was too fast, too clean with her approach. It felt instant, how she got next to her. Almost as fast as her--

WHAM!!!!

A punch straight to the face, a direct hit with the feline's jaw. She skid back on her shoes, placing her arms in an X formation in front of herself to block any remaining punches.

And punches came. Another one, two, three, four punches, all in succession of one another, blocked by her arms.

The panda went for another punch, yet, the feline caught it mid-motion.

She growled.

"So, that's the kinda game we're playin', huh?

"Sorry girlie."

Another punch was thrown at her, and she simply caught it with her other hand.

"guess I ain't goin' easy on ya."

The wildcat then slams her head into the panda's, letting her stumble backwards out of her grasp. Carol then darts to the girl's backside, giving her a swift roundhouse kick to the head. She fell forward from second blast to her head, but recovered from it by rolling.

Scarlet stood to her feet and used her momentum from rolling to begin a run away from the cat, taking out a couple kunais and tossing them back towards the feline to impede the feline's probable chase.

And oh boy did Carol chase. She let her get a little ways away--what would be the fun in an instant K.O., after all?--but once the kunais started coming out, she decided to make her move. Taking out her jump disc, she would block the incoming knives with it, deflecting them to the ground or wherever else they'd end up.

The panda would start running up one of the walls in the arena, and in retaliation the wildcat would toss her jump disc up towards the girl. Though, she would continue running ahead, as if the girl was still running in that same direction.

Scarlet smirked, taking out two kunais and making a break for the wildcat, straight down the wall! She had everything going for her--the advantage, the speed, actual projectiles.

"SAY YOUR PRAYERS, KITTY!!! YOU HAVE NOTHING ON ME!!!"

The feline smirked as well.

She warped to the jump disc, darting into the air and past the panda, catching her disc as it spun.

"Like, besides experience?"

The panda could barely utter another word before the feline curled into a ball and slammed into her back, driving them both into the floor below with a loud CRASH!!!!!

The cat was seen with her feet on the back on the panda. She was in a squat, actually, clearly saying something to her.

The announcer started to count down from ten.

"Okay, girlie. I'mma tell ya how this is gonna go down." Her brows furrowed, her face in a frown. She had her arms resting on her knees. "I'mma get off ya, an' you get 'ta choose from two options." "One," she put up a finger, "Ya stay down, let Igor there finish his count, an' let me move on 'ta my next guy. Makes it easier on both of us. "Two," she put up a second finger, "Ya somehow get your feet off the ground an' continue that thing where ya try 'ta beat me. I'll tell ya right now, though, that's jus' gonna prolong all this shit an' be a waste'a time for both of us."

"SEVEN!!!!"

The wildcat stood up straight and hopped off the girl. She had her back to her with her hands in her pockets, looking at the cheering crowd with a smirk on her face.

"Make your move, girlie."

...

This... this couldn't be happening. The panda stared at the floor before her, cursing to herself in her mind.

This can't happen. It... it CAN'T!!!

Spade said she'd be easy. Spade said it wouldn't be a problem!!! Spade said that... that if she won, she'd get promoted!!!! Ten times, even!!!! She'd be in the highest ranks, she'd work directly with Spade, she'd get to prove herself and go on a lot more serious missions with him and...

She managed to put her elbows on the floor, pushing her upper chest off the ground.

"FIVE!!!!"

She looked towards that wildcat. That stupid wildcat. ''one of the best scarves'', yeah RIGHT!!!! They were only good because of Spade!!! They only knew EVERYTHING THEY KNEW, BECAUSE OF SPADE!!!! All of the media coming out now, saying they saved the planet twice, when everyone who's anyone knows it was Spade who beat back that monstrous green BOOGER!!! It was Spade who taught them, it was Spade who made them, it was Spade who bested them.

They went to Spade for help back then!!!! Doesn't that say it all?!?!?!?!

"THREE!!!!"

She can't let her continue like this. So smug. So full of herself.

Is that why Spade told her to do this?

To knock her ego down a peg?

Slowly, but surely, she gets on her knees, lifting her upper torso completely straight.

She puts a hand on her knee, pushing herself up, pushing herself to continue.

"ONE!!!!!!!"

And, at the behest of the audience, she stood again, eliciting gasps all around. She was tired, she was weak, but she wasn't going to lose so damn easily, not to this stupid, smug cat!!!!

Not when her dreams of being with Spade are so close.

...

Her ear twitched.

The feline turned around to face the now standing panda girl. The announcer said something in response, but all Carol did was reach up for the sky, face still focused on the panda.

A microphone on a wire started to get lowered down, eventually falling into the feline's hand.

She put the mic to her maw, other hand on her hip.

"So, you're still gonna fight? You're still gonna try 'ta beat me, even after ya clearly lost." She snickered, "I mean, look at ya. I could flick ya an' I'd win!"

The audience cheered and laughed as the feline extended the microphone over to the panda.

"I'm not letting you continue on with your lies." She growled out her words, her hands balled into fists. Malice coated her entire being, it felt like.

Carol moved the mic back to herself, "Lies? Girl, I think you were the one lying on the floor jus' a couple seconds ago. Maybe ya should get back 'ta that?"

Having been more of an obvious attempt at a joke, a majority of the crowd laughed this time. Easily over a couple ten thousand people laughing at your puns? Goes to a girl's head, real easily. Can't get that kind of validation anywhere else.

She extended the mic back over to the girl.

"Everyone thinks you're such a good little kitty, don't they?!? Ignoring your history with the Scarves--" the panda went on, but Carol moved the mic back to her as soon as she possibly could.

As soon as their name was thrown out there.

"Only history I got is beatin' their butts. Seriously, do you know how many of of 'em tried 'ta be on this stage? Like, didn't Spade lose when Gong was the champ of this place? Talk about ancient history--"

"I WON'T LET YOU TALK ABOUT HIM LIKE THAT!!!!!!"

The wildcat pre-emeptively dodged a right hook from the girl, letting go of the microphone temporarily to SLAM an elbow into the girl's head.

She caught her, as she fell.

She whispered something in the panda's ear.

"My offer still stands, Rose. Ya dun't hafta be this way. I promise."

And with that, she let go, letting the panda girl flop down to the floor.

The announcer made the next ten seconds feel like an eternity. Always so dramatic--though, she supposed it did bring butts into seats. Made everything more interesting, more easily consumable for your average viewer.

Certainly seemed like Surge and her 'lil bro liked it, at least. So, like, it worked.

"ONE!!!!! THAT'S IT FOLKS, CAROL THE WILDCAT'S ALREADY TAKEN DOWN THE FIRST OF THE TREACHEROUS TRIO!!!!!!"

She grabbed for the mic again, striking a pose for the audience as they cheered.

"An' that's how it's done!!!"

One down, two more to go.

First match was easy. Second one shouldn't be much harder, right?

#carol's cruisings #Battlesphere Blitz #a rose without thorns #carol's adventures

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softened-hearts · 2 years

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i lost my favorite cup for pocari sweat drink. i am at my LIMIT TT

#girlfriend is sick! lover has not responded for days! i'm pms-ing! my brain fog is just TERRIBLE #and now i cant drink my favorite little drink out of the perfect little cup for it!!! while i smoke!!!!!!#i am SO autistic abt this and i am SO angy #madmadmadmad #sobs #it's been missing for a while but whoever lived with c***** loved the cup and is out morr today so more upset abt it #eugh feels icky.

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karahalloway · 2 years

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(Less Than) Noble Intentions: Chapter 4 - Southbound

Fandom: TRR

Pairing: Drake Walker x F!OC (Harper Gale)

Series Synopsis: The social season may be over, but Harper Gale's problems are just beginning. With everyone at court a potential suspect, can she and Drake survive the engagement tour and get to the bottom of the plot against her and clear her name? An AU take of TRR2 featuring my OTP - Harper & Drake.

Masterlist: (Less Than) Noble Intentions

Chapter Summary: Harper gets an early wake-up call (again)... and Drake makes a detour on the way down to Ramsford.

Word Count: 6,500

Rating/Warnings: M (swearing, fluff, tiny hints of smut)

Chapter theme song:

Bonus Material: Extract from Harper’s Scrapbook

Chapter 4 - Southbound

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I am dragged from the drudges of slumber by the unmistakable sound of an alarm blaring next to my head.

With a disgusted growl, I fumble for the phone to turn off the offending noise, so I can return to the warm cocoon of Drake's chest and sleep. But before I get at the source of the disturbance, I feel Drake reach over me and grab the phone.

I sigh relievedly as he switches the alarm off.

But my reprieve is short-lived...

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead."

I grunt at him in disapproval, yanking myself around to burrow my face into the crook of his neck.

I feel Drake's chest rumble with a chuckle as he drops a kiss on top of my head. "I know it's early, but we need to get up."

I gasp in shock as he throws the covers back and exists the bed.

"Five more minutes?" I ask hopefully, searching for the edge of the blanket to pull it back over me while keeping my eyes firmly shut.

But my hopes are dashed as he flicks on the bedside light.

Opening a bleary eye, I see Drake looking at me with a wry quirk to his mouth as he bends down to brush a kiss against my lips. "You can sleep in the car."

"Eugh... Fine," I mutter resignedly. I honestly thought that the days of way-too-early o'clock wake up calls were a thing of the past...

By the time I've blinked my eyes open, Drake's already disappeared into the bathroom.

With concerted effort, I push myself up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Tapping on Drake's phone, I can see that it's just gone 5am.

With a grimace, I roll out of bed and stumble towards the bathroom for a scalding shower to wake myself up.

Drake had not been exaggerating his intentions yesterday, and we ended up squeezing what definitely felt like a week's worth of sex into one afternoon. And even though it had been heaven at the time — kissing, laughing, making love, and exploring each other's bodies with our hands and mouths without any worries or interruptions — I now felt like I need another day in bed just to recover from it all.

Stepping into the bathroom on shaky legs, I see that Drake's already done with his warp-speed shower, and is in the process of towelling himself off, though he'd left the water running for me.

I pull a face.

How he’s so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, I have no idea. Especially given that he did most of the work yesterday on about five hours' worth of sleep after having been up for over twenty-four...

Maybe he’s one of those mystical morning people, like Maxwell, who can get up and go at any time of day...

"Try not to take too long," he says, dropping a kiss on my shoulder as I amble past. "We need to be on the road by half-past at the latest."

I sigh in acquiescence as I verily fall into the shower.

But as the warm spray hits my head, it seems to lift the fog of sleep from my brain, and after a moment or two, I start feeling more awake. Knowing that my hair is no doubt a frizzy, tangled disaster after yesterday, I proceed to wash and rinse myself from head to toe as fast as I can, so I have enough time to do something with my unruly locks before getting dressed.

Turning the spray off, I quickly dry myself and wrap my hair into a turban before stepping up to the mirror to apply some basic make-up. Even with daily use of the magical arnica cream that Drake had given me, I still have a couple of lingering patches of green on my face from that horrid day in Applewood. Plus, there is a very high probability that I'll be seeing Christian again tonight, and I want to look as put-together as possible when I give the new King of Cordonia a piece of my mind for what he did to me at the Coronation Ball.

Satisfied with my appearance, I unfurl my hair from the towel and give it a quick blow-dry. Since I don’t have time to style my hair into anything more sophisticated, I spin it into a simple, over-the-shoulder braid. After a quick spritz of my favourite perfume, I am zipping up my toiletry and make-up bags and walking back into the bathroom feeling much more awake and refreshed.

Stepping into the room, I see that while I have been sorting myself out, Drake has not only gotten dressed, but has also tidied up the mess we made yesterday, and is now standing by the bed looking at his phone with a scowl.

"What's wrong?" I ask, as I open my suitcase to deposit my bags and extract a bra and a pair of panties.

"Chris wants to meet at the Beaumonts' tonight."

I quirk a brow as I pull my underwear on. "I thought we'd be going to the Palace."

"Same," Drake admits, shoving his phone into his pocket. "But he did mention that he was worried about security, so maybe he feels that Ramsford will be safer."

"What can he possibly want to talk about that requires so much secrecy?"

"No idea," admits Drake, scratching at the two-days' worth of stubble on his cheek. It looks good on him. "But whatever it is, it can't be good."

"Well, I guess you'll find out soon enough," I declare, pulling on the off-the-shoulder white dress I wore for the first day of the Apple Blossom Festival. "Could you do the zip at the back?"

Drake's face softens as he steps up behind me. "I haven't seen you in this before."

"I got it when we snuck down to the capital," I say over my shoulder. "You like it?"

"Very much," he confirms warmly, running his hands over my bare shoulders. "Especially the way it shows off your legs."

"You prefer short skirts over ballgowns, then?" I ask cheekily as I bend down to zip my suitcase back up.

"Hands down," he grins, grabbing my closed-up suitcase before I can protest and slotting his duffle on top. "That barely-there dress you wore for the Coronation Ball was great and all, but..."

I smile knowingly as I follow him out the door with my small wheelie bag in tow, but not before I grab the single rose off the desk. "You like seeing the bottom half as well."

He gives me a confirmatory smirk. "Especially yours. When you walked out after you shift in New York wearing that miniskirt, I nearly lost it."

I laugh as I thread the rose stem through my braid, remembering his shocked reaction and how he had stormed off to the bar when we arrived at the club. "Was that why you were so grumpy the rest of the night?"

He heaves a beleaguered sigh as he presses the button for the elevator. "All I could think about was how it would feel to have your legs wrapped around me, naked except for that skirt. But, I knew that was never gonna happen."

"You could've bought me a drink," I say, leaning into him as we wait for the lift to arrive. "Or asked me to dance. Who knows what might've happened, then..."

He scoffs. "I wish. Chris had already staked his claim on you the moment he walked in and saw you. And it wasn't like you could tear your eyes off him either. Trust him to charm the hot waitress with the best legs in the entire city..."

"Yes, he was very charming," I concede, snaking my arm around his waist, "I mean, it's not every day that you meet a handsome guy in a New York dive bar who turns out to be a prince. There is bound to be a certain degree of shocked fascination during such an encounter."

"I guess..." he grumbles, his fingers running over my braid. "Doesn't give a guy like me a snowball's chance in hell, though, does it?"

"Oh, maybe not initially," I tease, as the bell dings to announce the arrival of the lift. "But things worked out in your favour in the end, didn't they? I mean, if I hadn't had hit it off with Christian, the two of us probably wouldn't be standing here right now."

"Yeah, I guess," he mutters as the doors open and we step inside. "But we're not out of the woods yet."

"No..." I agree with a sigh, knowing that once we got back to Cordonia, we were going to be diving straight into the massive pile of shit left in the wake of the press scandal.

We reach the lobby and Drake leads us to the reception desk.

"Give me the room key."

I dig it out of my bag and hand it to him.

The girl manning the desk lifts her head and her eyes widen when she spots Drake. "Err... Bonjour!"

"Bonjour," he replies, sliding the key card across the counter. "Nous sortons de la chambre 502."

"Eh, oui! Certainement!"

I watch in amusement as the receptionist starts tapping away on her keyboard while casting furtive glances at Drake from underneath her false lashes, a blush colouring her cheeks. Drake merely drums his fingers on the desk, impatient to get going.

While on some level I feel for the girl — I know exactly what it feels like to have people look straight past you when you’re a worker in the hospitality sector — her unguarded reactions to Drake's presence do make me wonder whether (now that the two of us are technically an item) I'll need to defend against unwanted advances from other women, or contend with any jealous exes. Afterall, Drake is a good-looking guy, and — based on everything that we did yesterday — very experienced. So, even though Maxwell had said that he's never seen Drake with a girlfriend before, I know that he must've acquired that experience from somewhere... probably a lot of somewheres.

"Selon le system, tout a été payé et vous êtes maintenant régler la note. Y a-t-il l'autre chose que je—"

"Non, merci," interjects Drake, already turning away, much to the girl's disappointment.

"Don't we need to pay for the extra night?" I ask, hurrying after him. "Or the food?"

"I sorted all that yesterday," he replies as he strides out of the lobby.

Of course he did...

"What do I owe you?"

He throws me an offended look. "Nothing."

"But—"

"Gale, it's fine. You shouldn't have had to pay for any of this in the first place. Plus," he adds with a wily glance, "I can claim it all back as a work-related expense."

I quirk a brow at him. "Perks of the job, huh?"

"Damn straight," he confirms with a lopsided grin.

We arrive at the parking lot, where Drake makes quick work of loading our bags into the trunk before settling into the driver's seat and setting our destination on the car's navigation system.

"Ten and a half hours?" I gasp in disbelief when the route pings up on the screen.

"The software always overestimates," replies Drake unconcernedly as he starts the car.

"What time are you meeting Christian?"

"Seven," he says, manoeuvring out of the parking lot.

I do some quick mental maths. "Won't we get to Ramsford ahead of time, then?"

"Probably," he shrugs. "But I want to get well away from Paris before the morning rush hour. Otherwise, we could be stuck in gridlock for hours because some idiots decided to have an accident."

"Fair enough," I concede, settling back into the seat.

"Get some more sleep if you want," he advises, reaching over to brush his hand over mine. "The first leg of the drive isn't very interesting anyway."

"Wouldn't you prefer some company?"

He flashes me a warm smile as he loops his fingers through mine. "I've already got it."

I can't help but smile back as I squeeze his hand. "Feel free to wake me if you get bored."

* * *

I jerk awake with a start, as I feel myself get thrown forward in my seat.

"Trou du cul!" shouts Drake, leaning on the horn.

I feel the seatbelt dig into my collarbone as it catches me, before I get dumped back into the seat.

"Wh-what happened?" I ask shakily.

"Some asshole cut us up," seethes Drake, glaring daggers at the car in front. "Fuckin' French don't know how to fuckin’ drive..."

"So... You swear at them in French?"

"I like to mix things up," he replies tightly, still on edge from the near-miss. Flicking his eyes at me, he asks, "You okay?"

"Yeah," I say, adjusting myself in the seat and loosening the seatbelt back up. "You?"

"I'm good."

"You're not gonna go all GTA on the guy's ass?"

Drake snorts. "No. I don't have a handy crowbar to smash his windshield with. And I'd prefer not to write the car off."

"Yeah, definitely not," I agree, rubbing my clavicle. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Just passing Dijon. We've been going for about three hours."

"Oh." I passed out hard then.

"There's a coffee and some breakfast for you."

Glancing down, I spot two takeaway coffees sitting in the cupholders and some kind of sandwich-shaped thing in a grease-proof wrapper.

"You're a lifesaver," I reply with a grateful smile.

Drake flashes me a wry look. "Two things I've learned about you. You need food and sleep at regular intervals to keep you functional. And the occasional shot of caffeine."

"Doesn't everyone?" I ask, reaching for the food eagerly.

"I can get by on limited rations if I need to," he responds with a shrug.

Picking up the sandwich, I extract it from the wrapper and I'm hit by the delicious smell. "Is this a grilled cheese?"

"Croque monsieur. But pretty much the same thing."

I take a big bite and sigh blissfully. "Mmm... So good!"

"Thought you'd like it," grins Drake knowingly.

"D'you want some?" I ask around a large mouthful.

"Nah. It's all for you."

"Good. 'Cos I wasn't gonna give you any."

Drake laughs. "You're not very good when it comes to sharing food, are you?"

"I told you," I reply nonchalantly, polishing off the rest of the sandwich. "I have a healthy appetite."

"You most certainly do," he agrees with a look that makes it clear he's not talking about food anymore.

I glance at him as I reach for the coffee. "You weren't complaining yesterday."

"Trust me," he murmurs with a heated gaze. "That's not something I'm ever gonna complain about."

His hand ghosts up the inside of my thigh and my coffee nearly goes down the wrong way.

"Easy there, Casanova... You need to watch the road."

"You know I can multitask."

A soft moan escapes me as his hand coasts higher.

But as confident as Drake may be feeling about being able to split his focus between me and the road, I know I need to steer his attention in a different direction, given that we only narrowly escaped having an accident just now.

"How... How will it work when we get back to court?"

"The same way as it did before," he replies, his hand reaching the lace of my panties. "You tell me how you want it and I’ll make it happen."

"No..." I gasp, as I feel a current of heat run through my core from his touch. "I mean from a... logistical point of view."

How can he get me so riled up with just a look and a touch...?

His hand stops and I heave a shuddering breath.

...because I now know what he’s thinking when he looks at me like that and what he can do with those fingers...

"Logistical point of view?" he asks with a raised brow.

"What I mean is, there is a massive sex scandal hanging over my head, so I'm guessing we can't just show up at the Palace to come and go from each other's room as we please. Because that's just going to get even more chins wagging."

Drake is pensive for a moment. "You could take Savs' old room."

I look at him in surprise. "Don't you want to keep it free in case she—?"

"She's been gone almost two years. And I haven't heard anything from her during that time. I doubt she's gonna show up now to demand her old room back."

"I know, but still..."

"It's fine. Honestly. And anyway, it makes sense. Her room's next to mine and there's a hidden door that connects the two rooms. That way we'll be able to keep up the appearance of propriety without needing to sneak around and risk getting caught. Also, it means that I am literally right next door if you need me... in case anything were to happen."

"Okay," I agree. "But what about... your availability?"

"What about it?"

"Well, technically you're part of Christian's security detail aren't you? And now that he's king, won't you be... busier? Looking out for him and everything?"

He flicks his gaze at me. "You sayin' you'll miss me when I'm working?"

I feel myself flush. "I don't mean to come across as clingy or anything... But truthfully, I have no clue what your routine is, what you do during an average day, and how I'm going to fit into that... If I'm going to fit into that..."

I feel him loop his fingers through mine. "To be honest, I have no idea either. This is totally new ground for me, so it's not something that I've ever had to think about before. I'm not gonna lie and say that it'll be easy — especially with the stupid scandal complicating things further — but I hope we'll be able to figure something out that will work. For both of us."

"I hope so, too," I say softly, giving his hand a squeeze.

We while away the next couple of hours talking and listening to music as the lush, green countryside zips past. Drake divulges a bit more about his daily routine — or rather, lack thereof, given that his schedule could vary wildly from one day to the next and change on short notice following instructions from Christian and/or Bastien — while I wonder what I will be doing now that the social season is over and I am technically a court pariah.

Suddenly, the car starts beeping.

"Just a fuel level warning," advises Drake. "We'll pull into the next service station to fill up."

A few miles later, a gas station hoves into view and we take the turn-off.

While Drake fills the car up, I use my very bad French to find out where the toilets are, only to discover — much to my dismay — that not only do I have to pay for the privilege of using them, but I don’t have the right type of money either.

I make my way back outside meekly. "You... umm... don't happen to have any French change, do you?"

Drake meets my eye and I feel myself flush.

I’m sure what I’m more embarrassed about... The fact that I’m asking him for money, or the fact that I need it to use the toilets.

Eugh! Why does this have to be so awkward?! Why can’t the French just let you pee for free like they do in the States?

I see a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he reaches into his pocket. "You mean, Euros?"

"Whatever they're called..." I grumble in annoyance.

Drake chuckles as he drops some coins into my hand.

I beat a hasty retreat back inside, my cheeks flaming.

This is one culture shock that I had definitely NOT been expecting!

After a brief battle with the coin-operated turn-stile machine, I finally get inside the bathroom... Which, admittedly, I do find to be clean, well-maintained and relatively new-looking, in contrast to some bathrooms that I've been to back home that looked like the perfect place to commit a daytime murder in.

As I am washing my hands afterwards, I also realise that if Drake and I are going to effectively be living together when we get back to Cordonia, I will need to get over my prudish American hang-ups over bodily functions, because chances are that at some point in the not-too-distant future, we are going to walk in on each other while one of us is in the bathroom.

And while that is something that every couple has to learn to navigate, I guess I just hadn't been expecting to have to cross that particular bridge quite so early on in our relationship...

…but then nothing about this entire situation has been normal, even from the start.

"Good to go?" asks Drake as I step outside again.

"Yeah," I nod, tucking a wayward lock of hair behind my ear. "Here's the rest of your money back."

"Keep it," he replies, opening the car door. "You'll probably need it when we stop again."

"Right," I mumble, shoving the coins into my purse. "Do you... umm... want me to drive for a bit?"

Drake raises a brow at me.

"That is... if I'm allowed to,” I clarify quickly. “Not sure how insurance works here... But since you've been driving for almost five hours, I thought I'd give you a break."

He continues looking at me strangely, like he was calculating the percentage chance of his car getting wrecked with me behind the wheel.

After what seems like a full minute, I can't take it anymore.

"You know what?" I say, throwing my hands up as I make a beeline towards the passenger-side. "Never mind... You're obviously not comfortable with the idea so—"

"I never said that."

"I can see it on your face."

"Oh, yeah?” he counters. “And what do you see, exactly?"

"Surprise. Uncertainty. A tinge of fear," I tell him tersely. "You don't trust me with your car."

"That's not what I was thinking."

I glance at him uncertainly over the roof of the car. "What were you thinking, then?"

"That this is the first time a girl's offered to drive me anywhere."

"Oh." I feel my cheeks redden once more. "And... are you going to take her up on the offer?"

He surveys me again. "You got your driver's license on you?"

"In my purse."

I see the muscle in his jaw working. "Alright. You can drive to Avignon."

I quirk a brow as I make my way over to the driver's side. "That's an awfully specific waypoint. Why there?"

"Because that's where I was planning on stopping for lunch," he replies, striding over to the other side of the car. "It's roughly two hours from here."

I settle into the driver's seat and realise that I'm miles away from the steering wheel. I reach down and begin moving the seat forward.

"What?" I ask, seeing the bemused look on his face as I begin adjusting the mirrors.

"I don't think I've ever sat on this side of the car before."

"It's comfy. You'll like it," I reassure him with a grin as I check the set-up one more time before pulling the seatbelt over myself.

He rolls his eyes. "You all set?"

"I think so."

"Right. Couple of things to be aware of. Since this is the M version, the throttle's going to be much more responsive than you're probably used to. So, be gentle on the gas. Also, the wing mirrors are on the smaller side, so make sure you've got them set slightly wider than normal."

I glance at the mirrors before adjusting them out a bit more.

Drake then quickly runs through the other important controls, including the futuristic-looking steptronic gear shift, before leaning back and looking at me expectantly.

Taking a breath, I press the ignition button and the car rumbles to life. Shifting into first, I push the gas pedal down gently and ease the car forward.

As we pick up some speed, I shift into second, and then to third and fourth gear, finding it a bit strange that I don’t have to press a clutch, or struggle to find the gear, as I simply had to flick the shifter forward each time to gear up.

"Speed limit's 130 km/h," advises Drake as I reach the ramp to get back onto the highway.

Glancing down at the speedo, I see that that equates to roughly 80mph, which is the same as the interstate limit in Montana. Pressing the pedal down, I reach for the shifter again.

"Just keep your foot in it," says Drake.

"But shouldn't I—?"

"I'll tell you when."

I glance at him briefly, but I've learned by now not to second-guess Drake when he tells me something. Focusing back on the road, I watch the rev counter inch towards red.

"Now."

I flick the shifter forward as I merge the car onto the highway. After I watch the rev counter climb again, I shift into sixth.

"Not bad," approves Drake. "Though now that we're up to speed, you should shift to eighth."

"Eighth?" I ask in surprise.

"Car has eight gears. Might as well use them."

Glancing down at the shifter, I shift through the last two gears.

"How did you know when I needed to shift?"

"I've had this car over three years now. I know from the sound of the engine when to gear up. I very rarely look at the rev counter anymore."

"Alright, Mr Fast and Furious," I say with wry shake of my head. "Anything else I should know?"

"Don't undertake, keep the indicator on the whole time you're overtaking and be prepared to break hard if you're being overtaken. The French have a nasty habit of throwing their car in front of you without warning with only millimeters to spare. Like you saw before."

"So, they drive like New Yorkers,” I surmise wryly.

"Never driven in New York, so I wouldn't know."

"But you must've seen New Yorkers drive while you were there."

"Honestly, that was not something I really paid attention to. I was too busy herding the guys 'round the city, making sure they didn't get lost, pickpocketed or run over."

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess that is a bit of a full-time occupation, especially with Maxwell."

"You have no idea..." he grumbles wearily. "The number of times I had to yank him back from the edge of the curb because he was too busy taking photos..."

We continue to chat about this and that and rest of the drive down to Avignon goes by quickly. After we enter the city, Drake helps me navigate to a parking lot on the edge of the old town.

I step out of the car on shaky legs.

While the highway had been uneventful, once we entered the city limits, the traffic increased substantially with the other drivers switching lanes haphazardly, flashing their headlights and yelling out their windows at perceived offences. I was used to driving on the sedate backroads around Bozeman (as I had sold my car after moving to Nee York in order to be able to afford the deposit on my walk-up), so by the time we parked, my blood pressure was through the roof!

"You okay?" asks Drake as he locks the car.

"I will be in a minute," I reply, placing my hands on top of my head and taking a deep breath to calm my rapidly beating heart. But the overabundance of stress hormones coursing through my veins causes me to start pacing agitatedly.

Intercepting me on my second round, Drake pulls me into his chest. I drop my arms around his shoulders, and breathe in his familiar, comforting scent. After a moment or two, I feel my hammering heart start to slow.

"Better?" he asks, stroking my hair.

I heave a shuddering sigh as I relax into his arms. "Yeah."

"You coped with that better than I thought you would."

"Thanks," I murmur. "Though I now get why you arrived at the hotel looking like you did."

"Occupational hazard," he replies dryly. "Ready to grab some lunch?"

"More than ready!"

Looping his fingers through mine, Drake leads me towards the stone walls of the medieval old town.

"Have you been here before?" I ask as we pass under an impressive-looking portcullis.

"Once, a long time ago."

"Do you remember which way to go?"

He shrugs unconcernedly. "It's not a very big city. We'll figure it out. Plus, we have a few hours to kill before we need to hit the road again."

"You want to go exploring," I say with a knowing smile.

"If you're game," he replies with a confirmatory smirk. "Since we got cheated out of Paris, I thought this could work as a consolation prize."

"To be honest," I say, squeezing his hand, "I don't mind where we are. I just wanted to take advantage of some alone time with you before we return to the craziness of court."

"Even so," he murmurs, lifting our entwined hands up to his lips. "I want to make it up to you."

"Drake, you don't have to m—"

He silences me with a kiss that brooks no argument.

I pull away in shocked surprise. "Drake! You can't!"

He quirks a questioning brow. "Why not?"

"Because people might see!"

"And?" he scoffs, dropping his arm around my shoulders as he starts us walking again, my hand still entwined in his.

"I'm surprised you're being so cavalier about this."

After all, he had warned me constantly about the risk of us getting caught in a compromising situation during the social season.

"Chillax, Gale," he murmurs, dropping a kiss on top of my head. "Nobody knows we're here."

"Yeah, but we could be recognised."

"Trust me. We won't be. All the paps think you've gone back to the States. The last place they'll be looking for you is here. And even if someone does recognise you — which I very much doubt, given that the French have a hundred better things to do than obsess over what garbage the Cordonian rumour mill is spewing — they'll be expecting to see you with Tariq, not me. They won't put two and two together."

"Fine," I sigh. "But if we end up on the front page of the Cordonian Sun tomorrow, I'm never gonna let you hear the end of it."

"Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?

"No..." I admit.

"Good. Now. Where do you wanna eat?"

"Anywhere where there's food," I reply with a shrug. "You know I'm not particularly fussy."

"How 'bout here?"

Glancing up, I see a rustic little hole in the wall with a faded blue awning and a haphazardly set-up patio area. The creaky-looking wicker-chairs are occupied by a few locals smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. It’s as unpretentious as a restaurant can get.

"Perfect!"

* * *

After lunch, we stroll around the medieval old town, taking in the remains of the citadel, the iconic Ponte d'Avignon and more historic stone churches than I've ever seen clustered in once place. While I had initially been wary of being openly out and about with Drake — not to mention engaging in public displays of affection — as we meander through the narrow streets without getting mobbed by the paps, I feel myself start to relax into the experience.

"You always find the best food," I declare as I take a heartfelt lick of the decadent chocolate ice cream Drake had procured for me from a tiny little gelateria that I hadn't even spotted until we were standing right in front of it.

Drake shrugs as he samples his own scoop of vanilla and chocolate chip, which I have learnt is called stracciatella in Europe. "It ain’t exactly rocket science. Eat where the locals eat, avoid the overpriced tourist traps."

"Yeah, but how do you know where to go? Especially if you've never been to a place before?"

"Part of it's gut instinct," he replies. "But part of it is knowing what to look for. Generally, a place is good if it has an unassuming exterior, menus in local language only, and the owner greets everyone like long-lost family members."

I flash him a sidelong glance. "Sounds like you've had some interesting encounters with restaurateurs."

He throws me a confirmatory smirk. "One time, when we were in Naples, I made the mistake of complimenting the owner of a small trattoria on the grub. Three hours and a bottle of grappa later, I was still sat there, trying to convince him that I really couldn't marry his niece."

My eyes widen. "You're joking!"

"One hundred percent true story."

"How did you manage to escape?"

"We reached a compromise whereby he offloaded a crate of homemade salami on me instead."

I chortle into my ice cream. "He couldn't bear to send you home emptyhanded, could he?"

"Nope. And I didn't really mind. It was some damn good salami."

"Maybe he was hoping you'd come back for more. Truest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, after all," I inform him sagely.

"I can think of a few other ways," he drawls, pulling me in for a lazy kiss. "Though... you do taste good with all that chocolate on you..."

I giggle against his lips. "Something on your mind, Walker?"

"You. Naked. Covered in gelato," he murmurs between ever-deepening kisses.

"Dream on, cowboy," I quip, nipping his bottom lip. "Ice cream's cold and sticky. You're not slathering me in that stuff."

He trails his tongue along my jawline. "You'd be neither by the time I'm done with you."

A moan escapes me as he captures my earlobe with his teeth while his free hand grips my ass, pressing me against him.

"Drake..." I gasp, feeling my body respond instantly to his growing desire.

"All I've been able to think about the whole damn day is tearing this dress off you," he growls against my neck.

"I thought you liked it," I reply breathlessly.

He lifts his eyes to mine. "Why d'you think I want to get you out of it?"

My mouth drops open. "Surely not in the middle of the street!"

He scoffs wryly as he drops a kiss on my nose. "No. Not even the French would tolerate something like that. And we need to get going anyway."

I lean into him, taking a deep breath to get my heart-rate back under control. "Do we have to go back? Can't we just disappear?"

"Trust me..." he murmurs, tucking my head under his chin, "I've seriously considered it. But you know we can't. We need to clear your name."

I sigh in acquiescence. "Yeah... I know... Would be nice, though."

"How 'bout this?" he says, entwining our hands again as we resume walking. "Once this stupid scandal's out of the way, I'll take you anywhere you wanna go. Just the two of us."

I feel my eyes light up. "Really?"

"Really, really."

A snort of mirth escapes me. "Did you just... quote Shrek at me?"

A smirk tugs at his mouth. "Maybe."

"You must really be serious then," I grin. "I didn't take you as the kind of guy who'd enjoy animated kids' movies."

"It was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid."

"Because it's funny?"

"Because it turns the classic fairytale formula on its head. The ogre gets the princess — not the prince. And she turns out to be an ogre as well. Made me feel like there was hope for us lowly commoners after all."

“To our unconventional happily-ever-after then!” I grin, clinking my waffle cone against his.

Polishing off our now very melted ice creams, we arrive onto a busy little street lined with shops. As we are weaving our way through the throng of locals and tourists, I give Drake's hand a tug.

He looks down at me questioningly.

"Could I run into one of the stores quickly? I'll be five, ten minutes max."

Drake glances at his watch. "Sure. Do you need me to come with you?"

"No, I'll be fine. I'm just after some yoga pants and maybe an exercise top. There's a place just there that sells them."

I hadn't thought to bring any sportswear with me from back home, but I want to grab something comfortable to wear for the upcoming self-defence training. And makes sense to do that here, instead of trying to sneak down to the capital without the paps noticing.

He nods in agreement. "I'll give you some Euros."

"No," I say quickly, catching his hand as he reaches towards his pocket. Looking up at him, I add, "Thank you, but you already paid for breakfast, and you wouldn't let me split the bill for lunch with you either. Plus, you drove all the way up to Paris to get me, and—"

"You saying I'm not allowed to treat the girl I love?"

I feel myself flush. "Well, if you really want to treat me, how about you get us some coffee and pastries to go? There was a bakery back there selling croissants that smelled amazing."

"Alright," he concedes, pulling me in for a quick kiss. "Meet back here in fifteen minutes."

"Sounds like a plan."

We part ways and I make my way into the sporting goods store I had espied. Stepping inside, I locate the women's section and quickly flick through the racks, picking up a pair of yoga pants, exercise shorts and a couple of sleeveless tops, as well a sports bra and a pair of sneakers. I end up spending a lot more than I initially planned, but at least I now had some activewear that should cover me for any and all eventualities.

When I step outside with my purchases, I find Drake already waiting for me with an iced coffee.

"They didn't have Frappuccinos, so I got you the next best thing," he says, handing me the takeaway cup.

"Thanks," I reply gratefully, reaching up to drop a kiss on his slightly scratchy cheek.

"Anytime,” he murmurs with a warm look. “Got everything you need?"

I nod, taking a long draw of the cold caffeine. I hadn't realised how thirsty I had gotten from walking around in the warm afternoon sunshine.

“Let’s get outta here, then.”

Drake leads us back to the car, where he opens the trunk for me, so I can stow my bag of shopping.

"Do you want me to drive some more?" I ask, shutting the trunk. "Seeing as the car's set up for me anyway at the moment?"

"I'm good," he replies, opening the driver's side door. "It's only about three hours to Ramsford from here."

We get in the car and after Drake quickly resets the seat and mirrors, we're pulling away.

"Thanks for the little side-trip," I say softly, reaching over to place my hand on his as it rested on the gear stick. "It was worth getting up at five in the morning for."

"Anytime," he replies, running his thumb over mine. "You know I'm never gonna say 'no' to an adventure with you."

I squeeze his hand. "Hopefully we can sneak away again at some point."

"I'm definitely planning on it."

The story continues in Chapter 5 - Sparks Fly

A/N: So... Before any gear-heads or BMW enthusiasts say anything, I know that all new BMWs technically have automatic transmission. And while you sometimes still have the option to put the car into a kind of manual drive, there is not actually much point in doing that b/c the technology that BMW puts into their steptronic gearbox is such that it actually shifts faster and more efficiently than even a professional can. But, I wrote the whole driving scene after the petrol station before I looked into how a modern BMW would drive and b/c I am the author, and this is a work of fiction, and I liked the way the scene played out, I decided not to change it (in my HC Drake has set up the car to be able to shift manually b/c that's how he likes to drive). So, it's staying the way it is!

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#harper gale #drake walker #drake x mc #less than noble intentions #the royal romance #trr fanfic #choices fic writers creations #Spotify

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carpememes · 2 years

Text

Spies in Disguise Starters

‘Feel free to change pronouns as needed.

“Sorry... Did you need that mug?”

“What’cha makin’, bud?”

“Yeah. Glitter makes people happy.”

“Remember how you told me not to take apart your cell phone?”

“What’s wrong with weird? The world needs weird.”

“One day your ideas- your gadgets- are gonna keep the world safe.”

“I promise, I’ll always have your back.”

“Eugh... He didn’t deserve that.”

“Hah. That’s better odds than I usually get.”

“I fly solo.”

“Guess it’s time to introduce myself.”

“Just 3 ounces of pressure to the vagus nerve and then... Look at your boy. Sleepy night-night!”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I’m gonna show you pain that you can’t imagine.”

“See, out there... I gotta fight fire with FIRE.”

“If I try and fight FIRE with GLITTER... I could get my face burned off.”

“Know what works even better? A GRENADE.”

“Boom. Mic drop.”

“I had jump through a helicopter!”

“It worked... It worked! IT WORKED!”

“Here’s what I need you to do. Pretend like you’re a normal person talking to a much cooler normal person.”

“Your body’s being flooded with endorphins to prepare you for the immense physical pain you’re about to experience.”

“YOU POISONED ME!”

“Look at you? I can’t NOT look at you!”

“You know what? You’re fired AGAIN. Double fired!”

“You know who needs a wingman? That couch.”

“I’m not trying to be a part of nobody’s flock.”

“I stepped in it..... I stepped in the goo.”

“Since when does your agency care about the many, many, many lives it destroys?”

“You said if I helped you, you’d let me go!”

“There’s no good guys or bad guys... Just people. And people are worth saving.”

“Evil doesn’t care that you’re NICE.”

“I watch good people be taken every day.”

“Show them what you can do and no one will ever call you weird again.”

“I’ve never caught anything in my whole life!”

“We’re gonna talk about you throwing me off that roof though.”

“Uh-uh-uh. That belongs to me.”

“You’re the hero right?”

“Oh, I’d love to have some fun.”

“Ah, life’s full of disappointment.”

“I’m naked. Little bit awkward.”

This is not the place for your weird gadgets!”

Finger guns “Pew”

“Sleepy night-night”

“You feel that dread? Oh, can you feel it? Rolling around you like a fog.”

“Ah.. He remembers.”

“I certainly never forgot that day.”

“You were MAGNIFICENT. You were a one man army.”

“A lot of witty catchphrases. And you had all these fancy toys that just went BOOM!”

“You took everything from me...”

“You hit me hard... I hit back harder.”

“Do not hurt this kid!”

“Don’t... Don’t do this.”

“Come on. We can break this cycle. No one else has to get hurt.”

“You should know better than anyone. Someone always gets hurt.”

“You brought your own soundtrack?”

“I’m gonna make this hurt!”

“We’re sitting ducks.”

“... Bubbles?”

“Oh you gotta let me try that.”

“Are those pigeons wearing tiny backpacks?”

“I call it ‘Fifty Shades of YAY’!”

“My face can’t take much more of this.”

“Your thing seems to be a lot easier than my thing.”

“Don’t let go. Please don’t let go.”

“If you shut ‘em down now, you’ll kill us both.”

“And you’re no killer.”

“... No... I’m a hugger.”

“What does internal bleeding feel like?”

“We took down the drones, beat the bad guy, saved countless lives. We are so getting our jobs back!”

“So... triple fired.”

“Yeah, man, that’s gotta be some kind of record.”

“Oh, right, yeah. The treason. Forgot about the treason.”

“Your mother would be so proud of you right now.”

“You kept all those people safe. And you did it your way.”

“Is this about the treason?”

“Looks like we’re gonna need some glitter.”

#sentence Starters #spies in disguise

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fanmoose12 · 4 years

Note

Found your account at almost 2AM and it was the first thing I thought of discovering in the morning. And look at me now, it's been almost an hour and I can't stop scrolling down cuz IT4S JUST SO AMAZING. Can i request some levihan angst AU about one of them being tortured then getting saved by the other one? Thank you for your magestic writing

ok, so it's set in modern setting but the events are similar to the uprising arc in canon???? anyways, i hope you like it, take care :)

Hange watched, disinterested, as a big burly man picked up a large knife and then crouched next to her.

“I would advise against it.” Hange noted nonchalantly.

The man stared at her, dumbfounded. “You would advise against what?”

“Doing that,” Hange nodded at the knife. “Hurting me.” She added, when she saw that her previous words didn’t help to clear the fog in the man’s eyes.

The man gave her a feral smile. “Really?” he cocked his head to the side. “Do tell me then why I shouldn’t hurt you.”

“Well, you do know who I’m married to, right?”

The man gave Hange another confused look, and Hange was honestly surprised by that. So he wasn’t one of the thugs, who kidnapped her so they could get their revenge on Levi? Was she kidnapped because someone actually needed her, and wasn’t just looking for the way to hurt Levi? Well, Hange thought to herself with a grin, that made this whole situation less humiliating. Even if Hange got caught like the biggest fucking idiot. Although, in her defense, she hadn’t been sleeping for the last two days, too engrossed in her research, and it made her less aware about her surroundings. However, Hange knew that this explanation wouldn’t work on Levi. Oh, her husband would get so furious, Hange could already picture his angry little face, with his eyes narrowed dangerously at her and his angry voice shouting at her to be more careful.

Hange returned her gaze to her kidnapper, squinting suspiciously at him. “You really don’t know?” she asked, just to be sure.

“Lady, I don’t give a fuck about who you are married to,” the man growled. “The only thing I care about is the location of Erwin Smith. Which I expect you to reveal for me.”

Hange wanted to shout in triumph. She loved Levi and their marriage was one of the best things that happened to her, but sometimes it was really hard being his wife. Levi was a cool strong man, who beat up bad guys on a daily basis, and Hange loved him for that! She admired his strength and his convictions and how he was willing to sacrifice even his life to help other people. But. Every fucking criminal in their city thought it would be wise to kidnap Levi Ackerman’s wife just so they could screw with him. And Hange really hated to be the damsel in distress. She knew how to defend herself, and she was fucking good at it, but, sometimes, well, sometimes, like in this particular instance, she became too absent-minded to notice two guys following her through the dark alley. She didn’t notice them until they jumped right onto her, pressing a chloroformed handkerchief to her nose. Ah, well, no big deal. Happens to everyone.

Hange gave the man a big, toothy smile. “Listen,” she began cheerfully. The man stared at her with wide eyes, obviously shocked by the sudden change in her behavior. “I would really, really, like to tell you about that, but,” if Hange’s hands weren’t bound behind her back, she would have shrugged, but now she could only bat her eyelashes at the man, feigning innocence. “Unfortunately, I can’t do that. That’s classified information.”

The man growled in frustration, and grabbing Hange by the hair, he punched her hard. Hange’s head lolled to her side, but surprisingly the blow didn’t hurt as much as she expected. Did he go easy on her?

“Tell me where Erwin Smith is!” The man demanded angrily. He held Hange’s shirt in his fists, putting her face close to his. As he began shouting at her, Hange felt the smell of his breath. Eugh, she thought, now she kinda understood why Levi was such a clean-freak. The man reeked and it was disgusting.

“I don’t know where he is!” Hange exclaimed, deciding to change the strategy. “You took the wrong person, I’m just a scientist, I’m not involved in Erwin’s secret plans!”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” the man shook her again, looking furiously at her. “I know who you are! I know everything about you!”

Hange smirked, cocking her head to the side and regarding the man with interest. “Do you?”

“You are Hange Zoe, a researcher and lead scientist in Erwin’s Smith agency called “Wings of Freedom”. You are his right-hand man and I’m sure he doesn’t need to tell you about his plans, as more than half of them are devised by you.”

Hange couldn’t lie to herself, she was impressed. She thought he was just an amateur, but this man actually knew a lot about her, in fact he knew too much.

“And yet you have no idea who my husband is,” Hange raised her head and looked at the celling. It was dump and leaking. “A grave mistake, really.” She sighed.

“I told you I don’t care--“

“But you should,” Hange cut him off. “If you value your life, of course.”

“Oh?” the man raised his eyebrow sarcastically. “Then please tell me who your husband is.”

Hange grinned at the man. “Does the man Levi Ackerman ring any bells to you?”

It was a fantastic sight. The man palled immediately, his eyes widening in shock and his gaze filling with fear.

Hange’s grin grew wider. “You know, how angry he would get? Oh, he would get so angry with you, he would be furious!” Hange snickered, watching how the man slowly swallowed. “No one likes when Levi gets angry, well, I do like it, but only because sex with angry Levi is amazing. But I don’t think you’ll enjoy what Levi would do to you. You stole his precious wife, after all, and believe me, he loves me very much.”

To Hange’s surprise, her threats had a diametrically different reaction. She probably went too far, because instead of being scared, the man, like a cornered animal, got angry. He grabbed Hange by her hair again and punched her for the second time. That hit was much stronger than the first one, splitting Hange’s lip and throwing the glasses off her face. They fell to the ground loudly, the sound of broken lenses filling the room.

“That was your second mistake,” she told him grimly, spitting out the blood in her mouth. “You broke my glasses and that was the third broken pair this month. Now you’ve made me angry too.”

"Oh, and what are you going to do?” the man gripped the knife in his hand tighter. “Need I to remind you that you are currently tied up to a pipe in my basement. You are bloodied, alone, and completely at my mercy. And besides,” the man made a show of looking around and squinting into darkness. “I can’t see your husband here, whoever he is, so you better be a good girl and just tell me the truth.”

Hange lowered her head, her hair falling to obscure her face. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because… Because then Erwin will get angry with me. And I hate when he does that. He always scolds me like some school teacher, like… like an angry math teacher!”

Hange suddenly remembered her high school math teacher, she had hated the man, and she was sure that the feeling was more than mutual. A sharp pain in her shoulder, however, reminded her that she was getting distracted.

Hange looked to her left and saw that the man’s big knife was now stuck in her shoulder. She gritted her teeth to stop herself from crying out. She was Hange fucking Zoe, she wouldn’t let some amateur asshole have the satisfaction of seeing her scream in pain.

“I’m fucking sick of you!” the man shouted. “Just tell me the information so I can finally kill you!”

Hange threw her head back and laughed. “Really shouldn’t have told me that. Why would I tell you anything now?”

The man tore his knife out of Hange’s skin. He began playing with its edge, regarding Hange with thoughtful eyes.

“I’ll give you one more chance,” the man said finally. “I’ll give you an hour, so you сould reconsider your answer. And I’ll give you a little cut,” he grinned, showing his knife. “To give you some motivation.”

Hange met his amused eyes with icy cold stare.

“You can do that,” she said in a low, dangerous voice, baring her bloodied teeth at the man. Her injured face and crazy eyes made her look almost feral and the man took a step back, terrified but unable to look away from Hange. What kind of man this Levi Ackerman was, if that scary woman was his wife? “You can also shoot me, strangle me, hit me again, whatever tortures your tiny mind comes up with, but no matter what you do, no matter how much you hurt me, I will never, ever betray Erwin’s trust.”

The man felt sweat gathering on his forehead and his hands began to shake. He gripped the handle of the knife harder. He was sure that whoever sat in front of him, it wasn’t just a woman. Looking at her, kneeling on the dirty floor of his basement, her eyes ablaze with fury, he wasn’t even sure she was a woman, that she was a human at all. She was a monster, a fucking demon, and he cursed himself for taking this job.

But there was nothing he could do. If her husband was even half as dangerous as this woman, it meant he had to finish his business quickly and then run fast and far. But before running away like a goddamn coward, though, he needed to give his boss the location of Erwin Smith.

So, holding his favorite knife securely in his grasp, he plumaged it deep into woman’s stomach. The sharp edge pierced her soft flesh like it was nothing. The woman kept looking at him with the same fierce glare, her face never changing, as though she didn’t even feel the pain.

The man staggered shakily to his feet, kicking woman’s leg with his as he stood over her.

“I’ll ask you again in an hour.” He promised before leaving her alone in the dark cold room.

Hange sat on the damp floor, surrounded by darkness. She wondered how much time has passed. To her it felt like ages went by since the man shut the door after himself, but surely it couldn’t be more than an hour? The blood was oozing from the wound on her stomach, forming a pool under her legs. Hange smirked grimly, things didn’t seem to go very smoothly for her right now.

Hange couldn’t help but wonder: where the fuck was Levi? Usually it didn’t take him a lot of time to find her, beat up all the bad guys, and then heroically save her, all the while grumbling about her stupidity.

Suddenly Hange remembered. The day before her kidnapping. She told Levi not to wait for her in the evening, saying that she had a deadline on her research project and there was a lot of work at the lab and she would probably sleep on the couch in her cabinet. But as Hange spent her day in the lab, it turned out that there weren’t many things left for her to check and re-check. Moblit volunteered to finish the rest and so Hange decided to surprise Levi and come home earlier.

Yeah, surprise him she did.

Feeling her head getting dizzy because of the blood loss, Hange wondered: could it be that Levi didn’t even notice her disappearance? A chill ran through her spine as Hange’s head filled with unwanted, panicked thoughts. She already lost a lot of blood, and even if she can survive that, the angered man would return and then surely kill her. She needed to think how to escape, because telling him about Erwin’s location was definitely out of question. Even the threat of death wouldn’t make Hange betray her friend.

Before Hange could start planning her escape, the door of the basement opened. After sitting so long in the dark, Hange was blinded by the bright light, coming from the corridor.

The man walked up to her slowly, taking pleasure in watching how pale Hange was and how labored her breaths were.

“Ah, you don’t look so good, honey,” the man smiled all too sweetly at Hange. He crouched next to her again, and his loyal knife was held tightly in his palm. “Do you want my help?”

Hange sneered at him. “Go fuck yourself.”

Suddenly, Hange heard something. The sound was quiet, almost silent, and the man probably didn’t hear it. But Hange did. And she recognized it immediately. After all, she would be a pretty bad wife, if she didn’t know her husband just by the sound of his footsteps.

The man didn’t notice anything, didn’t even seem to see the grin that spread at Hange’s lips. He raised his hand, as though to grab Hange by her chin. Levi was at him in a second, sizing his giant head in his hands and then quickly snapping his neck.

“Fucking scum.” Levi spat out. “Wanted to touch my wife with his filthy hands.”

Levi stared at the dead body for another second, before turning his attention to Hange.

“What the fuck, four-eyes?” Levi asked angrily as he went behind her back to untie her hands. “It’s the third kidnapping this month. The third. When will you get your head out of your ass and finally start noticing when people are following you?”

Hange chuckled, relief and happiness making her head spin. Or maybe it was the blood loss. Well, part of it was definitely due to the blood loss, but she was really happy to see Levi.

When Levi was done with the ropes, he took Hange’s wrists into his hands and gently rubbed the bruised skin. Still holding her hands into his, Levi came to sit in front of Hange.

His brows were furrowed in annoyance, as he was probably still angry at Hange’s carelessness, but his eyes showed how worried he was for her.

Levi’s breath hitched as he finally took notice of the extent of Hange’s injuries.

“It looks worse than it actually is,” Hange was quick to assure him. She didn’t want Levi to faint.

Slowly, with trembling hands Levi grabbed the end of Hange’s shirt and lifted it up. He cursed when he saw a wide gushing wound that ran through Hange’s stomach. His grip on her shirt tightened, and Levi turned to glare at the already dead man.

“Oi, Levi,” Hange gently touched his cheek, making him look at her. “He’s already dead and can’t do any harm to me. Besides, the wounds don't hurt that much.”

“Your hand is cold.” Levi grumbled.

“What?”

“Your hand is cold,” Levi repeated in the same gruff voice. “It’s always warm and now it’s cold, so don’t fucking tell me you are fine. If I hadn’t arrived in time, if I hadn’t called to check on you in the evening, you would have died, Hange.”

“But you arrived in time,” Hange gently smiled at her husband. “I’m still alive, because you saved me, just like you always do.”

“You saved me first.” Levi muttered under his breath and carefully approached Hange, kneeling beside her.

Hange put her hands around his neck, and then Levi put his hands under her knees, slowly lifting her up.

The moment Levi’s warmth enveloped her, Hange’s eyes closed and she drifted to sleep.

The first thing Hange noticed upon waking up was the feeling of someone’s hand tightly clutching hers. The second thing she felt was the smell of antiseptics. Judging by the soft bed and the annoying beeping of the machinery, Hange guessed she was in hospital.

She slowly opened her eyes and sat up. Her shoulder and stomach hurt a little, however the moment her eyes landed on the familiar mop of black hair, all uncomfortable feelings were replaced by immense love and adoration Hange felt for that man. With her free hand, Hange touched Levi’s head, her fingers immediately tangling in his soft locks. Levi’s head was on her lap, as he fell asleep in the hospital chair.

“Idiot,” Hange whispered fondly, looking at her husband. His whole body would be sore, when he wakes up, but Hange didn’t have the heart to disturb his peaceful slumber. It wasn’t often that Levi slept so soundly and the recent events probably tired him out.

“I tried to make him go home, but he didn’t listen.” Hange heard a familiar deep voice. She whipped her around and smiled when she saw who was sitting on the other side of her bed.

“Erwin!” Hange exclaimed, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible.

“You haven’t noticed me, until now, huh?” Erwin chuckled. “After so many years of marriage you two are still so in love with each other, it’s impressive. I tried so hard to send Levi home, but he stubbornly refused to leave your side. Even Moblit agreed to get some sleep and come back in the morning, but Levi didn’t budge.”

“Ah,” Hange gazed at her husband tenderly. “He sure is a stubborn one.”

“Don’t say it like you aren’t the same. I swear you two were made for each other.” Erwin gave her a fond look, before his eyes suddenly turned serious. “Forgive me, Hange,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I got you involved, and by trying to keep me safe you’ve got hurt.”

“Oi, stop it, Erwin,” Hange’s eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “I’m a big girl and I can handle myself. And you didn’t get me involved, I got involved myself, so don’t you even think of blaming yourself.” Hange looked sternly at Erwin. “I forbade it.”

Erwin laughed, his hand squeezing Hange’s shoulder with affection.

“Levi obviously doesn’t share your feelings. When he found what that guy was after, he got so angry with me, I thought I would lose another arm too.”

Hange looked away, embarrassed. “Sometimes he worries too much.”

“Because he loves you.” Erwin told her softly. “So do try to stay out of trouble, Hange. You don’t want to become a widow, because your husband had a heart attack, right?”

Hange laughed. “Yeah, that would be quite troublesome. I mean, it would take some time to find a new husband-”

“Oi!” Levi tightened his hold on Hange’s hand, as he raised his head and glared furiously at her. “What was that shit about a new husband?”

“Levi!” Hange cried out in surprise. “I thought you were asleep!”

“I was. Until you two started blubbering.”

“Were you eavesdropping on our conversation?” Hange asked with a sly smile.

Levi rolled his eyes. “I was just giving you two idiots some privacy to talk about your feelings and shit.” Then he narrowed his eyes at Hange. “And you’re avoiding the question, four-eyes.”

“What? It was just a joke, Levi!” Hange threw the hand, that wasn’t held in Levi’s grasp, in the air.

“Do you already have someone you’re planning to marry after my death?”

“Of course, not!”

Levi looked at Hange closely. “Is it Moblit?”

“And yep, it’s time to take my leave,” Erwin announced, rising up from his chair. Neither Hange, nor Levi paid any attention to him, too busy glaring at each other.

When Erwin disappeared behind the door, Levi huffed.

“Fine,” he said, sighing. “You can marry Moblit after my death. But only if he takes good care about you.”

Hange turned away from him, pouting. “You’re such an idiot, Levi.”

Levi moved closer to Hange, pressing a soft kiss on her cheek. “And yet you still love me.”

“Unfortunately, I do.” And even though, Hange’s voice was still annoyed, her eyes, when they finally looked at Levi, shined with love.

Levi stared at Hange’s face and his hands involuntarily clutched into fists.

“Is it that bad?” Hange whispered.

“Not worse than usual,” Levi replied absent-mindedly, his eyes tracing the bruises on Hange’s face. “I killed that bastard too quickly. Should have let him suffer for what he did to you.”

“You’ve killed him and saved me,” Hange said softly. “That’s enough, Levi.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Levi admitted.

He put his hand on Hange’s cheek, his thumb caressing her soft skin. Hange smiled at him and leaned into his touch.

“We will be fine, Levi.” Hange promised, looking deeply into Levi’s eyes.

“As long as we are together.” Levi agreed, placing a tender kiss to Hange’s lips.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction #levi x hange #levi and hange #levi ackerman #hange zoë #my fics #snk #snk fanfiction

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borealopelta · 3 years

Note

It is time for the final episodes! Commentary by yours truly

Ep 8 starting off as wonderful as the last 20 times I watched it, Mr Crozier’s little “that’s not how I see you 😳” when Mr Gender insults himself, and them stopping to have a few words while looking at each other… alack! The emotions!! They’re so gentle with each other in the way they talk and LOOK at each other and them calling each other brokfhsd…brothrjhvc…I still can’t say it…they look like they’re about to k*ss and then... cut to them running towards the camp like two little cartoon figures doing a stupid little cartoon dance

Back in the camp tragedy awaits (of course, what else could happen) and we’re back with our regularly scheduled programme of hating Native people and casual gore

And how could I forget Mr Hickey (I hate his face <3) back on his bullshit, interrupted by the man himself (with that I mean Mr Jopson the ultimate madlad) being sent out to the great emptiness to be confronted with his lies

Good Lord, Mr Bridgens and Mr Peglar standing in the tent, l-o-o-k-i-n-g [at bruises and being ever so gentle even in times of extreme hardship while Mr Collins eyes some bottles very conspiratorially, I wonder what’ll happen (except I don’t)] I did Not pick up on these two the first time around and it makes the things to come so much worse

Oh this show and it’s cruelly casual depiction of death and dying and illness and injuries and overall suffering (I have a whole lot of thoughts about that that I won’t put here but dear Jesus) It happens so often and is such an integral part of their everyday life that it seems so normal to have several dead people lying around, to have people fighting for their lives (looking at you Mr Gender and your St Sebastian looking face) eugh it pains me

Mr Goodsir saying his last words to Lady Silence pain me once more, he seems so desperate for her to stay and you can see the exact moment his oh so fragile heart breaks once more as she walks off into the fog…

Then we have the absolutely fantastic speeches by Mr Crozier and Mr Hickey, I’m vibrating from excitement at how petty these two are with each other

Aand they’re getting interrupted by the Collins one-man-rave. Oh and a giant spirit monster

More Gender scenes from the man himself (the gender is arson) His eyes are like black holes full of trauma…

Collins getting mauled to death and his soul sucked out, what a wonderful way to end an episode right? This got very long and I apologise for that but there are thoughts being thunk so watch out for more

Dearest boaty mcboatface i FORGOT to reply to these but I'm procrastinating on studying for my exam (its on friday!!! wtf is wrong with me!!!) so it's time for Them!

The Big Fitzier Scene is just. Yeah exactly what you said the next logical step was to make out. What's better than dying of scurvy but still snatching a smooch from your captain slash role model slash Beloved™???

I have to ask HOW you missed the bridglar tho like....they are So Tender you look at them and go 👀 a-HA you two are homosexuals!! I see! But dgbdhdndkd yeah everything hurts about them as well <3

What's an absolute kick in the chest with Silna's departure is that,,,, I can't say it without crying ANYWAY Goodsir apologizes to her. That scene fucking unzips me like he apologizes. GOD.

The whole Hickey thing is such a mess and i love it so much...the fog makes the whole mood muted somehow and everything feels urgent and dangerous like the moment before the storm where you're just waiting for that first crash of thunder. des voeux and [idk who the other guy is] convincing tozer to open the armory, little being pressured into greenlighting it, tommy armitage looking cute af (it's not important to the plot but it's important to ME), and then Irving's autopsy, Hodgson (boyfriend) confirming Hickey's lie, the whole got damn thing is just So Fucking Much. And hhhhhh the basis of me making james and dezza friends in every single au aka fitzjender suggesting des voeux to be put in charge of the armoury....he trusts him!!! and that makes me so sad ok.

anyway the hanging scene my beloved. mr jared harris deserves a thousand kisses for that speech his VOICE CRACKS man his voice cracks,,,,i can hear the "thAT was MR HickEY" in my head. also i love watching Tozer's face in that scene as he finds out about this stuff and you can see the horror on his face that hickey lied to him and murdered farr and Irving and alienated the Netsilik. and he was stupid enough to go along with it and now he'll die for it. as we all know i'm the #1 Tozer stannie round here so of course I'll yell abt him anyway. Hickey's speech too....hate the man amazed by his Skills of Manipulation. He talks in this super weird way when he's gaslight gatekeep girlbossing and you can't not listen to it,,,

Collins one-man-rave made me crack up but it really is that,,,the ensuing carnage is one of the worst/best scenes for being so graphic and just dealing with a bunch of side characters efficiently. Love diggle being just wrestled into a harness and made to haul with the mutineers, little and tozer's Talk™ (probably the basis of that ship gdhdhfjd), tommy hartnell the absolute lad being the Best Boy in the show and of course the jender and his rockets!!! he really went all out there <3

Collins' death and Tozer witnessing it is so....once again a thousand kisses to Walmart for using Microexpressions and Body Language because his little twitches and whatever the fuck his face does lives in my head rent free.

#long answer to a long ask i am SORRY i forgot #also dont take this as fact but iirc there was a rumour (or it was actually said in an interview or smth) that harris and menzies were told #to act like they're in love??? plus the i think we're supposed to make out thing #but again don't take this as fact #anyway episode 8 my beloved truly the most episode of all time #asked and answered #anonymous #⛵ anon #the terror #long post

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gaygraybles · 3 years

Note

DO ALL 50 😘💕💕💕💕✨

thank you dear, this was a pain and it wont be formatted correctly sue me

1. do you have a crush on anyone?

yes 👀

2. what’s your favorite candy?

i could eat a hundred reces cups in one sitting so

3. favorite love song?

hmmm is hello my old heart a love song

4. what was your first kiss like?

gay///

5. what was your last kiss like?

VERY gay

6. sexual/romantic orientation?

gay!

7. do you prefer poems or love letters?

i prefer love comics actually lmao

8. favorite fanfic trope?

oof i have not read fanfiction in a while

9. have you ever been in love?

maaaaaybe 👀 yes absolutely

10. favorite milkshake flavor?

CHOCOLATE

11. dinner dates or brunch dates?

dinner dont fucking wake me up for brunch thats my sleeping time its 2am right now

12. favorite flowers?

lilies are the prettiest for a bouquet, sunflowers make me happy tho

13. favorite perfume/cologne?

i have this cologne i got from hot topic like a million years ago it smells like angsty teenager i dont know if it smells good or just familiar

14. favorite candle scent?

midsummers night, yankee candle makes it it smells crisp

15. what’s your ideal first date?

so im invited to an estate at the top of a hill after dark because it cannot be accessed during the day, I assume its because its hosting another event but when i get there it almost seems as though nobody has lived in the house for a hundred years, and in fact im sure ive been there before and there was no house there at all, but here it stands in front of me in a thick fog while the sky threatens to unleash a torrential downpour that would give me no choice but to venture into the house accompanied or otherwise-im getting to the date part hold on-

16. favorite love story?

oh fuck have any of yall read the bone houses by emily lloyd jones? its not rlly a love story but its the only one i can think of rn

17. what’s the most attractive thing a person could wear?

pants that fit 😒

18. chocolate, vanilla, or red velvet?

red velvet but mostly because of the frosting

19. snow, rain, or sun?

rain!!! but only because i live somewhere thats sunny 350 days a year

20. sweetest romantic memory?

walking through a park while the sun was setting and there was snow on the ground and on everything

21. favorite dating sim (and favorite character)?

ok honestly i played that fuckin arcana game for a minute and i liked asra, the Aesthetic

22. fictional crushes?

well they only make orange and grape i think so any other flavor would be fictional

23. what’s your dream wedding like?

wouldnt u like to know, weather boy

24. what makes you blush?

goddamn everything, existing in a physical capacity

25. do you believe in love at first sight?

ehhhhh

26. do you believe in soulmates?

maybe

27. denim jackets, leather jackets, or bomber jackets?

leather jackets leather jackets

28. what’s your sign?

yield

29. are you single?

no!

30. do you prefer to charm, or be charmed?

i just bought a box of beads to make bracelets so i guess i like to charm but that doesnt mean im good at it

31. guitar or piano?

my fingers dont bend right to play the guitar otherwise i would, i can kinda play the piano tho

32. favorite romcom (or any romantic movie)?

eugh no

33. do you fall in love easily?

yes and no

34. valentine’s decorations: yay or nay?

that would take up so much timeee, and for what, what does anybody do on valentines day besides eat candy and do laundry

35. would you prefer to propose or be proposed to? what’s your dream proposal?

wouldnt YOU like to know, weather boy 👀

36. cloud gazing or star gazing?

star gazing, im not awake when the stars arent out

37. do you like to dance?

not in public

38. what’s your OTP?

me and @enbyblades

39. kittens or puppies?

KITTENS

40. coffee, hot chocolate, or tea?

i like cold coffee everything else hurts my face

41. favorite soda?

barqs superiority its rootbeer with caffeine bitches

42. do you prefer gazing wistfully out the window or lying dramatically over the sofa?

please let my lie down im so tired

43. favorite ABBA song?

dancing queen u know its a classic

44. fuck/marry/kill? (anons name 3 people of your choice)

you you and you i guess, watch out

45. favorite pajamas?

every year i buy valentines boxers and use them as pj shorts, those are comfy

46. favorite liquor?

screwball is really good but if i have shit to do ill take vodka

47. do you think about love a lot?

i think about my love a lot yes

48. a walk in the park or a walk on the beach?

park!!

49. hand kisses or nose kisses?

hand, ull smudge my glasses if u kiss my nose then ill have to clean them and its a whole thing

50. what’s your dreamhouse?

I GET A WHOLE HOUSE????? i want a desk and bookshelves so bad

#welp #sam

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alsanjxde · 3 years

Text

Miche Zacharius - Right person Wrong time

Chapter 2

❀ Y/N's POV ❀ ＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ Our first day at the scouts wasn't all that bad. It was shockingly fun, except for the fact that I was placed in squad Miche out of every squad I could have been put in it was squad Miche. It's been a few weeks since our first day. We have one more week of training then we're going on our first ever mission. I'm so anxious to find out what the titans look like. Oh well i'll just suck it up even if i am petrified of them. I look outside the window the early sun shining in it has to be about 5am? The scouts are definitely not what we all expected. We expected a high level intense 24/7 training schedule. But it's not all that, it's occasional fun training sessions- most of the time they're serious though-, it's making friends with the rest of the scouts. It's comforting like a second home if i had to call it something. Levi hates it here though. He finds it dirty and disgusting but that's just Levi. Me Isabel and Furlan love it here, we've made many friends. Fun fact: Me and Miche are actually getting closer; his sniffing habits are still questionable but it's dealable.

"Hey are you awake too?" Isabel yawns out. I sit up immediately "Yep yep, i'm awake, Good Morning." Isabel then gets out of bed and looks at me. "Up for some early training?" She says smiling ear to ear while looking smug. "Sure" I jump out from the top bunk. When i get down me and Isabel do our little handshake ending it with a fist bump and then a little shimmy. "Alright let's get ready" She yells excited. We both walk toward the wardrobe getting dressed while chatting about random things. Getting changed quickly Isabel randomly blurts out "Hey, you know you look tiny by Miche?" I just look at her confused with her random statement. "Pft, Well he is like 196cm" I state while laughing. "How do you know his height?" Isabel looks shocked but also weirdly interested. It scares me sending shivers down my spine. Eugh. "Is it not normal to know someone's height now or something?" I question while fixing up the straps of my uniform. "Huh? Oh no no nothing like that i'm just curious, the only people's heights i know are yours, Farlan's and Levi's." Isabel clears up while struggling with her straps. "Oh..Need some help with them?" I chuckle watching her struggle to tighten them to their needed size. "Thank you" She mumbles while crossing her arms in annoyance that she still has not got the hang of tightening the straps. "Okay well we won't be able to train on the titan cut outs so it'll just be manoeuvre practice" I state while helping her out, "Huh? Why?" "Oh you don't know that they said we can train on our own just without the cut outs." "Oh that's fine it's more fun like that, Oh! I know we can have a race!" Isabel jumps up as i just finish her straps. "Alright let's go" I shout as i run outside towards where the gear is kept.

Approaching our gear i notice one is missing someone else must be out here i wonder who, i forgot who keeps their gear near mine. I quickly throw the gear on and damn is it heavy. For all you thinking you could carry this oh you couldn't. Oh am i breaking the fourth wall? Oh sorry back to what was happening. "Hey! Are you ready?" Isabel yells out from the corner "Nearly" I reply rushing to put the gas canisters in the slots. I grab the handles/grips and exit to see Isabel on a tree ready waiting for me. "Wow you're so impatient man" I shake my head out shoot up into the same tree but just lower down. "Yeah i know. Okay ready for the race?" Isabel readies up. "Always" "3. 2. 1. GO!" We both shoot of in the same direction there clearly being a path to where we should go. I zoom past the trees doing spins and shit to keep my balance. The air flying through my hair but still keeping me fabulous.

Nearing the end of the race I hear someone else using the ODM gear other than me and Isabel they're getting closer to use but I just ignore it and keep going. "Hey! Wait for me!" Isabel yelps being far behind. "Isn't this a race?" I say confidently and continue forward not looking where i'm going. Smack. Ow. My head. I flew straight into a tree, just my luck. "Y/N!" Isabel calls out. My sight going blurry due to the concussion I gained. Another person landing near me and Isabel. Who is it? Their conversation becoming inaudible I slowly close my eyes and pass out.

❀ Isabels POV ❀ "Y/N" I called out seeing her hit the tree and then tumble down to the ground hitting her heard multiple times. She's so stupid sometimes. Phwoosh. Who's that? Oh Miche. So that's who the missing gear belonged to. I wonder what he was doing out here. I landed by Y/N so did he. "What happened?" he bluntly asked. "We were practicing and she hit her head i'll take her back to the dorms now, don't worry about it" I reply inching closer to Y/N and attempting to pick her up but failing due the my petite size. "Hey um, Miche is it? Could you help move Y/N to the dorm i can't pick her up." I ask nervously waiting to be turned down and told to do it myself. He just 'tsked' and picked her up "Show me the way" I nodded in reply and started heading towards the forest opening. Weird. Normally squad leaders would tell people to build more strength and courage. Huh? He must not be that bad.

We made it into the dorm and I took Y/N's gear off, bandaged her up and gave the gear to Miche so he could take it back "Thank you" I calmly said. He just nodded and left. He is so strange. I wonder when she'll wake up. I check her pulse just in case. She's alive good. I sigh and smile to myself "Oh you really are stupid sometimes"

Next week ❀ Y/N's POV ❀ Waking up i see the sunlight of midday. Oh i wasn't out that long then, I sit up and look around to see Levi and Furlan standing by the door. "Tsk, you're finally up" Levi rolled his eyes in annoyance. Finally? It hasn't even been that long. "It's been a week by the way" Furlan says scratching his neck. "Oh" Silence crowded the room. If it's been a week that means tomorrow is mission day. Of course i wake up the day before an important mission. I sigh getting up. "Is there training today" "Nope, we're just going through the mission plans" "Oh okay well can you two wait outside while i get changed please?" They both nod slowly taking themselves outside. What a long day this will be.

I exit the room into the hallway to see people staring at me from all places whispering 'She's finally woken up' 'i'm surprised she's not dead' I just sigh ignoring everyone and continue walking towards where we go through the plans. Reaching the room I wipe the small droplets of sweat off of my forehead and enter the room to be met with a wave of overwhelming silence. "Oh nice to see you again Y/N." Erwin said with a cold face but with good intentions. I just nod. This will be your last day on this Earth Mr.Erwin Smith.

The meeting coming to an end me Isabel, Furlan and Levi were placed in the same formation squad. Maybe they know our plan and want to see us try? No surely they can't. "Hey! We're placed in the same squad just us four that's cool" Furlan says as me him and Isabel look for Levi to make a statement. "That just makes our plan easier" Isabel states full of confidence. Opening a door to the rooftop we see Levi sitting there looking up at the moon. "Levi. We're not letting you go alone." Furlan states, "You said that when we first step outside it'll be the four of us together" Isabel continues crossing her arms full of sass. "Have you forgotten?" He really has nothing to sa- "It's the same. When you can't see the moon or stars, the sky up here is just the same as the sky down there." Levi bluntly murmurs in a state of despair. I'm confusion me Isabel and Furlan look up to see the grey clouds storming the Navy blue night sky. "The colour of the sky, sure. But-" "But it's different" Isabel cuts in. Levi turns around and looks at her giving her a 'what' look. "We know that there's no ceiling. It's completely different!" Isabel continues her words full of hope "That's right. The sky is endless." Furlan says Isabel's words rubbing off on him. "It may be just as dark, but it's far different from underground." I say softly trying to be involved. "Look!" Isabel shouts looking up at the sky causing Levi to turn back around. "The moon is so bright!" she continues. "Right?" She asks Levi while taking a seat next to him; me and Furlan joining them. "There's a difference isn't it there?" I jump in. "Yeah. We're not underground." Furlan inputs looking back up the rest of us doing the same. "We'll never go back down there." "He's right, Bro. The four of us pulled through, right?" Isabel questions. "It'll be the same with the titans." I add. "Let's do this together" "Levi, believe in us" Furlan states his words depending on the future that lies upon the next day. Levi in a state of panic looks around and then back up at the stars looking lost and hopeless. "Alright. I'll believe in you." Levi states while subtly smiling. "Yay!" Isabel squeals "Bro sure is a stubborn one, Isn't he?"

The next day On our horses on the battle field out first official mission. The nausea from the anxiety boiling up inside of me. I'll be fine. It'll be okay. We'll make it out alive. Me, Furlan, Isabel and Levi following other riding into the horizon ahead, just about visible as fog slowly storms it up. 2 titans come running towards us a 4 and 7 metre. Me and Levi jump off of our horses and slice the napes. Easy. "Good job!" Isabel compliments. Levi just nods. "It's time we split up we'll meet back up when the mission is done" Levi says fully immersed into the mood. "Good luck!" Isabel and Furlan state moving further and further away from us.

The fog impairing our vision. The only visible things around us are each other. I feel the nausea rising over me again. "Tsk, they can't have gotten that far can they." Levi grumbles. Suddenly me and him fall to the ground caused by our horses tripping over. We sit up look around. No. That can't be it just can't be. Isabel's head. It's lying there. Body-less. Her eyes drained of any life. In front of us we see a titan with someone in it's mouth please don't be- Furlan. No. I scream. Letting everything out i just scream. They can't be dead. No. I don't believe it. Levi next to me, I hear his little gasps of hurt and sorrow. He gets up full of rage and avenges our friends as best as he could. Slicing the titan to pieces, putting it through pain and torture before slowly slicing the nape. The titans body landing next to me and near Isabel's head. They're dead. Levi lands next to me standing there staring down just letting the tears fall.

The storm finally cleared up after 10 minutes. I'm still on the floor crying my eyes out. I moved away from the scene a bit. I couldn't bare to see it any longer than i saw it. Erwin, Miche and Hanji come out way. "Only two left, pathetic." Erwin says. In a fit of rage me and Levi go to attack him however i'm held back by someone. Miche. "Let go of me" I whisper. He just shakes his head and keeps me back while Erwin has Levi's sword gripped in his bare hand letting himself be cut. "You know our plan all along didn't you? Why didn't you stop us?" Levi says his eyes full of hatred for the one man stood in front of him. I turn around in Miche's grasp not wanting to see the scene infront of me unfold. He moves so he is kind of hugging me. I give into his embrace and just sob on his shoulder while he's giving little hushes as if he's giving a sign that 'It'll all be okay'.

(A/N: I am really really skeptical about how this has turned out. I haven't proof read it yet but i will soon. I'm sorry for the longish wait i have been busy struggling with other things but i hope you enjoy this ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ I read through it and corrected a few things so it should be good now ♡'･ᴗ･'♡)

#miche zacharias #miche x reader #aot x reader #aot fanfiction #aot #attack on titan #soft #angst #fluff

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fiiimbulvetr · 4 years

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Spies in Disguise Starters

‘Feel free to change pronouns as needed.

“Sorry... Did you need that mug?”

“What’cha makin’, bud?”

“Yeah. Glitter makes people happy.”

“Remember how you told me not to take apart your cell phone?”

“What’s wrong with weird? The world needs weird.”

“One day your ideas- your gadgets- are gonna keep the world safe.”

“I promise, I’ll always have your back.”

“Eugh... He didn’t deserve that.”

“Hah. That’s better odds than I usually get.”

“I fly solo.”

“Guess it’s time to introduce myself.”

“Just 3 ounces of pressure to the vagus nerve and then... Look at your boy. Sleepy night-night!”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I’m gonna show you pain that you can’t imagine.”

“See, out there... I gotta fight fire with FIRE.”

“If I try and fight FIRE with GLITTER... I could get my face burned off.”

“Know what works even better? A GRENADE.”

“Boom. Mic drop.”

“I had jump through a helicopter!”

“It worked... It worked! IT WORKED!”

“Here’s what I need you to do. Pretend like you’re a normal person talking to a much cooler normal person.”

“Your body’s being flooded with endorphins to prepare you for the immense physical pain you’re about to experience.”

“YOU POISONED ME!”

“Look at you? I can’t NOT look at you!”

“You know what? You’re fired AGAIN. Double fired!”

“You know who needs a wingman? That couch.”

“I’m not trying to be a part of nobody’s flock.”

“I stepped in it..... I stepped in the goo.”

“Since when does your agency care about the many, many, many lives it destroys?”

“You said if I helped you, you’d let me go!”

“There’s no good guys or bad guys... Just people. And people are worth saving.”

“Evil doesn’t care that you’re NICE.”

“I watch good people be taken every day.”

“Show them what you can do and no one will ever call you weird again.”

“I’ve never caught anything in my whole life!”

“We’re gonna talk about you throwing me off that roof though.”

“Uh-uh-uh. That belongs to me.”

“You’re the hero right?”

“Oh, I’d love to have some fun.”

“Ah, life’s full of disappointment.”

“I’m naked. Little bit awkward.”

This is not the place for your weird gadgets!”

Finger guns “Pew”

“Sleepy night-night”

“You feel that dread? Oh, can you feel it? Rolling around you like a fog.”

“Ah.. He remembers.”

“I certainly never forgot that day.”

“You were MAGNIFICENT. You were a one man army.”

“A lot of witty catchphrases. And you had all these fancy toys that just went BOOM!”

“You took everything from me...”

“You hit me hard... I hit bad harder.”

“Do not hurt this kid!”

“Don’t... Don’t do this.”

“Come on. We can break this cycle. No one else has to get hurt.”

“You should know better than anyone. Someone always gets hurt.”

“You brought your own soundtrack?”

“I’m gonna make this hurt!”

“We’re sitting ducks.”

“... Bubbles?”

“Oh you gotta let me try that.”

“Are those pigeons wearing tiny backpacks?”

“I call it ‘Fifty Shades of YAY’!”

“My face can’t take much more of this.”

“Your thing seems to be a lot easier than my thing.”

“Don’t let go. Please don’t let go.”

“If you shut ‘em down now, you’ll kill us both.”

“And you’re no killer.”

“... No... I’m a hugger.”

“What does internal bleeding feel like?”

“We took down the drones, beat the bad guy, saved countless lives. We are so getting our jobs back!”

“So... triple fired.”

“Yeah, man, that’s gotta be some kind of record.”

“Oh, right, yeah. The treason. Forgot about the treason.”

“Your mother would be so proud of you right now.”

“You kept all those people safe. And you did it your way.”

“Is this about the treason?”

“Looks like we’re gonna need some glitter.”

#listen... I needed it #rp starters #ok to reblog

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growingstrongorsomething · 5 years

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1. A Letter to Future Aliens

Original Prompt:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/b0pesi/wp_all_humans_on_earth_voted_to_assign_you_the/ “Now, we will turn to New York City, where United Nations assembly are reviewing letters and emails from the shortlisted candidates.”

My family are watching the news stream live from my computer. We lounged about in front of the computer, as it is placed on a coffee table. We aren’t very rich, but I managed to turn a small profit from blogs and Youtube channels. Truth be told, there are also a lot of professional writers, journalists, and philosophers sending their applications. Their names are listed on UN website, and my name is the 1065th.

“Thank you, Azizah. As you can see, the world leaders are busy reviewing the papers. I was told that eloquence of writing isn’t the only prerequisite to be selected. Prospective writers to this letter must also have active participation in aiding the hardcore poor and marginalised communities throughout the whole world.”

“The list will further be shortlisted to fifty best choices, and anyone throughout the whole world are free to vote for the best writer.”

My younger brother lies down on the tiled floor with a huff. “Mom, it’s boring. Why do I have to watch this?”

My mother lightly grabs his head and squeeze it a bit. “So that you know how the world works.”

The wait is filled with speculations by some experts thinking who could be the chosen fifty. Many names are from Africa, some from Europe, and a few from China. I think JK Rowling are also discussed, though I am more surprised that George R.R Martin aren’t included. He’s a sci-fi writer, he should at least be considered.

“The results are in, Azizah. We are now ready to broadcast the names chosen to be voted on by the Earth’s population.”

And the names are read aloud by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He says many names I don’t know about, and a short list of their achievements, which I often see on Facebook or Instagram. The news is getting long, and my mother is already at the kitchen getting some fried banana fritters and black coffee to pass the time.

It took an hour before we turn our heads back to the stream. There has already been thirty names. “And for the thirty first name, we choose Januarius anak Idrus, a citizen of Malaysia. Born in Sabah, he has aided a lot in educating stateless children through the use of wireless connections and even funded internet availability for extremely rural areas.”

They took my bluff! It’s just my grandfather’s village. But my parents are esctatic, hugging me tightly and do I hear a sniffle?

The streaming continues, but my family are already too excited to bother.

“Start writing the letter, son. We will see Januarius name soar across the world!”

“We will help you all we can, but be quick, later people will beat you to it.”

I sleep soundly, too tired to take in the stress. My parents are laughing and loving each other throughout the night.

My younger brother wakes me up the next day. “Jan, jan, wake up!”

“What, why Felis?”

“Newspeople are coming! They want to interview you!”

The journalist is a petite woman. She sits in a single person sofa, comfortable in her seat. I on the other hand, is rummaging through my hair so it will look a bit more presentable.

The interview is embarassing. I barely have anything to say, haven’t researched anything, and worst of all, my face is sagging like rumpled carpet when they took my picture! By the way, what should I write anyway?

“Hello, my name is Maisarah. So, is your name is Januarius bin Idrus?”

“No, it’s Januarius anak Idrus.”

“I would like to ask a few questions. Firstly, how did you knew about the contest to write a letter to the aliens?”

“Well, me and my friends are browsing the internet when one of them, Saiful, shows me a Facebook post. It shows the contest, but I thought it’s a joke. So I write just a generic email and send it to them. World peace, economic equality, less pollution, all the good stuff. I also have to send some resume, so I hope I got at least a job out of it.”

“Will you send the same letter to the aliens, or will you rewrite a new letter?”

“I think I will have to. Apparently NASA does have correspondences with the aliens, but I have no idea what exactly they are offering.”

“Will you be consulting anyone to help with writing this letter?”

“Of course! I have no idea how to start this time. I don’t think I can answer you any more questions, since I haven’t prepared anything yet.”

“That’s alright. Will you let us interview you, next time?”

“Yes, yes please. Please give me a call first.” I wrote down my phone number and give it to her.

Now the problem of what to write is getting bigger in my head. Should I ask for world peace? End of poverty? Beginning of space travel? The silent whirr of my laptop fan might as well be a loud engine hum. Everyone is at work or school, and I am here staring at a blank Word document. Might as well call a friend.

“Hey, Hisham, can I go to your place?”

His place is a school. Not of brick and fresh paint and strong zinc roof. But of throwaway planks and board, lacking paint and old zinc roof with holes here and there. But the school is filled with children singing the alphabet song. Hisham is leading them, his smile shining bright from half a mile away.

I waited until his class is over. Hisham grabs me by the shoulder. “Hey, you have become fatter! How have you been?”

“Been healthier every day. Have you started building new school?”

Hisham leads me to a chair by a table. “We have just contacted a social advocacy group willing to help build one.”

We ate a few fried banana fritters as we chat. Hisham keeps spilling the beans. “Of course, we do have our own money, and have free volunteers too. You want to join?”

I would like to reject, but I haven’t been carpenting for weeks. “I will when I am free. If you are about to start, tell me.”

“Of course. But, what brings you here?”

I don’t know my face is obviously showing when asking for something. “Well, I have been chosen by the UN to write a letter to aliens, asking for help.”

Hisham pours more coffee to his cup. “You know our situation here in Sabah. You should speak about that.”

“But I am representing the Earth, not just Sabah.”

“There are many marginalised people. Stateless, minorities, hardcore poor, culturally oppressed, you name it. I do my little part. You expand it to the whole world.”

The visit is good, but I am not satisfied with the answer I get here. I walk back to my car when a kid is cupping his hands to me. I give her a ringgit. She shouted, and a horde of children suddenly appeared. At least, I still have enough money left for oil.

And now I am staring at the damn blank page. I try typing something. “Dear aliens ...”

No, too darling.

“To aliens of Planet Xenoniah I humbly...”

Eugh, grovelling.

“Greetings to leaders of Planet Xenoniah ...”

Isn’t that too formal? Am I supposed to be formal?

I am about to ram my head to the tabletop, but laptop is in my way. So I move it forward, then introduces head to desk. The pain is fogging my sight even more. Mentally, fortunately. My eyesight is still as clear as it always been without glasses.

Searching Google about child education is quite a chore. Half of it is about how to develop a child’s mind. Which is rather useless as my little brother taught me middle-school level math. Then I searched about education for stateless and hardcore poor in countries throughout the world.

Many groups are already working on it. One research even shows how older children can help younger children learn English with apps and videos. But there is something missing in all this.

I try to find what the children do or became after they’re adults. There seems to be some classes on entrepreneurship for adults, but they seem to not bring the children in.

The next day, my handphone falls on my head. It should only be a small nuisance, if not for the fact that my handphone is the brick phone Energizer recently launched.

“Hello?” I can feel the heft of my phone on my forehead and cheek.

“Yo, congrats on your short selection! Have you wrote something?”

“Is that Eric over there?” I look at my phone screen. “Of course you are. I have no idea really.”

“Have you tried writing about poverty?”

“Poverty’s too big an issue. Can you be more specific?”

“You know microloans? Try to ask for that.”

“You want me to write a letter so they lend us a hundred dollars?”

My phone erupts with laughter of many people from the other side. “Try that. For the lols.”

“Heh, lol.”

Eric talks some more about how the soup kitchen he is running isn’t actually lacking in potential food waste. But they lack cars or trucks to carry all the leftover food quickly before they become prime source for compost.

“So I should ask for faster than light travel?”

“Wormholes. Something like Doraemon’s As-You-Like Door.” Eric is referring to a door gadget which opens immediately to a new location.

“Well, I try to make it sound formal.”

My parents return home for lunch, as usual. My sister cooked them some chicken in soy sauce and onions. And the vegetables are sauteed cabbage. The smell is heavenly. And the lunch is somewhat calm.

My father breaks the silence. “Have you started writing?”

“Nah, I don’t know what to write.”

My mother swallows her rice. “Try writing for world peace.”

“Isn’t world peace up to us?”

My sister removes the chicken bones from the flesh. “Try asking for a lot of money to pay both sides to be at peace.”

“I don’t know, that makes us look very greedy.”

“You’re saying we aren’t?”

Well, now I have three ideas. Education for marginalised, wormholes, and money.

The next interview with the journalist comes a few days later.

Maisarah points the microphone a bit too close to me. I readjust myself to the back and she gives some distance. “Please tell us what your letter is about.”

“I want to ask for tools to build a type of school.”

“School?”

“Yes, it’s an odd school. Children went there to learn how to read, write, and count, the usual. But adults learn how to do crafts, such as carpentry, weaving, smithing. Some schools may even teach coding and business basics.”

“Don’t we have the same system here?”

“Well, the schools we have now are for the citizens of our countries. There is no infrastructure for the stateless of our countries. There are classes set up by social advocacy groups, but it’s for children and they don’t have enough funds to teach more people. There is no funds to buy tools and supplies to teach adults.”

“So, you want to ask for funding to build schools? Will it be any different from our system now?”

“Yes, for one thing, we receive outside funding, literally! Secondly, the schools are going to be borderless. Any stateless people or hardcore poor can join in from anywhere.”

“Anywhere, even from other countries?”

“Yes.”

“But, how will they travel to the schools?”

“For one thing, we know Planet Xenoniah can make wormholes. Set up some wormhole doors so people can travel from their villages to schools by literally walking a few hundred meters away.”

We don’t watch the final selection on TV, as we are invited cordially to Geneva to witness the event. At the end, the judges decide to compile three most popular letters to one. The end result is this:

“To our friend, the leader of Planet Xenoniah Coalition, Babluk Xinaphah Waristi,

We thank you for your offer of help, and we have prepared with our requests.

Firstly, we ask for wormhole technology, some funding and supplies, to build schools to teach our marginalised people skills and carfts to help them provide their communities with jobs and products.

Secondly, we would like to learn your knowledge on terraforming. We have chosen our first step to be the atmosphere of Venus, while we build Mars to be more Earthlike. Hopefully, we could expand the reach of our species and provide more resources for further advances.

Thirdly, we would like to visit your fine planet and host you. We would like to know how your culture functions and the history.

We thank you again for your aid, and may our alliance blossoms for as long as our civilisations exist.”

For my problem, I get a goodie bag with some Swiss chocolate and kopi luwak. And the letter will be sent by Chris Pratt, aboard a provided spaceship. Unfortunately, he’s just the one to give the letter at a mothership stationed near Jupiter, not the one actually piloting it. That is other people’s job.

I never think about the letter after that day. I am still rather jobless, helping around with social advocacy groups, and sometimes teaching at Hisham’s school. But one day, just as I am watering the plants, there is a sudden flash of light. Hisham steps out of the light, which have transformed to a gate.

“Hey, come! Class is about to begin!”

“You better start paying me.”

“How does RM 3 000 a month sound?”

Well, I have no excuse now. I grab my wallet, phone, and some books. “Let’s go.”

#short story #r/writingprompts

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mindfulwrath · 6 years

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Onward

A BuzzFeed Unsolved Fanfic

A spirit can only move on when it has completed its unfinished business.

Or, it can't, because ghosts aren't real.

Words: 4,922 Warnings: Blood & gore, major character death Additional tags: Angst with a happy ending, character turned into a ghost, platonic Shane & Ryan

AO3 Link

"It's really kinda nice up here, don't you think?" Shane says, looking out over the vast moorlands. Moonlight glimmers off of brackish water, casts soft shadows across lumps of heather and gorse.

"You're insane," Ryan spits.

"What? You don't think it's nice? Just look at this view! It's lovely."

"It's creepy as fuck, aaaaaaand you're crazy."

"Okay, well have fun looking for ghosts while I'm enjoying the beautiful Scottish countryside."

"Yeah, thanks, I will," Ryan says under his breath, shaking his head. He raises his voice and speaks for the cameras. "Okay, so, here we are up on the battlements of Crathes Castle, uh, Shane is admiring the scenery, but we are hopefully gonna see something much more interesting. Now, the curator told us there'd been some restoration ongoing up here, so uh, watch your step, 'cuz . . . oh boy."

"We are pretty high up," says Shane, sticking his neck out to look over the parapet. Far below, there's a pale square of concrete, some outbuilding being redone after falling over. It's about the size of a postage stamp from this perspective.

"And when Shane's saying that, you know it's high."

"Hah-hah, the height jokes! Fruit so low-hanging, even you can reach it."

"Yep, sure, that's about what I expected from you. Anyway, let's see if we can find some ghosts."

"You do that, I'm just gonna hang out here and watch."

"Yeah, good, stay out of my way," says Ryan.

Shane spares a glance over his shoulder at the camera. He shakes his head. As Ryan starts up his customary shouting-at-nothing, Shane puts his elbows up on the parapet and leans back, settling in for the show.

Stone grinds on crumbling masonry. Ryan yelps. Shane flails at empty air.

"Whoah, fuck—"

There's no scream. There's a horrible, plunging sickness, and an instant of perfect clarity.

The second-to-last thing that goes through Shane's head is, Wouldn't it be ironic if—

The last thing is a four-foot piece of rebar.

It isn't surprising that the universe has a cruel sense of humor. That's been made evident since the dawn of time, in things like rosy-lipped batfish and mass-extinctions and the invention of capitalism. The Homers and Ovids of the world, the Shakespeares and Edgar Allen Poes, they might actually have gotten things kind of almost right—at least in that whoever's running things, they're 1. a poet, and 2. a bastard.

It is somewhat surprising to look down at his own dead body.

"Son of a bitch," he says.

His body settles, dripping blood. There's a lot of blood, and a lot of him is broken—shattered, really. A noise draws his attention upward, a shout and clamor. Shane can't make out what it is. The sound is distorted, and now that he's paying attention, everything else is, too. It's like a dreamscape, like someone took dozens of photographs over decades of time, printed them on transparencies and overlaid them. If he concentrates, he can pick out individual images and bring them to the forefront.

Something moves in the doorway. Shane can't quite focus on it. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. He's not sure, but he thinks he can hear screaming, and it stirs something in him and he doesn't like it. Fortunately, it goes away pretty quickly, and silence falls again.

"Well?" he calls out. "What now?"

The world does not answer.

"Do I have to stay here, or can I, like, go? Can I just go? 'Cuz uh, gotta tell you, I'm not really into the whole ghost-thing!"

Still, nothing. The distant sound of sirens drifts on the breeze. He looks down at his body and folds his arms.

"Oh, shit, I could go to my own funeral," he realizes. "Boy, that'd be a trip, huh?"

All's quiet on the moors, save for the approaching sirens. Shane glances over his shoulder. Out of curiosity, he wanders back to the camera crew. The bright lights leave the world in a haze, illuminating a sea of phantasmal cars, buses, carriages, horses, people. It's hard to focus on the ones that are here now, so much so that it gives Shane a killer headache.

Or maybe that's just the lingering memory of the rebar going through his skull. Could be either.

He finds Ryan huddled up in the back of the equipment van, a blanket around his shoulders and about six people clustered around him. He's shaking like crazy, his eyes wide and wild, and he's . . . he's. . . .

Sobbing.

He's explaining, to the crew, what happened. The words are a jumbled mess. Tears stream down his face. They're trying to comfort him, but they all look just as shell-shocked and sickened and scared. Somebody calls Ryan's girlfriend for him. Somebody else is on the phone with corporate, and someone's still talking to the emergency dispatcher, and Ryan—and Ryan is crying so hard he can't breathe. . . .

Shane backs away, slowly. He goes back to the shattered wreck of his own body, sits down on a chunk of stone that might have been dragged off two hundred years ago. It's less disturbing than the scene back at the van.

"Man, I look like a really fucked-up unicorn," he remarks. "I got brains comin' out the back of my head! That's no good!"

Nobody answers. Blue and red flashing lights crest the hill. Shane sighs and hangs his head.

"And here's me, talking to air again," he mutters. "Okay. So uh—here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna go do . . . other stuff. And not watch them take my body outta here, 'cuz that's gonna be gross. Eugh."

And he's not going to attend his own funeral, either, he decides, as he wanders down the hill away from the castle. He'd kind of assumed everybody else would be as cool with him dying as he was, that it would be no big deal, that it would be sad, but overall just another Thing That Happens. He doesn't want to see Ryan cry again. He doesn't want to see any of his other coworkers cry, either, his friends, or—God forbid—his parents. He doesn't want to be mourned.

It occurs to him about an hour later, as he's slogging through a thousand years of Scottish fen.

He is in an absolutely unique position to find out exactly where, and how many times, Ryan was wrong.

It's hard to gauge the passage of time, but it's probably been a few years, and Shane has learned something very important about ghosts: they don't happen where—or to whom—popular opinion had it.

The big places, the asylums and castles and manors, they're quiet, they're empty. Taverns can be a little bit more populous, although they really aren't any fun. Nobody's having a good time in this part of the afterlife, and most people are alone. He almost never sees anyone with a friend, and never a group of more than three. He's really hoping he never runs into anybody he knows, for . . . lots of reasons.

It's the mundane places that are really teeming, the streetcorners and back-alleys, the factories, the wilderness. And it's not the big people, either—not the mobsters and judges and doctors, but the urchins, the servants, the prostitutes, forgotten in life and forgotten in death. He made it back to America eventually, and the horrors that soaked the earth there made him sick. Not a square inch of all that once-beautiful land was free of blood. In places, it's like the earth itself has died. In places, he can see its ghosts, too.

One place he finds Ryan was right about is Salem.

There's an old house, well-kept, slightly more there than most other structures he finds, although he's sure he never saw it when he was alive. He climbs the steps. An old Black woman sits by the fire.

"Are you Tituba?" he asks. It's a stupid thing to say, but he hasn't said much in a long time. Most of the other ghosts don't like talking to him. For a minute, he thinks Tituba won't, either.

"I remember you," she says. "You were very rude."

"I guess I was," says Shane. "Uh . . . sorry."

She rocks her chair. The fire crackles, although it makes no warmth.

"Can I ask you something?" he says.

"If you want to know the answer."

"Why are you still here? Why haven't you gone . . . wherever dead people go?"

"I'm waiting," she says.

"For what?"

A shrug is all he gets.

"Well . . . good luck, I guess," he says. "I hope it comes to you, whatever it is."

He asks around a little more after that, although people who will talk to him are few and far between. Why are some of us here? It's obviously not everyone. Why are you here?

And he gets the same answer.

I'm waiting.

Time has passed. Shane's more well-traveled than he's ever been, but there's still a strange restlessness in him. Something, he feels, needs to be done, but he'll be damned if he knows what it is. It gets so bad that at one point he risks going to visit his own grave.

It's nice. The tombstone is nice. There's no epitaph, which is about what he wanted. Somebody's left flowers, although they're plastic.

"Kitchy," he says to no one. "Get that shit outta here."

"Plastic?"

Shane starts. There's another man, very old, loitering at a nearby grave. It's the first time someone's struck up a conversation with him, instead of the other way around.

"Uh . . . yeah," he says. The old man shakes his head.

"Kind gesture, but it does feel cheap, doesn't it."

"I guess."

"I always told them not to put plastic flowers on my grave, but some damn fool's done it anyway."

"Sucks. I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "No point in getting upset about it now. Say, do you know when the chariots or what-have-you come down?"

"I don't," Shane admits. "I've never seen 'em."

"Ah, what a shame. I'll wait, then. It's not like I have anything else to do."

"Right?" he says, chuckling, shaking his head.

Between one moment and the next, the old man disappears, like smoke, like fog. There's not even a shadow of him left, not in all the layers of history painted across the world.

Even without a choir of angels, or a blast of Hellfire, it's pretty obvious what just happened. Maybe neither of those things exist to happen, and the vanishing is all there is, after this.

Shane looks down at the flowers on his grave. He takes a deep breath.

"Okay," he says. "All right. I get it."

It's going to take a while to get to L.A., but he's got time.

Ryan's actually kind of doing okay. That's a pretty firm marker on how long Shane's been gone. Incredibly, he's still doing Unsolved, even the paranormal stuff. He's got a new guy working with him, too, although they're a little stilted and they have difficulty making each other laugh, even for the cameras. They seem like they're getting along okay, though. Ryan's definitely chilled out a lot since the last time Shane saw him. He's rusty on the ghost hunting.

It takes a while, takes a lot of following and waiting, but eventually Shane gets the chance to tag along on a trip.

"Man, this brings back some memories, huh," he says, meandering along behind Ryan as he creeps through some abandoned, burnt-out warehouse. "Look at you, though! You grew a big ol' spine since the last time I saw you."

Ryan doesn't respond, because of course he doesn't. He's looked right through Shane a dozen times already. Shane's not too bothered by it. Nobody's seen him in years.

The hunt goes like it always goes. Eventually Ryan and the new guy split up. The new guy goes first.

"This is so dumb," he mutters to the camera, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Right?" says Shane. He shakes his head. "Hey, take a little nap, buddy. It's nice! Nice little break from all the craziness."

The guy waits out his five minutes. Shane hangs out. Ryan comes in, trades some banter with the new guy, and is left alone.

Something about the way he moves makes Shane's mind come into sharper focus. The layered blur of the world grows clear in the darkness when Ryan turns out his flashlight.

"Oh, man," he whispers. "Okay. I'm getting chills already. Shit. Shi-hi-hit. No, I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm a big boy. I got my big boy pants on."

"Calm down, big boy, nobody's gonna hurt you," says Shane, rolling his eyes.

But something in him hurts. Something aches. He hasn't felt a damn thing in years, but suddenly, now, it's almost like being alive again. It's almost like he wants something again.

"All right," Ryan says, raising his voice. "So, uh, if there's anybody here with me, uh, my name is Ryan Bergara, I'm a—a paranormal investigator."

"Oh, huh, are you? Is that what you're calling it these days?" says Shane, folding his arms.

"Um . . . if there's anyone here, can you make a noise?"

"No, Ryan, I can't make a noise, because I'm a ghost, and I can't interact with the material world, ya big dummy. I'm made of ectoplasm, or—electromagnetism, or something, I don't actually know. But it doesn't touch stuff! Sometimes if I concentrate real hard, I can walk through walls!"

Ryan just stands and listens. His head swivels back and forth like a radar dish. His eyes are wide and bright. He swallows. He waits, and waits, and waits.

"Okay," he says to himself. "Okay, okay, that's fine, that's okay. Uh—okay, so if there's anybody here, uh, I'm gonna get out this little, uh, this little device. It's called a spirit-box."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Shane sighs, except that the heart he doesn't have anymore is suddenly up in his throat. "It's not gonna tell you anything. It's baloney."

Ryan takes it out and sets it down gingerly on the table, his breaths coming quick and panicky. "And, if you wanna talk to me, you can use this, okay?"

"What—how?" Shane cries. "How am I supposed to do anything with that hokey box?"

"So I'm gonna . . . turn this on, and you should be able to talk to me, through it. Okay, here we go."

The box squeals, then launches into its randomized chirping. Ryan gulps, his eyes flicking around the room. Shane kicks at the table the box sits on. His foot hits something, but Ryan doesn't react, so it probably wasn't the table-as-it-is he kicked, but the shadow of some past version from ten or twenty years ago.

"Okay, so . . . if there's anybody here with me, my name's Ryan. Can you say my name back to me?"

"Of course I can't, the stupid box doesn't do anything."

Ryan stands in silence, listening, listening. A squawk of static comes out of the box.

"What was that?" he says. "Can you say that again?"

"I said your stupid box doesn't do anything."

Choppy white noise, blips of music and talk shows and nothing.

"If there's somebody here with me, can you make a noise?" Ryan asks.

"No! I can't! Because I'm a ghost, you idiot!"

Ost oop it, goes the box. Ryan stiffens.

"What was that? Did you say something?"

"I did, but I didn't say it through your stupid box, which is fuckin' useless!"

Useless.

Ryan pales. His eyes go wide. His breath comes short. "Ohhhh man, okay. Okay. I'm freakin' out a little now. You—Eustice? Is that—is that your name? Eustice?"

Shane's too blind-sided to call him an idiot again. He seizes the spirit box and shakes it. It's like trying to shift a boulder. His voice cracks as he shouts.

"No! No, it's Shane, it's Shane Madej, tell him, tell him it's me!"

Eh ih-ih ee.

"I don't know what that was, I—I'm sorry. Could you repeat that, Eustice?"

"Shane! It's Shane! Ryan, come on, man!"

Chk chk chk chk shh sht cht chk.

"Okay, fuck this, I'm done," says Ryan, reaching for the box. "That's all, bye Eustice, we're done!"

In absolute, idiotic desperation, Shane screams, "Spaghetti!"

Spa-ghet-ti.

Ryan freezes.

"What did you just say?" he whispers.

"Spaghetti! Apple tater!"

Ap-ah t-t-r.

He's shaking so hard his hand blurs over the spirit-box. His breath mists in front of his face. There are tears in his eyes.

"Did you just say . . . apple tater?"

"Yes! I did, yes! Ryan, it's me! Come on, you stupid box, tell him it's me!"

Stih-up-p-p box.

All the blood drains from Ryan's face. He stops breathing. When he blinks, the tears slip out. When he speaks, it barely makes a sound, but Shane feels it, feels it like a punch to the chest, like a struck bell.

Shane?

The only thing he can do is shout, whoop at the top of his lungs and jump in the air. The spirit-box lets out an ungodly wail, and in an instant, Ryan slaps it off the table, screaming.

It smashes on the floor. The room goes silent.

"No," Ryan says, choked up. "Nope, no no no, fuck this, fuck it, I'm out, I'm done! Fuck everything about this!"

He beelines for the door, his knees wobbling. He's just a hair shy of a full-on sprint.

"Where are you going?" Shane demands, hurrying after him. "Hey, no, don't leave! You—you fraidy cat! Ryan! Ryan!"

But he's out of there, back to the noise and bright lights of the camera crew, where the world becomes less real, where Shane's head gets fuzzy and his focus scatters. He retreats back to the shadows, a sudden exhaustion overtaking him.

"Okay," he says to himself. "It's okay. First try's always gonna be . . . messy. And Ryan's an idiot, so—yeah. So yeah. Just gotta keep—keep on keepin' on, Shane. Chin up, buddy. We'll get there."

So of course, because the universe is a poet and a bastard, Ryan does the one thing Shane could never have predicted.

He gives up ghost-hunting.

Quits his job at BuzzFeed, in fact, and moves up north to the Klamaths, and lands a nice little job teaching film and creative writing at a community college. His girlfriend—now wife, apparently—doesn't comment on the fact that they have a night-light in the bedroom. They've probably already talked about it. Shane doesn't like it, the smug little bluebird shitfish, but he leaves it be. Some things are sacred, inviolable.

Anyway, he's got time.

Ryan's daughter first sees him when she turns three.

"Daddy Daddy!" she cries, barreling into his room at ass o'clock in the morning. "Daddy, there's a tall man in my room!"

"What?" he mumbles.

"A tall man, I saw him!"

Ryan comes to check. He turns the lights on. He looks right through Shane a dozen times as he searches the closet and under the bed and behind the lamp and everywhere.

"There's nobody here, sweetie," he says. "Go back to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she says.

He kisses her head and clicks the light back out. Shane follows him through the door, because—well, it's kind of weird, hanging out in a three-year-old's room. He was just a little spellbound at first, because it was Ryan's kid, and that's a bizarre thought even when he's looking right at it. But staying would be weird, so he doesn't stay.

But he does come back.

It's not like he's haunting Ryan, no, that's not what it's about. He mostly keeps to himself and doesn't bother anyone, but the kid is weirdly good at spotting him, and there's something about being seen that makes him feel . . . good? Important? Less dead and miserable and alone?

Daddy Daddy, the tall man came back. Daddy Daddy, I saw him by my closet. Daddy Daddy, he came to my tea party. Daddy Daddy, he moved my book!

Which, yes, he did, as ludicrous as it was. For lack of anything better to do with his time. If he focuses as hard as he can and pushes with all his might, sometimes, just a little bit, he can move things. Like a child's book, or a doll's hand, or maybe a door if the hinges are well-oiled. He tries not to do it when anybody's home, but he can't always tell. The kid's too good at seeing him, too, but at least she isn't scared. He tries to make sure she knows he's not there to hurt anybody, and although he's pretty sure she can't hear him, she seems to have gotten the message.

Ryan, maybe, didn't.

He gets more jittery. Lights stay on. There's a marked increase in the amount of religious iconography and (likely) holy water. He spends a lot of time on the computer, drinks a lot of coffee, falls behind on his teaching stuff.

One night, the wife and kid go out, and Ryan stays in. This is weird. Shane sticks around.

Ryan goes up to the kid's room, and he settles into the reading chair by her bed, and he turns out all the lights. The blue glow of his phone illuminates his face. He sits still for a long time, just breathing.

"Shane," he says. His voice shakes. "If you're here right now, could you give me a sign?"

The old desperation seizes him. He slaps the window blinds as hard as he can. They manage a faint, whispering sway. Ryan stiffens, takes a deep breath, lets it out again.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. I—I made this for you. I thought maybe it would help, if you're . . . if you're struggling to move on. I hope it helps you, or . . . something. So here it goes."

Another deep breath. Shane waits, pulled taut with anticipation. Ryan adjusts his glasses and looks down at the phone, and he starts to read.

The alien planet of Tomat-0. A rustbucket of an old spaceship sits on a landing pad, engines primed, ready to launch. A pair of plupples, which are alien fruits that are like plums, but cooler, and blue, carry a charismatic box of fries from the future and a sturdy can of good soup up the loading ramp.

"Plup, plup!" says one of the plupples.

"Plup, plup," the other agrees. Plupples are very stupid. However, unfortunately for our heroes, they are not so stupid that they cannot carry out orders from their dark master.

Shane can't believe his ears. He wanders across the room. Even if he had lungs, he wouldn't be able to breathe. He sits down on the bed near Ryan, pulls up his knees and wraps his arms around them. Ryan reads on.

"Wait just one plupping minute, there!" A voice rings out! The plupples halt. There, coming over the horizon of Tomat-0, a witch-hologram of corn riding upon a giant plupple comes charging to the rescue.

"Plup, plup!"

"Plup, plup, plup!"

The hologram corn, Maizey, arrives. "You put those critically-acclaimed and universally-beloved characters down, you Ewok ripoffs!"

"PLUP," the giant plupple plups in agreement.

"Whoah, hey, uh, whoah!" Garce, one of two intelligent plupples, emerges from the ship. "Hey, uh, wow, corn girl, how did you, uh, escape your deadly trial by combat, which you were sentenced to by the great Dr. Goondis, played by Ryan Steven Bergara?"

"I fought the beast and I won, as you can see, because I am riding it into battle with you little blue freaks. Also I ate Dr. Goondis, because we didn't have the time to cut up more VO files for him, so now he's dead."

"That makes perfect narrative sense, uh, but how did you find us?"

A flash of light, a creaky, cackling voice.

"Pam, Pam, kazam, it was me!" A tiny hotdog, about forty percent bigger than Jiminy Cricket, appears in a flash of witch-light on Maizey's corn shoulder. "I'm doing my part to atone for the evil I did before I died, even though it was totally sick and awesome!"

"That's understandable. But uh, what are you both going to do now?"

Maizey draws herself up tall, tall and proud atop the giant plupple. "We're going to take our friends back from you blue goons. We're going to travel back in time and save my witch-hologram wife, stop Pam from killing the hotdog family, the unbelievably rich and compelling characters of Dan, Rebecca, and Brandon, and creating the Gauntlet of Ultimate Power, or G.U.P.—"

"Gup! Gup! Gup!" plup the plupples.

Shane laughs. He puts a hand over his mouth, like Ryan's going to hear him or something, come over bashful and stop reading. Ryan doesn't hear him, though. He keeps going.

And that, dear listeners, esteemed fans of the Hotdaga, that is what they do. Together, Maizey and Pam, along with the un-drugged Gene and Mike Soup, they rout the plupples. They fix the Minestrone, that marvelous spacecraft, and equip it with the Bernoulli Converter to reach the wormhole in the Graxilon quadrant. Dear fans, they travel back in time, and stop the evil Pam from dumping that delicious party of wedding guests into the lava. By having Pam from the future eat herself. It's totally wicked awesome.

Maizey reunites with her witch-hologram french-fry wife, Gebra. Gene gets the Risky Fixin's band back together, for one last smash hit before the happily ever after you've all been waiting for. And here, my dear friends, here it is.

Music plays. It's stupid. It's the stupidest thing Shane has ever heard, and the production value is shit, and Ryan can't sing worth a damn, either.

For the next two minutes and eighteen seconds, he cries like a baby.

"And that's . . . it," says Ryan. He's crying too. "That's the thrilling conclusion to the Hot Dog Saga, or Hotdaga. It's . . . solved. I hope you—I hope you liked it."

"You nailed it, man," Shane says, choked up. "You got it. You nailed it. Shit, Ryan. Thank you."

Ryan sniffles. He wipes his face. He puts his phone down and sits in the dark.

"I don't wanna sound rude or anything, Shane, but . . . now could you please, please leave my family alone? Like, I miss you, but I just—I can't. I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry, man. I'm so fuckin' sorry for what happened."

"What? No, no no no, what are you talking about? Ryan, it wasn't your fault, Jesus!"

Ryan scrubs at his face, puts his head in his hands.

"Just please . . . please let me—just let me move on, too. I can't do this anymore."

"I—yeah," says Shane, shaken right down to his core, in so much pain he can barely hold himself together. "Yeah. Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't even think about . . . yeah. I'll go. I'll go."

He almost puts a hand on Ryan's shoulder, then thinks better of it. He walks out the door.

He doesn't look back.

About four months before Ryan's eightieth birthday, the Universe catches up with him.

Shane isn't sure how he knows, but he knows. He makes his way back to Crescent City, finds the hospital, the bed. It's bad. It's been bad for a long time.

It's not going to get better.

His daughter is with him that night, when the lights are dim and Shane doesn't have to fight so hard to stay present. She's middle-aged now. It's weird how fast five decades can slip by, when you spend them wandering around doing nothing.

Well, nothing except waiting.

"Sweetie, do you remember the Tall Man?" Ryan asks.

"My imaginary friend?" she asks. "Kinda. Why?"

"I think . . . I see him," says Ryan. "The Tall Man was always nice, wasn't he? He was always nice to you?"

"He was, Daddy. You were the only one who was worried about him."

"Good. Good. Because if he ever wasn't, I'm gonna . . . I'll kick his ass."

She laughs. Shane laughs.

They're stupid last words, but it's okay. He dies in his sleep about three hours later, when his daughter is sleeping, too.

Ryan takes a moment. He looks down at his body. He isn't terribly concerned.

"Huh," he says.

"'Bout sums it up, doesn't it."

Ryan turns, and he sees Shane. Shane waves.

"Hey," he says. "So uh . . . turns out you were right."

You were right.

It rings down through fifty years, reverberating, a struck bell, a punch in the chest.

You were right.

The corner of Ryan's old ghost mouth turns up, and then he smiles a big, wrinkly, toothy smile, and Shane knows, in that moment, that this is what he was waiting for.

"Damn right I was," says Ryan.

"So you uh . . . you got anything you wanna do, before . . . whatever's next?" Shane asks.

"Mm, maybe a couple things. Like, y'know, see all the haunted stuff, if it's actually haunted."

"Yeah, that's cool, that's cool. Pretty much what I did. You uh . . . you mind if I tag along?"

"Mind? No. Wouldn't have it any other way."

"The Ghoul Boys ride again," says Shane, smiling, even as he feels something begin to dissolve within him.

"Hell yeah," says Ryan.

He sticks out a hand, old and weathered. Shane shakes it. Ryan pulls him in and hugs him, so tight it threatens to pop him like a bubble.

"I'm sorry, Shane," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

Shane hugs him back.

"It wasn't your fault," he says. "It's okay."

From one moment to the next, with no choir of angels and no Hellfire—

In a flash of white—

They go onward.

#bfu fic #buzzfeed unsolved fanfic #shane & ryan #why yes this is the thing that made me cry #because i'm a big ol baby and i don't understand my own emotions #anyway i hope you like it #and if you don't #you can kiss my apple tater

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ronanwazlib · 6 years

Note

Er may I ask for wolfstar first date fluff?

(yes, of course, darling!)

They didn’t really tell anyone what had occurred during winter hols on the first day of 1977. Sirius, typically bursting to speak and bouncing with excited energy, should have presumably found this a difficult task. Maybe it was the… distraction… of a certain bookish, lanky wolf-boy, but he had no trouble at all keeping this information between them. In fact, the lack of guilt he had at keeping something so monumental from his fellow Marauders, hell, from his own brother, was starting to concern him a bit. It wasn’t that he wanted to avoid the topic (he was tired of feeling ashamed for his existence, and this was one thing he refused to let humiliate him in any way), but rather that anytime he got to bring it up in a serious way, meaning no mentions of pranks, no flirting with Mcgonagall, no pining for Evans, no sneaking snacks from the house elves to pacify Peter’s “night hunger,” and absolutely not during detention with Filch leering over their shoulders as they scrubbed cauldrons, or worse, tried to avoid certain death tramping around the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid on a wild nixie chase for Merlin knows what for Professor Whomever- Eugh- was dashed to bits when he opened his mouth. He’d try to force the words out, only to find himself incapable of speaking as he thought back to the night of New Year’s Eve: the four of them, sprawled out in the grass beneath blankets and warming charms and beside a warm fire on the Potter’s estate, the way it had crunched beneath his feet as he’d snuck off for a cigarette with the rest of them asleep, how Moony seemed to silently materialize from the smoke curling in wisps before him. They’d sat talking for maybe an hour in quiet whispers, Remus’ characteristically hoarse voice so soft it caused him to shiver more than the light snow still falling from the night sky. He wasn’t sure how it happened, really… Moony had asked him for a hit off his fag, he’d passed it over without complaint, the tips of his fingers brushing against the taller boy’s windblown cheeks as he did. Moony was freezing, and Sirius refused to ever have anything bad plague his Remus if it could be helped. One moment, he was pressing his own warm palms to Lupin’s cheeks, the next, in a moment of realization, they were staring at one another so intensely Sirius forgot how to breathe. They’d shifted closer, but he didn’t think much of it; that was their way. He and Moony had always been close in a way which was different from his camaraderie with James.

His love for James was loud, and brash, and reckless. It had to be displayed through elaborate pranks, through sarcastic jabs and shoving him into broom closets with Evans (only one time, to be fair, as she’d hexed him rather thoroughly after storming out in disgust), and-and odes proclaimed from tabletops across the Great Hall, arms slung around slumped shoulders that quickly turned into headlocks, turned endearments into insults and good-natured roughhousing. His friendship with Remus was nothing like that, aside from a healthy dose of sarcasm. It was quiet, subtle, natural even. He and Remus were a pair, the two of them together felt as necessary to the order of life as breathing. Remus’ long legs were the best to throw his head upon when dramatically sulking over exams, his nimble fingers the only ones left free throughout the day to absentmindedly card tangles from his dark hair. Moony’s bed was warmest after nightmares of his mother shouting evil things… unforgivable things and the green glare imprinted on the backs of his eyelids and pain, so so much pain. And although Moony might tease him, he never got tired of him, rather made time for him, even if that time was spent listening to Sirius ramble on about nothing while he wrote an essay one-handed, parchment splayed across Sirius’ back, who lay on his stomach in Remus’ lap, taking up most of the window seat in their dorm. They just… were. And Sirius had realized what this meant ages before when he considered that even though he loved Pete and James, it wasn’t in the way he loved Remus. Loving Remus was like loving the magic in his veins, or oxygen in the air. You did it without thinking because you couldn’t even consider it being gone.

They’d met eyes through the shadowy night, Sirius’ fingers tracing the lines of Remus’ cheekbones and jaw, a bit stubbly with the full just four days away and something in Remus’ gaze had lit up. Sirius could just see him, looking a bit smudgy with the smoke hanging from his parted mouth in the dark without the aid of werewolf vision to help him. And it certainly did, for Remus seemed to catch something in the minute details of expressions passing over Sirius’ face as he studied the boy before him. His eyes widened, then closed as he took a shuddering breath and leaned in.

“Sirius.” He’d murmured, and Black had the strangest feeling in his chest, as though he might cry from the intensity of that one sound coming off Remus’ tongue.

“Yeah?” His own speech was still a bit slurred from the firewhiskey bottle they’d nicked from Fleamont’s stores and passed between them as midnight grew ever closer.

Remus shook his head, seeming desperate, almost dazed. “Sirius.” He said again, and then they were kissing. His lips ghosted once across Black’s, who slid his hands back to cup the small curls at the nape of Lupin’s neck, drawing him in and their mouths meshed together, heavy, yet soft and Remus murmured his name again and again in the space between their lips. He wouldn’t stop saying his name even as he leaned in so far Sirius fell onto his back and pulled him closer, and held Remus to him so gently as though afraid to lose him the moment they opened their eyes again. When they parted, breathing each other’s fogged breaths in the cold, Lupin hovered over him, trembling slightly as he used his thumb to smooth the line of worry out of the panting boy’s high, aristocratic brow.

“Sirius.” He whispered again, but now his tone was entirely loving and Sirius was forced to look up at him. And there was Moony, same as ever, with a ridiculous blue knit cap upon his head, smiling down at him. “Happy New Year.”

A laugh bubbled out of his throat, and he shoved at Lupin, knocking him down… and on top of him. “You git! Midnight came almost two hours ago!” he hissed, rolling them onto their sides, jumper and jacket now littered with grass stalks.

Remus freed one hand to push a lock of hair back behind Sirius’ ear. “My apologies.”

Sirius felt warm all over. “I don’t think I can excuse such tardiness, but… You can make it up to me.”

And every time he tried to relate the story (a very, very abridged version of it) to his mates, he got to thinking about it, and then just stood there biting back a smile. It felt so intimate… So special. So theirs. He couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone else about it, not even Mckinnon when he could pry her away from Dorcas. He wanted to keep it between them. He told Moony about it, but the boy only chuckled at him.

“Padfoot, we’re together now.” He said simply. And it was true. Because they were… There was no other option after that. He and Remus just… had to be. “You’ve got to tell them eventually or sharing a dorm with us will get awkward… Besides, I don’t particularly fancy losing my chance at Head Boy because someone keeps using the map to find me and spirit me away to empty classrooms during my rounds.”

Sirius lobbed a chocolate wrapper at his head. “You didn’t even want to be a prefect, now you’re on about nabbing Head Boy, you tosser!”

Remus shrugged. “The bathroom has its perks, and it looks good on a resume. And it’s nice to know that I can give you detention.”

Sirius feigned shock and threw a pillow this time that Lupin expertly deflected with a flick of his wand. “As though you ever do? Sure, send your boyfriend off to polish desks or something with McGonagall when he could be alone with you. ” He snorted. Remus made a face at him.

“You’re not my boyfriend unless we have a proper date. A New Year’s snog in a field doesn’t count.” Remus pointed out, even though he was smiling.

“Fine then,” Sirius replied, hitting him with a charming grin. “Monsieur Moony, would you do me the honor of joining me for a romantic outing this Hogsmeade Weekend?” He finished with an outlandish flourish of the arm.

“The posh accent really ties it all together,” Remus said with a smirk, pretending to consider. “But yes, Pads, I’d love that.”

Sirius came closer, about to kiss the upturned corner of Lupin’s mouth, but Remus stopped him with one hand pressing on his chest. “Wait. We have got to tell James and Peter first. Or else they’d probably think we’re up to something and spy on us and I don’t fancy having to explain to Rosemerta why we suddenly decided to dine with a rat and a bloody stag at the next table.”

Padfoot laughed against Remus’ mouth, hands upon the sitting boy’s shoulders. “You know they’re bound to do that anyways. If I tell James, will you tell Peter?”

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