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blueberry-sunghoon · 3 years

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"#welovejay" | jay park

*in this story, you are also a member of enhypen. you and jay are the main characters (though the other members are there as well). minor swearing warning (one "hell", one "ass", one "shit"). the story is 4,357 words long. i really hope you like this story. if you do, leave a comment if you want😊*

The time was 8:45 PM. You and the other Enhypen members were at the dorm, sitting around in the living room. You were all exhausted after a particularly long day of practice.

“I’m starving but I’m too lazy to get up,” Ni-ki groaned.

“I’ll make us some ramen,” said Heeseung as he got off the couch and headed to the kitchen.

~~~

At 9:05, all of you were eating the ramen Heeseung made and you had broken off into conversations. Jake and Heeseung were talking to each other, Sunghoon and Sunoo were talking to each other, and you were talking to Jungwon and Ni-ki. In the middle of your conversation, you realized that Jay was the only one without anyone to talk to. Not only that, he wasn’t eating; he was just staring at his food and picking at it.

You tapped on Jay’s shoulder. “Jay,” you said. No reaction. You tapped his shoulder again. “Jay?”

“Huh?” he said, startled, and turned to look at you. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s alright,” you said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just tired.”

“Are you going to eat?”

Jay sighed. “I’m not really hungry.”

You could sense that something was wrong with Jay, but he obviously didn’t want to talk about it and you didn’t want to pry any further. “Okay then. Let me know if there’s anything you want to talk about.”

After that, the mood was somber and quiet for a few minutes, but eventually you all returned to your conversations. You were still worried about Jay, but you pushed your worries to the back of your mind.

When all of you (except Jay) finished eating, you decided you would clean up today since everyone was tired. As you started to collect everyone’s bowls, Jungwon stood up and said, “I can help with that.”

“No, that’s okay,” you said. “I can do it myself. You had a long day; you should rest.”

“But you’re tired too. You also had a long day,” Jungwon protested.

“Rest or I’ll take your elbows,” you said finally.

Jungwon chuckled to himself. “I guess if you put it that way. Are you sure you don't need any help?”

“Positive.”

~~~

Some time later, at 10:30, you were still cleaning up and washing the dishes when everyone (again, except for Jay) walked up to you. “Are you sure there’s nothing we can help with?” said Jake.

“100%. I’m completely fine,” you answered.

“Okay. Well, in that case, we’re all going to bed.”

“Okay. Goodnight guys. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Everyone waved to you, said goodnight, and walked out.

“Wait, Jungwon,” you whispered to him before he could go anywhere. He turned to face you. You motioned for him to come over and he did. “Have any of you tried talking to Jay? I think something is wrong and he isn’t telling us,” you said as you kept your voice at minimum volume.

Jungwon sighed. “Yeah, I thought so too. Sunoo and I tried talking to him but he wouldn’t even look at us. I think it’s best if we leave him alone for now.”

“I think so too,” you said defeatedly.

The room went silent for a few moments. Eventually Jungwon broke the silence and said, “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Goodnight.” Jungwon walked out of the kitchen and you kept cleaning the dishes. Eventually you finished, but you looked over at Jay in the living room and sighed in frustration when you realized you had forgotten to take his dish. You walked into the living room and you found him sitting on the couch scrolling through his phone. You then went to the small table where his food was and quietly asked, “Can I put this away?”

He didn’t look up from his phone; he just gave a silent nod.

So you took his dish back to the kitchen and put it in a food saver. Then you washed the bowl and went back to the living room to retrieve your phone. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Once again, Jay didn’t acknowledge you, and you felt absolutely defeated. You were about to head to your room when you heard Jay say something.

“I can’t do anything without being made fun of.”

You paused for a moment to think about what he could have meant. Who was he talking about? You sat down next to him. “Was it something I said?” you asked softly.

Jay shook his head. “No, it wasn’t you.” Jay handed you his phone and said, “Look.” Confused, you took his phone and you saw the selfie he had posted on Twitter earlier that day. He was in the practice room and he was making a peace sign. “You see it?” he said.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Look at the comments.”

You realized what was making him so upset when you scrolled through the comments. All the comments were making fun of his double-jointed fingers. “Oh my god,” you said in complete disbelief. “I’m so sorry, Jay.”

“Whatever,” Jay huffed. “It is what it is.”

You were at a loss for words, so the room went silent for a few moments. “I mean, does anyone take me seriously at all?! Literally everything I do, they find something to laugh at. I really spent three years as a trainee just to be someone’s meme.” Hearing his voice laced with sadness and anger broke your heart.

“Jay, you can’t focus on those comments; those aren’t real fans,” you tried to encourage him.

“I don't see anything else to focus on,” Jay said as he continued to scroll through the comments. “Do I even have real fans?”

“Jay, of course you do-”

He didn’t bother to let you finish your sentence. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said. Jay’s voice was shaky and you could tell he was about to cry. He didn’t want you to see him shed any tears, so he said, “I gotta go.” And just like that, he left.

The living room was now empty except for you, and all of a sudden your emotions hit you like a truck. You felt mostly angry, though. You were angry at those commenters, angry at the fact that Jay felt like he had no real fans, angry at yourself because you didn’t know how to make Jay feel better… tears formed in your eyes and you didn’t try to stop them. You just stared into space as they fell down your face.

You had to prove to Jay that he had real fans. Did you know how? No. Were you going to rest until you did it? Absolutely not.

~~~

The time was now 1:28 AM. Following the vow you made yourself that you wouldn’t rest until you found a way to make Jay feel better, you were still wide awake, laying on your bed in your room (you had a separate bedroom from the boys). Your mind was racing trying to come up with an idea, but unfortunately you were in a constant cycle of coming up with a new idea and then throwing it away once you saw a flaw in it.

“It’s useless,” you thought to yourself. You took your phone from under your pillow and logged in to your secret Tiktok account. Belift let you have a secret Tiktok account, and you were grateful for that. Your page looked like a fanpage like any other, but being able to communicate with your fans without them knowing it was y/n from Enhypen, becoming mutuals with them, and participating in the trends they made really made your day. These days, the Sunoo cult was going around, and it was funny to see that pretty much everyone had the same profile picture.

All of a sudden, a lightbulb went off in your head. What if I started something similar for Jay? You ran to Twitter to find the selfie Jay posted that day and downloaded it. Then you opened a photo editing app, added heart stickers and sparkles all around it, and put some text that said “We love Jay”. Going back to Tiktok, you switched your profile picture to the one you just made.

It looks good, you thought, but how am I going to spread it? It wouldn’t be an easy task, especially since the Sunoo cult was still raging in popularity and you didn’t have much of an audience on Tiktok (71 followers to be exact). The only way to quickly spread the word was to post a Tiktok and expose yourself as y/n from Enhypen… expose yourself as y/n from Enhypen? said your head. No way. You’ll get in hella trouble and you know it. You probably wouldn’t be allowed on your secret Tiktok anymore.

Do you have any better ideas? said your heart. This would be the fastest way to spread the message. You’re y/n from Enhypen for goodness’ sakes, the fans would listen to you in a heartbeat. Besides, you aren’t doing this for yourself. You’re doing it for Jay.

What your head said made sense, but you would rather help Jay than help yourself. Like you did most of the time, you took your heart’s word for it.

You tried to think of where to film your Tiktok. Your room was definitely not suitable. Unless you wanted to film yourself whispering, the boys would definitely hear you. Your room was adjacent to theirs, and the wall between the two rooms was thinner than a piece of paper… well, not that thin, but thin enough.

You also considered the living room, but that was also a no-go because anyone could just walk in and see what you were doing. Eventually you decided to film it outside on the porch. There’s no way anyone would be going outside at this time (except you, of course). You slowly crept out of your room, into the hallway, into the living room, careful so as to make as little noise as possible, and eventually out the front door. You took a deep breath of relief and waited for your pounding heart to return to its normal rhythm.

You turned on the light next to the door so you could see, and then you pulled out your phone and started to record. “Hey everyone, it’s y/n from Enhypen,” you started, but before you could continue you heard the front door open and there was Sunghoon.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

You panicked and your heart started to rush again. “I think the real question is, ‘What are you doing out here?’” you said, trying to laugh it off.

“I asked you first though,” Sunghoon said with a smirk. “But I’ll answer your question to humor you. I woke up and I was thirsty, so I made my way to the kitchen to get myself some water. But then I saw that the light outside was on, and I went to check it out. Then I saw you and asked you what you were doing out here.”

“Oh.”

“So what are you doing out here?”

“Well, um, I, you see, see I couldn’t sleep, right?” you answered, stumbling over your words. “So I came out here and started to record a -note video.”

You were sweating bullets and you could feel your heart going 100 miles per hour. By some miracle, though, Sunghoon couldn’t see how anxious you were and he said, “Okay then. Don't stay out too late. Don't forget we start shooting our music video in the afternoon, and we have to get some practice in before then.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

“See ya,” said Sunghoon as he waved goodbye and closed the door behind him.

That was way too close, you thought to yourself. I should hurry up and get this filmed before someone else sees me. Even though you were a K-pop idol and you were constantly in front of cameras, you still sometimes felt weird about recording yourself. It took a few takes, but you finally finished filming.

You turned off the light and quietly made your way back to your room so you could edit the video before posting it. You plopped yourself back on your bed and added subtitles to the video. Then you went to add a caption and some hashtags including #welovejay. Your thumb hovered over the “post” button and your head tried to interfere once again. y/n, before you post that, think! is it-

But you didn’t care for any of that; you posted the video without hesitation. Feeling better than you had all day, you decided it was time to get some shut-eye. You put your phone back under your pillow and let your eyes drift to a close.

~~~

Your alarm, which was “Fairy of Shampoo'' by TXT, went off at 7:15. You groaned because you didn’t want to wake up, but you liked the song so you didn’t turn off your alarm. Instead, you laid there with your eyes closed because you didn’t feel like opening them.

Then, all of a sudden you remembered the Tiktok you posted five hours earlier. You opened your eyes and feverishly opened Tiktok to see how the post did. You gasped when you saw that your Tiktok received 150,000 likes and over half a million views. Still in shock of how well your post did, you scrolled through the comments.

“changed my profile picture! #welovejay”

“OMG ALL THIS TIME I’VE BEEN MUTUALS WITH Y/N FROM ENHYPEN”

“b00sting so more people see this!!!”

You also saw that many of the people in the comments had the same profile picture you made. And #welovejay was used in over one million videos. It worked, you thought to yourself. It really worked! You were so happy that you started doing a little dancey-dance around your room. I can’t wait until Jay sees this.

~~~

At 10:45, all eight of you were in the practice room, taking a short break from practicing. You watched as Sunghoon and Sunoo made a Tiktok. They were doing the dance of “Me gustas tu” by Gfriend (Sunoo wouldn’t leave Sunghoon alone until he agreed to do it with him).

“Do you like this take?” asked Sunoo.

“It’s definitely better than the last one,” answered Sunghoon, “I think it’s okay to post.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

Sunghoon wrote the caption for the video (“Just so you all know, Sunoo made me do this”) and posted it.

“Did you post the video already?” said Jake. “I want to see the comments. Engene's comments crack me up.”

Sunoo motioned for him to come over. “Yeah, we just did. Come and see.”

Jake walked over to where Sunghoon and Sunoo were. Sunghoon pressed the “comments” button, and all three were shocked by what they saw.

“How come everyone in the comments has the same profile picture?” asked Jake.

“I don't know, but it spread pretty quickly. It hasn’t even been 24 hours since he posted this picture,” Sunoo remarked.

“What are you guys talking about?” you asked. You walked over to where the three were standing and looked at Sunghoon’s phone, and then you realized what they were talking about. A smile came across your face. “Wow, that’s really cool,” you said as if it wasn’t your doing. “Guys, you gotta come see this, this is really cool.”

“What is it?” asked Heeseung as he walked over with Jungwon and Ni-ki.

“Everyone has the same profile photo here,” Sunoo beamed.

Jay didn’t even bother walking over. If everyone has the same profile picture, there’s no way it’s me. It’s probably someone cute like Ni-ki. I’m the last person it could be. He stood aloof as he watched the seven of you gush over the picture.

“Jay-hyung, come see this!” said Jungwon.

Jay sighed and he reluctantly walked over. At least he could be happy for whoever’s picture it was instead of standing there jealous. Nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to see. The second he did, his smile was so huge and it wouldn’t come off his face even though he tried to hide it. “Oh my god,” he said in utter disbelief. “Sunghoon, can I see your phone?”

Sunghoon handed Jay his phone, and Jay kept scrolling and scrolling through the comments. “This is insane. Everyone really made me their profile picture.” Maybe I do have real fans.

“The text on the picture is so small though, I can’t read what it says,” said Jungwon.

“Me neither,” said Ni-ki, and everyone else agreed.

Without thinking, you blurted out the answer. “It says ‘We love Jay’.” The seven boys immediately looked at you, and you realized your mistake.

“How do you know? That text is way too small and none of us can read it,” Jungwon inquired.

You hesitated for a moment, and then you replied, “Well if you click on one of the profiles and click on the picture, you’ll be able to zoom in and see what the text says.”

“Is that how you found out what it says? Because none of us clicked on any of the profiles.”

Oh. You didn’t think about that. There was no way around it now. Guess it was time to tell them the truth. Just as you opened your mouth to speak, you heard the sound of your least favorite manager storming through the hallway and screaming, “PARK Y/N!!!”

“Holy shit, y/n,” said Ni-ki. “What did you do this time?”

You knew exactly what was about to happen. The manager burst through the door, anger scribbled all over her face. She walked over to where you were, and she pulled out her phone, revealing a screenshot of your Tiktok. She pointed the screen in your direction. “Park y/n,” she yelled in lower case, trying to calm herself down, “What. Is. This.”

The other seven pairs of eyes in the room were on you, expecting an answer. But you stayed silent.

The manager couldn’t keep her cool anymore. “Do you not understand Korean?? I asked you WHAT IS THIS???”

“A Tiktok,” you mumbled.

“Oh my goodness, y/n,” she started as she took a deep breath. “I’ve known you for eight long years, and of all of the ridiculous things you’ve done, this is by far the most audacious! What possessed you to do this, huh?! Do you remember the day I agreed to let you have a secret account?!”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Last I remember, the secret account was to be SECRET! Not known or not seen by the public. How could you go directly against our agreement?? Look at this - 700,000 likes! This was when I screenshotted it. Who KNOWS how many it could have now!”

700,000 likes? Wow, it blew up so much since I last checked. When I woke up it only had 150,000. You were so excited that your plan worked, and you didn’t realize that a tiny smile crept up on your face.

“YAH!” screamed the manager. “How can you be laughing right now?! Is that what you have to say for yourself?! Why did you even do this?!”

You took a deep breath to calm yourself down before you spoke. “Mrs. Choi, did you watch the video?”

“y/n, I don't give a rat’s ass what’s in your video. It's probably something stupid. There’s no reason you couldn’t have posted it on Enhypen’s official Tiktok.”

“I believe if you watch the video, you’ll understand why I posted it.”

“Nonsense,” she huffed as she opened Tiktok to find your video. “Let’s hear it.” The video started as she turned her volume all the way up.

“Hey, everyone, it’s y/n from Enhypen. Um, this has been my secret account for a while. I guess it won’t be much of a secret anymore after I post this, and I’ll more than likely get in trouble for it, but I don't care. What I need to say is that important. You guys know Jay. Well, he’s having a tough time and I really wanted to encourage him. Do you guys see my profile picture? I made it myself. If you guys want to do me a favor, you can change your profile picture to this so we can show Jay how much we love him. I’ll put the picture at the end so you can crop it. If you don't want to change your profile picture that’s completely fine; you can also help by boosting the video so more people see it. Like, comment, share/copy link, use the hashtag #welovejay, whatever you need to do. If I don't post again on here, it means I got in trouble. Engene, I’m counting on you. Hwaiting!”

As the video ended, Mrs. Choi’s anger faded away. “Oh,” she said softly. “Did any of you know about this?”

“Yes and no,” answered Jake. “Sunghoon and Sunoo just posted a Tiktok, and we saw that all of the commenters had the same profile picture, but we didn’t know that it was y/n who started it.”

“I need to see this,” said Mrs. Choi. She searched for Enhypen’s most recent Tiktok on her phone and looked through the comments. “You know what y/n?” she said as she looked up from her phone to face you, “I respect you for this. I’m sorry that I got so angry at you.”

“It’s okay,” you said.

“While I respect what you did, that doesn’t change the fact that you broke the agreement you and I had. I can’t let you go without consequences. Consider the secret Tiktok thing over. From now on, the only one you use is @enhypen. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you said.

“Good,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll see the eight of you later at the music video shoot.”

You all bowed as you said bye, and Mrs. Choi took her leave.

After she left, the room went silent. You could tell that everyone else was thinking about what just happened and you tried to divert their attention to something else. “Well, we should get back to practicing.”

“Not so fast,” said Heeseung. “y/n, you’re the one who started the Jay profile picture thing?”

You looked at him and nodded.

“Respect,” he said. He extended his fist and you gave him a fist bump, and you smiled.

Out of nowhere, Jay gave you a back hug and rested his head on your shoulder. “Guys, can I talk to y/n alone for a minute?”

“Yeah, of course. Take your time,” said Heeseung. At that, the boys left the practice room, leaving you and Jay alone.

“You really did that for me?” he said softly.

“Of course,” you said without hesitation as you turned to look at him. “That’s what friends are for. I saw the way your face lit up when you saw all those comments. That moment was priceless. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

“I suppose so.” You noticed that Jay’s voice was a bit shaky. Then you realized why when you saw tears roll down his face.

“Jay-ah, why are you crying?” you said as you wiped his tears away.

“It’s my fault your Tiktok got taken away,” he said regrettfully. “I remember how excited you would get when you made a new friend on there. I really took away your greatest joy.”

“No you didn’t, Jay. I got my Tiktok taken away because I broke a rule,” you assured him.

“But you wouldn’t have had to if I-”

“Shhhh,” you interrupted. “You’re being too loud. I don't listen to Jay slander.”

Jay laughed a little and tried to hide his smile by looking away. “I see you smiling, Jay, don't try to hide it,” you said playfully.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are!”

“Okay, you got me,” Jay said as he pulled you in for a hug. “You best believe I’m going to bug Mrs. Choi until she lets you have your account back.”

“You can try, but don't be surprised when it doesn’t work.”

“It will. I’m her favorite, so she’ll have to listen to me,” Jay said confidently.

“Boy, since when are you her favorite?”

“Since forever.”

“You wish.”

“No, you wish.”

~~~

Two weeks later, you knocked on the door of Mrs. Choi’s office.

“Come in,” she said.

You walked through the door and bowed.

“You needed to see me?” you said. She was sitting in her desk and she didn’t look at you.

“Yeah,” she said. “Take a seat.”

You did as she said. Her eyes were still glued to the computer and she was typing something. You were worried because you had no idea what she was about to say, so you sat there nervously as your hands started to sweat.

Finally Mrs. Choi looked away her computer and turned to face you. She took a deep breath and said, “I regret to inform you that I’m allowing you back on your Tiktok account.”

“Regret to inform you”? You wanted to ask why she would regret that, but you didn’t want to say anything that might change her mind, so you simply said, “Thank you.”

She turned back to typing on her computer. “You should be grateful your friend is so annoying. Jay would not leave me alone until I agreed to let you have it back.”

“Oh,” you said. You had completely forgotten that Jay had said he would do that.

“Know this: you are on very, very, very thin ice. One more slip-up and it's over, no matter how much your friends annoy me. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. That’s all I have to say to you. Go back to whatever you were doing, and don't you dare forget what I said.”

Standing up to leave, you said, “I won’t. Thank you, Mrs. Choi.” You bowed once again and left her office.

Once you closed the door behind you, the first thing you saw was Jay across from you in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face.

“I told you it would work.”

#enhypen x reader #enhypen imagines #enhypen blurbs #enhypen fluff #enhypen reactions #enhypen timestamps #enhypen headcanons #enhypen soft hours #enhypen scenarios #enhypen writers #park jongseong #enhypen jay #jay x reader #kpop #enhypen angst #enhyphen #belift

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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Y’all are talking up Star and Stripe, while I’m impressed how this series finally gave interiority to Stain.

“No Man Is an Island,” My Hero Academia Chapter 328. By Kohei Horikoshi, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by John Hunt. Available from Viz.

Content warnings regarding rape and violence against women.

Before I get to Stain, let’s start with the end of this chapter, given how much of a splash Star and Stripe, our newest character, has made so far with readers.

Is Star and Stripe All Might’s student? I don’t want to bring out the Todoroki red-string board determining a list of All Might’s potential offspring, and I don’t think that’s her role in this story, as calling her mentor her “master” is far more a student-teacher relationship than anything else. But if she is All Might’s student, what does that change in what I have considered about All Might up to this point? I have frequently derided his skills as a teacher, and nothing in the story has suggested otherwise that he isn’t used to it: flashbacks we’ve had of Nezu talking with All Might implied teaching would be something new for him, his innate learning clashes with someone like Izuku who prefers things explained to him, and the series has made gags about how he needed the equivalent of Teaching for Dummies to know basic pep talks to give to Izuku’s classmates. That’s not to say he was never a teacher to Star and Stripe--but it is to say that it has not been obvious to me that he had such experiences, or was that suited for it. It may be that All Might, despite himself and what he thinks of himself, was indeed a teacher to Star and Stripe, or at least she thought he did a good job as one, whether directly or, as is just as likely, serving as the role model, literally the person she has modeled her look and theming around.

You’ll also forgive me if I look at that chapter’s title and not still think how much All Might isolated himself for so long, so it’s rich to have such a title like that, when it’s too little, too late, for All Might to suddenly engage in the collaborative work that heroes should engage it, that has been part of Izuku’s ethos for so long, that is at the heart of One For All, when All Might has kept trying to handle everything on his own with no help from others. Granted, I’m being unfair: All Might has seemed to have more coordination with the police than other Pro Heroes from what we’ve seen in the comics, and it’s not like they can’t retroactively change that (Big Red Dot refers to All Might as a “friend” in this chapter, so maybe All Might is a more collaborative hero than I’m giving him credit.) Weirdly, All Might’s tendency to work alone kind of makes him and Stain alike in a lot of ways--but we’ll get to Stain later. And yes, I can also see the island conceit is referring to Tartarus, but I’m looking at the subtext first before the text.

But turning back to Star and Stripe, and without whining too much about this point, it is bizarre this late in the game to get yet another character who was influenced by All Might. But it’s not unbelievable. Of course there are more than just Izuku and Bakugo who modeled their look or name after All Might. Of course there are more than just Melissa Shield and Nighteye inspired to go into support or hero work by his example. And of course, when All Might studied and practiced in the United States, and whose theming is built around Superman, the quintessential United States superhero (albeit one co-created by a Canadian creator), of course we’d get a US Pro Hero inspired by him. And she’s a woman, and I appreciate that inclusiveness and representation.

Too bad, as usual, including another woman in the story leads to two problems I have with fans’ reactions: one, for fans who are fixated on objectifying women characters, and two, for an Edgar Allan Poe scholar like me who keeps reading into things, rightly or wrongly, and thinking everything is going to turn into killing off a woman character to motivate the men characters.

I really wish I wouldn’t have to write this ridiculous disclaimer, but the “horny on main” crowd on social media gets tiresome. It’d be nice to have a new woman character be introduced without immediate reactions being primarily “she’s hot.” Sometimes you just want to enjoy a new character like Star and Stripe as a Captain America-style pastiche and their superpower work without just seeing her as another freaking waifu for someone. Nothing precludes her from being someone that people find attractive; I just find it tiresome when it seems like still that this tends to happen to women more frequently, especially with the long history of reducing women, in real life or in fiction, for objectification and not seeing them as fully realized people where, yes, any sexuality or asexuality is part of them, but just a part, not all of them.

And while I criticize the “horny on main” crowd, it’s not like I don’t have my own problems in writing these reviews regarding women characters: I have set a countdown clock for how long before Star and Stripe gets fridged, because that’s my fear. At least recent art in the newest My Hero Academia volume in Japan features new artwork of Nagant, so fingers crossed she’s not quite dead following All For One’s inevitable explode-y betrayal. And it’s not as if this series lacks diverse representations of girls and women, especially in roles they take (Pro Hero, Villain, Vigilante, or civilian) and personalities. And it’s not fair for me to risk limiting the story’s potential by insisting a character not be killed off. But when I think popular culture at large still limits roles for girls and women in action stories, especially in superhero stories and shonen, it’s hard for me not to cringe with worry that, shortly after a girl or woman character is introduced to the story, that she’s going to be sidelined in some way, whether objectified or killed off, largely for the sake of boys and men fans and characters.

Or maybe I’m just annoyed seeing as this chapter starts with a Tartarus escapee shouting about “females” like Quark from DS9 before Stain kills him. Thoughts and prayers for that dead jackass.

Still, that character’s presence is troublesome. In Horikoshi’s works, and spinoffs like Vigilantes, violence against women perpetuates as a way of identifying someone as really super-duper evil. It feels like that Mark Millar quotation referring to rape as one of the ways to really clue in the audience that this person is evil, no different than if a villain decapitated someone. It’s far more complicated than that when writing in fiction for two reasons. First, it’s victimizing women for a story so that it traditionally falls upon the protagonist, usually a man, to avenge those women--so, Stain killing this guy kind of fits that cliche. Second, it’s not believable, and it does a lot of harm acting like a rapist is that obvious villain over there rather than a lot of people that we keep thinking are nice guys before, bam, we realize they’re fucking awful. It’s the banality of evil that perpetuates, to ignore that rapists in real life are not just mustache-twirling villains but can be people of all types, even people in the highest levels of government, entertainment, and business who are supposed to come across as reasonable, normal individuals who contribute to society but instead are also freaking monsters who committed sexual violence against someone else.

I wish I had any sort of transition to get back to other parts of this chapter, so the best I can say is, let’s turn back to Stain.

I do appreciate what this chapter does with him, especially giving us something we haven’t had from him in a long time, if ever: interiority. Getting into Stain’s mind should be petrifying, like how his stance against the Pro Heroes froze them in place, with or without use of his Quirks. (If it turns out he actually had a “Quirk awakening” like Toga and Shigaraki, I’m throwing copies I have of this manga against the wall.) Instead, Stain is weirdly rational. He assesses the situation, sees how chaotic things are in this prison, realizes things must be chaotic outside, so his first stop is to see who has information, such as any computer data, and that’s where he’s lucky enough to find the last surviving Tartarus guard protecting the hard drive that he passes onto All Might. He’s even weirdly honorable to not take that weapon on his way out, not kill this dying guard, and not just be evil for evil’s sake. As Stain himself said, he’s an ally, but also a beast.

It’s incredible. What character progression.

I was ticked off with the last chapter having Hawks dismiss Stain’s note as a “love letter” to All Might: that’s right up there with UA dismissing Shigaraki initially as a “man-child.” These characters are more complicated than these off-putting insults that seem to be more about criticizing men for failing to stand up to some expected behavior. Like, if you’re going to go after Stain and Shigaraki, I would start with the fact that they are freaking murderers before lambasting one as looking up to All Might and the other as enjoying video games and being immature for his age.

So, after how annoying those character derisions are, I’m impressed how this chapter took us through Stain’s thought process in a way to have him be more than the crazed vigilante we saw in Vigilantes and the Hosu Arc. It added depth to him without negating what evils he has done. It showed his thought process beyond cliches of some Death Wish hyper-violent weirdo without, again, retconning those aspects as if they were never part of him. This chapter isn’t quite a retcon, so much as a fleshing out of a character to show how he was able to get the jump on Pro Heroes and kill or disable so many of them. This makes him look smart and capable rather than, as I will continue to complain about Villains like All For One, just lucky and the beneficiaries of plot contrivances. That contrast, to have Stain looking at All For One, who stands before escaped prisoners like the Messiah (or Anti-Christ) figure he thinks he is, just cements for me how well Stain is written, and how poorly in contrast All For One comes across.

Then again, Stain did just happen upon the guard having those drives of digital information, so he could have just been the lucky beneficiary of a plot contrivance. Or, as at least one person online wrote, All For One planted that evidence to trick the Pro Heroes into thinking Shigaraki is nearing his finalization so he can draw them into a trap. For now, though, I’m choosing to take this as an example for how an antagonist should be written: capable, smart, and not just getting by on the plot deciding they should win.

I had said about the previous chapter how that one felt incomplete. But I can’t say that any of Stain’s story in this arc has felt incomplete. I usually hate bouncing back and forth between flashbacks and timeskips in stories (but I’ll say more about that later when getting back to some Episode 7 posts), but going back to explain how Stain got the information from Tartarus worked for me. It wasn’t just to fill in back story; it also clarified what Stain thinks his role is right now, after what he did in Vigilantes and what he did to Iida’s brother: at least to me, or maybe because by now readers are more familiar with him, he seems to have more self-awareness. There is no glee like there seemed to be when he took down crime bosses and unintentional Villains in Vigilantes, or when he disabled Tensei. He seems oddly more rational--which is terrifying, given how much to shit society has gone in the manga, where someone like Stain seems reasonable compared to All For One gathering enforcers from Tartarus. It’s kind of fitting that the chapter that really re-introduced Stain to this series was titled “Who Are You Really?” which is pretty much the question that surviving Tartarus guard said to Stain, whether he will be a hero or another villain.

(Speaking of that guard: we’re told pretty much all the guards at Tartarus died, whether killed by the prison escape, the building’s damage, or drowning. But wasn’t there one guard that All For One’s team took with them to pilot their escape? I’m not getting my hopes up that Shishikura’s father survived, but it would be a waste to kill him off just to motivate Shishikura instead of that motivation being in part to rescue his dad. Granted, I’m skittish around killing characters before their usefulness is exploited, as awful as that is to phrase, but unfortunately, I just complained about fridging, so I’m being annoying right now.)

After that back story for Stain, we catch up to All Might returning from his pep talk to Izuku to meet with Tsukauchi. For a lot of reasons, Tsukauchi has been criticized by fans, some of inspired for good reasons by our moment of reception (many police not meeting the standards set for them in the wake of their unjustified violence, especially against marginalized people) and some that are either plot-based (he is not the biggest fan of our protagonists in Vigilantes and actively upsets their work) or undeserved (he’s actually been competent by this point in the manga). So, it’s weird to hear him complain about needing Stain’s help--when, given how bad things are in Japan in this story, he’s not exactly doing that great a job himself.

Also, poor Sansa back there has a head scar now.

Where this chapter falls apart a bit for me is its attempt at worldbuilding. I appreciate that we are learning along with All Might just how One For All works. He himself didn’t quite get what Izuku was seeing of the Vestiges way back in the Sports Festival Arc, so it makes sense that he is our audience surrogate to explain to Sansa and readers just what he can and can’t sense of them when near Izuku. The problem I’m having is that this is information related to about a month or so ago when he was with Izuku in the hospital. It wasn’t as clear to me then that All Might had this much of a deep understanding of One For All, so to now have it explained in this detail feels like we’re skipping some steps in logic. It’s not unbelievable that All Might needed that month to finally understand all of this; it’s just bothersome as a reader to have the info dump happen in this manner. I understand that info-dump would have disrupted the narrative flow in those earlier chapters; I also think delaying that information until now is frustrating, the equivalent of having to set down this chapter to go back to the earlier ones. It’s not the joy of re-reading a story with new appreciation for something else to discover in the earlier chapters; it’s more like reading a textbook and having to skip to endnotes at the back of the book to read something in more detail.

And speaking of getting buried in needless confusing self-contradicting explanations: the manga then cuts to a Pro Hero version of the United Nations, full of shadowy people explaining how it’s too difficult to coordinate nations to convince them to let their Pro Heroes go to Japan and help with relief efforts. It’s bad enough how much I hate “shadowy people in government” as a trope: it felt lazy in the first Avengers film, and after more than four years in the United States having to hear deep state bullshit by hucksters and far-right fascists, no, I’m not up for such symbols that don’t put a face on the people responsible. I know I’m invoking Avatar: The Last Airbender so soon after talking it up in the previous chapter review, but we delayed showing Ozai’s face to make him faceless so that, when it is finally revealed, and he looks like a normal guy, we realize how this evil can come from even the most normal looking person, especially as a contrast between his unscarred face and Zuko’s scarred face, where the scar in a lot of stories is traditionally used to mark someone as ugly and therefore evil, while Avatar shows how obviously prejudiced, wrong, and illogical such mental and symbolic associations are. I know it would take more work to draw designs for all these bureaucrats, but give them faces, make them known, make them actual characters. I get that making them relatable causes as much of a problem as making them too relatable and therefore making their absurd points logical, but I can’t stand to keep perpetuating “deep state shadow government” nonsense in destabilized times.

Then again, when it comes to the delays in sending out the Pro Heroes, it’s not that unbelievable or unrealistic, given how bureaucracy hampers international relief efforts all the time in the real world. But it’s just bizarre, for a work of fiction that has shown Pro Hero society making so many advancements yet still bogged down by something so quotidian in a fantastic setting. Granted, I’ve repeated over and over again in these reviews how I thought this setting was a utopia--a world where people of different abilities and sizes had accommodations with regard to clothing, housing, and buildings--only to have later chapters undermine all of that--housing for giant-size people is in inconvenient locations, subsidies are not easy to get for being giant-size, people with non-human appearances are abused and tormented.

But, to the story’s credit, ending with Star and Stripe ignoring such bureaucracy, so, this is very much Horikoshi having his cake and eating it, too.

And I hate to end this review on a down note, but I am cringing at potential unfortunate implications incoming. Star and Stripe is riding atop what looks like a futuristic fighter plane that, I have to imagine, within this plot, is related to the United States government and, if not, at least by her entire US-patriotic theming, might as well be. And she’s flying a couple of these fighter planes to Japan. I really, really am trying not to cringe at potential invoking of the United States’ attack on Japan during World War II, and I’m really trying to hope the story won’t make some misguided references to nuclear bombing. I know this is a stretch, but after the trouble Horikoshi rightly faced for how he named All For One’s doctor, it would not surprise me. Plus, it’s not as if this hasn’t been a difficulty in localizing these Japanese works in United States audiences: I play that Bungo Stray Dogs mobile app game all the time, but there’s a reason that game, upon initial release in the United States, almost immediately changed a special move’s name from “Kamikaze” to “Beatdown.” And seeing as that Bungo film ends with Agatha Christie almost carpet-bombing Japan, yeah, you’ll forgive me if a lot of these thoughts are circulating in my mind anticipating what could happen next in this series.

#my hero academia #mha spoilers #stain #star and stripe #manga review #cw: rape #cw: violence against women

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gamingleopard28 · 4 years

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RWBY Shattered Eye AU

(If you would like to make the AU into a comic I don’t mind, just give me the credit for the AU)

Volume 5 School Fight

After Cinder knocked Jaune to the floor she starts walking over to kill Weiss, but then notices an unconscious Ruby to her right then saying “Eye for an eye”. She then lifts Ruby up with her right arm by the shoulder with her spear in her left hand. Jaune yells out a “NO!” but Cinder doesn’t care. She slowly shoves the spear into Ruby’s right eye in order to make it as painful as possible. Yang cries out a “NO!” just before running to Cinder and tackling her which caused her to drop Ruby pretty hard onto the floor. During the moment of confusion Weiss, Qrow, Jaune go to keep Ruby alive while Nora, Ren and Ozpin/Oscar keep them protected from Mercury, Emerald and Hazel who are still trying to fight them. Meanwhile Yang is aggressively smashing Cinders head into the floor to a point where to fix it would require a landscaper as well. After Qrow realizes Ruby should be fine he goes over to Yang who is still pummeling Cinders face and manages to pull her off so he can check on her. Yang's face is filled with tears that are boiling as they fall, her hair is ready to basically explode at this point. Emerald helps Cinder up while Qrow calms Yang down to a point where she can think rationally enough to not lose her other arm.

At this point the fights are Qrow and Yang Vs Cinder and Emerald, Nora and Ozpin/Oscar Vs Mercury and Hazel. Jaune and Weiss are keeping Ruby alive as Jaune finds out he has his semblance.

While the chaos is happening Raven and Vernal who just watched all of this happen in about a minute decide to go down the elevator and see if they can get the relic without Cinder. Cinder notices them going down the elevator and lets Emerald know she is going down it. After Emerald covers Cinder as she disappears down the elevator shaft. Emerald, Mercury and Hazel move over to cover it and stop Qrow, Ozpin and the kids from getting in. Ruby has been moved to a safer corner and Weiss is now fighting again after getting her aura back.

In short things mostly proceed as normal, White fang is stopped, Yang gets the relic and Adam goes missing.

Blake walks in through the hole in the front, looks around and notices Yang and Weiss kneeling next to Ruby, but she isn’t looking the same as she last saw her and it wasn’t really the outfit. Then Blake realized that Ruby was bleeding from her right eye and ran over to check on her. After cleaning the blood out for a little bit the got her onto a more comfortable surface, 2 medics came in and got her onto a stretcher and started asking the basic questions like “What happend?”, “How Long?” and so on. After which they began bringing her to a medical tent but stopped just outside in order to let the crowd clear. While they were stopped Yang brushed her left hand across Ruby’s hair to which Ruby then open her eyes weakly asking in pain “ya-ng?” before passing out. While passing out she could hear Yang’s voice getting quieter until she was unconscious.

Between Volume 5 and Volume 6

Blinking weakly Ruby opened her eyes and winced from the pain across her body but mostly in her right eye. Looking around she noticed that her right eye was more blurry and had a fairly thick black line going through its middle, she still remembered what happened to her and how Yang saved her life. Yang! She needed to find Yang. After spending probably about 2 minutes getting out of bed because of the pain she managed to get to the door after realizing she was connected to an IV bag with water in it. After opening the door she looked down both ways, to her left was a door about a foot away and to her right was a hallway about 8 meters long with doors along the walls and lead into a living room. The noise from the talking kind of irritated her a little so she checked the door to her left which wasn’t super quiet but didn’t creak. Ruby wasn’t exactly quiet with her entry and got the attention of Qrow and Ozpin who were in a conversation. Ozpin told Qrow could have some alone time and exited the garage. Qrow quickly got Ruby a chair as Yang stopped working on Bumblebee (her Motorcycle), grabbed a bag labeled Samples and helped Ruby sit as the asked her some basic questions like “Are you hungry? Are you hurting? Do you feel sick?”. Ruby answered “Yes. Yes. No.” and so on. Her eye did start to bleed but Yang was quick to get it with a tissue. Ruby asked why she had a bag labeled Samples and was told that the medics found some kind of dust in her eye and asked for them to keep samples. After she stopped bleeding from her eye they had a hug which made Ruby a bit more happy and managed to make her smile a little, then she was helped up out of the garage and to a table for about 10 people and get her some food. While passing by everyone else they saw her and all felt a bit bad as Ruby went from zipping around to looking like a kitten with broken legs as she slightly limped and stumbled each step. She didn’t even have much of a smile on her face, it even looked like moving kind of hurt her. Ruby did ask Yang how long she was asleep and Yang told her almost 2 days. Ruby then ask who changed her, which makes Qrow tell her “We made a rule that guys aren't allowed to change your clothes for you.” and Yang also tells her that she did.

About 2 hours later at 9:00 am Taiyang knocks on the front door. Qrow answers and lets him in and he immediately asks were Ruby is. Qrow tells him and lets him know to be quiet as noise makes her uncomfortable.

Tai basically does what he did after The Fall of Beacon and asks if she wants anything. Ruby just says a hug and to be able to sleep which Tai then realizes that his precious Ruby isn’t the same as she was before this happened which causes him to cry while hugging her. Ruby does ask if Zwei is okay and her lets her know that after her fight at haven Raven came back and is currently living with him as her tribe kinda got destroyed, and she is taking care of Zwei. After he leaves her be Yang comes in to give her a Hug and change her IV bag. Ruby then manages to go to sleep as her room is pretty nice. Sage green walls with dark brown floor trim, the floor is a nice soft wood. The room is 5 meters wide by 4 long parallel to the hall. Her bed is made with a sturdy wood and a comfy mattress, the sheets are a nice soft light brown cloth with about 1 ft of a fluffy material she likes to cuddle with and some soft pillows. Occasionally Yang, Blake and Weiss have peek in while she was doing it. Yang’s reaction was “She is so cute like that”, Blake’s was a warm smile, and Weiss was a mild blush. Everyone else reacted in their own way, Jaune and Ren saying ”As long as she’s happy” and Nora saying she knew it would work, Tai and Qrow just felt better knowing she could still be happy. On the left wall there is a window with a curtain that is mostly kept closed. Along the wall opposite side from her bed there are two 1 meter wide by 1 foot thick by 2 meter tall bookshelf's on opposite sides of the wall and a nightstand next to her bed with a lamp on it. She got up later for dinner, talked a little bit and goes back to her room to read a little and sleep. During the night she has a Nightmare and ends out screaming a little as she wakes up and then starts crying. Yang is in her room in a few second followed by Tai and Qrow, everyone else was to tired to get up at like 1 am. Yang, Qrow and Tai were all trying to calm her down from her nightmare. They did manage to calm her down and made sure someone was with her every night in case it happened again.

Throughout the rest of the 2 weeks every night she had a nightmare but was quickly comforted. Also every once in a while someone would check up on her and help her with something or just relax with her. Mainly it was the girls but occasionally Jaune or Ren would come in and give her some cookies or lunch. While the girls did their respective things with her, Yang would generally come in to help her shower, Blake would read with her, Weiss would explain what happened that day or cuddle with her as Ruby asked of her and Nora would help her with exercise. Ruby did get better throughout the week, even being able to walk around the house on her own in 5 days. Although Ruby wasn’t allowed outside unless it was the backyard or she was with someone as she still couldn’t really fight right now. Another 5 days later team RWBY went to a mall which is were Ruby got her present for Yang. Before leaving the blanket Ruby had is packed up because the blanket was actually bought by them for her.

Volume 6

The train ride is mostly the same to the normal one, only difference is Ruby has a nap and a Nightmare but is comforted by Weiss. Weiss covers Ruby from a Grimm swipe, The train crashes and and Jinn explains what Ozpin hid from them WBY does get angry at him but Ruby tells her to knock it off and asks Ozpin if he hid it to protect them. He says yes and Ruby then explains that they have bigger problems then trying to kill each other like shelter and food. In the house where Weiss and Ruby just sleep together and Ruby doesn’t have a Nightmare. During the well section Maria realizes that Ruby’s eyes are even stronger than they should be probably because her right one has less eye holding back the light. As they come through the cellar Qrow asks whats happening sounding more sober than normal as the Apathy slowly crawl out of the cellar, he then throws a few bottles at them with Weiss before running out of the house with Ruby and Weiss. They get to Argus without any incident. After everyone reunites they go to Saphron’s house, and relax while explaining what happened. After a little bit Saphron comes in and sits in one of the couches and then Ozpin explains that he did hide the truth from everyone, Jaune holds him against the wall and screams at Ozpin which causes Ruby to go into one of her Panic attacks, starting of with a scream and then intense crying and her right eye flashing a little bit. Everyone looks at Jaune and Ruby in a surprised look as Jaune is caught off guard by that and drops Ozpin letting him back off from Jaune who’s in a startled state. Yang and Blake are next to Ruby in a second and Weiss is in about 2, and they start calming her down. Everyone else decides to give her some space as Yang, Blake and Weiss bring her upstairs to rest while Weiss watches over her. Jaune did get some dirty glares from Yang for like 5 seconds until she gets distracted by Blake nuzzling her to get her to stop. Terra then comes home as well with the child and sits down next to Saphron. Later when everyone is going out to get food Ruby and Weiss stay back in case of a Nightmare or Panic attack. They find Maria and learn about Ruby’s eyes and that they seem a lot stronger than they should be. Then they all have dinner. The next day they all go to the Atlas airfield gate and Cordovan she tells them Weiss and Ruby are allowed because Weiss because her father wants her back and Ruby because of the samples, but everyone else is not. After trying to see if they could make an exception Weiss has an idea and backs off and calls someone. Then Cordovan gets a call about 30 seconds after Weiss, Finishes and tells the team that they have one hour to get their things and be back, when they get back they pack their stuff as well as Qrow’s things. He comes back surprisingly not at all drunk. Ruby is somewhat happy but also really confused as to why. When they return to the airfield they are escorted to a small airship and flown to atlas. On the way there Ruby gives Yang the present which is a Gift card for Strawberry Sunrises, a cleaning kit for her arm, a new pair of sunglasses and a few tools that she can attach to her arm. Yang lets out a little laugh and hugs Ruby really hard to a point where she can’t breath. Meanwhile Cinder did have her fight with Neo but she ran away from Cinder as the intense wind reminded her of how she failed Torchwick. Later Cinder finds Adam who has an airship and she explains that together they can destroy team RWBY and that on a specific date he will assassinate Ruby before she wakes up which will lower team moral and make Adams target (Blake) easier to get. Cinder will finally have Ruby dead and more maiden powers. He agrees and lets her on as they head for Mantle.

Team RWBY and JNR was well as Qrow and Ozpin/Oscar land at atlas and are greeted by Penny, Ironwood and Winter who thanks Weiss for calling her rather than doing something reckless. Penny lightly tackles Ruby and then notices the scar in her right eye. Ruby tells her its fine and that she doesn’t want to talk about it but Weiss will fill her in, which Weiss agrees too. Ironwood somewhat loudly goes “YOU’RE SOBER?!” to which Qrow replies yes and lets him know about Ruby and noises as she is noticeably uncomfortable. Winter is absolutely caught off guard by Qrow being sober and just jaw dropped. The Ace ops watch from a little ways away glad they are having some fun and then introduce themselves.

Volume 7

Weiss went to catch Ironwood, Winter and Penny up on what happened, Jaune, Ren and Nora went for training, Yang went with Maria for tuning for Maria’s eyes and Yang’s arm and Ruby went with Blake to the lab where they took the samples and explained that they may be able to make lights that kill Grimm making cities a lot safer and so they also take a blood test as the samples are dried up by this point. Blake stayed by Ruby in case she had a panic attack as she knew what to do unlike the scientists. Luckily she didn’t have one and managed the appointment pretty well and even got a lollipop and a cookie. Then everyone met back up. After learning about the Amity Project they got their new outfits and weapon updates and to learn about Ironwoods plan. Then they help clear out the launch site and then are shown their dorms. Next they have the training montage and get their licenses. Everyone ends out going to the Movies or to the voting party and it goes as normally until Tyrian attacks. Penny fires her swords at him and then loses him in the crowd and then hears Ruby yell something before it goes quiet and the light come back on. Everyone sees the swords but also notice none of them a bloody or correctly aligned to hit any of the dead bodies correctly to kill them. Then Penny realizes Ruby is missing...

Meanwhile many blocks away Ruby is tied up in a chair while Watts and Tyrian are talking about the how the plan went well and other things. After a little bit Watts Unties one of Ruby’s hands after setting up a chess board and asks if she wants to play. She accepts and they constantly tie. Watts is impressed and even Tyrian is interested in the game while still absolutely confused on what they are doing.

Afterwards they manage to sleep until Ruby gets woken up by the riot and a Nightmare. Tyrian yells at her to shut up and gives her a small cut with the non poisonous part of his tail which makes it worse and Watts tells him its time to leave. Back in atlas about 2 hours ago Yang, Blake and Weiss got to their bunks but noticed Ruby wasn’t there but assumed she was helping Penny with something until Ren and Nora burst into the room and tell them Ruby’s been kidnapped which Yang almost doesn’t even take an airship down to Mantle. After about an hour and a half they go back miserably and sit there still in their huntress outfits for a few minutes and then they get a call, “We found her. While getting out of an abandoned basement they were spotted by protesters as they have Wanted and Warning signs everywhere and so a squad of robots looked over at them and start sprinting towards them as the start running down the alleyway”. After about 10 minutes of running while Ruby is bawling her eyes out, an airship pops in front of them and the speaker says: “Put your hands up!” to which they decide to ditch Ruby so Tyrian just dropped her on the ground pretty hard which isn’t helping with her bawling. The squad of robots and the airship chases after them. Ruby is still just bawling her eyes out which are starting to flash. Another airship lands on the street and Yang, Blake and Weiss hop out and run over to her. When they get to her they immediately start to try and calm her as Blake cut the ropes but Ruby was still bawling her eyes out and had even started soaking her clothes. After about 5 minutes of hugging, head rubbing, even a few kisses and a lot of tears she finally was able to be moved to the airship and explain while sobbing what happened as Yang texts it to Qrow. Meanwhile Qrow, Ozpin/Oscar and Ironwood are having a little break and Qrow is offered a bottle and he only has a little bit. Then he is asked why he isn’t drinking as much to which he explains that he feels that he was to drunk to keep Ruby safe and that it might get her or him killed and would make her and Summer happy. Then he gets a text from Yang explaining that they have her and what happened as well as that she isn’t badly hurt but was bawling her eyes. He nearly dropped the scroll as Ozpin decides to ask what is it and Qrow tells them shocking them. Back with team Ruby, she is still mostly sobbing but not as bad so Yang tugs her along while she cries into Yangs shoulder, Weiss hugging her from behind and Blake up ahead just telling people to give her some space as they are getting notifications that Ruby is no longer missing. After getting to their dorm and calming Ruby down to just tears, Penny comes in knowing its been a bit over 2 hours since she disappeared. Penny is shocked that Ruby is crying as she has never seen Ruby cry before. She asks Ruby is she is okay and she replies “Yeah... Sorry I scared you.” and then hugs Penny who returns it telling her she is a good friend. After Penny leaves Ruby is asked if she wants anything and she says: “Maybe to sleep all together?” to which they accept her request and start unfolding the couch into a bed. (In this AU teams have separate rooms) After changing into night clothes they go to sleep on the bed. (If you are curious this is the order from left to right: Weiss, Ruby, Yang, Blake.)

In the morning around 6:30 Yang woke up got out of bed easily since Blake had curled up on the bed, and started making some breakfast. Some PB&Js with milk and cookies for Ruby who was still asleep as Blake started to wake up. Then turning back to what she was doing yang then sees Adam and stumbles back ready for an attack that never comes as there is no one there. Blake rushes to Yang's side and asks why she is blocking from nothing to which she explains she thought she saw Adam and that he is out there still. Blake listens and then looks at Weiss who is waking up then jokes “Morning princess” to which Weiss doesn’t really care as she is being held onto by a sleeping Ruby. They all look at her smiling as she hasn’t been in a really great mood since haven, and then Ruby mumbles something along the lines of “We-iss... love... youuu...” which causes everyone to look quite surprised. About 3 minutes later Ruby wakes up and realizes she was holding Weiss and quickly lets go with her face going red and asks if she heard anything while she was asleep to which a blushing Weiss replies “N-o... yes” causing Ruby’s face to go very very red. Yang is basically dying laughing at this point and Blake is getting ready for CPR as Yang is laughing, choking and wheezing heavily. After they calm down without Yang needing CPR they have their breakfast and check their scrolls to see they have been given a day off and literally can’t do any missions today. So they just relax with the time they have like spending some time in the pool, going to the arcade, Even going to the library which Ruby finds a really good book that is like 10 inches wide which impresses Blake, they even play a little bit of tag and a few other activities. At some point they find Penny and have a chat with her and Winter. After that they go to a club that is fine with faunas and okay for Ruby (It isn’t loud enough to cause a panic attack). Then they head back to the bunks to which Ruby climbs onto her bed and immediately falls asleep. Later they had dinner with nothing really happening.

Early in the next morning at about 6:55 Adam is waiting in the hall waiting for 7:00 as that is when the doors open and the cameras to turn off. Just as they turn off and the door unlocks he heads inside, but someone sees him enter. As he grabs a wooden box to stand on so he makes sure its a kill, gets on it raises the knife above Ruby’s chest and brought it down. “Hey!” while bringing down the knife it misses her heart and goes into her stomach, Weiss kicks his legs out from under him and he hits the floor hard and Penny starts disarming and arresting Adam. Weiss is now trying to get the knife out of Ruby’s stomach while Yang helps Penny with arresting Adam. Blake is still waking up from her dream about cat nip or something I don’t know. After getting the knife out of Ruby, Adam was arrested and put into a cell with his weapon in another secure room. Later around noon Ruby and Weiss have a walk in a park and end out sitting on one of the benches under a tree. Weiss asks if Ruby did love her to which Ruby replies yes and then kisses Weiss on the cheek, Weiss then returns the kiss but on the lips for a few seconds before breaking off. Both are blushing very hard as Yang and Blake then come around the tree and go “Congrats!” to which Ruby yelps in surprise “YANG! I thought you were on a date with Blake!” to which Yang just replies “Yes but we also went here”.

The rest of the time is of training and dating. Everyone thinks Weiss and Ruby are very cute together even Qrow. Not much really happens for a while.

When they are invited to the Schnee manor not much really changes other that Bumblebee and WhiteRose flirting with their partners. Jacques gets arrested, Tyrian gets arrested, Watts getts messed up and RWBY + JNR + Ace ops are saving civilians, team RWBY gets called up to atlas to talk to Ironwood a little bit before Ace ops are finished up. While getting to atlas Cinder frees Adam and arms him and reminds him of what to do before she heads to the winter maiden. While running down the hall Adam is waiting behind a pillar for Ruby who is at the front, then comes past the pillar after seeing something red looks over and sees Adam with his sword raised and all she can do is block with her arm and- He cut right through her left arm (at just about past the elbow) which made her cry in pain as he front-flipped outta that convenient window. Ruby is now on the floor bleed badly and Yang is trying to stop the bleeding and Weiss is trying to calm he down the the blood flow isn’t as bad while Blake makes sure he isn’t coming back as he slides down until she can’t see him any more. She then check on Ruby who is still crying in pain but not as bad, Yang tells her to get some help. So Blake runs down the hall to the medical wing where some doctors are working with scientists on her blood samples and the dust that has been extracted, opens the doors and tells them Ruby lost her arm and one of them grabs a kit Blake sees is labeled Ruby and asks where as she shows them. By now Yang has Ruby's head on her thighs while calming her down and Weiss is still trying to stop the blood dribbling out of her arm. The doctor put some bandages that are really absorbent on the wound before spraying some antibacterial spray on it. Then with the kit open Blake, Yang and Weiss could see that it had 4 small and large joint pieces and 2 forearm, leg, thigh and upper arm parts so they were ready for something like this. After putting on the arm they gave her a blood injection so she wouldn’t pass out. After about 15 minutes they managed to get to Ironwoods office with Ace ops, who didn’t really care about Ruby’s arm to much. After Ironwood shows the black glass thingy Salem then does her thing and when telling Ruby about what her mother said Ruby then replies angrily “Well I’m angry. Meaning I will rip your legs off if and drag you to hell myself I have to” which shocks everyone including Salem who just ends the conversation. Then Ironwood explains that he is abandoning Mantle and declaring Martial law to which Ruby then tells JNR + Ozpin and Qrow + Robin about Ironwoods plan before he cuts her connection and after their one liners he pulls out his gun and shoots her in the chest breaking her aura. Yang attempts to hit him back but is deflected. After Ironwood leaves and the airship Qrow, Robin, Clover and Tyrian are in crashes the Ruby does her one liner and zips past the Ace ops. The fights go as per normal until the end where Tyrian is standing over clover ready to kill him until Qrow jams Harbinger through Tyrian who laughs like he does and then passes out from blood loss, and Qrow flops onto the snow from exhaustion and is arrested by Clover’s reinforcements. Weiss, Yang and Blake's fights end normally but Harriet manages to start choke holding Ruby as the rest of her team is ready to help her. Ruby then smashes Harriet’s foot with hers and then backs up into the wall, uses her semblance to get out of her grasp, Kicks her in the stomach and then full force punches her in the face with the robot arm slamming Harriet into the wall. Harriet is completely unconscious and Yang can’t help but be proud and a little scared of Ruby. Then Yang and Blake go to the airship while Ruby and Weiss go to find the winter maiden, find Cinder and Ruby uses her eyes on her. Penny becomes the winter maiden, Winter gives them a head start, Oscar learns how use his semblance, Ironwood gets mad and Salem is here.

To be continued...

I would continue but am now waiting for Volume 8 to be released so I can stay somewhat on track with the story and location(s)...

#Rwby #AU #Shattered Gem AU #RWBY Spoilers #WhiteRose #Bumblebee #Ruby #Weiss #Blake #Yang #Qrow #Winter #Penny #Cinder #Neo #Adam lives #You may make art but must credit me

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treatian · 3 years

Text

The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse

Chapter 10: Unexpected Wrongs

Given the circumstances, the last person he expected to hear calling out "hello" in his shop was David Nolan.

It had been well over a week since his little chat with Dove, and since that moment, the bird had been a wealth of information. He'd informed him that David's physical therapy had been complete, and he was due to return home yesterday. This information was apparently quite easy to obtain as there was a "welcome home" party planned for David with nearly everyone in town who meant something involved. But Dove had gone above and beyond to provide him with proper information. He'd wandered into the party on his own. It wasn't difficult, he'd told him in a message. With so many people coming and going and with the guest of honor having no memories of who was and wasn't a friend, no one seemed to notice Dove when he crashed it. Emma Swan and her son were attending. It seemed he'd learned his lesson as he admitted that going allowed him to keep an eye on Emma at the same time he did David.

But it was the oddest thing, he'd told him later that night. He hadn't seen David at the party. Not at all. By all accounts, he'd certainly been there at one point, but he'd left by the time that Dove had arrived. Where to? No one seemed to know. He hadn't returned, and his wife, Kathryn, appeared to have not made much of the sudden disappearance. Throughout the day today, the reason why seemed to be obvious. Word on the street was that David had left his wife. Rumors seemed to swirl as they always did in this small town. Some people said that without his memories, he was having a difficult time adjusting and had left her, spent the night at Granny's. Others said that he was only pretending not to remember because he always had wanted to leave Kathryn. There was even one that stated that he had been seen with none other than Mary Margaret throughout last night and today. That particular rumor was his favorite. But with no evidence to back it up, he had no reason to believe it was any more believable than the other rumors.

He went about his day as he normally would, as Mr. Gold normally would, getting messages from Dove about Emma and questioning him on David when he could. It was evening, close to closing time when he heard his shop door open and close, and to his shock, the voice of one David the Shepherd turned False Prince James turned David Nolan call out "hello." He felt his heart jump. David was here. In his shop. Again. Of course, if he did his job right all those years ago, he shouldn't remember that last part, at least not right now. He shouldn't be able to remember the way he'd stormed in here years earlier demanding his daughter. He shouldn't remember stealing his own sword or waking him up after the first time. But of course, if Regina had done her job right, he also shouldn't be completely without memories.

He didn't know what he thought of all that. He had his own theories surrounding David's lack of memories, theories just like everyone else seemed to have; some of them thought he was faking, but he didn't believe it for a second. He was convinced it was part of the Curse breaking, Regina's mistake, or simply a fluke. He had theories galore but no way to prove any of them. He should have had something. So, who had done their job wrong? It was his first interaction with him for well over a decade. He was curious. He was curious about a number of things, and he wondered if it was possible to discern anything for himself.

"Hello?" he heard the False Prince call out again. The sound of it made him sigh in relief. The real David wouldn't have been so polite with him as to call out gently or even wait in the front. He'd done his job right. Regina…he didn't know what David's lack of memories meant. He also didn't know what would drive the Savior's father in here, to begin with. With that in mind, he palmed his cane and shuffled out to the front of his shop.

David didn't notice him enter. He was too busy noticing something else. The tiny glass unicorn mobile. He was staring at it as though mesmerized. It unsettled him. If he didn't know any better, he'd think that he recognized it from somewhere. Interesting. As David reached his hand out to touch it, he took a deep breath and held his ground, prepared to find out once and for all what he knew.

"Charming," he called.

David pulled his hand away and glanced over at him.

For a second, his breath hitched as he looked into his eyes to see if the look he saw was a response to his name. But closer examination proved there was genuine confusion in his eyes at the word.

"I'm sorry?" Charming…the word meant nothing to him. Which meant he returned to his original conclusion. He didn't remember the first time they'd met.

"The mobile. Isn't it charming?" he explained, using Mr. Gold's salesmanship to cover the test. "Exquisitely designed, masterly crafted… I can get it down, if you like."

"No, no. I mean, it's…it's very nice," he explained, coming over to him with a face of complete innocence. He didn't bother trying to feign being hurt. He'd known from the beginning, whether it was Prince Charming or David, that he didn't want to buy anything. "But actually, I'm looking for the Toll Bridge. The Mayor said there was a fork in the road by your shop, but-"

"It seems Miss Mills has led you astray." The question was why. Where was he going? Did she know something he didn't? He had Dove watching Emma; perhaps he needed to get one of his cousins to keep an eye on David.

"Yeah, yeah, you would think the Mayor would know her own town."

He smirked. What Regina didn't know about this place and how they'd all gotten here…he could fill entire volumes of books with that information. "One would think…out of the door, turn right, two blocks you'll find a trail. Can't miss it."

David smiled. "Thank you!" Without uttering a good-bye, David turned, but he hadn't made it to the door before something had stopped him in his tracks, caught him off guard. He swallowed as he followed David's gaze. The windmill. He was looking at an old wooden windmill. He was staring at it. Intently.

"See something you like?"

David took a step closer to it. "Where did you get that?"

"That old thing?" he managed to ask quietly, even if his heart was thudding wildly in his chest. "That's been gathering dust for…forever." Or just the last twenty-eight years. It was one of those things he'd acquired in the Curse, something that Mr. Gold had memories of purchasing, but he knew the memory was false. That wasn't a big deal. Most of the items in this shop had that kind of history. What was making him nervous, however, was the memory that went with that particular item.

David took another step forward and spun the windmill around, watching the blades of the fan turn and turn, nearly as mesmerized with it as he had been with the mobile. "I think…this belonged to me."

"Really?" he swallowed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes…I remember."

Fuck.

He'd seen so much good since Emma Swan arrived, so many promising signs that the Curse was breaking and all was going the way he planned. And then, right before his eyes, it had happened. A step in the wrong direction. A less than promising development. The windmill David had spotted, he knew its history. It's false history, of course. But David hadn't known it. He shouldn't have known it. And yet, something about that windmill caught his attention. It drew him forward it urged him to reach out his hand and twirl the old wooden blades around, staring at it like it was some sort of hypnotist's tool. A part of him had been tempted to interrupt, had recognized he was getting somewhere, and distract him before anything could come of it.

But before he could put a stop to it, David declared, "After I bought our house, I hated this windmill, my wife sold it to you…Kathryn." David had turned to face him then, his eyes round and filled with tears but not tears of joy. They were tears of regret. "I'm right, aren't I?" he asked almost sadly.

Sadly…where exactly had he been going tonight? He had his suspicions. And if those suspicions were correct, he would much rather have told him that he was wrong. But that was dangerous. Regina was close to this situation, befriending Kathryn, encouraging David in the wrong direction, he could lie, and it would be all too easy to trace it back to him, and then what? He'd have no reason for doing it other than wanting David to continue spending time with Mary Margaret, and everyone knew that Mr. Gold did not goad on relationships. Lying was too risky. Which meant…

Fuck.

He grit his teeth together as he went to the place he kept his inventory cards. After looking through them for a moment, he pulled one out, but it was just for show. The card he'd pulled out was actually for a diamond ring. He didn't need to read the one that belonged to that windmill to know it was true. His false memories told him all he needed to know.

"Amish made wooden windmill, late twentieth century, weathered but otherwise good condition. Recommend repainting. Purchase cost fifty dollars store credit, estimated value once repaired, eighty dollars. Original seller…Kathryn Nolan."

David swallowed, his throat bobbed with obvious emotion. Which emotion and why, he wondered. "It's true," he sighed, looking back at the windmill. "Ah…" after a few seconds, David reached up to wipe at his eyes. Now there was no denying that he was crying.

Fuck.

"Toll bridge is two blocks and to the right, you said…there's a path?"

"Can't miss it," he confirmed. And just like that, David Nolan left his shop, turned right just outside the door, and walked away. He slammed his hand down onto the glass case in front of him, anger ripping through him, urging him to hit something, destroy, break, smash. But again, he resisted. He'd only just barely finished having his back door repaired, and this time there would be no way to explain that kind of reaction or the damage from it. All he could do was brace himself, finish his work, go home…and do a lot of internal cursing.

Fuck!

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #David Nolan #mary margaret blanchard #Snow White #Snowing #ouat #ouat fanfict #fanfiction

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albapuella · 4 years

Text

How to Lose a Lover in 10 Days or Less: A Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a Future Romantic Failure (Chapter Three)

AO3

Fandom: Homestuck

Summary: How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days AU Dave needs to win a bet; Karkat needs to write an article. Shenanigans ensue.

Tags: Humanstuck, alternate universe - no sburb session, POV switches galore, implied/referenced child abuse Author’s note: This story is the result of a jam session I did with aceAdoxography on the davekat thirst federation discord server. This one's a little out of my usual wheelhouse, but I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. New chapters every Saturday/Sunday. Didn’t bother with the formatting this time: You want the fancy formatting, go to AO3 :D

Day 3:

Since Karkat had not managed to scare Dave off with the... outburst yesterday, he figured he’d hooked the idiot as well as he was ever going to. Which meant it was time to start fucking it up. He did his best to ignore the sense of loss already forming in his chest at the thought. Whatever frustrations he’d felt during that hang out/date thing Dave had put him through yesterday, he couldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed the experience, too.

Dave was a dork who talked too much, but he was also witty and charming in a maladroit sort of way. And it had been nice to have someone appreciate Karkat’s sense of humor in return. For once. A part of him wished he had longer to enjoy their time together, but he knew better.

Since he knew better, he also knew it wasn’t the time to mope. It was time to go on the full offensive. “Offensive” being the operative word. In this case, it meant acting like himself. Karkat had been on his best behavior up to this point, and now he’d show Dave who the “real him” really was. If he played his cards right, he probably wouldn’t even have to go on another date to seal the deal.

Karkat felt his eyes ache, and he hated himself for being such an idiot. He’d known this wasn’t going to last—even without his article, it never would have lasted. He’d already proven a countless number of times that, while a fairly good friend, he was simply terrible as a romantic partner. Dave was just one more guy he’d never really had a chance with. Just one more tally mark to add to his failures.

---

When Dave woke up the next day, he saw that he had quite a few messages waiting for him. A handful from Rose about wedding plans (with a reminder of the dress code, because of course her wedding would have a fully defined dress code). A bunch from his far-flung friend Jade (mostly telling a story which did not require more than a quick “cool” on his part). A couple from John (who was excited that he’d be seeing Dave at the wedding). There were also several from Karkat. Which was kind of a relief: Dave hadn’t liked that he’d been the first one to message him all the time: it made him feel like he was bugging the guy. Especially after waking him up yesterday.

CG: OKAY ASSHOLE, HERE’S THE DEAL:

CG: YOU WANT TO DATE THE REAL ME. FINE.

CG: I AM DONE BEING ON MY BEST BEHAVIOR.

CG: BE PREPARED FOR ME TO COMMENT ON EVERY INANITY THAT DRIBBLES FROM YOUR MOUTH LIKE THE LEAVINGS OF AN INCONTINENT PIGEON.

CG: YOU ARE NOT HALF AS FUNNY AS YOU THINK YOU ARE. ALSO YOUR “RAPS” ARE AN AFFRONT TO THE GENRE AS WELL AS TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

CG: IF YOU THINK I AM JOKING OR BEING “CUTE”, YOU ARE WRONG. A STATE YOU SHOULD BE EXTREMELY FAMILIAR WITH BECAUSE YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY SUFFERING FROM AT LEAST MODERATE BRAIN DAMAGE.

CG: I AM NOT NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN “A SNACK”. I ALSO DO NOT HAVE A “SEXY PROFESSOR THING GOING”. IN THE ENTIRE SPAN OF MY MISERABLE EXISTENCE, I HAVE NEVER BEEN ANYTHING WHICH COULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE IN EVEN THE MEAGEREST OF WAYS “SEXY”.

CG: MAYBE YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THAT FOR YOURSELF IF YOU EVER TOOK OFF THOSE DOUCHE SHADES YOU ARE ALWAYS WEARING.

CG: I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS SMALL TASTE OF WHAT IS TO COME IN YOUR FUTURE SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO KEEP DATING ME.

Dave read the messages a few times, frowning. Mostly, he felt confused, too confused to feel either amused or insulted. Sudden. This was sudden. Also, the more he read the messages, the more he thought Karkat was being more mean to himself than to Dave. His inner Rose (the voice which sounded like Rose but was not nearly as smart as the real thing) said that Karkat was lashing out, hoping to hurt Dave before Dave could hurt him.

And wasn’t that sad?

TG: first of all

TG: you are a total snack

TG: this is not negotiable

TG: do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars

TG: not to be all objectifying or whatever

TG: but that was literally the first thing i thought when i saw you

TG: that guy is a total snack

TG: and fuck you you are sexy

TG: i bet you look even better without the sweater

TG: you are the bank and im the debtor

TG: payin compliments is my cheddar

TG: need proof read the letter

TG: dear mr vantas you are hella sexy signed me

CG: OH MY GOD.

CG: THAT WAS THE PART YOU CHOSE TO FOCUS ON. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU AT ALL. MOST PEOPLE DON’T LIKE BEING INSULTED. IS THIS A KINK FOR YOU? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS? ARE YOU A FUCKING MASOCHIST?

Dave was grinning so much his cheeks hurt. Nailed it.

TG: im not a masochist

TG: but i think i might be getting a thing for grumpy assholes

TG: it needs more testing

TG: how about we hang out for a few hours today

TG: and see

“CG is typing” appeared and disappeared several times.

CG: REALLY. YOU REALLY WANT TO KEEP DATING ME.

TG: yea unless you dont want to keep dating me

TG: i hope you do

TG: want to keep dating me

TG: i want to know you better

TG: and kiss you sometime

This time the “CG is typing” message went on for quite a while. Dave wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have sent that last message. Then again, he’d already called the guy sexy several times; saying he wanted to kiss him wasn’t weird.

CG: IF YOU’RE SURE YOU WANT TO KEEP DOING THIS, THEN FINE. OKAY. I THINK I WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER TOO. JUST REMEMBER I GAVE YOU AMPLE WARNING OF WHAT THE REAL ME IS LIKE. WHEN I INEVITABLY END UP HURTING YOUR FEELINGS, YOU WILL HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF.

TG: score

---

After, unwisely, agreeing to meet Dave at the park again before going to some secret secondary date destination he had in mind, Karkat slipped his phone into his pocket in a daze. He was still reeling. Where had he misjudged this situation? He’d been certain he’d done enough to scare Dave away, and yet, here he was with another date to prepare for. Masochism or brain damage—those were the only options. Considering how much Dave had insisted on Karkat’s attractiveness, he was leaning towards the latter.

Of course, the words alone were only half of the total package. Even Dave would find difficulty deriving whatever enjoyment he got out of Karkat’s insults when they were being delivered at an ear-ringing volume. Karkat heaved a deep sigh. All he had to do was be himself on this date. That had always been enough for every other person he’d dated to leave him. Dave would be no different: he was just dumber, so it was taking him longer to get with the program.

* Thinks I’m “sexy”. Definite brain damage. Probable masochist. Raps have not increased in quality but I’m starting to get used to them.

---

The problem was Dave knew what he liked to do, what he found fun, but he didn’t know Karkat well enough yet to have much of an idea of what Karkat liked to do. Usually, Dave would have just asked, but seeing as Karkat had just been prepared to be dumped, he didn’t think the question would go over well.

When Dave approached the YO this time, Karkat was already sitting on the bench. His head was bowed over his notepad, and he was furiously writing. Although tempted to look over his shoulder and see what he was doing, Dave decided not to. If it turned out to be something deeply personal, he’d feel like a creep.

Whatever it was held Karkat’s full attention. Dave could be very stealthy, but he wasn’t even trying to be quiet as he got closer. Finally, he was standing right beside where Karkat was sitting. Still nothing. Remembering the reaction he’d gotten the other day, he flopped down close to Karkat, making the other man jump. “Hey.”

Karkat brought his notepad up to his chest, hiding it, and glared. Despite his clear irritation and the roominess of the bench, he didn’t move away. “What the fuck, Dave? Are you incapable of conducting yourself like a normal person? Or am I just special?”

Dave grinned. Looked like Karkat had meant what he’d said about acting more like himself. “I don’t know, you are pretty special. Not in the Special Olympics way,” he hastened to add as he realized his compliment might not come across complimentary. “I mean, nothing against them, they’re great,” he continued, now realizing the actual insult he was now offering them and not wanting to be that guy, “but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

A sort of disbelieving half-smile. “Should I stop you now, or let you keep going?”

“Oh, definitely stop me,” Dave said, relieved. He gestured to the notepad Karkat was no longer holding so tightly against himself. “What are you working on?”

“Nothing important,” Karkat said brusquely, shoving the notepad into his bag as though it had personally offended him. “Something for my work.”

It occurred to Dave that he actually had no idea what Karkat did for a living. “What do you do?”

For a moment, Karkat only regarded him with deep suspicion. Then he sighed. “I write for Dubiously Cultured.” Apparently, Dave’s confusion showed on his face, for he elaborated, “It’s basically a gay Cosmo.” Then he frowned. “You know, a magazine with fashion tips? Make-up? Relationship advice?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Dave said quickly. The last thing he wanted was for his eyes to glaze over on his date like they did when Rose started talking about her magazine (whose title he could not recall at this moment if he’d been being held at gunpoint). “Are you writing an article? Laying down the keep your man tips for the masses?”

Even Karkat seemed surprised by the laughter abruptly bursting from him. “Something like that,” he said once he’d recovered. “You work as a DJ at the Glass, right?”

Honestly, Dave was shocked. He’d been sure Karkat had been just tuning him out! Then again, he had remembered he was from Texas, too. Maybe he just always looked bored and pissed off. “Yeah. It’s not super steady, but it pays the bills.” It actually didn’t pay the bills; Rose’s mom (his mom, she was also his mom) sent him money every month to pay for the apartment and various other expenses. However, his sad family history wasn’t exactly third date material. “You ever been?”

Karkat leveled Dave with a skeptical look which seemed to indicate his estimation of Dave’s intelligence had started low and was only getting lower. “Do I look like the kind of person that would get past a bouncer? Are you actually visually impaired, or are you making fun of me?” He shook his head. “I can see myself in the mirror, jackass; I know what I look like. Stop pretending I’m,” he held up his hands to make the finger quotes, ‘hot’.”

“I’m insulted you would think I’d lie about your hotness. You’re a fucking rooftop in the middle of a Texas summer. I should know; I’ve been there.” The metaphor stirred up memories Dave didn’t want to think about, and he wrapped an arm around Karkat’s shoulder. He immediately wished he’d done it sooner. “Anyway, I’ve already told you, you are a snack. You might as well accept it. It’s obvious. Everyone with eyes can see it. Not you, for some reason, but everyone else.”

“That’s just not true, Dave.” Before he could contest this, Karkat continued, “Most blind people still have eyes, idiot, and they can’t see anything, let alone support your dubious assertion that I’m attractive.” The words practically dripped with sarcasm even as he settled into Dave’s half-embrace. “You’re being so fucking insensitive right now.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right.” The part of Dave not worrying about the words flowing out of his mouth registered how nice and warm Karkat felt under his arm and pressed against his side. “Well, if they got to feel you up, they’d agree you were a snack, too. So, checkmate, Karkat. Check fucking mate. You’re just going to have to accept it. Majority vote. You’re a snack.”

Karkat looked up. “If you tell me you want to eat me, I’m leaving now and blocking your chumhandle.” Then his gaze shifted away. “This is nice,” he said, his voice softer than Dave had thought he was capable of. Maybe it was Dave’s burgeoning hearing loss, but he sounded… sad.

While Dave wanted to ask why he sounded so sad, he figured Karkat would tell him if he wanted him to know. After all, they still hadn’t known each other for very long yet. What was needed was a distraction, and Dave had just the thing to cheer both of them up. “If you think this is nice, you should be super excited for our date.”

---

Karkat had been feeling guilty again. It really had been nice, sitting on that bench in front of that giant art installation, to pretend that there was actually some sort of future for them. For him and Dave. Together. So, he’d been feeling guilty—even if he was an idiot who talked too much, Dave wasn’t a bad guy, and he didn’t deserve what Karkat planned on putting him through.

At least, that’s what Karkat had been thinking until they’d arrived at their final destination.

“A karaoke bar?” Karkat felt a scowl furrow his brow, and he turned it onto Dave, who had the audacity to be grinning at him. “It might interest you to know that I can’t fucking sing.”

Dave shrugged. “No one can at these places, Karkat. That’s why it’s fun.” He pushed his glasses down his nose, allowing Karkat the briefest glimpse of his eyes before he pushed them up again. “You’ve had fun before right? Or do we have to go slow and ease you into it, because fun is a hotel pool with a broken heater, and you haven’t raided the mini-bar yet.”

“Of course I know what fun is, you festering anal wart.” He saw himself ranting reflected in the lenses of Dave’s stupid glasses and looked away. “Fun is a walk in the park, or watching a movie, or going on a picnic, or playing a game. Fun is not embarrassing yourself in front of dozens of strangers by subjecting them to what can only laughingly be called your singing voice!” He started at the unexpected hand on his shoulder but made no move to shrug it off.

“Hey,” Dave said quietly, “if you really don’t want to be here, we can do something else. I don’t really know what you like yet outside of chick flicks. And writing for a magazine. And coming up with creative insults for me.” His grip on Karkat’s shoulder tightened slightly. “Help me out here, Karkat; I’m drowning with only seconds left to live. You’re the hot lifeguard, and I’m gonna need your sweet lips on mine fairly soon, or else I’m leaving the beach in a body bag. And no one wants that.”

Karkat turned back to face Dave. There were so many things to unpack in this latest offering of word vomit that he wasn’t even going to make the attempt. “Do you ever actually listen to the things you say?”

“I try not to,” Dave said blithely. “Messes with my flow.” Then the smile faded. “I mean it, though. If you want to go somewhere else, we totally can. I don’t have my heart set on this place; I just thought it’d be fun. Maybe you’d loosen up a little.”

“I am exactly as loose as I want to be,” Karkat sniped back, tacitly admitting that now he was the one saying stupid things. As much as he wanted to make things difficult for Dave for the sake of his article, he really couldn’t deny being touched that Dave was willing to change his plans because Karkat had complained about them.

Besides, while Karkat could be (and often was) loudly unpleasant and vulgar, it wasn’t the kind of thing he could force. He had to feel it. And he wasn’t feeling it. “No, we can stay. Just are there private rooms?”

Dave was frowning, perhaps in displeasure, perhaps in thought. “We can check.”

---

It turned out that there were private rooms, but they were prohibitively expensive. If this had been something Karkat had really wanted to do, Dave would have shelled out the cash, but he’d known he’d made the right call to spend the date elsewhere when he’d given Karkat the verdict and his shoulders had immediately relaxed.

Although Karkat had also protested that he wasn’t much better at bowling than he was at singing, he’d seemed less agitated about the prospect. He’d actually smiled a little when Dave had confided that he, too, wasn’t much of a bowler. Dave also wasn’t much of a drinker, but when Karkat offered to buy him a beer, he’d accepted it.

Dave was currently sipping his apple? flavored ale from the chair in their section of the alley and watching Karkat lob yet another ball down the gutter. This made, what? the tenth in a row? Dave had managed via blind luck to hit a strike with his first shot—a feat he had not been able to repeat—and that had pissed Karkat off like nothing else. Each additional failure to even get his ball any closer to hitting any of the pins only made Karkat’s face redder.

The only question was when he was going to pop.

“FUCK!” Karkat stomped back to the ball return. “FUCK ME, FUCK BOWLING, AND FUCK YOU, DAVE. YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME? NEWSFLASH, FUCK FACE, YOU ARE JUST AS OBJECTIVELY TERRIBLE AT THIS AS I AM—AT LEAST *I* HAVE THE FUCKING DECENCY TO BE ASHAMED OF MYSELF!”

Dave made absolutely no attempt to hold back his laughter.

“Hey, do you mind watching your language?” An older man in the next lane was giving Karkat quite an impressive glare. “There are kids present.”

Karkat’s face went purple.

---

“Well, Karkat,” Dave said as they walked down the street to no stated destination, his tone infuriatingly casual, “I can honestly say I’ve never been kicked out of a bowling alley before. I can scratch that off the old bucket list. It wasn’t on there because I hadn’t thought of it, but now I see I was blind to the possibilities. Thanks for opening my third eye or some shit like that.”

Karkat had let Dave put his stupid arm around his shoulders about a block back, and he hated the fact it felt so comforting. Bad enough he’d made an ass out of himself over nothing in public (again!), but it hadn’t even worked. He’d wanted to piss Dave off by showcasing his abhorrent personality, and he’d failed miserably. It wasn’t even his fault he’d failed either. For some inscrutible fucking reason, the idiot found temper tantrums hilarious to watch rather than embarrassing to be associated with. “Fuck you, Dave,” he said quietly, his energy quite spent.

Dave chuckled. Case in fucking point. “Aw come on, don’t be like that. It’s not like we’re banned from the place.” He paused. “I’m probably not going to get you to go there again anyway, am I?”

“I am never stepping foot back into that establishment, no.”

“Are you still pissed at me for that strike?” Dave’s voice sounded disbelieving. Maybe a little hurt. “I told you, man, it was a fluke. I wasn’t trying to hustle you. If I’d wanted to hustle you, there’d be money involved. That’s how that shit works. It’s like the definition of a hustle.”

Karkat sighed. “No, I’m not mad about that.” He hadn’t really been that mad about it in the bowling alley either. He’d just been frustrated. Loudly. Which was how he usually expressed his frustration. In the moment, it made him feel better… afterwards, he just felt tired. “I’m just really fucking embarrassed, okay? I know embarrassment is probably a foreign concept for you, but—”

Then he was being hugged. He tensed for a moment, then relaxed into it. He knew he shouldn’t be accepting Dave’s comfort, that this was only going to make things harder in the long run, but he couldn’t help himself. He really was such a selfish asshole. His head fell naturally against Dave’s shoulder, and he felt a distressingly familiar ache in his eyes. “Why are you hugging me?”

A soft guff of laughter blew past his ear. “Dude, you looked like you needed a hug. I’m not a hug expert or anything, but sometimes you look at a guy and think, that guy, he needs a hug.” The arms around him held him just a little tighter. “I hope you leave me a good review on yelp.”

Karkat choked on his unexpected laughter. “Dave. You are so fucking ridiculous.” As much as a part of him wanted to remain in his arms, he knew if he stayed any longer, he really would start crying. “Let go of me, asshole.”

Dave did so with only a moment’s hesitation. He put his hands on his hips. “So, what do you think?”

“About what?” Karkat successfully resisted the urge to wipe his eyes. With any luck, Dave wouldn’t notice how tear bright they probably were. Why was he getting so emotional anyway? None of this would matter soon enough.

“My review,” Dave said as though Karkat should have any idea what he was talking about. “Five out of five stars, right? Don’t crash my yelp score, dude—I have a reputation to maintain as hug master supreme; it’s all I have.”

And Karkat was laughing again. It really felt good.

---

* Gives nice hugs. Doesn’t respect personal space. Karaoke bar? Shitty bowler. Why isn’t this working?

---

{{ The third step is the ego. For Dr. Freud (famous psychology hack), the ego was a moderator. For our purposes, we return to the original Latin: I. Make it all about you and your comfort. If you have had enough of your short-term partner’s incessant prattle, say so. When you want to scream, do it at the top of your lungs. Use whatever language feels best to you at all times regardless of the situation. Make your short-term partner embarrassed to be associated with you. If you can get you and your short-term partner kicked out of an establishment due to your behavior, so much the better. However, if you find that such antics only serve to amuse your short-term partner, cease them immediately. The point of this exercise is to humiliate your short-term partner, not further endear you to them. Also, in the event that you are more embarrassed by your conduct than your short-term partner is, under no circumstances allow them to comfort you. It will only distract you from your objective. }}

#Homestuck #humanstuck #davekat #fan fic #my fic #wip

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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June 22nd-June 28th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from June 22nd, 2020 to June 28th, 2020. The chat focused on The Stoop-Gallants by MJ Alexander and WW Rose.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on The Stoop-Gallants by MJ Alexander and WW Rose~! (http://www.thestoopgallants.com/site/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until June 28th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to reread/catch up to answer the prompts, but I gotta say this comic absolutely excels at what it does.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

I've been meaning to read this one too, I'll try and set aside some time to!

Delphina

Stoop-Gallants has so much adorable humor and sass, Predictably, Alta is my favorite character; seeing her extremely awkward yet sweet relationship with Mica is my favorite.

Flea is also a sweetheart and I love seeing them learning more about their unpredictable magic and coming to be comfortable with it after avoiding it so long. This page in particular where they finally internalize that they're not a mistake and they're not alone made me tear up a little bit. T_T http://www.thestoopgallants.com/site/tsg/page-547/

RebelVampire

What I like about the beginning of the comic is that it basically opens with accidental necromancy. I think it really just kind of paints the entire tone of the comic, sets the right expectations, and is honestly, just hilariously convoluted. My favorite moment in the comic so far was actually probably the accidental necromancy as well. I love necromancy, and just the way this happens is so hilarious. Plus, I like a lot of the other scenes it ties into, like Maxwell getting mocked for not being able to do any sort of necromancy. In the theme of this trend, my favorite character is Ru. Ru is just adorable and tries his best. I like his overall kind of boyish charms sometimes mixed with his honesty and honestly, just a great friend to everyone. As for characters interacting the most, I probably enjoy seeing Marigold and Alta the most. I really like how their relationship is kind of equal trust and equal wanting to punch the other person in the face. And yet, despite all this, Marigold really sticks by Alta and helps out in the ways only Marigold can. So I just find it to be such an interesting but wholesome relationship. What I like about the art is probably the character designs. I love that there's so many different body shapes, and in particular the heights. I love that some of the characters just basically tower over the others, cause I think that's something people neglect when it comes to fantasy settings in that you can really play around a lot more with those sorts of proportions. So I appreciate seeing it here.

For themes, I like the comic explores what to do when you have a natural talent at something but you don't like that something. I feel this is something we see with Flea, Alta, and Ru. And yet, all three handle it so differently, with Alta accepting, Flea reluctantly dealing with it after fleeing, and Ru going "Nah bro I don't want this." And I really like we get to explore whether our natural talents and destiny can be run from, or if we should just accept it. For the comic's overall story, I like the balance of character conflict vs. world conflict. This is a very character driven comic, but I never feel like the world is being neglected. Like the situation with the king, now the elves. The world is built slowly, but still at a place where you get a feel for where the characters live and how the world they live in affects them. As for the comic's overall strengths, likeable characters. Even when the characters are jerks, there's still something about them where you're like, "Ok I get it." And in turn, you're invested in all their goals, even when those goals are not necessarily something that fit together.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. How do you think Mica and Alta’s relationship will progress throughout the story? Will the two continue to blunder through everything, or will things continue to go smoothly? Also, how might Alta’s personal feelings about her career affect them?

10. Do you think Flea will successfully learn to control their magic? If so, how will this change them as a person? All in all, what do you think Flea’s story has to teach us about identity, destiny, and self-acceptance?

11. Will Ru be able to solve his necromancy problem? If so, do you think he’ll be happy about it? How does this all compare to Flea’s tale? Lastly, how will the events of Ru’s story affect Cymonee solving her problem?

12. How will the Consortium’s plans surrounding the king affect the main characters? Will they do something to stop it to achieve their own ends? Additionally, what role do you think Maxwell will play, whether as a “good” guy or “bad” guy?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Delphina

@RebelVampire I think this is a really good way of putting it! I also like that Ru's been gradually having to come to terms with the fact that he did what he did and grow from someone who's trying desperately to shed the consequences of the drunken magical mistake he made, and into maybe accepting he's responsible for it and should stand up for the zombie he's affected. I'm so curious to see if the elf kingdom in the current arc is going to have a solution, and if so, if it's a solution he wants to go through with.(edited)

The cast is very big and while I would love to see more Alta and Mica, I think they've gotten some of their big stuff out of the way and can move on with a relatively normal relationship. If the story does revisit them in a more dedicated arc, I would love to see some exploration of Alta's extreme savior complex and how that clashes with her perception of Mica's disability.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Did a reread recently -- this comic is so good, funny and genre-savvy with smart writing and lovable characters. Can't wait for the Volume 2 Kickstarter.

From the early chapters, I really liked Mica's and Maxwell's weird bond. Seems like they're going to be in different settings following unrelated storylines for a while, but I'm looking forward to when their paths cross again...mostly for Mica's reaction once she gets caught up on the progress of Maxwell's secret-magical-figurehead-coup gambit.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Also, the whole sequence where Maxwell has to explain "ugh, this stuff depends on an otherwise-useless narrow and restricted concept of 'virginity'". (And Ru has to unpack why he still qualifies...) I think that's the first point where you really feel the contrast between "a fantasy setting with lots of these traditional tropes and formalities" and "characters who feel and react like real people." ...without spoiling anything too specific, Rekhet's whole aesthetic (their fashion sense, their interior design) is the pinnacle of this. It is hard to pick a favorite character, but boy did they shoot waaay up the list almost immediately after their introduction.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I feel like the first solution Ru gets is gonna be something like "don't worry, we can incinerate your problem into a pile of ash that'll blow away on the wind!" -- and he's going to balk, because he's gotten attached enough that he wants the denizen free, not destroyed. No idea what he's ultimately going to settle on -- I think it'll be something weird and offbeat, not this easy to predict. In the meantime, Denny's antics are great. Especially when there's something plot-relevant or serious going on and it's just bopping around doing its own thing in the background. (And that one scene where they all got into fancy dress, and somebody gave the denizen a bowtie -- priceless. If it started getting a new themed accessory for every scene, I would not complain.)

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Mica seems like she has lots of plans and interests and desires, but hasn't had the time/money/resources to pursue anything more than "reading about them." Meanwhile, Alta is well-traveled, practiced and competent at lots of things, and has the resources to go around offering her services pro bono...but doesn't really like or care about her job, it's just something she fell into because she was good at it. Point being, I hope they'll get into a setup where Mica picks some dreams to follow, and Alta focuses on giving her the support/backing to do it, and then gets to share in Mica's actual enjoyment. And maybe Alta figures out she likes one of these things for its own sake, so they decide to settle down and pursue it together? Or maybe they just keep exploring indefinitely, and it turns out Alta's really into "being the devoted protector while someone else is in charge."

RebelVampire

@Delphina He named the Denizen. Once you name something, there is no going back.

RebelVampire

I feel like even though things are going good between Mica and Alta, that right now were in that happy passionate phase before real issues start to heat and they start to realize theyre kind of two different ppl. So I really think that they're going to increasingly face more and more challenges in that regards. I also think Alta is about to rethink careers, and that will probably make her defocus from building the relationship. I do think Flea will successfully learn magic, and I think in so doing Flea will gain newfound confidence but also just an entire new perspective on who they are and life in general. And I think Flea teaches us that if we continue to reject parts of ourselves, even if we dont like that, that we're just gonna wind up hurting ourselves until we explode and hurt everyone else around us. I also think Flea teaches us that identity is also fluid and that you can, will, and should change and that just cause you change, doesn't mean you aren't who you are. I think Ru will find a solution, but I don't think Ru will act on it. I reiterate in this chat again, once you name something, there is no going back. However, I don't think Ru's choice will help Cymonee. I do think Ru will find other ways to help as a sort of payback for Cymonee sticking with him. However, what I'm most interested here is the comparison so far with Flea. Flea is embracing powers, while Ru isn't. And I find this contrasting journey to be interesting. I mean Ru didn't get no Alta speech about self-acceptance, so I'm wondering how that alone paved the course of events. I feel like the Consortium's plans is what will bring the main cast together again, since they'll either stop the Consortium, or clean up their mess. Since places without a ruling head of government usually don't do so hot. I think Maxwell will serve as the person who tattles in the hopes he can come out on top.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I am most looking forward to seeing more of Ru's story, cause I really want to know if he's gonna start self-accepting those necromancy powers of if he really will just react them for all time. As for final words, this a comic with some fantastic characters, has a really unique humor with how the characters conduct themselves,, and all around is definitely a comic that deserves some praise.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I hope that if Ru does choose to accept these necromancy powers, it's because he wants to, not because he has to. Like, I'm hoping he finds a solution to his problem, but he chooses not to go through with it. One thing I'm loving about the current two arcs is that it's given us a chance to go more in depth with these characters. I loved the parts where the whole gang was together as a group, but this just gives us a chance to see these relationships flourish. Though, I do hope we see more Marigold soon, plus some other side characters like Maxwell. All in all, I really love this comic, and I can't wait to see where it goes next!

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about The Stoop-Gallants this week! Please also give a special thank you to MJ Alexander and WW Rose for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked The Stoop-Gallants, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://www.thestoopgallants.com/site/

The Stoop-Gallants’ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/snartha

The Stoop-Gallants’ Store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/snartha/shop

The Stoop-Gallants’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/snartha

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #the stoop gallants #the stoop-gallants #mj alexander #ww rose

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glassc0ffin · 5 years

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Feedback

hee hoo i wrote a tma fic in the form of frankies statement to the institute

words: 2245

warnings: none, except for phil collins and thrown staples

pairing: oc (frankie james)/jonathan sims

[[MORE]]

FRANKIE JAMES:

-That a tape recorder? It's so cute! We've been trying to get one for the station, just so we can say we have one - y'know, to impress the hipsters - but they're well out of my budget. How did you get one?

ARCHIVIST:

I - Uh, it was here when I got the job, it was my predecessor's.

JAMES:

Wow, well, I'm jealous. [GIGGLES] A little tempted for thievery…

ARCHIVIST:

...Right. Would you like to begin your statement?

JAMES:

Oh, yeah, of course.

ARCHIVIST:

Alright. Statement of Frank James, radio DJ at -

JAMES:

Frankie.

ARCHIVIST:

[PAUSE] Frankie James, radio DJ at Tranzishon Rock, London, regarding…?

JAMES:

Uh, a series of...obscene phone calls from an unknown person.

ARCHIVIST:

Recorded direct from subject by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of The Magnus Institute, 21st of September, 2019. Statement begins.

JAMES:

Ah, so, okay. [SIGHS]

ARCHIVIST:

...Are you alright?

JAMES:

Yeah, I just… [SIGHS] I have a hard time...getting words out. I'm not...articulate.

ARCHIVIST:

Would I be able to help?

JAMES:

How would you? It's in my head.

ARCHIVIST:

[SIGHS] You'd be surprised. [PAUSES] When did it start? The phone calls.

JAMES:

On my show. I have a radio show at Tranzishon, late nights, 7 till 10, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Towards the end of the show, from 9 till 10, we do a requests hour. Listeners call, or text, or tweet, or send a carrier pigeon, to ask us to play songs. The last one is only if they're fancy.

ARCHIVIST:

[SNORTS]

JAMES:

[PAUSES]

ARCHIVIST:

[PAUSES] Sorry. You were saying?

JAMES:

[LAUGHS FAINTLY, A LITTLE BREATHLESS] Ah, yeah, erm… [AMUSED] I can't quite remember where I was…

ARCHIVIST:

The requests hour?

JAMES:

Yes! Okay, so, er, I was announcing the requests hour, reading out our phone number and the twitter account, and as soon as I had finished reading the phone number, we got a call. I- We've got a small team of techies - well, two - that handle incoming calls, texts, tweets, whatever. One, Paul, looked up from the switchboard at me and put me through to the listener, and I did my usual spiel. Y'know: [RADIO VOICE] You're listening to Frankie at Tranzishon rock, dear listener, what's your request?

[NORMAL VOICE] And they didn't say anything. There was dead air for a couple of seconds, then as I began to say 'Anybody there?' my headphones are blown out by the sudden high volume. The person on the other end must have been right up on the mic, because there was an immense amount of feedback and white noise. I'm sort of thankful for that, 'cause it nearly covered up what they had to say.

[PAUSES] [DEEP BREATH] I... don't want to repeat what they said. Suffice to say, the techies had some lightning speed reaction time when they cut off the line. There was more dead air as I tried to recover from the shock, I think I made a joke about them wanting the number for Babestation instead.

ARCHIVIST:

[LAUGHS]

JAMES:

[PAUSES] [LAUGHS, WEAKLY] Yeah… Ah, so, w-we banned that number so they wouldn't call again, and I ended the show with Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) by The Offspring. Because I cope with bad experiences by burying them with humour.

[UNDER HIS BREATH] Give it to me, baby. [EVEN QUIETER] Uh huh, uh huh.

[COUGHS]

Uh. Anyway. I went home, had my day off, and went back into work the next night and tried to forget about what happened. And for the most part, I did. The first 2 hours passed without incident, and then when I announced the requests hour, I joked about the caller the other day. My techies looked at each other nervously as I laughed. I gave them a questioning look, but said nothing. I'd ask them after the show. I read the number and twitter and waited for the requests to roll in. Again, we had another phone call straight away. I said my spiel, and my heart was in my throat as I waited for the caller to speak. I looked at my techies. Sheena, my other tech, shrugged at me. I sighed, about to give them a signal to cut them off and answer someone else when the feedback returned, louder and more harsh this time. I threw my headphones onto the desk in front of me, but I still heard the words spilling out of them.

[SWALLOWS] Y'know that scene in Silence of the Lambs? Where Lecter asks Clarice to repeat what that other inmate had said to her? Y'know - [SOUTHERN AMERICAN ACCENT] 'He said, I can smell your cunt.'

ARCHIVIST:

Good lord.

JAMES:

Yeah. It was a bit like that. There was a lot more...squelching with mine, though. Ugh. The techs cut the call, as I knew they would. I was more than a little pissed off. I started playing a song someone had tweeted and turned off my mic, turning to my techies. I asked them, why didn't you ban them like you said you would last time? Sheena said she did, that she guessed they were using a payphone or something to harass us. Paul tentatively asked if we should inform the police, and I told him to F off. We've had no help from coppers in the past when we had Nazis and TERFs flooding our lines calling us all sorts of shit, why would they help now? Cops avoid gays like the plague unless its for propaganda. So, Paul backed down.

Before the song ended, I quickly mentioned that maybe we shouldn't take calls anymore, just texts and tweets. I didn't want it to come to that, not really. I ended the show again with a song from a small local band, earning me a shoutout on their twitter. That felt good, at least.

I went home, picking up a 6-pack of Stella on the way. I wanted to make sure I slept that night. As I sat on the tube, a good 20 minute journey to my flat, my phone began to ring. At that moment, it didn't strike me that it shouldn't have been able to get any reception underground, yet there it was, ringing in my hand. I was more annoyed at it interrupting my music, but I answered anyway. It was the same fucking caller. I couldn't hit the 'disconnect' button fast enough. But I still heard what he said. [LAUGHS SHAKILY] At least the guy has some imagination. Never the same thing twice. [VOICE BREAKS, STUTTERING] I looked around the tube to see if anyone would be witnessing my quickly approaching panic attack, and finding no-one in the compartment with me, I broke down. The next 15 minutes passed with a blur, and then I reached my station, tears stopping as fast as they had came.

I stepped off the tube and started walking in the direction towards my flat, and my phone started ringing again. My breath caught in my chest as I froze on the pavement, phone vibrating away in my pocket. I picked it up, screen lit up and facing toward the ground. Slowly, I turned it up, half shutting my eyes, as if the person on the other end wouldn't be able to see me if I couldn't see the phone. [SIGHS] Stupid. It was my mum's phone number. I answered, talked with her for a little bit - she lives a ways away, I don't get to see her a lot - and said goodnight when I got to my flat. I got blackout and passed out on my couch when I got in. Yeah, I know I'm a lightweight. When I woke up at 12pm, my TV was still on, replaying the DVD menu for Black Christmas - the 1974 version. I guess in my Stella-crazed state I was desperate to watch it again.

The entire day, I left my phone switched off. My boss won't be too pleased with me, especially after 2 shows of mine had very explicit profanity, thanks to our mystery caller, but I didn't care.

[PAUSES]

Listen, I-I know, alright? I know it sounds stupid, I know I probably sound like a pearl-clutching housewife, how scandalous that I'm terrified of a few dirty phonecalls, but...you didn't hear them. You wouldn't want to hear them. Paul, Sheena, and I certainly didn't. At least they only heard them at the station…

Thankfully, on the Friday, we had decided not to do requests hour. Yeah, a few listeners would be upset, but the more loyal listeners would understand when one person ruins it for everyone else. We just settled for the last hour of the show to be requests from Paul and Sheena. Strangely enlightening, but I don't wish to hear any more Phil Collins than is necessary. And with Paul, he seems to think 10 songs is necessary. It isn't.

ARCHIVIST:

[OFFENDED] What's wrong with Phil Collins?

JAMES:

Apart from the fact that we're a punk rock station?

ARCHIVIST:

Fair enough. You were saying?

JAMES:

Okay, so, ah… I was on my way home again, and had all but forgotten the mystery caller. We'd figured it had just been some weirdo that got bored of us cutting him off. But as I was walking from the tube station from my flat, I heard that ear-splitting feedback again. Doubling over in pain, I reached up to pull my headphones off, only to find that I had left them at the radio station. I pressed my fists to my ears, crumpling to the ground as the whine of someone being too close to a microphone pierced my eardrums. I felt something cold trickle out of my ear. I didn't have to check my hand to guess that it was blood. I hyperventilated as I lay on the ground. Something was shouting, screaming at me, screeching slurs and threats of what it wanted to do to me, what it will do to me. I remember vomiting, and then blacking out as the overlapping cacophony reached a fever pitch.

I woke up not too far from where I had passed out, £10 and a phone lighter. It was probably some homeless guy who took them, and honestly, I'm not too bothered. I'm more angry no-one took me to a doctor or something. I think, the last thing I saw before I passed out was someone standing in the distance. Staring. Yeah, it could have been some rando, but the image stuck with me.

They were silhouetted against the bright signs of the takeaways on the street behind them, hands stretching too far down, a little too tall. I might have been delusional or in the throes of oxygen deprivation or something, but I swear I saw it smile as I lost consciousness.

I haven't been back to my flat. I've been staying with Sheena for the past couple of days. She's alright, but I can tell she wants me out. She doesn't want what's happening to me to happen to her.

ARCHIVIST:

Statement ends. ...Are you alright?

JAMES:

[SNIFFS] Er, I - Uh, I should be, in a bit. Thanks for, uh...I don't know. Listening?

ARCHIVIST:

It's my job.

JAMES:

Is that it then? What happens now?

ARCHIVIST:

We'll get in contact with you if we find anything out.

JAMES:

Oh! Then, you'll probably need this then. [SCRIBBLING]

ARCHIVIST:

[SHOCKED NOISE] Wh- What are you doing?

JAMES:

Giving you my phone number, what's it look like?

ARCHIVIST:

Well, I'm sure you can give it to me on paper, not my hand! And didn't you say your phone was stolen?

JAMES:

[SCRIBBLING STOPS] Oh. Yeah. Well, if I ever get it back, then. You know where to call.

ARCHIVIST:

R-Right. Goodbye, Mr. James.

JAMES:

Frankie.

ARCHIVIST:

...Goodbye, Frankie.

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST:

Mr. James -- Frankie's behaviour was certainly... strange during our conversation. He kept looking at me, pausing and then quickly looking away again, having to restart his sentence whenever he did so. Maybe he realised that he had virtually no evidence to back up his testimony. The only witnesses we have are this Sheena and Paul, and they can only back up the instances of the phone calls happening at the radio station, not anywhere else. Conveniently, Frankie does not appear to record his mobile phone calls, so we have no evidence the phone call on the tube happened. Assuming it even could happen.

Furthermore, his constant stuttering only made me think he was making the whole thing up. Maybe he just wants a story for his show. He --

TIM:

Knock, knock. Was that Frankie James?

ARCHIVIST:

Yes, i-it was -- Tim, saying 'Knock, knock' is not a good substitute for knocking.

TIM:

Did I hear you saying that he was making it up because he was stuttering?

ARCHIVIST:

Well, yes. It's a common tell for lying.

TIM:

It's a common tell for a huge goddamn crush.

ARCHIVIST:

What?

TIM:

Oh, come on. You didn't notice?

ARCHIVIST:

No, n-no, I didn't.

TIM:

Jon, he was the colour of a tomato. He wrote his phone number on your hand! Look, he even drew a heart, for god's sake.

ARCHIVIST:

[MUTTERING] Hmm, yes, I suppose it does look like a heart… No, don't be ridiculous, Tim.

TIM:

[IN A SING-SONG VOICE] Jon has got a boyfriend, Jon has got a boyfriend!

ARCHIVIST:

Are you twelve?! Get out! [SOMETHING CLATTERS ON THE GROUND]

TIM:

Ow! Stop throwing staples at me!

[CRASHING SOUND]

[CLICK]

#fics #my writing #frankie #📖#owo i love him..

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negasonicimagines · 5 years

Text

“All Yours.”

requests: “Hii! Can request an ellie x reader imagine? I do not really care, I am giving you free hand because I am so thirsty for this girl :D thank you very much (maybe get kittens involved) [rq by @crazypurplesnowman]” + “10 FROM THE BUFFY PROMPTS COULD B PRETTY SICK LOOVE UR WRITING KEEP IT UP BABE”

[ 10: “I want to take comfort in you, and I know it will cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn’t care.” ]

notes: I wanted to try something new, so… Yandere!Ellie. Yeah, I’m writing that trope in 2019. This will probably be a flawed version of the trope, because I still want to be at least a little true to the character, and this will mostly be from Ellie’s perspective. Still 2nd person, but will be centered around her thoughts and feelings towards the reader, as opposed to the reader’s perception. DISCLAIMER: I am not encouraging fraud. This is literally the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever written and I LOVE IT. Like… Kittens, an iconic line from BTVS, Chuck E. Cheese, Yandere!Ellie…. Whew.

mini playlist for this fic:

superstar - marina

possession - sarah mclachlan

undisclosed desires - muse

happy place - terror jr

make you mine - public

tear you apart - she wants revenge

warnings: this is a yandere story, so just overall trigger warning. Ellie’s gonna be a little creepy and definitely a little OOC. Also, animal abuse mention & animal death. Also, graphically-detailed birth of kittens. (Here’s the video I watched for research, yes, it’s of a cat giving birth. The things I do for my thirsty ellie thots.)

There was just something about you.

Maybe it was your eyes, those perfect E/C eyes. The way you’d glance at her and smile, unsure of why she’s staring.

Or those lips. Every word you spoke was a song tumbling from between them, even if she didn’t like the fact that it was being sung to someone else.

Maybe it was your mutation. You both were mutants, you already had something in common, not to mention that you follow her Twitter and make her heart burst every time you retweet something from her. Same political opinions, same sense of humor, similar taste in music…

You rush in, a bundle in your arms. You’d gone for a walk and Ellie didn’t trust herself to be stealthy enough to follow you, not outside of the house. So, she’d sat on the loveseat by the door on her lonesome, waiting for you to return. You were all she could think of. She slinks over to where you’ve run, the infirmary.

She watches from the doorway, slowly entering as you open the bundle on one of the small beds used for long-term patients. It’s a large, fluffy black cat, some of its fur matted.

A stray? I love her… Ellie thinks. And it’s even black!

“She’s pregnant,” you tell the nurse, Annie. “I can feel it, the little lives. I’d say she’s going to go into labor very soon. I did some googling, and she’s already started the rhythmic purring.”

“So, you brought her here?” Annie asks, a brow arched. Don’t look at her like that. Just because they’re animals doesn’t mean they don’t deserve care. Ellie grinds her teeth, watching the situation. But, with you in sight, her anger is less intense.

“Well, where else was I supposed to bring her? I can try to heal her, but I can tell she might not make it through labor. I need help making her comfortable. Oh! Ellie, do you need something? I can heal you, if you have a headache or something,” you offer, distracted from your own cause by her. Me, Ellie thinks, lovesick.

“A bit of a headache,” Ellie lies. “But it can wait, if you want me to find some old towels or something.”

“I’d really appreciate that, thank you!” You beam, and she almost gasps in wonder, swiftly leaving to get the towels so you can’t see her blushing. She brings them into the infirmary, and helps you to organize them, hands brushing.

Ellie twitches away in surprise, cursing herself for her natural reaction to touch. While she knows that your touch feels good to everyone that you make skin-to-skin contact with, due to your mutation, which is to heal through touch, she feels that it must feel especially good to her, so she should accept the opportunity to feel your skin whenever she can.

“Thank you so much for the help, Ellie,” you say, eyes glimmering with excitement.

“No problem, Y/N,” she replies. “Anything else I can do?”

“Moral support would be appreciated, but I understand if you’ve got something better to do.”

Nothing’s better than you.

“Not at all,” Ellie responds, and the cat begins to meow. You go to pet her, and she purrs.

The cat starts to get a bit fidgety on the bed, wandering a bit. You and Annie make sure she stays on the bed, stroking her fur as she begins to yowl.

“Looks like we’re getting started,” you say, and Annie & Ellie nod. “Ellie, could you get us some gloves? Two pairs, unless you wanna help.”

Ellie gets three pairs of gloves, and the cat sort of squats on the bed, tail tucked. The yowl increases in volume, and she squeezes out the first kitten, a wet clump of black attached to a placenta nearly the same size. The mother cleans her child with her tongue, detaching the kitten from the placenta and eating it. Ellie notes the droplets of blood on the towels, and you nod.

“That’s normal, but we’ll have to be careful because if there’s too much she might be bleeding internally. It wouldn’t be surprising if she was, that man was kicking her really-” you sniff, clearly trying not to cry, and Ellie wants to slit his throat. “...Really hard.”

As soon as the first kitten starts meowing, another emerges from the mother cat.

“Good girl,” you praise the cat, petting her as she continues to clean her first-born, before moving on to the second. The two kittens, now mostly clean, move on to feeding from their mother, the three purring as she continues to clean them. After a short period of time in which she snuggles the two, and the bleeding starts to get heavy, another is born, and then another. She cleans and cares for them in the same fashion.

Ellie texts her groupchat with Piotr, Wade, Domino, Nathan, and her best friend, Yukio, about the situation, asking if they’d like to meet in the infirmary for an impromptu baby shower. They all excitedly agree, and she warns them that the cat may not be alive when they get there, but that the kittens are in good shape.

She listens silently as you hum to the mother, who you’ve nicknamed “Mama Cat.”

“She’s hemorrhaging,” you say, pointing out the increase in blood loss. “I read that could happen. I- I don’t know how much I can do without touching the wound, and it’s internal.”

“She knows you did your best,” Annie tries to reassure you, and Ellie tries not to glare daggers at the woman. You were Ellie’s to comfort. Ellie strokes your back, watching tears roll silently down your cheeks as you continue to hum to the cat and her litter.

“She’s gone. It’s all… I can’t feel her anymore,” you sob, and Ellie brings you into her arms, not caring about your amniotic fluid-soaked gloves one bit as you cry into her shoulder. But you pull away, and Ellie feels cold, empty. “I’m so sorry, we don’t even know each other that well, I just… I have a deep amount of respect and love for all living things, and this is so-”

“Don’t worry, Y/N. Come here, it’s gonna be okay.” Ellie wraps her arms around you again, and you accept her comfort. She tries not to let her excitement show, knowing that this is a solemn moment for you. She’s also sad, but your feelings definitely take priority over her own in this situation. In most situations. At least, that’s how she feels.

“We came as soon as we heard!” Wade and the gang enter with last-minute gifts and some decorations. Their joy dies down as they realize what’s happened. “Oh. That’s so… Oh. The kittens, are they…?”

You lift your head from Ellie’s shoulder so that your voice isn’t muffled, but you don’t exit her embrace, not yet.

“No, no, thank god. Just… Just the mom.” You pull away, attending to the tiny, helpless creatures. You dry the little screamers off a bit before bundling them in the least dirty towel and turning back to face the group. “I see you all brought gifts. Does there happen to be any formula?”

“I’ve got a good amount here, plus the equipment.” Domino fulfills the request. “Lucky guess.”

“Me, too,” Nathan adds. “I figured it wouldn’t be an easy thing to get ahold of. I was wrong, so I also got a PetSmart gift card.”

“Thank you so much, you guys,” you say, and Annie stacks the canisters on the counter. “Jesus Christ, that’s a lot.”

“Oh, right, I got some, too,” Wade says, and Ellie thinks maybe he got a can. Nope. The amount he got doubles the supply.

“Jeez, I guess we don’t have to worry about feeding them,” you comment. “Thanks a ton, you guys.”

“So...What are you going to do with them?” Yukio asks.

“I mean, keep them, I guess. The only official rules on pets here are that you can have them as long as you keep them away from those allergic and don’t let them make a mess or distract you from your studies. I could probably request a month of independent study while they need round the clock care, and as long as my grades don’t seriously falter, that’ll be fine.”

“Do you think you’ll give any of them away, once they’re weaned off milk and litter box-trained?” Yukio continues to investigate.

“Uh, I don’t know… Maybe? Right now, though, I wouldn’t dream of it. Sorry,” you apologize, able to tell that the sweet girl wants to adopt one.

“Have you named them, yet?” Piotr asks.

“I think I’ll wait ‘til their personalities start to show,” you decide, and Ellie nods, wrapping an arm around you.

“You guys are gonna make great cat moms,” Domino comments, and Ellie finds herself blushing a little. Us? Cat moms? Together? It’s a dream come true...

“Maybe you should share room,” Piotr suggests. “So that you can care for kittens together. It can be arranged.”

“That’d be great!” you agree.

“Yeah, sure,” Ellie does her best to hide her enthusiasm, but based on the expressions of everyone in the room but you, it’s clear she has a crush. At least they don’t know it’s a rapidly-growing obsession, rising with every little interaction, even if that interaction is just you looking back at her and smiling.

“I will go file paperwork,” Piotr informs. “Do not hesitate to open gift while I’m gone.”

“Thank you so much, Colossus!” you cheer. Annie hands you each a pair of kittens and a pair of small bottles, allowing you to nurse your new children together.

Wade takes a picture, and Ellie finds that she can’t be annoyed. She was actually happy someone captured this, even if it was Wade.

“Thank you so much for all your help, everyone, especially Ellie and Annie. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.”

“Happy to help,” Ellie replies, and you smile at her.

“You’ve been such a help, El. Seriously, I- I couldn’t have done this alone.”

The two of you are feeding the kittens in your shared dorm, studying for an American Literature test at the same time. It’s been a couple weeks since the birth of the kittens, and the two of you became fast friends, now that she actually talked to you regularly.

“No problem, Y/N.” It’s my pleasure.

“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they? We can start weaning them off the milk in two weeks.”

“Incredibly beautiful,” Ellie replies, but she’s looking at you, not the cats. She can tell you notice this because of the way you blush, ducking your head. But, you don’t say anything, so she doesn’t either.

“So… What do the eyes of Doctor TJ Eckleburg represent?” You ask.

“The eyes of god over the lawless wasteland that America has become due to greed.”

“Nice answer,” you compliment.

“Thank you,” she replies, it’s getting harder and harder to hide her excitement.

“So, hey, I have kind of a weird question…” You start. Ellie’s heart immediately starts racing. Had you discovered her obsession, or any of the strange habits that came with it?

“Um- Uh… Shoot.”

“It’s nothing bad!” You reassure her. “I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe… Maybe go on a date, this Friday? I’m sorry if you wouldn’t want to, you probably just see me as a friend and maybe not even that, so-“

“I’d love to!” Ellie enthusiastically responds, not bothering to disguise the way she felt as a grin splits her face open.

“That’s great! I asked Yukio to kitten-sit if you said yes and she agreed, so I figured maybe we could go do something relaxing, like watching a movie, or… I don’t know, I honestly didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“You- You didn’t?” Maybe I’m too good at hiding my feelings for her. Her face falls, and you rush to explain yourself:

“Well, I know you didn’t really like me all that much before the kitten thing… I thought you were really attractive and seemed really cool, but you’d glare at me a lot and I didn’t know why, so I figured it was best to keep my distance and be nice to you in small ways in the hopes you’d forgive me for whatever I did. What did I do, if you don’t mind telling me?” You ask, cheeks flushed, and Ellie’s heart still hasn’t stopped racing.

“Nothing, nothing at all, I swear!” Ellie attempts to reassure you, even if the concerned expression on your face is adorable. She decides the best route is to be honest, now that she knows you do like her. “I- This is really embarrassing. I wasn’t glaring at all. I was, um, staring at you, because I really, really like you. If I didn’t think it’d freak you out, I’d say I love you. You’re just… Absolutely perfect.”

“No way!” You laugh off her adoration, and she wishes she could kiss you then and there, to prove that she’s serious. “You’re too nice, El.”

“Well, you saying that just proves that I really do like you, a lot. I’m not nice to people, I push them away. But you, I could never hurt you like that, or in any way. And if anyone else ever did, or tried to, I- I-“ Smoke starts curling off of her at the thought, eyes lighting up orange in fury.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay…” you tell her sweetly, putting your hand at the spot between her neck and shoulder, partially covered by the neckline of her tee shirt...but uncovered enough for the healing energy of your touch to radiate through her.

She happily allows this, taking a deep breath and calming down so much faster than she would’ve on her own. It was meant to be a reassuring hand on the shoulder, but she got so much more from it.

From you.

“Thank you,” she says gratefully. You yawn, removing your hand as you stretch.

“I have another question,” you say. “And please don’t be afraid to say no.”

“Okay,” Ellie replies, curious.

“Well, I was thinking… The cats always sleep on my whole torso area at night… So, to give them extra nourishment, I was thinking about sleeping without a shirt on? So I’ll have skin-to-skin contact with them. If you’re not comfortable with that, it’s totally fine, they’re doing really great health-wise, I just wanted to give them a boost. You know how worried I get, especially about Witchy.”

Twitchy-Witchy (nicknamed “Witchy”) is the runt of the litter and is, well, twitchy! She’s less social than the others, and will hide when anyone other than you or Ellie approaches.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, you could sleep without a shirt on if you just didn’t wanna wear a shirt,” Ellie tells you, returning to being glad about her ability to hide her feelings from you. Her anticipation is returning, and she’d hate for you to think of her as some sort of creep!

“Oh! Sorry, I just didn’t wanna cross any lines or make things weird. But I probably made it weird by asking, didn’t I?”

“No, it was thoughtful of you. You’re so thoughtful…” Ellie says, a mysterious glint in her eye as she looks you over, hoping it’s not obvious she’s imagining what tonight’s gonna be like. She probably won’t even be able to sleep, not that she gets very much sleep anyway with all those thoughts of you bouncing around her head.

You blush at her comment. Ellie wonders how much you’d heat up if you knew about her thoughts, and it’s tempting to tell you… But she knows it’d be too soon. She has to be careful, methodical. She wouldn’t want to scare you, her perfect, delicate flower, away.

“What do you wanna do for the date, anyway? I was thinking a movie, but we wouldn’t get to talk very much if we did that. But I want it to be relaxing, since we’re away from the kids- kittens, for the afternoon and evening.”

“Maybe we could go to Chuck E. Cheese and inspect the pizzas to see if they’re really made of leftovers,” she suggests, snickering a bit. “My family took me and my brothers once, and they have this co-op Terminator game that’s really fun, even if you haven’t seen the movies.”

“That sounds great!” You agree. “I love it.”

And I love you, Ellie thinks.

That Friday, the two of you have an amazing time at Chuck E. Cheese, giggling and bonding over jokes and games, somehow enjoying pizza the same texture as cardboard.

“Kiss my hand for luck, please?” You ask Ellie, watching the light spin in the game you’re playing, Cyclone.

She blushes deeply, but tenderly takes your hand in her own and gently kisses the top. You watch the light dance between the bulbs before pressing the button.

“Holy shit, jackpot! Oh my god, this is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” You declare, tickets spewing from the machine.

“Really?” Ellie asks.

“Well...Yeah. You’re just so fun to be around, I feel so safe and happy with you. Sorry if that’s dumb, I just really like you.”

“No, it’s not dumb at all. I feel the same way about you,” she admits. She liked how you made her feel, too. The only time you ever made her feel bad was when she thought she’d never be with you, and that was really her making herself feel bad by being insecure. She tears the tickets from the machine once they’re done spewing, folding them up and keeping them with the others you’d earned together. “Being around you just makes me feel... Better. No matter what.”

“That’s so sweet!” you cheer, giving her a peck on the cheek and taking her hand. You take her to the next game, Skee-ball. “I suck at this, but it’s still fun.”

“I’ve been told I’m pretty good, do you want me to help you?” Ellie bluffs. She was average at best, but the easy excuse to be in close quarters with you was too tempting.

“Sure,” you reply, and something in your smile and the way you blush tells her you’re at least partially aware of her scheme...And that you like it. You put the required tokens into the slot.

Standing behind you with her chin on your shoulder, she takes your wrist into her hand. “Let go in 3…” She says quietly into your ear, relishing in your poorly-disguised shivering before she gently sways your arm forward. “2…” Then, back. Then, forward. “1.” You let go, and miraculously, it rolls up the ramp swiftly before bouncing into the 10,000 hole in the top corner.

“I guess at this point there’s no denying it. You’re my lucky charm, El,” you decide, turning to your date, who smiles at this, pleased.

The two of you continue to play various games before eventually running out of both tokens and energy.

“Okay, Y/N, cover me. I’m gonna do a trick my dad taught me,” she mutters as the two of you walk to the ticket counter. You stand between her and the woman at the prize counter, subtly looking around for personnel while she holds the ticket in place, letting the machine read it over and over again until it gets to about five hundred. She lets the tickets go in, and does this with the next strand, and the next, and the next.

At the end of it, you two have five thousand, five hundred and fifty tickets, at least, according to the receipt.You both approach the counter, and the attendant looks at your receipt.

“Uh-huh…” she eyes you both, but shrugs, deciding either that you two looked skilled enough to have this amount of tickets, or that it wasn’t worth pursuing. “Pick out your prizes.”

“Ooh, Ellie, wouldn’t that mini gumball machine be so cute to keep the kittens’ toys in? Plus, gum. It’s three-thousand tickets, so I understand if-”

“No, I like that idea,” Ellie cuts you off, before putting an arm around your waist to bring you closer, not liking the way the attendant was looking at you: giving you her full attention, not even bothering to hide it. “We’ll have the gumball machine, please.”

“Alright… You’ve got two thousand, five hundred and fifty tickets left.”

“Maybe the giant slinky? We could give it to Yukio for pet-sitting, she likes colorful stuff and novelty stuff,” Ellie suggests.

“Ooh, yeah! And then we could use the rest of the tickets to get little things the cats can play with? Like the rubber bracelets, those should be fine as long as we keep an eye on them.”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Ellie agrees.

“Oh, but what about you? You deserve something,” you insist.

“Y/N… I think I’m good,” Ellie chuckles, and you remember that most of these prizes are, in fact, for young children.

“Right…” You nod. “Alright, we’ll have the giant rainbow slinky and as many of those small rubber bracelets and plastic frogs as we can get, if that’s alright,” you politely ask the woman behind the counter. She nods, uses her calculator, writes down your desires, retrieves all the requested items, and gives them to you and Ellie in a plastic bag. “Thank you so much, ma’am. Have a nice evening.”

“You two...too,” she replies with a laugh, and you laugh back. Jealousy courses through Ellie’s veins.

“Here, let me get the bag,” Ellie offers. She takes it and holds out her other arm for you to intertwine yours with. You do, leaving the arcade together. You rest your head on her shoulder the taxi ride home. She pets your hair, soothing you to sleep on the half-hour drive back.

It’s another week later when Ellie returns to her dorm from Poetry Club in a panic. She’d accidentally grabbed your math notebook, which could only mean you had her poetry journal.

She throws open the door, and finds her worst fear: You’re reading it.

“Y/N, I- I can explain,” she says, but she really can’t. Who can?

“These poems are really beautiful, Ellie. I can’t believe they’re about- About me.”

That’s not the reaction I was expecting. Maybe the one I was hoping for, but…

“Definitely not the reaction I was expecting,” Ellie breathes. You rise up from the bed, closing the notebook and approaching her. You give it to her, afterwards pressing your lips to hers in a gentle, but passionate kiss. She drops the notebook, holding your waist tightly. Eventually, you part, foreheads pressed together.

“Ellie, I- I read them all, and… I- I want to take comfort in you, like what you said. And I know that there’s a darkness in you, and that embracing it will probably cost me my soul… But a part of me just doesn’t care.”

“Perfect,” Ellie responds, taking your face in her hands. She presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re all mine.”

You nod, looking into those beautiful eyes of hers.

“All yours.”

#negasonic teenage warhead #negasonic teenage warhead x reader #negasonic teenage warhead imagine #negasonicteenageimagines #ellie phimister imagine #Ellie Phimister #ellie phimister x reader #marvel #marvel imagine #xmen #xmen imagine #fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction #wlw fanfiction #wlw #wlw x reader #wlw imagine #yandere #yandere imagine

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noodlecupcakes · 5 years

Text

Coming Down - Chapter 10 (Sequel to The Other Woman)

Warnings: Language, Daddy kink, Smut, Sex, Desk sex, Rough sex, Angry sex, Choking, Negan being an asshole, Simon being a goof

Shout at me if you want to be added to the taglist :D

Make sure to reblog to help your writer friends, Tumblrs a big asshole

Chapter 10

Roxy’s P.O.V

Simon had broken the bad news to me about Daryl. I was furious, how the fuck could he have gotten out of his cell? He must have had help, meaning we had a traitor amongst us. Negan had been busy with Eugene to question me about it thankfully. I knew he would be just as mad if not worse. Simon had offered to go with me to look for him, which we were going to do just after I got done asking Dwight a few questions. Negan and I had left Daryl in Dwight’s care before we went to Alexandria so in my eyes he was the prime suspect. I found him loitering around one of the staircases. I knew this was a place him and Sherry normally shared cigarettes. He studied my expression. “You alright?” He asked. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now,” I replied.

“About Daryl? Yeah, I heard something about it.” “Then you can probably guess why I’m here.” “You think I had something to do with it?” “You were the last person he was around. Negan and I left you in charge of him. I have to ask you, you know that.” He nodded understandingly. Dwight and I had never fully gotten along, we’d been more acquaintances. I was just polite to him because of Sherry. But I didn’t trust him, it baffled me that Negan did. “I put him back in his hole like you told me too and then went on wall duty. I don’t know how he got out or who got him out,” Dwight explained.

I still wasn’t buying it. I’d make sure to ask around to make sure he did actually go on wall duty. I sure hope for his sake he was telling the truth. I decided to leave it at that, if Simon and I were fast enough we might be able to find Daryl and bring him back. Then this whole situation would be resolved, and I wouldn’t have to worry about Negan. I headed out to the front gate where Simon was waiting in one of the cars. I climbed into the passenger seat and the gate was opened up to let us pass. “He say anything?” Simon asked. “He said he was on wall duty.” “And do you believe that?”

“I will when I find someone who can confirm that for me. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but Dwight is the likely suspect,” I explained. “Well Negans pissed, that much is obvious.” “Please don’t remind me.” “It’s not your fault. He can’t blame you for Daryl going missing. We’re gonna take a look around the surrounding area and then we’ll head to Alexandria just in case.” “Thanks Simon.” We drove around for a little while keeping an eye out for any signs of Daryl. Simon had set up a few more search parties in the hopes of finding him faster. Simon kept trying to take my mind off of it, to keep my cheery. “I know just the thing that’ll make you smile,” he spoke. “Do you?” I asked. “Open the glove box.” I pulled the handle, the compartment slipping down. Inside were two pairs of shutter shades. One pair blue, the other red. I frowned at him, what the fuck did he have these for? “I thought it’d be funny,” he shrugged. “Like your sombrero?” “Exactly.”

I put the red pair on and looked at myself in the cars sun visor mirror. I could kinda see the appeal. Simon put on the blue pair, giving me a serious look. I laughed. It felt weird to have moments like this, but it reminded me of times with my friends back before walkers existed. Simpler and happier times. Road trips, with someone doing something stupid to make us laugh. It just felt out of place to have a laugh nowadays. Simon slipped a CD into the cars stereo and turned the volume up, loud rap music coming out through the speakers. As if this situation wasn’t funny enough. We were going to show up at Alexandria with rap music blasting and both of us wearing shutter shades. I laughed at the situation. It just seemed so stupid.

We pulled up to the gates, waiting for them to open. We had likely attracted a few walkers, but they could clean that up. The gate was open, and we pulled in, a few search parties following behind. Simon and I got out the car. Rick was stood with a small group of residents, he didn’t look happy to see us or impressed by the loud music. I put the shutter shades up on my head, so I could actually see properly. “You can relax a little, Negan isn’t here. We just wanted to do a little search of the place, see if your hiding a certain someone,” Simon explained. “Who would we be hiding?” Rick asked. “Daryl.”

Rick remained straight faced and let the men look around the place. I stayed by the cars with Rick and his people. “If Daryl does come back here make sure you let us know. I miss him already. He was such a good dog for me. You think I should put some missing posters up?” I smirked. Rick scowled at me, his jaw clenching as he held his tongue. I wanted him to say something, get a reaction out of him. “I must say you had him very well trained. He wouldn’t even beg me to stop when I was beating him. He’s got some balls on him, shame he doesn’t have the brain cells to match,” I continued. “He’s smarter than you give him credit for. After all he managed to escape your place,” Rick replied.

I laughed, there was the Rick Grimes we knew and loved. Although if Negan were here he wouldn’t have accepted that kind of talk from him. “Your right, although we have Eugene now and he looks like he’s going to be much more fun than Daryl, I wonder how long it’ll be till I break him,” I sneered. Rick went back to being silent, knowing his next words could get Eugene in to serious trouble. Simon came back with no Daryl in tow. I felt my stomach drop. If I went back empty handed, Negan was going to be more than pissed. Daryl had been my responsibility and now he was gone. Negan would never trust me with another ‘guest’ again. Maybe he’d favour me less because of that too, it would give Ruby a fucking chance with him. Was I over thinking? Probably.

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I avoided our room for a while, I just didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face. I wandered through The Sanctuary, not quite sure what to do with myself. I didn’t need to go to our room to find him however. He found me first, pulling me into his office and slamming the door behind him. “What the fuck happened?” He snapped. I avoided his gaze, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t know, we were at Alexandria and I left him in Dwight’s care,” I explained. “And have you been out to look for him? Or just sat on your pretty ass all day hoping someone will find him for you?” This got me to look at him, he didn’t get to speak to me like that. I don’t give a fuck who he was, the leader of this place or not he still didn’t talk to me like that.

“I have been out to look for him actually. I was out all fucking afternoon and I’m going out again tomorrow morning. This isn’t my fault.” “He was your fucking responsibility, so I don’t give a fuck who you left him with your still responsible.” “Are you fucking serious? What the fuck do you want me to, gather everyone and start burning faces off until someone owns up? No, I’m not like you Negan, I don’t run in with brute force everytime theres a fucking problem.” “Remember who the fuck your talking too baby girl,” he warned. I rolled my eyes, “shove your fucking ego up your ass. I’ve done everything I can right now. I’ve questioned Dwight and made sure he was where he said he was at the time. I’ve been out to look for him, I went to fucking Alexandria and he wasent there. What else do you fucking want from me?”

“I want you to find who the fuck let him out,” he said matter of factly. “Well gee you could lend a fucking hand, or were you too busy kissing Eugene’s feet? I understand how valuable he is, but he isn’t some sort of fucking god.” Negan shoved me back against the wall, his hand wrapped around my throat. I wasn’t scared of him, he knew he didn’t scare me. “And here you go again, trying to make me back down because you know I’m right,” I sneered. “You need to watch who the fuck your talking too baby girl,” his voice was dangerously low. “Or what?” His grip tightened a little, I ignored the growing heat in my belly. Now was not the time to get aroused.

“You need to calm the fuck down and remember your place,” He warned. “And you need to remember that I don’t give a shit about your rules.” “And that’s why you’re my fucking favourite.” He kissed me hard, the kiss all tongue and teeth. I didn’t care, I hooked a leg around his waist to pull him closer whilst my fingers tangled in his hair. “Your still an asshole,” I growled. “I know.” We kissed again, practically tearing at each other’s clothes. His free hand went between my legs, rubbing me through my panties. I shuddered, needing so much more. He picked me before putting me down on his desk.

He forced me to lay back with the hand around my neck before practically tearing my panties off. He didn’t bother with any preparation or foreplay, as he forced himself inside me. I threw my head back with a loud moan. He wrapped my legs around his waist before starting a hard, rough pace. I pulled him down by a fistful of his hair for a kiss, nipping at his bottom lip. He groaned against my neck, marking it up with fresh love bites. Each thrust was hard enough to send me further up the desk, if it weren’t for the hand around my neck to hold me in place. We both knew this was going to be over quickly, not that it mattered.

Negan continued the pace, the desk hitting the wall each time. I cursed, the knot in my stomach growing tighter and tighter as he brought me closer to the edge. My nails dug into his arm, hard enough to leave deep marks that would bruise in the morning. He reached between us, finding my clit and rubbing it with his thumb. I moaned his name, my back arching off the desk. My orgasm hit me hard and fast, forcing a loud cry from me. Negan reached his own a few thrusts later, with a loud string of curse words. We remained where were for a few moments both just breathing heavy and coming down from our highs. Eventually I sat back up. “How about a thank you baby girl?” He asked. “Depends, are you gonna stop being an asshole?” “We both know that’s debatable.” I smirked, “thank you daddy.”

Taglist: @belathora, @my-world-of-imagines, @warriorqueen1991, @genevievedarcygranger, @eldritchmortician, @astrangegirlsmind, @robinwritesallthethings, @negansdirtygirl22, @ms-sith, @mwesterfeld1985, @isayweallgetdrunk, @almostinwonderland, @jungle-feeveer, @negans-network, @multi-fandom-trash4life, @wolfangelwings, @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash, @collette04, @neeadinghugs, @glittered-unicorn-lava, @thewew, @annablack1102, @neganisking, @jdmsgal, @lettherebepink, @negans-girl, @ali-pennell, @yedi16, @backseat-negan, @strangeandunusual-83, @harleysandbats, @kellyn1604, @badsongwinchester, @nickyl316h, @jeffreydeanmorganownsme, @robert-d-j-bernthal, @phoenixsnape1, @negan-the-cat, @shadowpriestess6, @valkyrie-wrath, @metalocalypseismylife, @alwaysartist, @falling-out-of-grace, @themagikat409, @loveforfilm, @toxic-ink, @sherrybaby14, @inlovewithfreyamikaelson, @londoncapsule, @rhyatt-deauxtreve, @poppinjeffrey, @josadeca, @liiv0urlifee, @ejspencer14, @nycktmcginn, @frozenhuntress67, @neganismyobsession, @talyatooturnt, @emoryhemsworth, @miss-cap21, @jdmfanfiction, @loreleilara, @neganrpblog, @beltzboys2015-blog, @faith-lynn9, @jessiellong1987, @thedeadwalks, @sarahlee8793, @multireality, @roguesandsaviors

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ilovereadingandilovebreathing · 6 years

Text

Patton’s Intuition (Part 1: Logan)

A likely 4-part fic based on this headcannon post

Summary: Something’s off with Logan; Patton can literally feel it.

Word Count: 1,859

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst?, Some Fluff?

Characters/Pairings: Patton, Logan (platonic Logicality); mentions of Roman and Virgil

Warnings: Headache, stomach pain, pinches/pricks, self-deprecation (let me know if I missed any!)

Tags: @ssides @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @pantasticpanini @anxious-but-whatever (let me know if I missed anyone!)

A/N: I know I literally just posted “Insomnia,” but I’ve been sitting on this for weeks because I wasn’t sure what type of poetry Lolo would like, so I settled for what I (a type of English major) appreciate. So. Sorry if you don’t think it’s in character enough.

By all accounts, it seemed like a normal Saturday afternoon.

Virgil was in his room, likely sleeping at that hour. Roman was off in the DreamScape, chasing down ideas and fighting off negativity. Logan was also in his room, working on streamlining Roman's video ideas, and Patton was in the Common Room, filling in the last picture in his favorite Winnie the Pooh coloring book.

Everything should have been fine, by all appearances, but...

Something was definitely off; Patton could feel it. It was this tiny pinching feeling on his left arm, persistent and more annoying than painful, but when it didn't stop after 10 minutes, Patton became concerned.

Being the heart, Patton was certainly attuned to Thomas's emotions, but after spending time with and getting to know the other Sides better, Patton had become familiar with their shifts and changes, as well. So much so that they manifested themselves in physical reactions. Virgil's was the strongest, likely owed to the bond he had fostered with his strange son, and his distress bloomed at the back of Patton's skull in a sudden, dull headache. Roman's sign was also obvious, but not as keen as Virgil's, for it came forth as a burning ache right near his diaphragm. Logan's was the least obvious, but often most pervasive, sign, taking the form of pinches and little pricks that afflicted Patton's hands and arms.

Normally, Logan was able to suppress negative thinking by reminding himself of how illogical it was and that was that. This time, though, there were only pinches, and they traveled up and down Patton's arms and over the back of his hands and even on to his palms.

One particularly painful pinch was the last straw for Patton. Biting back a sob when the pinches increased in intensity, Patton set down his colored pencil and set off toward Logan's room.

"Logan?" Patton asked as he knocked on the Logical Side's door. "Lo, are you there?"

"Yes, Patton?" The Logical Side's voice sounded tired and raw.

"Can I come in?"

"You may."

Patton gingerly opened the door, peering around the wood to find Logan perched at his desk. Where the Logical Side normally had perfect posture, he was now slouched over, head in his hands as he gazed with half-lidded eyes at the plans stacked neatly before him.

Patton came up beside Logan, peering at the plans and realizing with a slight start that none of them had the Logical Side's neat script amid Roman's fanatical scribbles.

"Hard time getting started?" Patton asked softly, carefully placing a hand on the other's shoulder and moving to the back of his neck when Logan did not resist.

"With this particular stack, yes." Logan let out a sigh as Patton rubbed at the tension in his neck and shoulders, removing his glasses and rubbing at the blurry exhaustion clouding his eyes. "This is the fifth stack of ideas Roman has brought me in the past three days. While I am glad that Roman's quests have been successful, between this and Virgil's episode, I-"

"Virgil's episode?" Patton's brows knit together in confusion and worry. "What episode? When did he have an episode?"

"Well, episode might be a strong term." Logan muttered, flinching a bit as Patton worked into a particularly tough knot in his upper back. "He came to me while I was working last night, or this morning, if your prefer." He rolled his eyes when Patton feigned surprise at the others' late hours. "He just wanted to talk, work through some particularly troubling thoughts that have been plaguing him for the past few days, so I allowed him to come here and air out his concerns." Logan sighed again, twisting his back and stretching his arms after Patton drew away. "For five hours."

"Five hours?!" Patton nearly shrieked. He loved Virgil as the closest thing he had to a son, but he couldn't imagine sitting there for five whole hours and listening to Virgil be mean to himself. Patton (and his heart) would break into a million pieces; he- realized that's why Virgil went to Logan and not him. He wiped away the little sting of jealousy and slapped on a smile, honestly glad that the two Sides were authentically getting along. "That's-"

"Insanity, I know." Logan roughly ran his hands through his hair, still not making eye contact with Patton until the sweet Side suddenly let out an involuntary yelp. The Logical Side whipped around in his desk chair to find a sheepish Patton, rubbing at his arm. "What is the matter, Patton? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, Lo; must've been...a mosquito or something."

"Patton, we don't have mosquitos in the MindScape."

"Maybe they snuck in from Roman's DreamScape."

"Perhaps, but-"

"Anyway, Lo," Patton cut in. "I wasn't going to say you were insane...just really sweet. It was very kind of you to help Virgil at all, much less that much!" Logan ripped his gaze from Patton's, scowling at his hands in his lap, and Patton had to bite his lip to keep from crying out again.

"More selfish than kind. I really should have turned him away or sent him to you, but I was mentally drained from hours of pouring over Roman's notes. I used Virgil as an excuse to stop working and focus on something else. That would have been permissible for an hour or so, but five hours?! What a show of undisciplined, selfish behavior." Logan's hands were clenched in front of him, and his jaw was taut. "There's no time for that now; I have far too much to do to be dillydallying around. If I do not get anything done, everything will fall-"

"Logan-" Patton took hold of Logan's desk chair and pulled him over to his bed; the Moral Side sat on the edge and took the other Side’s tense hands in his own. "What you did for Virgil was wonderful and selfless. You did something only you can do because you know I can't always handle listening to Virgil talk about those mean thoughts in his head. You're the one who's great at putting him in his place, bringing him back to reality. You're amazing at that, Lo, and only you can do it. Also, remember that when you help Virge, you help the rest of us, too." Patton smiled softly, rubbing his thumbs over Logan's fingers in an attempt to get him to loosen up. "I think you've just overworked yourself. You need to take some time for yourself and rest. We're on schedule for the next few weeks, and it seems like Ro has plenty of ideas. It won't throw the whole operation off if you take some ‘you’ time."

Patton chuckled as Logan stifled a yawn, causing the other to finally smile a bit as well.

“It’s the most logical choice to work in top condition, right?”

"I suppose you're right." Logan sighed, actually giving Patton a small, tired smile.

"Darn tootin' I am!" Patton grinned. "You can't be at your best if your exhausted. Take some R&R time, Lo. I can finish that back rub if you want, get everything out of your lower back, too."

"That would actually be nice, Patton. Thank you."

Logan heaved himself up from his desk chair and laid himself out on his bed, forehead resting on his arms. Patton immediately set to work, rubbing and kneading Logan's stress points until the tension dissipated.

"So, what were Roman's video ideas?" Patton asked after a period of silence.

Logan grunted and chuckled. "As is usually the case, many of them were ridiculous and fanciful. He wants so badly to get more voice actors involved in our videos, though of course that is far easier with Vine than YouTube."

"That would be fun, though! I'd love to see Zach, Deedee, Michaela, and Jennifer again!"

Logan merely hummed in reply, continuing, "Of course, he also desires more videos centered around us, especially a sequel to our Q&A in which more of the questions are for him." Logan yawned, and Patton felt his body slowly relaxing.

"That sounds about right!" Patton laughed. "Alrighty, I think that about does it for right now. Anything else I can do for you? Maybe I can read Roman's ideas to you so that you know what's coming without having to look over them too hard right now?"

"Oh, dear me, no." Logan implored. "I do require a reprieve from Roman's records. However..." Logan rose and crossed to his bookshelf, removing a volume of William Wordsworth's poetry from his bookshelf. "I would not mind if you read this. Though the Romanticism is not my most preferred literary genre, Wordsworth's imagery is adequately vivid."

"Well, I'm no poet (and I know it), but I'll do my best." Patton took the volume from the other Side and sat on the bed, and Logan laid out beside him.

"Which one would you like?"

"Hmm...you can start wit the lyrical ballads, and any of those after will do."

"Okey dokey, then; here we go:

In the sweet shire of Cardigan

Patton giggled a bit, then resumed

Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,

An old man dwells, a little man,-

‘Tis said he once was tall...”

Patton read on through “Simon Lee,” barely made it through “We Are Seven,” and had just finished “Expostulation and Reply” when he nearly jumped at Logan’s hand on his arm.

"Patton..." Logan suddenly interrupted with a deep yawn, his eyelids drooping dangerously low as he pulled away. "How do you always seem to be aware of exactly when we require assistance?"

Patton swallowed, barely unnoticed by the half-conscious Logan, and stuttered out, "Call it...Patton's Intuition?" Patton grinned, covering his discomfort with a chuckle for good measure.

"Hmm. Perception, then." Logan mumbled; he rolled into his side, facing Patton and the book as he read on.

Within minutes, the Logical Side was breathing deeply and steadily, his forehead against Patton's side. Patton smiled affectionately at the sleeping Side, placing the tome on Logan's bedside table and switching off the lamp; he gently ran his fingers through Logan's hair, giggling when he groaned in his sleep and snuggled in closer at the contact.

"Who knew Lo was such a snuggle bunny." Patton mused to himself.

His moment of bliss was shattered a little while later. Patton himself had started to doze, Logan fast asleep by his side, when his skull began to throb. Patton bit down on his lip in an effort not to cry out, taking deep breaths as he began seeing stars.

"Oh dear." He thought to himself. "It's a bad one."

Channeling all the energy and self-control he had, Patton slowly and carefully removed himself from Logan's bed, taking care to disturb the other as little as possible. Thankfully, Logan was still deep within his sleep cycle, so he merely sighed and turned over when Patton left.

Throwing one last glance at the Logical Side, Patton quietly crept out of the room and into the hallway; he took off at a jog when he was clear of Logan's room, hoping he got to Virgil before things got too bad.

Part 2: Virgil

Part 3: Roman

Part 4: Finale

All of my Sanders Sides fanfics

#Sanders Sides Fic #Sanders Sides Fanfic #Thomas sanders fanfic #thomas sanders fic #logicality #mine #tsfanfics #patton sanders #logan sanders

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intheemyart · 3 years

Text

Conserving The Moment

Has it been two days since Alverstoke Destler-Lee, the famous actor that people praised a lot, beat her to the point that she couldn't even move freeely? With all the bruises on her body, she couldn't help but to wear so many layers of clothing.

To cover her hands with long cardigans. To cover her legs with long pants. To cover her neck with a scarf. To cover her face with a mask, hiding even her emotions behind. Though people still say that she looks graceful and elegant, still they thought it was strange for Frederica to suddenly transform into this kind of person. Someone who seemed to transition into a religious person —which is of course not—.

"Oh, an allergic reaction you don't need to worry of." The simple answer she gave to everyone in the museum regarding her clothing and everyone nodded. Not in the world they would've thought the real reason.

"Mrs Destler-Lee, will you be able to be found in the conservation room?" asked a staff standing on the information desk when she said to her that she would not receive any guests except certain names that has been listed down. Frederica nodded. "Let those names find me in my private conservation room. Accompany them there if they visited. I'm going to work on a painting," she said as she entered her room.

And so, she disappeared behind the door. Busy with her own world.

──────────

For Asa, moving is an opportunity to organize his belongings, especially his collections of Sol-Mae artworks. As he started to settle in, he noticed one of his mother's art needs a little touch of repairing. Although the painting looks fine, he believe the canvas needs to be changed, seeing how long the piece had not been taken care of. As he about to contact his usual man for the job, the thought of Frederica passes his mind, where in their previous lunch date he promised her to bring his mama's painting into the museum.

He then got himself ready to go, he drove to Frederica's workplace in less than 10 minutes with his black Porsche, he took the time to stop by a flower shop to purchase a bouquet of red rose for the lady.

As he arrive at the museum, he approach the front desk staff and they direct him to Frederica's workspace. Asa enter quietly without disturbing the lady, he watches her soft hands work beautifully conserving the art in front of her. He stays silent for minutes to observe her absolute beauty, adoring the every second of it. Afraid of being called a creeper for staring, he disturb the lady with a soft voice.

"Frederica? It's Asa. I got something for you.”

He hands the lady a bouquet of red flower, then with a soft smile he shows her his late-mother painting that needs her help. "I am sorry for the disruption, but I'm here to drop Sol-Mae's artwork. I think the canvas definitely needs to be changed.”

──────────

Being super focused on her job makes her unaware of her surroundings, as always. Not to mention the classic instrumental songs playing on the low volume from the speaker at the corner of the room. If the lad, Asa, didn’t called her, perhaps she may not even realize about his presence in the private conservation room. Her fingers dropped the brush carefully to the table as she pushed away the big magnifier up.

She turned her head and smile at the guest softly behind the mask she’s currently using; to hide her bruise and to protect her from the chemicals she’s working with.

Her sweet voice welcomes him to the room. “Hello, Asa. I’m sorry for not acknowledging your presence a while ago,” she said softly as she took off her gloves and washed her hands before walking towards him. “This painting looks lovely and wonderful,” she said as she look at him in the eye. A couple kissing with poles in between. “You want to change the frame? I sense that this painting is a little bit dirty.”

──────────

Singapore weather was hot as hell, He notices the lady has covering so many skin of her body. Although he already knew what was going on, from the babysitter he forced her to bring, Asa still shoot the question. "What's with the attire here? Is it a uniform or?"

Asa let out a good laugh to fix the atmosphere, making it a bit relax as he knew the lady will answer the question with a lie. Frederica then starts talking about the painting, Asa gave a nod with a slight smile on his face. "Yes, I believe It's been ages since this particular piece has got frame changes."

"I knew you can help me with this one."

He get himself closer to her as both of them started to observe the painting. He explains in a soft voice to her ear. "The painting portrays a forbidden love. Even though it's forbidden, the two of them still tries to pour their emotions as they were madly in love."

Asa started to lay his hand on hers before she starts to do her work, he looks into her face from the side as his voice became stern, showing his concerns to the lady. "I know what he did to you, and that is not love. That is abuse." His hand direct her fragile body to face him gently, looking into her eyes deeply. The distance was so close to the point they could just gave each other a passionate kiss, but Aidan whispers instead. "I knew we just met, but just like this painting, you—Frederica—is precious to me." “Nobody in this world are allowed to be treated like a punching bag, Fre." “He clearly don't deserve you.”

──────────

As she received a question regarding her attire today just like what the other staffs did to her, Frederica brushed her nervousness with a smile and a faint laugh. “An allergy. I think because of the extreme weather these days,” she lied as an answer. At this point, she didn’t knew that he was spying on her with the babysitter he gave her days ago. Perhaps, that’s the reason why we shouldn’t receive anything or ‘anyone’ from a stranger you just met.

Her eyes still fixated on the painting brought to her studio. From the distance, she could already plan what to do with the painting. “I’ll clean the painting and remove the varnish. Retouch some parts that loses its color after respraying it with a new varnish.” She smiled at the man who suddenly became so close to her, causing her to speak nervously. “Then, I’ll change the frame—“ she paused for a while and gulped. Too close, she decided to take a step back.

“The meaning of the painting is indeed illicitly beautiful,” she commented. She didn’t lie on that one. As in trying to interpret the story behind the painting, it doesn’t mean that she normalize it.

“Umh—“

Her heart beats faster and her eyes widen as she heard what he said— so close. So close to her that they might’ve kissed at this point. Frederica couldn’t help but to look at him in the eyes too. To hear that he knew everything back at home, she was shocked. “H—how… did you know?” she asked him behind the mask she’s wearing. Her body trembled in fear and shock, asking him. “How did you know about that—?” she asked him again. How? How did he know about the abuse? She couldn’t think clearly.

"I knew we just met, but just like this painting, you—Frederica—is precious to me."

That word quickly struck her with reality. He knew everything about her. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” she said. “Did you spied on me? You have no right to say that!”

Frederica looked at him, scared. “It’s not your problem. It’s my problem!” “Get out!” she shouted, though her voice is too soft to be considered as a shout

──────────

As Frederica started to exaggerate the situation with her meaningless panic, Aidan handle the situation by hugging her tight in his arms. His hand goes to her back — rubbing them gently to soothe the panicked lady. He then whisper softly. “Shh… you will be safe with me.“

The hug made the lady a bit calm, He then look directly to her teary eyes. The eyes that could tell us that she is suffering in pain. There was a minutes of silence, only a classical music can be heard from the corner of the room. Their eyes spoke louder than their words. Aidan slowly took her mask off. Oh how it pierced his heart to see the mother of two got bruises on her face. It was terrifying to see the result of the domestic abuse she been getting. He couldn’t say a word, there is no words can describe his emotions right now.

He is mad to the man that could do such thing to this beautiful creature, He also felt sad as he imagine to be on her shoes with two kids in a abusive relationship. In his mind he thought: “I will protect her, at all cost. Just like I will protect my sister.”

Without saying any words, Aidan clash his lips on Frederica’s for a passionate kiss. He couldn’t handle his desire to just kiss the fragile lady. The kiss was so gentle that he never done it this way before. The kiss gets deeper as he move his hand from her neck down to her cardigan, letting it down slowly as he wants everything to happen within her consent. His hands go down to her hips, without breaking their kiss — he lifts her up to the near table beside them. As the lady is sitting on the table, Aidan hands are busy removing every layer of clothes that left on her body — leaving only her undergarments. Aidan then lower move his gentle kisses to her bruises, from lips to her cheek, down to her soft neck.

His one hand are on her waist as the other was on the table. The kiss eventually continue to go down to her chest & her belly. It hurts him to see all the scars on her silk body, he continue the kiss to her hip bones. Aidan looks up to her for more consent before doing anything else, as he started to lower down his body & lift Frederica’s long legs to the table.

──────────

A warm hug— and a tight one wrapped her body at once. At once, Frederica felt a little calmer than before. She felt something that healed her through the whisper and the soothing words. Tears ran across her cheek. It’s indeed, been a rough time for her. Eyes showing her pain. Her body trembled as he took him in his hug. Everything seems so perfect to explain how she’s handling everything at once by herself, without ever talking about the matter to anyone else but him; Aidan.

As he took off her mask, the lass closed her eyes. Her emotions mixed as one inside her heart. It was embarassing to let anyone see her in this situation. In this condition. She always look her best and now… fragile.

Lips on lips— they met each other’s. Frederica’s heart beats faster as this was the first time someone kissed her but not Alverstoke. Not that man. A man she just knew days ago from a simple question.

A passionate, soft, gentle kiss that suddenly felt so beautiful.

Cardigans off— showing her bare skin of bruises. Her heart was in full of doubts; to continued or not. She’s technically still married to the man. She’s still someone’s wife. Her mind was blacked out by several thoughts and consequences. But then she realized, if her husband doesn’t even treat her well and cheated behind her— shouldn’t she do some revenge? Why would she care about what he had in mind or how he feels? He abandoned her too.

She hold her breathe when he lifted her to the table next of them with her being undressed one by one, until she showed him most of her bare skin. A faint moan was heard from her lips as he moved the kisses down— from the lips, cheeks, neck, chest, and belly.

Frederica looked up and bit her lower lips as she felt lips on her hip bones, slowly but sure going down. She tried to brush off the thoughts in her mind and let herself enjoy the moment while it lasts.

“Umhh—“ she opened her eyes and looked down at the lad. Both of her long legs on the table. Frederica exchanged gaze with him— a scared one yet tempted, a nervous one yet seduced. Doubts could be seen, but she gave him a faint smile on her face, giving him her consent to do more.

──────────

He put an obvious smirk on his face as she gave the consent to continue. Aidan then kisses her thighs gently, exactly on the bruises. The kiss eventually leads him to her panties, he then rub her sensitive bud with the tip of his nose. Moving it up and down slowly.

Aidan sense she is hesitant about the affair, he looks up to the lady who clearly enjoy the touch he was giving, and ask her softly as his hands started to pin both of her legs for a better ‘workspace’.

“Are you sure about this?“ He asked to the lady.

──────────

How long has it been since Alverstoke touched her this way? It’s been a while, before the birth of the twins to be exact. To feel this kind of sensation running in her bloodstream— she felt so wonderful. She felt like she was recharged. Kisses on her thighs, slowly leading to her private part— the most sensitive of her body. Frederica locked her eyes on him, seeing every movement of him under there… while she bit her lower lips. Her chest moved uncontrollably, feeling the urge to be pleased.

Another question was asked and a nod simply became the answer to her. “You said that you’ll keep me safe. Then let me trust you with this one— I want to let the past go. I want… to feel appreciated again,” she answered carefully while trying to control her breathe.

Frederica knew exactly that right after this, there’s no point where she could turn back time. It is what it is and this is what she wants.

“Do it before I change my position and started to please you instead.”

Naughty words slipping through her lips.

──────────

Her words, the one that she repeated his word about keeping her safe, made Aidan smile a bit. His mind kept telling him how wrong this is — banging somebody’s wife. But deep inside Aidan know that she needs this, the affection, the genuine love, the affair. That is all he got to hear, her fire asking to be breed with gasoline. The ‘Do me’ sentence that gave him nothing but consent. Aidan then came back down to slide her panty down to her feet.

Her body look majestic for a mother of two who just gave birth, Aidan adore her since the day she lended her hand for an introduction. Here she is, laying all naked on her own workspace with nothing but a bra on — having an affair with him — a red wine enthusiast.

Just like wine, Frederica gets even fine with age. Aidan submissive always ranging in younger girls section, but this affair was different. His feelings towards pleasing her was not just about lust, he finally could feel the ‘love’.

He once again gave in, without any hesitation or even touching her with his bare hands — he just crashes his tongue to her redden bud. The sensitive bud of hers been calling him to let his tongue dances on it since the beginning. Aidan gently letting his tongue dances on the redden bud while he looks up to her, notices how much she is enjoying this moment. The air was full with her needy moans. If Aidan was in his usual behavior, Frederica will already be on her knees chocking on his shaft.

Once again, this moment was meant for her pleasure. She deserves it, I’d do it often too knowing how long she been staying with her abusive husband. As the pace of his tongue on her bud gets a bit rough, Aidan slides 2 fingers into the lady’s private part.

──────────

Legs wide open in front of the man he barely knew. They talked once, twice with what happened today, and now they ended up in a lustful affair, in her working area at the museum. Something Frederica never imagined before— not even once. Turning forty at the end of the year yet still doing and looking great; innocent, pure, yet sexy at the same time. Her cheeks blushed as the man slid down the black panty she’s currently using— contrast with her milky-white fair skin.

Naked and exposed to Aidan. Her hands grabbed the corner of the table when his tongue started to please her, dancing on her sensitive red bud down there. At first, she tried her best to hold it inside but the pleasure she felt made her dizzy. The electrifying sensation that rushed inside her, causing her body to bend a little bit backward. He’s truly one of a kind, treating woman like her as a queen.

“Mmhh— Aidan…” she moaned while calling his name.

The sound of the classic music that once filled the room has now been taken over by her moans of needing more and more— especially when his tongue’s pace started to please her rougher than before. “For God’s sake—! Ahhh…. that feels so good mhh~” she moaned.

Eyes shut and she tried so hard to bit her lips, toning down her volume of moans and heavy breathes. She threw her head back, facing the ceiling as her body slowly trembled. And as the two fingers slid in, she gasped— in a loud moan she quickly covered with her hand.

“Oh— yes!” she screamed out gently as she started to move her hips slowly, following his movements. “It feels so good ahhh…”

──────────

He then breaks the dance as he started to thrust his fingers good into her. Aidan’s eyes was fixated to her body reaction, It was satisfying to see her squirms — obviously asking for more. Aidan knew exactly what she needed — a climax, so that’s what he is aiming to. His fingers form into a hook, then moving it in the perfect motion to hit her walls — making her on the edge. His other hand was placed on her lower belly, pinning it down so they won’t move away.

Aidan eyes goes up to her eyes as he had found the spot. With a smirk on his face, he kept hitting the walls with his fingers. The room was filled with her noises, her moan & the mess he made down there. With gentle tone, he said:

“How about a release?”

──────────

Its getting deeper and the hook really made a huge difference inside her. Hitting the wall again and again in such perfect motion, causing the lass to grab on the corner of the table tighter than before. Her body is quivering from the euphoria that started to built.

Frederica couldn’t hold it any longer as she started to feel the urge to let go something. The urge to moan faster and louder than before. She did it right in front of Aidan. “Ahh— again… faster— deeper,” she moaned as her body was shaking. The mother of two smiled at him, panting. She kissed him on the lips softly before she pulled away, parting their lips that became the start to this lusty affair. Of an affair that reached its climax.

An elegant woman turned into a lusty one— her hair in mess and so does her appearance right now. Almost naked, only with her bra on.

──────────

Aidan put a devilish smirk as the lady finally release it all, he welcomes her short but passionate kiss. He then breaks the kiss as he started to pull his fingers out from her, laying his forehead on hers as he thrusted his juicy fingers into her mouth. He rested his forehead to hers as his fingers getting ‘cleaned’ well by her. He whispers softly to her.

“Divorce him. He should always give you satisfaction — like I just did, not beating you up. You are a precious woman, not his punching bag.“

Aidan then took his fingers out from her mouth, leaving a kiss on her forehead as she nodded to his request. He hands her cardigan from the floor, then walks out from the room like nothing happened. As he reached the door, without turning his back, he said: “Text me.”

──────────

Frederica happily put his fingers inside her mouth, licking it seductively as she cleaned his finger after pleasing her with so many ways, in an unexpected way and place, after the short passionate kiss that they had.

Both foreheads met each other as she licked him clean, as he tried to convince her for a divorce. Yet still, Frederica doubted herself. There were so many things to be taken under consideration.

“I don’t know… I’ll try to look for a way out. The twins needs him.”

She could only nodded her head. She wanted to divorce him so much, but again, she needs to settle some matters first. The twins and her family, not to forget that divorce wasn’t easy and will never be easy Frederica realized that her life worth more than living in an abusive marriage with him. She hold on to the cardigan that he handed back and started to dress up when he left her alone in the room like nothing happened before.

“I’m going to divorce him, sooner or later…” she mumbled when he told her to text him.

End of Conserving The Moment.

0 notes

brilliantbiz · 3 years

Text

New Post has been published on Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc.

New Post has been published on https://www.brilliantbreakthroughs.com/covid-shot-impacted-productivity/

How getting my COVID shot impacted productivity

When recovering from a COVID shot, you may discover surprises about your business activities.

Getting my COVID Shot created a very unexpected awareness to help me better understand my productivity levels. Being dubbed a productivity expert, this was amazing to notice. I focus, with great attention, on my productivity. Why? I know it’s one of the key places I can control and make a huge difference in my business’s evolution.

Curious what happened? Let’s start at the beginning…

Getting my first COVID shot

I was fortunate enough to learn about a clinic providing shots before the states and nation encouraging everyone. I went to my first appointment rather unexpectedly. Only the night before did I learn I was on the schedule. So I went to the clinic, and everything was fine. Then, it happened! I had a harsh recovery that took 5 days to clear. I was in horrible shape. I was on a critical timeline for some big projects involving be a video host for an upcoming summit. The days were brutal.

I was running a fever, having difficulty breathing, could barely stay awake… and the show must go on! I felt like I was a marionette puppet doll. I would get all propped up for the next show, and then immediately afterward, I would collapse. I did this exhausting routine for four days and needed another two days to recover from not being able to rest enough.

Admittedly, as a Small Business Owner, I have pulled all-nighters for different things, worked over 100 hours in a week more than I should have. Many of us do crazy things, and I’m not here to say I’m a superhero. It’s just the truth of how we show up when we are committed to achieving something.

How did I prepare for my second COVID shot?

When it comes to productivity, I guard my time. When I compromise too much on my schedule, I run into problems.

So I was smarter than the average bear about my second shot. I didn’t schedule anything critical for the week I had it. In fact, I intensely worked the week before accomplishing what needed to occur. It was a great plan. I gave myself the time and space to recover so I could get back to business in an efficient way.

What happened after my second COVID shot?

I went to bed feeling accomplished that I had given myself the cushion I needed if the reaction was like the first. Upon awakening, I wasn’t feeling so well, so I canceled an appointment the day after the shot. I had forewarned them I may need to do this if I wasn’t feeling well. All was good.

I was so proud of making myself a priority – something I work on every day. I called this day after the shot my “slow day.” I promised myself I wasn’t going to turn on my laptop. Success – I didn’t! I promised I wasn’t going to walk into the office. Success – I didn’t! I promised I was going to take it easy. Then it happened.

I was getting text messages—many texts. I chose to answer texts in real-time so they wouldn’t get backed up. Four texts were from friends checking in on me. That was great.

I kept getting messages – lots of them. They just wouldn’t stop! At the end of the day, I was exhausted from all the messages. It seemed nonstop. So I was curious how many texts came in a little less than 10 hours. What’s your guess? I was way off. I had 112 texts. That’s right, 112, subtract the four personal check-ins, and that’s 108 text messages during a typical workday.

Is this high text volume regularly occurring?

Since that day, I’m amazed at what’s occurring with my text volume, which gets buried throughout the day of the normal interactions. I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening this week. I’m having about 30 – 45 texts per day on a low day. Other than that, I’m averaging 63 – 89 texts. That’s a lot of communication and distraction.

Irony? I don’t even like texting! I was reluctant to do it when it started. Unfortunately, now I’m proficient.

I know how to manage my high email volume and have it dialed in well that I’m responsive and block time for it. Yet, texting wasn’t on my radar screen as a huge distractor until I was only with it.

Now I need to research and review my archived text logs to understand if this is the norm. Regardless of what I noticed, it is clear to me I need to make some adjustments, so my texting isn’t eroding my productivity.

Thanks, COVID shot, for helping me find these hidden distractions which are hindering my progress!

Your turn: I invite you to pay more attention to your texting volume during your working hours and find a way to engage with it in time blocks too!

Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc. Guides Small Business Owners to Simplify Strategies & Align Actions to amplify Profitability, Peace, & Potential Call Maggie (262) 716.7750 for YOUR No-cost Consultation

Blessings of Brilliance to You ~ Rev. Maggie Mongan, Brilliant CEO & Small Business Coach Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc. Direct Dial: 262-716-7750 LinkedIn: MaggieMongan

Copyright owned by Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc. The internet is about sharing. Please share this post in its entirety with full attribution to www.BrilliantBreakthroughs.com.

#customer service #Effective Communication #Improve Productivity #Improving Performance #leadership #Planning #time management

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choisgirls · 7 years

Note

This is my first time requesting a headcannon from anyone! ((I'm asking you guys because I love how you guys write, it's amazing!)) I was wondering if you could do a RFA + V + Saeran reaction to MC accidentally taking a drug thinking it's candy? ((You don't have to do this if it's too weird or something!! I'm sorry!! ;-; I'm so embarrassed lol))

A/N: Me?? the first??? i am hoNOURED ;u; HHHNNNNN I HOPE THIS ISOKAY SORRY I STRAYED FROM THE “THINKING ITS CANDY” PART SOMETIMES;;;;~Admin 404

Me @ Saerans: im sorry no im not

Idk if this is a TW or anything but… drug mention warning??Right here??

*YOOSUNG:

-Yo he goesto /college/. /COLLEGE PARTIES MY FRIENDS./

-He doesn’tnormally go but friends invited him, and he invited you! Totally wasn’t becausehe wanted to show you off to people??? No????

-But youseemed a little more comfortable at these things than he did, you evendisappeared for a little while

-He spentalmost an hour trying to find you amongst the sea of people, and when he didfind you, you seemed confused, dazed, and just completely out of it

-Tried askingyou what was wrong and all you could do was stare at him with your eyes glossedover for a solid minute before you reacted to him actually being there

-When youmade sense of his presence, you smiled and welcomed him very slowly beforesticking your tongue out to touch it

-“Yoosung,is my tongue big? Is it.. big.. oh my god its growing. What if it won’t fit inmy mouth anymore?? YooSUNG WHaT WiLL I Do?!”

-You nolonger had volume control over your voice and he is very concerned. One secondyou’re yelling, the next you’re whispering. What was wrong with you?? You werestarting to scare him;;

-It took asolid 5 minutes for you to explain to him that someone had offered you somechocolate and you never turned down chocolate! But he remembered hearingsomeone say something about “edibles”.. is.. is that what it was? Didyou mistakenly take drugs?! Why weren’t you more careful?!

-Strugglesto carry you home- arm thrown around his shoulder as his arms around your hip,the two of you have to stop every now and again because you’re contemplatingeverything around you. Once he’s got you home, he immediately tucks you into bed.Of course he went to the group chat to figure out what he should do, andSaeyoung told him to just make sure you slept it off.

-In themorning he lectured you that you can’t take chocolate from people you don’tknow!! Especially if it doesn’t smell right- what in the world made you thinkit was safe;; Also, now refuses invites to parties because he doesn’t want totake you to another one and have this happen again

*ZEN:

-HE WAS INA MOTORCYCLE GANG YOU CAN PRY THE THOUGHT THAT HE’S NEVER DONE DRUGS OUT OF MYCOLD DEAD HANDS

-Whenstored correctly in an airtight baggy or pill bottle in the correct conditions,it’s possible to preserve ecstasy pills for /years/ at a time.

-Cue springcleaning when the two of you are going through old boxes and clothing and youfind this small bag full of smiley face shaped things. They looked like shapedsweettarts and those are the type of candies that you eat when you find them,you never go out of your way to get them yourself, so you thought why not.Though it wasn’t sour, it was just really bitter and nasty and there was no wayyou were going to eat another one

-But whenZen came in to check on you after finishing his own portion of cleaning, hefound you chewing the fabric of your shirt. Why were you chewing your shirt?Were you hungry? Were you focusing? Did you need him to get you some gum???Stop doing that!!!!

-When younoticed him come into the room, your face immediately lit up. You gave him thebiggest smile you could manage, and you started to welcome him into the room.But welcoming him turned into talking about his clothes. Talking about hisclothes led to talking to him about the room. Talking about the room led totalking about him. And talking about him led to a 10 minute long ramble thatconsisted of repeating “I love you so much” and telling him howgorgeous he was.

-Of course,that was a favourite topic amongst the two of you normally, but you justseemed… off this time. You seemed… /too/ excited to talk about him. Too inlove. Too…. happy

-He satdown in front of you to take a good look at your eyes and read your actions.You smiled at him all over again and the very second you touched his face he/knew/ what had happened.

-“WHEREDID YOU GET THAT. MC. RIGHT NOW. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT.” “Zenny~ Getwhat? Why are you yelling? Oh! Are we cheering? I can cheer! YAY ZEN YA-”“No no, sweetheart, sit down, please.”

-After fightingto get you to show him what you took, he was mortified. E-ecstasy? Where didyou get that? It was his? When did he have this? HOW LONG AGO DID HE CLEAN OUTHIS CLOSET?

-He got youa styrofoam cup full of water, he knew at some point you were going to bethirsty, /and/ need to chew on something. He didn’t want you to chew on yourclothes anymore, nor did he want you to accidently bite your tongue;;

-For oncehe’s silent the rest of the day, making sure you’ve got something to chew on,listening to you ramble on and on about how nice the house is and how amazingyou thought he was. Definitely made sure to get rid of that baggy… and gothrough a few other boxes from him gang days to make sure there was nothingelse in there. Definitely lectures you on eating things you randomly find inold boxes among other things;

*JAEHEE:

-MC who inthe world thinks accepting any sort of offer in a bathroom is okay??

-You getoffered some chocolate in the bathroom, most people would immediately decline.Who.. who accepts that? MC? Why?

-Younoticed it tasted a little gross but you didn’t want to be rude and spit it outin front of the people offering it to you, so you finished the piece and madeyour way back to the dinner table where Jaehee was waiting.

-She was alittle concerned when she could smell the drug, but she didn’t think you didanything of the sort, and chalked it up to be someone near your table.

-However,once your eyes started to turn a little red and glazed over, she decided thatyou must have truly taken the drug, and paid the bill as quickly as possible soshe could get you home.

-On thewalk home was when it really kicked in. You kept telling her how soft her handswere, because you couldn’t remember that you had just told her the exact samething, word for word.

-Youstumbled a little when you walked and kept trying to sit in the middle of thesidewalk because your legs felt like jelly.

-At onepoint you started to cry because you weren’t sure why in the world anyone woulddrop their half eaten pretzel on the ground and leave it there, where evenbirds couldn’t reach it to eat. She couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculousyou sounded, though she was still extremely angry that you had taken drugs onyour date??

-Once shegot you home and you sat down, she watched as your head would dip down beforeyou snapped it right back up to look at her. Apparently you kept blacking outin the matter of seconds before you woke back up and she wanted you to just laydown and sleep.

-Figured itcouldn’t hurt to ask you just what happened back at the restaurant. You toldher about the people in the bathroom who offered you some of their chocolateand you kept giggling because you couldn’t believe someone would be nice enoughto just offer some chocolate to a stranger in the bathroom. That’s when itclicked that you had no idea what was hiding within the sweet.

-Made yousleep it off the rest of the night. You better believe you’re getting one ofthe biggest, emotion-filled lectures of your life the moment you wake upbecause she needs to tell you about the dangers of just blindly taking ANYTHINGfrom strangers??? And she also had to explain to you what you had even done?And what was in the chocolate you decided to eat. Momma Jaehee, scolding you2kforever.

*JUMIN:

-Being hiss/o can be dangerous and let me explain why for just a second

-Of course,being the s/o of someone as popular (and handsome.. and rich… and powerful..)as Jumin Han, there is not only a lot of attention thrown your way, but there’salways someone who gets jealous (whether of you or of him)

-So, youalways have to be on your toes because you never know what might happen, orwhat someone might do to you. Of course you have bodyguards but sometimes theycan slip up as well.

-Like, notnoticing that someone had slipped something into your drink?

-Normally,Jumin watches you and your surroundings like a hawk because he’s alwaysconcerned for you, but this time even he was distracted talking business with apotential new client and didn’t see it happen.

-Luckilyfor the two of you, you had left the party early to head home, but on the waythere, whatever you had drank started to kick in.

-Your legsgave out right before you passed the doorway and he caught you just in time.Completely distraught, and carried you quickly to the couch. Tried to ask youwhat was wrong, but you couldn’t get the words out of your mouth, all it endedup sounding like was one large mumble. You seemed to struggle to move yourlimbs until you couldn’t anymore.

-Immediatelycalled a doctor to make a house visit. He didn’t care how late it was, he’d paywhatever he had to, so long as he could find out what was happening to you. Andafter the doctors analysis, it was obvious that someone had tried to slip you aRohypnol without you realizing it, and he was glad he brought you home beforeanything else had happened.

-Not only doeshe increase his security in general, but he assigns a specific body guard towatch your drinks the next time the two of you went out as well as one to stayclose by you at all times at said parties.

-Stays nextto you the whole time, never sleeping until you’re able to come to. He blameshimself the whole time and cannot help but think of every possible scenariothat could have happened to you that night. He knows it isn’t your fault, buthe’s still just so worried about you. He’s never been more stressed.

-Hepromises to take care of you better from then on. He would never let anyonehurt you again, no matter what it took. The two of you have to hold each otherin reassurance (obviously whenever you’re feeling alright and are okay with it,he understands that it’s a scary occurrence and realizes it’s quite possiblefor you to be jumpy and not want to be touched for a large amount of timeafterwards)

*SAEYOUNG:

-You can’ttell me he doesn’t have various drugs he uses as weapons on missions, you justcan’t.

-He tellsyou to stay out of the room where he keeps his equipment, but do you listen?Yeah usually

-But youfelt bad that Vanderwood was the one who always had to clean everything, so youdecided you would help out and clean a few rooms! His equipment room being oneof them.

-Now,Saeyoung is known to leave food around. Everywhere. And I mean, any type offood as well. Half empty chip bags, week old slices of pizza, a slice oflasagna you made three weeks ago- that’s disgusting Saeyoung.

-So comingacross something that looks almost candy like isn’t really uncommon in yourhousehold. Though, whatever you just picked up and decided to throw in yourmouth was not… your best decision.

-A whilelater, you managed to stumble into the room where Saeyoung was sitting, typingaway at his computer. You kept trying to talk but all your words stumbled andyou couldn’t think straight. You kept stumbling and felt your knees gettingweak. He looked over right as you fell to the ground and he’s never run over toyou faster in his life

-Soconcerned, he kept asking what was wrong and watched you try to talk, but notonly was your mouth unable to move, your body went limp. He recognized thesymptoms immediately and called out to Vanderwood to come help the two of you

-He laidyou in bed and got you some water and just tried to get you to sleep- there wasno other way to get it out of your system but wait it out

-Vanderwoodcame in with a judgmental look on their face, “Did they really just takesome random thing they found? Why do you have these lying around, Seven?”

-When youfinally came to, he was so relieved and was constantly apologizing before aswitch flipped and he started to scold you. What would possess you to just..eat something you found? What do you mean it looked like candy? He doesn’tleave food around! Okay.. yes he does.. but really, MC! Why were you in hisequipment room? W-why were you turning this around on him? He has that Rohypnolfor missions! You could just ask Vanderwood!

-Vanderwoodadmits to slipping them to Seven sometimes when they’re done dealing with him,how rude.

*JIHYUN:

-‘Jihyunwould never do drugs!’ -you, probably, at me. Me, at you, dear reader: ‘Rip thethought of it out of my cold, dead hands’

-Sometimeshe just has to calm down, the poor dude has dealt with so much shit and justneeds a little help to clear his mind and the tobacco pipe just doesn’t alwayshelp.

-Surprisinglylikes sour candy! So he gets some infused sour peach rings and they’re hisfavourites.

-But heneglected to tell you that they were infused?? And that you probably shouldn’teat them?? Nor should you eat more than a few…

-So when hecame home to find you laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, trying tocount how many times the fan spun around, he figured pretty quickly that youhad gotten into his candy and he sighed

-He laiddown next to you on the ground, watching the fan as well while he asked youwhat you had eaten to confirm his suspicions. When you told him you had somepeach rings, he couldn’t stop the soft laugh that came out afterwards

-Totallyeats a few as well so the two of you can just relax and practically melt intothe floor

-Youcouldn’t stop talking. Anything and everything that came to your mind came outof your mouth. It was slow and thought out, but still came out. Every word waslike heaven to his ears and he felt like he could just float along with yourvoice

-The two ofyou just talk and speculate about the future, about the past, sometimes the twoof you come up with extremely odd (but funny) thoughts about the rest of yourfriends

-You keptrunning your hand through his hair and kept telling him just how amazingly softit felt and he could just tell that you had way more than he had. He had toremember to lecture you not to eat every kind of candy you find.

-Or… toat least not eat as much as you did. And definitely not do it alone

*SAERAN (or… Ray *insert the eye emoji here*):

-“MC,here, I made this specially for you.”

-In thebottle was a bright, blue, sweet smelling liquid. You didn’t know what it was,exactly, but it was obviously very odd.

-You tookthe bottle. Ray hasn’t given you any sort of bad vibe or reason to not trusthim the whole time you’ve been here. Though, he kept telling you that steps hadto be taken to allow you to stay there, with him, for as long as you’d like.

-“MC,”he started, gently wrapping his hand around your own that held the bottle,“Please. Don’t you trust me? I care about you a lot..” his voicedropped off as he looked from your eyes to the ground.

-After adeep breath, you broke away from his grip to bring the bottle to your lips. Inone fluid motion, you let the sweet tasting liquid run down the back of yourthroat. It burned a bit going down, but immediately numbed afterwards.

-You methis eyes, as his face lit up with joy. Eyes started to sparkle, and his smilegrew bigger than you’ve seen it the past few days

-He tookyour hand in his, bringing it up to his lips to plant a small kiss on yourknuckles as he waited for the elixir to kick in. He watched, as you started tolightly shake and threw your hands to your head, holding it and squeezing youreyes shut.

-Your headstarted to pound as the room began to spin. Your eyes started to wateruncontrollably and you couldn’t make sense of any of your surroundings. Soundsmixed together and seems to scream in your ears. Your breath hitched in yourthroat and you started to gasp for air.

-Ray buriedhis hand into the hair at the back of your head, pulling you close to his chest

-He placeda small kiss to the top of your head, smirking against your hair softly

-“Youaren’t leaving me, MC.”

Masterlist

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mveloc · 7 years

Text

Days of Why and How

Chapter 10

“Jesus Christ.”

She stares up at the screen in pure horror, watching the scene unfold before her eyes. Even with the television muted, the flashing images of police cars and crime tape in conjunction with the headline cut through the normal noise and bustle of the bar, captivating her as well as most of the other patrons.

Sixteen dead in violent shootout.

She reaches for the remote stashed safely behind the bar, turning the volume up so she can hear the reporter speak; sixteen dead after a shootout at a local car dealership just hours before—suspected gang activity. She can feel the blood drain from her face despite the slamming in her chest. She can feel her hand holding the remote begin to tremble.

“I don’t wanna hear that shit! Turn it off!”

She’s snapped out of her trance by the booming voice of an older gentleman who angrily slams his pint glass on his table to emphasize his outrage. She obliges, pressing the mute button once again to silence the scene, though she still can’t tear her eyes away from the television.

“Hey.”

The voice is soft—just as soft as the hand that slides across the bar to cover her own. She pulls her eyes away long enough to give the blonde a meek smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” Shay tells her.

Her eyes are warm and reassuring, though Cosima finds herself unable to trust her lover’s words.

“Seriously?”

She makes no attempt to disguise her skepticism and mild annoyance, reclaiming her hand before hastily switching the channel.

Shay sighs.

“Alright,” she concedes. “This is going to get messy.”

“Don’t you mean messier?”

Sixteen people are already dead. She has no doubt Aldous Leekie and Dmitri Davydov are behind it. Knowing those two men, there will be many more bodies to follow before things finally get resolved… if they ever do.

Delphine’s voice rings in her head.

“Things are going to get bloody very soon and if you keep hanging around this girl, you’re going to get caught in the middle.”

She had been too angry to take Delphine’s warning at face value, dismissing it as jealousy.

But now?

“You should start over—you deserve to start over—but you’ll never be able to do that with her and you know it.”

“I met with Delphine the other day,” she blurts out.

She isn’t sure what compels her to tell Shay this, but she’s unable to keep it to herself any longer. Maybe it’s the realization that Delphine hadn’t been out for blood that night—that she had actually been genuine—that she really didn’t know about Leekie after all. If she’s able to accept Delphine’s warning about Dmitri and accept her lack of involvement in Leekie’s plot as the truth, then why is she still unable to accept Delphine’s feelings? What reason does she have to doubt or dismiss them if everything else is true? Why would she lie about that?

“What? Why?”

Shay is just as surprised by her revelation as she is.

“She came to see me after I closed the bar,” Cosima mutters. “She won’t leave me alone.”

Even when Delphine isn’t physically there, she’s still present—looming over every conversation, hanging onto every single one of her thoughts—completely inescapable, for better or worse.

“If she’s really that big of a problem, you can always—”

“She came to warn me about you—about your family,” Cosima tries to explain, her tone serious. “She says I should stay out of it because it’s going to turn into a bloodbath.”

Shay is silent for a moment. She reaches for her tea, taking a sip before speaking again.

“Maybe she’s right.”

“Uh… excuse me?”

Cosima pauses, stunned by her girlfriend’s reaction. She hadn’t expected Shay to give in quite so easily and she isn’t sure if she should be upset or curious.

“What?” Shay shrugs.

“You’re actually agreeing with her?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Just because she’s your ex?”

She considers the question carefully. Is the truth still the truth when you hear it from a liar’s lips? Can it somehow be tainted? As a scientist, she’s always believed the truth to be universal, so why should it matter if it’s coming from Delphine’s mouth or Shay’s? Does the motive behind the words really change what they mean?

“You should stay out of this, Cosima,” Shay continues. “I know my uncle promised you things, but I know how he does business and you’re just not cut out for this line of work.”

Cosima nods silently.

“Yeah.”

She moves through the rest of her shift in a haze, making drinks and sleepwalking through whatever trivial conversation patrons try to make with her. Her thoughts are distant, shuffling through many possible scenarios of how this will play out; she can do nothing and allow things to unfold as they are, heed Delphine’s advice and abandon her current girlfriend in a bid to distance herself from all of the drama, or stick to the original plan she made with Delphine years ago—that she made with Sarah upon being released from prison: take off into the night and never look back. She pays little attention to the petite blonde still perched at the bar, but despite this, Shay still hangs around until Cosima is ready to close up for the night, kicking the last few people out and locking the door.

“You okay?” Shay gently pries. “You’ve been pretty quiet all night.”

“Just thinking.”

“About…?”

When she looks over to Shay again, still sitting at the bar with wide and expectant eyes, the anxiety in her chest bubbles to the surface.

“You wanna go somewhere with me?”

For the second time this evening, impulse has gotten the better of her.

Shay arches a brow.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter,” Cosima spills. “We can just go and never come back.”

It doesn’t take Shay’s bemused expression to tell her she’s acting completely out of character. She can’t be sure if the words are her own, if they’re coming from a place inside of her that’s genuine, or if they’re coming from a place of fear, her invitation stemming from obligation rather than sincerity; in the moment, all she can think about is running as far away as possible and naively hoping her shadow won’t follow.

“You really want to just up and leave with no sort of plan at all? That doesn’t sound like you,” Shay presses.

Her words aren’t meant to be accusatory, but despite her soft tone, Cosima can’t help but feel her girlfriend is purposely looking for some sort of excuse not to go along with her half-baked idea.

“Why do we need a plan? We’ll be together. We’ll figure something out,” she tries.

She’s tired of planning. It’s never worked out for her before. Delphine had had a plan and it had gotten them absolutely nowhere; with all that time spent plotting out their future and how they were going to get there, they could have up and left and simply taken it for themselves. They could have made it work.

But Delphine was never interested in just “making it work.”

She wanted the whole damn thing.

She didn’t want a future—she wanted the future; the one where they got the entire cake and not just a slice… and in that time spent planning on how to get it, there it sat on the table spoiling right in front of them before they had a chance to even taste it.

“Running from your problems isn’t the answer, Cosima.”

She expels an irritated sigh, angrily throwing the rag she’d been using to wipe down the bar to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Shay asks.

Cosima stops what she’s doing, trying to calm herself. She knows Shay means well, but she needs more than her girlfriend’s good intentions right now; she doesn’t need to be soothed or psychoanalyzed, she doesn’t need more empty promises—she needs action.

“You’re supposed to say yes!” she bursts. “You’re supposed to say we’ll make it work!”

“Is that what I’m supposed to say, or what you want me to say?”

Cosima’s hands—usually so loose and lively—ball into quivering fists when she realizes her reach has exceeded her grasp. She isn’t sure where this desperation has come from—this childish, debilitating need to hold onto anything that seems familiar—anything close enough to keep her from slipping—from being alone. She huffs past Shay in a hurry, muttering beneath her breath as she makes her way into the safety of the backroom.

“I have to close up.”

+ + + + +

The loud, incessant knocking at her door somehow manages to bleed through the wall of noise currently assaulting ears. She pulls her earbuds out just to be certain of it and as soon as she has her confirmation, she places her pen down in her textbook and closes the cover. She hadn’t been expecting any visitors tonight, which can only mean one thing.

“You’re in a good mood,” she remarks as soon as she opens the door to see her girlfriend radiating with excitement.

“Well, I have a very good reason to be,” Delphine answers, quickly crossing the threshold and stepping into Cosima’s modest domain.

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

There’s a brief pause in their banter as Cosima closes the door behind them, her eyes carefully inspecting the beaming blonde. Delphine isn’t normally this… giddy. It isn’t that she dislikes seeing her girlfriend so eager, rather she’s skeptical of it—skeptical of anyone or anything that could generate such a response in the usually calm and level-headed girl.

“I’ve been in touch with someone,” Delphine reveals.

Right away, Cosima can tell she’s withholding.

“What kind of someone?” she cautiously asks.

“Someone who can really help us.”

She furrows her brow, trying to rack her brain for the possible problem Delphine claims to have the solution to.

“What do we need help with? Are we talking couple’s counselling or something, cause honestly—”

Her word vomit ceases the second she feels Delphine press her lips against hers; it’s a gesture that’s meant to silence, but there’s also a tenderness in it that reassures her Delphine isn’t trying to distract or deflect. Her eyes flutter closed and she sighs into the kiss, delighting in the gentle brush of knuckles against her cheeks.

“You’re rambling,” Delphine whispers, lightly nuzzling her face.

“Sorry.”

Delphine reaches for her hand, taking it in her own and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“He’s going to help us take our careers to the next level.”

Cosima finds herself caught off guard.

“Careers? What careers?”

The last she checked, she was still just a Biology student while Delphine was now living off whatever money she had managed to steal or swindle from the unsuspecting. She can tell by Delphine’s stern glance that the blonde must be referring to her thieving ways.

“Oh. That.”

Delphine’s lips downturn into a frown, her enthusiasm completely stifled by Cosima’s tepid reaction. As soon as Cosima realizes her folly, she sighs heavily.

“Look, if you wanna be a career criminal, that’s great for you. I’m just not really cut out for the whole “life of crime” thing,” she confesses. “And I thought the plan was to drop all our shit and dip to St. Barts?”

Delphine had told her before that there were arrangements that had to be made before their grand adventure, but from the way her girlfriend is speaking now—her voice so full of zest and ambition in regards to this new “opportunity”—she’s getting the very opposite impression.

“I thought we were in this together?”

The crack in her voice is subtle, but Cosima instantly catches it and her heart throbs in her chest. She directs Delphine’s hand towards her mouth, pressing a kiss to her palm.

“Of course we are,” she reiterates. “I’ll follow you wherever you go—you know that.”

Delphine’s lips twitch to form another smile and Cosima tries to match it, though her own smile is much meeker than the blonde’s.

“I’m just saying this isn’t exactly my forte here. I’m just a science geek, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”

Delphine chuckles at her self-deprecation and Cosima’s lopsided grin finally finds its usual zeal.

“But if you really think this is what we need… then okay.”

She’s not entirely sure that she really understands just what’s happening, but she feels at ease with one look into her lover’s eyes; even if she doesn’t know what’s going on, she’s bolstered by the unwavering devotion staring back at her and somehow, she knows this must be the right call.

“Really?” Delphine counters, her voice hopeful.

“Yeah. I trust you,” Cosima nods slowly. “If you say this is the best way, then—”

“Tres bien! He’s waiting for us.”

The tone immediately shifts while Cosima struggles to keep her bearings.

“Wait, what?”

“He wants to take us to dinner. He’s downstairs waiting.”

Cosima finally processes the blonde’s words, realizing the man she’s been talking about is here at this very moment. She tries her best to hide it, but she can’t help but feel a little imposed upon—violated that Delphine would think to bring him to her home. Her palms grow clammy as she mulls over the idea of having dinner with this mysterious man who seems to have completely captivated her girlfriend.

“Dinner? I-I don’t know—I have a lot of readings to get through…”

“You can finish them later,” Delphine tells her, grabbing Cosima by the arm and leading her towards the door. “Working with Aldous Leekie could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Cosima sighs, ultimately relenting as she grabs her keys and jacket. She locks the door behind them and allows Delphine to assist in slipping her jacket on. Once she’s ready to go, she takes a deep breath and allows herself to be led down the hall, into the elevator and back out through the main lobby. As soon as they exit her residence hall, she immediately spots the impressive limousine that’s pulled up and waiting for them.

“You won’t be disappointed,” Delphine whispers into her ear as they approach the vehicle.

“Yeah, I can tell…”

The second Delphine reaches for the door and opens it for her girlfriend to enter, Cosima can’t help but notice that the interior of the limo seems much colder than the outside air as it nips at her cheeks, painting them flushed. She slides all the way over along the leather seat to make room form Delphine to slide in next to her.

Delphine closes the door, entrapping them both.

“You must be Cosima.”

#cophine #cophine fanfic #fanfiction #days of why and how #my writing

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