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handsomelyhiddleston · 3 years

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Sticky Notes - Tom Hiddleston x Reader

It all started on the set of Ragnarok. They hadn’t even started filming yet. Table reads, choreography, costume fittings, set development…The cast, crew, and even Taika started finding little notes.

Some were specifically to certain people…

“Your laugh is contagious. Thank you for making this set so down to earth and inviting.” You slipped that into Taika’s (the director’s) fanny pack when he left it on his director’s chair.

“I know how hard you’ve been working on your fight choreography, and I just wanted to let you know you absolutely killed it today!” You left that stuck to Tessa’s (Valkyrie’s) water bottle.

Some you posted for everyone, like “I know that you all put such amazing effort and time into bringing this movie to life and I just want you all to know that it doesn’t go unnoticed.” That note was posted above a table full of ‘easy to grab’ snacks you laid out such as protein bars, fruit snacks, pretzels, and dried fruit.

This continued well into filming. Everyone had tried to figure out who was leaving these little daily encouragements. It got to the point that Taika started calling you Casper, as in “Casper the Friendly Ghost.” Every day at the start of filming he would say. “Come on guys. Let’s make Casper proud.”

Everyone had a theory. Most thought that it was actually Taika just trying to keep morale up. Taika accused Tom but took it back after some comment about the notes not sounding very British.

Your job on set was to cast extras. While you were present daily, you honestly only had to meet with Taika once or twice a day to make sure the next day’s cast extras were ready. You two fell into an easy rhythm working together and he started asking for your opinion on some other aspects of the set. One late afternoon, after an incredibly chaotic day of filming, Taika decided that he was going to scrap the entire scene and start it over.

He pulled out his phone and sent a text to you, Tom, and Chris. “Today can suck it. I’ve just watched the dailies, and something just isn’t right about that scene. Meet at mine in 30 so we can get ahead of it.” A few seconds later he added, “And for the love of God, someone bring some tequila.”

You laughed at his text, jogging to the trailer you shared with the other casting director. You changed into a pair of shorts and a baggy t-shirt and grabbed your keys and wallet. You jumped in your car so you could make a quick trip to the Starbucks down the street since it appeared it was going to be a long night.

“One Venti iced coffee with milk and 1 sugar, one Grande Americano hot with cream and 2 sugars, one Venti hot latte with vanilla, and one Venti hot water with two earl gray tea bags and four sugars on the side. Can I also get one of the small kid’s milk boxes?” You heard the barista repeat your order back and pulled forward and paid.

When you got to Taika’s trailer, Tom and Chris were already there.

“Oh, bless you” Taika thanked you, taking the Latte from you.

“You’re the best” Chris said, taking the lid off of the Americano so it would cool off a bit.

“Tom, I grabbed you tea.” You handed him the hot water and two tea bags, setting the sugars and milk next to him so he could make it to his liking.

“You’re too kind” Tom graciously took the hot water from you, noting that you grabbed his favorite kind of tea.

In Taika’s trailer there was a table with a bench on each side. Chris and Tom were sat on one side, leaving a space for you to sit next to Taika.

“Anyone grab the tequila?” you laughed, dropping your keys and wallet on Taika’s counter and sitting at the table with your iced coffee.

Taika grabbed the bottle and sat it down in front of you. “You’re already two swigs behind, love.”

“Bullshit” you laughed. “Prove it. Where are the shot glasses?”

“I said swigs, not shots” Taika smirked. “We don’t have shot glasses.”

“Look at how much is missing from that bottle. I just bought it.” Hemsworth backed Taika up.

You looked at Tom, knowing he would be honest with you.

“Hey, you trust Tom more than me?” Taika pretended to be offended.

“Tom always looks out for everybody. I don’t think he’d let me get two shots drunker than you fools.” You teased Taika, poking his side and sticking your tongue out at him.

“Watch” Taika said, putting his arm around your shoulders and looking towards Tom. “How many swigs did we all take?”

Tom laughed, “I’m sorry darling, but he’s telling you the truth.”

“Fine, fine.” You opened the bottle and took three swigs, handing it to Taika. “Catch up, then.”

Tom started thinking about the compliment you had given him as he took his third swig of Tequila. He felt flattered that you felt that way, but it also reminded him of one of the notes he had found stuck to his trailer door.

“Okay, we need to re-block this whole scene. It just did not translate from script to screen…” The four of you worked on a few line changes and mapped out a better way to execute the scene for over two hours.

There was a bit of dialogue that Taika felt was getting lost that he really just didn’t want to let go of. “We may just have to mess with this tomorrow while we’re filming.”

“Or you could have Loki say it instead of Thor.” You suggested.

“Could do.” You could tell that Taika was thinking it over.

“Here you have Thor immediately going into another hard-hitting line” you explained. “If that line comes from Loki, it makes it less likely to get lost.”

“I think that will fix this problem too” Chris started underlining other parts of the dialogue.

“What do you think?” Taika looked at Tom.

“I mean, I personally think Loki has already evolved enough at that point in the script that it suits him quite nicely.” Tom explained in a way only Tom can explain.

“I agree” you said. “You guys make Loki grow quite a bit in this film and as usual, Tom is hitting it out of the park. I’m 100% confident he will have conveyed that message to the audience by this point.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence.” Again, Tom was flattered. However, he was growing more and more suspicious that you were Casper.

“Always” you replied, smiling at Tom as you finished your coffee.

“Let me type this up and we can table read it.” Taika grabbed the papers and went to the other side of the trailer where his computer was set up.

“While you do that, I’m going to steal your restroom for a moment.” Chris stood, throwing his empty coffee cup away and closing the bathroom door. Chris joined Taika a moment later.

“Y/n?” Tom said, kind of quietly.

“What’s up?” Your elbows were resting on the table with your chin sat on your hands.

“Can I ask you something?” Tom didn’t want to bring it up in front of anyone. He didn’t want the notes to stop, but he had to know.

Tom looked a bit serious, but you didn’t know why. “Of course.”

“Are you…” He stopped, reaching his hand into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet. “Is this you?”

Your eyes went wide as Tom pulled a small stack of pink sticky notes out of his wallet, laying them down next to each other. There must have been 10 of them in total. You were touched that he actually kept them. Sometimes you felt silly leaving them for people not knowing if they appreciated them. You tried to play it off, laughing. “I thought those were from Taika?”

He pointed at one of them, reading it quietly. “I tried the tea you always drink. I don’t think it could ever replace my love of coffee, but I wanted you to know it pairs well with a good book.” He pointed to another note. “I know you paid for everyone to Uber home after our last night out. I just wanted to tell you I appreciate you. Thank you for always looking out for us.” You could feel his eyes on you as he moved his hand to a third note. “I envy your ability to capture a room. You’ve got an amazing knack for making those watching you feel whatever emotion you’re trying to convey.” When Tom’s hand moved to the fourth note, you heard Taika’s printer turn on.

“Put them away” you said, trying to stack them quickly. Chris started walking towards you and you grabbed the small stack you had gathered and put them in your pocket.

Tom put the rest back in his wallet. “What do you think?” he asked Taika about the changes he had made.

“I think tomorrow is going to be a lot fuckin’ better.” He passed the printed copies around after joining the two of you back at the table.

Tom’s line went over great, and the dialogue flowed much more smoothly. All of the other changes made the scene feel more natural. When Taika called it a night, Chris laid down on the couch refusing to go back to his own trailer.

“Can I walk you to yours?” Tom asked as you stepped out of Taika’s trailer.

The two of you walked back to your trailer in comfortable silence, tired and a little drunk. When you got to the door, you turned around and pulled the pink notes out of your pocket.

“Please don’t tell anyone?” You placed the notes in Tom’s hand.

“I didn’t plan on it” he replied, tucking them neatly back into his wallet.

“I feel silly now that someone knows it was me. Why did you keep them?” You had to ask. You assumed, at most, that people read them, smiled, and threw them away.

“Hmm…” Tom laughed humorlessly, his eyes focused on his wallet. “I think you’re doing a lot more than you realize when you leave your ‘silly’ little notes.”

His response caught you off guard. He almost sounded…sad? Serious?

“Y/n, I’ve had to work with actors and crew that have made filming a project miserable. Whether they were rude or critical or just an absolute diva, there is always someone to bring the room down.” He put his wallet away and looked you in the eyes. “I wish you knew how many of us have kept these notes. Taika has them in the glovebox of his car. The catwalk above the set is covered in notes you’ve left the crew. They’re stuck all over the mirrors in the make-up trailer so that the cast sees them first thing in the morning.”

Your eyes went wide. “What?”

Tom put his hands on each of your arms as if to ensure you were paying attention. “An encouraging word or a genuine compliment can change someone’s entire day, y/n. You have no way of knowing what life has dealt any of these people. They could be depressed or stressed out or wishing they hadn’t woken up that morning…and all of a sudden they receive a tiny bit of kindness from someone and it makes it that much easier to get through another day. Maybe even with a smile on their face.”

Tom wore a soft smile and even though you felt a bit overwhelmed, you couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you for telling me that.” You moved towards him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Please don’t forget it.” Tom pulled back a bit and pressed a quick kiss to your cheek. “I hope you get a good night’s sleep.”

“You, too.” You watched Tom walk away before slipping into your shared trailer.

Over the next few weeks, Tom had left you multiple green sticky notes with compliments written on them.

“You looked stunning yesterday”

“Thank you for still being a good listener when I go on rants about things you couldn’t care less about”

“Taika was bragging about you to someone on the phone. I just wanted you to know. I know sometimes you hesitate to suggest your ideas, but you shouldn’t.”

“I appreciate how much time you spend making this a better set to work on.”

“You are an incredible friend.”

You’d find at least one note a day and for every note he left you, you’d leave one for him. The two of you got quite a bit closer after he found out about your secret. You’d spend breaks on set together and often times wound up back in Taika’s trailer with him and Chris. You cuddled and flirted and shared more than a few loving glances, but you never went any further. It felt like it was turning into something more, but Tom was such a gentleman you couldn’t tell.

The note you found this morning, however, completely caught you off guard. The filming was almost done and everyone’s time on set was almost over. You had just sat down next to the director’s chair and opened your laptop. There, stuck to the screen, was a green sticky note. “Darling, would you please be mine?”

You looked up at Tom on stage only to find him already looking at you. He lifted his brow and tilted his head, waiting for your response. You couldn’t help but smile as you nodded ‘yes’.

Taika looked between you, noticing the interaction and intentionally teasing you. “Oi, what’s this then?”

Tom turned, trying to hide his grin by talking to Chris. You closed your laptop to hide the sticky note.

“Nah, I saw you two. Don’t pretend like I’m crazy.” Taika was still looking back and forth between you and Tom.

“Maybe you’re still drunk from last night” you teased, putting your laptop in its bag so you could retrieve the note later.

“Oh, sure.” He dropped it, knowing he’d bring it up tonight when you all gathered in his trailer.

The rest of the filming flew by crazy fast. You and Tom had decided that you would go stay with him in New York until the press junkets and interviews started. When the premier rolled around, you two were already publicly dating so you got to escort him down the red carpet. It had been just over a year since the two of you had started dating.

As the credits for the film started rolling, you felt like you were walking down memory lane. So many people go into making movies of this scale and watching all of the names roll by, one by one, really puts that into perspective. You’d met almost all of these people and worked closely with quite a few of them. As the credits came to an end, you saw that Taika had added an extra credit.

The last few “SPECIAL THANKS” credits were in order as listed…

“The filmmakers acknowledge the assistance of the New Zealand Government’s Screen Production Grant”

“The filmmakers would like to acknowledge the Yugambeh and Bundjalung Peoples of Australia”

“The director would like to thank ‘Casper’, Ragnarok’s own personal friendly ghost”

It had been a year since you’d written one of those notes and it caught you off guard. Tom put his arm around your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I told you.”

You and Tom mingled amongst your friends at the after party. Taika was flying. He was so happy with how it turned out and grateful for such a positive response. Everyone in the cast was telling stories from filming and catching up with their friends. By the time you two got back to your hotel room, you were blissfully tipsy and exhausted. You slipped out of your dress and threw on a baggy t-shirt before washing your face and getting ready for bed. When you left the bathroom, you saw Tom sitting on the edge of the bed in his pajamas with a soft, warm smile gracing his beautiful face. He was wearing his glasses and his hair was a mess and he could not have been more attractive if he tried.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, pulling you to stand between his legs.

“Pretty good. How about yourself?” you put your arms around his neck and pressed your lips to his.

“I think there’s only one thing that could make me happier in this moment.” He answered.

You thought he was being a bit cheeky, so you replied with, “oh, yeah? I wonder what that could be.”

Tom reached behind him on the bed and pulled out a small box with a worn, green sticky note on top of it. He didn’t say anything, letting you read it. It was the same note he had left stuck to your laptop screen. “Darling, would you please be mine?” Only now the word “forever” was written at the bottom.

#Tom Hiddleston #Tom Hiddleston x reader #Tom Hiddleston imagine #loki

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intoanothermind · 4 years

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Stand Tall - Reggie

Word Count: 7.8k

- Reggie x reader

Synopsis: your younger sister joins a band of ghosts, but she’s not the only one who can see them. You’ve seen them since you were a child.

Masterlist

Flying Solo - Reggie imagine

Akai Ito - Reggie imagine (soulmate au)

Bright - Luke imagine

—

I took a deep breath and smiled before leaving the taxi. A month with many projects and exams in college made me spend a lot of time away from my family. When that happened, I used to spend time with a friend who lived closer to campus. But now that I didn’t have to worry so much for a few more weeks until the next round of tests, I can finally take a breath and enjoy some family time between classes. I smiled discreetly at the elderly woman who was always across the street, watching her daughter. She flashed a huge smile back at me before disappearing.

“Papa?“ I asked out loud, opening the door.

I heard a noise coming from the kitchen and Dad appeared already coming towards me with a huge smile. “Mi hija! How was the tests? When will there be more?”

“Are you already trying to kick me out again?“ I laughed, accepting his tight hug. “Don’t worry, I have one more month before the final exams for the semester. Where are Carlos and Julie?”

"Carlos is still in school and Julie is rehearsing in the studio.”

My smile widened and a weight lifted from my chest. I was happy that Julie finally got back to connecting with the music after mom died. It wasn’t easy for any of us, but it was especially difficult for her. When Flynn told me on one of the last calls about Julie - two years younger than me - playing again and even joining a band, I was really happy. I could always count on my sister’s best friend to keep me informed in the smallest details.

“So is she really playing again? I will leave my things in my room and go and talk to her. ”

“No, no. Let me take your backpack, go and see your sister.”

“Gracias, papa.” I gave him a kiss on the cheek and went out again through the door to go around the house and get to the studio installed in the garage.

I heard music coming from inside, but I frowned when I heard several instruments and male voices mixed with my sister’s. The song was already over when I opened the door. Julie was talking to three boys that I had never seen in my life before. A tall, blond man had drumsticks in his hand and rolled them in the air. One with brown hair in a cap was talking to my sister with a twinkle in his eye. But the one who caught my attention the most was the pale, black-haired boy who was playing with a bass a little further away. Was that the band? I didn’t even know that Julie could talk to cute boys without stuttering.

“Am I interrupting something? I can come back later.”

The boys opened their eyes wide and looked at Julie as she turned to me a little scared and with a awkward smile on her lips.

“Y/N, hi! I didn’t know you were going to get home today! ”

I looked at her with a frown. She was acting stranger than usual.

"Yes, you did, Julie, I told you last week and called dad yesterday.”

She widened her eyes even more when she noticed my expression.

“Why don’t we go to your room then and you tell me how is college? Have you done many articles? Did you pass the exams?”

Julie walked past me and headed for the gate, ignoring the boys completely.

“Okay, this is getting weird. Jules, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

The blonde let the stick fall on his face, the cap choked and the cute guy let the bass out of tune when he let his fingers fall. All of them, including Julie, looked at me with wide eyes.

“Can she see us?" the boy in the cap asked when Julie returned to his side.

"Why wouldn’t I see you?" I looked into the eyes of the three of them and that’s when I noticed the aura around them, a little blurry, an aura that I learned to recognize after a few years. “Sure, Julie and the phantoms. You are ghosts ”

"That was quick." commented the cute bass player.

“First the band’s name makes it kinda obvious. Second, Jules wasn’t the first person in the family to talk to ghosts.”

"Y/N…” Julie looked at me with an emotion in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. "Does that mean grandma was really at the house when we were younger?“

I smiled a little sadly. Our parents were always understandable and tried to help us with everything, but when I said I talked to grandma, even after a year after her death, they had to take me to therapy. After a while, I simply learned to lie to Dr. Turner and say that I no longer saw the dead, I just made imaginary friends.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen her in years. Ms. Elliot, however, is still in the garden across the street watching over her daughter.”

"This is so cool!" exclaimed the man in the cap, approaching.

“Another lifer seeing us? Yeah!" the blonde smiled, also approaching along with the bassist.

Julie took my arm before I could introduce myself. "Y/N… Mom…?”

The weight on my shoulders returned and I sighed before I smiled at her, holding her hand in mine.

“She stayed here just long enough to ask me to look after you, dad and Carlos and say that she loved us very much.”

For a second I thought Julie would let the tears fall, but then she took a deep breath and passed her hand under her eyes to compose herself.

“Thank you, Y/N.”

“You still need to introduce me to your cute friends. I thought you couldn’t talk to pretty boys without being ashamed.”

The bassist broke into a silly smile and patted the blonde on the shoulder. "She said that we are cute and pretty.“

"Reggie…” The blonde shook his head before turning to me. “Sorry about… him. I’m Alex and these are Reggie and Luke.”

~*~

The past few days have been… a little bit strange. Well, for starters my subjects, despite having relaxed a little, I still have work to do. And while I’m at home, it’s difficult to organize hours of study and free time with taking care of three teenage ghosts. Julie was right - watching three kids who seemed to share the same brain cell is harder than it looks.

“Aren’t you going to give yourself a break?”

I was startled to see dad behind me, almost knocking over the glass that was still in my hand.

“The plan was to come and drink water and take my five-minute break.”

Dad made a face. “Good luck in studies, mi hija, but don’t forget to take a few more breaks. We don’t want you to fry that smart mind, do we? ”

I broke into a faint smile when Dad placed a kiss on my forehead before walking away. I sighed, getting ready for a few more hours of reading before heading up the stairs again to my room. When I got there, however, I stopped at the portal and went in quickly to close the door.

“What are you doing here?" I asked in whispers to the ghosts that were scattered around my room.

Alex was sitting on a purple puff next to the desk where Luke was sitting in the chair that usually sits opposite her. He had his head thrown behind, looking bored. Reggie was lying on the left side of my bed, looking tired.

"Julie kicked us out of her room." explained Luke, getting up and heading for my bookcase.

"Please don’t kick us out either." Reggie said with puppy eyes that he knew I couldn’t resist.

"Luke, stop messing with Y/N’s stuff!" scolded Alex and that’s when I realized that Luke was looking through one of the books he picked up on the shelf.

"It’s alright. Feel free to borrow any book you like.” I assured him, going to sit on the right side of the bed, where most of my stuff was spread out. "And you can stay, just don’t make too much noise, I need to study.”

“What do you study?" asked Alex.

"How long have you been studying?" asked Reggie and I laughed.

"I’m in my first year of journalism.”

“Nice." said Luke, sitting back in his chair and concentrating on the book.

"Well, now I need to concentrate." I said, lifting Reggie’s head that was on top of one of the printed articles I needed to read. I put his head back on the pillow and fluffed some of his black hair, hoping it looked like just a casual movement.

"Wow, what did you just do?!" Alex exclaimed, sitting upright on the puff.

"What did I do?" I asked with wide eyes and a racing heart at the possibility that he noticed.

"You touched him!”

“You really did!" exclaimed Reggie, holding my hand again.

"Oh, that." I sighed, relieved. “I always managed to touch ghosts. That’s why it took me so long to discover that I was the only one who saw them. ”

Luke and Alex remained wide-eyed, but Reggie just lay down again and put my hand back in his hair.

"I liked.”

While I fiddled with Reggie’s black hair with one hand, I used the other to lift the text up to my face to hide my red cheeks from the other boys. Gradually I ended up distracting myself, fiddling with Reggie’s hair as I read the text and made markings and notes. When my eyes started to weigh and my vision was blurred even with the glasses, I decided it was time to sleep. It wouldn’t do any good to try to study tired because my brain wouldn’t absorb it. I looked around when I realized that the boys had been silent for far too long. They were all asleep. Alex was huddled on the puff, Luke was hunched over the open book and Reggie’s head was bent toward my hand.

I smiled. They really looked adorable that way. I set my stuff down on the night-stand and stood up carefully so as not to wake Reggie. I lifted his head slightly to put a pillow under it. I took blankets from the closet and covered all three, remembering to take the book out from under Luke and marking the page he stopped with a piece of paper and left it beside him. I left the room trying to make as little noise as possible. I crossed the hall and sighed with relief when I saw that Julie was still awake.

“Hi sis." I whispered, getting her attention.

Julie looked up from her cell phone and smiled at me. She looked ready to go to sleep.

"Y/N!”

I broke into a smile. "Can I sleep here with you today?“

"Usually I’m the one to go to your room to ask for it." she laughed.

"Well, turns out that today my room is infested with ghosts.”

She snorted. "They are getting too loose.“

"I don’t really care." I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I wouldn’t have minded sleeping there as well, but Reg took up much of the space in the bed and it would be weird.”

Julie giggled and looked at me with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

“Shut up!" I said warningly before she could say anything. "I don’t want to hear a comment about that.”

“Okay, okay." she raised her hands in surrender before moving to one side of the bed and lifting the bedspread inviting me to join her.

As soon as we settled down I watched my younger sister’s serene face.

"I’m glad you met them." I said quietly. "They do you good.”

“They do." she sighed. “And I’m glad you met them, too. They seem to like you. ”

I like them too." I said smiling slightly. “Although I don’t play like you do, I like to know that I also made friends with them. I also like to think that they will be here to take care of you when dad or I aren’t around. ”

"But I will always need my older sister around." she said quickly. "Besides, you made a promise to mom.”

I laughed lightly.

“That I did it and I intend to keep it, Jules.”

I approached her and hugged her. We sleep in that same position.

~*~

I arrived at the band’s presentation site with Julie and went straight to meet Flynn. She looked anxious.

“Am I too late?” Asked Julie, taking the backpack off her back.

“Too early.” Replied Flynn. "Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi, Flynn! Glad we got there early. Distracting tía y Carlos while Julie went down the window was not as easy as it seems.” I commented, laughing to remember how I needed to distract our brother with a little ghost story.

The next performance was announced and the audience applauded as we watched Carrie take the stage in a shiny silver outfit and pink wig. I opened my eyes wide, trying to keep my face from turning into a frown.

“I never thought she was going to take this little group forward." I commented.

"I envy that you finished school before you had to see this." replied Flynn, tossing the braids over his shoulder.

“Hope you all came to have a great time.” Carrie said from the stage and put on reflective glasses, also pink.

“Dirty Candy? How’d she get on the list?” asked Julie.

“Her daddy probably made a call.” replied Flynn, pursing his lips. "I like this! Pretty flower.” she pointed to the vest that Julie wore and I realized I recognized it.

"Thanks. It’s dahlia. My mom’s favourite.”

Carrie started to sing and four other girls also came on stage. I raised my eyebrows, wondering how I got to a Barbie pop show. I felt the air stirring around me and noticed that Luke and Reggie appeared on one side and Alex on the other, all paying attention to Carrie. Alex, however, looked a little uneasy and I held back the smile when I realized why.

“Alex." I whispered, trying not to get too much attention from the people around me. "Go on, I know you want to.”

I didn’t even got an answer. He just disappeared from my side and appeared on stage among the girls. Julie looked at us behind her and Reggie shrugged while I just smiled. Alex looked confused for two seconds before he started dancing behind Carrie. In the chorus, he disappeared from the stage and appeared again beside me, slamming his fist on mine discreetly in greeting.

“You having fun out there?” asked Julie

Alex coughed a little, trying to hide it. "It’s not my fault. It’s my, hm… It’s my feet.”

“Yeah." Julie replied, raising her eyebrow. Reggie and Luke, on my other side, just looked at Alex smiling.

“Put me back in, coach.”He said before disappearing to the stage again.

“Oh, it’s the guys.” Julie explained to Flynn when she turned to us, confused.

"Alex is dancing with the girls and is so much better than Carrie." I detailed it a little more, making her laugh when imagining the scene. "My boy is rocking up there." I commented with a bit of drama, laying my head on Reggie’s shoulder without caring about people watching me interact with the air. "I so wish I could have that on video.”

“You look like a mom." commented Reggie, laughing.

"What can I say, the three of you just make me so proud." I joked, wiping my eyes as if I were drying a tear. But Reggie looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eye, but before I could ask anything, the song ended and we turned to the stage in time to see Alex doing a little jumping around saying something about blushing.

He came up beside me again, trying to hide it. “Hey. I was just… I was just doing that for you guys.”

I patted him on the shoulder in support while Reggie said, playfully. “Yeah, you can stop smiling now.“

“I’m not gonna lie. That was… kind of good.” Julie said and I clicked my tongue.

"Wow, Jules, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one in the band." I ignored the boys’ protests on hearing this. “The good part of the presentation nobody else could see, unfortunately.”

“Yeah. I forgot why I hate her so much.” replied Flynn.

Carrie and the other girls got off the stage and came towards us.

"Hi, girls. Um, isn’t it past your bedtime?”She said to my sister and her friend.

“Now I remember.”

“If you’re looking for Nick, he didn’t come.”Carrie continued on to Julie, who simply stepped forward confidently.

“That’s not why I’m here.“

As if waiting for a cue, the presenter introduced the band. But as Julie and the Fat Ones. I couldn’t help laughing at the face Luke made.

"Really?” asked Alex, with a grimace.

"Yeah, man. My handwriting sucks.” Luke tried to apologize.

"Next time, Alex will sign up." I said, trying to look casual.

Julie passed Carrie’s group straight to the stage. The expression on Carrie’s face was priceless when she walked away from us. Flynn left shortly after to turn on the projector - just for the sake of effect. Julie sat down in front of the keyboard and said the correct name for the band.

"Good luck, boys." I said, holding Reggie’s hand quickly and discreetly before going after Flynn.

The lighting focused on Julie and I felt my heart fill with pride. It was the first time I had seen my sister perform after mom died and I knew it was worth the punishment dad would give me if he found out that I helped her escape from home. When she started to sing, I accompanied the music by whispering softly through my teeth. After watching the rehearsals so much, Finally Free's lyrics stuck to my mind and as the notes went up I felt the music reverberating in my body. When the boys appeared on stage playing and people in the audience stood up, I felt like jumping for joy.

It was great to see people enjoying their work. It didn’t matter if they think they’re holograms - they’ve got a second chance to do what they love and to see them there at ease and full of energy is comforting. All four played with their soul and their stage chemistry was incredible. Especially from Julie and Luke. I didn’t need that Flynn me whispering over there they’re into to each other - the intensity of the look when sharing the microphone was obvious. Alex and Reggie also noticed the exchange of looks they had. What really shocked me, however, was when shortly after Reggie turned to me and winked at me. I choked on the lyrics I whispered to accompany Julie and did my best to keep my cheek from blushing. Flynn obviously noticed and laughed at me. The song ended, the boys disappeared again and the audience gasped.

“Thank you, we are Julie and the Phantoms. Tell your friends.”Julie said goodbye and got off the stage. I couldn’t help laughing when I noticed how she took Reggie’s phrase.

"Let’s meet them at the counter." I called Flynn, who quickly put the projector in his backpack and followed me.

Julie came to find us and quickly hugged Flynn.

“You were incredible!”Flynn said.

I soon hugged Julie too.

“Yeah, we were.”I heard Reggie behind me and turned to see him standing next to Alex and Luke, who were sitting at the counter.

"If it weren’t weird, I would give you a hug now." I said to them, trying to look discreet. "I loved the presentation!”

“I’ll charge you for my hug later." said Alex, making the boys laugh.

"Okay." I assured you.

"Hey!" interrupted Luke, pointing to someone behind us. “Whoever Carrie was trying to impress is coming this way.”

“She looks all business.”Commented Alex when we saw a woman with curly hair and a suit coming towards us.

“Wait, who should do the talking?” asked Reggie.

So cute, but also so dork.

“Okay, Julie. Julie.” he corrected himself.

“You got this.” Encouraged Luke.

"I can help you with it if needed." I whispered to Julie just before the woman arrived and offered Julie a hand.

"Hi, I’m Andi Parker, and I would- ”

“Julie. Y/N. ” a voice behind the woman took our attention.

It was dad.

“Shit." I swore under my breath.

~*~

Whenever I had some free time I went down to the garage to watch the band rehearsal. It was amazing the connection they had and how they gave their soul to the music. Julie and Luke singing together with everything they had, Reggie focused on his bass and Alex moving his head to the beat of his drums. It was an incredible sight, but also one that always squeezed my heart to the point that I needed to go back to my room before they finished a song to prevent the lump in my throat from dissolving into tears. I always wanted to have that connection that mom and Julie had with music, but I was never able to play anything and I certainly didn’t know how to sing. And now not only has she reconnected with mom in a way that I could never do, but she has also found something in common with three amazing boys.

At those times, when the tightness in my heart was too strong, I would lock myself in the bedroom, in the most absolute silence. I took out my notebook with notes. When I was younger, I used to try to at least compose a song, but after a while it became notes for a story. Music and books have always been my passions and if I couldn’t go on with one, why not try the other? Not that I would ever get the courage to publish something, but I liked to imagine that I would have some material for that.

"What are you doing?”

I let out a scream that certainly didn’t make me proud. I turned and realized that Reggie had appeared beside me on the bed - completely thrown on the mattress and with his arms behind his head. I tried to control my heart a little to respond.

“I thought you had a rehearsal.”

“I thought you were there watching us. When we took a break and didn’t see you there, I came to see how you were.” he shrugged, as if it was nothing much. "What are you doing?“

"Just a few thrown ideas." I replied, trying to sneak up on the notebook, but Reggie took it out of my hands before I could do it.

"This is for a book, isn’t it?" he asked, in a serious tone that I never saw him using. I just nodded. “Y/N, this is incredible! It makes me want to read. ”

I laughed softly, before asking. "Are you serious?”

“Yes! Why don’t you try to publish something? ”

I scratched the back of the neck, a little uncomfortable. "Well, I never thought I was going to be talented at anything.”

“How so?" he sat up, tilting his head so that I could look into his blue eyes. I was breathless for a moment.

“I really wanted to know how to make music, but when I realized I couldn’t do it, I tried to create stories where I could. But I never even thought it would be worth publishing. ”

“I think you should try. I would definitely read it. ” he said, opening a beautiful crooked smile. "Why do you do journalism when you could try to be a writer?”

“Because while I don’t have neither the material nor the courage, I can write other people’s real stories." I replied, taking my notebook back from his hands. I turned around to put the notebook and pen in my hand back on the night-stand. "What do you think about watching a movie?" I suggested .

"Yes! There are a lot of things that I still need to catch up to.” Reggie commented, lying back on the bed and making himself comfortable.

I tried not to blush as I got up to get my laptop. “We can see the Star Wars movies that you haven’t seen. We can skip the scene where Han Solo dies, no problem, I’ve seen them a couple times.”

"Would you do that for me?" he had a childlike gleam in his eye that made me laugh a little.

"Move over.”

We settled next to each other on the bed. I put the first movie on the laptop in my lap and we started the marathon. I barely noticed when I fell asleep on Reggie’s shoulder.

~*~

A few days later I was lying on the couch trying to complete a story that I had to deliver in two days. Reggie was sitting next to my dad at the table in the other room and none of them seemed to have noticed me there in the next room. I even thought about getting up to concentrate on the room, but I loved how Reggie tried to interact with dad. It was funny - and very cute. Alex came up and started talking to Reggie too. But when I heard Carlos’ voice, things became really interesting. I remained lying down, but I paid more attention to the conversation when Carlos commented about the house being haunted by ghosts who had a dream, but that dream was interrupted by a tragic accident.

“Our house is being haunted by a very talented… chef. ”I could hear the boys’ sigh of relief, but I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing.

“Looks like someone fell asleep watching Ghosts Hunters and Chopped.“

I had to hold my laughter even more when Carlos started talking about a sauce recipe and Reggie commenting that he was like my dad. I made a face at the thought that I liked a guy who said he looked like my dad. It wasn’t very difficult for my little brother to convince dad to make the French dip - it’s not like he doesn’t like food.

I lifted my head and realized that Dad closed his laptop and left. I prepared to do the same when I heard Alex and Reggie’s conversation.

"I will miss them.”

“I hope you’re not thinking about looking for someone else’s garage." I joked, but feeling tight in my chest.

They both started, looking at me wide-eyed as I approached the table.

"Y/N… hey…” Reggie tried to hide it, but I could see in their eyes that something was bothering them.

But I knew they weren’t going to tell me, so I needed to find out another way. I would have to do an investigation. I’m glad I had some sources between the ghosts.

“Well, I need to go out for an interview with a source." It wasn’t quite a lie. "Don’t do anything stupid, boys.”

I squeezed Alex’s shoulder lightly and leaned down to kiss Reggie’s cheek before leaving. I left the house so quickly that I didn’t have to worry about hiding my burning cheeks. I also didn’t notice their reaction. I was on a mission to find my favourite skater.

~*~

When I returned home, I could almost feel the tears stubbornly leaving. But I swallowed the tears, because I needed to talk to Julie about what to do. I wasn’t even sure if she already knew about the boys’ situation or not, but we couldn’t leave them suffering like that. I couldn’t leave them suffering that way. I looked for it in the garage first. If my sister wasn’t there, at least I would have a chance to talk to them.

“Someone once told me that you don’t ask for permission. You book gigs by doing.”Julie was saying when I showed up at the half-open gate.

The boys were lying on the couch and on the floor, looking depressed, while Julie was standing in front of them, as if giving a lecture. Alex had the drumsticks in his hands and Reggie was hugging his bass.

“That was me.”Reggie said with a little smile on his face.

“No, it wasn’t.” denied Julie and Luke.

“Yes, it was.” Reggie grunted, looking down.

"This isn’t over.” continued Julie, ignoring him. “We were brought together for a reason. To help each other.”

“Yeah, but like Luke said… People don’t just play at the Orpheum because they want to.”Said Alex.

“People don’t.” I said, drawing their attention. “But ghosts do.“

Julie turned a little scared to me. From the look she gave me, I think my expression showed all the sadness I was feeling.

"All you need is to haunt them in a different way." I suggested, taking a deep breath to control my emotions. “In a few days Panic! At The Disco will play with a not very famous band that will arrive here almost at the last minute because they will be doing a show in Las Vegas. You just need to make sure that they don’t arrive on time and that you’re the best option.”

For a few seconds they were processing this and I used it as my cue to get out of there before they saw my tears pooling in my eyes. I couldn’t afford to be selfish. They needed to make the move before the only option left for them is to join Caleb. I heard Reggie’s voice calling me, but I ignored him and continued on my way to the house. But even before I crossed the space between the gate and the stone path to the smaller gate, I felt a hand pulling on my wrist.

"Y/N…” Reggie said quietly looking at me with those blue eyes full of emotion. “I don’t like it when you cry. I’m sorry.“

I laughed softly. I hadn’t realized that some tears had came out.

"No need to apologize. I understand that you need to do this. It’s just…” I took a deep breath, trying not to choke. “It hurts to think that I will have to lose someone else. Especially someone who has become so important to me. I mean, the three of you have become very important to me.”

"You have become very important to us too." Reggie said, still holding my hand. “You have become important to me. I’ll miss you.”

I didn’t think before throwing my arms around his shoulders and hugging him tightly against me. He tensed for a few moments before hugging my waist with the same intensity. And we stayed there, saying nothing, just enjoying what could be our last hug.

“Reggie, we have to think of a plan!" we heard Luke shouting from the garage and Alex scolding him saying something about giving up a little space.

I took a deep breath before letting go of his comforting embrace. I placed a kiss on her pale cheek, this time longer than the one from earlier.

"Go. They need you.”

Reggie opened his mouth to say something, but I quickly turned and went home with tears streaming down my cheeks.

~*~

I was quite nervous as we waited to find out if the plan had worked. But while I just waited sitting on the sofa in the garage, with the occasional twitch in my leg, Julie was in front of me pacing and making my nerves worse.

"Julie, I love you, but stop walking before I need to tie you to the couch!" I exclaimed.

"Sorry, I’m nervous." she said, continuing to pace.

"I know! And it’s making me nervous!”

The boys suddenly appeared in front of us and Julie went into an outbreak, asking so many questions at once that I almost couldn’t keep up.

“That’s a lot of questions!” exclaimed Reggie, interrupting her. “Luke, do you wanna take this one?”

“Take a seat.” instructed Luke.

“Finally." I mumbled, pulling Julie by the arm to sit next to me.

“It’s fine, everything is fine.” continued Luke, approaching the low table in front of us and leaning on it with the other boys.

“Yeah. You should be getting a call right .. now!” said Alex, taking an effect break and pointing the boys at Julie’s cell phone on the table. But the screen remained off. After a few uncomfortable seconds, with me trying to keep from laughing at Alex’s disappointed face, he tried again. “Okay. Right… Now!”

The phone finally rang and Julie screamed.

“Nailed it.” said Alex, holding out his hand for Luke and Reggie to touch.

But Julie didn’t answer. "Answer it, Jules!" I shouted along with the boys.

She put it on speaker.

“Hi, this is Tasha from the Orpheum in Hollywood.”

That’s when one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen started. Julie jumped on the couch, almost stepping on me, while Alex jumped across the table towards the armchair and Reggie and Luke celebrated with a strange dance. Julie opened her arms when the woman spoke again and everyone stopped like statues watching her pick up her cell phone. And while Julie jumped on the table to answer Tasha, Alex jumped into the arms of the boys, who held him in the air.

“I’m swimming!” exclaimed Alex, waving his arms, and that’s when I let out a loud laugh.

The boys put Alex on the floor and Reggie came over to me. I looked at her confused, until he took my hands and pulled me until I was on my feet. A second later, I was in his tight embrace. He even got up and spun me around. I just prayed that he couldn’t hear my heartbeat. When my feet returned to the ground, I noticed that Alex and Luke were watching us. I motioned for them to join us and joined them in a group hug.

“I missed hugs." Alex commented when we parted.

"Own, you can always ask me for hugs, you big baby." I said, hugging him tight again. He hugged me with the same intensity.

I noticed, over Alex’s shoulder, Julie looking at us with a smile on her face. I smiled at her when I pulled myself out of Alex’s arms and went over to her, squeezing her in a hug too.

"I’m so proud of you, Jules." I whispered softly in his ear.

Her only answer was to tighten me more in her embrace.

~*~

I stayed with Julie in the dressing room the entire time. We were both nervous, but we managed to calm down a little when Flynn arrived after preparing some effects on the projector. But nothing came out of my head that the boys could be in trouble to take so long to show up.

"Y/N, you’re starting to make me nervous, too." said Flynn, and only then did I realize I was pacing up and down in front of the couch, just like Julie had done that morning.

"Sorry, it’s just…” I tried to explain, forcing myself to sit on the couch and stay still.

“We understand." said Flynn, holding my hand.

"I just wish that today wasn’t their last night here." I sighed, propping myself up and elbows on my knees and letting all the weight fall on my shoulders.

"Y/N." Julie called me and waited for me to look her in the eye before continuing. "You like Reggie, don’t you?”

I gave a sad smile and nodded, unable to find my voice.

“Called it!" exclaimed Flynn, pointing at me and making us laugh a little. "The Molina family seems to have a thing for ghosts, it’s impressive.”

Julie rolled her eyes, but ignored it. "You should talk to him before they cross over.“

"And are you going to talk to Luke about your feelings?" Flynn muttered and I pointed out to her nodding in agreement.

"I wanted to talk to Reggie about it, so as not to carry that regret the rest of my life, but… I’m afraid of the reaction.”

“He likes you.”

“Totally." agreed Flynn.

I sighed. "I need him to have a little more time then so that I can say something.”

Julie opened her eyes wide and got up from the couch to take my place walking back and forth.

“Now you broke your sister.”

We heard a knock on the door and the technician called Julie, saying it was time for her to enter the stage.

But the boys had not yet appeared.

“Just a second.”Julie shouted at the door and approached us. "Something’s wrong. The boys were getting those jolts pretty bad as I was leaving. And they wouldn’t stand me up again.”

I sniffed, following her thought. I felt paralysed.

“They must have run out of time.“

“I’m so sorry, Jules.” murmured Flynn.

“They didn’t cross over.”Continued Julie, but I felt like everything around me was fading. "They’re gone. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

I couldn’t help a sob that escaped my lips. I saw Flynn getting up and hugging Julie, but then the technician shouted at her again and the two of them ran out the door. However, I couldn’t do anything, just stand there, paralysed. My thoughts hammered in my mind, but I could only think that those three boys were gone forever without having the opportunity to make the passage. Those goofs that won me and my sister over and made a huge difference in our lives. And we would never see him again.

“Y/N. Y/N! ” it took me a while to notice Flynn shaking my shoulders. I had to blink a few times to see her through tears. "Julie ran to the alley behind Orpheum, you need to talk to her.“

"I… I…” I took a deep breath. Even though I wanted to just break up there, I couldn’t. My sister needed me. "Okay, okay.“

I got up and followed Flynn’s instructions as to where Julie had run. I opened the side doors and found her crying in the middle of the alley with a flower in her hand. A dahlia. Mom’s favourite.

"Jules." I whispered as I approached. She stood up for me, a little scared, but a second later she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tightly, as if only that hug kept her from collapsing. I held her even tighter against me. “Breathe, sweetie. Julie, I think you should sing.”

She released me a little and looked at me confused. I dried her tears a little - mine - before speaking.

“It would be a beautiful tribute to mom and boys. They lived, died and continued the life of ghosts through music. They would like that. That’s what I would do if I had your talent.”

“Thank you, Y/N. Really." said Julie, smiling a little before hugging again and entering.

But I didn’t go straight in. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down so that I was emotional enough to hear her singing without the boys. When I went in again and joined Flynn next to the coach near the stage, Julie finished a speech and sat down in front of the keyboard to begin. I already felt my heart squeeze again when she started the first chords. The song approached the first chorus and I took a deep breath, murmuring the words between my lips. It was when Alex’s drums came up that I felt my heart stop. A few seconds later Reggie appeared in a red and black suit playing his bass. I felt a sob tear through my throat and put my hand over my mouth. I felt Flynn holding my free hand and hugging me to the side, as if she knew I needed that support to keep me standing.

Luke started to appear, but he was fading and coming back. I opened my eyes wide, worried, but then he came back singing and he didn’t disappear again and I could only smile and cry, excited. Alex sang a few lines and Reggie followed shortly after. I didn’t take my eyes off him, absorbing him as much as I could before he disappeared again. Our eyes met and he winked at me, opening his smile wider and I smiled back. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have time to tell him everything I needed. He was there, on that stage, together with his friends, his family, fulfilling the dream that he cannot fulfil while he was alive. My heart broke when they finished playing and the boys were gone, but the shadow of a smile remained on my lips knowing that they crossed and could rest in peace.

~*~

Dad, Carlos and Julie were walking home in front of me. They sang the chorus of Stand Tall excitedly, but as much as I wanted to participate in that moment with them, I couldn’t. I wasn’t as strong as Julie and she realized that I wasn’t well, as she always pulled dad’s attention back to them when he tried to get me to join them.

“You and your phantoms were unbelievable tonight.”Dad said when we stopped on the porch.

"I’m going up to my room, I have a headache." I made some excuse when I passed them. However, I made sure to stop in front of Julie and hug her tight. “You were incredible, Jules. I’m so proud.”

“What is it with her?" I could hear Carlos asking as I opened the door.

"Leave her be, Carlos." I hear Julie responding in a light tone of voice as I enter and leave them outside still. "She had a rough day.”

I locked myself in my room and quickly changed my clothes for a sweatshirt set before throwing myself on the bed. I stared at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears that continued to fall, but it seemed impossible. Now that I was alone, it felt like a whirlwind of emotions was falling upon me. I don’t know how much time I spent in that catatonic state before I heard a noise inside the room. It was the same noise as when the boys teleported. I sat up quickly, looking around hopefully. My heart almost stopped when I saw Reggie still in his red suit shyly approaching the bed.

“Reg?" my voice failed, as did my line of reasoning.

I was dreaming. There was no other explanation.

"Hi, Y/N." he waved his hand in that cute way that only he knew how to do. But I was still paralysed, looking at him with wide eyes. He started to speak nervously. “Well, it seems that playing at the Orpheum wasn’t our unfinished business, so the boys and I disappeared into the garage to let you and Julie think we had crossed over, but then she went into the garage and tried to get us to Caleb’s club. But of course we weren’t going, so she managed to hug Luke, he started to shine, we started to shine when we hugged them too and Julie said that you were here alone and practically-”

I hardly understood a word he said. But it helped my brain to understand that it wasn’t just my imagination. I interrupted him before I could finish speaking. I just jumped out of bed, took his face in my hands and kissed him. It was as if all the weight in the world came off my shoulders and I could melt right there. I didn’t care that he was a ghost, I didn’t care that Caleb could go after them, I didn’t care that they would one day have to find out what their unfinished business was and needed to cross over to the other side and I cared even less that my tears were mixed with his. All I cared about at that moment was the feel of his lips against mine and his arms around my waist pulling me closer to him.

I just leaned away when I needed air.

"That was nice." he commented in a thin, choked voice. I realized that he still had his eyes closed and I smiled at the expression he had on his face. "Can we do this again?”

I laughed softly before pulling him back in for another kiss. I was lost in his smell, his taste and his touch. I hardly noticed the teleportation noise in the room again.

“Y/N, we came here to… Wow!”

Reggie and I walked away again and saw Alex and Luke near my closet, both blushing and embarrassed.

“Really, guys?" Reggie asked, not only keeping his arms around my waist but pulling me even closer. "Right now?”

“We came to see how you were doing, but you look busy." said Luke, scratching the back of his neck. I was struggling to keep myself from laughing.

"We’ll be back later." said Alex simply, taking Luke’s arm and making them both disappear quickly.

I looked back at Reggie, who was already looking at me with a silly smile on his face.

"Where were we?" I asked with a mischievous smile on my lips as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and played with a few strands of his hair.

"I think you can remind me." he said, leaning over and kissing me again.

1K notes · View notes

imanonymousfanfic · 3 years

Note

How do you think the strawhat would be with a crewmate who has a cat (or like three) ?

I am so sorry this took so long to answer. I've had university deadlines.

Anyway

This is my personal take on the characters. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had fun writing this. Thank you anon ❤️

Luffy would LOVE to have cats aboard!! Luffy would be giggling childishly after hearing the new crew mate has cats, unless that’s why he asked for them to join in the first place (no surprise there). Since it’s Luffy, and he’s oblivious as hell, he’ll probably do a couple things that would get them feisty, earning him a good cat fight. He’d end up looking like he does after Nami has a go at him. Luffy’s love will go on endlessly, as they’re not part of the StrawHat family. Before the cats can explore the ship, the idea of teaching the fur balls some “cool tricks” will come up, maybe even plotting to sneak some meat behind Sanji’s back. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t... probably not, knowing Luffy. He’s good company for them, a good partner to play with if he has a feather stick. You will find them resting on his belly as they both nap in the sun on Sunny's head. And without a doubt, ass will be kicked if a single whisker on their faces is touched out of malice.

For a brief second, Zoro will question the cats safety: traveling on water, but at the end of the day it’s not his problem… kinda. Despite his stiff “cool guy” exterior, the swords man would definitely jump in after any of the cuties that have gone over board. He will angrily mutter about their reckless climbing and playfulness as he rushes them out of the water. I mean he does the same for Luffy, so what’s new? He’d give them some small here and there, nothing too special. Their compatibility will really shine when they crawl all over the man during his meditation, they will have fun tapping at his gold earrings, and as much as he would like his silence, the cats company will make him smile. There’s no doubt about it, Zoro loves them, he just expresses his affection to his crew own way. They’re part of the family and their silly antics will make his night shifts a lot more entertaining.

Sanji will ban any cats from the kitchen right away, which is entirely understandable. Cats shed like crazy and don’t think about where their paws have been. They would knock over things carelessly, even on purpose at times when they want attention. That will irk Sanji. Should it ever happen, though, he’d take the opportunity to show off his cool moves in front of Robin and Nami. His envy would melt the man, seeing them curled up in the ladies laps too, but that’s just Sanji being himself. Since are respectable for the most part, and for this reason Sanji wouldn’t treat them any less than he would the rest of the crew. He’ll work hard on their meals, spoiling their little toe beans off.

Chopper will be the CUTEST with cats, he will be befriend them on an emotional level much faster than the others as he’s one himself. He’s in tune with them, and since he’s a doctor, he will be eager to pick up on veterinary studies to care for them. You will find him often studying their anatomy, even physically studying the little fur balls himself. He’d play with them lots, mostly with him originally chasing them, but knowing Chopper, they will turn that around. You’ll catch Chopper reading books with the cats crawling over him and covering his desk. An adorable sight to see.

Franky is definitely more a dog person, but he won’t reject the adorable purring of a cat. He’ll walk around with one or two of them perched on his shoulders, the height and the stability of Franky is a fun place to hang out. They see lots, and he’s a fun person. When not busy, Franky will take a moment to give out some pets, maybe even making some kissy noises at them. He’ll incorporate some kind of play pen or netted area so they can play safely. You’ll definitely catch him blubbering emotionally about them at some point. It’s Franky, after all, he’s a ginormous softie. When maintaining the ship, he’ll keep the cats locked away for their safety, all the heavy materials and tools could be dangerous, and the last thing he wants is them hurt while they get a little too curious. Let’s hope whenever they crawl over him, none of their claws have a scratch at his banana hammock.

100% Robin is a cat mom, calling it immediately. She’s elegant and has that cheekiness that cats posses too. She likes to soak up some sun, explore her surroundings to understand them better, and is intelligent with a talent in sneaking around. Robin confirmed to be a human-cat? All jokes aside, Robin’s companionship with the cats is calm, just like how many of them like it. They’d be spoiled with lap cuddles, and her devil fruit will make sure none of them are left feeling jealous. Her and Chopper will be often spotted hanging together, or helping the vet check ups.

For some reason, I have a hunch Brook is scared of cats and his hair would pop off seeing them. He’d jump behind one of the crew members, his bones rattling loudly as you hear his cheerful voice pronounce his fear. Luckily for him they’re not dogs, his femur would be gone in seconds if they were. He’d be nervous around the little things at first but with time he will open up to them. Seeing how the crew plays and cuddles with them will make him step out of his comfort zone, and next thing you know, they’re huddled around him as he plays the violin. Music, after all, is calming for cats. He will have his own furry fans to give him all of the love, which will warm his heart (if he had one).

Nami will think they’re super cute, but wouldn’t be quite as enthusiastic as some of the other crew members. That’s just Nami though. She’d definitely be cracking some skulls if you hurt any of them, and she’s a very protective cat mom. She might not be the super cuddly type, but she doesn’t care about them any less than the rest of the crew. She’d save a little bit of money on the side for some nicely made collars, which will be a BIG deal coming from her. They’d be gold plated, or something nice along the lines which is definitely her way of showing affection. No matter how cute they are, however, they won’t be caught in her cartography space - their paws are chaotic and Nami needs her maps to be pristine. As cute as inky paw prints are, she rather not have them.

Usopp will talk to the cats a lot, befriending them like they’re any other person. Even though they can’t understand him or his exaggerated stories, they’re entertained by him no matter what. He’s enrapturing, able to hold their gaze as they get lost in his enthusiastic tone. They sure feel playful around him too, his goofy behaviour is exactly what they need, but they might end up chasing him across the ship with how much a coward he can be at times. With his ingenious building skills, he’d take the time to make them some cool toys, a crazy laser, a feather toy, who knows what Usopp has up his sleeve. Oh, the ideas are endless and Usopp’s designs will be spoiling their tails off. If only Sniper King is able to see how adorable they are… *wink-wink, nudge-nudge*

As I’m not fully caught up and his character to me is still quite hard to write about, I will try to capture Jinbe to my best understanding of him.

I imagine him to find great companionship with cats, understanding their free will, but sense of loyalty they have. Unlike dogs, who are loyal to nearly anyone, a cats sense of loyalty is out of a devoted love they choose to share. Jinbe holds a similar integrity with the relationships he choose to be a part of. Naturally their natures of being are opposites, as he’s a fish man, strongest when in water, while cats run from it. They share a wholesome companionship. If it isn’t Zoro first in the water to save them, Jinbe will be the next to be a kitty rescuer.

#one piece strawhats #one piece #anime #one piece cats #Monkey D luffy #roronoa zoro #one piece sanji #thousand sunny #strawhats #one piece fanfiction #fanfiction #one piece hcs #one piece headcanons

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litafficionado · 3 years

Text

Four Questions with Garielle Lutz:

I’m extremely beholden to Garielle who took the time to respond to my silly, garbled, childish, intrusive questions. You can purchase her latest book Worsted here and here, among many other sites. --------- Q. You've attributed the resuscitation of your literary career in quite considerable measure to your teacher and editor Gordon Lish. It seems like you guys are particularly close, even as you seem to have largely confined yourself to Pittsburgh(mostly driven by your erstwhile teaching career but also by your liking the city over time). How does it feel to hear someone like Gordon speak so highly of you, “I think there’s more truth in one sentence of my student [Lutz] than in all of [Philip] Roth. Lutz gives [herself] away. “The speaking subject gives herself away,” says Julia Kristeva. I thoroughly believe that. What you see in Lutz, [her] lavish gift, is [her] refusal to relax [her] determination to uncover and uncover. It is, by my lights, quite wonderful, quite terrific.[…]Lutz is entirely the real thing?” Does one feel vindicated? How do you navigate the waters of self-effacement and self-indulgence as a writer and as a person? A. I haven’t had a literary career before or after studying with Gordon Lish. I don’t think one finds one’s way to him in hopes of launching a career. Anyone with vulgar ambition along those lines would have been shown the door pretty quick. I would never presume to be close to Gordon or to feel that I am part of his life other than in my role as a student. He dwells in another realm entirely. I attended his classes and tried to grasp, to the best of my abilities, the things he was saying about how to get from one word to the next. He also talked about how to free a word from the constricting range of its permissible behaviors, how to drain it of every sepsis of received meaning, until there is nothing left of the word but the skeleton of its former self, just the lank, gawky letters sticking out this way and that, and then how to fill the thing up again, to the point of overspilling, but this time with something that would never have been allowed to belong in there before, and then see whether the word, now close to bursting, can hold up and maybe have a new kind of say. I’m always surprised and relieved whenever Gordon says anything approving about anything I write. I think that for a lot of his students, his opinion is the only one that counts.

Q. You've said, "A typical day goes like this: noon, afternoon, evening, night, additional night, even more night, furtherest night, then bedtime, though I don’t have a bed or furniture of any kind.” Have you always been a lychnobite, sensing the overwhelming superabundance of life after the sunset or is it a relatively recent development facilitated by your retirement from teaching? Do you consider yourself in any way to be a minimalist? Does your room bear any resemblance with a sparsely lit opium den where all exchanges happen at the floor level?

A. I think the pandemic has had a lot to do with it. Lately I’ve been up until five, sometimes six. But I’ve always found mornings the harshest and ugliest part of the day (maybe it’s just because of the place where I live, but I never open the blinds anyway). There can be something awfully scolding about a sunrise the older you get Evening seems to extend every form of leniency, and in the dead of night, expectations go way down, which is where they maybe ought to stay. I do spend all of my time on the floor, but my apartment doesn’t bear any resemblance to an opium den. It’s more like a crawlspace or the back of a dollar-store stockroom.

Q. Even with your reputation of being a page-hugger than a typical page-turner, how do you decide which books to read apart from your line of work? Do you try to keep it largely in the familiar territory, like exploring the oeuvre of a time-tested writer? How does one unshackle oneself from this constant niggling that one ought to read so many books? Here's Ben Marcus: “When I was in graduate school, there was this sort of cautionary adage going around by the poet Francis Ponge that we can only write what we’ve already read and one way to hear that is you’re just sort of doomed to kind of regurgitate everything you’ve read and so if you’re just reading all the popular books, the books everyone else is reading, in some sense you’re maybe unwittingly confining yourself to a particular literary practice that’s gonna look pretty familiar. I remember at the time thinking, okay well if that’s true, if I’m just fated to that, then I’m gonna read things that no one else is reading. I loved to just go to the library and pretty randomly grab books, because I think for a little while, and I’m kinda glad this passed, but I really just had this feeling that a writer just consumes language and just sort of spits it out. So it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t have to be a great novel for it to be worth-reading. And I still read very little fiction in the end compared to non-fiction, essays, works of philosophy, science. And the other sort of dirty secret is: I don’t finish a lot of books. I just don’t care enough. I only finish a book if I have to or if I really want to. And, often, I’ll stop reading a book three pages from the end. I think that as writers, we probably feel a lot of pressure about what kind of a reader to be, what kind of a writer to be in, and we feel this shame, like “I haven’t read DH Lawrence, I’m such an asshole.” You begin to feel like you’ve these deficiencies and you gotta make them up and you never will and a lot of it is just kinda tyrannical. Of course, obviously, we must be naturally motivated to read and read and read and read but I guess I just started to notice that…I got a lot of my ideas by just reading…e.g. a gardening book…like the weird way a sentence was structured.” Then there's Moyra Davey: “Woolf famously said of reading: “The only advice … is to take no advice, … follow your instincts, … use your reason.” A similar thought was voiced by her elder contemporary Oscar Wilde, who did not believe in recommending books, only in de-recommending them. Later, Jorge Luis Borges echoed the same sentiment by discouraging “systematic bibliographies” in favor of “adulterous” reading. More recently, Gregg Bordowitz has promoted “promiscuous” reading in which you impulsively allow an “imposter” book to overrule any reading trajectory you might have set for yourself, simply because, for instance, a friend tells you in conversation that he is reading it and is excited by it. This evokes for me that most potent kind of reading — reading as flirtation with or eavesdropping on someone you love or desire, someone who figures in your fantasy life.”“What to read?” is a recurring dilemma in my life. The question always conjures up an image: a woman at home, half-dressed, moving restlessly from room to room, picking up a book, reading a page or two and no sooner feeling her mind drift, telling herself, “You should be reading something else, you should be doing something else.” The image also has a mise-en-scène: overstuffed, disorderly shelves of dusty and yellowing books, many of them unread; books in piles around the bed or faced down on a table; work prints of photographs, also with a faint covering of dust, taped to the walls of the studio; a pile of bills; a sink full of dishes. She is trying to concentrate on the page in front of her but a distracting blip in her head travels from one desultory scene to the next, each one competing for her attention. It is not just a question of which book will absorb her, for there are plenty that will do that, but rather, which book, in a nearly cosmic sense, will choose her, redeem her. Often what is at stake, should she want to spell it out, is the idea that something is missing, as in: what is the crucial bit of urgently needed knowledge that will save her, at least for this day? She has the idea that if she can simply plug into the right book then all will be calm, still, and right with the world. […] Must reading be tied to productivity to be truly satisfying […] Or is it the opposite, that it can only really gratify if it is a total escape? What is it that gives us a sense of sustenance and completion? Are we on some level always striving to attain that blissful state of un-agendaed reading remembered from childhood? What does it mean to spend a good part of one’s life absorbed in books? Given that our time is limited, the problem of reading becomes one of exclusion. Why pick one book over the hundreds, perhaps thousands on our bookshelves, the further millions in libraries and stores? For in settling on any book we are implicitly saying no to countless others. This conflict is aptly conjured up by essayist Lynne Sharon Schwartz as she reflects on “the many books (the many acts) I cannot in all decency leave unread (undone) — or can I?”” What way out do you suggest? Do you deem it worthwhile to eschew any shred of obligation and be propelled in any direction naturally? Like you said you found grammar books and lexicons more engaging and enjoyable than the novels.

A. I seem to remember that in some magazine or another, James Wolcott once said “Read at whim.” That has always sounded like the best advice. And I assume it means to feel free to ditch any book that disappoints. Like Ben Marcus, I’ve had experiences of abandoning a book just a few pages from the end, but I often don’t make it that far in most things anymore. I came from a long line of nonreaders, so I’ve never felt any guilt about passing up books or writers that so many people seem to talk about a lot, and I don’t expect other people to like what I like. Some books I’ll start about halfway in and then see whether I might want to work my way back to the beginning. Others I’ll start at the very end and inch my way toward the front, one sentence at a time, and see how far I can go that way. I seem to remember that in The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes recommends “cruising” a text, and maybe something like that is what I’m doing at least some of the time, if I understand what he means. And every now and then I’ll read a book straightforwardly for an hour and afterward wonder whether the time might have been better spent staring off into space. Too many books these days seem ungiving. It’s the ungivingness that disappoints the most. A lot of contemporary fiction has the gleam and sparkle of a trend feature in a glossy magazine, and I can appreciate the craft and the savvy that go into something like that, but I am drawn more toward stories and books that demand being read slowly and closely, pulse by pulse, the kind of fiction where everything--what little might be left of an entire blighted life--can pivot on the peal of a single syllable. Q. I'd like to ask you so many questions. But let this be the last one for matters of convenience. Also, in a capitalistic world, one's enshrouded with guilt for taking one's time without being remunerative in any way. Among the books and films that you recently encountered, which ones do you think deserve rereads/rewatches? A. I used to feel like the woman you’ve described so movingly above, someone who questions her choice of books almost to the brink of despair. At my age, though, I no longer have a program for reading, a syllabus or a checklist, and I’m okay with knowing there’s a lot I’ll never get around to. I’m happy being a rereader of a few inexhaustible books and chancing upon occasional fresh treasure. The one book that has shaken me the most in the longest time is Anna DeForest’s A History of Present Illness, which will be out next August. It’s a blisteringly truthful novel written with moral grace and unsettling brilliance and an awing mastery of language. A couple of recent books I have read in manuscript, books that totally knocked me out with their originality and uncanny command of the word, are Greg Gerke’s In the Suavity of the Rock (a novel) and David Nutt’s Summertime in the Emergency Room (a short-story collection). I haven’t watched many movies in the past few months, and the ones I watched aren’t ones I’ll probably be rewatching anytime soon.

#Garielle Lutz #lit #Worsted #Moyra Davey #Ben Marcus #Gordon Lish #Anna DeForest #A History of Present Illness #Greg Gerke #In the Suavity of the Rock #David Nutt #Summertime in the Emergency Room

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boxboysandotherwhump · 3 years

Text

Pain is the key.

Found this chapter I started to write in dezember and finished it. I’m kinda happy how it turned out after some editing and completing touches :3 (at around 4 in the morning *cough*) So I’m gonna share it with you guys.

CW: consensual masochism, mutant whumpee, aftermath of a fight/ trauma, kind of soft and consensual whump (?) in the second half,

Sahar was like a stone in a river bed, time rushing over and around him, a gentle steady stream passing him by.

The sun’s golden hue cast warm shadows on the small bedroom walls, coloring the slanted wood beams sticking out of them a dark honey.

Green eyes lost to gravity’s pull and fell close. The sun had nearly vanished behind the flower tops when they fluttered open again.

Someone must have sneaked in and turned on the fairy lights. Their tiny orange, red and purple bulbs created soft glowing patterns on the many pillows and blankets Sahar had curled up under, shivering faintly despite their warmth.

Pain still held his body captive, a low sizzle igniting the nerves of his arm whenever he moved or, the woods show him mercy, shifted onto his right side.

It had settled into a dull, almost mercifully soft pulsing that let Sahars mutation calm a little while his body fell in and out of dozing sleep.

The growth and hardening of his arm came and vanished with the pains in his life, almost like a shield living under his skin. Only that it endangered him more often than it had saved him.

Up until now.

One shaking hand reached gingerly for the teacup that had been left on his usually overstuffed desk. Someone had stacked the heaps of books and strewn about notes in two orderly piles, a safe distance away from the still steaming mug.

Ansgar.

A gentle smile found its way on chapped lips as the tea's soft scent tickled Sahar’s nose. He inhaled deeply.

“Hmmm. Lavender.”

He was about to take the first tentative sip when three sharp knocks rapped on his door.

Sahar flinched, hurring to curl back up under his blankets. He nearly spilled some of the piping hot tea as he scrambled to cover his partly mutated arm. The bandages rubbed over the still tender wound and had him bite back an agonized hiss.

Who was that?

Neither Ansgar nor Moira knocked like that. Brusque and impatient.

Maybe this Gideon boy had spilled after all and the villagers had come to-

“Sahar? Are you awake?” Charlotte’s muffled voice was laced with a worry that not even the thick wooden door could conceal.

Heart buzzing in his chest like a agitated bumblebee, Sahar pulled the blankets up to his chin and rasped: “Yes. I I I’m, I’m awake.”

A soft chuckle came from behind the door, its handle already creaking. “May I come in then?”

Sahar gave a small nod, realizing only belatedly that Charlotte couldn’t even see him. “Yeah. Oh- oh- okay.”

A worried smile graced Charlotte’s lips as she glided through the door. Kicking it shut behind her. A basket dangled from her elbow, ruffling the long sleeve of her black dress. Its high neck covered most of the green bluish bruises blooming around her neck. But Sahar knew that they were there, and why.

Guilt took a hold of his heart. Seized it like an ice cold hand that had slipped between his ribs and squeezed. Tight. He shuddered, violently enough for the blankets to slide from his shoulders and pool in his lap. Accompanying the shame dropped low in his stomach.

Charlotte dropped the basket, eyes blown wide with worry as she rushed to his side.

The mattress gave under her weight as she leaned forward, one hand braced next to his knee. A fine boned wrist stuck out from her sleeve, revealed the ghosts of makeup covered bruises.

“Hey, are you alright?”

He couldn't tear his eyes from them.

“What what what’s with you? Does does does it still- does it hurt?”

“That tiny scratch?” She chuckled, eyes crinkling with her lopsided smile. “I had more severe injuries from dance practice to be honest. This is a walk in the park, compared to a sprained ankle.”

A small snort escaped Sahar and he finally dared to look up. “Kinda funny is is is, isn’t it?”

Charlotte leaned closer. Quirked a meticulously plugged eyebrow. “What? My pun-tastic talent? The kids told me I greatly improved.”

“No.” Sahar shook his head, fingers tapping a light rhythm over soft blankets, unsure if he had missed some hidden joke. Should he ask what the pun had been? Or just answer the question?

“No no no. Funny that, that they had something like like like, something like parks. Back then.”

“Hmm.” She sat down next to him, a wistful smile in her voice. “The old cities must have been enormous to hold trees inside.”

“Yeah. But I read some- some- somewhere that they were also way way way smaller, in, in the past.”

“That’s true.” Charlotte nodded her agreement. “But they must have been enormous still. Even if the old trees were not much bigger than today's flowers.” She turned to him, blue eyes boring into his. An almost playful smile dances on her lips, contrasting the sternes of her tone. “Now, stop dodging my question. How are you? And what is-”

Her eyes dropped to his arm.

Sahar took a deep breath and began to talk.

-----------

“So it has to hurt for your mutation to grow?”

Eyes fixed on the blue little flowers printed onto one of his blankets Sahar gave a hesitant nod. His human hand tingled where Charlotte had grabbed it and stopped him from digging his fingers into the still throbbing wound of his slightly mutated arm.

He’d always been bad with words, growing worse the more emotional he got. And talking about his mutation- had never gone particularly well.

So instead of fumbling through explanations that escaped him like francied bees, fleeing his mouth in an unintelligible buzz, he decided to just show her.

And what better way to reveal the nature of his flesh, than to tear into it. Rip the curtain of heroics and pain hazed memories aside and show Charlotte the fertilizer his mutation feasted on was his own pain.

A protective shield of hardened cells cursed to forever be triggered after harm had already been done.

“Yeah. Pain, pain is the, the key.”

The alarmed look on Charlotte’s face gave way to curiosity now, only that she wasn’t looking at his mutation any longer.

Her eyes were fixed on Sahar’s face instead and his cheeks began to burn under her scrutiny.

He didn’t know what she was searching for. Only that he was too afraid to glance up, so he just sat there, staring at his flower sheets, fingers tapping over them in the jittery rhythm of his heartbeat.

“I know a better way to hurt you than to reopen your wound.” Her voice was a warm murmur, and Sahar wasn’t sure if she’d really spoken those next words at all. Too lost in the feeling of a hot exhale ghosting over his cheek. “You sweet silly boy.”

There was a hint of cream coffee in her breath and a warm shiver raced up Sahar's spine. He finally peeked up at her, voice barely a breath as he asked. “How?”

A warm smile played around her soft lips. “Give me your hand. No. The other one.”

Sparks bloomed in Sahar’s fingertips and rushed up his arm. He slowly held his human hand up for her to take, to do with him as she pleased.

A hot prickling feeling that Sahar couldn’t quite place as good or bad had him shudder.

Her soft fingertips were pleasantly cool as they held his trembling hand.

“You can say no.” A nail grazed ever so gently over his knuckles. Sahars eyes nearly flutered close.

“What, what what.” He began, throat suddenly bone dry. “What will will will you do?”

“There is a pressure point,” Charlotte whispered, massaging gentle circles into the soft flesh between his thumb and pointer finger. “Exactly, here.” She pressed down, let the faintest promise of pain bloom under his skin.

Breath hurtled into his lungs in a single sharp inhalation. He could hardly stand to be looked at like this, to be seen, when new emotions crashed and clashed through his trembling body. Birthed into existence by Charlotte’s touch.

Her brows crumbled in concern. Blue eyes wandered over his burning face, studied the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

Sahar had always tried to avoid getting hurt, had always fought to keep his pain hidden away, buried so deep within, he himself had nearly grown numb to it. That someone wouldn’t chastise him for hurting, even wanted to see his pain. With no intention to harm. That idea was-

The heavy beating of his heart made him light headed.

“Sahar?”

“It’s it’s it’s it’s it- fine. Go go go, go ahead.”

There was the hint of hesitation before Charlotte pressed down, nails digging deep into his skin. The fine bone of Sahar’s thumb shifted to the side and a hot sparking pain ignited in his hand.

His eyes clenched shut, toes curling over the cold wood floor as he tried to sit still and endure it.

Charlotte pushed his hand back, her sharp nails digging even deeper into the resistance of his flexing wrist.

A pained moan was stuck in Sahar’s throat and his mouth fell open around a shuddering exhale.

His right arm grew and hardened with a soft crackle. The tips of his fingers elongated into sharp claws that threatened to slit the flower blanket. Sahar forced them to lay flat and motionless on the smooth fabric, biting back a low whimper.

“God.” Charlotte breathed, released his trembling hand. “You are beautiful.”

Warm coffee breath tickled over his lips and his eyes fluttered open.

Hazy green met bottomless blue.

Charlotte’s pupils were blown wide, drinking in Sahar’s flushed face, his shuddering shoulders. There was a faint blush blooming across the bridge of her nose.

Sahar swallowed his heart from its place in his throat, praying for Charlotte not to hear it nearly burst from his chest.

Hush. You treacherous thing.

#wuhmp #whump writing #injured whumpee #mutant whumpee #monster whumpee #aftermath of whump #masochism #injuries #recovering whumpee #recovering from injuries

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mgg-theprettiestboy · 3 years

Text

cross my heart (pt. 4)

spencer reid x oc

‘to secure peace, is to prepare for war.’

karl von clausewitz

cross my heart masterlist

word count: 2836

Spencer decided he didn't want to just be a casual acquaintance any more. He had almost died on his most recent case, and while this was a more common occurrence, something about this time was different. And he decided not to waste any more time, and to stop being such a chicken.

He offered a small smile to Raye from across the cafe once he saw her. It was ten at night, which was fairly early for both of them to be there. She held up the book she was reading, making him grin as he saw it. She had finally agreed to give War And Peace a read, and was slowly making her way through it.

He could only pretend to read, his own thoughts distracting him. There was an open lecture that he knew she would be interested in, and had already reserved two seats. Now, he just had to build up the confidence to ask.

It took him an hour.

But eventually, Spencer had finished his book a hundred times over, and his coffee had gone cold. There was no more avoiding it. He stood, walking over to Raye’s table. Her tongue was sticking out of the side of her mouth as she focused on her book, and Spencer had to bite back a laugh when she jumped in surprise, “oh! You scared me!”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. You were very engrossed,” he said with a fond smile. She smiled in return, “yeah, well, a book like this requires all my attention. I still have to google what half the words mean.”

He chuckled, before they fell into a kind of awkward silence. Spencer cleared his throat, before speaking again, “I was actually wondering... uh. There’s an open lecture on this weekend, it’s called ‘The Queen of English Literature Debate,’ Jane Austen versus Emily Bronte. The guest lecturer is flying in all the way from Scotland to travel around America, giving the lecture in different universities, and from the reviews I’ve read on it, it’s supposed to be amazing. Is that... something you would be interested in going to? Maybe with me?”

Raye blinked up at him, before her lips parted, as if she was going to say something, but then didn't. She repeated this a few times. Spencer was confused if he had rendered her speechless, or if she was having a stroke.

“Are you asking me out?” She eventually managed to choke out. He furrowed his eyebrows, before nodding, “yeah, I am. If thats okay.”

As if she finally realised what was happening, her eyes zoned in on hid face, and her expression softened at seeing his confused one, “I’m sorry, I just... it’s been a while. I don't go on a lot of dates. That sounds weird, I just mean that I don't get asked out a lot.”

His lips quirked up at her nervous rambling, before shaking his head, “I didn't think it sounded weird. I don't either. Go on a lot of dates, that is.”

She sighed softly in relief, before smiling softly, “so, Austen vs Bronte, huh? What do you think? Who’s the Queen?”

“I like to go into these sorts of debates with an unbiased opinion. I don't really favour one or the other, and I like to see if the lecturer can sway me. They usually can't, but its always fun,” he said with a chuckle, “it’s on Saturday, at Georgetown University. I could meet you here, say at three, and we can walk together?”

Raye smiled and nodded at the suggestion, “that sounds perfect.”

“Okay, perfect, great,” he said with a grin, “I will see you then.” His choice of words was not reflecting his intellect right now. He had a stupid grin on his face as he fumbled his way back to his table, collecting his things to leave and go home, and actually sleep for once. But the butterflies in his stomach thought otherwise, and he figured he it would be a struggle to fall asleep. Not that he was complaining.

–

“That was intense. Seriously, Spencer, that had me sweating!”

Spencer laughed as he walked alongside Raye as they left the lecture hall, “right? The professor was flawless with his criticisms. I don’t think I can decide who wins though, Bronte or Austen.”

“Hmm, me neither. I mean, I’ve always had a soft spot for Austen, but Bronte is just so damn good,” Raye said with a frown, “but in saying that, I wrote my college dissertation on Austen, so I guess the at already picks for me.”

“You wrote your dissertation on Jane Austen?” Spencer looked to her in surprise, as she grinned and nodded, “mhm. A cross analysis of Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship, to the relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It was genius, to be honest, an easy A. There was so much content, I could write for days on end and never run out of things to say.”

He laughed as she did, nodding in agreement, “that’s.... wow. I would love to read it, sometime.”

She glanced to him in surprise, nodding slowly with a blush, “I mean, it’s not brilliantly written. It didn’t get top marks or anything–“

“Hey,” he cut her off by taking her hands in his, looking down at her as her wide eyes looked up to him, “I bet it’s amazing. It sounds interesting, really.”

She bit her bottom lip, and tried to ignore the way Spencer’s eyes darted down to her mouth when she did, “okay. I’ll print off a copy of it for you sometime.”

“Great,” he said with a smile. He moved one of his hands away, but kept his other hand on hers. She blushed lightly, moving her hand to curl around his and hold it. He felt his heart leap at her returning the gesture, smiling softly at her, before looking down at his feet, “I had a good time today. I know we didn't exactly do a lot of talking for a first date, but...”

He didn't know what else to add, but he didn't have to, as she laughed, “don't be silly, I had fun. Besides, I already feel like I know you... is that weird to say?”

“No, not at all. I feel like I know you too. I suppose it’s from the books,” Spencer said as they left the lecture hall. He didn't know where they were walking to, but he wasn't about to complain. He didn't want the day to end. She furrowed her brow, “what do you mean?”

“I mean, from reading the books you enjoy, I feel like I know you,” he said with a shrug. Raye hummed, “oh yeah? Go ahead then. What am I like?”

He laughed slightly, looking ahead of them as he spoke, “you're a romantic; thats an obvious one. You love adventure, you love to escape through books. You hate horror, and anything scary, and you hate sad endings. You empathise with the bad guys. So, from all of this, I can tell that you’re sweet. You probably love animals, and definitely love children. You won't do something big unless you're pushed to, because as much as you love adventure, you only get it through reading. And you’ve... you’ve probably been hurt before, maybe by someone you care about or someone you know. Because you empathise with the villain, even when they're in the wrong. You’re considerate. And definitely a scardey-cat.”

Raye stayed silent as he profiled her through her book choices, and afterwards. Spencer immediately felt regret rise in him. He couldn't believe that he already screwed it up on the first date. He tried to apologise, “I-I didn't mean to-”

“I haven't been hurt by someone close to me, but I have been hurt, in a... in a strange way. But... I mean, I always try to see the best in people, no matter what. As difficult as that sometimes is,” she said. She rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb lightly, a look of curiosity on her face, “how did you figure all that out from the books I read?”

He relaxed at seeing that he didn't offend her, offering her a small smile, “I’m good at what I do.”

She was about to ask what he meant, before he let go of her hand to open the door for her. It was only then she realised they had managed to wander back to The Hideout. She smiled and went inside, going over to find a free table. It was busy, considering it was Saturday afternoon, and not the middle of the night.

He ordered two hot chocolates, figuring it was a safe bet, before going to the table to sit across from her, “I ordered two hot chocolates, I hope that’s okay.”

Raye smiled and nodded, “of course it is. I have a sweet tooth.”

“Me too. I always add an unhealthy amount of sugar to my coffee,” Spencer said, and she gasped, “me too! Tamara always scolds me, she says all my teeth will fall out. I also put a bunch of milk in it too. God, I don't know how people drink it without milk. It’s gross!”

“I completely agree!” He said, as they both laughed. He had the urge to talk her hand again. “I had a lot of fun today,” she hummed happily, resting her head in her hand as the hot chocolates were delivered to their table, “seriously. It was so much better than ‘dinner and a movie.’”

“Well, I didn't want to be stereotypical. And the first time I met you, you were literally buried in books, I figured this would be a good idea,” he said with a grin, as Raye scoffed and spluttered, “that wasn't my fault! Tamara loves to mess with me, but I’m too stubborn to give in. Hence my struggle with the bookshelf.”

Spencer laughed, and they continued to talk until they had finished their drinks. While he initially thought they were so similar, he was beginning to see that he wasn't entirely right. Yes, they had their similarities. But she was so much more than he expected. He found out she had a cat, called Dickens (she called him Dick, for short), and he was a ginger tabby cat. He found out she loved house plants, but struggled to keep them alive. Her favourite movie growing up was Peter Pan, and she had a bad habit of buying candles that she doesn't need.

Spencer never wanted the day to end. But sooner rather than later, the sun set on the drizzly November day, and the conversation seemed to come to a natural pause. Raye glanced outside, and cleared her throat she she saw it was dark, and used the moment of silence to say, “I should probably head home. My sleeping schedule... its a little backwards. I’m usually awake at night, and sleep during the day. Because of my work hours.”

Spencer didn't want to, but nodded, “oh, yeah, of course. I never asked, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m in accounting,” she said, smiling slightly. He could tell it was forced, “not my dream job, but hey, a job’s a job.”

“Oh. I could've sworn Tamara said you worked with the stock market, or something,” he frowned. She shrugged it off, “sometimes I do an odd job.”

“Okay. Well... I can walk you home. Which direction are you headed?” Spencer asked as he stood alongside Raye. She began to shake her head, lifting her bag and clutching it to her chest, “no, don't. I mean, I don't need you to do that.”

“No, I insist, really. It’s dark outside, and you never know,” he stressed, as Raye continued to shake her head, reiterated, “I’m telling you, I’ll be fine.”

“I just want to make sure you get home safe,” Spencer insisted, feeling kind of defeated at her rejection. She didn't seem to notice his reaction, snapping, “I said no!”

They stared at each other for a minute, before Raye just looked away, stuffing her purse and phone into her bag. Spencer tried to ignore the hurt he felt, speaking softly as he put his hands in the pockets of his coat, “I-I’m sorry. I wasn't trying to... to go home with you, or anything, I swear-”

“No, I know,” Raye said, her tone now gentle. She sighed softly, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “I’m just pretty paranoid about my security, I guess. I live alone.”

He nodded slowly, reaching into his satchel and pulling out his badge, “I don't suppose this would ease your worries?”

She furrowed her brow, taking what he handed to her to see what it was. He couldn't ignore the way she seemed to become even more tense at seeing what it was, and the way her hands gripped the badge just a little bit tighter.

All she could say was, “I thought you were a doctor?”

“I-I am. I have three PHDs. None of them are medical, though. I’m with the Behaviour Analysis Unit,” he explained. Raye’s voice was small, “you're a profiler. That explains how you were able to figure me out through books.”

Something about her tone unsettled Spencer. He thought that she would feel safer, knowing that he worked in the FBI. So why was she more alarmed than before?

“I’m so sorry for getting angry,” Raye apologised, smiling guiltily as she handed him his badge back. She ignored the warmth she felt when their hands brushed. Spencer smiled at her, “it’s okay. I’m sorry for trying to force the matter. But you can imagine why.”

She nodded fervently, before growing some confidence and taking his hand in hers, “would you walk me home? I live about three blocks away.”

Spencer felt his heart skip a beat, intertwining their fingers and nodding, as his cheeks began to glow. He stuck close by her side, as they walked down the streets of the city towards her apartment block. They came to a stop outside an old red brick building, but from the front door, Spencer could tell it must be renovated on the inside.

“Today was great,” Raye said tenderly, a warm smile on her face, “really. I had fun. If you’d like, we could do something like this again sometime.”

Spencer returned the smile, “I would love that. As long as you promise to have read War and Peace by then.”

She gawped and laughed, before groaning playfully, “oh come on, it’s just so boring. But for you, I will try. That’s all I can promise.”

“Good enough for me,” he chuckled, looking down at her as they stood face to face. She bit her bottom lip, before letting out a sigh.

“Are you going to kiss me, or am I going inside?” She quipped, as Spencer raised his brows. He smiled ever so slightly, moving to cup her cheek and lean down closer, “I will...”

Raye smiled softly, leaning into his hand as he moved closer so his lips were merely an inch away, “...once you finish the book.”

Her jaw dropped as he moved away, a triumphant smile on his face as she stammered, “you-! I just... that was cruel. Truly, and sincerely cruel. You will pay for that, Doctor, mark my words.”

“I will,” he laughed, lifting her hand that he held to kiss the back of her hand, “but until then, I bid you farewell.”

“Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again,” Raye said, taking a step backwards to walk to her building, as Spencer took a step back too, “Wilde?”

“Shakespeare,” she giggled, as they continued to walk their separate ways. Spencer made sure to stay within sight until he watched her walk through the door. She glanced back once she reached the door, smiling and waving goodbye to him, which he returned with a smile of his own. He was able to walk home with a peace of mind once he had seen her go into her building.

Raye scaled the stairs of her building with a stupid grin on her face, practically skipping up the stairs. It had been so long since her life had felt so normal. So long since she felt like she did right now; like a school girl crushing on a cute boy. She would do anything to make this feeling last forever. She should have known it wouldn't last.

She slowed as she approached her apartment, seeing the door open an inch, her cat sitting at the door.

And just like that, her good mood was completely gone, as she felt her heart stop, and her palms grow sweaty. She never forgot to lock her door. Ever.

She didn’t even bother to go inside, didn’t care to see if anything was missing or gone. She scooped up Dickens into her arms and ran back to the staircase, running all the way down while diling the number of the one person who could help.

–

cliff hangerrrrrr >:)

taglist: @slutforthegubes @pinkdiamond1016 @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto @fallinallinmendes @beyonces-breastmilk @spencerlikesapplejuice @pastathighs @gcblers @hushfakebitches @ijustcomeheretoread @thelovelyrose @187-reid @madison-malfoy @averyhotchner @haylaansmi

#mgg #spencer reid #mgg angst #mgg fanfiction #mgg fluff #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #mgg gifs #mgg blurb #mgg fic #mgg smut #mgg x reader #mgg x y/n #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #spencer x reader #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff

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manjuhitorie · 3 years

Text

HITORI-ESCAPE 2020 : Hitorie’s Free Concert Live Stream - December 7th 2020

youtube

In celebration of their newest single, curved edge, Hitorie streamed a full length concert! Setlist: Polaris Senseless Wonder Namid[A]me Garandou Mae Zero Banchi SLEEPWALK Loveless Gekijougai Talkie Dance Unknown Mother Goose Karanowaremono Ao curved edge In it they announced the release of a new album! Named... REAMP! Febuary 17th can’t come soon enough!!! It will even include songs written by not only Shinoda, but Yumao and ygarshy each as well! Concert report below:

Initial Impressions: ＊ SND’s shirt has Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe printed on it. ＊ He has a stageprompter to assist with lyrics as well. He struggles to hit the high notes but he nails the high octane power chords. wowaka used to wing when his would sing, so he would slip on his lyrics, and make silly faces, every other song live. I see SND is playing it safe, now that he’s the one in charge of the crazy lyrics!!! Prelude leading into... Polaris ＊SND gets riled up and turned thhe「誰も知らぬ明日へ行け　誰も止められやしないよ」lyric into a rowdy 「止められやしねえよ」 . Equivalent to “No one can stop us” being turned into “No once can fucking stop us” or so. Shinoda “We’re Hitorie, enjoy the show.” (This ‘Hitorie desu, yoroshiku douzo’ was always wowaka’s stock concert phase.) Senseless Wonder ＊”Woo-hoo”’s or unintelligible noises made in the riff music breaks. ＊Yumao sings the backup vocals. ＊SND wiggles his foot on his Wah pedal to make the wonky sounds.

Intermissional MC

Shinoda “This marks the beginning of Hitori-Escape. We are called Hitorie. Everyone please stick with us.“Heavy breathing “Hold up. I jumping around too much right off the bat.. I jumped around too much... All I did was hip and hop around a little bit... Haah. I’m gonna drink some water, drink some water!” SND walks over to the amp where bottles lie atop then proceeds to take a big sip. Yumao also follows along with a drink. Yu and SND can be seen conversing, but only SND’s “You got that right.” can be heard. SND returns to the mic “Take a gander, everyone. Even Yumao-kun is already sweating as well. This sparkly sweat of ours.. We will try to deliver you guys our sweat at the highest quality we can offer, deliver it as much as possible.” While SND is talking Yumao makes signs, such as 2 fingers up, towards the staff. “Well then, let’s chug along. Enjoy the show everyone.” Namid[A]me ＊There’s bubble popping sound effects in the intro now! Yumao is in charge of this, see his MacBook + mixer (+ a handy setlist printout) setup on the table beside him. All with a music program open primed and ready... Right before the song you can even see Yumao click his computer as well!

＊ Yumao sings backup vocals, the whole chorus has his deep voice echoing. The small amount of notes are so concise and moody live... ＊ SND tops the outro off with a “Wasshoi!” Garandou Mae Zero Banchi ＊ Melodramatic piano bit added before the intro. I wonder where this was sampled from... It sounds like SND uses his stereo chorus pedal for his part as well. Shinoda “Thank you.”

Intermissional MC

Shinoda “Uhm.. At the end of our previous live stream I had said ‘Next time we meet will be at the concert hall.’. Sorry, that was a lie... We’re meeting at a live stream yet again. We’re Hitorie, enjoy the show.” Yumao taps his cymbals gently to create the classic concert mood starter sound. SND “That, that’s good! That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff. Without that stuff I feel the silence responding to me.” He motions at the empty auditorium. “That stuff’s nice, nice. I guess ‘cause, y’know. ‘Cause you two have already been y’know. Performing in front of people.” Yumao, hits his cymbal, cue a “Bwaa~n” sound. SND “You can fool me with that shit. No ‘Bwaa~n’ will work on me. You had 2 whole opportunities in a row, yesterday and the day before.” (Referring to Yumao’s appearance in Touyama Nao’s anniversary concerts.) Yumao hits his cymbal yet again, cue a “Shwaaan” noise. SND scoffs “What a kind and swe~et reaction.” SND “I’m the only one. The only one here who hasn’t stood up in front of people. My only upcoming chance will be at ‘Countdown Japan’, at the end of the year. Then in January I’ll be doing our limited fan club concert at Shibuya WWX. Back to back. What the hell is up with this year? What the hell, huh? Huh!!!” SND playfully pounces in Yumao’s direction. Yumao hits his cymbal again. “You’re saving my butt with that. Thanks, truly. Alright. From here on I’m to bring you a few songs without a guitar, only a mic in my hands.” Yumao “1, 2, 3, 4” SLEEPWALK ＊ SND gets on his knees and wiggles to walk on the floor during music breaks, is he imitating a sleepwalker.. ＊ Ygarshy presses a pedal right after every song ends, presumably his tuner, to mute and prevent static. He strums and slaps with his fingers, no pick, for every song. SND “2020 is slowly nearing its end, but, what’s everyone’s opinion on love?” Loveless ＊BONK

＊ Includes Shinoda flopping around on the floor, squatting like a yakuza, and an outro with SND and yg having a mini string instrument battle! They huddle together! Yumao pounds away! Gekijougai ＊ Additional nebulous intro. ＊ Yumao is really worked to the bone in this banger! Featuring yet another more intense battle between yg and SND. SND “Alrighty! Ah. Where are y’all now? Where are y’all right now? It doesn’t matter where you are, just dance along to Talkie Dance!” Talkie Dance ＊ During the riff breaks SND chants Soi! Yoisa! Soi! Hoisa!” Like wasshoi, these are traditional shouts primarily used by O-mikoshi carriers in JP festivals! SND really seems to enjoy using old-fashioned words in a stylish way. SND “Upon this ending year, this one is with love from wowaka!” Unknown Mother Goose “Sing along with me!” ＊ Per usual, Yumao and ygarshy both pitch in for the ‘Oh oh oh’ harmonies. “Sing, please!” ＊ The background vocals in the Unknown Mother Goose are also confirmed by the man himself to be “Give me love”. He had responded to someone with “Oh! You’re sharp!” when asked about it!

Intermissional MC

“Are y’all having fun? Me, I can’t stop sweating. Help me. I can’t stop sweaaating.” SND changes to a high tone voice, “Ah~ This is awesomeee. Methinks this is awesome but, but I gotta say, I’m the only one here who hasn’t had a chance to perform in front of people, no kap.” He returns to his normal tone. “I hold a grudge. I’m always the only one being fucking left outtt. I can't let go of my grudge.

At least look me in the eyes, guys. Ah, whatever. On New Year's Eve I’m gonna appear in Countdown Japan, I’m gonna! ...What does it feel like anyway, performing in front of people? What does it feel like, may I ask you fine young gentleman?” SND’s voice turns to demonic. “Oiiii. Don’t just fucking nod at me. Don’t make up some new common language. You’re over there using no words, bitch.” His voice returns to normal. “Well, whatever. Enough of that. It’s no use staying jealous forever.” Yumao taps his cymbals... “Don’t just fucking ‘clang clang’ either!” Yumao laughs. “You laughed, you laughed! You laugh: you lose, you!”, they all smile. “Uhm... On December 31st, New Year's Eve, we’ll be at Countdown Japan. Please come if you can, hope to see you there. Now then! Next year, I’m talking about next year, it will be the 7th year anniversary of our major debut. In celebration, and to kick off the new year, we have booked Roppongi’s EX Theater for two days, January 21st and 22nd,. This is all I can say for now. Details will be announced later. ...Now let me drink some water.” ygarshy is all done tuning and at attention. Yumao keeps making cymbal sounds to fill the empty space. “I... Today, here, is uhm, Yokohama’s Bay Hall. It’s the place where ‘Swallowtail’ was filmed. When we arrived this afternoon I saw the windows and practically screamed. It’s Yen Town Band! It’s where Glico sang ‘My Way’! I alone was freaking out. Noone was on board with me.. I’m all alone, yet again.... The camera zooms in on Yumao, “Don’t just smile! Don't just smile at me With that said. Our 7th anniversary hits next year! So, here is our very first song, which represents our beginning....” Karanowaremono Ao ＊ Many emotional spotlights.

Intermissional MC

SND “At long last, this time has come. Huh! Mister Yumao-san!” SND glares at him. “Perhaps I may revel in a sip of water as well. A sip of water!! ... By the way what time is it? Yumao, in reporter voice “It is currently eight thirty seven.” SND “I see, it’s eight thirty seven. That's crazy. So today, our new song released, as you folks may know. Our new song called curved edge was released. Did you give it a listen? If you haven’t then please do, but also, the music video for the song will be public today at 22 o’ clock, please enjoy it. That’s the immediate future. But let’s talk about the faaar future.... On February 17th will a new album be released. We made an album. curved edge is a song written by me, and naturally it will be included in the album as well but, that’s not all.” He wags his finger towards the others, “This wiggly windy head of brown-colored hair and, this other wiggly windy head of black-colored hair have even each written a song for it as well. The title is R-E-A-M-P, REAMP. To be released on February 17th. Keep your eyes peeled.” he tapped his temple as he said this, “Please!” Ygarshy bows. “Ahhh, we made it!” Shinoda starts coughing, “Excuse me. Coughing without covering my mouth is not good. I'll be careful. Ah, I’m so nervous. I’ve grown nervous this far in. Alright, this next one will be the final song. Thank you so much for bearing with us. We are Hitorie. As farewell, here is our new song. curved edge.

Text:

I have also written up the original Japanese quotes! Thank you Tamagotoji for the huge help! ORZ For those looking to follow along with the concert, or learn new words from them, or enjoy!! Please enjoy!

https://www.evernote.com/l/AolVRKvLGRpFN6l0MApPe5xuRXQOI4kFeTg

Bonus tech lore

Disclaimer: Only old photos exist of their pedalboards exist, as the cameramen did a fine job of concealing them. Since there’s no new evidence of change, I’ll assume these old findings will serve as foundation for their current setups as well!

#hitorie #ヒトリエ

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jaefluenza · 4 years

Text

Ice Cream | Yuta x Reader

a theme park date with Yuta! (super fluff!)

word count: 2,3k words

“Hyung, do you have plans today?” Haechan asked Yuta as he looked at the older man playing Jaehyun’s nintendo switch.

“Uhm, no. Why?” Yuta replied without even looking.

Haechan smiles brightly, “Great! We’re going to Everland. Be prepared, hyung. Let’s go!”

Yuta leaves his nintendo, “Wait, what?” He runs towards the door, chasing after the younger boy.

“Who are we going with? And, did you ask manager hyung?”

Haechan looks back at him, ”Uh, I invited Y/n and Doyoung. The others are not available.”

Yuta’s eyes widened in nervousness. ”Ah..okay.” He hurriedly closes the door and goes to prepare himself.

So, you and Yuta have been best friends since you both were kids. Yuta introduces you to the boys through FaceTime, so you and the boys immediately became close. You learned Korean for Yuta, and you promised him and the boys to take them to the theme park.

“What should I wear? Uh, this jacket? No, definitely not cool.” Yuta takes off his outer and try another coat, “Well, this coat? Ah, too bland.”

Haechan walks into the older’s room, wondering what took him so long just to go to a theme park.

He whines, “Hyung, are you seriously deciding what to wear right now? We don’t have time!”

“This wouldn’t happen if you didn’t invite her! I gotta make a good impression, Donghyuck-ah!” Yuta answered back.

The younger sighs in defeat, “Alright, I’ll wait for you in the living room. Doyoung hyung is also ready.”

Yuta replied with a brief ‘ok’ before spraying on his cologne. “I have to look good.”

Meanwhile, you’re already sitting in a boba cafe, waiting for the guys to arrive. You dress prettily, wearing a cute bright overall, paired with a black and white striped shirt. You have someone to impress, of course, your childhood best friend, Nakamoto Yuta.

You slurped your boba, almost upset that the boys haven’t showed up. You dialed Haechan’s number, huffing in anger until you heard him answering the call. “Hello, noona~” His cute greeting almost making you melt.

“Yah, Lee Donghyuck! What did I tell you? We were supposed to meet at 11, and now it’s 11.25. My makeup is running off!”

“Don’t blame me for keeping you waiting, blame Yuta hyung instead. He-” He was cut by a panic Yuta. “Hi, Y/n. We’re five minutes away from the cafe, wait a little bit more, okay?” Hearing his voice makes you gulp in nervousness. “O-okay.” You replied before ending the call. You decided to check your look before they arrive.

You put your lipgloss into the bag and before you get to turn your head, 3 boys are sitting in front of you. You were about to greet haechan loudly when you realize that they’re idols. “HAEChan-ah~” Haechan laugh at you quietly behind his mask, while you want to pop out some bobas from the straw into his face for laughing at you.

Yuta smiled brightly as he saw you laughing around with the boys. He’s feeling so awkward sitting next to you that he can’t be brave enough to greet you first. Doyoung slurped his boba before speaking up, “haven’t y’all bought the tickets?”

You shook your head as you answered, “No, I thought Haechan said he got the tickets booked.”

Haechan nodded before taking up his phone to the three of you, “I did. Thanks to me,” He bragged which makes the three of you rise from your seats and leave him behind. “Hey, let’s go together..”

Arriving at the theme park, the four of you splits into pairs, so y’all won’t draw any attention. Haechan purposely team himself with Doyoung so Yuta can get some alone time with you. Before going into the theme park shuttle bus, Yuta tapped your shoulder awkwardly, wanting to give you something. You turned to him with a little “what’s up”.

“Why are you so confident? You have to wear a mask too. It would get crazy if someone captured your face. Wear this,” he said while handing you a cute printed mask. You noticed it looks like the one he also wears before you laugh, “a couple mask? Oooh, I didn’t know you hadn’t this side of you.”

“Shut up, just wear it.” He said coyly.

The two of you got into a second bus and fortunately, unlike the earlier bus that Doyoung and Haechan ride in, the entire bus is empty. You take a seat while Yuta stands up, holding onto a handle grip. Since no one of both of you is speaking, you take this as a chance to play around with him. You get your phone from your bag, pointing the camera at him, and click!

“What? Hey! I wasn’t ready!” He complained.

“It’s okay, you look good.” You chuckle, while hiding your phone away from him.

“Let me see.” He leans closer to you but you hide away from him. “No! You’ll take my phone and delete it!”

“I won’t. Come on, let me see~” He pleaded with his wide cute eyes.

“Noooo,” You rise from your seat, running away from him when suddenly the bus turns and you lose your balance.

“Hey! Be careful,” Yuta yelled before he caught your waist, keeping you from falling. You stare at his eyes, blinking in nervousness.

“T-thank you.” You thanked him before tidying up your outfit. The bus stopped and both of you walked out of the bus awkwardly.

“What’s with the awkward atmosphere? Did you guys kiss?” Haechan asked bluntly.

“No!” Both of you said in union.

“N-no. we didn’t,” Yuta said afterward.

You avoid his look awkwardly, while you feel so embarrassed inside. You feel like he didn’t actually feel the same.

“At least, not yet. Yeah, we know it. Not yet,” Doyoung nodded teasingly at both of you, before taking Haechan to leave you and Yuta and entering the theme park.

“What do you want to ride first?” Yuta asked you. You’re still avoiding his look after earlier convo.

“Uh, what should we ride first? Uh, like, maybe, that one?” You point at a small coaster for kids.

He laughed while you blushed, “No, Y/n. We can’t ride that. It’s for kids. Maybe that one.” He pointed at a not-so-high swings and you swear you can feel the goosebumps.

“U-uh, yeah. Probably, uhm, alright.”

“Since when are you scared of rides? You know we used to ride those scary rides in disneyland.”

It’s just, I’m afraid I will look bad beside you, stupid.

“Uh, no, it’s just, It’s been.. long since I go to a theme park. I’m just, like, getting the sparks all over again.”

“Well, let’s go then!” He holds your hand and drag you to the fast track. You can feel your heart is the one racing, not the rides.

After making sure that the safety gear is tighter, Yuta makes sure if you feel okay and excited. While all you think about was, what if my saliva runs out of my mouth, or what if I scream so loudly that his ears would start ringing?

“Hey, you’re alright?” He asked.

You nod, “I am. Don’t worry, this is fun!”

A minute later, you found yourself screaming loudly, not caring if your lens are falling out or if there’s any saliva getting out of your mouth.

After the ride, you no longer feel anxious and awkward around Yuta. It’s like you found the old fun going on when you were with him. These past weeks you stayed in Korea, you care a lot about your appearance in front of Yuta because of your big fat crush but now that you both are alone, the comfortable feeling starts to appear.

“You scream so loud, damn! You never change, Y/n. I love that of you, like you never hold on.” He laughs while you realize what he said. Love?

You think of the possibility of all possibilities when he said that L word, but who knows? Maybe he just loves you as a best friend.

“Oh, Yuta! We should check that out! Cute headbands!” You screamed after seeing a headband booth. “Well, let’s buy some.” He holds your hand as if it’s a usual thing to do while you blush madly.

“Woah, look! Panda headbands! Ooh, and this, couple fairy headbands! I love them!” You coo at the cute headbands. You pick two of them, one is a cute devil headband while the other one is the angel one.

“I’ll take the angel, and you’re the devil.” You claimed.

“But-” You cut him off, “No buts! I’ll take these, thank you.” you head out to the cashier and pay for them while Yuta trails behind you.

You laugh at him when he wears the silly headbands, the pouting shape of his lips can be seen through his mask. “It’s okay. You look cute.” You reassured him.

“Anything for you, Y/n. Anything.” He uttered, which makes you blush heavily.

“Let’s go to the animal park, I want to see pandas.” You casually take his hand and drag him with you. Little did you know, he smiled widely behind his mask, looking at his hand tightly in yours.

“Hey! That’s Haechan and Doyoung,” you dragged him towards the rivalry couple. As you both head towards them, their bickering could be heard.

“I said, let’s go to panda world first!” Haechan shout at his hyung.

“No! I want to see the grizzlies first, let’s go!” Doyoung answers back.

“Hey, why are you guys arguing in this magical place?” You look at the both of them, while Yuta stares at his hand in yours all the time. Doyoung glared playfully at the younger before shifting his eyes at your hand. “Wait, are you guys casually holding hands like that?”

“Eh, did it work? Woah, I guess it works!” Haechan squealed happily until Yuta steps on his foot, warning him of something.

You glance at them suspiciously, “What’s working? Did you guys plan on something?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t listen to them. Yah, you two, follow us. We’re going to see the pandas. Come on,” Yuta glared at the younger boys before dragging you into the panda world area. Haechan smirks at Doyoung while sticking his tongue teasingly. It’s weird.

The moment you all walked out of the animal park, it’s almost dark. “It’s almost sunset already. Let’s go to the Ferris wheels!” Doyoung said.

“You two go first, Y/n and I will go get something at the food fair.” Yuta looks at you while shooing the guys away. The younger boys nod without saying anything and left.

He throws a gummy smile before he asks, “Do you want ice cream? Let’s go.”

At the ice cream booth, your eyes sparkle at the various flavor of icecream. “Woah, strawberry! I want each scoop of strawberry and peach!”

(I’m sorry if these are not your favs but i’m just picking out mine lmao)

Yuta laughs, “Woah! You never change, Y/n. Always, strawberry and peach. Cute,” then he chuckled.

You bit your lip when he said you are cute. Did he really mean that?

Both of you walk to the Ferris wheel with ice creams. “Look, they’re already on the top.” Yuta points at the highest cube where Doyoung and Haechan was in.

The staff opened the door for you and both of you walked in carefully, avoiding people’s look.

“Phew, that was scary. I almost have eye-contact with the people at the queue.”

You laughed, before licking the ice cream so it doesn��t melt away.

Almost reaching the top of the wheel, Yuta moves his leg anxiously. He sneaked a glance at you who’s enjoying the view of the park before putting a strand of your hair behind your ear. You turn at him, a smile appears on his face when he saw the remains of ice cream on the corner of your lips.

“Aye, are you a child? Why are you so messy like that?” He nagged before wiping them off your lips with his thumb.

You look at him in awe, feeling coy by the sudden skinship. “Yuta....”

He shifts closer to you while you blink nervously. He reaches for your hand, looking deeply into your eyes as he speaks, “I know you’re my childhood friends and we probably must just stay friends but, I can’t hide my feelings anymore.”

He continues, “I don’t know what you feel about me, but I personally like you as a woman. No, I mean, I love you. You don’t have to answer, there’s no pressure at all.”

He waited for an answer but your words won’t come out. You feel so wonderstruck, because after all the sneaky glances, awkward skinship and countless calls every night, Yuta actually feels the same about you.

“Yuta, I.. I like you too.” You answered.

His eyes widen in shock, but seconds later, he smiles widely after hearing your confession. “Really?”

You nodded before you feel his lips on yours. You close your eyes, enjoying the kiss on the top of the Ferris wheels. For a moment, everything feels like a dream. Time stops for a while as you both get lost in the feeling of pure bliss.

“You taste like strawberry and peach.” Yuta murmured against your lips.

Unlike the new smoochy couple, Haechan and Doyoung wear their masks again because they’re about to reach the base of the wheel. “Where are they? Oh, they’re at the top. Dude, don’t look.” Doyoung warned as he looked up to a certain cube with a familiar couple in it.

Haechan lost by his own curiously as he also looked to where Doyoung pointed. He cursed while closing his not-so-innocent eyes, “Ah, look at that. We made them. Yeah, we made that happen. They owe us grilled pork, really.”

jaefluenza masterlist

#nct 127 #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct angst #nct au #nct yuta #nct writing #nct fluff #yuta fluff #nakamoto yuta #nct 127 fluff #czennet

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duhragonball · 4 years

Text

Nanwum IV toolboxkit

I have a love/hate relationship with the word “tool”. On the one hand, tools are awesome. I like holding a big screwdriver and thinking about all the screws I can loosen with it. I ordered a thing at work yesterday and I can’t wait for it to arrive. There’s a rush of power in knowing some object will solve a bunch of problems. Look out, screws.

On the other hand, it annoys me how people use the term “tool” in a more abstract sense, like statistical “tools” or using a flow chart to figure out what to do. I can’t hold any of that crap, so calling it a tool feels like a bait-and-switch. But I can appreciate the power of the term. If you can liken a thing to a power drill, then you have my attention.

Anyway, this weekend is for making preparations for National Novel Writing Month, which starts next Sunday, so I thought it would be useful to go over the stuff that I use to get me through it.

1) The NaNoWriMo website.

Back in 2017, I seriously considered not even bothering with the website, because I figured it had nothing to offer. I’m the one doing all the work, right? But tracking progress is an effective motivator, and I like being able to see a chart that shows how well I’m doing. There’s some bugs in it. For some reason it doesn’t show my Camp Nano April 2018 as being complete, and when I tried to fix it, it doubled the word count instead.

It’s also useful for where I’m at today. Now that I’ve done this thing a few times, I can measure current performance against past years. November 2018 was my personal best, so I’m going to use that as a model for this year. I don’t need to beat 2018-me, but I do need to remind myself that I’ve performed this well in the past.

2) George R. R. Martin motivational desktop wallpaper.

I started doing this as a joke, but looking at this dude sitting at his computer, not writing is a much more powerful motivator than I ever thought possible. The idea is that if I minimize the writing window to do something else, I have to look this dude in the eye before I can look up Robocop clips on YouTube. I’ve had months where I was struggling to meet the goal, and then I went “Oh, yeah, I forgot to change my desktop pic, and it pushes me over the finish line. It’s like Popeye eating spinach.

Now the Tone Police will take issue with something like this, and call it arrogant. “How dare you put down a highly successful fantasy author just to make yourself feel confident,” they’ll say as they wag their finger. “Don’t you care that you might be making procrastinators feel bad?” To that I say: fuck’em.

See, I’m a world-class procrastinator in my own right. I have to get hyped for this stuff every year, because that’s the only way I can build up enough momentum to see it through. Like all Sith Lords, I have to call upon all of my emotions -- fear, anger, pride, fernweh -- to fuel the creative monster. I don’t make a dime on this, so if I can’t take some bloody satisfaction out of it then what’s the point?

I’m pretty sure George doesn’t even know I do this, but in case he’s reading this, let me address him specifically: George, I’ve cranked out three of these Nanwums and you still haven’t finished Winds of Winter, which is well on its way to becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of modern fantasy. I don’t know if you got soft, like Rocky in Rocky IV, or maybe you’ve lost your confidence like Rocky in Rocky III, but you have to kindle a fire under your ass, even if it’s a silly fire, like fear of dying before the book goes to print, or getting it done just to spite assholes like me. But find something and use it.

3) Kenny Omega vs. Sonny Kiss, AEW Dynamite 10/21/2020

youtube

This was a first-round match in a tournament for the right to challenge for the AEW World title, and it was Kenny’s big return to singles action, so I guess the idea here was to make him look strong by having him crush Sonny Kiss in under 15 seconds. I’ve seen blowouts in wrestling before, but this one speaks to me on a different level, and I’m sorely tempted to swap out my GRRM image with this shot of in-the-zone Kenny Omega.

Because I feel this right now. This isn’t like last year or the year before, where I got behind working on stuff in October so I wasn’t fully prepared. I got all caught up a few weeks ago, and I have eight days to get ready. I haven’t written a thing in weeks, and I’m itching to get back to it. I want a big Day One total to start the month off, and seeing this match makes me want to aim even higher than 7000 words. Can I hit 10,000 in one day? The Cleaner sure thinks so. Clapclap-clap clap clap.

4) Focus Writer

You can check it out for yourself at https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/

The main selling point for Focus Writer is that it can be used for “distraction free” writing, in that it’s default setting makes it tricky to minimize the window to do other stuff. But I turned that off a while back. For my purposes, I just need the word counter.

One thing I learned while editing work instead of writing from scratch is that you can just set the word count goal to 100 words. That way, the percentage displayed at the bottom of the screen will keep track of how many words you’ve written in that session. So if you write 1275 new words, the counter will say 1275%.

I used to set actual goals, like 3500 words for the day or whatever, but I found myself constantly trying to calculate what 53% of that is, and that ended up being a huge distraction in itself. So now I just stick to the 100 word “goal” and use it to track my actual progress, rather than setting lofty goals that I may not need to actually hit. The Nano website does that for me anyway.

5) The Adventures of Dumplin

I’m essentially adapting the events of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 into this story, so I could break out my PS3 and play it through again to remind me of all the stuff I wanted to use from 2015, but it’s a lot easier to just watch someone else play it instead. Team FourStar’s playthrough of the Xenoverse games is some of their best material, as far as I’m concerned, and knowing this is one of my go-to references is going to make this November pretty awesome.

I’m not sure I could, or should, work Dumplin into my fic. If I did, he couldn’t be the same guy who saved the day in this LP series, because I’m having Luffa do all that. Early on, I envisioned a scene where she wakes up one morning after a night of heavy drinking and finds Dumplin in bed with her, but that seemed a little too goofy to use. But I want you to have that mental picture anyway, so I’m writing about it here.

6) Diet Pepsi

Straight Edge, Hard Core. Stephen King’s a wuss for using cocaine to help him write.

#nanwum iv #i'm gonna fuck this november up proper

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star-spangled-steve · 5 years

Text

His New Partner

Chapter 21: The Bridezilla

Series Masterlist

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Words: 3424

Warnings: A very distressed and angry Reader, sexual innuendos, cussing, fluff at the end.

A/N: This was honestly so much fun to write, I really hope that you guys like it too. And also, in case you couldn’t tell by now, the italicized words are flashbacks. Enjoy!

Y/N’s neck started to hurt from being hunched over her laptop for so long. The couch cushion underneath her butt began to get uncomfortable as well, but she was too concentrated on the numerous books, magazines, and checklists in front of her to really care.

Her computer’s battery charge was nearing 30%, and she knew that it wouldn’t be healthy to stay on it any longer. But each time she told herself that she would go back to bed, there was always one more thing to take care of. One more thing to research, pick out, plan, and organize for this damn wedding.

A knock on her and Steve’s bedroom door startled Y/N as she was laying on their bed, flipping through a bridal magazine.

“Ya?” The girl asked, not even looking up from the various chair covers on her page.

Natasha took a peak inside of the room before slowly opening the door, shaking her head at the scene in front of her. “J.A.R.V.I.S. called you to come down, why didn’t you answer?”

“I’m busy.” Y/N answered as she circled yet another item in the thin book.

“Well, it’s lunch time. The whole team is waiting for you, come on.” The assassin cocked her head in the direction of the elevator, urging her friend to get up.

“Not hungry.” The H/C haired girl told her blankly.

Natasha shook her head, stepping farther into the bedroom. “Ya? Then take it up with Steve. He says that you haven’t eaten all day, and he wants you down there. Now.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, switching from laying on her stomach to laying on her back. She held the magazine above her face, completely blocking out Natasha. “Tell him that I can take care of myself, please and thank you.”

“Well clearly not.” The red head stated, crossing her arms over her chest.

The actress finally sat up, closing her book in front of her. “What’s that support to mean?”

“Come on, N/N, look at you.” Natasha scolded. “You are obsessed with planning an event that’s like a year away!”

Y/N pouted, looking away from her friend. “10 and a half months.” She corrected under her breath.

“Oh, whatever!”

3:07 in the morning, her laptop read.

Nope, wait.

3:08 now.

Steve would most likely be up in about three hours, ready to go for his usual morning run. All the while Y/N continued to search through countless websites about dresses, and plate settings, and centrepieces galore.

She knew that she was being irrational. That it didn’t really matter whether the bridesmaid dresses had a halter neckline or a v-neck, whether the invitations were printed on pieces of white or cream coloured cardstock.

But this was something that she had been looking forward to ever since she was a little girl. Having a great big wedding filled with her amazing friends and family; a handsome groom waiting for her at the end of the aisle. And now she had all of those things. A group of people in her life that she adored more than anything, and a fiancé who she loved with her whole entire heart.

Y/N had all of the tools, all of the resources and support systems in order to pull off the fantastic wedding that’s she’s always wanted. But deep down, she knew that she should’ve been treating that support system better in the process.

“Alright,” Steve spoke as he sat down at the kitchen table, “what do you got for me?”

It having been about nine months until the big day, it was finally time for the couple to be testing out cake flavours. Y/N had ordered about twenty different kinds for them to try, and she could’ve not been more excited to get a taste of each and every one.

The girl put her hand on the refrigerator handle, giving her man a smile. “A ton of different options.” She opened up the fridge with a smile. “Let’s just say, you should be thankful for your fast metabolis-“

“What?” Steve asked, seeing Y/N frozen in her spot.

The girl’s eyebrows began to furrow as she went up and down, searching through all the levels of the Avengers shared fridge. “Where’s the rest of my cake?”

“Huh?”

“My cake.” She faced him, placing her hands on her hips. “Half of it’s gone.”

Steve stood up from his chair. “That’s impossible.” He met her at the refrigerator and began to look through it himself, only to see nothing as well.

Just in that moment, Tony and Bruce had walked into the kitchen, looking for a mid-science snack.

“Hey, guys, have you seen the other half of our cake samples?” The Captain questioned them, placing a hand on Y/N’s shoulder in hopes to calm her down.

Banner gave the group a shrug and turned to Tony, who looked pretty suspiciously guilty himself.

“What did they look like?” The billionaire asked, avoiding eye contact from the unhappy pair.

“Oh, you know,” the girl ground her teeth, beginning to get a little frustrated, “cake. Cut up into little. Sample. Sizes.”

“Hmm.” Tony pretended to ponder, even scratching his chin for show. “Well, I, uh...”

“Stark?” The Captain interjected, wanting to get to the bottom of this. He could tell that Y/N was getting angry, and he did not want this to cause another ‘episode’.

“I... may have eaten them.” Tony admitted, crossing his arms over his chest in uncharacteristic nervousness. But no one in the whole Tower could even blame him for being frightened. Scary bride Y/N was a very real thing.

“You what?” The girl fumed, shrugging away Steve’s hand and stepping a bit closer to Tony.

The brunette man gulped. “I’m sorry, N/N. I didn’t know that they were yours.”

“Oh. So the large white label that said ‘Wedding Cake Samples’ wasn’t a big enough hint to for you, Mr. Genius?”

The other scientist cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m just going to go.”

“No.” The actress told Bruce, pointing a stern finger at him. “You stay right there, young man.”

Banner furrowed his eyebrows. “‘Young man’? You’re the youngest one here!”

Y/N gave him a pointed look; one that urged him to shut his mouth right away, one that was something a mother would only give to her misbehaving child.

“Do you realize, Tony, how important those little pieces of cake were to me?” She asked, looking the man dead in the eye.

“Look, I really do apologize, Y/N. I’ll just buy you guys new ones. You’ll have them within a couple of days!” He told her in hopes to lighten her spirits.

The Captain just stood there, not daring to get in the middle of this. Sure, he could get her on her knees with a couple of dirty words. And when he used his low sexy voice, she was practically putty in his hands. But right now in this moment, his usually delightful girl was scaring him shitless.

“That’s the problem, dumbass!” Y/N shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. “The baker who made these things is going to be in France for the next month and a half for some fancy cooking course!”

“Oh.”

“Ya.” She said in a not so polite way. “Are you just trying to piss me off? Is that it?”

“Wha-No! I swear, it was a simple mistake.” Tony told her. “Why were they even in the common fridge anyways?”

“Because the one on our floor wasn’t big enough to fit the whole tray. I never thought that one of you dummies would eat half the fucking pieces!”

“Woah!” Steve interposed, making the girl turn towards him. “Watch your mouth.”

“Oh shut up!” Y/N yelled back, sticking her tongue out at her fiancé. Him telling her to watch her mouth would usually turn her on in the bedroom, but now was really not the time.

“Y/N, you need to calm down.” The billionaire stated.

“Are you trying to not get invited to our wedding?” The furious girl questioned, crossing her arms over her chest. “Is that it? Because I will uninvite you so fast, Tony Stark.”

“I-I’m one of Steve’s groomsmen.” The man spoke with a confused look on his face. “You really can’t-“

“You know what? I don’t even care anymore, finish the whole goddamn tray if you want.” Y/N hissed. “I’m going to my room, and nobody is allowed in!” She stomped past Bruce and Tony and headed her way towards the elevator.

The three men sighed, seeing her click the button multiple times in frustration before finally marching on.

Once the doors were completely closed, so he knew that she couldn’t hear him, Tony let out a low whistle. “Good luck with that one, Cap.”

Gold napkin rings would look just beautiful with the theme of their wedding, Y/N thought to herself. But then again, the cutlery was silver, and it would definitely look silly together. Though, she could also just get gold cutlery. Too many decisions to make and too little time.

With her laptop’s battery nearing a measly 10%, she knew that she should just wrap things up for the night and finally join Steve back in their bed.

But for some reason, she couldn’t. It’s as if she was addicted. Each and every minute of her spare time was dedicated to planning this wedding. And unfortunately, anybody who tried to mess with that, did not come out with a smile.

“Can you please pass me the salad, Maria?” Pepper asked as the whole gang sat around the huge dining room table.

It was Saturday night and all of the Avengers had agreed to not make any other plans, choosing to eat dinner together instead. Meals as a whole were great for team bonding, and mostly everybody enjoyed each other’s company.

“Where’s my doll?” Steve questioned as he was the last one to arrive in the upstairs dining room. The man glanced around the table, only to see her usual spot empty.

“The little firecracker?” Tony spoke before pointing to the hallway opposite of the one that Steve walked in from. “Over there, talking some poor person’s ear off.”

The Captain glanced to where Stark had pointed and sighed at the scene in front of him. There his girl was, standing with her phone to her ear and the other hand on her hip. She was pacing around restlessly, and the look on her face was one of pure annoyance.

Steve slowly walked closer, not wanting to scare her, and placed both of his hands on her shoulders lightly. “Y/N, baby?”

“Ya, ya, just give me a second, Steve.” She continued with her call. “Now this is where I’m confused, Miss Jessica. You told me that they could be ready by July 18th. It is only January the 10th. Why do you need six whole months to make 80 personalized jewellery boxes?”

Steve raised his eyebrows, turning to the team with a ‘help me’ look.

“80 women is not that many!” Y/N continued, completely ignoring him. “What do you mean that you have ‘too many customers’? I ordered first, did I not?” She continued to walk back and forth in the corridor, as the rest of her friends ate their meal. “Well then you know what? I might just have to contact another company and get them to do this task for me, since you obviously can’t. Good day, ma’am.” The girl hung up her cellphone before shoving it in her pocket and running a hand down her face. “Shit.”

“You okay, darling?” Steve asked concernedly.

“I’m pissed off, that’s what I am.” She marched over to the dinner table and sat down in her respective spot; Steve taking his own to the right of her. “Pass me the chicken, please.”

Rhodes then held the dish out in front of her, watching as she angrily placed the chicken parmesan on her plate and messily cut it up.

“Thanks.” She puffed before just ultimately giving up on her food, slouching back in her chair.

“Sweetie, do you want to talk about what happened?” Natasha spoke up, something that the rest of the table was too scared to do. Nobody wanted to get yelled at.

“Well,” Y/N chuckled dryly, “remember those little jewellery boxes that we were looking at together? The ones that we can get engraved with everybody’s first name on them?”

Natasha, Pepper, and Maria nodded, having been there when Y/N was picking them out.

“Apparently the lady can’t make 80 of them in time for the bridal shower.” The passed off girl continued. “So either we reschedule it, or get something else.” She shook her head in frustration, absentmindedly balling her hands into fists.

“I’ll just get some Stark Industries workers to make them.” Tony said through a mouth full of food. “Problem solved.”

“Wait,” a look of pure bliss made it’s way on to Y/N’s previously mad face, “are you serious? They can do that for me?”

The billionaire just shrugged like it was no big deal. “They’re electrical and mechanical engineers. I’m pretty sure that they can handle a little woodshop.”

“Oh my goodness, thank you!” Y/N jumped up from her seat and ran around the table, giving Tony a big hug as he was still in his seat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, suddenly feeling so much happier than she was before.

“Woah.” Clint chuckled. “Talk about a mood swing. Guess that it’s somebody’s time of the month.”

The whole room went silent.

“What did you just say to me?” Y/N asked slowly while nobody else in the room even dared to make a sound.

“I-It was just a joke.” Clint told her. “M’sorry, N/N.”

“It’s not my time of the month, okay? I’m just really stressed.” The girl explained, wrapping her arms around herself in embarrassment.

“We know, love.” Steve assured with a small smile. “Are you going to sit down and eat now, or am I ‘gonna have to airplane the food into your mouth?” He joked, but he could tell that Y/N was not in the mood.

“Actually, I guess that I’m going to have to take care of my ‘time of the month’.” She said with air quotes. “Have a nice night.” And with that she stormed out of the dinning room, leaving an awkward silence in her wake.

“Not pointing any fingers,” Maria spoke up after a long minute, “but that was totally your fault, Clint.”

“Babydoll?”

A voice broke Y/N out of her wedding day trance, making her turn towards the raspy sound.

“Steve? What we you doing awake?”

The man stood against the wall in a t-shirt, hoodie, and sweatpants; a typical pyjama set for a cold February night. The outfit made him look every bit like a big snuggly teddy bear, and Y/N would usually just want to cuddle into his chest, but right now she was too preoccupied.

“I reached out for you, but all that I was met with was cold sheets.” Steve told her, a frown very much evident on his handsome face. “But the real question is, what are you doing awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged before turning back to her bouquet arrangement website.

“Hm, I see.” The man nodded, walking over to join her on their floor’s couch. “Actually, uh, before I realized that you were gone, I was having a dream.”

“Cool.” Y/N said, not even sparing him a glance. “What about?”

“Well,” Steve cocked his head, trying to put on his sexiest voice, “not much, not much. Just me fucking you so hard that you can’t even walk tomorrow.”

The girl didn’t even flinch. “Nice.”

“Ya.” He sighed, trying to get her to show any kind of emotion. Ever since they had gotten engaged, Y/N has been acting way differently. Steve was determined to break her out of this shell. “Did I ever tell you how much I like your new haircut, baby?”

“Yup.” She replied. “Multiple times.”

“Well, it’s very pretty.” He added.

Y/N continued to scroll through her website, making little check marks on her clipboard every now and then. “It’s just a couple of inches off the bottom.”

Steve smirked. “You know, if you come back to bed with me, I can be more than just a couple of inches into your bottom.”

The girl rolled her eyes and shook her head, beginning to get really annoyed with him. “Don’t even need anal right now, Steve. You’re already being a pain in my ass.”

“Wow.” He lightly chuckled, still attempting to turn on the charm. “What’s with the snarky attitude, baby girl? Do I need to take you over my knee again?”

“For the love of God, no, Steve.” Y/N fumed as she stood up from her seat, finally having enough of this. “Do you know what you need to do? What you need to do is go back to bed and leave me alone!”

Steve gulped at her coldness. This was Y/N, his girl. Within the two years and nine months that she had known him, she had never talked to him like that. Ever.

“I-I oh, goodness, Steve. I’m sorry, honey.” She saw water in his eyes and began to cry as well, all of the stress from last several months finally releasing itself. “So sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

The man stood up too and wrapped his thick arms around his fiancée, slowly bringing her closer to his warm chest. “It’s okay, doll.”

“No, no, it’s not okay.” Y/N began to sob while her hands grasped onto Steve’s muscular body, never ever wanting to let go. “You don’t deserve to be tr-tr-treated like that.” She sniffled.

“No, N/N, it’s fine. You’re so good to me, sweetheart.” He insisted, soothingly rubbing the expanse of her back with his hands.

“You’re so good to me.” Y/N told him, taking her face out of his chest and looking him in the eye. “All of you are. I-I’ve been so horrible lately. I yelled at Tony, Nat, Bruce, Pepper, Clint, Maria, Rhodes, my cousin, my mom, my other cousin, those three guys in the mail room that accidentally sent my package to the wrong floor, and now you. I’ve been a complete bitch.”

“Hey, no. I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself that again.” Steve shook his head. “You’ve just been under a lot of pressure lately.”

“It doesn’t excuse my actions.” She said before wiping her face of any leftover tears. “You guys are always under a lot of pressure, and you never take it out on other people.”

“No, I just take it out on Tony’s punching bags.” The man said, making Y/N’s lips quirk up just the slightest bit. “Is that a smile I see?”

The girl bit her lip sheepishly. “Maybe.”

“Think that I can give you another one?” Steve raised an eyebrow, a plotting look taking over his face. “I think that I can.” His hands slowly made their way down her sides, fingertips ghosting over the dip of her waist. “Maybe with just a little…”

“Stevie-Ah!” Y/N began to giggle at the feel of him tickling her. “O-O-Oh my god, Ste-e-e-eve! Sto-Stop it!” Her giggles soon turned into cackles, and she was squatted so low in hopes to get away, that her back was almost touching the carpet.

“See, there’s my girl.” The Captain beamed, finally finished with his attack. “You promise to stay happy now?”

Y/N nodded, still out of breath. “Only if you help me get off the floor.”

“Whatever you say, N/N.” And with that he scooped her off of the floor, beginning to carry her into their bedroom bridal style.

“Honey.” The girl said with a laugh.

“What?” Steve shrugged. “I’m just practicing for our wedding night.”

Y/N snuggled further into his body, tucking her face into the crook of his neck. “M’kay.”

“Looks like somebody is tired after all.” He pointed out, settling her on their shared bed and pulling the covers up over her body.

“I guess so.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Steve spoke, walking around to the other side and getting underneath the covers as well, “right now, we’ll go to sleep. But first thing tomorrow, you and I are hiring a wedding planner.”

Y/N was too fast asleep to even hear him, her dreams filled not with the wedding itself, but with the man that she was sharing it with.

And oh what a wonderful dream it was; not one bridal magazine in sight.

Next Chapter

Feedback is always welcome!❤️

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #chris evans x reader #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america x reader #steve rogers #captain america #chris evans #captain america x you #chris evans x you #captain america x y/n #chris evans x y/n #avengers x reader

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the-god-of-nihon · 5 years

Text

Writing Idea: It’s called an AU pt3

Future Jaune has a sit-down with team RWBY, and lets Ruby take his arm apart. Also angsty backstory.

_______________________________________________________________________

When the elevator finally dinged to a stop, and the doors slid open, Jaune found himself ‘face-to-face’ with the one, Ruby Rose. Or at least as face-to-face as they could get given the large height difference.

“Jaune! I heard from Nora you have a prosthetic arm, can I see it? Please? Please? Please?” Ruby excitedly entered Jaune’s personal space, moving to his left side when her eyes fell onto the metal limb.

“Whoa, whoa~ Ruby how bout we go to your dorm room, we can talk a bit and you can inspect it at your own leisure, how’s that sound?” Jaune laughed at her excitement, and suggested to keep from getting in anyone’s way or clog up elevator traffic.

The two walked to Team RWBY’s room, Ruby all the while sending glances at the arm, and asking Jaune about it. As they entered, the creak of the door drew the attention of 4 pairs of eyes. Blake on her bed eyes peering over the top rim of a book, Yang on her bunk holding Zwei in the air, whom also turned to the two new occupants, and Weiss at her desk seemingly working away at some homework.

“Like I said Ruby I don’t really know the specifics, I didn’t build the thing,” Jaune lifts his metal arm into view, and flexes its mechanical digits. The three other members of Team RWBY turned their attention to it, albeit for different reasons. “I pretty much just threw it at some poor guy, and told him to stick it on me,” he takes seat on the carpeted floor, Ruby taking a spot to his left side.

“Do you know who did?” Ruby asked eyes wide with curiosity, “from the way you describe it, you didn’t custom order it, and the design doesn’t match any existing prosthetics.”

“Well you did Ruby,” Jaune smiled as she balked, and sputtered, “you started getting into designing mecha-shifting prosthetics with weapons built into them, and this was one of the prototypes.”

“I-I did?” Ruby looked at the arm again as if she hadn’t seen it before, “I made this?”

“Yup,” Jaune nodded offering it to her, “nuts, bolts and all. This one in particular has a simple cannon in the forearm that fires dust from canisters loaded in the upper arm.” Jaune taps the metal shoulder plate with a faint etching of a rose on the surface.

“A canon?” Ruby tilted her head quizzically, “that’s it? Seems kind of simple.”

“Like I said, it was just a prototype, you had plenty of blue prints for more complicated works, with tons of bells and whistles waiting in the wings.” Jaune indicates a massive stack of papers with his hand, “This was more of a trial run to work out a basic template for more advanced pieces.”

”Can I take it apart?” Ruby said quickly as she bounced on the floor, “I can do some maintenance, and clean it!.”

“Nobody I’d trust more with it,” Jaune exhales contently and leaned back against a bedpost. Jaune watched her grab her tool kit, and lifting his shirt as she moved to his shoulder, to un-latch it. The metal mounting grafted onto his body, and the insertion slot where the prosthetic connected to his body were on full display, which was clearly a rush job with little care as to the adverse effects it could have had on the body taken into consideration.

As Ruby is going about removing Jaune’s artificial arm, Yang who had been watching the exchange with Weiss, and Blake, speaks up, “hey Jaune if it’s no trouble, how did you lose your arm?” Weiss and Blake both called out Yang’s name as if to admonish her for being insensitive.

“Yeah sure,” Jaune’s casual response had Blake and Weiss’s eyes the size of dinner plates, while Yang lay on her bed, kicking her feet playfully. “Ruby cut it off.” Yang and Ruby joined them in their shock, the newly removed mechanical arm slipped out of Ruby’s grasp before it hit the ground.

“I-I what?” Ruby was terrified at the prospect of attacking one of her friends with intent to harm. Yang, Blake, and Weiss all found the idea of their sweet little leader dismembering a person a shocking image.

“Hey guys it’s not that big a deal, losing limbs in our line of work is pretty common,” Jaune attempted to lighten the mood, and bring the girls out of their shock, “in my world, even Yang lost part of her arm early in her career.”

Yang recoiled as if shot, squeezing Zwei into her chest, “I do?” The eyes of the three other girls now on her, Yang looked down at her arms imagining having one less limb.

“Your right arm gets cut off a little above the elbow,” Jaune points to Yang’s right arm, “it happened during the Fall of Beacon, you never told me how.” Yang’s hand goes to her right bicep, she breaks from looking at Jaune to stare at her hand, while he continues but grows quieter as he goes on, “and I mean, I would have died if she hadn’t . . . Although that might have been for the best.”

“Why do you say that?” Ruby, sweet sweet Ruby, asks quietly looking up at Jaune where she had been close enough to hear the last part of his sentence.

Jaune promptly ignored Ruby’s question and beamed a smile around the room, “y’know what, how about we talk about something else. You wanna hear about your older selves in my world?”

“Yeah . . . Yeah, that sounds good,” Yang replied still a bit out of it, while Blake nodded her head, and Ruby appeared a bit indignant.

“I suppose I’m interested,” Weiss added changing her seating position to face Jaune better, “and if there is no chance of the universe imploding if you tell us, then no harm done.”

“I thought we didn’t have any proof of that,” Blake quips, aiming an amused expression at Weiss, to which she sits looks directly in front of her ignoring her teammates jab.

“Alright so Weiss, you’re the manager of general affairs, and the De Facto leader of humanity’s last stronghold, Amity Base.” Jaune smiles at her, “if something happens there you know about it, and what’s left of humanity would be at a loss without you.”

“What’s this Amity Base thing you mentioned?” Blake moved a bit closer atop her bed leaning towards the conversation.

“Basically the last safe place anybody has since the Kingdoms collapsed,” Jaune looks up and yet again finds his friends in shock, “oh right, I didn’t mention that did I? Uh, all the kingdoms and society as we knew it was destroyed. Now the only civilization outside of traveling villages is Amity Coliseum turned into a mobile operating base, and refugee center.”

“Everything just ended? Nobody stopped it?” Blake moved down to the floor next to Jaune.

“Oh believe me, a lot of people tried. We tried, and we failed.” Jaune watched Ruby tinker with his arm in silence for a moment, “in the end the best we can do is pick up the pieces, and try to live the best we can.”

“Is that really all?” Weiss asked quietly, not really expecting an answer.

“I dunno, but I know you three are doing whatever you can to make the best future for everyone.” Jaune offered a comforting smile to her; similar to the silly grin his younger self would give.

“ Searching for survivors or people in need, tracking enemy movements, looking for resources and making sure areas are safe,” Jaune turns to Blake, “that’s what makes Blake invaluable to Amity as well. She leads the scouting teams, which are pretty much responsible for the livelihood of the people.” Jaune turns his head upwards to look at the blonde brawler splayed out on her bed looking down at her them, “and finally Yang, the frontline commander. She leads all the Hunters, keeps the peace among the citizens, and protects Amity and its people from creatures of grimm and bandits alike.”

Yang seemed pleased, self-satisfied grin spreading across her face before it drooped a bit, “hey what about your team and you?”

“Yes, you never mentioned yourself,” Weiss reinforced, “what do you do?”

“Ah, well . . .” Jaune averted his eyes to avoid the gaze of all the girls, “I don’t do anything to aid Amity, I haven’t been back there in ten years.” “I basically just wander around the wilderness searching for things, if I find any people I send them back to Amity.”

“Why?” Blake raised an eyebrow, “why have you been gone for ten years, I mean?”

“ . . . Ten years ago we had a falling out, and I left because it was easier,” Jaune’s scratched his head, “and even after ten years I just don’t think I’m ready to go back.”

“That’s it?” Yang seemed perturbed, “just because you don’t want to?”

“Well I don’t think you three would want to see me either,” Jaune responded lightly, “the reason behind my departure wasn’t something easily forgiven or forgotten.”

“Well you at least had your team right?” Yang cheered, “So you at least your not alone.”

“Ren and Nora died around ten years ago,” Jaune rubbed his eyes keeping back the moisture building, “Pyrrha almost ten years before that.”

“No . . .That can’t be,” Ruby scuttled over to Jaune, taking his hand, “is that really true?”

“I’d never make up a lie like that, not in my wildest dreams,” the older man patted the girl’s head, as her team watched on the reality of his words setting in.

“Ten, and then twenty. . ,” Weiss mulled the words around in her mind, “wait how old are you Jaune?”

“Getting up there now,” Jaune took his attention away from the tiny girl attempting to comfort him, “I think I’m a little under forty now, uh thirty-seven or eight, I think.”

Weiss worked the math out in a second, “then that means you lost Ren & Nora when you were twenty-seven . . .”

Blake not far behind continued the thought, “and Pyrrha died when you were in your first year at Beacon.”

“The Vytal Festival . . .” Yang said with finality, expression stormy.

Ruby shuffled uncomfortably, “um, it’s kind of selfish, but I noticed you didn’t mention me at all. Are we not friends in your world?”

“Oh . . . Ruby, no no, you were my best-friend for the longest time. I wouldn’t have been able to keep going without you,” Jaune bit his lip, pulling her into a gently hug. “It’s just a bit of a sore spot.”

“You said you had a falling out with Blake, Yang and I, but you left out Ruby,” Weiss held her arms close to her body. She had a suspicion of the reason, but she did not like it.

Blake and Yang seemed to come to similar conclusions, faces growing grim as they watched their young leader pester the older man.

“Uh Ruby, please,” Jaune held his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the face, “I need you to understand that my world and this world are separate, and in no way the events that transpired in mine, has any bearing on what may happen in yours. Do you understand.”

“Uh. . . yes, I think so.”

Jaune exhaled, for the first time recalling something seemed to tax him, “you died ten years ago, in the same battle that took Ren & Nora’s lives.” His words hit RWBY like a truck, everything up to this point had affected them in one way or another, but suddenly what he said seemed very real. “You saved my life, but it cost you your own.”

“Is that what lead to the falling out?” Weiss spoke connecting the dots the quickest.

“And you’ve been alone for ten years, and refuse to talk to us because of it?”

“But why? It wasn’t your fault,” Yang growled, “that’s stupid.”

“It’s easy to say that, but when it actually happens it’s another matter,” Jaune looked Yang in the eyes, but they only held regret, “I cost your team its leader, and all of you a friend, and you, your sister, Yang. They had, and still have every right to blame me.”

“Jaune you can’t blame yourself, I-She did it because she wanted to.” Ruby looked afraid, and shaken, but she cupped Jaune’s face as she sat eye-to-eye with him, “like you said these sorts of things are just part of the job.”

“I know . . . I’ve had plenty of time to let it eat away at me, and I know full well wasting away in self-pity doesn’t help anyone.” Jaune took her hands, and held them in his own, “but that doesn’t mean I can shirk responsibility, yo- she died because of me that’s a fact. I have to live with that, and I will. Alone or otherwise.”

“No,” Yang spoke up jumping down from her bunk, “That’s bull! Yang Xiao Long doesn’t just abandon her friends!”

Weiss stepped up next to her, “I concur, regardless of the reason leaving a comrade in such a state is hardly respectable behavior.”

“Indeed,” Blake followed suit arms crossed, but expression comforting, “at the very least, you’d probably be more help back on Amity.”

“Thanks girls,” Jaune stood to face them, as he smiled fondly, “regardless of how it turns out, you’ve given me a bit of courage.”

Yang grabbed Jaune by the collar of his shirt, and pulled him down to her height, “how ever you get back to your world, once you are, you’re gonna march back to Amity or whatever, and talk to us! You got that? No more lone wanderer bull anymore, or I’ll come beat your ass through sheer power of will.”

Jaune stood hunched over looking a girl twenty years his junior in the face as she bereted him, the image made a chuckle rise from his chest into his throat. He pulled his face away standing to his full height, and threw his head back in laughter. “ I love you girls. I really do,” his response was filled with mirth and chuckles, facing the four again wiping tears from his eyes.

A light blush spread through each of the girls’ faces, Yang released his shirt and managed to get out retort, “Y-yeah, that’ll teach you.”

Jaune reached his hand up to pat Yang on the head, and assured her happily, “Yeah, when I get back I’ll talk to you all, Arc’s word.”

Swatting at his hand in response, Yang’s abashed expression betrayed any sense of anger she might have been trying to convey.

#RWBY #JNPR #Roosterteeth #Jaune Arc #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Yang Xiao Long #Blake Belladonna

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sun-summoning · 5 years

Note

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering what happened to the fic the grad fad? I loved it but I can't seem to find it on FF. Thank you! :)

you know what i read this and had a moment of “wtf is the grad fad” followed by “it sounds SO FAMILIAR” then i looked through stuff on my computer and found a doc with that title that was last updated in 2013 and thought “oh god that’s when i graduated university wtf was this fic about???” i assume i deleted it off ffn back in the day bc i knew i’d never finish it.

anyway here’s all that i found:

Note: This is my last year of university and I’m actually quite sad, so this is mostly for my lawlz. But I promise I will have a plot.Warning(s): AU, going by my own university’s calendar Pairings: SasuSaku, NaruInoDisclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

SEPTEMBERi need a place to live

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura needed a home.

She was luckier than most people with her parents living just an hour and a half’s commute away from Konoha University, but she would rather pay rent every month than go through the two trains and two buses and twenty minute walk she spent her entire freshman year dealing with. She spent her second and third years living with Tenten, but that recently-graduated, totally lame, Judas loser decided to take the Next Step in her Relationship and Move In with her boyfriend, hence Sakura’s problem.

Sakura was homeless. Sort of.

Karin only raised an eyebrow at her before eyeing her one-bedroom apartment. There was a solarium, yes, but those doors were see-through and offered no privacy. “Seriously?”

But Sakura would not be moved. She nodded eagerly. “Honestly, I’d be down for a closet. Please? Lend me that room?”

“Fine.”

And so that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

It worked well enough, Sakura supposed. At the beginning, that is, when Sakura was still enjoying the remaining bits of frosh week and the constant keggers going on. On the first week of class—when all that happened was syllabi-reading and maybe an introductory lab or two that Sakura didn’t need—there were Mojito Mondays and Because I Freaking Feel Like it Tuesdays to go along with the traditional Thirsty Thursdays. For the first week of class, Sakura mostly came home to her glass room at Karin’s home in a lovely state of drunk or delirious.

But then she started coming home sober.

Second week struck and so did its readings upon readings upon readings. Sakura scrambled from the KU Bookstore to the shop for cheaper used books a few blocks away from the university where all the hipsters lived. She would then go to the printing press on the other side of the city for that course pack, and then to another printing press on the other side of the city for another course pack. Then she would settle down in the library with a chai tea latte and lemon poppy seed muffin and shut off her phone and get her readings done.

(Not that anyone was texting her, of course. Ino was basically ignoring the world and Naruto still felt like it was move-in time and Sakura knew for a fact he had a keg at his house and Sasuke and her basically didn’t talk unless they were forced to.)

In her second week of September, Sakura would come home extremely late, with aching shoulders and arms full of books.

In her second week of September, all Sakura would want to come home to was a cozy bed and ugly bunny slippers and Netflix. Instead, she came home to Karin’s bra on the sneakers Sakura left by the door and the beautifully permanent sight of Karin and Shikamaru doing the deed on the couch.

Sakura just sighed. “Guys, like, I eat my breakfast on that couch!”

They barely noticed her before Karin let out a squeak and they casually moved their canoodling over to her bedroom.

“Seriously?!” Sakura yelled, dropping her book bag and mourning the sight of the beloved Lazy Boy, forever tainted by Shikamaru’s naked ass, cute as it may have been.

Sakura plopped down on the carpet, sitting right in front of the recliner.

This wasn’t going to work.

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura twitched when she got no response. Ino had been like this all summer. She was in I’m-taking-my-LSAT-therefore-nothing-exists-but-these-LSAT-notes mode and essentially drowning everyone and everything. There was no time for double fisting the red sangria and the white sangria at Red Room after a long day of class, nor was there time to listen to Sakura propose potential research paper topics. Ino had quit her job and her social life in favour of studying, studying, studying.

“Ino?”

Ino had a pretty swanky place, actually – for a studio apartment, that is. But it was surprisingly large for a kitchen-living-room-bedroom hybrid monster. It even had a balcony!

“Yo! Blondie!”

Finally, Ino looked up. “What was that, Sakura?”

Sakura pouted.

They were at the coffee shop near the Bio labs on the west end of campus. Ino had only agreed to Sakura’s invitation when Sakura offered to buy her sleepless friend some coffee. Apparently the implied “you’ll have to listen to me when I speak” part of that deal went unnoticed, however. Great.

“Can I live with you?” Sakura repeated.

Ino didn’t miss a beat. “No.”

“What?” Sakura couldn’t help it. Her jaw literally dropped. She was ready to prepare some grand speech about friendship and bonds and love and all that jazz that Naruto would have been super proud of, but Ino waved her hand – granted, she looked more like she was trying to swat away some irritating bug.

“Sakura,” she said flatly, “consider the size of my apartment.”

“It’s fun-sized,” Sakura reasoned. “Super fun-sized.”

“No.”

“But I’m homeless!”

“You live like an hour away—”

“AND A HALF.”

“—you’ll manage.”

“But I’m homeless!” Sakura repeated pathetically, hoping that if she pouted Ino might have been moved.

But that was not the case. Ino’s eyes were already back on her binder of notes for her LSAT studying. “Nope.”

“You’re a heartless, wretched beast,” Sakura said. She gathered her things and made sure to grab the caramel macchiato she spent a grand four dollars on for some traitor. She stuck her tongue out when Ino let out an indignant cry for having her coffee stolen. “Sorry, I don’t buy drinks for jerks!”

“Just commute, you lazy baby!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

“Can I live with you?”

Naruto didn’t look even remotely surprised to see Sakura on his front porch with a bright pink gym bag full of her clothes and a backpack that looked ready to burst at the seams. And he didn’t even want to think about how heavy that other bag pulling at her left arm was, considering all the textbooks sticking out of it.

Like the good friend he was, Naruto grabbed the bag of books and the bag of clothes.

“Come on,” he said, moving to the side so she could enter the house.

“You’re the best, Naruto!”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Sakura had been to Naruto’s place many times. It was a house in the so-called “student ghetto” just off of campus with an open-concept main floor and a fair number of bedrooms. If Sakura remembered correctly, Naruto had the big room in the basement, Suigetsu called dibs on the attic, and Sasuke and Shikamaru had rooms on the second-level. But now that Neji had moved in with Tenten—

“Am I getting Neji’s old room?” Sakura asked.

Naruto nodded, guiding her up the stairs even though she already knew where to go. “Yeah, I figured you’d be here eventually.”

“What?” Sakura felt tears spring in her eyes. She couldn’t help it. She was tired and stressed and her shoulders were killing her. “You saved a room for me?” She was in awe of how sweet he was.

But Naruto just shrugged and looked away. Sakura saw the way his cheeks reddened though. “It’s not a big deal. We just didn’t bother looking for another guy. I had a feeling things wouldn’t work out at Karin’s when Shikamaru basically stopped coming home all of first week…”

Sakura still tackled him into a hug, forcing him to drop her bags. She pulled away and smiled. “You are literally the best, did you know that?”

He grinned back. “Obviously.” But a thought came to mind and his smile waned. “Um… there’s just one thing…”

“Yeah?” Sakura was too busy marvelling at the fact that her new room came with walls (and a bed and drawers and a closet and even a calendar) to notice his frown. “Don’t worry about rent. I got my job at the registrar’s office again so I’m good.”

“It’s not that.”

Sakura finally looked at him. “What is it?” She suddenly looked equally as frantic. “Oh.”

“Are you okay with living with your ex?”

“Obvously.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“I figured.”

“Meh.” Sakura shrugged. She took her bag from Naruto and opened it up to beginning the process of moving in all over again. “I’m kind of homeless, so I’ll make due. And you know how I am during school. I basically just live at campus during the year.”

Naruto laughed and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “we just have one more year of this crap, right?”

Sakura glanced at the calendar and nodded.

“Just one more year.”

OCTOBERi need reference letters

So it was October.

October came to mean a lot of things to Naruto: midterms, essays, Thanksgiving a.k.a. Turkey Day, pumpkin spice everything, breaking out the awesome orange scarf Sakura knitted for him years ago, pretty leaves, and so much more.

Now the boys didn’t usually maintain their house unless someone was coming to visit. Fine, the tiny front lawn would see a mowing every other week or so, and the backyard was only managed if there was going to be a party. And then the inside was divided that every man would take care of his own place, the kitchen would always be cleaned by whoever made whatever mess, and the bathroom would go through a weekly cycle of sorts. But things like the broom and the vacuum were only broken out for special occasions.

“Guys!”

In the living room, Sakura was sketching silly outfits on the bare bodies in her anatomy textbook in lieu of studying, while Naruto made his own efforts to procrastinate pretty obvious as he made a tower of all the novels and plays and poetry anthologies he had to read for the semester. So far, his stack was balancing at a rather noteworthy twenty-two. Shikamaru, on the other hand, was making paper balls with his notes and throwing them at Naruto’s tower.

They all looked up at Suigetsu’s frantic shout.

“What is it?” Sakura asked. She had the grace to look annoyed by the interruption to her ‘hard work.’

“Sasuke’s mom is here!”

Immediately, Naruto and Shikamaru rose, their eyes wide and their arms near flailing. Sakura raised an eyebrow when Naruto shrieked. His book tower had fallen over when he stood up so fast.

“Clean that up!” Suigetsu yelled, pointing.

Naruto anxiously did so by pushing all of the books under the couch. At the same time, Shikamaru was taking all the randomly strewn about mugs and plates and – oh god – beer bottles and hiding them in the video game drawer. Suigetsu was keeping a careful eye on the driveway from the window by the stairs.

Sakura could only frown. “What are you guys doing?”

“Sasuke’s mom is here,” Shikamaru pointed out.

Sakura looked at the boys like they were idiots and, for the most part, they returned the look. Suigetsu finally sighed. “Sakura, have you ever seen Sasuke’s mom?”

“Yes,” she said. “In fact, I—”

Naruto shushed her. “Sakura, haven’t you heard? Sasuke’s mom has got it going on!”

Sakura did not look amused, but that didn’t stop Naruto and the other boys from opening the door and yelling their hellos. They all ignored Sasuke’s knowing glare as they took his bags from him and all warmly greeted the lovely Mikoto Uchiha. They exchanged pleasantries and thanked Mikoto wholeheartedly when she graced them with a whole turkey for the house – her little Thanksgiving present to them.

“Oh, Mrs. Uchiha, you didn’t have to do that,” Suigetsu told her sweetly.

But the older woman just smiled and waved the matter off. “Oh, but you boys need to be properly fed!”

Sakura could only pray she had that kind of decency when she was older and sending her son off to live with his fellow cavemen. Sakura eyed Mikoto Uchiha’s beautiful cashmere sweater and her form fitting skirt and could actually kind of understand why her friends were all salivating like dogs. She suddenly felt incredibly insecure in her yoga pants and the sweater she ninety percent belonged to Shikamaru. God, she was such a mess, Sakura realized. At least she wasn’t wearing her UGGs…

Dammit.

“Sakura Haruno, is that you!”

Sakura blinked. “Huh?”

Finally, the boys got out of the way and Mikoto rushed over and hugged her. “Oh, darling!” Mikoto let go enough to look Sakura over and frown disapprovingly. “You’ve lost weight!” she pointed out gravely. “Why haven’t you been eating, missy? This better not be over some stupid boy, because let me tell you—”

Sakura flushed. “Nope!” she interrupted. “I just…” Sakura laughed awkwardly and took a step away from Mikoto. “I just, um, have been busy and haven’t really been sleeping properly…”

Mikoto immediately turned around to face the boys. “And why haven’t you all been making sure Sakura is eating correctly? Hm? Shikamaru? You’re the responsible one!”

Shikamaru froze for a moment with the attention on him. “Um.” He chuckled. “Well, I haven’t really been around either, Mrs. Uchiha. But I’ll definitely make sure our little Sakura eats three square meals a day.”

“Yes, you better!” Mikoto took her turkey out of Naruto’s hands and deposited it into Sakura’s despite the blond’s protests. She winked at Sakura. “Eat up, sweetie.”

Sakura smiled. “Thank you.”

Mikoto gave her son one last kiss on the cheek before saying her goodbyes to everyone. When she was finally gone, Naruto let out a low whistle and made some flattering but inappropriate comment that led to Sasuke punching him in the stomach and stomping away. Still wincing, Naruto hurriedly stole the turkey away from Sakura and brought it to the kitchen.

That was one last thing October meant to Naruto: Mikoto Uchiha sending over a whole turkey for their little house of broke students.

But the gesture of turkey-giving didn’t arouse the same happy feelings in Sakura. As Suigetsu thoughtfully took a bag of Sasuke’s on his way upstairs, Shikamaru volunteered to walk Mikoto to her car, and Naruto took the turkey for some “alone time,” Sakura went back to her anatomy textbook and suddenly felt incredibly lonely.

Sakura had spent Thanksgiving dinner with the Uchiha family once, back when she and Sasuke were still together. She got along with them all to the point that Mikoto would literally text Sakura at least every other day just to make sure she was okay or to talk. Ino thought that was weird, but Sakura justified things with that Ino had never been in a real relationship – not one that included bonding with your partner’s parent. And when Sasuke dumped Sakura, Mikoto immediately asked Sakura if she was okay. But Sakura soon began to distance herself from the woman, mostly out of propriety, and seeing her in person today made her feel horrible.

Sighing, Sakura picked up her mug of sangria and whined when she realized it was empty. She grudgingly went to the kitchen and took the bottle out of the fridge. After a moment of consideration, she decided to learn from past mistakes and drink from the bottle and skip the mug.

“Well done,” she told herself after a sip.

“Sakura, it’s ten in the morning.”

She joked and spun around. Sasuke was leaning against the counter with a cup of tea and judgemental frown.

“Um.” Sakura lowered the bottle and reconsidered her mug. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

He then took an economics textbook out of his backpack and went over to the couch, sitting beside her scrawled dresses and flower hats. She cringed, but he didn’t seem to notice her doodles. Sakura slowly made her way back to her book and sat as close to the edge as she could, at this point gulping down the sangria.

Seriously? Sakura thought. That was how he wanted to go about things? He wanted to ignore what happened three weeks ago that essentially set the shroud of awkward that hung over them whenever they saw each other in the kitchen or the hall or the living room?! What the actual fu—

Ugh.

When the silence became too much for her to concentrate in, she turned to Sasuke and found him already looking at her.

“How was your break?” she asked. Granted, KU didn’t really offer a “break” so much as one single day.

“Good.”

“What did you do?”

“Helped my mom cook,” Sasuke said.

Sakura grinned. “Since when do you cook?”

“Excuse you, but if I recall correctly, I’m not the one who set off the smoke alarm from boiling water.” Her eyes widened and he smirked.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME!” Still blushing, she kicked him, but he only grabbed her ankle to steady her. “Hmph. Well, what did you cook?”

“Mashed potatoes.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s just such a feat. Look at you Top Chef Wonder.” She giggled at her own not particularly funny joke and told herself it was way too early in the day to already be tipsy. But from what she could remember, Sasuke actually was a great cook. “Is that all you made?” she continued.

“I made a pie, too, actually,” he said. Then he pushed her leg off his lap and went back to the kitchen. The bounce of her foot on the cushion was what made her realize the Sasuke had actually been drawing nonsensical things on her calf andandand—

No. No, she told herself. This. Is not. Allowed.

Finally, he came back with a Tupperware and a fork, handing them to her.

“What is this?” she asked, drawing her legs in and sitting up straight.

“Pie.”

“Huh?”

“Pie,” he repeated. “I made pumpkin pie. It’s Itachi’s favourite and I remembered that it’s yours too so I brought a slice back for you.” Sasuke shrugged and all but buried himself in his economics textbook.

Sakura smiled at the gesture. “Thank you,” she mumbled, poking at the pie.

He glanced at her but saw her focused on the dessert. “You’re welcome,” he replied into his book.

And after finishing the slice, Sakura picked up her own book. The two sat on the couch for a few hours simply reading in a comfortable silence.

October also came to mean sucking up. October meant heading over to office hours (even the ones that started at 9AM) and making an impression and getting on your professor’s good side so that at the end of the semester, when they were determining Naruto’s participation grade, they would remember his bright hair and bright clothes at each and every lecture.

But this year, their final year, meant going to office hours would no longer just be about proposing separate essay topics or clarifying anything said in class.

This year meant reference letters.

Reference letters for grad school.

But those also meant office hours, which, with Naruto’s luck, meant 9AM with Dr. Kakashi Hatake – which actually kind of sort of meant 10AM considering the man was always late…

Still, that was early considering said hours were on a Friday.

“Let’s move, lazyass!”

“But I’m tired,” Naruto whined, lagging behind Sakura. “Can’t we just be death eaters?”

“No!”

“Or we can just be homeless,” he pointed out. They were on their way to the Humanities Building where Sakura was going solely as Naruto’s moral support while he asked for letters of recommendation. Naruto Uzumaki was going to graduate school, but… well, he was sort of too much of a wimp to approach his favourite professors alone. Likewise, Naruto may or may not have treated her to slash bribed her with a delicious lemon poppy seed muffin and chai tea latte for breakfast.

“I have worked too hard all these years to be homeless,” Sakura said between sips of her drink.

“Fine, not homeless, per se.” Nevertheless, Naruto continued along to the Humanities Building. He stopped the oblivious Sakura from walking into the doors, knowing that for whatever annoying reason, the automatic doors weren’t so automatic. He knew. He may or may not have walked into said doors before…

“Oh?”

“We can live in a box,” Naruto told her with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “Just ask for your letters, Naruto.”

“I don’t know what to say!” But they were already in the elevator.

“You say ‘Hey, Kakashi, I really want to come back to KU for another year to do more readings and write more papers and lead more seminars yada yada yada.’ He’ll love it.” The sad thing was that Sakura wasn’t joking. She’d had Dr. Hatake in her first-year “Literature for our Time” course with Naruto and from her own visits and talks with the man, she’d come to know what he was like.

And well… Naruto looked like he was considering.

“Do you honestly think that would work?”

“I have full faith.”

She genuinely did.

Sakura herself had been going with the more formal approach of: “Dr. Whatever, would you be willing to write me a positive letter recommendation for X Med School?” Most of her professors were very familiar with her and her study habits and her amazing work, so Sakura didn’t actually need to put the operative “positive” in her requests, but it didn’t hurt to stay safe.

But with a professor like Kakashi, things would work out fine for Naruto.

They stood outside of Kakashi’s office and Sakura gave Naruto a pat on the back. “Do you have any idea what you’d want to research though?”

Naruto nodded. “Gothic literature!” he told her eagerly, looking ready to actually tell her more. “I’d like to look at the late eighteenth century and then maybe at the revival of Gothic literature in contemporary times. I mean, Gothic work is just so prevalent nowadays and—”

“Don’t tell me this stuff,” Sakura interrupted. She pointed to Kakashi’s open door. “Tell him!”

“Oh, right…” Naruto laughed awkwardly. “Okay. I can do this.”

“You can do this.”

“I can!”

“You can!”

“…I CAN’T.”

Fed up, Sakura pushed him into Kakashi’s office.

“Okay, so that went better than expected.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “I told you.”

“Yeah, I know…” Naruto shrugged. “The entire asking-thing is just… nerve-wracking, I suppose.”

The two were at one of their favourite off campus haunts that served Sakura’s favourite sangria and made some of the greatest ramen Naruto had ever tasted. Sure, it was only noon, but it was never to early for wine and whining – at least, that was Sakura’s philosophy. And well, it had served her well for the past three years so…

Besides, it was Friday. Why not get nice and day drunk?

“So what schools are you applying to?” she asked Naruto.

“KU, of course,” Naruto listed through a grimace. “But… I don’t think I’ll get in. KU is so evil, Sakura-chan!”

She nodded. “Oh, I know.” While completing an undergraduate degree at KU was a magical feat in their humble opinions, to complete one and be accepted into the university’s graduate programs would be hard considering the CGPAs most KU students usually escaped with. While Sakura knew she wouldn’t have any problems, she did know that Naruto might. “Where else?”

“Not sure.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “What? Naruto, don’t just apply to one grad school if you’re set on doing your Master’s!”

“You don’t think I can get in?”

Sakura sighed. “It’s not like that,” she said, “it’s just that these are competitive programs. You should at least apply to more than one. I mean, what would you do if you didn’t get into KU?”

“…become a death eater?”

“You are so—so—” She sighed again and finished off her sangria. She poured another glass and sipped on that. “You’re like Ino.”

“What? I don’t like Ino!”

“Huh?” Sakura laughed. “No, I said you’re like her, not that you like her. That’d be weird.” In her semi-drunken state that was starting to become Sakura’s default state, she missed the red on Naruto’s cheeks.

“Well, how is Ino, anyway? I haven’t seen we had that kegger in September.” Both of them cringed, remembering their own personal awkward mistakes from that night. Naruto made a face. “Yeah. Ino.”

But Sakura snorted. “Who’s Ino? Oh! Did you mean Ino, the girl who’s apparently my bestie?” Sakura looked a little bit bitter. Maybe she was. Maybe she’s been in dire need of a girlfriend for the past two months but Ino hasn’t really been that great of a friend. “Yeah, she’s studying. She basically won’t have any human contact aside from lectures until she takes her LSATs in December.”

“I see.” Naruto noticed the sad look on Sakura’s face and wasn’t sure if she wanted a serious attempt at comfort or some kind of joke. “Well…” Naruto shrugged. “At least she has plans?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said with a nod. “I guess I just miss her.”

“What law schools will she apply to?”

“I DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT!” Sakura yelled. Her face crumpled and she took a long swig of her drink. “I miss her, Naruto. I know I’m being irrational and that my period is probably coming—”

“Thank you.”

“—but I mean it’s like she just doesn’t care about anyone right now!” Sakura refilled her glass and finished that in one go. Naruto subtly ordered another pitcher and Sakura continued: “I mean, I’m not trying to be clingy. I get it. She has stuff to do. But like, I’m living with Sasuke! HOW HAS SHE NOT EVEN ASKED ME IF THAT IS REMOTELY OKAY?!”

“Huh?” Naruto blinked. “I thought you said that you were okay with that… Sort of.”

“I am!”

“What?” God. Why were women so confusing?!

“I don’t care about Sasuke, Naruto!” Sakura looked at him like he was the one acting crazy. “What I’m saying is that Ino—my Ino—would have texted me the first night asking if I reacquainted myself with Sasuke, followed by an unnecessary amount of wink-faces! Current Ino responds to my text messages days late and never wants to hang out. Like I’m not even allowed to go to the library with her because she thinks I’ll distract her!”

“…you kind of are a huge distraction.” Which she was. As surprising as it was, Sakura was actually the one between the two of them that could be found not working (but still, unfairly enough, maintaining a 4.0 CGPA, so like what the hell).

“NOT THE POINT.”

Their next pitcher arrived and Sakura’s face lit up. “I’m just sad, I guess,” she admitted forlornly. “Or tired. A bit of both.” She sighed and suddenly looked a bit bashful. “I’m sorry. I’ve been ranting all this time. How are you and Sasuke doing?”

Naruto levelled her with a flat stare. “You make us sound like a couple.”

“Aren’t you?”

“SAKURA-CHAN!”

She giggled and Naruto let her. Mocking his “bromance” with Sasuke was always something that could make Sakura smile so he let it go. But suddenly the smile fell and she adopted a serious look. A bad serious look.

“Hey!” she yelled, grabbing his hand on the table. “Are you single?”

Naruto felt very, very uncomfortable with her hand on his. “What?”

“I have this friend,” she clarified. “She’s seen you in a lot of my photos and has probably stalked you on every possible social network. She thinks you’re really good-looking. She’s a super sweet girl and I think the two of you would hit it off really well.”

“Are you…” The words felt weird coming out of his mouth. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“No. Maybe. Yes.”

“What?” Naruto laughed at the mere idea. “What’s her name?”

“Hinata Hyuuga. Really smart, really sweet, really pretty. You’d like her.” Sakura pulled out her phone and logged into her Facebook to find the girl’s profile. She was about to show Naruto a picture but he covered the phone and placed it face-down on the table. “What?”

“I trust your judgement.”

Sakura blinked, utterly astonished. “So… you’ll go on a date with her?”

Musing over all the nothing that had been going on his life as of late, Naruto nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go on a date with her.”

NOVEMBERi need to go to sleep

November was the worst. November was when you got back your midterms or assignments, cried, rechecked said midterms or assignments, cried again, and then drowned your sorrows in your alcoholic beverage of choice.

For Naruto that was beer.

And as Naruto whined over the grade he got on the paper he wrote the morning it was due, Sakura rubbed his back with one hand and scrolled through the Recently Added section of Netflix.

“It could be worse,” Sakura said.

“How could it have been worse?” Naruto asked her, his eyes still trained on the bolded 72 at the bottom of the page.

“Naruto, a 72 by KU standards is actually pretty damn good!”

“Oh, shut up Miss 4.0. Leave me alone. Leave me to wallow in my sorrow and beer. There is nothing left for me. Alas, woe is me!”

Sasuke, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as comforting. “Listen, dumbass. You passed. Passing is good, remember? You’re fine.”

“PASSING ISN’T ENOUGH FOR GRAD SCHOOL, SASUKE.”

He sat down beside Sakura, leaving her between the two boys. He handed her a mug of sangria and passed a brand new beer over to Naruto, letting him drink it between awkward whining noises that mimicked some sort of dying animal. Sakura looked ready to say some more words of consolation but Sasuke shook his head, signalling for her to stop. “Leave him be,” Sasuke said. “He’s always like this when he gets back a grade.”

“I know but…” Sakura glanced at Naruto. “He looks so pitiful.”

“I AM LITERALLY RIGHT BESIDE YOU, SAKURA-CHAN.” Naruto sat up straight, letting the blanket he’d wrapped himself in fall back a little. He stole the remote away from her and began to look through the files of movies and shows from Suigetsu’s hard drive that they had connected to the television. “My life is over.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Your life isn’t over.”

“It is.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“Listen, Princess,” Naruto hissed, now glaring at Sasuke. “Not all of us have names that all but grant entry into programs and internships and all those other pretty things.”

Sasuke took offence to that. “I still need to maintain a good GPA to get in, Naruto. My name isn’t everything.”

Naruto didn’t seem to have any proper response to go with that so he simply stood up, tightened his burrito of a blanket, and waddled away. He came back a few seconds later to grab his beer, but still gave Sasuke and Sakura one last look of contempt before leaving.

“Such a baby,” Sakura mumbled when he was gone.

---

ALRIGHT AND THAT IS WHERE IT ENDED. i did find this though. i assume it was supposed to be part of the november chapter, which i never finished:

“Oh,” she said, understanding his look of awkwardness. She rolled her eyes. “No, this isn’t a gift with some meaning behind it, Sasuke. I mean, you made me pie, remember? It’s not like it had some implied Sakura-you-goddess-please-take-my-unworthy-self-back between the bites, right?” When he failed to reply, Sakura only frowned before shrugging the matter off. “The point is, this is a gift for you from me, Sakura the Friend.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Friend?”

She nodded. “Well we are friends, aren’t we?” She preferred ‘friends’ to ‘two people stuck being around each other despite lingering awkwardness simply because they had way too many mutual friends.’ “Sasuke?”

“Yeah,” he eventually replied. “We’re friends.”

Sakura grinned and patted the tablet. “Then accept my gift, friend.” She winked, emphasizing the word weirdly.

“Okay, don’t ever do that again.”

and then this the outline:

December: i need to study

Go sledding at the university

Have a snowball fight on the field

Everyone goes out to celebrate after Ino’s LSAT and get unbelievably drunk

Sasuke and Sakura have gotten back together, which Naruto knows but doesn’t call them on

Goes to his house for Christmas because her parents are travelling

Ino and Naruto hang out

NYE party at the house

Ends with Sakura checking her KU email and realizing there is a problem with her potential graduation

January: i need another vacation

Sakura ends up being in a Jane Austen course with Naruto because she was told she needed a humanities credit

February: i need to fix my habits

Go on a road trip for Reading Week

Come home Sunday night and scramble

March: i just need to graduate

Naruto and Sakura discuss their Big Boy/Girl jobs and the likeliness of them

Naruto reveals that he’s seriously dating Ino

Sakura is happy for him and tells him about Sasuke

“I know. It’s not hard to tell. Why do you think rent isn’t so bad in that house? The walls are paper thin, you bitch.”

Dread paying back student loans

Sakura tells him she’s nervous because Sasuke is studying abroad next year whereas Sakura’s dream school is KU’s med school – will they break up again

Doesn’t tell him she plans to backpack for the year

“Do you realize this is like… the last time?”

April: i need to get in

Acceptance letters

May: i need my damn grades

Go on another road trip to unwind

June: i need to go back

Convocation

and i found this, which i think is meant to be in the january chapter:

“There is something very, very wrong with a situation if you are taking a class to bum notes off of Naruto.”

Sakura merely laughed as she spread out some sheets of paper and pretended to read them. She still had another two hours of work and she wasn’t particularly inclined to, well, work, and Tenten—the girl she shared the front desk with—didn’t really care whether she did anything or not.

“I know that sounded really bad,” Sakura said, “but I just need a Humanities credit.”

“Still!” Tenten urged, not even looking away from her computer screen. “Naruto.”

“He’s not as dumb as everyone thinks he is, you know.”

Tenten considered this before shrugging. “I suppose. He has been at KU for the past four years and is even graduating on time.”

“Exactly.” Sakura moved onto the mug of pens on her desk, testing each one to see which still had ink. “And he’s actually really good at Lit courses.”

“He should be,” Tenten replied with a snort. “I mean, that is what he’s specializing in.” Her chair squeaked when she leaned back and pushed away from her desk to roll over near Sakura. Their desk was L-shaped with each of them on one side. “What course is it again?” she asked. But being the fidgety person that she was, Tenten moved to put away some student files. She climbed onto the stool and alphabetizing. “It was something cheesy.”

“Austen and Her Contemporaries.” Sakura hadn’t gotten past her first word before Tenten burst out into giggles. She couldn’t help but smirk when another thought came to mind. “Want to know something even better?”

Tenten gave Sakura her full attention. “Um, obviously.”

“Sasuke’s taking it with us too.”

oh man.

thank you for asking about this fic because i had absolutely no recollection of it but as i read all these docs, i realized how trashy i was in undergrad. and how frightened i was of graduating! just reading this makes me remember how afraid of growing up i used to be -- of not being a student and having to get a job and running out of time. but man i’ve been so much happier since then. the fear of “running out of time” is always around but i also have lost the will to care about people and/or things as the years have gone by.

ok sorry that totally wasn’t your question lmao. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE ROLLERCOASTER OF THAT OUTLINE.

how did it end? well, everyone graduated. presumably everyone got into the post-grad programs of their dreams (although funding??). the naruto arc was totally based on me in my 4th year and his plans are NOT where my future went lmao. although to be clear, future him is definitely satisfied with where his life took him. ss and ni double dated happily ever after. maybe. probably.

#Anonymous

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zxddy-panther · 5 years

Text

Real Love

College AU

T’challa x Black Reader

A/N: Hey guys I’m back with another story ayyye. Lol um i’m not sure if i wrote this one too well. I’ve been working on it for dayyyyys guys. I hope it’s decent. Also sorry about the spacing between paragraphs. Tumblr was saying that i reached my limit so i had to squeeze.

You pace back and forth in your college dorm nervously awaiting your best friend's presence. You needed to talk to him desperately about a topic that has been torturing you mind for a few months now. His advise was very much needed in this situation. The doorbell sounded, signaling his arrival. You ran up to the door and opened the door to your bestie of 6 years holding vanilla ice cream and some other sweet treats.

You sighed in relief, "Ugh Udaku. What would I do without you."

"Nothing. You would be practically hopeless" You laughed pushing him softly

The two of you headed to your bedroom and T'challa could already see your uneasiness. You walked with your eyes pointed towards the floor, fiddling with your fingers as you did so.

Finally reaching your room T'challa spoke on his observation. "Y/N are you alright."

You turned towards him and spoke. "Yeah I just really needed your advise on something. Um so you know Jalen right?"

T'challa rolled his eyes in disgust. He wasn't too fond of your boyfriend but never told you that because he would never intentionally hurt you like that. He just made sure that he wasn't in the same vicinity as that idiot.

"Yes. What about him?" he said in an annoyed tone

You paused for a second, trying to figure out how to say it.

"Well a few months ago he um...... actually cheated on me and-"

"He WHAT!" Tchalla exclaimed

"Yeah but" you fiddled with your thumbs some more. "He's been calling me and asking me to take him back, saying that he's really changed and all of that. I mean, should I?"

Tchalla's heart was beating 10 times faster than normal. His anger and hatred for Jalen just become more a lot stronger. He just doesn't understand why you would want him back.

"Y/N, are you hearing yourself? You know he doesn't love you."

"Ok Ok T'challa you can stop now." You murmured but he just kept going.

" Y/N, you don't deserve to be treated the way he treats you! That is not love! You need to be shown what real love-"

"T'challa! Stop." All was silent and tears began to well in your eyes. You moved across the room and turned your back towards him. "Can we not talk about this? I don't want to talk about it with you anymore."

"Ok then lets not talk." Fast footsteps was all that could be heard until you felt him slip his hands around your waist. The feeling sent a shock of electricity through your body, a foreign feeling to be exact. This was something you've never felt with Jalen and you wondered why. Once T'challa made you face him he looked at your lips enticingly and leaned into you slowly.

"Aye aye. What are yo-" . T'challa placed his hand at the back of your neck and pulled you into a passionate kiss. Your eyes fluttered shut. His soft lips massaged yours in a very slow and gracious manner. Your body was being set ablaze by his touch. Any section of his smooth skin that touched your own helped to spark a sensation that was unexplainable. He ran his hands down your body and hugged your body close to himself, like if he didn't hold on tightly to this moment it'll disappear. The sudden movement caused you to release a small moan against his lips. Tchalla pulled away from you slowly and sighed in relief.

"Tchalla. Wha-what was that." You would have never imagined that you'd someday be kissing your best friend. T'challa stood in front of you, staring at the floor.

"Y/N.." He paused and took a deep breath. I love you a-and I'm sorry for doing that. I just couldn't help myself. I've felt this way for a long time now but I just couldn't bring myself to tell you. Everyday it became a battle within myself to confess my feelings towards you. I'm also very sorry about what I said before. I shouldn't have spoken that way to you or about Jalen."

He bent down to retrieve his book bag from the corner of your room. With a sadden spirit, he began treading towards the door. "I'll just let myself out." T'challa reached for the door knob and headed out, but not before he could get one last glimpse of your face for the last time. "Good bye Y/n.." he whispered as he shut the door.

Your heart dropped from your chest and started beating in your fingertips. You blinked several times to make sure that you were not dreaming. Emotions were running wild and thoughts were jumping off the walls. Who do you love?

5 months ago

"Jalen why the fuck is my cousin blowing your phone up with nudes and text messgaes! What the hell!" You stormed into the living room where your lazy ass boyfriend laid playing on his second phone. Jalen quickly looked up at the sound of your heavy footsteps.

"Y/N what the hell are you talking about."

"My cousinnnn is sending nudes to your phone! You dumbass. Would like to explain to me how she got your number and why-" The phone chimed alerting a new message. "Oh here's and heres a new text. Lets read it. 'I want to feel you inside me again.' AGAIN?! You fucked my cousin Jalen?!" You shoved the phone in his face.

Jalen stood up and suddenly snatched from your grasp.

"Yo what the fuck did I tell you about being on my phone bruh! Should've taken your finger print off a long time ago." Jalen growled. Your blood was boiling and the rage began to build.

"Are you kidding me right now. You fucking cheated on me with my cousin of all people and you're worried about my finger print? So you're CHEATING cheating?!" Jalen looked up at you a scoffed, a smirk spreading across his long face.

"That's it! Im done." you screamed. "After all the years we've spend together! You go and do this to me?" Tears began to sting at your eyes. You ran to your room and began to pack up your things. There was no way in hell that you were staying here another second with this idiot. The muffed sound of Jalen's footsteps followed after you.

His voice come out in a deep growl, "Where the hell do you think you're going." You stood up and turned to face him.

"I'm getting the fuck away from here. You went lower than low Jalen. Do you really expect for me to sit up under this roof with you and act as if everything is ok? Hell no! There is no way I'm going to stay and let you treat me like this. I'm leaving."

He let out a dark and sinister laugh. "No you're not"

You scoffed, "Oh yeah? And who's gonna stop me." He stared you down as his eyes began to turn dark and before you knew it you were being lifted from the ground. Jalen had a strong grip around your torso and was persistent on keeping you in the room. "Let me go!" You kicked your legs rapidly and tried to pry his arms from your body. Your back hit the hard mattress in a matter of seconds. Jalen held your arms about your head tightly, leaving you unable to move your wrists.

"Mmm you're not going anywhere baby 'cuz you mine." He bent his head down and started licking at your neck, sucking the skin harshly. His hands ran up your shirt and felt cold against your warm flesh. He squeezed your breast and began sucking your sweet spot. The same gestures that were usually done during intimacy between the two of you used to be so pure, so full of love but now all you can feel is utter disgust and anger.

"Jalen move. I don't want to hurt you." You wiggled your body under his in an attempt to slide away. He pressed his body against your right leg to get you to stop moving. He picked his head back up to face your tearstained face.

"I'm never letting you go." He pressed his lips to yours in an unwanted kiss, forcefully sticking his tongue into your mouth and invading your space. With a swiftness you used your right knee to severely hurt his groin. Jalen let out a load groan and fell onto the floor, finally releasing you from his vice grip. You jumped up fast, grabbed your bag and headed for the door. Grabbing your keys from the counter you removed his dorm key from your keychain and removed your dorm key from his own key chain.

"Never fucking contact me again!" you screamed and slammed the door.

7 months ago

"Give it back Y/N. Im serious." Tchalla yelled as he chased you down the hallway of his dorm room. You ran into his living room giggling and sat yourself on his plush carpet. You held his mini journal high above your head, teasing him.

"You're not serious look at that big smile on your face" You laughed. He looked down at you and smiled.

"Just hand it over."

"Come get it." You continued to tease. Tchalla leaped on top of you, causing you to fall onto your back with laughter in your voice. Finally grabbing the book Tchalla hovered himself above you.

"Ha. Got i-" he didn't realize the vulnerable position the two of you were in until the games ended. Looking up at him made your heart begin to beat faster. There was tension in the air and you both could definitely feel it.

You couldn't deny your feelings for Tchalla had been developing during the years of friendship the two of you shared. He was always there for you and cared so much about you. He would never go a day without calling or texting you to see if you were alright, even if there was nothing wrong. His big heart was starting to make you fall for him.

He quickly removed his body from yours, allowing you to sit up as well. You stared at the back of his head for sometime before you spoke.

"Tchalla?'

"Y/N I-I'm sorry about that."

You found his shyness adorable as you began to smile.

"Its ok silly." You stood up and walked in front of him with your hand held out. Slowly lifting his head he looked back up at you. "Lets go eat. I'm starving." He took your hand and laughed.

Present

"What the hell am I doing." You asked yourself. "I have a man who actually loves me and I let him walk out the door." Your legs moved before you could even make them. You swung your front door open and looked down the hallway. T'challa was there, walking slowly with his head down until you called out to him.

"T'challa wait!" He turned and stopped in his tracks as he watched you run to him. When you reached him you jumped into his arms, causing him to stumble back as he, surprisingly, caught you.

"It was you. Its you...Its always been you." you said as you hugged him tightly.

"Y/N what are you talking about." Releasing him from your hug you looked deeply into his eyes. "I love you too T'challa"

His eyes lit up and his smile grew wide. Hearing those words from you brought life to his heart again. He brought his hands to the sides of your face, his warm touch bringing you comfort in the moment.

"May I." T'challa asked while still staring into you. "Yes you may" You giggled as he leaned forward to kiss you once more. The kiss got more heated causing T'challa to back you up onto the hallway walls. His hands went down to your backside, rubbing and sqeezing it softly. You broke the kiss in laughter and rested your forehead against his.

Breathlessly he said "Say it again"

"I really love you T'challa Udaku"

A/N: If you like it repost it. And please message me if you want to be part of my taglist☺️

Taglist: @chaneajoyyy @wakandaking12-blog @wakanda-4evr @sisterwifeudaku @tchalla-and-mbaku @wakandankings @wakandamama @melaninmarvel

#black panther #black panther imagine #zxddy imagine #chadwick boseman #tchalla

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noonachronicles · 5 years

Text

A Dance with the Devil

Choi Seunghyun/ TOP X Reader

Words: 3.4k

Warnings: Light cursing, mild blasphemy.

Genre: Fluff?/Humor?/Fantasy?

A/N: This was supposed to be a drabble, but I’ve never been very good at keeping to that word count restriction tbh. Requested by Anon, #24 (24. “I’m sorry? You’re telling me you’re supposed to be the Devil? … Funny, you look nothing like I’d imagined.”) & Tabi. This is the first thing I’ve written in almost a year. So sorry if it’s terrible, but also not sorry because this is the first thing I’ve written in almost a year and I’m over the moon that I was finally able and inspired enough to finish a thing. I genuinely hope y’all enjoy though!

It was supposed to have been a relatively sunny day. The first day in what felt like weeks that you wouldn’t need to carry around your umbrella along with everything else. However, it seemed that the weather was a fairly fickle bitch.

You’d only been strolling around downtown for a couple hours when you felt the first drips crash down on your head. The dark clouds rolling over the tops of the skyscrapers of the city quickly. As grey gloom filled the sky, it filled your mood as well. Before you could make it to the closest metro entrance the rain was really pouring down. Unprepared, you had to stop, and dipped quickly into the nearest shop. Observing quickly that it was a record shop you smiled, it was probably a store you would have stopped in anyway.

Convenient, you’d thought to yourself. You started to the right. Flipping through the large cardboard packages to find a cover that could catch your eye. Music was playing over the store speakers, a trippy, rock song from the 60’s. The air in the shop smelt like sandalwood and vanilla incense. You hadn’t noticed anyone else in the shop yet, so you assumed the owner must be someone much older.

Still shuffling through old records you imagined him clearly. A salt and pepper head of hair, mostly salt, pulled back into a ponytail that hung down his back. An old Led Zeppelin T-shirt that used to be black, but was now gray. Much like his hair. A pair of old jeans with holes that they’d earned not holes that had been predesigned. You filed the image away and smiled to yourself, hoping you’d be right.

The music playing in the store, in various genres and from various decades, along with the countless records to keep you company kept you from checking the time. You’d had no idea how long you’d been in the shop and had forgotten all about the fact that you’d still yet to see a single other person. You had several records in your arms and were nearly halfway through the store when one of your favorite songs started playing.

There was something about soul songs. It never really mattered where you were or what kind of mood you were in. Your body would just involuntarily start to move. Something barely noticeable at first, just a bop of your head, and then it moved through you. A roll of your shoulders, a pop of your hips. Stevie Wonders’ Superstition was almost halfway over when your realized you were full blown dancing down the middle row of the store. The words of the song falling from your lips. You felt okay about it, there still wasn’t anyone around, so it wasn’t hurting anyone for you to enjoy yourself.

“Very superstitious… nothing more to say...” you sang lightly, as you bopped your way down the aisle and then back, “very superstitious… the devil’s on his way.”

You dropped your bags, from the other stores you’d been at on the ground and began to spin, holding the records you’d grabbed close to your chest, feeling the song. Eventually the song finished, as they often did, with your unabashed dancing finishing with it. You let out a puff of air as you looked down to collect your bags. That’s when the clapping came from somewhere up above. You looked up to see a loft that you had genuinely not noticed at all the entire time you’d been there.

The sight of another human startled you and you jerked back, bumping into the row of records, dropping the ones that had been in your hands. An incredibly handsome man was leaning over the railing, clapping as he smiled down at you. He looked nothing like the old, rocker, record shop owner you’d dreamt up, not in the least. This man, this handsome young man. He was tall, long, lanky. He looked both very big and intimidating, and yet somehow fragile and precious as well. A smirk lingered on his lips, one of his thick, dark eyebrows was perked up in amusement. His eyes were more than you could handle, even from as far away as he was. He was looking at you, of course, but it was more than that. It felt like he was absorbing you completely, so much that you had to look away. Your feet seemed like a more appropriate subject to stare at.

“I’m so sorry.” you said shakily. “I didn’t realize there was anyone else here.”

“You didn’t think there would be some sort of employee...in a store?” he asked, with a clear lightheartedness.

You dared to look back up at him. You weren’t sure of what you’d been hoping for but he was still just as handsome as before. Now his smirk was a full smile and you were melting. “I figured someone would be here. I guess I just forgot about it, since I had been here so long and hadn’t seen you.”

“Well don’t stop on account of me.” he shrugged standing up to his full height, you knew that even if he were standing in front of you, you’d still be looking up at him.

“Excuse me?” you said finally leaning down and grabbing the records you’d dropped.

“Dancing.” he grinned down at you before turning around to do something else. His voice still carried down to you, “Dance harder even. And you could sing louder, there’s no harm in it.”

“I don’t- I’m not going to dance in front of a stranger.” you scoffed. “Now that I know you’re here.”

“Why not?” he asked turning back around, peering over the railing, “Where are you from?”

“Where am I from?” you asked confused.

“That was the question I asked.” he nodded.

You sighed, “I’m...from here.”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, as if surprised, “I had assumed maybe you came from that little town in Footloose.”

“Hah. Hah.” you said sarcastically as you turned back to the records.

“I’m serious. What’s your favorite song to dance to?” he asked, “No, nevermind. I got it.”

You flipped through two or three more records. The store music had stopped playing and you could hear shuffling up in the loft. Then you sighed, your curiosity becoming too much, and you looked back up.

“Got it!” He exclaimed from somewhere out of view.

“You broke my heart 'cause I couldn't dance. You didn't even want me around…” the song by The Contours began and your eyes widened slightly.

The man, whose name you still did not know, popped back into view. A smile that showed just how pleased he was with himself spread across his face. You watched half mortified as he started to shimmy down a set of stairs that lined the wall. He kicked his long legs out in a less than graceful manner, stopped halfway down the stairs to stick his butt out and shake it unceremoniously, and then hopped down several others. You covered your mouth, your laugh, as he continued on. Shaking his hips, throwing his limbs all over the places with little to no coordination.

“What are you doing?” you asked, as he reached the row you were in.

“What you should be doing. Dancing.” he grinned, he twisted his hips with every step he took, getting closer and closer to where you stood.

You shook your head no, “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not dancing.”

Now, standing just in front of you, he plucked the records from your hands and put them on the shelf before grabbing your hands in his. With too much enthusiasm he made you twist with him to the song, “Anything can be dancing if you believe hard enough.”

So began your casual and strange friendship with Seunghyun. It was relatively more relaxed now. Although he still, and often, made you dance with him in public. You’d gotten used to it. Not comfortable per say, but you knew it was going to happen and that there was no stopping it where he was concerned.

As the months you spent together turned to years, he became much less intimidating than he was that first day. You still thought he was handsome, it was likely that you always would, but he was more than that now. He was kind of a dummy, which was your favorite part, your bingu. He was silly and had this willingness to look like an idiot in front of others that was so uncommon in other people. He just didn’t care what anyone thought about him. You envied it, mostly because you knew that the freedom he got from not caring was what made him so happy.

He also became a great friend to you. Supporting you in every endeavor, talking you through plans and ideas, stoking the fires of all of your passions where others never really seemed to care. Seunghyun also seemed to have a unnatural knack at knowing when a guy you were dating was a piece of garbage. Or you just seemed to have an unnatural knack at only finding men who were garbage and he knew that about you. He talked you out of staying in bad relationships for too long and always seemed to know how a guy would end up disappointing you. He was also the first one, every time, to suggest you get back into the game. Rooting for you, knowing someday you’d find the perfect person.

Sitting across from Seunghyun one afternoon at your favorite cafe, you’d become pretty certain you did find the perfect person. He was sitting leaned back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other, the Sunday paper unfolded in his hands. You were sure he was single handedly keeping print news alive, the grandpa. Just another thing to love about him really, as you sat with your paperback book open on your lap, unread for the last half hour.

Over the paper you could just see his coiffed hair and the tips of his big ears. On the table sat his half full cup of coffee and a plate with just the top of his muffin. He’d already eaten the rest, he just liked to save the top for last. Your plate was just crumbs by now and your coffee was nearing its end.

“Hey…” you said grabbing his attention. You put your book in the bag at your side.

Seunghyun folded his paper and placed it next to his coffee. He turned his body towards you. Giving you his full focus, as he always did. He smiled, “What’s up?”

“Do you remember the other day,” you paused to take a nervous breath, “we were talking about how I liked this guy. You told me to just get over my fear and ask the guy if he wants to go out sometime?”

“Yeah, of course.” He popped the entire muffin top in his mouth like it was a grape and chewed for a moment. You watched his sharp jaw work as he maneuvered the pastry so it was in one cheek, making him look like half a chipmunk. “Oh! Did you do it?”

You gave a small smile, watching a few crumbs fall from his lips to somewhere in his lap. “Not yet. Um, well, you see… It’s you.”

“Who’s me?” he asked absentmindedly grabbing his coffee mug and taking a gulp to clear his mouth of muffin.

“The guy. The one I like, it’s you. Maybe would you want to go out sometime?”

You watched as he lifted his face to you, watched as his eyebrows went from creased in confusion to raised in understanding. His mouth fell into a sort of ‘o’ shape and then he just stared.

“Ah, yes. My biggest fears realized.” you nodded, trying to ignore the burning embarrassment in your chest.

“No! It’s not…” he sighed uncomfortably, “I really like you. That’s why I spend so much time with you, you’re maybe the only person I do like, on the whole planet.”

“But…” you interrupted.

He tapped his long fingers on the table trying to find the right words to say, “However, there are just some things about me you don’t know, that you wouldn’t like. There are reasons we can’t be together, without you making some major sacrifices. I wouldn’t want you to waste your time on me.”

“Sure, Seunghyun, it’s fine. Whatever. Let’s just pretend this moment never happened.” you said rolling your eyes.

“I’m serious! I -” he paused, his bottom lip tucked under his teeth for a second in genuine contemplation.

He leaned forward and used his stupidly large hand to bekon you closer. Suddenly, you realized, everything about him that had made butterflies flutter in your belly moments earlier, seemed annoying to you now. You leaned forward despite that.

“What?” you said with a little more bite than necessary.

“I’m... the devil. As in Satan.” he leaned back a little to check your reaction.

Your face remained completely stoic as you processed the confession. Then came a small smirk, that grew into a full smile, and then before he knew it you were leaned back in your chair laughing hysterically. You clutched at your chest, desperate for air. Tears streamed freely down your cheeks. Seunghyun sat forward in his chair, elbows on his knees as he watched your reaction intently.

“Ohhh,” you said finally able to gasp in a couple of satisfying breaths, “that was good. That was really good.”

“What?” he asked confused.

“I mean, I’m sorry? You’re telling me you’re supposed to be the devil?...Funny, you look nothing like I imagined.”

“How did you imagine I would look?” he asked, you assumed, still playing along with his bit.

“Hornier. More horny? Having more horns.” you casually, verbally processed your thoughts, “and you’re missing a tail for sure.”

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying devilishly handsome?” he asked framing his perfect face with his hands.

“Sure, but you can’t dance for shit.” you pointed out.

“What- what the hell does that have to do with anything, number one. And number two, yes I can!” he argued.

“There’s that other saying as well, dance with the devil?”

He shook his head looking a little annoyed, “That’s not what that saying means.”

“Oh?” you thought about it for a moment, and chuckled. “Oh!”

“There we go.”

“Well, anyway. I’ve been rejected, not a lot but enough, and that was the most unique excuse by far. So, congratulations on that I guess.”

“It’s not an excuse. I really am Lucifer. The Fallen.” he almost looked genuinely offended, you thought to yourself.

“Yeah, okay.” you said sarcastically, “I believe you.”

“Don’t wink at me!” he whined, “I’ll take you to hell right now!”

“Oh yeah? You’ll take me to hell?” you smirked.

“Yes!”

“You’ll take me right on down and give me a tour? Show me where the magic happens?” you snickered.

Seunghyun stood, frustrated and slammed his palms flat on the table before shouting, “It’s not a joke! I am the devil!”

The entire cafe turned toward your table, save for a guy near the door with his headphones obviously up too high. Seunghyun didn’t even care, he just looked down at you, fuming. His big ears pink at the tops. Not bending at all to his display you grabbed your iced coffee and placed the straw at your lips. You took a long, exaggerated sip and then placed the cup back down, never breaking eye contact.

“You done, Luci?” you asked calmly.

He sat back down and sighed, “I am the devil.”

“So what if you are?” you asked, his eyes shot up to look at you like you were a mad woman. “The devil wasn’t even that bad. In most cultures he’s not some evil entity, just so you know. And even if you looked at it from religions that do consider him evil it’s because he questioned God, and what’s so wrong with that? Shouldn’t we always question authority? Don’t those in power just want to stay in power? Of course God would make him out to be some asshole, he was coming for his throne.”

Seunghyun smiled lightly at your words as you continued on, “Even if you were the devil, that just means that the devil is actually also very funny, and smart and he’s kind. That would just make him supportive, and passionate. It would mean he’s incredibly handsome, and a horrible dancer. But also the kind of guy that does it anyway because it makes him happy. And shouldn’t we all just do the things that make us happy?”

With very little warning, Seunghyun stood up and leaned his long body over the small cafe table. He grabbed your face between his two big hands and kissed you, hard. He sucked your lip like he was sucking up your soul and you wanted him to. You lifted your hands to cup his face. His jaw sharp on the palm of your hand, his hair tickling the tips of your fingers. You groaned in disapproval as he pulled away and sat back down. You took several seconds, eyes closed, rubbing your lips together. Giving your spirit time to float back into your body before looking across the table.

“Add kissing to the list of reasons the devil isn’t so bad.” Seunghyun smiled, but the look on his face was still quite serious.

“What if- “ he held up a finger to stop whatever snarky comeback you’d opened your mouth to say. “Just let me finish.”

Placing your thumb and pointer finger together, you zipped your mouth shut. You’d hear him out. He was, after all, very committed to this joke.

“If I was really the devil, would you still be interested in that date?”

“It depends, is the Prince of Darkness looking for something long term or just a hook-up?” you asked.

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

“With you?” he said eyeing you as you sat before him, he smiled again, “Long term. The longest term. Eternity.”

A blush bloomed across your cheeks, he was so cheesy. “Then yes, I would still be interested in that date”.

“Okay.” Seunghyun gave a deep sigh and stood up. He reached his hand out to you, waiting for you to accept.

“Where are we going?” you asked standing up and grabbing your bag before dropping your hand in his.

“I have something to show you.”

You kept pace with his long stride as he walked you to the door of the cafe. With your hand in his, trusting his direction, you looked inside your bag to check for your essentials. Phone, keys, and wallet. Just to be sure before you go too far away from the cafe that you had them. You heard the ding of the bell hanging from the door of the cafe as you dug your free hand in the bag to feel for your wallet. Seunghyun had stopped walking and you stopped by his side, still shuffling through your things until you finally found the wallet. Content that you had all your things you looked up for the first time since leaving the table.

“Unholy shit.” you muttered, your eyes widening at the sight.

Instead of the city street you’d been expecting there was a massive castle made out of what you thought looked like obsidian. Large towers surrounding the castle held orbs of flame in red, orange, blue and white suspended in the air above them. Somehow this place was both everything you had imagined hell would be and nothing at all like it. It wasn’t just all black skies and fire pits. There was a softness to it, it felt like an endless sunset streaked across the sky above you. The temperature was not uncomfortable and the mere fact that you’d had that thought made you laugh to yourself.

Turning around you realized the door to the cafe was gone. In its place was a large stretch of mostly desolate land. Trees with large trunks and long, thin branches, were peppered across the land like the graveyard of a forest, and all that was left was skeletons. Further away you could make out sharp peaked mountains. You turned back to Seunghyun, half expecting him to turn into the red horned caricature he was often portrayed as, but he wasn’t. He was still him. Still handsome in his black, button down covered in red polka dots and his tight black jeans.

“Okay, you’re the devil.” you said, “I believe you.”

“Are you scared?” he asked, “I can bring you back.”

You looked at him for just a second before squeezing his hand that was still holding yours. “I’m not scared, and I don’t want to go back.”

“You want the tour then?” he asked with a shy smile and you nodded enthusiastically, how many people could say they’d had the chance?

As he walked you up a long path to the obsidian castle you asked, genuinely curious, “Why the record store?”

“You don’t know already?” he asked, “I love to dance.”

#Choi Seunghyun Scenario #Big Bang scenario #kpop scenario #TOP Scenario #Request #completed request #prompt challenge

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amazildoessomethingstupid · 5 years

Text

Chapter 96: Unspoken Rule

Man I thought it would be a lot longer before I did another of these, but as it turns out I fucking hate in between pages. Y’know, those pages between the actual good and interesting shit? Y’know the parts that are in between the fun parts, but you have to have them to actually move characters to the good parts? The parts that are boring and filler? Yeah as an artist/writer I hate those too and it took me most of the week to come up with a page to make it not boring as sin. Sadly this means, ANOTHER RANT! And this time we are taking a look at Unspoken Rule. But before we do, I’d like to share with you the bit of panic that set in and what kind of pressure I had on me when trying to force an update. For a second I thought that this rant was going to be about…

And I was very, very, scared.

Thankfully a friend notified me that I don’t know how to count, so we’re talking about this chapter instead! Boy what a relief that was, I thought. But it seemed a bit disappointing. I hadn’t heard anything of this page, seems like it’ll be a short rant. That won’t do. So I figured, “hey if there’s not much to say. Fuck it, we’ll do a double feature with the carnival…”

Sadly, I have something to say.

And we start with a good lighthearted joke. Although, that expression in the first panel throws it off a bit. The dialogue on the initial read says snark and sassy, but the face says honest concern, but then we show it is snarky. So the face is just, confusing. Not worth kicking up a fuss about, but definitely a headscratcher.

Anyway, on to what’s actually happening. Which is Mike is being nervous and back and forth about wanting to talk to Lucy and apologize. And it’s so weird to me. This is such a serious plot point, and major conflict in the story, yet this is played for laughs. And not even good laughs, just hollow jokes it feels almost tasteless. But not as tasteless as this:

BIG OOF

Alright guys, see this?

I am absolved of this being uncharacteristically brash and open. If Taeshi can do that kind of rudeness, so can I. Lucy is just so cold now, it feels bad. Not out of character, not unrealistic, just…bad.

But moving from that, we get into these two. And…

Awww…th-this is actually pretty sad. And engaging.

HEY! I SEE YOU REACHING FOR MY HEARTSTRINGS! YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY!

But seriously, this a very nice scene. It’s kind of touching, and it’s a moment I wish we had more of.

It’s…actually very nice. The characters are finally airing their grievances, and we’re getting somewhere. I…I actually like th-

OH YOU BACKSTABBING, HACK WRITING, BITCH! ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! WHY ARE YOU STICKING YOUR DICK IN A GAS STATION MILKSHAKE?! BITCH,

ARE YOU FUCKING F’REAL SHAKES RIGHT NOW?! WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU FEEL THE NEED TO ADD THAT?! THIS JUST DESTROYS ALL IMMERSION, I ALMOST FELT SOMETHING THERE FOR A SECOND! BUT THEN YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO DUMB! THIS ISN’T EVEN ON THE CHARACTER, THIS IS A STRAIGHT UP WRITING ISSUE! EVEN I WOULDN’T DO SOMETHING THIS DUMB! IT’S SO OUT OF PLACE! IT GIVES ME MENTAL WHIPLASH CAUSE I HAVE TO DO A DOUBLE TAKE TO MAKE SURE I’M NOT JUST FUCKING SEEING SHIT! AND YOU KNOW WHAT’S THE WORST PART ABOUT THIS FUCKING PANEL?!

IT’S IN THE PRINTED BOOK! Taeshi saw this, drew it, posted it, and got whatever feedback from it. Then later came back, saw it, and edited a bunch of things for the book, and decided, “No that’s fine. We’ll leave it there, that’s perfectly okay.” And just left it there! WHY?! You had a good scene, an actual honest to god, good scene. And you had to just make a dumb joke, and ruin the whole mood. This is the sort of bad run and gun cheap gag sort of shtick that you’d expect to see from Volume 1! Except, even Volume 1 knew when to take itself seriously, and maintain that serious tone! I mean imagine if this happened in something like Zach’s talk with Lucy.

Any good graces this scene had, in setting up these two working out their problems and moving in a nice direction is thrown out the window now, and for what?! What’s the purpose? Why would yo-

Oh…Oh no…

Please, have mercy! You already stabbed my back, please don’t stab me in the heart! Please, not like this!

Aaaugh, no! Not like this! Poor Rachel! It’s not fair I can’-

Wait….

I-is…Is that it?

Are you kidding me?

That’s it? Two pages? Really? That’s how you’re breaking it off? This is how you’re going to stab me? Look, there’s like 3 more inches left in the knife, come on. Push it deeper. Twist it, I know you want to. WHY ARE YOU HOLDING BACK? FUCKING WORK THIS SCENE AND MAKE ME CRY!

NO FUCK YOU, WE’RE NOT MOVING PAST THIS!

YOU WROTE RACHEL’S BREAK UP. IN

TWO

FUCKING

PAGES!?

YOU WROTE OUT ONE OF THE MOST GROUNDED, HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN YOUR COMIC IN TWO PAGES LIKE IT WAS NOTHING! WITH A HORRIBLE ONE-SIDED DIALOGUE, WHERE RACHEL IS TALKING TO PAULO WHO HAS SUDDENLY INHERITED THE EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING OF A BRICK WALL! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT AFTER EVERYTHING YOU DID IN BUILDING THIS CHARACTER’S ENTIRE ARC AND DEVELOPMENT!? AFTER TRANSFORMING A CHARACTER WHO WAS PORTRAYED AS UNLIKABLE, BITCHY, ANNOYING, SLUTTY, AND DUMB.

To fleshing her out, to be deep, thoughtful, caring, and supportive. Rachel is my favorite character, and it’s not because she’s a slut it’s because she represented something in this comic that had been absent.

Natural character development. That wasn’t brought on by some big event shaking their entire core, and changing them. In fact, one of the best things about Rachel is that despite how differently her character’s reception is from Volume 6 compared to Volume 1, her personality, her attitude, and her core is mostly unchanged.

She’s still slutty, she’s overweight, she’s silly. But a big part of why I love her as a character, and why I think many others do as well, is because never does it seem to be a negative to her. We don’t see her get upset, or self-conscious about her weight, or her sexual behavior, because she’s confident in herself and accepts herself. Not only that, but she’s shown to take charge, stand up and not be afraid to call out what she sees is wrong. And outside of her character…

She was a role model for Paulo. Unlike Jasmine whose relationship was more Paulo bending himself to fit her lifestyle, Rachel was a character who accepted and supported Paulo’s lifestyle, but at the same time helped steer him to do the right thing. And in a comic where almost every fucking character is so intent on dancing around their issues and waiting until it blows up in their face, Rachel served as an example of someone who had it together. A proactive person, who didn’t want to see these characters get worse.

I have ranted and gone off on a lot of decisions and actions that these characters have done, but not once did I ever scratch my head or think twice about something that Rachel did. Her character didn’t need a bunch of insight, and excuses about hormones or “they’re teenagers, lol!” to understand her. She simply was who she was, and I respect that.

In short…

Despite everything that my history with this comic gave me, the feelings I developed from all the bullshit that has happened in this story, despite all of that. It was this one character, what she brought to the table, and what she did for the comic and its characters, that gave me something I thought I’d long lost, and never thought I’d ever regain.

She gave me hope in this comic. That it would finally have its characters be proactive, regain its humor, and bring itself out of the slump it made for itself. With this character, and the writing behind her, I believed Taeshi was finally on the right track, and was setting up something great that would grow the characters and build upon them naturally.

But that’s not what we got. And the real bitch of it is, this could’ve been a real emotional moment. A well executed front-stab. We knew it was coming, we saw the writing on the wall, but we still needed to face the music. It was set up to be a wonderful tragedy, where both parties are well aware of the futility of their relationship. They understand each other, and why it won’t work, but also don’t want to let go. And I was going to make a comparison to Two Kinds, because they had a similar scenario with Trace’s wife and the whole idea of moving on is a recurring theme… But looking back I realized something. I don’t need to bring a comparison to Two Kinds or someone else’s comic, and no I’m not even going to draw a comparison of what I would’ve done in this situation by drawing a comparison to False Idol’s future scene (although I was thinking about that). No, we don’t need to look too far because you know what the real sad part about this is?

We’ve had this conversation before.

And just look at it. Look how heartbreaking this is. This is how it should’ve been. You see that Paulo understands what she’s saying, he knows what she means and how bittersweet their relationship is. It is one of the best moments from the newer volumes, and their inevitable breakup should’ve been a turning point. It should’ve marked a big life-changing moment for Paulo. Where he is sad about how he’s making Rachel feel, but he’s unsure about his own feelings. Maybe Rachel makes the decision for him and breaks it off, and Paulo realizes how hurtful his behavior is, and that he can’t play games with people anymore, that it’s not fair. It could be the moment Paulo turns a new leaf and becomes more mature, and in seeing that; Rachel can let go taking some solace in knowing that he is a better person now.

But instead we got this…

We’re not even halfway through this god damn chapter. Well where is it taking us now?

Huh…and it seems that the writing is not going to change pace either, I wonder where this is going.

Oh boy, everyone’s getting into teams! And oh man, Lucy’s going up against Mike! And boy is this contrived. And what’s even worse, is that despite how much Taeshi has shunned Volume 1 and its stupid sense of humor, and how shoddy it was. Volume 1 wasn’t THIS contrived, and when it was, it was pretty tongue in cheek about it. In fact!

This sounds like something Volume 1 would MAKE FUN OF. But let’s give the benefit of the doubt maybe it’s not that bad. It might have something going on, an-

(It’s interesting, I think I have like 3 reaction pics of Sam trying to shoot herself, but this one just can not be matched. And it’s not even meant for the rants.)

You know what? I’m not even gonna bother going over this part. No one will be seated during the harrowing “Will they won’t they” inconsequential dodgeball fight. Although I will say,

Not gonna lie, that actually got a laugh out of me. Good job. Anyway, Lucy catches the ball and wins the game who cares. But then…

First of all

Look at those arms. Damn Lucy what happened? You’re looking like two toothpicks in a marshmallow. But more than that. Did I read that right?

Yeah! It’s not like you stopped practicing Martial Arts! Why would you? It’s not like you had some serious physical trauma happen to stop you-

OH WAIT!

RECOVERY PERIOD? PHYSICAL THERAPY? PFFFT WHO THE FUCK NEEDS THAT? YEAH SURE, YOU’RE TOTALLY FINE AND CAPABLE BEING A FUCKING BLACK BELT IN TAE KWON DO. SURE! NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE STITCHES AM I RIGHT?

But I’m just combing cotton here, this all just fluff. There’s really only one thing left to talk about here.

And I’ll be honest.

This.

Is…

Pretty good.

This is honestly really well done. There’s nothing I can say about this. It’s a very serious moment, I can feel Taeshi reaching for my heartstrings but I…I’m okay with it. This was the moment I wanted to see. Finally these characters air out some of their grievances. We get insight to how they feel, we are finally getting somewhere. It’s not nice, but it’s progress an-

…

THAT’S THE TH-….

*sigh*

Fuck you too, Taeshi.

Three times.

Three fucking times in one chapter, that you set up something good. Had a good thing going, and then decided to fuck it up at the end. That’s a new record. Even when I expected nothing out of this chapter, you manage to let me down. You astound me with how much you disappoint me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were doing it to intentionally troll me. But I’m not that vain. Fuck you Taeshi, I’ve said this before but always with the tone of hyperbole, and a bit of optimistic cynicism. But this time I really mean it. I have no more faith in you as a writer. Whatever you come up with, however this ride ends. I don’t think you will pull it off anymore. I don’t think you have the competence to tie this up in a proper way. At one point you could’ve. At one point, I think you had it in you with the mindset, the creativity, and the emotional drive to tell a well-crafted story. But not anymore, and I despise what you’ve become. Let’s get this stupid chapter over with.

What’s next? What are we doing huh? What are we getting at?

Oh…

I see. This is where we’re going huh? That’s what all this was for?

ALRIGHT! Y’KNOW WHAT? FINE! I GUESS THIS IS WHAT WE’RE DOING BOYS! THIS IS THE NEW DIRECTION FOR BCB! LOOK! SHE CALLED PAULO CUTE! OMG THE SHIP IS SAILING, DON’T YOU GET IT? IT’S JUST SHIPPING! THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS! THAT’S HOW WE’RE DRIVING THE PLOT!

FUCK ALL THAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, THIS IS WHY RACHEL GOT DROPPED! IT WASN’T CAUSE OF CHARACTERS NATURALLY CONCLUDING RELATIONSHIPS, IT’S ALL BECAUSE LUCY’S HERE AND WE CAN’T HAVE PAULO’S RELATIONSHIP WITH RACHEL CLASH WITH THAT! SHE’S OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS! NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT PAULO X LUCY, OR PAULO X DAISY WHICH IS IT? THIS IS THE REAL DRAMA YOU ALL ARE LOOKING FOR! THIS IS HOW WE REALLY MOVE THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS! CHOO CHOO BOYS! ALL ABOARD THE SHIP! LET’S JUST GO ALONG FOR THE RIDE WHERE WE GOING TAESHI? I’M READY! I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT TO FUCKING LOOK FORWARD TO OR LIVE FOR! SO COME ON, WHERE ARE YOU SAILING US?

I give it a 2/10. Until next time, guys.

#Bittersweet Candy Bowl #rant

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