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migeviellardi · 3 years

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Out Of Comfort

Genre : Adventure, Action, Humour, Hurt/Comfort

Summary : 2 years after the 'you-know-who’, Donnie struggles to adjust with the new way of life. The precarious science blocks are back haunting him, putting him in total stress while he tried his best to keep up with the new team play and co’ord.

Chapter 2 A New Start

Welding felt relaxing, the sound of tiny sparks are like a music to Donnie’s ears. It might not be a real music, but it’s melodious nonetheless. Donnie lifted up his googles, leans back to catch a break. He almost done fixing the hover shell, not the one from yesterday, the one that he kept fixing and fixing away, despite there’s nothing wrong with it.

The one he used last night was a prototype of a new model. It still looks the same as the old ones, but he did made a few upgrades on them. It was definitely frustrating when it got busted. He’s planning to use it more since it felt lighter than the old one. But, now he needs a new shell to wear on a patrol.

He looks at the battleshell charging station. What left there was his worn down Spider-shell. Below it was none other than his wrecked and broken shells that he hadn’t repair, yet. He let out a sad sigh, he looked around him to find that his lab are somewhat cleaner, much cleaner than he remembered. Usually the lab was littered with piles upon piles of inventions, blueprints, scattered metal parts, and energy drinks.

Now, it seems as if it was untouched. The sleek metallic purple walls with LEDs are still looks fresh and new. The floor was free from dust due to the roombas roam freely without bumping into any tech pieces. And the workbench,....empty. Only his old battleshell that he kept tinkering that are currently there. Also, a cup of coffee.

Donnie about to take a sip when he realized it was ran out. He inspect the glass and saw small coffee drips down the mug got frozen in place due to a long time exposed to the AC. How long have he been there without refilling his coffee? Does he been getting the science block again?

Putting down the mug, he rubbed his tired eyes in frustration. Was he being unproductive on purpose? What is he doing here? Why can’t he finish anything?

“Hey.” the voice made him jumped, he looked back to see Leo stood on the doorway. “Whoa, it’s okay. Just a little old me.” Leo held his hands out. Donnie frowned, he turned back to his hover shell.

“What do you want, Leo?”

“It’s training time, Don. Better not coop yourself up in the lab, or I’ll let Raph drag your shell to the Dojo.” Leo ordered as he left towards the Dojo. Donnie sighed heavily, he stood up and followed him. He admit, there’s nothing else he would do, science blocks are the worst and it became a daily routine ever since their Lair was smushed to smithereens. And, the fact that he hate to obey the words Leo told him to.

He wasn’t questioning his leadership skills. If Donnie allowed himself to be honest, the Slider actually knows what he’s doing, good at it in fact. Raph at first had a hard time to adjust, now the former leader putting his trust to Leo, even Mikey approved. Donnie, however, still adapting.

It wasn’t because that he hate to admit it, it just doesn’t sits right putting the leader role to the one who usually pulled some poor one-liners out of spite and keeps bugging your work with some pranks, jokes and poking on things that could cause explosions like it was some kind of a job, because if it is, he good some pretty good records he might get himself some promotions.

And now, the true color of the team seems to emerge. We got the Leader, The Muscle, The Heart and The Brain. Although, The Brain more likely The Brain-Dead one. Stupid science block keeping him from thinking straight, not much idea that pops out other than upgrading, or upgrading the upgrade, or upgrading the upgraded upgrade.

It might be some improvement for anyone, but for the one with the giant science head-cannon looming inside his head, that’s barely even an add-on. He’s unproductivity hurts him, as if the genius inside suddenly just wanted to stop, no more mad scientist mambo-jumbo. He felt it once again, the feeling that he had gone rotten, expired, outdated.....useless.

Seriously, what will he be for the team without his big brain? What can he do other than getting kicked in the booty several times that let your little brother saves your sorry butt?

If once again, he got knocked down and having Mikey, of all people saves him, he’s going to lose his mind.

###

“Alright, my sons. Now, let us begin to--Purple, where’s your battleshell?” they stared at Donnie in his bare-shell. He rolled his eyes, dejected.

“I’ll be fine, Dad. I’m not going to hurt myself.”

“Nono, my son. I believe you, it’s just....weird seeing you without one.” Splinter simply said, trying not to offend his purple son.

“Well, it’s in repair, and my shoulders are getting tired. So....” Donnie didn’t have to finish his sentence to earned a nod from his father.

“Verywell, then. Let us start,....now!” as on cue, the whole Dojo became dark. The brothers immediately forming back to back formation, weapons at their hands, full caution. “Hamatos carries essence of life, the Ninpo. Or what most common people called them, mystics.”

Raph sense a movement to his right, Splinter came in with a kick. Mikey saw the offense, he blocked the kick, swung his nunchaku to Splinters head. The rat dodged it with ease. Upon landing, Raph coming in clutch with his fist. Splinter jumps back into the darkness. “Some may think that it is the most essential in fighting.”

The turtles back to their formation, listening to every sound to pinpoint the next attack. “Others, prefer something else.” a tail emerge from the darkness. Donnie shielded himself with his bo, the tail wrapped around the wooden weapon. Donnie expected the attempt of pulling, he pulled harder, forcing Splinter to show up. Leo anticipated Donnie’s strategy, he swung his sword at the same time Donnie ducked.

Splinter didn’t expect the timing between the two, but he flawlessly avoided himself from being cut in half. Splinter pulled out a smoke bomb and threw it onto the ground. The smoke caused them to cough, which means distractions. They have no choice but to bail on their formation.

“There will be a time where mystic powers will do no good.” Leo sense presence near him. He ducked down to escape another kick. “So, you must focus on your own ability.” He tail swipe Leo’s katanas, leaving him unarmed.

“Agility.” Splinter increases his speed, offering punches and kicks towards the turtle. Leo dodged every attack, seamlessly evading and parrying every blow. He counter-attacked Splinter’s punch, delivering a fist to his face. Splinter caught his hand and kicked Leo away, disappearing into the dark.

“Strength.” Raph blocked a powerful kick out of Splinter, pushed him back a meter. Another tail swipe, Raph let it wrapped on his hand and threw his dad away.

“Speed.” Splinter took a punch from what seems to be Mikey’s fist. Splinter blocked his next punch, only met with a swipe kick a second after. Mikey swung his nunchakus with unimaginable speed. Splinter steps up his game to blocked a series of attacks that his youngest son often called it ‘Razzmatazz’. He manage to grabbed both nunchakus and threw orange from the fight.

“And, Instinct.” Donnie dodged a powerful kick launches towards him. He swings his bo just in time to meet Splinter’s punch. Once again, he disappeared. Donnie waited, trying to hear the footsteps. Behind you! He turns to blocked another powerful kick, this time it was too much to hold, it sent Donnie flying to a nearby wall. He winced and panted, adjusting his weight to his bo.

The lights turned on, Splinter ran towards him. “I’m fine!” his voice sounded a bit too loud. Splinter flinched, he’s unsure if the pain was bearable, but he knows well how stubborn his purple son can be. He decided to let it go, “You did better, my son. If you did not block that last kick, you might get yourself hurt even more.” He thought that he should apologize, but he didn’t think purple would appreciate that.

“Alright, take a break all of you.” he put both of his hands on his back, cracking it forward. “Ugh, while I tend to my bad back, you may have some spar with each other.” he walked away while rubbing his back.

“Hey, Raphie. Wanna spar with me?” Mikey asked excitedly. Raph smiled, accepting the challenge.

“Sure thing, Mikey.” Raph readied up. Mikey activates his mystic chains and whips the nunchaku to Raph, wrapping his whole body. Raph blinks before he was pulled away.

“AAAAHHH!!!” a lod crash was heard. Leo smirks at the scene. Donnie gathers back his bearings and prepared for the sparring.

“Leo?” the slider slowly turns with his smug face. Donnie’s on his pose, “Care to join?” giving him the serious look. Leo kept his usual expression as he readied himself. Donnie strikes first, jabbing his bo to his head, Leo tilted his head to dodge. Donnie swings, Leo parried them with his katanas. He gave more barraging swings, Leo’s agility gives him the advantage. He dodged, parried him with literal ease.

Leo still using the same face. “What’s wrong, Dee-man? Can’t catch little Leo?” Donnie frowned. He swung, Leo blocked and kicked him in the gut. Donnie yelped, Leo sent another kick to the face. Donnie fell to the floor, shaking his head from the mild headache. Leo knelled down, “Aww, had enough already?”

Donnie growled. He swung to his leg, Leo had expected that. He got up and sent more swing barrage, this time a lot faster and more frantic. Leo parried a lot more on this one, but didn’t change the expression on his face. Donnie downward, Leo blocked it. Eyes meeting eyes. “Come on, Don. Is that all? I can definitely fight you blind-folded.”

Donnie’s patience grew thin. He didn’t have to tell him that. He knows he can, and he might will one day.

Donnie pushed him back, now anger are definitely involved. Leo step up his game some more every time Donnie pulled off some new combos and new speed and variety. Donnie looked at him in the face.

Shut up.

He was parried by another sword.

Shut Up!

He can’t beat him.

Shut Up!!!

He’ll never catch up to them.

Shut UP!!!!

He’s not good enough.

“SHUT UP!!!!!”

Leo flinched. Donnie panting hard, hands gripping tightly to his bo. Eyes fixated at Leo, as if he’s ready to kill. Raph and Mikey stunned by Donnie’s shouting.

Donnie growled for real, this time. The deep reptilian growl filled his throat with his fang showing up menacingly. Donnie engaging his predator side, Leo held out his hand.

“Okay, calm down, Dee. There’s no need to continue this with violence. Okay?”

“GRRRR!!!” Donnie attacks Leo with full intention. Leo no longer wanting to fight, he dodged every move Donnie makes. It was fast and chaotic, more like trying to hurt rather than spar.

“Donnie, STOP!!!”

“GRAAAHH!!!”

Raph blocks Donnie’s bo. “Donnie, knock it off!!!”

“Please calm down!” Mikey plead. Donnie ignored them all, he charged at Raph with blind rage. Raph dodged the jab, throw his fist at Donnie. He didn’t dodge, letting it hit his face. Donnie growled deeply, eyes as sharp as needle. Raph was stunned, he didn’t expect Donnie to accept the hit. He felt guilty for hurting his little brother.

Splinter ran back after being called by Mikey. “Purple!!”

Donnie saw an opening on Raph, he charge in while Raph refused to move. Leo tackled Donnie and pinned him to the ground. He refused to back down and squirmed his way to freedom as Leo gripped his limbs for dear life.

“Donatello!!!”

Leo, Raph and Donnie startled by his father’s voice.

“Enough!” Leo froze for a little while, he let go of Donnie once he felt no resistance. Donnie layed down, panting. He suddenly really exhausted. All that anger took too much energy out of him. He slowly hoist himself up to a sitting position. Splinter approached his purple son. Carefully assessing the damage around the turtle. There’s a bruise on his right cheek, might be caused by his oldest son as when he meets his eyes, he can see the guilt he’s facing.

“Purple? What is up with you?” Donnie refused to talk or making eye contact to his father. Splinter can still feel anger looming around him. Did one of the brothers ticked him off? What provokes him?

“Donatello!”

“I DON’T KNOW, OKAY!!!!” he yelled. Splinter jerked up by the sudden loud voice that felt louder to his rat ears. Donnie noticed that he went too much. “I...I just--” Donnie can’t hold back the tears that began to form in his eyes. He looked down to obscure it.

Splinter was surprised seeing his son cried. The brothers reacts the same way. Devastated seeing their usual emotionless turtle broke into tears.

Splinter held out his hand, “My son,-” Donnie swatted away his hand and ran straight to his lab. Not even the call of his name from his family can get his attention. He closed the iron-forced door of his lab, locking it immediately. Donnie sat under his desk, hugging his legs to his chest as he burst to tears. The lab was eerily quiet, the only sounds that are presence are his and the sound of his family trying to reach for him from the other side of the door.

He felt vulnerable having to broke down like this, he hates it. The way the others desperately trying to get him to open the door made it worse. He wasn’t supposed to show his weakness at the time, he’s a Hamato, a descendant of heart o’ steel. And steel has a lot influence with tech, his thing. He supposed to be able to control his feelings.

Now, his meltdown would definitely stuck in the topic for a while in this whole family situation. He knows he’s having trouble, yes he does. And he knows he needs to keep up with the others. He knows, he’s the smart one.

He tried his best, to keep up, to adjust, to be stronger, for everyone’s sake. But he can’t let his family help him with that, they all helped enough. He can’t let them once again drag their butts to fix his problems for him, no. Fixing is his thing, and he can fix his own problem by himself. Just uh, not now. He needs more time, to figure things out. His family just need to be patience, they can handle the waiting game. They’ve done this before, just like waiting for the drill out of its beta version.

He also, needs to be patience. Everything’s going to be alright, he’ll figure it out. He have to. For everyone’s sake.

###

The rest of the day passes by, quietly. Donnie had refuse to talk or eat, he sent Shelldon to grab some drinkable sustenance for him. He can handle being hungry, but thirst must be dealt with. As he recalled some research he found out that living beings can survive hunger for at least a week as long as they have enough supplies of water. Although, he can’t say the same about coffee, but not like it’s bothering him.

He waited for Shelldon to come back with a drink, his lab door still close but no longer locked. Once in a while his brothers visited him as he succumb to his depressions in his favorite purple hoodie, concealing his swollen eyes as a result from the earlier’s mental breakdown.

They talked, though they tried not to bring up of what happened in the Dojo. Leo, most of all, had a hard time keeping it cool. The red-eared slider guiltily apologized for making fun of him in training. Donnie might not talk about it, but he willing to forgive him. It wasn’t Leo’s fault that he had problems, he needs to stop playing the Blame Game.

“We love you, Don. And nobody can change that.” Leo said.

“I know.” Donnie simply replied.

His thought was broken by the sound of whirring from the purple drone who he manage to salvage, thankful that Shredder didn’t think twice and explode his core memory.

“Yo, Dee. I got the coffee for you.” the drone informed enthusiastically.

“Thanks, Shelldon.” he quietly accepted the coffee and took the first sip before once again continuing his currently favorite activity, staring an empty desk. Shelldon’s cheery attitude turned into worry as he watched his creator’s constant solitude. Slumping his upper body further back into his gaming chair, holding the coffee mug in both hands.

“Dude. You okay?” he asked for what seems like the tenth times by now. The response stayed the same.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Shelldon wasn’t happy with the answer, but he shrugged it off. He took out his lanky robot arm and grabbed something that sitting on top of him.

“Mikey told me to give you this.” he held out a box of pizza at him. “You should at least eat something, Donnie.” he plead. Donnie stared at the pizza then at Shelldon. The look of worry annoyed him. Great, even a robot is worried about him. But he knows better that Shelldon is not just a robot. He’s a family, part of the Hamato, the drone has feelings and conscious of its own.

Donnie accepted the package, he took a slice and eat it. Shelldon--although not quite visible--beaming away that he had accepted the offer.

“Thank you, Shelldon.”

“You’re welcome, Dee!” Shelldon flew off to the other side of the lab, knowing that he’d done his job. Donnie chuckled quietly as he gone. It’s weird to think that the drone behaving like a kid, which was the intention of installing the emotion-settings in the first place. He can’t remember the last time he acted like one, those days of constant playing, troublemaking and have no care in the world. He said it before; it was messy but gosh, it was fun.

Then, he heard the lair suddenly began crowdy. He didn’t realized that the door was opened, did Shelldon forgot to close the door? How could an AI forget something? Donnie have no mood to stand up or command anything for now, so he let it be. He heard a distant sound of clip-clop from hooves in the lair. The only mutant he knows that is involving hooves is Baron Draxum. What is he doing here? And the sound of chit-chats heard along with it as well, especially some faint female voices and his dad.

They all having a chat out there. How long they’ve been in this states? Why haven’t anyone informed him about visitors? Then again, he’d been cooped up in this lab and desiring for some temporary isolations, of course they haven’t inform him.

Not wanting to bother with anything about it, he continued sipping his coffee and chomped down more pizza into his throat. Not much he can do for now, other than listening the distant inaudible voices. Not even bothering to look up to the sound of footsteps getting closer and closer to the lab.

“Hey, big guy. How’s it going?” April leans her body to the door frame, keeping it cool.

“’m fine.” he answered again, too often now that it sounds more like a chanting spell. April offered a sad smile as she bring herself to sit beside the purple genius.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked softly. Donnie sipped his mug as a sign that he refused her demands. “I see. Well, we wanted to hang out together as family to the hidden City.” she told.

“Last time we did that we got thrown in jail.” he bluntly respond.

“Well, yes. But things are different now. Now that we stopped that ‘you-know-who’, they pretty much removed the bounties from our heads.” she added, definitely sounding more excited than before. Donnie still can’t trust the sudden change, although he does agree the treatment for doing so after that horrible incident, he didn’t expect anything from the Yokais but pay some respect for sparing them from the devilish evil claws they called Shredder.

“Still, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Remember that time where we trust that spider lady for taking care of ‘you-know-who’, and look what she did, total havoc, everywhere.”

“Well, at least she did help out with locating the....uuuh....”

“Empyrean.”

“Yeah, that. If it wasn’t for her, we might not be able to save the day and,... You know what I mean.” she reluctantly continued her sentence. Donnie can tell why, he also didn’t want to think of what happen if they can’t find where Shredder had kept their father hostage. Can’t probably sleep knowing if they were too late, Big Mama was indeed offer a huge help even though she’s only can help telling them the location.

Although, the point still stands, she wasn’t a type of person that can be easily trusted. Things happened because of her, and they suffered the most of it. Can’t believe he wished that he should’ve listen to Leo the first time, probably one of the reason why he can be such a good leader.

“Look, I know it’s hard to believe it that way. But I promise, I got some good hunch today. Everything will be fine. You can blame me if anything goes wrong in your way, okay?” And there it is, the classic humble April. The very things he envies the most out of her, dare enough to take the blame and always be there with positive attitude.

And, yes, April always had a strong hunch, it never failed them and they all knew that. If she thinks everything will be fine, then it will indeed.

“So, do you trust me?” she stood up with a big confident smile on her face. It somewhat contagious and made him smile as well.

“Of course, you’re the only human that I trust in this world, April.” he responded, with less tense or sad tone.

“What, you still don’t trust Casey?” as on cue, a loud non-feminine female voice shouting in the background, followed by what sounds like his brothers shouting back at her. Donnie grimaced at the behaviour of that girl. Ever since the former Foot-clan helped out with defeating Shredder, the group immediately warmed up to her. Except for Donnie.

He still respected her for saving his father, however he never had any connection with the girl. Her risk-loving-fight-adoring attitude giving his big bulky brother, Raphael a worthy friendly match. She didn’t even flinched by his loud thundering roar, if by chance she roared right back. And her chaotic energy is enough to keep up with Leo and Mikey.

Donnie didn’t share much with such connections, in which he easily-predicted, the girl hates science. Although, she does find his inventions as cool and awesome, she might thinking about exploding it in place though. Leo would be proud.

Also, she’s terrifying, not as much as April, but she gave him too many goosebumps for the past years.

“In theory, she might be the last person to be trusted when it involves ‘safety’. Please don’t tell her that!” he semi-whispering, not wanting her to charged in and wreck something explosive in his lab.

“Your secret safe with me.” she gestured a zipping motion across her mouth. Donnie chuckles, “Now, come on. Everyone’s waiting. You don’t have to take your hoodie off if you don’t want to.”

Donnie smiled at that, he stood up and let April grabbed his hand leading him to the group. “Thanks, April.”

“Anytime, Dee.” she grinned at him.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fanfiction #oc crossover #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt mikey #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #fanfiction #fanfic

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basicjetsetter · 3 years

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Part I

♡ Pairing: Peter Parker x Black!FemaleReader

▹ Warnings: Mild Language, Triggering Content

▹ Words: 4.6k

▹ A/N: Buckle in. This is going to be a long ride.

“No way!” Your friend Manda squeals. “Those were the exact words?!”

You smoosh a frantic hand over Manda’s mouth and shush her, then slightly pop up from your seat to scope out the packed bus, making sure none of your schoolmates heard her outburst. To your relief, only a few close students glance over with little interest and barely anyone in a wider radius catches Manda’s words over the buzzing clammer of other conversations. Blowing out a satisfied exhale, you turn back to your friend, removing your hand from her mouth with a teasingly reproachful frown.

“Tell the whole world, why don’t you?”

She giggles, “My bad. But can you blame me? This is huge!”

Thrilled warmth floods into your cheeks from her enthusiasm. She’s right. This is huge, and you might have secretly sought this exact reaction because only Manda’s trademark, earsplitting squeal stamps news with the seal of authenticity. It’s real. You heard your Destined Words.

The same jitters from when you woke up this morning skitter up and down your spine, sharpening your senses to the max, making it easier to recall the words that floated into your subconscious—words from a bodiless voice. Your Soulmate.

I’ve got you.

Your mind handles the precious words like a porcelain tea set, carefully deciphering the voice pitch and attempting to match it to a face, knowing its efforts lie in vain because the words’ owner only becomes apparent when they speak them to you.

Some inner part of you distinctly translates the words into a comforting assurance, an assurance one might receive after coming home from a long day’s work and walking into the soft embrace of a lover. It weaves itself around your mind like a consoling safety net, painting an image of a lover better than you’ve ever imagined and everything you’ve ever hoped for.

You couldn’t have hand-picked a better day than today, Midtown High’s field trip to the MoMA, to gush over the words with Manda while admiring spectacular, thought-provoking art pieces. One of the perks of going to Midtown High is their fantastic field trips. You circled this Friday on your calendar at the start of the semester because while you loved being in a school centered around technological sciences, you were excited to study artists’ colorful, eclectic expressions and how their cultural personalities materialize in the stroke of a paintbrush.

“You’re so lucky,” Manda says, trying to pull off a pout. Her vibrant smile triumphs. “Only three days after you turn eighteen, and you hear your Destined Words. I’ve got four more months before I file a complaint.”

You sympathetically rub her shoulder, her oversized, long-sleeved denim jacket rough to the touch. “It’ll come. Just don’t wait for it.”

“Oh, I know it’s coming. I just want it to be something as cute as yours, you know.” She shudders, “My cousin Alonzo said his Destined Words were ‘Sure, whatever.’ Can you imagine that? Finally being mature enough for your Soulmate and that’s the first thing they say to you? I mean, sure, he and Tanya are super cute together, but ugh. Those words?”

You snicker, “Let me guess. You’re expecting a grand gesture?”

Manda nods with a dead serious face, though she could never truly pull it off with her full lips and Cabbage Patch Doll cheeks. She’d have a better chance at getting away with murder than intimidating someone with her cute little frown. “If I don’t hear the words ‘Where have you been all my life, you breathtaking, drop-dead gorgeous goddess,’ then I’m demanding a full refund.”

You blankly stare at each other for a beat before you crack, both of you laughing until your sides ache and you’re gasping for air, not caring for the teachers' hushes from the front of the bus.

“I just can’t believe I finally hear the words, you know,” you say as the laughs fade. “It’s like a fairytale come true.” You lean your head against the cool glass window, watching the placid cerulean waves come into view as the bus drives onto a bridge. “I wonder what they’re like, if I know them. If they’re nice. My mom says she already had a mega crush on my dad, so when he said the words, it already felt like they were together.”

Manda sighs dreamily. “I bet they’re cute. And super smart. Those words seem kind of thoughtful, too, so that’s a bonus. And, hey, don’t worry so much.” She gently knocks her shoulder against yours. “They’re going to love you.”

You weren’t scared that they wouldn’t love you. Everyone who finds their Soulmate never doubts that that is their person. What pins a tiny knot of anxiety to the pit of your stomach is how it will happen.

As a young girl, you spent countless nights dreaming of the sequential events leading up to the day you finally met your Soulmate, orchestrating the moment like a scene from all the rom-coms you binged. Your person accidentally bumps into you either in a hallway or on the bus or in the lunch-line, gazes deep into your dazed eyes, then declares their love for you with some cliché phrase before scooping you into their arms and planting a kiss on your expectant lips.

I’ve got you.

The sweet words drifting in your head do their best to ease away the anxiety. You have nothing to worry about. The meeting will play out the way you fantasized, if not better. All because of those words.

“We’re all gonna die!” Ned Leeds shouts from the middle of the bus.

All heads snap to the right windows. In an instant, densely packed bodies swarm from the left side to the right, sandwiching together to search for what Ned was staring at, some opening the windows and craning their necks for a better look. You grunt as someone digs their elbow in your ribcage to see more, and you tensely shove them against the back of the seats in front of you before peering out of your window.

It’s a sight no eyes could miss. A large, metal donut levitates in the clear sky, an obstruction not there mere seconds ago. You gasp in wonder, but not fear. Surely, the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes, will have this taken care of before the sun sets.

The bus driver, an old man with a smile as sly as a fox and pearly white hair, casually calls out, “What’s the matter with you kids?! You’ve never seen a spaceship before?”

“He’s got a point,” you shrug as Manda gapes at the driver with incredulous eyes, then rounds on you as you calmly sit back down. “We always get so worked up over these aliens, and nothing ever really happens. The Avengers got it handled.”

“You sure? Because that looks a little menacing.” Manda worries at her lower lip, anxiously sneaking peeks out the window. Many students stay plastered to the scene.

“Positive.”

✦ ✧✦ ✧

The appearance of the metal donut effectively sullies your experience of the MoMA. None of the tour guides thoroughly explain the paintings' and sculptures' meanings or historical relevance. Instead, they string together incoherent sentences about person, place, and time as they gape at the video feeds live-streamed to their phones. Even Manda stays glued to her screen, chewing on her lower lip so hard you're surprised she hasn't punctured it.

Fifteen minutes into the tour, aggravation chafes into you like sandpaper, rubbing your skin raw. You waited months for this trip. Months! You'd be damned if a few pesky aliens took this special day away from you. You weren’t afraid. You had no reason to be.

Fed up, you take matters into your own hands and stealthily break away from the group, tip-toeing back to an intriguing wall of paintings and observe it by yourself.

One painting catches your eye early, drawing you to the middle of the wall to study it further. Its tag reads The Lovers, René Magritte, Paris, 1928, Surrealism, Oil Painting. There are two people, a man and a woman, painted with white cloths shrouding their faces as they share a seemingly intimate kiss. You lean in closer, noting the almost murky atmosphere and how it lends to the mystery of the kiss. What did Magritte want you to think when you analyzed this piece? What questions did she want you to ask?

You derive two: Is love mysterious and complicated as the atmosphere suggests, or is it intuitive and straightforward as the veiled lovers suggest? And, would the love still be the same once they lift the veils?

Beep. Beep. Beep. All the phones in hearing range chime out three urgent trills, nearly ejecting your soul out of your body. Clearing your head with a shake, you pull your phone out of your back pocket. You don't even have to unlock it. The news alert flashes up like a hazard light. Tony Stark Missing.

You blink. What the hell is going on?

"Are you seeing this?" Manda whispers, sidling up to your side.

You nod, at a loss for words. Iron Man is missing? How? What happened? Did it have something to do with the metal donut?

You blink harder and take another long look at the notification, hoping it was a typo or missing a few words, words like Tony Stark Missing Iron Man Suit. Hell, even Tony Stark Missing Cheeseburgers. Anything but what's on your screen.

Somewhere in the background, Mrs. Kramer, your Art teacher, roll-calls the students to the front entrance. "Okay, guys, time to cut the field trip short."

Your shoulders sag. This can't be happening. Is it really that serious?

"Peter? Peter?" Mr. Dell calls out, clenching onto a clipboard with shaking hands. "Has anybody seen Parker? Peter Parker?" he inquired, looking over the students' heads. A bead of sweat gathers on his forehead, even though there is virtually no heat in the building, and it's a breezy, 72-degree late-spring afternoon in New York City. "Where does this kid always sneak off to?"

Ned stuttered out, "He, uhm, Pe-Peter left early, sir. Family emergency."

"An emergency? Was it so important he couldn't at least notify the supervisors?" Ned bobbed his head up and down, keeping his eyes stapled to the floor in a manner that hinted at no further comment. Mr. Dell huffs, "Alright. But he's getting detention, and I have half a mind to put you in there with him, Leeds."

Ned's face screws up in a chastised grimace. "Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again."

Your eyes linger on Ned as he pulls out his phone and rapidly taps at the screen, probably sending a strongly worded text to his best friend, rebuking Peter for roping him into his antics and nearly earning him a week's detention. You don't know much about their friendship, but they appear tied to the hip at school.

Ned's a nice guy. Reliant to a tee. You had the pleasure of partnering with him on an art project in Kramer's class a few weeks back, spending a considerable amount of time joking while diligently rendering an interpretation of Van Gogh's A Starry Night on a five-by-five foot canvass. During that time, he often complimented your paint-smeared overalls and your hair's ever-changing up-dos. He seemed like such a great friend to have.

Peter, on the other hand, is a tough nut to crack.

You only ever shared one class with Peter Parker. Spanish last semester. You remember him being too antsy for your liking, always checking his watch impatiently, answering questions too fast, bouncing his leg up and down, acting like he had someplace better to be and better things to do. His impatience never made sense to you until you heard some girls in the locker-room whispering about his Stark internship and how lucky he was to be working for the Tony Stark.

When the internship suddenly halted, and Peter landed himself in the longest detention sentence you'd ever heard of, you started to take more notice of him only because he was around more often. He was sort of cute in a boy-next-door kind of way with his science pun tee-shirts and smooth, tousled brown hair. For a brief time, you fleetingly considered asking him to Homecoming, but the futility of such a question wasn't lost on you. He noticeably crushed on Liz Toomes, and you were confident Peter's pining for her meant destiny twined their paths.

But Liz is gone now, and there's a growing 90 percent chance Peter's set his sights on MJ. Brooding quirky girl ending up with boy-next-door, now that match made perfect sense, just like a rom-com, or even better, an 80's teen romance.

Manda tugs on your arm, her hands forming a shackle around your wrist. "Come on. They're getting back on the bus without us."

Sure enough, you two were nearly the last ones in the entrance, the remaining students filing out of the door. You rush after them and reach the bus doors right before they shut, huffing in unison. Manda doubles over and grasps her knees, heaving.

"Here," you gasp. "We're here."

Your driver tuts, swinging the doors back open. "Good thing you two made it in time. This bus waits for no one, not even me. Come on," he says, waving you inside. "Let's get this show on the road."

You trudge back to your designated seats, collapsing against the plastic covering as the adrenaline subsides, replaced with the forgotten dread of the trip's abrupt end. You lean over and peer out the left side windows when the bus rolls over the bridge again, surprise rattling ominously over your bones as you find the metal donut gone from the sky.

Where did it go? Did the Avengers get rid of it?

Your hand still clamps your phone. An annoying, slight tremble in your hands trips up your fingers as they try to type in your passcode, but you succeed on the fourth try. You scroll through your social media, hoping beyond hope that someone captured the Avengers' victory or something close to a victory, something that proves the news headline wrong. Stark's probably lying low, too beat down to show his face to the press.

The far-fetched lie makes you internally flinch. You don't know much about the guy, but you're more than a thousand percent sure Stark wouldn't hide from the press if he won anything.

A sinking horror clogs your chest as you obsessively watch clip after clip, onlookers recording some unconscious guy in a red cape being invisibly bound and trailing after the commanding hand of an elongated, greyish-blue alien. Spider-Man tries to get the red-caped guy back, swinging through the city and dodging billboards, his webs clinging to the departing ship's underside, Iron Man flying into the sky after them.

It’s bad. Oh, sweet heavens, it’s bad.

Maybe it’s not that much of a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, it’s probably nothing. The end of the videos suggested the Avengers gained the upper hand on the fight, so maybe, just maybe, the alien was fleeing—fleeing… with a captive. Hurtling off into God knows where with Iron Man and Spider-Man onboard.

It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.

Your back flattens to your seat and your unseeing eyes meld to your phone, the thunderous beats of your heart stifling the rest of the world into silence. The air is thinning.

Your ears are buzzing.

A vice clenches your chest.

It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.

The dubious mantra and vague words of your Soulmate blend into an all-consuming cacophony of words, gelling together in a chant of solace.

It’s fine. I’ve got you. It’s fine. I’ve got you. It’s fine.

By the time the bus drops off the students at Midtown and you and Manda quietly walk in the direction of home, the mixture of affirmations fans away the panic settling around your chest, bringing back a semblance of your earlier confidence, or rather, what was left of it, which wasn't much.

Outside the apartment complex, an overwhelming amount of residents’ windows glow, most of them probably stuck to their couch, replaying the recent events on any major news network and speculating the whereabouts of our mightiest heroes.

It takes a while to dawn on you that you and Manda are the only ones standing outside. On the entire block.

Nothing stirs. Even the bodega on the corner appears closed for the day.

It's five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and there’s plenty of light left.

Emptiness pours out of every alley like ink spilling from a broken bottle, blotting the whole surface of the street with the absence of human activity. A tree's rustling leaves are so startling your breath locks up and you jump. Manda doesn't say anything, recovering from the sudden noise herself.

Leaving the deserted streets behind, you and Manda glumly walk up the steps of your apartment complex and up to your residence on the third floor. The apartment is eerily silent as you toss your keys on the kitchen counter and lock the door behind Manda.

"When are your folks getting back from their honeymoon again?" asks Manda, shrugging out of her jacket and toeing off her sneakers, leaving them propped against the wall by the door.

Habit controls your body as you open the fridge, grab two Sprites, set them down on the counter, then reach for the half-finished bucket of Red Vines from the top cabinet shelf. "Sunday morning, I think. They only have the weekend off. Want some pizza? I can call up Joe's."

"Please and thank you," she says, plopping down on the couch. The old thing croaks, its springs wheezing under the unwelcomed weight.

The maroon monstrosity is a family heirloom, dating back to your grandparents' time. Mom loves it, claiming it adds the right amount of character to the drab living space, knowing fully well that anyone with fashion sense would never describe any space she inhabits as drab. Dad is adamant that it's one spill away from handing in its resignation.

Picking up your house phone, you confirm, "Extra-large cheese and olives?"

You don't know why you ask. Ever since the inception of your infamous best friend "crash-overs," cheese and olive pizza starred as the staple meal: that, and a bucket of Red Vines your dad occasionally steals from. Maybe you asked for normalcy or maybe to confirm Manda's plan to stay for the rest of the night. What you do know is you don’t want to be alone.

She hums a distracted yes, turning on the TV and upping the volume to listen to Channel 10's news reporter recount the fight between Iron Man and the alien.

Though already burned in your memory, the images douse your body in bone-chilling fear.

You turn your back and dial in the order, not at all surprised that Joe's is still up and running. Once the employee confirms your order and promises a speedy delivery, you grab the drinks and candy and place them on the coffee table, ignoring the TV.

"C-can you turn it to something else?" you quickly pipe up as you sit next to Manda, unsuccessfully hiding the tremor in your words. "I don't think I can stomach the news right now."

"Yeah, sure." Slow and reluctant, Manda switches the input and goes into Netflix. "Anything you wanna watch?"

"Teen Wolf."

Manda groans, "Again? We've seen that a million times."

"Oh, come on," you groan back, playfulness strained in your words. "It's a classic. You can't say no to a classic."

She gives you a dour frown, one that still couldn't land an inch of seriousness on her amber-colored cherub cheeks, until she relents from the weight of your puppy dog eyes.

"Fine, but only because of Michael J. Fox. Next time, I'm picking."

Neither of you really pay attention to the movie or touch the pizza when it arrives. In fact, for most of the night, Manda scrolls through her social media, watching what you can only assume are today’s events. Sometimes she’d put the phone down when you politely asked, but it unfailingly ended up right back in her hands, so after a while, you stop asking. When the movie’s end credits roll around, and you dress into your pajamas, put away the remaining slices of pizza, and call it a night, both of you climb into your bed. She is still scrolling.

You try and force yourself into REM sleep, keeping your eyes shut until you hear Manda’s heavy breathing beside you. The clock on your nightstand reads 9:53 p.m.

Yawning, you curl up into a tight ball on your side of the bed and wish your mom and dad were here to help you get out of your head. Manda can’t do it when she’s so caught up in hers, and you don’t think you’d be able to tell her how scared you are. It’d only scare her more.

Tony Stark is missing. Manda would have screeched her head off by now if anything changed.

I’ve got you.

Yeah, but Tony Stark, the freaking Iron Man, is missing.

I’ve got you.

You can’t possibly understand how bad this is.

I’ve got you.

You audibly huff against the reassuring words, but they eventually do the trick in temporarily pushing the worry away, allowing you to fitfully slip into dreamless oblivion.

Seven hours later, you wake to a text from your mom. The sunlight is so bright in your room you lower your phone’s brightness all the way down, squinting at the small letters.

-Coming home early bbygrl. Dad says hi and he misses you lots hunny bun. xx

A titanic-sized weight lifts off of your shoulders—something you hadn’t even known was there until you re-read your mom’s text and verify the timestamp.

They’re on their way home, where it’s safe and you can all keep an eye on each other. Niagara Falls is just a six and a half-hour drive from here and Mom texted two hours ago, so they’ve got a couple hundred miles left. You don’t care about the distance. As long as they’re coming home, you’re fine. You can wait.

The morning’s activities in your residence pass into a weird déjà vu of last night. Manda is awake before you, sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal in her lap and the TV turned on to Channel 10, the volume slightly lower from last night. A bit peeved, you ask her to switch it to some cartoons while you pour yourself a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

She goes back to scrolling on her phone, sparingly taking bites of her soon-turned soggy cereal. You perch on the arm of the couch, far away from Manda's screen, and munch on your cereal in silence. This whole situation sucks enough without Manda’s constant doom-scrolling, but her utter silence is wearing your nerves thin.

Three full episodes of SpongeBob play on before you heave tempered sigh and set your finished bowl of cereal on the table and face Manda.

“Do you have to do that?”

She doesn’t even spare you a glance. “Do what?”

Unbidden anger flows through you like magma spewing from a freshly erupted volcano, flaming into your veins and flaring your heart rate as you yank her phone away and toss it behind the couch.

Manda stares at you like you’ve lost your mind. She may be partially right.

“Why the hell did you do that?”

You scoff, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I like talking to my friend once in a while. Maybe it’s mentally damaging to watch the same thing over and over and over again, and I was just trying to save you from brain rot.” You stand up and cross your arms over your chest, letting the rage propel your words. “Seriously Manda, give it a damn rest.”

“Why?” Manda crosses her arms too, glowering up at you, close to achieving a convincing frown. “Because you’re ‘positive’ nothing’s going to happen, right? It’s just aliens. No prob.”

You hold your tongue, waiting for her to air out all her frustrations because she’s right. She’s right to throw your words back at you. Yesterday morning you were totally sure of the Avengers, and not much has changed. You still firmly believe they’ll win whatever this fight is with the aliens, but you know scrolling through your phone for updates won’t do anything but boost your anxiety, like it’s doing to Manda.

When you think the coast is clear to speak, you lowly say, “I get it.”

“You get it? You get it? No, mama, you don’t get it. Because, see, if you got it, my phone wouldn’t be collecting dust behind your couch!”

“You needed a break, Amanda!” You shout back at her. “That phone’s never left your hand since you got here.”

She snaps her fingers as if she reached an epiphany. “Attention. That’s what it is. I haven’t given you enough attention today and you’re feeling left out of the spotlight. Newsflash, hon, the world doesn’t revolve around you. Other things are happening besides you hearing your Destined Words.”

“Wh-what?” you balk. “That… no, that’s not what this is about.” You’re not even sure where she even came up with the conclusion that you needed something as stupid as attention right now. Did she think you were that self-centered?

She cocks her eyebrow challengingly, “Alright, then tell me what it is. I’m all ears.”

“Me hearing my freaking soulmate has nothing to do with this! Nothing! And I’m not some attention-starved lunatic. Christ, Manda,” you roll your eyes, letting your hands fall with a slap against your sides. “It’s about you watching the news all day like… like this is the end of the world or something. We’ve gone through this. New York has gone through this. Alien attacks are nothing new, and I’m tired so sick and tired of you…”

You slow down, raising a soft hand to your chest—strange, tugging sensations sprout somewhere deep, deep down within you. So deep you're not sure it's actually there.

“Sick and tired of me what? What?” Manda pressed, the almost-frown lessening as your head tilts. “What’s wrong?”

You gradually shake your head. There’s no conceivable way to articulate what’s happening to you because it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. You feel… tingly, like every single hair follicle on your arms and legs rise, standing on high alert.

“Something’s not right.”

The tugging intensifies dully. You gasp against it, desperately clawing at the front of your shirt with the pads of your fingers, seeking to protect something tangibly nonexistent. It’s like someone’s fingers pinch a taut guitar string inside your chest, pulling on it with increasing pressure, pulling it further and further until it can’t move an inch, holding it the apex in a deathly promise that, with one final tug, the string will give.

I’ve got you.

Everything happens within a second.

You whimper out an anguished yelp as the string abruptly snaps.

Manda leaps to her feet and grasps your shoulders, begging to help.

Then, right before your eyes, Manda’s body begins to dissolve.

“M-Manda...? Amanda, wait! NO!”

She falls away into a pile of ash on your floor.

You drop to your knees, screaming.

And so does the rest of the world.

...

Part II

#peter parker #peter parker au #peter parker x black!reader #peter parker x reader #spider-man x reader #spider-man x black!reader #soulmate au #marvel fanfic #peter parker fanfic #peter parker angst #post endgame #post infinity war #peter parker soulmate au #pre far from home #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker slow burn #slow burn #black!reader

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glacecakes · 3 years

Text

Alchemy Lullaby (16/?)

Of all the changes that came with living in the castle, becoming a father was not one he anticipated. When Eugene encounters a small child suffering like he did, he gives them the opportunity to grow up the way he never did… helping them both heal. (AU where Varian is 4 and gets adopted by Eugene)

The worst child custody fight you’ve ever seen.

Read the rest on AO3

Y'all I am so nervous I really hope this delivers! I spent a good 5 days just agonizing over how to get my idea across, editing, redoing, this was a monster to make. The biggest goddamn shoutouts to Scar server, coloring_the_banner, @aj-reblogs, and @space--butterflies for ideas and inspiration, and @finnoky for being my partner in this whole mess, as well as the amazingly talented artist for this chapter. SIMP FOR FINN OR DIE BY MY BLADE Oh also, I had to retcon the last sentence from the previous chapter you shall see why.

Quirin and Ulla, glaring one another down.

A flask in Ulla’s hands, a sword in Quirin’s.

Varian whimpered from the doorway. Rapunzel and Eugene were so close, he could feel it! As each second ticked by, another rock reacted to her warmth, heating up his soul, his heart. He just had to hang on a little longer, and he could go home! Right?

Quirin stared Ulla down. His back was turned away from their son in the doorway, and he didn’t intend for Ulla to step any farther.

“Quirin,” she says, exasperated. “This is what you wanted, is it not?” She swirled the small vial around in her hand. “You wanted the moonstone, the rocks taken care of! This will do that!” To demonstrate, she let a single drop fall onto a nearby rock. Amber creeped up the surface, swallowing the rock wholly until it crumbled away, leaving only the amber behind. “If we give this to Varian, it’ll eject the moonstone from him!”

“I want the moonstone destroyed, and I want Varian safe,” Quirin hissed. “You were the best option; I didn’t want to kill him!”

Ulla raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “I thought you were all about duty? ‘No matter the cost’?”

“Not at the expense of a child!”

“Oh, relax. This won’t kill him. Probably. I’m actually not sure.” She shrugged, and Quirin’s anger grew. How could she be ok with killing a child, her own son? The whole reason he was here was to satisfy his morals and duty, and yet her solution was not feasible.

He’d let Ulla manipulate him for far too long. She knew how he felt about her, and she’d used it against him this whole time! She preyed on his desire for a son, for a family, and he’d totally bought into it. The man had told himself he was doing this out of duty, but he never was.

“If you cannot guarantee his safety, then I won’t let you hurt him.” He said, and Ulla’s face fell. “I only put up with those experiments in the hopes of a solution, and yet all that’s come from this is pain. I…” He looked back at Varian. “I stole a child from his father in the hopes that you could end this.”

“And I can,” Ulla insisted. She thrust an arm out, reaching for Varian. “If you would just trust me!”

“What a fool I am,” He sighed. “To ever think I could trust you.”

Her eyes narrowed, face morphing into a scowl. Quirin brandished his sword, but alas she was prepared. From her apron she pulled a small vial and threw it at Quirin’s feet. It exploded into goo, trapping him in place.

With him out of the way, Ulla’s attention fell solely to the boy. Her hair practically floated in midair, more and more chunks falling out her bun as she stalked forward. “Oh, Varian,” She sang, gaze trained solely on her son. “Come to momma, moondrop. Let momma fix you.”

Quirin struggled desperately to escape from the goo trap, but the alchemy held strong. “Varian, run!” he cried.

The child backed up in fear, shaking his head. “Punzel’s gonna be here! She’s coming for me!” He insisted. Just a little longer, he just had to wait a little longer…!

His momma laughed in agreement. “Yes, stay. It doesn’t matter, Varian. Just take your medicine, and all our problems will go away…” Now that Ulla was closer, her scowl morphed into a cheshire grin. She ran a hand through her hair, leaving a large piece hanging like a curtain over one eye.

Varian’s mind reeled as tears streamed down his face. Think, think! Eugene always told him to come find him when he was in danger, but he knew where Eugene was! He was coming! Why wasn’t he here yet?

He glanced around wildly, looking at anything aside from his momma and the glowing vial in her hand. From Quirin, who struggled to free himself, to the moon shining through the window…

Wait, that’s it! The incantation! The one Quirin said to only use in danger! This surely counted as danger, right?

“Wither and decay…” He mumbled, and Ulla’s face lost all color. “End this dest-destiny…” He didn’t really know what the words meant, did that matter? He hoped not.

“Don’t you dare,” Ulla growled, grabbing Varian’s arm roughly. “Don’t you dare you brat! You worthless child!” She pushed the vial into his face. “DRINK IT!”

BANG!

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

Eugene stood front and center at the lab’s entrance, chest heaving as he stared at the scene in anger. His baby boy, backed into a corner and at a madwoman’s mercy! Righteous justice bubbled in his chest, a desire to grab Varian and cause just as much pain to this lady as she had caused their family. Rapunzel at his side readied her frying pan while her braid shone like the sun. Cassandra stood by as well, sword drawn and ready to fight Quirin, though she lowered it slightly when she saw he was no threat.

The alchemist snarled, throwing down Varian’s arm and reaching for her alchemy. “Honestly, if you all had just waited five minutes, I would’ve gladly handed him back…!” Why did none of them see her way? She just wanted to extract the moonstone from a baby who had no use for it, nor a proper grip on his powers. She wanted the rocks to vanish, just like the rest of them! Ulla charged at the trio, throwing a smoke bomb to distract them. The room filled with smoke, hiding Varian from sight.

“Varian!” Rapunzel called. “Hang on, honey! We’ll save you!”

Ulla’s voice rang out loud and clear from behind. “I’m trying to save us all, you morons!” Rapunzel brought up her frying pan to bat away another bomb now that she could see Ulla through the smoke. “If I had the moonstone, I could retract all the rocks!”

“What makes you so sure you can control them if Varian can’t?” She barked. The only response she got was a goo bomb trapping her pan to her hand. “Ugh, seriously?” Ulla smirked, throwing another bomb she knew Rapunzel couldn’t dodge. The princess braced for impact, only for Cassandra to push her to the floor just in time.

“Eugene!” Cassandra called through the smoke. “Go find Varian!”

Eugene held up his shirt to help his breathing through the smoke, though it was slowly beginning to dissipate. He could barely make out Quirin’s form, trapped under Ulla’s alchemy. While part of him still hated the man’s guts, seeing that he was not on Ulla’s side (anymore) was enough to push that down for now. “Quirin,” He rasped. “Varian. Is he ok? I swear if you hurt a hair on his head-”

“He’s fine, I tried to stop Ulla from using that chemical. I’m so sorry,” That got Eugene to blink in shock. A truce, a common enemy, that would’ve been expected, but an apology? “I should never have taken him, I was just trying to do my duty, I never wanted him to be hurt-!”

Eugene cut him off. “Yea, we can hash that out later. Varian?” That made Quirin blink a few times in shock. He was just ignored, just like that? Well, he couldn’t blame Eugene, it was his son after all. But still, ow. He pointed his sword in the direction of the boy.

“Varian, bud, you there?” Eugene said, and the smoke finally cleared enough that he could see his son still in the corner. “Oh thank god-” He trailed off at his son’s appearance. “Varian…?”

Pitch black eyes stared back. His baby’s lovely hair, raven black with a streak of moonlight, was now dark as the rocks he controlled, with teal flowing through his head. A large shadow loomed behind Varian, creeping and slowly swallowing the room in darkness.

“Break these earthly chains… and set the spirit free.”

The floor beneath him cracked, and the air turned stale, blowing away any remaining smoke.

“Wh-” Cassandra tried to speak, but broke into violent coughs. Like sand in an hourglass, energy sapped away from the adults in the room, redirected towards the toddler. With each heartbeat Eugene felt himself weaken, but still he staggered forward, dropping down onto his knees in front of his son.

The past few days have been wrought with anxiety, but now, seeing Varian in front of him, so close yet so far… that was worst of all. Eugene’s boy was dressed in rags similar to when he was first found (Where was his suit? His suit that he adored and made Varian look like himself?). Oh how Eugene wanted to scoop Varian up. To run away, to the ends of the earth. But that would make him no better than Ulla. To think just a few days ago, nothing was wrong, their only problem had been Varian’s jealousy towards Rapunzel. How had it all gone so wrong? Did that make Eugene a bad parent? If he had fought harder, would Varian be in this position? Or would this destined to happen, the forces inside his son doomed to swallow them all whole?

He reached out, hands shaking, and pulled Varian into his arms. His clothes sizzled slightly under Varian’s touch, but he didn’t care. He rocked Varian back and forth, just how he liked it. “Varian?” Eugene whispered. “Varian, can you hear me?”

“...Wither and decay,” Varian murmured, another tear falling.

Distantly, Eugene could hear the others struggling. He heard a thump as someone collapsed, the distressed cries of Rapunzel. He glanced up, and… was it just him or was her hair flashing? Like a candle on the verge of going out, Rapunzel’s hair flickered between blonde and brown. She grasped at her chest, clawing at it as if something was trying to burst out. From under her fingertips a faint gold glowed.

“....Thief…” Ulla’s voice rasped. She lay on her stomach and rolled a vial over to Eugene. “U...use that on him! Make him drink it! Otherwise we’ll all die…!” Her eyes turned desperate, a silent call for a truce.

His arms were now burning where Varian touched. He rested his chin on Varian’s normally soft hair, only for it to feel hotter than a thousand suns. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was the boy he had in his arms. His baby, his darling, finally back where he belonged.

Eugene held the golden chemical, ready to move it to Varian’s lips…

And faltered.

No.

He wasn’t going to risk Varian’s life for his own.

He tossed the vial aside and placed a kiss to the top of Varian’s head, ignoring the searing pain it caused his face. Though it might have just burned his stubble off. “Bluebird,” He whispered. “Dad’s here. You’re ok now. Come on, Varian, come back to me.”

“End... this destiny…” Varian faltered ever so slightly.

From where she had collapsed, Rapunzel sat up shakily. “Varian, you mean so much to us. Please…” While his vision was blurred, Eugene could tell he was right; her hair was brown again. A golden stone pulsed on her chest, giving her the strength to stumble towards them. Upon reaching her love and son, she collapsed once more, placing shaking hands on Varian’s shoulders. Miraculously, she didn’t burn.

“Sweetie,” She whispered. “We’re here, we need you.”

A single tear trailed down Eugene’s cheek. “We love you,” he said.

There was silence.

Tiny hands squeezed at Eugene’s arm. It didn’t burn.

“Daddy…? Mommy…?”

Varian blinked once, twice, eyes no longer tar, but rather the same electric blue as always. His hair was back to normal too, and the burns slowly began to fade to a general ache instead of searing. Even breathing felt easier. Eugene let out a wet laugh, placing a kiss to the crown of Varian’s head once more.

“Yea bud, daddy and mommy,” he choked out, and Varian sighed, content. They sat there for a moment, the three of them, Rapunzel wrapping both of them into a hug. Finally, after days of agony, they were together again.

Slowly, steadily, Cassandra stood up, leaning against her sword. She couldn’t help but feel a little awkward, but nonetheless glad to see Varian back to normal. Quirin, who had finally managed to free himself from the goo, also seemed at peace. They stood in place, watching the family with smiles on their faces.

For a moment, all was calm.

A hand snatched Varian’s shirt collar, retching him from his parent’s grasp with a cry. Eugene barely had any time to react before Ulla was forcing the amber solution down Varian’s mouth.

“No!” He yelled as his son began to cough and sputter, writhing in Ulla’s grasp so much that she almost dropped him. With hungry eyes she watched as Varian curled in on himself and screamed, his pain causing a flurry of rocks to sprout all over the lab and weaken the already damaged structure. Not only that, but creeping tendrils of amber engulfed each new rock, reaching claws out to try and ensnare anything that ventured too close.

Cassandra tried to strike one with her sword, but it shattered on impact. Shit, this stuff was just as strong as the rocks!

“How is this better than the moonstone!?” She hissed at Quirin. The knight didn’t respond, instead shielding her when a nearby rock exploded from the force of the amber. A war of yellow and black raged, ravaging the room.

“Varian!” Eugene screamed, horrified as the child seized on the floor. Much like Rapunzel moments ago, a bright glow centered on his heart grew. This one was cyan, and as it got brighter, his hairstripe grew dimmer.

Ulla’s hand dug into the boy’s chest, seizing what grew. He let out a final scream, and the room exploded in a bright light.

Rapunzel’s own breast glowed briefly, reigniting her hair long enough for it to wrap protectively around her boyfriend. Quirin and Cassandra huddled together to brace for impact. Wind howled around them, so loud that it was all they could hear, and dust blew directly into their faces.

When Rapunzel’s hair parted, and Cassandra and Quirin opened their eyes, the house was destroyed.

Shattered support beams lay strewn across the landscape, some impaled by black rocks that were beginning to move. A loud groan echoed, haunting as the rocks of Old Corona shifted directions until all of them faced towards the ruined lab.

At the epicenter, where all the rocks pointed, lay a very still boy.

Too still.

“No no no!” Eugene lurched forward, coughing violently as the debris that coated his lungs made itself known. But that didn’t stop him, dragging across the ruins until he was at Varian’s side. “Varian!” He begged, shaking arms picking up his son. He cradled him close to his chest, hoping, no, praying, that Varian was ok.

He was quickly joined by Cassandra and Rapunzel, who's searching hands checked Varian for signs of life. Cassandra placed a finger on his neck, and let out a massive breath. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “Just unconscious.”

“What on earth was that…?” Rapunzel asked, fear clouding her emerald eyes.

In all honesty, Eugene had no clue. He glanced at his sunshine, with her once again brown hair, and Cassandra, with her broken sword and shattered look, and sighed.

Suddenly, the rocks lit up blue around them. It started off their usual hue, glowing brighter and brighter, even more so than when Rapunzel’s hair reacted to them. The air hummed with electricity, and sparks jumped from rock to rock with loud cracks.

“Finally…”

The trio whipped their heads around. Eugene’s heart leapt into his throat as he clutched Varian tighter.

Ulla stood off to the side, previously silent, now admiring her new form. Her hair was set free from its bun, ending at her waist and a bright teal, more saturated than Varian’s hairstripe. Gone was her alchemy apron and goggles, replaced by a black, capped sleeve dress. Dark blue spikes covered her lower arms.

The moonstone spritzed with power on her chest.

“After 5 agonizing years…” Ulla’s voice was haunting, almost melodic. She spread her fingers out, beckoning a rock to her command. It creeped up from the earth until she rested her palm on its surface. The power was addictive, filling Ulla’s veins with refracted sunlight. No wonder Varian put up such a fight, she’d rather die than be without this power ever again!

Her euphoric haze faded at the sight of the trio. In the thief’s arms was her son, the boy who had given her so much grief for all these years. It was laughable, how easy the solution had been in retrospect. But oh well, live and learn.

Rapunzel glared down the other woman, clutching Eugene’s bicep in support. Like hell they would let this woman get away with what she did. So what if she had an indestructible body armor and ultimate power? She hurt their kid, and they’d kick her ass.

Ulla’s grin turned wicked sharp. “I can make the world as it should be,” she raised her arm, and the spike she’d summoned grew. Then another joined it, and another, and suddenly a ring of obsidian rose around her. Their points all faced the family, preparing to spring forward.

“Starting with you.”

Without warning, the rocks formed a trail, several jutting closer and closer, snaking through the earth preparing to meet flesh. They braced for impact-

CRUNCH.

Ulla gaped at the piece of rock that jutted out of her chest.

Panting, Quirin drove the point further into her.

She fell to her knees.

Then her side.

Her eyes stared forward, unblinking, gazing at the son she never loved.

#varian #tangled the series #tts #tts varian #eugene fitzherbert #tangled eugene #tts eugene #team awesome

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myouki · 3 years

Text

A Cup Full of Cheer (One-shot)

Chapter Warnings:

Swearing

Credits:

Goth: @nekophy

Palette: @angeutblogo

Raven: @echoiarts

***

Goth had never really been one for Christmas parties, but he had decided to make an exception when Palette asked him to come for what the monster had called a little get-together between friends on Christmas Eve; this turned out to be a fifty-strong, music-blasting, wannabe moshpit crammed into a single household and backyard. Someone had managed to sneak alcohol into the party, but the stuff really had no appeal or effect on him and Palette luckily wasn't too keen on the taste.

He had to admit he felt bad for whoever owned the home; it would likely be trashed before the night was done if the current state was any indication.

The smaller skeleton finished off the solo cup of soda in his hand as he watched the love of his life laugh along to a joke that he didn't really consider all that funny. Goth was far more focused on the cheer in Palette's voice as they talked over the music; how their sockets crinkled upward when they smiled; the way they-

"Someone's thirsty," a voice commented loudly by his skull.

Goth whipped to his right, finding his brother Raven standing next to him... wearing a santa hat?

Before he could voice his surprise, Palette leaned over and gasped, "No wonder you're thirsty, your cup's empty! Hold on; I'll get us more soda."

Thankful that the innuendo went over Palette's skull, Goth directed his attention to his brother once the colorful skeleton was gone and yelled over the music in exasperation, "Why are you here?"

"I was invited, just like you," the monster shouted back with a casual shrug and a grin, "I saw you over here and decided to check on my little brother."

"I'm older than you by two years," Goth corrected with a deadpan expression.

The reaction only seemed to egg Raven on as he leveled his hand at the hooded skeleton's height, "You're still little compared to me."

Goth silently fumed, knowing his brother was technically right, standing almost a full head taller than him; rather than trying to argue semantics and dragging out his aggravation, he changed the subject, "Well, you've checked on me; now you can go back to whatever you were doing."

"I don't know...," Raven drawled. Goth didn't like that tone; it never led anywhere good, "You look like you're having a bit of a problem here-"

"Raven-"

"-and it's my brotherly duty to help you out," the monster finished, glancing past him. Goth followed his brother's gaze, groaning at the sight of Palette chatting with someone else across the room while still somehow managing not to spill the contents of the pair of cups in each hand despite their animated gestures; he really didn't like where this was going. His soul jumped into his throat as Raven cleared his peripheral vision, heading toward the drink counter and opening their mouth to shout, "Hey-!"

"NO!" Goth screeched in panic, lunging at his brother.

"Wh-OOF!" Raven grunted when the smaller skeleton latched onto his brother's neck; luckily, it wasn't difficult to hold on once Goth had enough sense to levitate into a more favorable position, piggybacking on their shoulders and attempting to steer them away from a confrontation like a horse as they tried to pry his hands off, "Goth, quit acting like a little gremlin... OW, I'm trying to help you!"

"Like hell you are!" Goth burst out, knocking the santa hat loose as he yanked his brother's skull in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the commotion managed to attract Palette's attention as the worried monster quickly wove through the crowd toward them; knowing he only had a few seconds to fix this, the hooded skeleton leaned over and growled by Raven's skull, "Look, you better keep your mouth shut because if you tell Palette, I'll tell Blueprint."

Raven paused in his flailing to address the threat, "He's not here."

"I. Have. A. Phone!" Goth annunciated each word, digging through his pocket and brandishing the device in an aggressive manner. True, Blueprint might detest the idea of crowded places, but the shy monster still had a phone number that could be very easily reached at a moment's notice.

Raven's sockets narrowed into a glare, "You wouldn't."

"Try me," Goth countered with a matching expression. He knew from the way his brother grit their teeth that he had won; Raven knew he was vindictive enough to follow through with his threat and unlike with Palette, Blueprint would have a solid hour at minimum to mull over a text on their own without any type of damage control. On top of that, a text message would be much harder to explain away or reinterpret.

"Goth! I heard- !" Palette's voice finally became audible as he made it to the pair while still carrying the drinks, stopping short and quirking his sockets at the scene, "... Raven? What's going on? Why are you both wearing such scary expressions?" In retrospect, Goth sitting on Raven's shoulder, gripping his skull while brandishing a phone as they glared at each other probably looked odd to everyone not involved in the situation.

"It's nothing; we were just playing around, weren't we Raven?" Goth lied, giving the younger brother an expectant stare; the ball was in their court now.

Raven's eye light went from Goth to the phone, then back again before he slowly confirmed, "Yeah... just brothers being brothers."

Goth watched Palette process the information, "Well, Pj does give me that look a lot..." His mouth formed a pout as he chastised, "Still, you shouldn't rough house in a crowded room like this; someone could get hurt and I was worried when I heard you yell."

"Right...," Goth grimaced, unlatching himself from his brother and floating back to the ground with an apology, "Sorry for worrying you."

"It's okay; I'm just happy nothing happened," Palette chirped, donning the smile that made Goth's soul flutter as he handed over one of the cups while Raven retrieved his seasonal hat. Goth thanked him and tipped the drink back without much thought, immediately regretting it when he began sputtering and coughing at the unexpected taste in his mouth; the reaction had both his crush and brother fussing over him and patting his back.

Once he had regained his breath and signaled that everything was fine, Raven asked, "What was that about?"

Goth turned to Palette, "You got us both soda, right?" Receiving a confused nod, he explained, "I think the soda's been spiked. I wasn't expecting the alcohol, so I ended up choking on it."

Palette eyed his own cup quizically and took a sip of his drink; his face scrunched up in disgust as he spat the contents back into the cup and began apologizing, "Stars, I'm so sorry; I should have-"

"It's fine, it was an accident," Goth soothed; he knew Palette would never give him a spiked drink on purpose and that it was likely a partygoer up to some holiday mischief.

"Yeah, no harm done; we're all legal here anyways," Raven laughed, plucking the cup from Goth's hand and taking a sip only to gag seconds later, "Ugh, bad drink combo. No wonder you choked; whoever spiked it did a crappy job."

Palette still wasn't appeased with the reassurances and banter, taking on a searching look before perking up, "Oh, tap water should be safe! I'll go get us some water; be right back!"

He took off through the crowd once more and Goth didn't bother to stop him since 'fixing' the problem would help him get over the mistake faster than placation would; it was just another trait that made Palette so special.

"Looking real thirsty there," Raven nudged him with their elbow, flashing a cheeky grin that reminded him of their dad.

"Shut up," Goth nudged back while fighting a smile, "You're lucky Palette takes that kind of thing at face value."

"You know he'll find out eventually," his brother pointed out as they watched Palette's hat disappear past the kitchen doorway.

"Yeah, but I want to be the one to tell him when the time is right," Goth stated as he leaned back against the arm of a nearby couch, "It's no good if someone else does it for me."

"If that's really what you want, then I'll stay out of it," Raven promised as they spotted the familiar sailor hat making its way toward them once more.

As Palette reappeared with three cups and a triumphant grin, Goth smiled, "Thanks Rave."

"What are brothers for?" the taller shrugged easily, taking the offered cup along with his sibling and raising it into the air, "A toast to friends... and maybe more."

Palette tilted his skull in confusion while Goth had to fight not to choke on his drink a second time, "Raven!"

#Poth #Goth #Palette Roller #Raven #ACFoC #One shot #MyWriting #Swearing

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-09-15

This caught me laaaate at night gosh I’m tired but I’m gonna get it outta the way so it won’t stick in my craw! Already saw the first page, so it’s time for:

> CHAPTER 13. The Funeral

Church with chess symbols at the peaks and a Prospit/Derse or Hope/Rage split color theme on the stained glass windows.

JANE: Dearly beloved...

> (==>)

Trolls, humans, and papparazzi. Oh, hm, this church is RATHER carapacian isn’t it? Between the chess and the continuing Prospit-Derse themes, like how this corresponds to how they align in the incipisphere top-left to bottom-right if I recall:

(Minus the outlying orbs to the left and right for symmetry.)

That twisted pattern is interesting, and not quite a spirograph. Is that gonna be important later? If we’re going to get some sort of class chart later in the comic, it’d be easy for them to hint at the chart’s graphical structure subtly by dropping it places like here.

JANE: Ladies... JANE: Gentlemen... JANE: News outlets... JANE: And other valued members of the Human Nation State.

Technically true, but still odd to hear-- ...oh right, I forgot this was asshole dictator-wannabe Jane, too.

I read an interesting twitter thread recently about the intense psychological distinction between wanting to BE the best, and wanting to be TREATED like you’re the best. Epilogues/HS^2 Jane is kind of written as a case study on the pitfalls of leaning on the latter instead of the former.

> (==>)

They brought Yiffy WITH them-!? --Oh right. The hostage exchange was supposed to happen here wasn’t it.

Yiffy definitely looks like a Harley-Lalonde daughter in this shot.

JANE: Gamzee Makara, High Court Jester, exalted saint of the purple veil, has left us to traverse that grand, gay carnival in the sky, where, I am told by various members of the clownly cloth, he will spend the rest of history, honking in grand tribute to the Mirthful Messiah.

SINGULAR???

Weird. Is it because Alt!Callie “won” here?

Or is Jane just forgetting because she’s culturally used to monotheism (ironically) and is insensitive.

JANE: And my first memory of our Purple Prince, was his robust codpiece--

Wow.

> (==>)

JANE: --As he offered me his friendly support, along with the sacred blood of his brethren, the holy sacrament--

He STILL killed trolls??! (EDIT: No, a friend points out that she's talking about when she met him first in Act 6 and he tried selling bottles of troll blood to her. EDIT2: -which may be another inconsistency, since Vriska supposedly overwrote that post-retcon.)

> (==>)

It takes Jake a few seconds of puzzled eye contact before he catches exactly what it is Yiffany is tossing down. In his defense, he is distracted by his wife’s speech, which is doing the emotional equivalent of wringing him out like a wet towel, before using that towel to slap the sweaty buttocks of a large, odorous man. Even if he knows everything she’s saying is a load of horsefeathers, it does nothing for his composure to hear her heap praise on that smelly, homewrecking clown.

Bad things about Gamzee deserve to be said here, yes.

Jake wonders what she’ll say about him, at his own funeral.

Now those are some uncomfortable thoughts.

He narrows his eyes in Yiffany’s direction. She’s a lovely girl, really. He wishes he could have gotten to know her under better circumstances. He’d known she existed, of course--Jane had complained about her often enough--but they’d never had much chance to get acquainted. He rather believes her and Tavvy would have been fast friends.

Then again, perhaps it’s better that she never had much of a chance to get to know his family.

He lets go of the leash.

Yep, there’s a plan to set in motion that he’s probably already discussed with her privately. Gotta unite this four-kid team after all.

> (==>)

Wait, are you ATTACKING?!? --Of course you’re attacking. You would even if the plan was something different, wouldn’t you.

JANE: And I know that at times like these it is easy to want to give in. JANE: To throw in the towel, and turn our faces away from the light of democracy and moral fortitude that we, the citizens of the human kingdom, are blessed with from birth. JANE: God knows I’ve had my own faith tested in the last few weeks.

Jesus Christ, what has she turned the place into, a fucking theocracy?

She sounds like the leader of some screwed-up, fundamentalist country! Like the United States!

*rimshot*

JANE: As many of you know, I did not grow up with the same privileges that all of you enjoy.

Jesus.

JANE: I was born on proto-Earth, that half-finished dystopia mangled by the ravages of foolish leadership and endless war.

Jesus, she really IS a self-evident takedown of hypocritical entitled political figures. With the bonuses having Jasprose explicitly ADDRESS said entitlement to make things even clearer cut.

JANE: And as for Gamzee, well, his upbringing was even worse. JANE: He was born to a violent and uncaring home, a lonely child with few natural gifts.

...Some natural gifts and status.

> (==>)

She’s just, shaking with fury here isn’t she? And about to perform an impressive corpse-lob.

JANE: It would be simple to let this disgusting, vile, SHAMEFUL act of spiteful revenge turn us away from the blinding light of the sword of justice that hangs over us all--

This sentence seems suspicious so I’m quoting it to refer to later if I need to, but is probably just platitudes.

> (==>)

JANE: Poised

> (==>)

JANE: Trembling

Okay maybe the sword’s a dick, but what exactly is Yiffany doing?? I’m finding it difficult as usual to tell between some of these image transitions.

> (==>)

JANE: Ready to burst forth--

Bad PR to shock-collar a kid mid press junket. (Very dicks description.)

> (==>)

Click. (Did they swap the shock function with Jane’s necklace somehow, that’d be fun.)

JANE: I want to give up, at times. I understand your pain.

While shocking a kid? GREAT PR.

> (==>)

JANE: I sympathize with your pain.

Wow, those horrified audience members. She REALLY can’t even see herself anymore can she? Not even hear herself. And they’re making sure this is pointed out to EVERYONE watching. They described this as in large part a PR campaign to defeat her, didn’t they?

> (==>)

Great furious businesswoman-villain look, that art.

JANE: But when that pain! Becomes too hard! To endure! JANE: Remember poor, lifeless Gamzee! Who suffered pain far worse than any of us could ever fathom! JANE: THE PAIN OF BETRAYAL!

Click click click. This is a fun sequence.

> (==>)

DIRK: Dude, didn’t you lower the voltage on that shock collar? DIRK: Little Red isn’t looking so hot. JAKE: Yes of course i did but the damn doohickys got the kick of a donkey! JAKE: I couldnt remove it completely shed know i was the one who did it! DIRK: Well, if that supervillain cuntwaffle doesn’t stop, she’s going to kill her. Not really the best at hostage management, is she.

Decent plan. (And of course Dirk would pull out the word cunt.) When’s the cavalry coming?

> (==>)

JANE: But we cannot allow his memory to be in vain! JANE: For Gamzee Makara taught us that even the most loathsome degenerate can take their place in society. JANE: All they need is the right redemption arc - !

Trying to hammer home some of the Epilogue’s trolly-critical themes a little less bleakly, I take it.

I kind of like the violent vibration in ALL of these gifs in a row. It makes the scene seem small, slow, teeth-clenching but still full of steady action, emphasizing the importance of the relatively small events from panel to panel while giving them the sense with the animation of them being [i]drawn out[/i] and tortuous instead of just “occurring”. It feels that way to me, anyway.

> (==>)

If he got up alive here, that’d be hilarious. (Presumably he’s been treated and done-up like a normal funeral body, not “dormant” and undecaying like a dead god-tier.)

> (==>)

CORPSE PUNT w/ CLEATS

> (==>)

That face is just. I love that face.

> (==>)

SHE MAD

JANE: Young lady, I am just about at the end of my rope with you. JANE: Throw all the dog bowls you want at the walls of my warship. JANE: But don’t you dare act up in front of a JANE: Live JANE: Fucking JANE: Newsfeed! YIFFY: Grrrrrr

What did you expect to happen? Do you expect to shout her down from this, Jane?

JANE: After everything I’ve done for you--paying for your education, helping your parents cover up your existence from the world! JANE: Just imagine what Rose and Jade would say if they could see you now, even dissidents can have a little decorum! JANE: Get down from there at once! YIFFY: Grrrrrr

But this is GAMZEE. --I guess it’s seriously disrespectful to his followers, though. Still. If you wanted civility from her, a shock collar, leash, and food bowl wasn’t the way to go about it.

JANE: Don’t you threaten me, young lady. Not today! YIFFY: GRRRRRRRRR

What is your PLAN even, Jane? You’ve completely disregarded her.

JANE: There’s nowhere for you to go. My agents are swarming this church. Be reasonable, Yiffany. JANE: Ugh. JANE: Disgusting name. JANE: But that’s hardly your fault. You were always just a footnote. Your parents’ little prank. JANE: Honestly, that’s why I helped them all those years ago! I do love a good jape. JANE: But let’s be serious. JANE: You don’t matter. If you did, they would have come for you already.

Can all the press hear her being such an asshole?

Okay, stereotypically, their arrival should be the next couple panels:

> (==>)

Jake, do something useful like hoping harder.

> (==>)

And she knocks the remote away. Excellent.

And she does. Seemingly at the end of her tolerance for insults toward her name, social status, and heritage, Yiffy performs an impressive backflip off the podium and down onto the church floor. One that, if it hadn’t been happening amidst a sea of other newsworthy events, would surely have ended up on someone’s instagram story within thirty seconds. She gives Gamzee’s corpse one last parting kick: a hard, proper kick that proves those cleats aren’t just for fashion. Although they are certainly also for fashion.

Good, good.

He vanishes into the seething crowd, and we are confident that we will never have to deal with this asshole ever again.

God damnit.

> (==>)

Jake watches this from a safe distance, poised on the edge of intervening to pull Yiffy out of there. But in the end he doesn’t have to. Instead he watches in admiration as she tears the place to utter shreds. An echoing sympathy swells inside of him as she rends apart the funeral flowers and punts Gamzee into the shrieking congregation. Here is a girl who felt the cold, indecent hand of fate wrapping around her, and instead of submitting to it and slowly sublimating down into morasse of boiled doormat, she slapped it away from her with a lively oh, no thank you.

All at once, Jake feels immense affection for his granddaughter. He hopes the two of them can make up for lost time.

Lessons belatedly learned, but learned nonetheless.

> (==>)

JANE: Enough of this. JANE: Seize her!

Kind of Red Queen of you. (Are those stained glass windows in back of the frame about to burst?)

> (==>)

Yep.

The stained glass window shatters inward, obliterated to stardust. The war is knocking.

Even attacking a disgusting faith’s church is pretty bad form, though.

Tired and busy, seeya next upd8. <3

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers

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thotsforvillainrights · 4 years

Text

~Pivitol~

[As Promised, here is the first chapter of the Overhaul Fanfic I was supposed to be working on once a week. I hope I can do a good enough job. I haven’t written a fanfic since my Wattpad days. I still get notifications from my Ticci Toby x Clockwork book XD]

Summary: The move to the city has been hectic so far. You’re new here and feeling very much alone, but you aren’t scared! People around here seem to be fairly nice to you, yet there were still mysterious people lurking here and there. So what do you think happens when you go get laundry done a block away? It can either be good or bad, but it will never be boring!

Chapter: 1

Warnings: None

“Thank you!” You cheerfully waved at the moving men when they left the last of your furniture in the living room. They were off to the next objective and you were free to unpack and unwind to enjoy your new city life. The move has been hectic you agree, but the overwhelming feeling of starting life anew was welcoming and overtly optimistic. You smiled to yourself as you sat on the plushy carpet of the living room and sifted through a box labelled ‘wall art’. Sure you were jumping ahead by trying to decorate before unpacking everything, but you just couldn’t wait to make the new apartment feel homier. Suddenly you heard a soft knocking at the door. You opened it and looked down to see a VERY short elderly woman holding a small present while a small dog was leashed next to her side. “Good evening dear. I’m the landlord at this establishment and I just wanted to take the time to give you the old welcome chat that I’ve given to all of my tenants since I started in this business. My name is Mrs. Yumine. You may call me Ms. Yumi for short. This here is my furry baby Fitch.” She said as she pointed at the cute dog next to her. “Here, these are for you dear.” She reached up and handed you the box with her short arms. You smiled and gently took the box, opening it to reveal fresh baked cookies. “Thank you so much Ms. Yumi! Also, thank you for allowing me to take up residence at this apartment complex. I have the feeling that I’m going to like living here!” You said cheerfully. The elderly woman smiled widely, her wrinkles pulling to show the cheerfulness of her face over time. “My dear if you need anything then please come see me on the first floor in apartment #6. If you can’t see me for whatever reason then please call me at either number I’ve written on the bottom of that box. Have a good evening!” You nodded and went to put the box away once the landlord had left to finish walking her pup. Eventually all your hard work paid off and you were almost finished unpacking/moving things around. You had all of the essentials unpacked save for a few items amongst the unnecessary. The only issue now was:

1.) What are you going to have for dinner

2.) What are you going to wear to bed? (unless you sleep in the nude, to which this isn’t a problem)

You sighed and looked over at the stack of dirty clothes you didn’t wash before moving here. Unfortunately you looked around and realized the apartment had no washer or dryer hookup. After some quick searching on your phone However, you were able to locate a laundromat just a block away from the apartment. “Score!” You quickly got up from your lounging spot on the couch and gathered the clothes into a basket. You made space for detergent and grabbed the keys to lock the apartment behind yourself. Walking just down the block, you managed to make it to the laundromat in just fine condition. With this section of the city being as large as it was, the crime here was moderate rather than slim. Yet you still moved here due to job opportunity. You smiled to yourself at the near empty laundromat. It was becoming evening time very soon, and eventually it would shift into night by the time you finished washing and drying your clothes. The crowd here was barren due to the time of day. It was just you, a busy mother of 2 folding her laundry by a table, and an old man snoozing in the chairs by the large window. You began to load clothing into the washer when suddenly you heard the ding of the door opening. You looked up and saw 3 rather handsome men standing empty handed as they entered. One on the right had odd silver hair in the shape of arrows that framed his handsome face ever so delicately. His eyes thin and focused, his jawline carved by God himself. Although he was dressed in a simple white hoodie, he could’ve easily passed as a model. The man on the left had a more refined look to him. His hair was a short blonde combed neatly upon his head. His glasses adorned his rather slender face perfectly. He was dressed semi casual with a tie and everything. He was the type of man you’d see in a bank somewhere. Finally your attention turned to the man in the middle. His hair was a cropped, darkened chestnut/auburn color. Three golden piercings attached to one of his ears, and a simple black medical mask covered the lower half of his face. His outfit was semi casual while formal at the same time. He wore a clack suit jacket with a dark grey button up underneath, unbuttoned at the top just a bit. There was no tie, and the slacks fit his lower form perfectly, showing off the very slightly thickened thighs.

Perhaps the most entrancing thing about his appearance was his piercing golden eyes and his long lower eyelashes.

Their eyes began scanning the scene, and when the man in the middle locked eyes with you then you quickly turned your attention to the laundry in front of you. His stare was burning into you, and you felt as if you were being watched since he looked at you. You nervously shifted eyes to the busy mother and noticed how she discreetly pushed her children behind her back. She then quickly proceeded to fold all of her laundry and rush out the door past the men. By now the elderly man had woken up from the sound of his washing machine beeping to signal his clothes were complete. He noticed the 3 men by the door and quickly gathered his wet clothes, tossing them into the nearest dryer, paying the change, and moving to sit on the other end of the laundromat. Apparently these men carried an aura to them that you just couldn’t put your hands on. Still, you were here to do your laundry, so you decided not to focus too hard on them...no matter how handsome and shady they may have seemed. You settled your clothing into the washing machine and inserted the change. Then you went to sit at the window where the old man originally sat. You glanced at him from the other end of the laundromat and his eyes held a certain shock or fear. Perhaps it was remorse, or maybe a warning. It was as if he was mentally trying to tell you to leave, or to sit over by him instead of being near the men. You ignored the ominous message and pulled your phone out to scroll through the notifications. You couldn’t help but to overhear some of the conversation they began to engage in.

“I shouldn’t have to be in such a filthy area such as this. How does this pertain to the deal in any way, Kurono?” The golden eyed man asked the arrow hair. “I don’t know, but Hojo spoke of the rival gang being not too far from here. This is a good spot because it’s not expected. Just in case negotiations break down and-”

“Shhh...I think we’re being monitored.” The glasses guy spoke to Kurono. The 3 men looked over their shoulder at you but you kept your eyes to the screen. “C’mon Nemouto, she/he/they aren’t even paying attention to us. Anyway, the deal shouldn’t take too long Overhaul.” Kurono then spoke to the golden eyed man...Overhaul. Suddenly his phone rang. He answered it, mumbling something lowly and then hung up. “Boss you stay here. Me and Nemouto are going to handle the exchange.” Then Kurono and Nemouto left the laundromat, leaving Overhaul to stand there rather awkwardly (yet still calm at the same time). After a while, you began to feel that feeling of being watched carrying on far too long. You peeked up and saw him standing closer, staring down at you intently. “Uh...hello?” You chuckled nervously. You were met with intense silence for a moment. As soon as you were about to look at your phone again, you heard him utter a small ‘hello’. You offered him a seat next to you but he hesitated at first. Ultimately he decided to have a seat, leaving an empty chair between you two for space you presumed. He also hadn’t sat until he took out a wipe and cleaned the empty seat. Then he sat down. “Pardon my curiosity for a moment, but you seem like a new face around here..” He started small talk with you. “Oh yeah, I just moved here actually! I heard there were good job opportunities here that didn’t really heavily center on the usage of quirks. Job hunting seems harder these days when you’re qurikless.” His eyebrow raised at your words. You successfully peaked his interests. “Oh, quirkless? How rare in this society. What is your name if you don’t mind me asking.”

“It’s Y/N...Y/N L/N. What about you?” You reached out to shake his hand. He stared at your hand and looked back up at you. “You may call me Overhaul. Oh, I don’t shake hands. Too much risk involved with bacteria and such.” He said shortly. “Ah, sorry. I guess I should’ve assumed that since you’re wearing those gloves and all.” Suddenly the washer went off to signal your clothing completing it’s cycle. You excused yourself and went to load the clothes into the dryer. The issue arose when you dropped a quarter and it rolled under the machines. “Oh no! Aw man!” You sighed in defeat. You were mentally preparing for your walk back to the apartment to retrieve a quarter when you heard a clinking sound and the dryer starting up. You looked up and saw Overhaul standing there. “Thank you so much! Ugh, I’m such an idiot for bringing exact change with me. I should’ve been prepared.” You bullied yourself a bit. “it’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with being precise most of the time. Your problem just now wasn’t that you brought exact change, but the fact that you clumsily dropped it.” You laughed at his seriousness and he tilted his head. “Was something I said funny?”

“No, it’s just that you seem like the type of person to lead a group of people less serious than you are.”

“You have no idea...” He sighed and you giggled at him. Before you knew it, the men returned to retrieve him and your clothes were down drying. “Goodbye Y/N. I do hope there’s a chance we can meet again soon enough.” He bid you farewell as you folded your dry clothing. For some reason, he left your heart afloat and curiosity coupled with the need to chat with him some more had overtaken you.

“Overhaul...”

»—————————–———————————————————–✄

TIp Jar: https://cash.app/$YuTakeyama

#pivitol #kai chisaki #chisaki kai #overhaul #my hero academia overhaul #bnha overhaul #mha overhaul #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #overhaul x reader #fanfic #pivotal

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yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy · 3 years

Text

Why So Jaded Chapter 11

Oh it’s getting to be a family affair now. AO3, FFN. The chapter is called The Give For The Take for a very good reason. Enjoy.

Why So Jaded?

Chapter 11

“So were you good for Vi?” Helen asked Jack when Violet dropped him off at home on Sunday night.

“Yeah! We had a great time. We got to hang out with Barret the whole time.” Jack gleefully informed her.

“B..who?” Helen asked.

“His full name is Bartholomew Maximillian Pine, Mr. Pine, my other asset at work? We call him Barret for short.” Violet tried to honestly yet vaguely answer.

“Oh, but I thought he was on house arrest at SEB for the bet he made?” Helen asked.

“He is, so we hung out with him. He helped Jack with his school project about radio waves because the Lord knows I couldn’t.” Violet informed her mother.

“And he’s friends with Evan’s mom! You know Evan- he usually goes to Milham park with his little brother Alex and his little sister Kaely? Tammy has short bobbed hair cut, brown hair.” Jack tried to jog his mom’s memory.

“Oh yeah! Tammy. She’s really nice.” Helen recalled.

“Well I got invited to Evan’s birthday party in a couple of weeks, can I go? It’s on the 18th. They’re having it at Scene It.” Jack pleaded.

“I could take him if you already had plans.” Violet offered as Helen looked at her calendar on her fridge.

“Yeah, that would be nice.” Helen appraised.

“We’re supposed to be taking Jr and Dillion that weekend.” Bob said as he came over and looked at the calendar.

“Yeah who did Dash spend his weekend with anyway?” Violet asked as both of her parents just shook their heads with a defeated sigh.

“Who knows.” Bob grumbled as he got a beer from the fridge.

“So tell me about Barret, Jack.” Bob invited.

“He’s awesome! He cooks so good, like Bobby Flay, like he made us all these amazing dishes from scratch and he showed me how to make a risotto, he’s a genius and an inventor and he explained radio waves to me and I should be getting an A on this project. And he’s actually really nice and sucks at cards. I demolished him at rummy but he was a really gracious loser and a good sportsman, he has no ego and he’s not the most handsome guy but his personality is awesome, just a really nice, easy going guy.” Jack appraised honestly.

“And that’s why we’re friends.” Violet added.

“Aww, that’s sweet.” Helen cooed as she got dinner ready as Bob simply nodded and retreated to the living room with his can of beer as Jack followed his dad and continued to sing Barret's praises, in an effort to get his dad to at least like the idea of Barret.

“Can you stay for dinner Vi?” Helen asked hopefully.

“I’d love to. Here, let me help.” Violet offered as she grabbed some potatoes and started to help peel them.

“So what’s Barret really like?” Helen asked as they stood side by side over the trashcan peeling potatoes.

“He’s genuine. And a gentleman. We ended up staying really late Friday because we just got caught up talking and getting to know each other, and by each other, his company and myself. Jack obviously knew Barret’s company and played nice with the other kids and it was just a nice dinner that I got to stay for and it was just...hanging out with friends. They’re just normal people. Like normal normal, with kids and mortgages and student loan debt. Anyway, Barret didn’t want me to drive home exhausted so he let Jack and I take his bed while he took his own couch. He was just..really nice. He never pushes for closeness or intimacy of any kind, he's down to earth whereas with Phil it’s just one head game after another when his head isn't crammed so far up his own ass it comes back out the other end again or when his head gets so big, it can't be contained inside Madison Square Gardens because it's a freaking blimp and his ego is as fragile as a hanging nut sack, it's a very nice and welcome change of pace. It was actually almost fun to just be casual and hang out and not watch the clock to count down the minutes until I’m free. And not having to always watch my back and watch the exits and think of exit strategies or expecting attacks every other second or worrying about doing or saying the wrong thing that’ll bite me in the ass later, like turning off for once instead of always being on you know?” Violet answered honestly.

“Well I’m glad you had a good weekend and it sounded like you spent it with a friend. You need more of those.” Helen noted as she smiled at her daughter.

“Thanks, so. How was your weekend?” Violet returned.

“It was so fun. We ended up doing a gig upstate and after we got a cabin and just got to relax after, it was great.” Helen sighed happily as Violet simply smiled, albeit a little sadly. Because she doubted she would ever get to enjoy the wedded bliss her parents enjoyed. If she lived long enough to get married that is.

Just then Dash came into the house.

“Oh good, I didn’t miss dinner.” Dash smiled happily as his stomach started to growl.

“If you’re gonna help eat it, you should help make it.” Violet urged.

“But you two do it so well, I would only be in the way.” Dash excused himself as he grabbed beer from the fridge and started chugging it.

“You look really nice by the way Violet, green is definitely your color.” Dash praised as she squeezed by them to get to the box of cookies on the counter.

“I’m not giving you any more money, you still haven’t paid me back from the last three times I gave you money.” Violet immediately insisted when Dash tried hugging her from behind.

“Who said anything about money?” Dash pretended to be appalled that Violet would insinuate that.

“No one, and it will not be brought up again.” Violet insisted and she could only smirk smugly when he huffed and pulled away from her sullenly.

“So which underwear catalog model were you with this weekend Dash?” Violet asked.

“Victoria’s Secret, with Bianca.” Dash grinned cheekily with a click of his teeth as Violet visibly gagged.

“For the love of God and all that holy, please tell me you wore a condom.” Helen urged.

“Uh I think we should be asking Violet if she’s been wearing condoms when she was with Phillip in Vegas of all places, I’m surprised she didn’t come back married as Mrs. Sebastian.” Dash snidely returned as he began to walk away and Violet’s eyes glowed ultraviolet for a moment as her anger started to build.

“First of all, that’s none of your business, second, that was work and well within the parameters of my contract, third, considering my track record, as opposed to yours, who has not one, but two children already by two different women? And they’re only six months apart? And don’t you pay enough in child support already? You really want to add a third payment?” Violet spat back.

“Well some of us don’t roll around in money Violet! Besides, aren’t you paying enough in rent at Sky Way?” Dash sneered condescendingly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, you know if you could keep it in your pants for more than five minutes, you’d be able to afford to live there too, don’t you get enough in endorsements between Nike, Body Armor and all your White Lightning merch and endorsements? Just up your appearance fees or better yet, if you- you know, invested some of that money instead of spending it faster than you’re making it, you’d be able to live wherever you wanted to.” Violet returned defensively.

“I do invest it, it’s just not getting the same returns your money makes apparently.” Dash returned.

“Oh my God, will you two stop it! Ugh, aren’t your kids supposed to get along once they leave home?” Helen complained.

“Dash, just go to the living room, dinner will be ready in a bit.” Helen decided.

“Stuck up.” Dash muttered under his breath.

“Leech.” Violet spat back.

“If he moves back in you better be charging him rent.” Violet insisted to her mother.

“Oh trust me, he’ll never move back in because I would never let him bring home another woman other than the two he's already impregnanted and when he wasn’t working, he’d be watching his own kids.” Helen reassured her.

“And heaven forbid he not have a revolving door on his bedroom.” Violet spat.

“I’m still holding out hope that he’ll find the right girl and settle down.” Helen confessed.

“Yeah, somehow, I get the distinct impression that will happen to Jack before that ever happens with Dash.” Violet ventured as she took her now peeled potatoes and rinsed them off in the sink before she got a cutting board out and started cutting up the now peeled potatoes into bite sized chunks.

“Well it just might happen with you before it could happen with Jack.” Helen teased as she bumped Violet’s hip with her own as she put her own peeled and rinsed off potatoes next to the cutting board.

“Ha! No.” Violet returned.

“Well I mean Barret sounds promising.” Helen shrugged and all Violet could do was laugh even harder.

“Yeah, no, I sincerely doubt that’s ever going to be a possibility.” Violet shook her head no.

“Why not?” Helen asked.

“Uh, well, he has quite the storied past. Granted, he isn’t the same guy he was, say, a decade ago, but uh, there’s too much history there.” Violet hinted.

“Like what kind of history?” Helen prodded.

“The kind that got him...really really hurt. In every conceivable sense. He made some really bad decisions in early youth, youth, teens and early adulthood and granted he pays for them, just about every day. But…it’s very complicated.” Violet tried to choose her words carefully.

“Everyone has history Violet. Doesn’t mean it has to haunt us the rest of our lives.” Helen insisted but Violet just huffed a mirthless laugh again. If that were the case, she wouldn't have such a hard time sleeping in the first place, or wake up in a cold sweat screaming her head off half the time.

“How old is he again?” Helen asked.

“He’s 31, seven years my senior.” Violet answered.

“Well that’s not that big of an age difference, especially once you pass your early 20’s, now if he was like 15 or even 20 years older than you, then yeah, that would be an eyebrow raiser of a difference.” Helen figured as she went into her fridge and got a wine cooler and offered Violet one who gladly took it and opened it and started drinking it.

“So what makes it so complicated?” Helen posed.

“Uh, well besides the history. Just our...positions. Phillip keeps me on a short leash and it’s only because I’ve “mixed business with pleasure” that I have any breathing room now. Phillip is jealous and possessive enough that...to pursue anything with anyone while I’m still under contract is a very bad idea and too dangerous. Phillip has a way of reaching out and touching people, and not in any kind of good way. And Barret is also under contract and his contract is even longer and more severe than mine. But we are…” Violet paused as she tried to decide on the best words to use.

“We’ve grown close to being friends because we’re just...two birds, in side by side gilded cages.” Violet finally murmured lowly as she finely diced the potatoes as she realized they should boil these and make mashed potatoes.

“So what has he done to incite you to view him like that?” Helen posed as she rinsed off some asparagus in the sink as another vegetable for dinner.

“He’s healing me.” Violet answered honestly.

“Like emotionally or physically?” Helen asked.

“The latter, the former is probably impossible.” Violet specified.

“Like with your central cortex?” Helen posed.

“Yep, he used his genius and formulated my current medication, he got me in front of the curve instead of always chasing behind it. It’s like I’m a teenager again, before any of it ever hurt and I can use my powers for hours instead of mere minutes before the pain sets in and the longer I'm on it, the better. I’m actually sleeping at night because of the sleep aids he’s made for me, granted for anyone else, they’d put them into a permanent coma but for me, they’re just right. I’ve shared them with Tali and they’re curing her too and even all the other Supers at The Agency with the same problem. Grated Phillip makes The Agency pay through the nose for theirs but for now they’re free for me and Barret is risking everything to get me my own protected supply that Phillip can’t touch or better yet, control, just in case Phillip tries to hold them over my head to keep me in line, which I wouldn’t push past him. Barret even made a suit that should protect me and everyone I protect that has features that every Super will want and every Super who is a handler will need. And he gives without any thought or want or need to be paid back. Even when he has so little, he’d give it all before ever being asked. He’s helping me with Dragon Eye, he’s...he’s an unlikely ally and an even unlikelier friend.” Violet explained as Helen’s eyebrows rose in surprise to hear of these developments. Granted, she didn’t like Phillip as far as she could punt him either. Something about Phillip put her on edge and had her own intuition telling her something was wrong with him and that he was much more dangerous than he looked but she couldn’t put her finger on it or explain it. She got the sense he was a sleezeball and Helen would have never forgiven Violet if Violet had come home from Vegas as Mrs. Sebastian.

“Sounds like a pretty awesome guy to me Vi.” Helen shrugged with a knowing grin.

“He is. He just...has an unfortunate past.” Violet answered.

“Was he in the mob or something?” Helen guessed lowly.

“Uh, no, not that I’m aware of.” Violet shook her head.

“Is he a serial killer?” Helen teased as Violet huffed a mirthless laugh again.

“Technically I’m a serial killer Mom.” Violet answered in all seriousness and honesty.

“Oh no you’re not. You’re a Super, no Super has clean hands, on either side but you're on the good side. Guilty blood saves innocent blood, and it's because of that guilty blood that you've saved countless innocents which more than makes up for it.” Helen assured her daughter.

“Even if my hands have the blood of other Supers on them?” Violet posed.

“Yes.” Helen insisted.

“Not all Supers are good people, and not all Supers are heroes. You’ve gotten your hands dirty trying to keep the world safe and everyone else clean, you’ve had to make the tough decisions and the hard choices. But they were the right ones. If it was easy, everyone could do it. But you’re special and you’re one of the good guys, if not one of the best. You’re the best kind of hero, one that doesn’t need to constantly be in the spotlight and have every good deed praised by the masses, unlike others we know.” Helen reassured her as Helen gave the living room a dismissive glance.

“I doubt you’d give Barret the same speech because his hands have just as much Super blood on them that mind do.” Violet posed with a disbelieving look as Helen was taken aback.

“Ok, now you’re scaring me. Who is Barret?” Helen asked in all seriousness.

“Google him, Google- Bartholomew Maximillian Pine, just don’t scream or yell when you find out and don’t tell Dad, the last thing I need is for Dad to go Papa Bear and kill him before I can get Dragon Eye off my plate.” Violet answered before Helen got her phone out of her back pocket and googled it.

“Why does he look familiar?” Helen asked as she looked at the images of him that came up.

“Cross reference Buddy Pine, aka Syndrome.” Violet said before Helen sharply inhaled through her nose as her eyes got impossibly wide.

“See? Do you see why I didn’t want tell you? Because of this reaction right here.” Violet insisted.

“I...I thought he was in a wheelchair? After the accident with the jet turbine.” Helen finally spoke.

“He was in a wheelchair, he was in one for a few years after that accident and had to be put together and get surgery after surgery to be made somewhat whole again, it was why he didn’t go to prison after Syntech crashed and burned as did Syndrome. But Barret has assured me that Syndrome died in that jet turbine and it’s beyond clear to me that he is telling me the truth and he shows me that that's the truth by his actions that he is nothing like what he once was, except for the genius inventor thing, that never changed but everything else did, you'd barely recognize him now but hearing him talk might jog your memory. Or even Dad's especially. Barret has suffered enough from all of that and especially how Tali helped tear apart and break down the very empire she helped him build and left him with nothing where he had to start from an all new low. Not only did he barely have a dollar to his name, he was left in literal pieces that had to be sewn together and be ripped apart piece by piece in every way before he put himself back together again. It’s actually impressive how he’s managed to make it this far despite all that. And even with all that history. He’s...he’s surprisingly not bitter or holding any grudges, even against Tali, because he got his ass into some much needed therapy. Here, watch this with your headphones.” Violet urged as she handed her phone to her mother and had her watch the video that she had saved to her phone as Helen put her headphones in her ear and watched the video as Violet watched her mother carefully, watching how she started off wearily then gradually went from weary to understanding then sympathetic as the video progressed.

“So, you ready to take all that back?” Violet questioned when Helen finished and handed the phone back.

“Nope. Who else has seen that?” Helen asked.

“Tali, she cried when she watched it. She said that if he had been like that a decade ago, she never would have left him, or betrayed him and has asked me to help Barret and take care of him to the best of my ability, which I have happily agreed to and Barret makes it easy for me to do so. I don't do so strictly out of obligation or because it's owed or expected. I do it because I want to. Which is a first for me, especially in this job.” Violet answered.

“Well, it’ll take some time for everyone to come around to the idea of just you being friends. I think it should only matter what people are in the present. Obviously, he’s suffered the consequences of his actions.” Helen appraised.

“He has suffered, more than enough.” Violet insisted.

“Then I trust your opinion of what he is now.” Helen insisted.

“Really?” Violet posed disbelievingly.

“Like I said, the past shouldn’t haunt us forever. And if you said Syndrome died all those years ago. And he’s a changed man, then I will trust you on that. You aren’t one to trust anyone easily. And every ounce of your trust is hard earned and if he’s earned it, and if you trusted him enough to let Jack hang out with him, because it's no secret he's your favorite, much less yourself, then that’s enough.” Helen insisted.

“So you’re not pissed that I let Jack hang out with him?” Violet asked.

“You let Jack hang out with Barret. And Barret is a good guy. That’s all that matters.” Helen insisted before Violet quickly enveloped her mom in a tight hug.

“Thank you Mom.” Violet thanked her, not realizing how much her mother's approval would mean to her or how assuring, reassuring, validating and vindicating it was to have it.

“You’re welcome.” Helen reassured her. Ever so thankful and grateful that Violet let her in on even this much.

Truth be told, Helen was resentful to The Agency for turning her daughter from a good but shy teen to a stone cold killer. When Violet had come home from a stint that took almost a year, Violet just came home and held Jack and didn’t let him go for weeks. And often took him to bed with her and cried herself to sleep holding him. Violet wouldn’t breathe a word of what really happened and what she had been doing was top secret and only the highest of higher ups even knew about it, but after that, Violet was never the same and she was fiercely protective of Jack who was only 3 at the time and she was only 17, almost 18 herself at the time as well. Thus why the two shared their current super close bond. All Helen could think of is that involved children. Maybe the target had little children that Violet left orphaned, that was the only thing that made sense to Helen and to Bob. But after that, Violet just did mission after mission, back to back to back and started earning more than her parents ever did combined. And each time she came home, less and less of herself came home with her and when Violet moved out at 18, Helen feared she would lose all contact with her, and Helen had never been more devastated when her fears proved true.

When Violet was 21, she did another really, really long mission that took over a year and Helen didn’t hear from Violet that whole time and all The Agency could tell her was that she was on mission and undercover, wouldn’t say where or with who. But whatever it was, it didn’t end well. Helen and Bob had been watching the news and three major catastrophes seemed to happen at the same time, complete with natural disasters on top of political upheaval. And then they had gotten a call from Violet from a burner phone, saying that she was done. And she was disappearing for good and that she was just calling to say goodbye.

That had been the worst of it.

To beg and plead with your only daughter to just come home, where it was safe, where she would be protected. And to have that same, oh so precious daughter inform you that she would put them in too much danger if she did that. That she couldn’t protect them. She couldn’t even protect herself. And that the danger was bigger and stronger than anything they had ever known. And that if they only knew what had really happened, they would never welcome her home anyway. And that this was for the best. And it was going to be better this way.

Then silence.

And it didn’t matter how many times Helen and Bob went back to The Agency and rallied the troops and threatened to bring hellfire down on all of them if they didn’t give them their daughter back or at least tell them where she was. They were going to hang every last person at the agency on their own bullshit lies tied into a noose around their necks. No one would tell them anything, mostly because the people there didn’t know and everyone who did was unreachable and "conveniently" overseas and completely unreachable. Bob and herself had even officially quit and retired. And had even tried looking for her on their own but never did find her because Violet had been trained to never leave a trace. And Violet was always- successful.

It wasn’t until Phillip and The Agency found her and brought her home a little over a year later that they got to see her in the flesh. And while it was a blessing having Violet back home, working a ‘normal’-ish job that was mostly 9-5 through the week with the occasional overseas trip, it still kept her here in Metroville, and kept her close and brought her back into the fold so to speak. But the real Violet, Helen feared, never did come back. Or at least the Violet that Helen could remember or recognize.

But then, about a couple of months ago, Helen noticed she started seeing glimmers and glimpses of the real Violet again, like Violet's spirit was slowly returning to her body. She was still incredibly guarded, and secretive. But she was easing up, Helen supposed, at least smiling more, and being more accessible, at least physically, emotionally though, that was another matter entirely.

But Violet did take to Dash’s kids really well when she first came back. Feeling sorry and sad that she missed out on them. It wasn’t unusual for when Helen and Bob had them for the weekend- Violet would ‘drop by’ for the weekend too, with clothes and toys in tow and doted on them the way she doted on Jack when Jack was that age since Dash Jr. was three and Dillon was two and a half at the time and now Dash Jr. was four and in preschool and Dillon was now three and a half and she got along remarkably well with Ashley, Dash Jr's mom who was Dash's high school sweetheart, and Amy, Dillon's mom, Dash's first college love. But Violet got a lot harder on Dash, making sure he always paid his child support and spent quality time with his kids and even chipped in financially with their mothers, making sure that Jr got into an amazing preschool and made sure that Dillon would too, and helping them as much as she reasonably could. And with Jack, she usually bought the bulk of his school clothes and fabrics and trim which she happily took him to the garment district and let him go nuts in the fabric warehouses, bringing home yards and yards of fabrics for his ‘creations’ and even paid for her parents to put on an addition to their house so Jack had his own studio to create in and was super encouraging to Jack with his interests, and often did all she could to help them out, either physically or especially financially and made sure to give them heads up on her schedules of when she was going to be in town or out of town so if they needed to, they could depend on her, or invite her to their own social things that they had going on.

But right now, it was Helen’s intuition telling her that the reason she was seeing more of the real Violet, was because it was Barret of all people bringing it out in her, and for that she was grateful and it was because of that, she could learn to forgive him for the past.

Monday morning Violet came into work and was surprised to see a woman in Phillip’s office already, and it was someone she didn’t recognize as she was sitting in his lap as he showed her something on his computer as her giggle got on every nerve Violet had.

“Mr. Sebastian?” Violet posed politely.

“Oh, Ms. Parr, good morning.”

“Good morning. Do we have anything new for Mr. Pine today?” Violet asked formally, since he was obviously otherwise engaged as Violet’s glasses revealed to her exactly who was sitting in his lap and so intimately embraced in it. Another ballerina. Cheseray Wilkenson, prima dancer for Villefort Dance Company.

“Yes, actually.” Phillip said as he picked up his tablet and did a swiping motion from his own tablet to hers before her tablet got the new data and Violet froze when she saw it as she blinked in surprise from her tablet then back up to Phillip.

“By the way, how is the new suit?” Phillip asked and Violet actually did well keeping the dread and fear from her eyes and her face.

“Good, so far.” Violet answered.

“Excellent. I’m happy it’s working out for you.” Phillip offered and Violet simply smiled politely in view of his ‘company’.

“Is there a problem Ms. Parr?” Phillip baited.

“No, no problem at all, will that be all Mr. Sebastian?” Violet asked.

“Yes.” Phillip nodded.

“Very well,” Violet nodded as she then went to her own office and opened her own computer case from The Agency and accessed her files before pulling up Dragon Eye and did a search for when the last time someone accessed it and her heart dropped when she saw that Phillip was the last one to look at it, Saturday night. After herself, Barret and Jack had been working it as she remembered the wave pattern from the cameras. She had been in the apartment side of the space most of the time where the cameras had only come on in a wave a few times but she had thought nothing of it, since it was going to be Nelson, Pike, Leland and Smith in the security booth but there was no way for Jack and Barret to know that they were on a wave pattern and it obviously happened way more frequently for them to figure out what they were up to. That’s how Phillip knew that they had made progress.

He knew. But she was sure she’d be forced into trying to slit her own wrists if he knew that Dragon Eye was really him.

She closed it out and looked more closely at what her tablet had received as she tried to see what was really there. Was this a test? A trick? A trap? Or just Phillip keeping up with her? Her gut was telling her something was off and something was wrong. She needed Tali’s advice and she called her on her phone.

“Yes?” Tali answered.

“Hey, can you meet me for lunch today? Please?” Violet proposed.

“Uh, yeah, sure, where did you want to go?” Tali answered.

“Don’t care, somewhere uh, private and spider free.” Violet proposed.

“Luigiano’s.” Tali suggested.

“Yup, see you at say...11:30?” Violet proposed.

“Yes, of course Dear, see you then.” Tali answered.

“Thanks.” Violet said before she hung up and quickly went to Barret’s floor.

“Good morning Ms. Parr,” Barret greeted.

“Good morning Mr. Pine, uh, you have a few new items for your agenda this week.” Violet informed him as she couldn’t wipe the confused frown off her face or the fear from her eyes to save her life as she did a wiping motion from her tablet to his and then looked at him pointedly to make sure he actually saw what was in front of him.

“Oh, huh.” Barret finally murmured as he looked it over himself, and also frowned in confusion before he looked back over to Violet before they had a silent conversation with just their subtle facial expressions before he finally reached over and tapped her hand with his knuckle three times but tried to make it look like some random twitch.

“If you don’t have any questions, I’ll leave you to it then. See you this evening Mr. Pine.” Violet formally said before she left and went back to her office before she went into her bathroom and became invisible, her clothes she had been wearing, transforming into her suit before she marched from her bathroom to Phillip’s office, only to walk in to seeing Phillip balls deep in his new ‘pet’ on his desk before she sarcastically gagged then marched straight to Barret’s floor and tapped him again, three times, in rapid succession on the shoulder when she had made it back before he ‘casually’ decided to go to the bathroom himself and once in it, he blew out a breath of relief when a forcefield suddenly enveloped them both as she reappeared before him.

“So what’s going on?” Barret asked.

“He knows we were working on Dragon Eye. I was able to see who saw Dragon Eye last. And it was him. He saw it very late Saturday night. He’s out to exploit you even more than he already is.” Violet answered anxiously as she started pace inside the bubble of the forcefield.

“Yeah but a Super would need your powers to make them invisible too. The suit is meant to work as an extension of yourself and it takes machines that take up most rooms to turn it invisible without your powers. To put the same suit on any other Super, it’s not gonna work. And even if it did, unleashing a small army of completely invisible Supers who don’t have the same moral compass you do- is dangerous, like Supervillain level of dangerous. No offense.” Barret offered.

“Oh none taken, I completely agree. Just having one of me is already too dangerous. I mean it would be nice for The Agency to have someone else for my kind of work but even I would have no way of seeing them.” Violet worried.

“Well...not...not necessarily, when you’re in the suit, when you’re invisible, if you’re wearing the hood, you could see them, you could see, in theory anything you wanted to see. If I make your suit for anyone else. There’s ways I can make them that even you can see them, all I need is to reconfigure the visor section of your suit and even reconfigure your glasses when you don’t wear the suit over your head or give you special contacts or make it so that the the nanos always recognize each other, even from a distance, even from each other’s invisibility. Like x-ray vision but I guess...not. It can be done. It’ll be tricky, but it can be done.” Barret realized as his spark was working into overdrive figuring it out.

“Here’s my other request. While you’re doing that- make my suit EMP proof. Because one of my powers is to mimic an EMP signal, it’s one of the ways I can “burn” the cameras and listening devices and other electronics. But if you could make it so that the EMP signal, knocks out other’s invisibility but keep mine intact. But I also need a way for my own SOS signal to be EMP proof. Like I want to be a thousand feet underground in a copper mine or a lead mine and the right people would still be able to find me and rescue me.” Violet proposed.

“You got it.” Barret immediately agreed.

“Thank you.” Violet thanked him as she stopped her pacing to hug him tightly.

“I think it’s a trap.” Barret confessed.

“Oh I know it’s a trap. But at this point, I need to put my bloody feet in the water to attract the shark and I need a way to set my own trap for it and to spring it at the right time. Springing it too soon and we’ll never catch him. We need a trap of our own.” Violet answered as she just clung to him as he did the same to her.

“But the thing is, if he knew Saturday night, at the time he checked, that was the time Pike was getting off and Leland was getting on, Nelson got Friday night and he made sure to destroy the evidence of the uh, incident. And all he wants is when and if you ever get to leave here alive, to take him with you.” Violet conveyed.

“Oh, yeah, that totally works, it was Nelson that got you the necklace.” Barret immediately agreed.

“Figures. But that leaves Pike or Leland to spill the beans. Pike was in the same boat that Nelson was in when I talked to them Saturday morning and according to everyone, everyone in the security detail is ready to follow you out of here. But I don’t know if Pike was just saying that to curry favor with me or if he was genuine. Nelson I believe is genuine. Pike and Leland, I wouldn’t put it past them to be two faced. So we’re just going to have to be extra careful from here on out and choose our steps carefully. And anyone’s loyalty who can be bought isn’t worth having.” Violet murmured to the crux of Buddy’s neck and shoulder as they just hung onto each other, Barret refusing to let go before Violet would and was perfectly content to just enjoy this, plus he couldn’t chance endangering her by engaging her romantically or at least emotionally when she had so much to lose before Violet finally reluctantly let him go.

“I better get out of here, just in case I’ve been gone too long.” Violet excused herself.

“Thank you.” Violet whispered as she stood on her tip toes and kissed his cheek just as she vanished and just as Barret was about to go ‘fuck it’ and reach out and really kiss her back, she was gone, phased through the walls and he even reached out and tried to feel for her but she was already gone.

“You’re welcome.” Barret finally breathed as he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck anxiously before he sat down and actually used the bathroom as he held his head in his hands and thought of all the ways to give her what she asked for. Electronics that were EMP proof. Ways of seeing the invisible that he had worked so hard to make invisible in the first place. But at the same time, make her own SOS beacon a lighthouse among flashlights all while doing it under Phillip’s nose and off his radar, and off The Agency’s radar.

Meanwhile Violet came back into her office’s bathroom just in time to hear Phillip calling for her once he came into her office, “redressed” in her original clothes she had been wearing before.

“Yes Phillip?” Violet asked as she held her lower belly, pretending to have just had a huge bowel movement.

“Oh, there you are. I apologize for having company earlier and not letting you have freedom of speech in front of her.” Phillip began.

“Thank you.” Violet said simply as she took her seat behind her desk.

“But now that you’re here, I take it I’m free to speak to you now?” Violet posed.

“Yes of course.” Phillip agreed as he took a seat on the other side of her desk.

“About the new suit's possible release for The Agency. I will insist that we bring Edna Mode on onboard, otherwise no Super will have anything to do with it for fear of offending her and Edna Mode is a dangerous enemy. I will take on a thousand Dragon Eyes before I piss her off and you should have the same fearful respect for her that I do, to do otherwise is to court death and social suicide in this business. Edna has been designing super-suits since supers became a phenomenon and into popularity for the last 40 years, every Super, hero and villain alike has always used Edna. She is one of a kind and she’s neutral. This will feel like a betrayal and it will feel like we’re “stealing” this from her. And if The Agency pushes this on their Supers, that will mean that the only Supers to use her will be villains and that’s a recipe for disaster. Also my suit that Mr. Pine designed, was designed with me specifically in mind, specifically for dealing with Dragon Eye. The suit's capabilities will not be available should anyone else try to put it on. So unless you plan on cloning me, which I will never agree to, it won’t work. However, let’s say Mr. Pine does devise a way to get other suits to mimic what mine can do. Do you really think that’s a good idea to hand over truly invisible suits to an Agency that could hold the entire world hostage? The Agency already controls every Hero practically world wide. Or worse yet, if just one suit falls into the wrong hands and gets replicated, every enemy now has a way to waltz into any building, into any place they wanted to and kill you or me or anyone else without a trace. One of me in the world is dangerous enough. Imagine ten of me, a hundred of me, an army of me but without my moral compass and without my ethics. There could be thousands, millions even. All invisible, all uncontrollable and pure chaos and disaster. And all of it would have your fingerprints. Can you imagine the already delicate stock market crashing and sending the whole world into a recession that we’ve never seen before? Is making a few million off of new suits for The Agency worth all your billions that you already have?” Violet posed skeptically.

“Well, when you put it like that, no.” Phillip realized.

“Now I do agree that Mr. Pine’s new suit does have certain features that would be helpful for every Super that are non power specific. Instead of selling invisible suits. Sell the features that are non power specific, sell them individually and let the Supers and The Agency pick and choose and custom build their own- with of course- Edna’s approval, and Edna's control if she would agree on redesigning anyone’s suit. Also, Edna is used to having 100% of the profits of all super-suits and working all on her own before Jack was born. Mr. Pine made mine for free as a favor to Jack and myself because he’s a good person and because we asked nicely. Well, begged and pleaded because Jack and I are desperate to get Dragon Eye because he’s been on my roster for forever but because of his own powers, no other Super but me will touch him and I would prefer to keep it that way. Dragon Eye has the ability to make people commit suicide, imagine his own army equipped with my suit. Me and every single Super at the Agency would be in danger, including you because you have clearance at The Agency, you’d be just as big of a target that I am. Do you really want to risk it?” Violet posed skeptically as she leaned back into her chair and folded her arms over her chest and crossed her legs and fixed him with a look.

“No.” Phillip decided.

“Then change this in the roster.” Violet said as she handed him her tablet.

“Also you do realize that he would have to go to The Agency and to Edna Mode’s house to work on those super suits and every moment he’s off doing that- he won’t be here working on SEB stuff so his own output for SEB will wane to a degree as will his focus since it will be divided too. However it will prove fruitful in the long run because you’ll have an in with every other Super and you’ll be even father on The Agency’s good side and an even closer bedfellow and the chances of getting premium contracts will grow. It’s just a matter of do you want the money that would usually go straight to your pocket to change hands a few times before it does?” Violet posed.

“I think it's worth it for any profits made with any endeavor with The Agency to change hands and have a chance to multiply before it comes back to me will be sizable.” Phillip answered.

“Fair. But know that you will only have a limited time for that to occur. Because once Mr. Pine is no longer under contract with you, he’ll have his own in with The Agency because of this. He used to be the most powerful and influential non Super before his fall from grace and you effectively took his place. Once he leaves, he may want a bigger piece of their pie. Be prepared to share.” Violet warned.

“Well there’s a lot of time between now and then, and accidents happen, besides you’re his heir apparent, I wouldn’t mind sharing all the pie you wanted with you.” Phillip offered and all Violet could do was huff a laugh and grin crookedly as she just shook her head. Violet would sooner slit his throat before she would slit Barret’s as Phillip mistook the roguish curve of her grin as her delight at the prospect which only made him happy that Violet was still on the ‘murder’ side of things as far as Mr. Pine was concerned. Which meant that if she did get closer to Mr. Pine, it would be purely to undo him and further devastate him in the end. Which meant he could fully trust her with him.

“Also, I noticed that you loosened up the safety protocols for Mr. Pine’s outings. Why?” Violet asked since she had him right there.

“Uh, it was a Raid Day thing. I thought you’d feel better knowing he wasn’t “crawling with spiders” too, besides, I completely trust you with him and I know your specialties, the less “evidence” of any kind of friendly relationship, the less can be used against you, in the case you have to do the deed. However, if you are seen by his friends being with him all the time and getting cozy, that will place you well outside the realm of suspicion to them. Especially since you have more than one connection to them.” Phillip answered and Violet realized Phillip’s trap. He was trying to trap Barret, using herself as bait.

“Ok. Well thank you, that’s very sweet and thoughtful of you, I really appreciate it.” Violet thanked him before a thought occurred to her.

“By any chance, is that why you are hanging onto Miss Cheseray Wilkinson for longer than a weekend? Because if you’re “engaged” with her, that may seem to appear to free me up to get “cozy” with Mr. Pine?” Violet asked as she uncrossed her arms and simply let her arms rest on the armrests of her chair.

“You always were so clever Violet.” Phillip beamed proudly as Violet simply leaned forward on her elbows of her desk as Phillip did the same.

“God you’re despicable.” Violet praised, despite her grin, she wanted to throw up when he leaned across the desk and kissed her. But she swallowed it down, along with her disgust for him. Barret’s life and survival hung in the balance, she needed to protect him. The money- she could care less about, she had more than enough just from The Agency, any money from Phillip was always extra. But for Barret's sake, it would be worth it. But for now, she needed to get Phillip right where she needed him and keep herself above suspicion in order to keep her own head from rolling. She couldn’t protect Barret, let alone anyone else if she was dead. And Phillip still held the power to pull the trigger so to speak. She still needed to finesse the gun from his grasp. And she still needed to figure out a proper trap for him too. One that he would be willing to release Barret from his if it meant his own freedom, much less his own life to be exchanged.

“Well Mr. Pine and myself are barely now only friends, for anything romantic is to happen, it is going to take some serious time and some very convincing measures and greater freedoms for both of us and he will not only have to be enticed, but feel free to pursue me without the fear of any backlash or danger of any kind. And I’ll need it in my contract that no retaliation or counter measures will be taken for any romantic entanglements for either of us because his fear of you may always outweigh any desire he has for me and it is that fear that keeps him in line and behaving for us so we need to balance it. And of course the occasional, if not quite frequent unsupervised time spent while in contract would be most helpful and if any of my enemies become his by association, I can’t be held responsible for that. But at the same time, if anyone is going to take him out, it will be me and me alone that will do it. No one else is to ever interfere and whether he lives or dies, will be a matter that me and only me will ever decide one way or another and who knows, he may prove to be useful to me for many years to come, decades probably, why should we prune a bush just as it begins to flower? Why not let it bloom it’s heart out and enjoy it’s fruits for the long run? Granted you get to enjoy the fruits of his labor for the next two years. I would hate to kill the golden goose before it gets a chance to lay it’s best golden eggs a few years from now? Because while I will inherit everything he has, why not let that bush flower and fruit to its absolute fullest and ripest before it’s harvested?” Violet specified with a flourish of her hands.

“Oh of course. I absolutely agree with you on that.”

“But again, all of that will take time. Are you patient enough for all of that?” Violet posed.

“Oh don’t worry about me. I won’t grow bored if that’s what you’re worried about. Cheseray will do quite nicely as a good distraction.”

“Well if that distraction ever gets serious, I wouldn't hold that against you Phillip.” Violet cooed, because honestly, Cheseray and the rest of her dance company could take their turns with him, she didn’t give a fuck.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you.” Phillip reassured her.

“Well, if my hands are going to be full with Mr. Pine for the foreseeable future. I may need help with the position of your handler. And I fear for bigger trips like the ones to Tokyo and Hong Kong and the like, you're going to need an official handler since I’m going to be Mr. Pine’s for those engagements and well every engagement and outing from now on, because closeness does breed fondness after all.” Violet proposed and subtly consciously nodded which got Phillip to nod subconsciously as well.

“Of course, consider this your reassignment to him then. I believe I can enlist others to stand in for your post for the time being while you are otherwise engaged.” Phillip offered.

“Would you like me to arrange for that or did you have someone in mind?” Violet posed curiously.

“Oh I have a few in mind. I’ll take care of it myself. Your hands are already so full from handling Mr. Pine for me. I couldn’t possibly ask for you to find your stand in too.”

“Well if I may make a suggestion?” Violet offered.

“Oh I’m all ears.” Phillip grinned giddily.

“Don’t get Veronica Andrews. She’s a little too strictly business for your tastes and you will lose ground with her for the same things that gained ground with me. May I suggest perhaps a man, who is perhaps- familiar, accepting and incredibly accommodating for all of your needs who will use the same foresight and thoughtfulness I possess and will pleasantly surprise you?” Violet offered.

“Oh do go on.” Phillip urged her.

“He has a bit of a wild reputation and may have been in a scandal or two himself. But, he should be a good fit for you. His name is Leopold Traeger. Also known as Mysterio.” Violet recommended.

“Really? Mysterio?” Phillip posed.

“Most think he’s just a second rate Super, but those in the know- know differently. He’ll be perfect for what you need him for.” Violet cooed.

“Then I will take your recommendation.” Phillip grinned which got Violet to smile victoriously.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date with Mirage. I’ll need all the insights and tidbits I can possibly harvest from her.” Violet excused herself as she got up and smoothed out her skirt.

“Oh of course, please do send her my best.” Phillip offered as he mirrored her.

“One last kiss then, besides, I would hate to be the reason you and Cheseray were to ever have a disagreement, let alone an argument or for her to feel any kind of jealousy towards me or feel threatened by me and our closeness. I can’t go ruining your relationships can I?” Violet cooed as she gave him one last kiss. Kissing the last of any emotional attachment with him goodbye with it.

“Goodbye Phillip, or should I say, Mr. Sebastian?” Violet slipped back into her handler voice as she sauntered away.

“Goodbye Ms. Parr.” Phillip called after her wistfully.

Violet went to Luigiano’s for lunch early and happily realized that Tali had already made a reservation under Octavia for a private booth. The restaurant was owned by The Seven Kings Mafia, so there was absolutely no cameras or listening devices and there were completely enclosed private booths in one of the private dining rooms that were bulletproof and sound proof and if you needed to discuss any kind of business, Luigiano’s is where you went. Plus they had one of Metroville’s best wine selections and the staff that worked in the kitchens turned out some of the best Italian food in the area that was on par with any Italian grandmother's cooking mostly because the kitchen was full of real grandmothers from all over Italy that were brought over by the seven families that made up the Seven Kings of the Seven King's Mafia and you had to be an important somebody to even be on the list of guests allowed to make reservations and thankfully both Violet and Natalia were on that list. Violet sat down and ordered her favorite wine and some antipastos before Natalia came a few moments later, turning heads like she always did, because even after being a mother of two, her figure had morphed from slim and trim to dangerously curvy but still undeniably sexy and Natalia was still a head turner wherever she went, wearing one of her more couture outfits and looking more like a mob boss’ wife more than anything before she was shown to her booth before her own order was taken then the doors of the booth were closed and secured as Violet and her happily dug into the antipastos that had been delivered already.

“Violet Darling, I was surprised to get a call from you, what’s going on?” Tali asked.

“What do you make of this?” Violet asked as she handed Tali her tablet as Tali took it and read through what was on it before she let it set on the table and got her glass of wine and began to drink it before she looked back down at it, holding the chilled glass of wine to her cheek as he cheeks flushed as she stared down at it as she did her best to school her features to stay composed as Violet could still see the real fear behind her gorgeous green eyes.

“It’s one hell of a trap.” Tali noted.

“I know. It’s a trap for Mr. Pine, I’m the bait.” Violet offered before Tali shook her head no.

“No, you have that backwards Dear. Mr. Pine is the bait, you’re the prey. This is a give. The real question is- what is Phillip taking?” Tali asked.

“Phillip still thinks I’ll kill Mr. Pine at my earliest convenience.” Violet answered.

“Nope, that’s not it. That was a term already agreed upon and understood under the previous terms. These are new terms. Which means new stakes. This is the give, what is the take?” Tali repeated emphatically.

“My sanity?” Violet guessed. “I told him about the creepy crawly spiders. He agreed to kill them for me and that Mr. Pine is like a big can of Raid to me. Phillip hasn’t killed them yet, but he put them to sleep for now.” Violet revealed.

“No. That’s not it. Did Phillip propose? And more importantly did you accept because this is a big “leap of faith and trust” there’s no way Phillip would take this leap, without either knowing for certain that you will catch him, or, more importantly, know for certain that his leverage against you outweighs this, it’s like gambling, and he’s the house, the house is always going to win and this is your first pay out. But there’s no way you get to leave the casino. It’s way too early and the night is way too young, again, what are the stakes, what is the take? The real take? Are you going to be Mrs. Sebastian?” Tali asked plainly.

“No, uh, in fact he has a new squeeze in order to free me up for Mr. Pine.” Violet answered.

“Well it’s clear he’s “loaning you out” like a pimp trading hoes or an exhibit at a museum. What is Phillip taking to keep you loyal to him? To keep you obedient and in line? What is more precious to you than your heart that Phillip knows you'd give up everything to keep safe?” Tali urged her.

“Jack.” Violet breathed in horror as that realization hit her like a brick to the face.

“It was Jack who came to SEB to redesign the suit. It’s Jack who has been working with Edna on Dragon Eye. But Jack is at home, Jack would know if there’s spiders at home or at school and Jack is so far- immune. Unless... Phillip found a way to make himself more potent. Oh God. I told Phillip he needed a new handler while I was “reassigned”. I suggested Mysterio because Mysterio would be able to give Phillip all the freedoms he wants, without too many constrictions of ethics or morals, much less codes or laws. Mysterio has had issues with drugs in the past. If Phillip gets ahold of...any number of things he’ll be too strong. Even for me. Maybe even for Jack or my parents, or anyone.” Violet realized.

“I gotta go.” Violet realized as she took the tablet back and got her things together.

“Thank you for lunch, sorry to eat and run, I gotta…”

“Just go.” Tali waived her off as Violet quickly walked out of the restaurant, doing everything in her power not to cry in public as panic whirled in her chest and she went straight to Jack’s school and had him come to the office while she did her best to wait patiently for him to come before Jack came into the office in confusion before he looked into the office to see Violet before his eyes got wide to see her expression.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“Oh, uh, you have an appointment with Dr. Pine today that Mom forgot to call the school and let them know you had.” Violet offered.

“Oh yeah, uh, let me go get my backpack.” Jack said as Violet went with him and ordered her secret bike to meet her at a doctor’s office where she managed to find- a Dr. Pine on staff. He was an orthopedic surgeon, who specialized in pediatrics. Perfect.

“What’s going on?” Jack whispered.

“Phillip changed the stakes. We need to strategize with Barret.” Violet urged him.

“Shit.” Jack cursed under his breath.

“That was fast. We were just there for the weekend, we left Sunday afternoon, it hasn't been 24 hours since we last left. How did he change it so fast?” Jack asked in a hushed whisper as he got back to his locker and got his stuff along with work from his teacher before he followed Violet out of his school.

“Read this.” Violet said as she handed Jack her tablet as she drove like the wind to the doctor’s office as she checked her phone to see where her bike was en-route to her.

“I just got done with lunch with Tali, she said that since I’m not officially engaged to Phillip, that that is the give and asked what the take is. I think because you were at SEB, that Phil plans on taking you as leverage against me. I don’t know when or how, but you need to make sure that at school and especially at home, that it’s spider free. But since I officially got reassigned, I suggested Mysterio as my replacement. Mysterio has a history with drugs, more-so with weed than coke but I wouldn’t put it past him. If Phillip gets back on coke- he’ll get too strong, even for me and I’m afraid even for you.” Violet insisted.

“Yup, that tracks.” Jack nodded in agreement before she parked her car and hit a remote on her keys before an enclosed motorcycle slid it’s enclosure back as Violet quickly changed into a pant suit so she could ride the bike astride as Jack got on it with her and got the second helmet and put it on before he hung onto his sister tightly from behind her on the bike and rode with Violet back to SEB in the cloaked bike, weaving through all the traffic, like a thread through a tapestry and once in the SEB parking lot, Violet enveloped through her forcefield as she ran into the building, phasing though the walls and such to get to Barret’s lab before she got Jack safely into Barret’s bathroom before she went up to Barret and tapped his arm three times before he lifted his head and took the cue and went into the bathroom and blinked in surprise to see Jack in there before the three of them were enveloped into Violet’s forcefield.

“Ok, now what’s going on?” Barret asked before Violet repeated what had happened with Phillip and then again with Tali as both Barret and Jack had to sit on the floor as Violet sat with them as all three of them simply held their heads in their hands as they sat cross legged on the floor in a triangle.

“How do we get out of this?” Jack asked.

“Other than in a casket.” Barret specified.

“Or me in a wedding dress answering to Mrs. Sebastian for the rest of my life, however long or short that may be.” Violet groaned as she raked her nails over her scalp.

“Wait.” Jack breathed in softly as an idea bloomed in his head.

“Is there a way to measure someone’s individual brain wavelengths, like a taking a stamp of a fingerprint. And is there a way we can inject, something like a dye, like the kind of dye they inject you with when you have an MRI, but it can stick to foreign wavelengths, like dusting for fingerprints, but on the brain, to see if Phillip has had his “fingerprints” on other brains. Like I know Violet’s brain is going to look like a joint passed around at a party.” Jack began which got Violet and Barret to snort a laugh at his allegory. But he had a great idea.

“But if we can find actual evidence of this suicide seed. It should show up right? And even if it got removed, there might be evidence, like the water stains left behind in a flower vase. It’s worth a shot right?” Jack offered.

“Definitely.” Barret readily agreed.

“And if we can make it so that once it’s found, the dye can act like nonstick spray on a pan, to keep any further ‘fingerprinting’ from happening to the brain itself but make his efforts still show up?” Violet ventured as Jack and Violet looked to Barret hopefully.

“In theory yeah, but it would take images and I need Phillip’s biometric data. And that’s not going to be easy to get.” Barret began.

“Well, we’ve used Dragon Eye as our cover so far, I’d have offed myself already if Phillip knew he was really Dragon Eye. We can use that as our in. We can use the Agency and I can get you set up with passcodes and ways to use The Agency’s databases and super computers so that you can work on stuff that even Phillip can’t see and we can hide it in plain sight because anything secret or top secret or whatever Phillip always likes to poke his nose into. We can even use your cipher to code it. Make it so that IRize and your other companies can get read into it and at least they can keep a second copy of it as a back up and Jack, I hate to do this to you so but get you another back up, keep it with Edna, no one in their right mind would go after her or invade her space, they’d be making an enemy with every Super world wide on both sides.” Violet mused.

“Yeah, that works.” Jack said before Violet got a nosebleed.

“Fuck, I’ve used too much of my powers today, we gotta cut this short. Jack I gotta get you back and get you off at home.” Violet realized as she grabbed some toilet paper to stuff it into her nose to stop the bleeding as Buddy noticed that the blood itself seemed to pulse in and out of invisibility within the tissue, like a cuttlefish strobing it’s lights and colors which he thought was peculiar.

“Ok,” Jack readily agreed before Violet got Jack back and managed to hack into the real Dr. Pine’s medical computers to fake a note for Jack before her bike drove itself back to her secret hideout apartment before Violet took Jack home and lied to her parents about how she had made the doctor’s appointment for Jack because he was complaining of pain in his feet because the real Dr. Pine was an orthopedic surgeon and they were getting a consultation.

Then Violet returned to work as usual and went to check in with Phillip for the evening check in and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw someone with Mysterio in Phillip’s office.

White Lightning- none other than her brother, one Dash Parr.

Fuck. Wrong brother. It wasn’t necessarily Jack that was the take. It was Dash.

6 notes · View notes

btswishes · 5 years

Text

I am not good enough.

Werewolf Au (Wonho)

Part1 / Part2 / Part3 / Part4 / Part5 / Part6 / Part7 /

A/N: This was a major brain fart during my author’s block and aint gonna lie it’s low key dirty as hell, but i fell in love with the idea. XD Sorry for any mistakes made and I hope yall like it.

Word count: 2,739

Warnings: Dirty, flirting, suggestive language, cursing

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They say words can hurt us more than actions or physical wounds and sometimes that is true. When the words come from someone you care about, they turn into a invisible blade that goes through your body and latches onto your very existence. It may look and feel like it was forgotten, but once the owner walks by ,you feel the stinging pain deep down, where you can’t reach and free yourself.

You rose your body on the branch and leaned your right hand onto the bark, looking at the brightly lit window. You could see the boys sitting on the floor, enjoying food and talking happily between themselves.

Swallowing a few times, you hoped to get rid of the lump stuck in your throat. Who wouldn’t want to join them? It looked so warm and so comforting. You didn’t want to hang out there for too long, since you knew better than to be caught. But no matter what Chang Kyun by chance looked out the glass and noticed you. His body twitched about to get up, but you moved your head side to side slowly with closed eyes.He once more relaxed his body, staring at you with slight notes of pain in his gaze. You fell back slowly into the shadows of the tree crown and the veil of the moon lit night took you far from the warmth.

The wind was strong as you were speeding through the leaves, to a unknown destination. The smell of water and earth were pulling onto you. Threes and bushes pulled a curtain from in front of your eyes ,showing the open lake that was hidden behind.

“You are early.” spinning onto your heels, you leaned forward and smiled at the familiar voice

“If you are already here, than I am not early at all.” a little snicker escaped your pink lips

“Shall we start?” the man asked

“I am as ready as ever.”

With a swift move you took off your jacket and kicked off your shoes. Silence was dancing around you. With a gentle push from the wind, a lonely leaf started falling from it’s high home. It was swirling and flying before it hit the ground. It made no sound to humans, but to your senses it was more than noticeable.The leaf didn’t have much time to rest on the ground ,as the backlash you made threw it farther than it landed. Hits, kicks, bites and growls. One hit the other, the ground was cracking, the threes were shaking and the creatures were silent as the battle nurtured the earth with drops of blood.

How long was this going on for, no one knew. The man found himself on the ground and a pair of white calm eyes looking down at him.

“I never get tired of this color.” you reached out and he took your hand, standing up swiftly

“So, what is next?” back facing the man, stretching your hands up ,you leaned sideways

“As much as I enjoy you throwing me around like a rag doll.”he patted his clothes clean from some dirt “I have nothing more.”

“Dean, you know I can’t stop now.” upon hearing his words you stood up looking at the moon ,that peeked thought the clouds

“I mean it, I have nothing more to teach you as an alpha. Actually ,I feel like you can teach me some things. Knowing you though...” he paused as your head moved slowly towards him. The light of the night turning your frame black to him. Your eyes were slowly looking up towards Dean, now with a certain power flowing from them. The white color in them started trembling, left turning slowly gold and the right silver. “...I don’t think I will be able to learn what you know.”

“Dean I can’t...I can’t stop now.”Your head moved to the side as he walked closer. His hand onto your cheek pulling your head to look at him with those eyes

“Look at you. Those eyes are proof of something dwelling in you.” he leaned closer towards you, but stopped inches from your lips ,almost as if burned by something he can’t possibly have. Dean’s head moved to the side, looking away from you. His hand slowly let go of your skin as he walked back.

“You should go now, we might both be alphas, but your condition isn’t ideal for us to be alone like this.”his back faced you “Mating season is upon us.” he looked at you with the corner of his eye “Don’t forget that bit of yourself Y/N, men are wolves and bow down fully only to their animal instincts. You were safe till now, but you smell of maturity.And that scent can’t be overlooked.”

“Dean wait!” you grabbed his sleeve “I need this and you know it! You are the only one who knows about....me. You understand better than anyone that right now I need your help the most.” you gripped the fabric harder as your eyes looked in the direction of the pack house “They don’t trust me...” violently you shook your head as your hand hit your chest “I need to prove myself to them, I need to make them see that I am worthy to be followed!”

“Y/N...” he spoke but you were in a hysteric shock “Y/N!” he cupped your cheeks and howled loud, your knees hit the ground and tears took over the silents, dripping one after the other, mixing with the blood still on your face “Listen to me!” he yelled out again ,pulling your attention towards himself “You don’t need my help anymore! What you need to do is figure yourself out and fast.”

Dean stood up “I don’t understand this, I don’t know what to do anymore!” your eyes were pleading for help

“You don’t get it, do you?”he started walking away from you “Look at yourself. You submitted to me in seconds. If you want to be an alpha ,a true full fledged alpha , stand up from the dirt and claim your pack.Use your damn power and stop trying to hide it! I know if you wish it,you could turn me into minced meat.Either own up to your potential or embrace your third nature...” he flashed his wolf teeth with a wave of anger “...and submit to the ones stronger than you.Lead or be led.” his body disappeared into thin air and you were left in the emptiness of the nature.

You chose....

“I made my choice years ago.” after awhile you gathered yourself up finally“No one wants a mutt...” grabbing your jacket you jumped on a tree and went back home. Trying to leave behind the emotional scene you just made. You were embarrassed and ashamed of what just happened. How could you even submit without noticing it.In the end, it was far more difficult to control nature, while it was fighting within you.

You reached the pack house in mere seconds. The lights were still on and the boys were sleeping on the ground. You sighed at the scene lightened up your heart, melting away the unpleasant memory from minutes ago.

“Hey!”you yelled out with hands on your waist “Get up!”

“Mmmm.” Joohoney mumbled under his nose “It’s Y/N!” his hands were wobbly

“Are you drunk?!” you couldn’t believe your eyes “Shownu!” you looked at the couch, but the boy wasn’t responding at all, knocked out hard

“Leave him be.All are pretty much dead drunk right now.” Hyungwon rolled over from behind a chair

“How come you are fine then?”

“I fell asleep the moment I arrived pretty much.” he stretched one of his arms above his head “They were getting drunk cus they were lonely or something stupid like that.”

“Lonely? Ohhhh.”you clapped your hands together “Mating season started a week ago.”

“Yeah and you know how things get heated up during that time. Plus the peak is right now anyways.” Hyungwon grabbed his pillow and went to his room “I am going to sleep, night.”

“Wait, are you going to leave me to deal with everyone?” you tried not to be too loud

“Well yeah. You are the pack leader after all. Night.” he waved at you and disappeared. Sighing deeply, you leaned and picked up Shownu first ,taking him to his room, after that Joohoney and everyone that followed.

It took you less than 5min probably. “Ok, one, two, three, four, five...”you were pointing at the rooms “Hyungwon went to bed by himself already so he is six.Ughh.” you rubbed your eyes “I am still missing a troublemaker.” you were searching and searching, but he was still missing. It was midnight already and you sure as hell were planning to sleep.

“He should be fine. Wonho is buff enough to keep himself safe, that undeveloped alpha.”you laughed at your own remark and made your way up the stairs towards your room. You took a quick shower, brushed your teeth and put on your pjs. The bed was just calling out to you.

You made sure to lock the door before you were completely comfortable alone in your room. Safety measures during the mating season. You lock on your target and ran towards the bed, jumping on top of it.

“Ugh!”you groaned in discomfort, when you landed on something that wasn’t as soft as you expected “What is this thing?” you moved around to try and identify the mysterious object you were sitting on. As you leaned forward, you suddenly yelped.Something grabbed your thighs tightly and swung you around. Now you were 100% sure it wasn’t something but someone. You reached out and removed the cover, revealing light pink puffy hair.

“Yah!”you hit the man “WONHO! You shithead! Wtf are you doing in my room?!” you grabbed his shoulders about to throw his ass through the window. Your eyes glowed in the dominant alpha golden color.

“Nah.” he said with a breathy tone, as his hand grabbed both of yours and pinned them above your head. You were so socked that you couldn’t even try to move him. After awhile you took a deep breath and opened your eyes again, ready to finish what you started, but you saw him inches from you. His eyes glowing gold, illuminating your skin. Your hands couldn’t move at all.

“Hey now, what is all of this you half grown alpha?”you tried to mock him, but Wonho tightened his grip on your wrists and came closer. His head was in the crook of your neck. You could hear him sniffing you up and down.

“Smells....smells sweet.” his breath was warm on your neck, sending chills down your spine. You couldn’t move and were shocked at what was happening right now. His tongue licked your neck and that made you look to the side almost immediately. Just for a second you saw yourself in the reflection of the water glass. The gold fading slowly.From a dominate thick color, to a lighter silver and finally a pure white.

“Wonho...W-Wonho get off me...”you were trying to kick him, but he wasn’t moving

“Wonho...Wonho...Wonho..”he kept repeating his own name in the shell of your ear. He pulled away and looked in your eyes “I like how it rolls off your tongue, your voice makes it sound like honey.I wonder...” his piercing gaze slowly going down to your lips, before he crashed his own on top of yours. You were wiggling under him for a bit, but started submitting. It wasn’t like with Dean, it was different ,it felt right, like you had to.

He let go of your hands and swung you onto your stomach. “ This room smells so sweet, it smells like you. I have been trying to stay away from the second floor as much as I can, but I just couldn’t tonight. It was...calling for me.” his hand grabbed onto your eyes and pulled your head off the bed. “I know I am not a fully formed alpha even at my age, but you are just hypnotizing. Walking around us dressed so comfortably, with those shorts and that lose shirt. You think I wouldn’t notice you teasing?”

“I-I wasn’t teasing...”Wonho suddenly ripped off your shirt “Ah!” you jumped shocked by his sudden aggressive move

“Since you want to be noticed so much, let me give you a little gift.” his right hand was holding your eyes and his left your body flush against the bed.His head came close to your neck, you could feel his muscles on your exposed body. He gently licked the back of your neck. As you were just sitting there you felt something sharp on your skin. Even though your eyes were covered, they were wide open right now. You placed your hands on the bed trying to push him off. From between his fingers glimmered the golden light even if it was faint.

“Nah baby girl, we don’t do that.” the words rolled off his tongue, when he bit hard. When he released his jaw, he licked the spot a bit to sooth the residual pain. You were panting shocked.

“Wonho!” you began struggling once you realized how bad things were getting “Stop!”

“I am not done yet.”he turned you on your back “Don’t move.” the words came from between his teeth and the bite on your neck started to heat up. You squinted your eyes. Your left eye tried to turn gold, but it was just a muddy mix between the predominant white. You couldn’t move.

“Be a good girl, I am almost done.”he moved down towards your legs, laying right between them

“Wonho get a grip on yourself!!!” you tried to sit up, but he put his hand on your stomach and looked up with piercing sharp eyes “What did I tell you.” he meant business.As much as you were resisting you didn’t need his hormones to keep you in check, if you weren’t worried about the alpha position, you would have surrendered already. But you were a pack leader.

You felt his strong hands pick your thighs up and smooth his finger over one spot “Who knew you were so soft and vulnerable...I...” he leaned into the skin ”....like it.” he bit down while still speaking. Not even hesitating he turned his head to the other thigh and marked it deep too.

“Now, that wasn’t too bad was it?” he smirked “I like this Y/N a lot.” Wonho’s head was on the same level as yours, his words stirring up the inside of your body as your chest was moving up and down deeply “Hot and bothered, smells like me, reacts only to me.I might get used to th-” your breath stopped the moment his words did. You almost screamed when he dropped on top of you.

“W-Wonho?” suddenly his body flew and hit the door hard “Wonho!!!”you jumped up, holding the cover in front of your naked chest. You moved fast to see if he was ok.

“I can’t believe this shit.FUCK!” you hard the bed frame make a loud cracking sound “What did I tell you Y/N!? Shit ,shit, SHIT!!!.”the men ran his hand through his hair

“You didn’t have to try and kill him.”you said standing up from the floor and looking back

“That is true. It should have been you doing this, not me!” he swung his hand aggressively towards you “I told you to domesticate these dogs and put them in line! Not let this late bloomer mark you!”

“Dean stop yelling at me!” you growled at him flashing your fangs and eyes, pulling a laugh out him

“Oh now you act like an alpha. So you growl at me like you will bite my throat off but you moan at him?What is he?Your mate or some shit?” Dean threw his jacket on top of you “Put that on and come on.” he grabbed you and hocked his arm under your knees, lifting your bridal style “ Better hold on to me and don’t say anything.I am fucking god damn pissed right now. In your state you can’t even try and fight me.” stepping on the window sill he jumped into the night and dashed towards his pack house

“Where are we going?” you asked whispering

“Shut the fuck up and hold tight.” as much as you didn’t want to listen to him you had to. Your eyes kept noticing how Wonho’s body was getting distant from you too.

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thiswasinevitableid · 5 years

Note

Newlyweds game sternclay?

Prompt: our friend signs us up for a Newly Weds Game even though we’re not dating (bonus if they’re not friends, but know each other well enough to win anyway)

Barclay paces back and forth in the greenroom, as Stern bites his hangnails in worry.

He’s going to kill Ned for this.

“This” being the fact that he and Stern are waiting to participate in an episode of the Newlywed Game. He didn’t even know they still made the Newlywed Game.

The main problem, other than Barclay not enjoying the thought of being on camera, is that he and Stern aren’t newlyweds.

They’re not even dating.

They’re acquaintances. They met at a board game night in a local bar. Barclay came with his friend Duck (the instigator of said night), and Stern was eventually brought by his niece, Aubrey (also Barclays friend), after moving to town.

Stern is nerdy, buttoned-up, a bit aloof, though whenever he sits next to Barclay (something Aubrey keeps engineering) he murmurs sly comments and jokes that always make the bigger man snicker. His dark hair is always slicked back, his clothing immaculate, and his face is downright dazzeling. He works for the FBI, in the UP division, but will never talk about work no matter how much the others press. But he will talk to Barclay about other things, like baking or movies or modern trends neither of them quite grasp.

And then Ned fucking Chicane had to go and sign them up for this show as a joke and things escalated from there, as they so often do with Ned.

“We could go out the window, perhaps. Or fake coronary troubles.” Stern muses.

“Tempting, but at this point we oughta just grin and bear it. Maybe we’ll win something.”

“I appreciate the optimism, Barclay, but we barely know each other. No, I fear, this will be a bit awkward for us and make us look like the worst newlyweds in the universe.”

“Maybe they won’t be able to use it.”

“Why?”

“Dunno, half the time people take photos or videos of me I come out blurry.”

Round One

Barclay sits on stage, the cheerful host about to ask him five questions. Or, rather, they’re going to ask Stern and Barclays answers have to match his.

“Let’s start you out easy: what’s your favorite color?”

Okay, he can do this, what color does Stern usually wear?

Black. Because he’s often in his work suit.

No, hang on, his ties, they’re almost always…

He scribbles down “blue.” Holds up his board.

Stern arches an eyebrow, flips his to reveal, in his neat handwriting, “blue.”

“Alright! Question two: Lucky, how would you describe Barclays cooking? Is it spot on? Or does he need some cooking classes.”

Barclay huffs, write down what’s obviously the correct answer, “spot on.”

Stern flips his around with a smile. It reads the same. Obviously, because Barclay runs a damn catering business.

Question three asks where Stern would travel if he could go anywhere.

Shit, okay, what does Stern like? Where would he go to see that. Oh, he knows.

“To Washington to look for bigfoot? Oddly specific, Barclay, let’s see how you did.”

Stern arches an eyebrow, smiling, reveals his sign says the same.

Question four (“which of his relatives is Lucky least fond of?”) is the first he gets wrong, writing “great aunt” instead of “great uncle.”

“To finish out the round, Lucky, what would you say your husband loves the most about you?”

Barclay finds himself writing without thinking, listing off the thing he likes best about Stern.

“His inquisitive mind. How deep. Lucky?”

Sterns board reads, “my mind,” earning them more points.

As they wait for round two, Stern smiles at him.

“I’d like to try your cooking for myself some day.”

“Think I can manage that.”

A beat of silence.

“I’m flattered to know you agree my mind is my best trait.”

“Your eyes are a close second.”

Stern looks at him befuddled, and Barclay laughs, sheepishly, “uh, sorry, was just, uh, joking.”

Except, he realizes as they take the stage again, he was not.

Round Two

The roles are reversed, the questions directed at Barclay and Stern trying to match his answers.

“First up! The last time you gave Lucky flowers, were they roses, carnations, or something else? Or will he say you’ve never given him flowers?”

Zinnias. He’d bring Stern Zinnias, because they’re bright and proud just like he is.

“Oooh, looks like we have a disagreement folks. He says you’ve never brought him flowers.”

Stern gives him a confused look, and Barclay realizes he was expecting him to give the honest answer, rather than what he would do.

“Next: which one of you most organized.”

Easy.

“Him” Barclay writes.

“Me.”

“That’s more points on the board! What was your first job, Barclay?”

Ugh. He was a gorilla mascot for a car dealership.

“Gorilla mascot. How about that folks!”

Wait, Stern knew that?

“Barclay, what’s the one thing you wish Lucky spent a little less time on to focus on you.”

Barclay thinks about Sterns odd schedule, his devotion to his work, the times he’s gone out of town without notice.

“Work.”

“My work.” Stern looks down when he holds up his board, almost like he’s ashamed.

“Maybe need to take the nose from the grindstone and spend some quality time with your hubby, Lucky! Finally, Barclay, who kissed who first?”

Jesus. Okay, hypothetically, if he were to ask Stern on a date or two, would he make the first move? He usually doesn’t. And Stern seems like he’s confident enough in reading people that he’d go for it.

“He kissed me”

“I kissed him first (he’s shy).”

“Well done! You’re on track for some serious prizes. Right after these messages.”

They’re ahead of the other two couples by a little and have already won a dyson vacuum (Stern calls dibs) and a Le Cruset set (Barclay can’t believe his luck, those things are expensive).

“How’d you know about the gorilla thing?”

“I recall you and Duck comparing worst first jobs and you talked about getting heat stroke in it.”

He takes a sip of water,

“How did you know what killed my last two relationships?”

“Oh shit, really?”

“Yes.” Stern says flatly.

“I, uh, I thought about how you’re such an ambitious, dedicated guy and how weird you’ve said your hours can be. Seemed like that could make dating tricky.”

“You have no idea.”

“I mean, I was a chef for years, which had some weird fucking hours. Besides, you deserve a guy who’ll appreciate you even when you have to work overtime. Or go to New Mexico for the weekend.” He smiles down at Stern, feels something catch in his chest when their eyes meet. Stern looks down, pink dusting his cheeks.

“Zinnias?”

“Seemed like you might like them.” Barclay can’t say why, feels his cheeks burning just at the thought.

“I do. I love bright flowers. I spend so much time in sterile, bland rooms, it makes me appreciate the color in the natural world.”

“I could bring you some from my garden. It’s irises right now, mostly.”

“I’d like that, very much.” He takes Barclays hand and squeezes it in thanks.

Barclay tries to ignore the butterflies bursting loose in his stomach.

Round Three

The lightening round. All Barclay has to do is guess how Stern answered seven either/or questions. He gets through the first four just fine, correctly guessing that Stern prefers chips over candy, books over movies, cold over hot, and morning over evening

“Here’s a bit of a naughty one! Missionary or doggy-style?”

Yeah, this isn’t something they’ve chatted about. Lucky strikes him as someone who likes romance, likes feeling close and wanted and cared for in a way that suggests he prefers things with eye-contact.

“Missionary?”

“Don’t sound too sure there, Barclay, but you’re right!”

Number six is easier (how could it not be) and number seven is only a little harder.

“A fancy night out or a cozy night in?”

He thinks about Lucky, the way he seems to always be around people for work, sighs wistfully whenever Duck talks about a lazy weekend at home, seems excited when he has no obligations.

“Cozy night in.”

“Correct!”

Lucky whoops in delight from off camera and then joins Barclay.

“You’ve racked up the most points, which means you’re the winners!”

The audience cheers and begins making whistling, woo-ing calls.

“They expect us to kiss” Lucky whispers with a grin and it gives Barclay just enough courage to do something risky.

“Hold tight.”

“Excuse meeeeahumph!” He dips Lucky into a kiss, which the shorter man reciprocates, feels him laughing as he does, his whole body lighting up with joy as he deepens the kiss.

“Whoah there, lovebirds, save it for the the second honeymoon! Jim, tell them where they’ll be going…”

——————————-

They just make it back to the car before bursting into hysterical laughter.

“Ned is going to be speechless!”

“That I’d like to see.” Lucky smiles at him from the passenger seat, their prizes safely stowed in the trunk. Well, all but one of them.

“Bit of an odd choice for a second honeymoon, Seattle. I’d assumed they’d pick somewhere with broader appeal, like Hawaii.”

“Hey, you’ll get to look for Bigfoot!” Barclay shoves him playfully on the shoulder.

“Me? I, uh, assumed you would take it. The food scene is supposed to be excellent”

“Nah, you should, you need a vacation.”

Lucky looks at him, thoughtfully.

“Or we could go together, as is the intent.”

“You’d really be okay with that?”

“Yes. I, well, I like you very much Barclay. I think a little trip together could be quite enjoyable.”

“I can go for that. On one condition.”

Stern raises his eyebrows, clearly not sure what’s coming next.

“You gotta let me take you on a few dates before our ‘honeymoon.’”

Stern relaxes with a smile, leans forward and pecks Barclay gently on the lips.

“That sounds magnificent.”

“Cozy night in? With me this Friday?”

“I’d like nothing better.” Lucky settles as close as he can, rests his head on Barclays shoulder

“I’m cooking?” He asks with a smile, already planning what to make. Stern kisses his nose.

“Right again.”

#sternclay #agent stern/barclay #prompt fills #au list prompt

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searchingwardrobes · 5 years

Text

Natural Opposite: 13/16

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! Thanks as always to the best beta ever, @distant-rose. I encourage you to go read all of her own fics because she's fantastic. My artist @optomisticgirl has once again made wonderful chapter art for this . Please check out her blog to see all her art (not just for this story) as well as her own fanfics which are some of my favs. Also head over to @captainswanbigbang if you haven't already. There were so many amazing fics written for this event; we are a blessed fandom!

Summary: Dance is more than Emma Swan’s career; it’s practically saved her life on more than one occasion. But when it comes to reality TV shows, she’s always danced in the shadows of her twin brother David and her sister Elsa. Her first season as a pro on Dancing With the Stars was a disaster, and she enters her second season determined to prove herself. All she needs is a good partner. Hollywood bad boy and ladies’ man Killian Jones isn’t what she had in mind.

Rating: M for mature themes, steamy dance routines, and sexy times (But NOT smut)

Trigger warnings: discussions of online solicitation of a minor, bullying, statutory rape, and emotionally abusive/controlling relationships; stalking; anti-Rumbelle, anti-Neal

Can also be read on Ao3

Tagging: (let me know if you want to be added to my tag list) @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kday426 @bethacaciakay @teamhook @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615 @winterbaby89 @onceuponaprincessworld @followbatb @hollyethecurious @ohmakemeahercules

Chapter Thirteen: Hook

Emma reached down to pet Graham’s service dog as she headed to the kitchen for another helping of orange chicken from the take out containers. Elsa and Graham had graciously allowed Emma and Henry to join them for their impromptu celebration for getting voted off in today’s eliminations.

“I still can’t believe we’re celebrating,” Emma commented as she settled back down on the couch.

Elsa turned to Graham, who had her tucked against his side, his hand resting on her hip. She traced his jaw and smiled. “We don’t have to hide that we’re together anymore,” she said, and Graham pressed a kiss to her forehead. Then Elsa turned to Emma. “Besides, now we don’t have to compete against you and Killian in the semi-finals. Now I can just cheer on my little sister.”

“You and Jones are going to win,” Graham told her confidently as he took a sip of his beer.

Emma sighed as she speared a piece of chicken with her chopsticks. “I hope so.”

“He sure beat me in that dance off,” Graham chuckled.

Elsa pressed her face against Graham’s chest as a blush stained her cheeks. Emma’s own face burned. The show had only aired on the east coast a couple of hours ago, and already the salsa dance-off between the two couples was being dubbed “The Chest-Off.” It already had thousands of views on YouTube, and everyone was in a heated discussion on which was hotter: chest hair or a smooth chest? While they were dancing, Emma and Elsa couldn’t see the meter recording the live votes, but when they watched the footage later, they laughed hysterically as the little bar at the bottom of the screen spiked wildly in Graham’s direction as soon as he took his shirt off. But then Killian had taken off his, and the meter surged in the opposite direction. In the end, the vote had been clear: Killian’s chest hair had won the salsa. There was no way of knowing, of course, if losing those extra points had cost Graham the semi-finals or not, but it had certainly helped Emma and Killian. The other couple voted off had been August and Jasmine. Emma tried to feel bad for her temporary partner, and when she couldn’t, she felt slightly guilty.

“It’s down to two athletes, Killian, and Belle,” Elsa commented as she grabbed a fortune cookie and cracked it open.

“Yeah, it’s shaping up to be a great end to the season,” Emma said.

“Aw, look,” Elsa gushed, showing Graham the tiny slip of paper from her cookie, “it says The end is sometimes really the beginning. Isn’t that perfect for today?”

Graham’s face softened. “It’s perfect for us. For a while, it felt like everything that mattered to me was ending, but it all led me right here. To you.”

Graham then cupped Elsa’s face and gave her a soft kiss.

“Ugh,” Henry complained, pretending to gag on an eggroll, “kid in the room, remember?”

Graham and Elsa both chuckled. “Sorry,” Graham apologized, but he didn’t let go of Emma’s sister, simply tucking her head beneath his chin and tugging her a bit closer. Elsa softened against him with a contented smile on her face.

As she watched them, Emma tried to keep her mind from dwelling on a certain blue-eyed Brit with soft lips and strong hands. She stared into her plate of Chinese food, willing her blood to cool and her mind to cease replaying that kiss. It’s not like it would lead to the same place Elsa found herself in with Graham. Killian wasn’t a retired Marine with multiple options before him. He was an actor. How many times had she reminded herself of that fact? The thing was, since there kiss it was getting harder and harder to remember.

*********************************************************

Emma hadn’t even made her way out of bed yet the next morning when her phone dinged that she had a text message. It was from Killian.

Can we meet, Swan? Away from the cameras?

Emma worried her lower lip as she contemplated his request. She had a feeling she knew what he wanted to talk about, and while it was a conversation she really didn’t want to have, she also didn’t want to risk the situation blowing up in their faces while the cameras rolled.

Sure. Same cafe as last time? Just not outside this time.

She hit send, and Killian quickly sent back a reply.

Ha ha, definitely no. I’ll be in a ball cap again just to be safe.

Emma texted back with a time for him to meet her then slipped out of bed. She skipped a shower, figuring it was pointless anyway since she’d just get sweaty at rehearsals. She put her messy hair in a ponytail, then shoved it into an Angels baseball cap that August had given her. She brushed a kiss across the cheek of a bleary-eyed Henry as he shuffled from his room.

“I thought you didn’t have to practice as early now that Neverland’s on hiatus,” her son grumbled.

“I know, and starting tomorrow morning I’ll make you breakfast every day till New Year’s, okay kid?”

He shrugged his acceptance as he grabbed a box of cereal from the pantry, and Emma dashed out the door. She knew he was responsible enough to catch the bus on time, and Elsa was still home. Still, mommy guilt sometimes felt like her constant companion. Even with all the help from her siblings and Mary Margaret, being a single mom wasn’t easy. She pushed such thoughts from her mind as she made her way through LA traffic. She was early enough that rush hour hadn’t begun yet, but the streets were still a bit congested. In the end, she was ten minutes late meeting Killian.

Emma kept her sunglasses on just in case as she stepped into the cafe. She wouldn’t have recognized Killian if not for the bright blue eyes shining from under the brim of his Dodgers baseball cap. He was wearing a plain gray hoodie that seemed to be his standard uniform when trying to go unrecognized.

His phone was pressed to his ear, but when Emma reached the table, he smiled up at her. “Um, sorry Robin, but I’ve got to go. Emma’s here,” he paused, giving Emma an apologetic look for being on his phone. “Aye, mate, I look forward to it. . . I will . . . bye.”

As Emma sat down, she noted the way his smile reached his eyes, crinkling the skin around them. “Must be good news.”

“It is,” Killian replied, excitement coloring his voice. They were interrupted by a waitress taking their order, but as soon as she left, Killian continued eagerly. “You know the movie musical The Greatest Showman, right?”

Emma nodded with a shrug, “Who doesn’t?”

“Well, the same producers are developing a new movie musical about the rise of the punk music scene in London in the 70s. They want me for the lead.”

Emma smiled broadly. “That’s great!”

He ducked his head with that bashful smile of his that she never would have expected him capable of three months ago. “I have you to thank,” he told her.

Emma shook her head. “No, Killian. All I did was teach you some dance steps. You’re the one who proved to the world that you’re a triple threat. So who’s the choreographer?”

The waitress brought their orders out, and Emma stirred the whipped cream and cinnamon into her hot chocolate as she watched Killian take a bite of his breakfast sandwich before answering. When he did, his eyes were bright with excitement.

“Tabatha and Napoleon D’Umo.”

Emma almost knocked her hot chocolate over as her hands flew to her mouth. “Nappy Tabs? Seriously?! I’m so jealous. I never got to work with them on So You Think You Can Dance.”

Killian’s grin was broad as he took in her reaction. “Their lyrical hip hop is the style they’re going for in the film.”

“Oh, I’m so jealous,” Emma sighed as she broke apart her blueberry muffin and popped a bite in her mouth. “Put in a word for me? I sing you know.”

“That’s right,” Killian nodded, “you did Broadway.”

“Just in the corp. It was a steadier life for Henry than touring the ballroom circuit. Ingrid and Anna went with me to help with Henry. I missed Elsa and David, especially David, but I still got to dance and Ingrid kept working with me to get me back in competition shape.” Emma shook her head as she stared into her mug of cocoa. “Why am I babbling on about me? This is great news for you!”

“Aye. The casting director and producers want to meet me in London after the show wraps.”

Emma felt her stomach drop. “London?”

Killian eyed her with that intense look of his. “They want actual London landmarks from that time in the film. Sort of like how LA was a character in La La Land.”

Emma bit her lip, her eyes darting away from Killian’s face. “London . . . “

Killian cleared his throat. “But that’s not why I asked you to meet me. Emma –“

“Is this about Liam leaving?” Emma cut him off, locking her eyes on his again.

Killian arched one brow and gave her a half smile. “No, it’s not that either. I knew he’d have to go back home sooner or later. He’s got a job, you know. Pretty brunette bookworms can’t distract him from that reality.”

Emma laughed nervously. “Right . . .”

Killian leaned across the table. “And you’re changing the subject.”

Emma swallowed hard and fiddled with the napkin in her hand. “What subject?”

“The kiss, Emma.”

Emma scoffed even as heat crept up her neck. “Why? It was just a kiss.”

“Not for me,” he said, voice laced with conviction. He reached across the table and stilled the nervous motion of her hands by covering them with his. “Emma, when I was just starting in the industry, I was so focused on my career that I didn’t take the time to pursue any relationships. Then I got the role on Neverland, and I got carried away with partying and all the attention from women. Until one day I realized those women were attracted to my fame, not me. I never thought I’d actually find someone I could truly love . . . until I met you.”

Emma pulled her hands away abruptly and stared at her lap. She wasn’t sure what she could say to any of that.

Killian added in almost a whisper, “That’s what the kiss revealed.”

Emma lifted her head finally, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. “You just told me you’ll be moving to London, Killian.”

“But we –“

“No,” Emma cut him off, standing abruptly. She shook her head. “Please don’t make empty promises, Killian. You won’t keep them, believe me.”

Killian just looked at her silently for a moment. Then he gave one nod of his head; a nod of acceptance. “Okay, Emma. I won’t push it. Whatever we become, if anything, it’s up to you just as much as it is me.” He reached out and took her hand. “Just don’t leave. We’re still partners. And . . . friends? I hope?”

Emma gave him a tentative smile as she sat back down at the table. She squeezed his hand before releasing it. “Yes, definitely friends.”

She picked up her fork, slightly dazed when Killian smoothly changed the subject and started to tell her how he decided to grow his hair long at seventeen, much to Liam’s horror. She laughed between bites of her omelet, the tension from moments ago melting away. His patience with her walls meant more to her than she cared to admit. She honestly didn’t know that there were men out there who would actually take “no” for an answer.

*******************************************************

“What’s with the box?” Killian asked when he entered the studio. Emma had asked him to wait ten minutes at the café so they wouldn’t show up on set at the same time. The cameras were already rolling.

Emma smiled brightly at him and accepted his casual hug despite the electricity she felt every time he touched her. They had to dance together this week, after all, and this was being recorded.

“I don’t know what’s in the box,” she told him honestly. “We can’t open it until we look at the input from fans on Twitter. It’s people’s choice week. The viewers get to pick what we dance.”

Emma sat cross legged on the floor and powered up her laptop. Killian plopped down next to her, scooting close so he could see the screen. His leg was pressed against her knee, and she felt like a ridiculous teenager as her pounding heart reacted to it. His head was inclined towards her, too, and she kept her eyes glued to the device in her hands lest she turn her head and tumble headlong into those blue eyes of his.

“Okay,” Emma said as she scrolled through the tweets the producers had sent her, “this one says, With Neverland on hiatus, I’m going through withdrawal. I want to see Captain Hook on the dance floor! And this fan wants you to dance to the theme from Neverland.”

Killian leaned closer as he read the next tweet. “I want to see him dance with the hook!” He turned to face her, and Emma was forced to meet his gaze. “Doesn’t this all go against the very reason I did the show? To help people see me as more than Hook?”

Emma smiled softly at him. “You have proven that. But your fans love your show and the character you created.” She bit her lip to stop from adding that the show was ending. That wasn’t public knowledge yet, though rumors were all over the internet. Emma had a feeling those rumors were fueling the tweets a little.

Killian rubbed his jaw and sighed. “Okay. So what’s the dance style then?”

Emma leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and thinking. In the past, the audience voted on the song, style, and theme. The result had sometimes been disastrous when the three didn’t complement one another. So this year they were leaving the dance style up to the pros.

“Well, I think I’ll have to listen to the Neverland score again before I make that decision.” She went to her dance bag and pulled out her phone and her earbuds. She pulled up the music and closed her eyes as the notes flowed through her. Her whole life, even before she was formally trained, she imagined dances in her head whenever she heard music. The light and playful melody of the Neverland score was no different. She smiled as she opened her eyes. “A quick step, definitely.”

Killian was looking at her with such intensity, it almost put her on edge. A soft smile filled his face. “Dance and music are in your blood, aren’t they, Swan?”

Emma turned quickly as she yanked her ear buds out and stuffed them back in her bag. It was disconcerting the way he read her sometimes. She cleared her throat as she pulled her iPhone speakers out and set them up.

“Well, let’s get started.”

“As you wish.”

*********************************************************

The box, naturally, had contained Killian’s hook and brace that he wore on Neverland. Three hooks, actually. Killian explained it to her; one was rubber and used for stunts so no one got hurt accidentally. The second was a light aluminum hook with a blunted point that he wore for the majority of scenes, and the last one was made of actual steel and had a real, sharp tip. It was used for close ups or when the script called for him to hit or cut something with the hook. The last one, the sharp one, clearly couldn’t be used for their dance. The rubber one seemed like the most logical choice, but when they started working on the routine, it kept bending as they moved. Even to a TV audience, it would be obvious that it was fake.

Killian frowned. “Stunts are always edited so you don’t notice that it’s rubber. I guess I didn’t think of that.” He rubbed at the straps underneath his t-shirt. “I’m used to wearing that heavy leather duster and sweating under these straps, but dancing in this is giving me blisters. I hope I still have hair on my chest after this is over.”

“You better,” Emma laughed.

“Why Swan,” Killian grinned, “are you saying you like my chest hair?”

Emma’s face burned even as she swatted him with the back of her hand and rolled her eyes. He’d had to remove his shirt to put the brace on, and the sight of that again hadn’t exactly made the “just friends” thing easy to remember.

Emma let out a long breath as she pushed wisps of hair out of her face. “I guess we’ll have to try the aluminum hook then. The end is blunted, right?”

“Aye,” he told her as he unscrewed the rubber one from the end of his brace, “I won’t hurt you, love.”

He winked at that, and Emma’s traitorous blushing started again. What was her problem? He’d been flirting with her from day one. She should be used to it by now.

Unfortunately, switching hooks didn’t help. If anything, Emma was struggling even more with the choreography. She would have Killian turn a certain direction, but when she went to take his hand, the hook was there instead. She felt like a complete novice as she struggled to figure out turns and holds when Killian, essentially, only had one hand. The longer she struggled, the more frustrated she became.

“Fuck this!” she growled, yanking at her ponytail in frustration as she paced to the far corner of the room. Well, the editing room would have fun bleeping out all her swearing this week.

“Hey,” Killian said gently as he came up behind her. He rested his hand, and his hook, on her shoulders. He was obviously used to the prop that he spent the majority of his days wearing. But Emma wasn’t used to it. “We’ll figure this out, Emma. The way we always do . . . together.”

Emma, who had also been trying so hard all day to hold back from his casual affections, gave up and leaned back against him. He wrapped both arms around her, dropping his face to the crook of her neck. The cool metal of his hook felt odd against her hip.

“Can we call it a day?” she asked wearily.

“Sure,” he mumbled against her hair. Was that a kiss he just brushed to the side of her head?

When they parted ways, Emma wasn’t sure what had her shaken more: her struggles to choreograph this routine, or how natural it had become to be in Killian’s arms.

*******************************************************

The next morning, Emma had only just greeted Killian when her phone buzzed with a message from Regina. Emma’s brow furrowed as she read it.

“Something wrong, Swan?”

Emma shook her head. “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just . . . “ she looked up at Killian, then glanced over his shoulder at the camera crew, “they’re sending someone to help us choreograph around the hook?”

Killian’s confused expression mirrored her own. “Who could that be?”

“I don’t know, I mean –“ Emma was interrupted by a knock at the studio door. She glanced at the camera crew again, then at Killian, who shrugged. “Come in?”

The door was flung open and a petite, energetic blonde burst into the room. Rose; Killian’s co-star. He laughed with delight and rushed to embrace her.

“Emma!” Rose squealed, pulling her into an eager hug. When she let her go, Rose winked at Killian. “So, I hear you’re having trouble working around this guy’s hook.”

Emma swallowed down the sudden irritation that had welled up within her. The cameras were rolling, so she plastered on a smile. “Yeah, I’m not used to having to choreograph with just his right hand.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Rose asked eagerly, motioning with her hands for Emma and Killian to partner up.

Emma nodded and stepped into Killian’s hold. She counted out the beats as they went into the opening sequence of the syncopated choreography. The quickstep’s quick-quick-slow rhythm was difficult enough, but when they went into the quarter turn, Emma found herself grabbing for Killian’s hand only to find that it wasn’t there.

“See?” Emma said, pressing both hands to Killian’s chest to stop them both. “If I turn one way, I’m grabbing for the hook, but if I turn the other way, he can’t grab hold of my waist.”

Rose shrugged. “Why can’t you grab his hook?”

Emma shook her head. “What?”

“On Neverland, I hold his hook all the time, like it’s a hand.”

“The aluminum one?” Emma asked.

“Of course,” Rose explained, “the rubber one would bend if I grabbed it. When Hook and Tink danced at that ball in season two, Killian and I did that waltz with the aluminum hook.”

Killian arched a brow at Emma. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you, Swan.”

Rose brushed past Emma and grabbed Killian’s arms. Emma hated the way it made her bristle. Rose put Killian’s right hand at her waist, then grabbed his hook and lifted his arm. Her frame was terrible, but she and Killian waltzed around the room in perfect rhythm just like Emma remembered in the episode Rose had referred to. Then Killian lifted Rose’s arm over her head, and the tiny blonde did a tight turn perfectly, still holding on to his hook. Then he spun her out and back in, his hook now at her waist.

“See how he holds it?” Rose showed her. “Whenever the script calls for him to hug me or embrace me, he keeps it sideways like this.”

Emma nodded, and she suddenly felt foolish. “So what you’re saying is I should just choreograph the way I normally do?”

“Well, not necessarily . . . “

Rose stayed with them the rest of the day, and slowly, as time wore on, Emma found she actually enjoyed having her there. Rose and Killian were obviously close, but now that she really paid attention, she could see that it was a very casual and platonic relationship. They teased each other almost like siblings would, and Rose gushed over Emma’s partnership with Killian, calling them “adorable” and “the cutest thing ever.” Rose helped Emma tremendously with the choreography, showing her which side to stand on if she needed to clasp Killian’s opposite hand, and how to execute the dance’s one spinning lift safely. At the end of the day, she and Rose grabbed the other two hooks from the box, and the three of them posed for a selfie with them.

As Emma gathered up her things and stood with her dance bag slung over her shoulder, Rose was next to her with an impish grin on her face. “Can I talk to you for a second now that Killian’s gone?” Rose asked.

Emma glanced over to the corner where the camera crew was packing up their gear. She let out a relieved sigh. “Sure.”

“I don’t mean to overstep my bounds, but I’ve been watching the show . . . ” she hesitated, her brow furrowing.

Emma lifted her hand. “Not you too, Rose! I know everyone talks about our chemistry, but he has chemistry with you, too. Frankly, he seems to have chemistry with everyone.”

Rose shook her head. “Not like with you. And it’s not just when you perform. He’s been . . . different. Happier.” She took Emma’s hands in hers. “He deserves more than shallow women grasping for fame.”

Emma broke eye contact with her, shaking her head. “Rose, I think you’ve misunderstood –“

“No,” she interrupted, “I don’t think I have. You were jealous of that other dancer, Jasmine. You’ve been jealous of me.”

Emma’s head snapped up, her eyes blinking. “That’s ridiculous!”

Rose’s face gentled as she let go of Emma’s hands. “Is it? You care for him, I can see that you do.”

Emma gave her a wry smile. “Is this where you warn me not to break his heart like his fangirls do online?”

Rose shook her head. “I think you’re more worried about your heart. That’s what I wanted to tell you. He’s a good guy, so don’t be afraid to give what you two have a chance.” She gave her another smile, patted her shoulder, and left the room.

Emma groaned and let her dance bag drag the floor as she left the room wearily. Couldn’t the universe just let her protect her heart in peace?

********************************************************

The semi-final episode actually involved two dances, just like the finals would. For this one, they had the people’s choice dance and then a re-do of their lowest scoring dance. They were slated to dance next-to-last for both. They did a re-do of their week three salsa first, getting two tens and a nine from Blue. Killian was definitely better at shaking his hips than he had been when the competition started.

Then they took the floor for their quickstep. Killian was dressed like Captain Hook, only this costume was made of light, stretchy imitation leather instead of the heavy garments he wore on his TV show. Killian also joked that his pirate duster on Neverland wasn’t bedazzled like this one.

The studio audience cheered when Rose showed up in the rehearsal footage. Emma actually smiled as it played; the three of them really had a great time together that day. She glanced over to the studio audience where Rose was sitting in the front. She winked at Emma and gave her a thumbs up. As the package wound to a close, Emma turned to Killian, stepping into his embrace. Her hair was done up in a loose bun and she wore the green tunic dress as Tinkerbell.

The bright, light, and airy piano notes of the Neverland theme began to play, and Emma and Killian began their routine. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was different tonight. She was painfully aware of Rose in the audience; painfully aware of the costumes they both wore. She usually could slip into a role so easily, but tonight she felt like an imposter. The Captain Fairy fandom was in the back of her mind the whole time. How were they receiving this dance? Emma was frustrated with herself when the final notes faded out, realizing she had been stuck in her head the entire time.

Killian put his arm around her and pulled her close as they turned to the judges. The results were a big surprise; for once, Tiana was their toughest critic.

“I don’t know what it was, but I felt a disconnect,” she told them.

In the end, she gave them a nine while Teach and even Blue gave them a ten (for their flawless quickstep technique). Emma’s shoulders slumped, even though Killian told her he was thrilled with the performance. She hated it because she knew who was at fault for the disconnect Tiana had mentioned. Emma could blame no one but herself. With so few dancers left, time was brief, so she didn’t have the luxury of slipping backstage to nurse her wounds. But Killian caught her hand and squeezed it. When she looked up at him, his gaze was soft.

“You can do this, Emma.”

She blinked. “Do what?”

“Anything,” he said huskily, brushing at a stray curl that framed her face, “for I have yet to see you fail.”

She pressed her lips together, trying desperately not to let him see how deeply those words touched her. She was rescued from having to respond when an assistant director barked at them to take their places downstairs before the commercial break ended.

Emma and Killian took their place with the rest of the celebs and their dancers: figure skater Aurora Briar, football player Lance Knight, and finally, Belle. Killian was still in his pirate garb and hook, but he still wrapped his arms tightly around her. Emma leaned back into him, her eyes closed tight. There was still no guarantee they had made it into the finals, and if that lackluster performance had been their last, Emma would kick herself.

“The first couple dancing in the finals is . . .” Marco paused dramatically, “Belle French and her partner Jefferson!”

Belle let out a loud squeal and almost knocked Jefferson over with the force of her hug. Emma smiled up at Killian; they both adored Belle and were happy for her. Honestly, Emma felt that whoever in this group made it into the finals, they would deserve it.

“The next group to make the finals . . . “ this time it was Ashley dragging out the suspense, “Aurora and Sean!”

Sean Herman, her brother David’s best friend since the eighth grade, shouted and lifted his partner off her feet, spinning her around. Sean had been on the show since the fourth season and had never made the finals. David would be thrilled for him.

The lights dimmed in the entire studio, and two spotlights shone down on Emma and Killian on stage left, and Lance and Gwen on stage right. Emma bit her lip and shifted so she could wrap her arms around Killian’s waist. They had been dancing strong all season, but Lance was an NFL football player, and football players had always done extremely well on Dancing on the Stars. Many of them had won the mirror ball.

“The final couple...“ Marco intoned, “performing in the finals...is...“

Emma grasped Killian’s forearm in a vise-like grip. Couldn’t Marco just get to the damn point?

“ ...Killian Jones and Emma Swan!”

Emma felt her knees buckle beneath her, but Killian kept her on her feet as he squeezed her tight. She didn’t know whether to shout for joy or cry. Finally, the mirror ball might actually be hers.

Emma was so excited, she couldn’t help but go on social media before bed that night to see what Killian’s fans were saying about him making the finals. And, she had to confess, she probably was also craving some positive feedback after their lackluster quickstep. Emma was shocked when the buzz online wasn’t about the Neverland dance, or Killian’s hip-shaking in the salsa, or even their place in the finals. No, Killian’s fans were demanding one thing and one thing only.

When are they going to kiss? @piratelover

Kiss already, Captain Swan! @neverlander

I know the disconnect Tiana was talking about. They just need to kiss! @trueloveandpixiedust

Dear Captain Swan, can we please have a kiss in the final? @fairytaledaydreamer

When Emma showed her sister, Elsa just laughed.

“And you were worried his fans would hate you for pretending to be Tinkerbell,” she quipped with a wink.

#cs ff #csbb fic #csbb #modern au #dancing with the stars au #enemies to friends to lovers

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

Text

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 The More the Merrier

This is a re-posting from October 9th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Hello, moon.

Will we ever learn what happened to you? Not in this episode! That ominous shot (countered with the oddly soothing sound of crickets) is just to situate us before we pan down, revealing the gang making their way to the meeting with Lionheart. And honestly? I kind of love everything about this composition. Let’s tick things off:

We have Jaune and Ren mirroring each other with determined expressions and clenched fists. They’re ready to kick ass if need be.

Same with Ruby and Nora except they look like they’re out for a casual moonlit stroll—with the added bonus that Nora is manically thrilled about this adventure.

Yang is pretty blasé. Been there. Done that. Survived worse.

Weiss? The embodiment of “Ugh I could be home right now instead of walking around in this heat this had better not mess up my hair.”

Oscar looks way out of his depth and is hanging back from the rest, as we’d expect given that he’s a farm boy joining a group of elite fighters that have had years to bond without him. It’s Awkward New Kid Syndrome with a side of extreme danger.

And then there’s Qrow. Out in front. Suspicious looks all around. Iconic hunched shoulders. Really wants to put his hands in his pockets but the animation isn’t quite there yet. Behold, everyone. Our leader.

For real though, jokes aside I honest to god love this opening. It’s quick and from a practical standpoint sets up only that they’re heading somewhere as a group, but if you take the time to actually look you’ll see each of their personalities shining through. We might bitch about RWBY’s faults, but there’s a whole lot of love poured into this series and more often than not you can see it in the details.

Ruby pauses then to take in Haven tower—always one to appreciate beauty even when things are bleak—and then hangs back until Oscar has caught up. It’s a wonderful little moment between them because there’s no dialogue and ultimately none is needed. He doesn’t stop for reassurance, but he could. Ruby gives him that option and waits until Oscar passes her before continuing herself. The whole scene is heavy and poignant. There’s nothing but music until they arrive inside and Lionheart breaks the peace with, “Why hello. There… seems to be more of you than last time.”

Yeah. You can hear the fear in his voice. As if the rest of this setup didn’t already scream “TRAP, TRAP, TRAP,” He’s gotta be super suspicious in his greeting too. Leading them out here in the dead of night. Lionheart up on the podium—both figuratively putting himself above them and literally keeping himself out of harm’s way. Then the first thing out of his mouth is a worried comment on their numbers? Suspicious, suspicious.

Qrow: “Oh you know what they say. The more the merrier.”

He did the title thing! Love that.

Except the delivery makes it clear that Qrow is also suspicious as hell. No one has drawn their weapon yet, but the fight has already started. Qrow and Ozpin know that this is no simple meeting. Now Lionheart knows that they know. A quick shot reveals both his fear and the fact that he came with a weapon of his own:

Qrow tries to continue the charade by asking what’s up with the council and Lionheart is so bad at acting casual it’s actually painful to watch. He wants to know why they all brought THEIR weapons while hiding his own behind his back. As if they in any way failed to miss him standing there with it in full view for the last thirty seconds.

I can’t with this guy. He's just so bad at being bad I almost feel sorry for him.

(Although, as we in the U.S. have certainly discovered the last two years, the incompetent ones are often the most dangerous…)

As said, the fight has already begun. While Qrow and Lionheart trade subtext Yang checks out their perimeter, immediately picking up on the raven that just happens to be chilling on the banister. A simple, whispered “Mom?” and Qrow has his weapon out and a shot off, barely missing Raven as she swoops down beside Lionheart.

Can we appreciate that reaction time for a second? I feel like between Ozpin’s Super Secret Magic and Qrow’s self-deprecating drinking the fandom tends to forget that he’s easily one of the most powerful fighters we’ve seen to date. He demonstrated that in his playful spar against Winter, keeping Tyrian on his toes while also ensuring that the kids were safe, and here as he responds blindingly fast to a one syllable word. A few seconds later Raven calls him out for missing or, just as likely, deliberately missing since he doesn't want to kill her—yet. Which makes it all the more impressive that he can aim and achieve the results he wants in such a short amount of time. You 100% do not want to fuck with Qrow.

A nice cut using Lionheart’s back and Raven becomes human once more. In the realm of ‘artists paying careful attention to how their background characters act,’ Oscar is uncomfortable but isn’t even looking at the threat—almost like he’s listening carefully to something the rest of them can’t hear—while Nora looks downright floored. “They really are magic,” she says to herself, solidifying with evidence what they'd been told a few episodes back.

Okay. Rant time. I still don’t buy these reactions. Really not great on the world building front here. I mean, we’ve had Pyrrha who controls magnetism, Ren who manipulates emotions, Yang has a Hulk mode that includes changing eye color, Blake can create clones of herself, Weiss is basically a necromancer, Ruby turns into rose petals, give him an episode and Jaune will straight up heal a girl, and Nora herself can store/release electricity. Why is turning into a bird so incredibly shocking? It would feel way more natural if they saw Raven and Qrow’s transformations and went, “Okay… so that’s their semblance?” and then Oz has to explain about the difference—being born with an ability vs. being granted it—which is cool and there’s surprise that that’s a Thing, but their reaction to the ability itself is still pretty meh. Because they’ve literally seen weirder.

We’re given no indication as to WHY a bird transformation instinctually reads as more impossible than transforming into rose petals, other than “one is magic and one is not because we say so.” There’s no justification behind the characters’ ability to recognize magic when they see it, especially given the incredibly wide range of abilities RWBY has shown us over the years. Either attach more overt rules to semblances (obvious boundaries where the viewer understands what is and is not possible) or make Ozpin’s magic look radically different. In this world summoning storms and turning into birds doesn't read as radically different. Hell, in many ways Dust, an incredibly common commodity, is more powerful than this supposedly gasp-worthy magic. Why be impressed with Raven summoning rain clouds when Weiss can create powerful winds in her fight against Flynt with just a bit of Daddy’s money?

But anyway. I digress.

The verbal sparring continues. Oscar still isn’t making eye contact. Raven spouts more of her excuses, Salem can’t possibly be stopped, we're all out for ourselves, blah blah blah. Ruby emphasizes that they’ve already done the impossible, but they only achieved that because they were working together. Separation and a pessimistic attitude is exactly what Salem wants. Ruby wants Raven to join them.

And take a gander at that contrast between sisters. As I’ve said before, Ruby is the classic full-of-heart protagonist who believes that almost everyone can be redeemed. As we’ll see in a second, the exemption to this appears to be Cinder. Her murder of Penny and Pyrrha highlights her irredeemability in a way that overshadows Raven’s—and even Salem’s—more nebulous crimes. The bigger your actions are the harder they are to conceptualize. The smaller and more personal they are the harder they are to forgive. Paradoxically, it’s easier for someone like Ruby (and the fandom…) to shrug off Raven’s actions because as of yet she hasn't felt their repercussions as intimately.

Yang though? She has. And in this moment she’s not ready to forgive.

Raven refuses of course and tells Ruby she sounds just like her mother. (Give us flashbacks of Summer!) She summons a portal where a fireball flies through, hitting Ruby square in the chest and allowing the whole evil gang to join the party. We get a closeup on Oscar as he and Oz recognize Hazel, locking them inside while the White Fang sets up their bombs.

Hazel: “No one’s getting in… and no one’s getting out.”

Because RWBY, for all its dark storylines, is still hella cheesy at times lol.

Weiss: “So this was all just a trap?”

Ren: “It appears so…”

Ah, naive little children. If only you were watching from our fourth wall perspective you would have realized it was a trap more than an episode ago! Too bad.

We learn that Lionheart was the one who secured Team Bad a place in the Vytal festival. Not only that, but he’s been passing information about huntsmen and huntress whereabouts to Salem. That’s how they were all murdered and Qrow’s realization of this—after spending all that time looking for them and hoping against hope—is definitely a kicker. “I couldn’t find any of them… because you let her kill them.”

Keep in mind, most of those people were Qrow’s friends.

Jaune, as we’d expect, is at his breaking point. Pyrrha’s murderer is standing right there and, as he says, rubbing their faces in how many people she’s killed—“All with that damn smile on your face!” We’ve had all of two instances of RWBY cursing and it’s definitely needed here. I appreciate that his tears and his anger are basically a call to arms. Most everyone draws their weapon as soon as he's finished speaking. Qrow’s still trying to keep the peace, but Jaune’s very existence is a walking testament to exactly how much these people deserve to be brought to justice.

He yells that he’s going to make Cinder pay for what she did and then comes the most brutal line in all of RWBY.

Cinder: “Who are you again?”

Damn. They’re never gonna top that.

Perfect characterization though. As the audience it’s easy to forget who knows who in a big ensemble cast and, more importantly, who cares about who. From Cinder’s perspective Jaune is a nobody she's barely met. Why would she remember him? If she’d instead made a taunt about his dead girlfriend most of us probably would have just shrugged off the plot-hole, but paying attention to details like this is not only, a) satisfying but b) wonderfully vicious. Way to twist the knife here.

Jaune attacks as we knew he would but Cinder easily blocks him. Ruby joins the fray only to be stopped by Emerald—“You’re not getting near her.” (Love the devotion.) Yang pairs off with Mercury to settle an old score. Raven orders Vernal to take out “the heiress” (rude, she has a name) and in another excellent nod to the switcheroo that tricked both the team and a large chunk of the fandom, she casually throws out that Vernal doesn’t need to use her power to kill a kid.

Good excuse too. Considering, you know, she doesn’t have any.

No more fake outs. Qrow attacks Raven head on with the announcement that they’re not family anymore. Harsh, but deserved. Raven’s “Were we ever?” smells more like denial. We also get a good look at their similar, but differently balanced color schemes.

As their fight takes them out of frame we stay with a rather terrified Weiss. To her credit though she holds her ground against Vernal, assuring her that she’s “more than a name.”

Finally, Ren and Nora—ever the perfect duo—are left to fend off Hazel. He’s one of those real asshole villains who has a “code” that they follow. He doesn’t want to fight two kids half his age and power level… but he has to. Just like he has to keep pursuing his misguided revenge against Ozpin. And he, like Raven, feels the need to announce to the world that this isn’t what he’d prefer. It’s just how things are! Totally out of his hands, I’m sorry to say.

We’re seeing a trend with the villains and their justifications, yeah?

With everyone paired off Ozpin-Oscar (I need a portmanteau for them…) sneaks over to confront Lionheart. Lionheart goes from telling this supposed stranger to get himself out of the fight while he can to attacking him with a rock-lava-energy blast thing in like five seconds flat. Of course, our two favorite BAMFs block it with ease and we get the RWBY equivalent of,

(x)

Holy shit this kid blocked my hit??

Beautiful.

The second the cane comes out though everything makes sense and we get another stellar line of “Not quite” when Lionheart identifies him as Ozpin. I really love that they let Oscar handle the first half of this battle. Yeah, it’s a little flimsy that he’s able to take on an adult after just a few weeks of training, but we also don’t know how much he and Oz are already sharing. Fighting might come naturally to him now in a muscle memory sort of way. Regardless, he kicks ass and I’m loving it.

“You found Qrow,” Lionheart says. “How?” implying that he might have been doing even more work than we saw to keep those two apart. A voiceover from Ozpin wonders what happened to his former ally. The fact that Lionheart knows all the details of Ozpin’s reincarnation tells us that yeah, they were really, really close.

That knowledge is dangerous too. Realizing that Ozpin “couldn’t have had that form for long” Lionheart gets over the debilitating shock of fighting, you know, Ozpin. We hear him rationalizing in the wonderfully creepy manner of the desperate that this is just a boy in front of him, a boy soon to be Ozpin, and if he delivers the kid to Salem he’ll “finally be free" of her. Sounds a lot like Raven thinking that the relic will protect her; a lot like a hurt Tyrian muttering that she’ll forgive him.

RWBY does a good job of reminding us in small ways how utterly terrifying Salem is...and what that fear drives people to do.

This would be the (supposedly) perfect moment for Ozpin to take over. Oh no! Lionheart is all serious now! Oscar is worried! But the only thing Ozpin does is tell him to “fight.” I’ve heard a lot of people in the fandom claim that Ozpin is a monster for his possession, culpable for something that’s outside of his control. But Ozpin has no desire to take over people’s lives like this and—unlike Hazel or Raven—it really is out of his hands, to say nothing of the fact that he does all he can to actually achieve what he thinks is right. He can’t keep himself from merging with Oscar, but he can give Oscar as much agency as humanly possible, including here. The only times we see Ozpin take that agency away is when it really is for the greater good (they can’t afford to hide on a farm forever) or when Oscar is well and truly in over his head, like after the fight with Hazel goes on too long. Taking over Oscar at that point is to save his life, akin to forcing someone out of the way of a blast.

But we’ll get to that.

We come back to the fight between Weiss and Vernal as Weiss tries to buy herself enough time to summon her knight. Vernal easily cuts through her summoning though… which is kind of a relief? In that RWBY (usually) knows when to limit new powers. If Weiss had no real limitations on her summoning—the time it takes, the energy it requires—we’d be wondering why she didn’t just summon a whole, super-powered army every time they were in a spot of trouble. Too many shows (Supernatural...) craft crazy powerful characters and then conveniently forget about that power when it would too easily solve a conflict.

Also, check out that smile from Vernal.

We segue to Cinder and Jaune. Kudos to Jaune for holding his own one-on-one! He really is Pyrrha’s student. Remember what other kid managed to hold her own against a freaking Maiden, at least for a time?

Emerald won’t let Ruby get anywhere near Cinder. She “owes her everything" after all. But she’s willing to indulge her (so to speak) and summons up a mirage of Cinder to fly at Ruby. That and the resulting attack startles her enough that she sets off Crescent Rose, the bullet narrowly missing Weiss.

…Portent of things to come.

Because we’re back on Weiss and it's becoming clear to the viewer why we’ve been focusing so much on her in this battle. A shock from Vernal’s weapon rips out a scream from her, draws Jaune’s attention, and Cinder cruelly asks if he’ll “let her die too.”

Gotta have the fake-out first though. Deciding to take him seriously, Cinder charges with intent to kill and the head-on strike triggers Ruby into remembering Pyrrha’s death. Her silver eyes instinctually go off, blinding everyone and halting the battle.

Emerald knocks her out fast but even those few seconds was enough to effect Cinder. Apparently once you’re struck by that kind of power your body remembers it. She’s down on her knees, clearly in pain, and Jaune takes the opportunity to get a strike in, managing to clip the half-mask she wears.

And yeah. Cinder’s pissed.

Partly from getting caught in one of Ruby’s blasts again. Partly because a “nobody” like Jaune managed to hit her. Awful when that power you sought isn’t as perfect as you were promised, huh? Jaune makes the mistake though of declaring that he’s not important, only his friends are… and Cinder knows exactly how to make one of the good guys suffer.

Why just kill him when you can instead kill the girl he was worried about moments before? Why grant him peace when you can vividly recreate the trauma of Pyrrha’s death instead?

We have just enough time left in the episode to see the team’s shocked faces, watch Cinder’s weapon disappear, and then we cut with Weiss in mid-fall.

It’s a brutal combo of content and editing. Thanks, Rooster Teeth! I hate it!

We all know how things turn out though… so that's some kind of comfort. Until next time!

Other Details of Note

When everyone enters Haven tower we see this statue… and honestly I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Something something it’s a maiden guarding a Maiden relic. Something something broken chains and freedom. Something something Atlas-esque imagery of holding up a world…you get the idea. It’s symbolic.

Cinder calls Qrow “little bird” and Lionheart “lion.” Always something wonderfully creepy about villains with a penchant for nicknames.

When Jaune first charges Cinder we pull back behind the chain on the statue and see it sway from the force of his attack. It’s quick and subtle, but an excellent visual detail to show us how strong he’s gotten. Pre-Fall of Beacon Jaune never would have managed that kind of force.

For all its faults in places, I enjoy how much this fight makes use of space, especially when it comes to Weiss using her glyphs. It’s not perfect or as complex as what we might have had with Monty, but I think the team is improving in their choreography overall.

Yes, Jaune is well over his schoolboy crush on Weiss---something I'm pleased about---but it still hits hard to have her as the victim here. Out of every team member Cinder could have targeted she chooses the one other girl Jaune might have had legitimate, romantic feelings for. In an alternate timeline, so to speak.

So the whole “villain walks slowly towards the person they’re gonna kill and everyone who normally has superhuman reflexes doesn’t move an inch” trope is crazy annoying, right? Just putting that out there...

#rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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asoftslytherin · 6 years

Text

sweetener. ch. vi

a/n: i’m so sorry this took forever. i kept changing my mind on certain things and eventually had to split this chapter in half and if you look down at the word count, you’ll understand why.

summary: people are stressed about the wedding. namely you, but not about the wedding, technically. basically, you’re just stressed.

warnings: innacuracies about how weddings work in the uk. bad writing bc i’m editing this after i post it because the painkillers about to kick in and i really wanted to get this up as soon as possible. slight violence, idk if you could call it that but i just wanna cover all my bases. a little smuttiness. swearing, duh. a smidge of angst. drama? scandal? intrigue?

word count: 6k.

(as per usual, i don’t own the pic i just edit. also i’m actively trying harder to use more poc in these pics bc i don’t want any lovelies to feel ostracized bc i’m trying (hopefully doing at least okay) to keep this race neutral)

Before anyone realized it, the wedding was in a week. There was no bachelorette party, simply because there wasn’t enough time to have one, let alone plan one. Who knew about the guys, and honestly, who cared? You and every other bridesmaid had way more important things to take care of. The upside of all of this wedding prep drama was that Lily was handling it quite well. You weren’t sure if she was just really good at hiding when she’s about to freak out she’ll just snap one day over nothing, or if she was just genuinely relaxed. James only had one request for the bridesmaids: that their dresses be the color of Lily’s eyes. It was simultaneously the sweetest thing you’d ever heard and made you want to vomit. Some of Lily’s friends from school came into town the week before the wedding since they were some of the bridesmaids. Marlene was the Maid of Honor, obviously, and you, Mary, a very sweet girl who reminded you of sunshine, Dorcas, someone you knew immediately that she was not someone to be messed with, but nice nonetheless, and Alice, a friend who had already been married a year or two, were the bridesmaids.

You and Sirius had put a hold on the “meet-ups”, since you were both running around doing wedding errands and no time between work and the wedding. He’d still sext you occasionally, which just made you want him even more and it took some persuading and empty promises to make him stop. At the same time, those occasional texts would be to see how your day was going or just to talk. You told yourself he was just being a good friend, since there was technically a “friend” part to “friends with benefits”, and to not read anything into it, but there was a teensy part of you that was hoping that he had a teensy part of him that felt what you were feeling for him. Whenever those thoughts came up, you shoved them back down. Who had time for emotions am I right? Lily was the one who was allowed to have emotions right now, not you, you told yourself one morning while getting dressed when your eyes stopped on the dress you wore the first night you met Sirius. Nope. Feelings? Don’t know her.

You pushed through your workdays, concentrating solely on the task at hand, even if it just making copies or sending an email, you were only allowed to think about that email or that menial copy. Your phone was off the entire time you were at work, if you got a text from him while working, deep down you knew that you wouldn’t get anything done for the rest of the day because you’d be staring at your phone. When you got home from work you only did things that needed to be done for the wedding, if you had nothing to do, you’d text or call Lily because you knew she’d have something for you to do.

That Wednesday before the wedding you had finished tying ribbons on mason jars for the centerpieces and texted Lily, she needed to pick them up and if she just happened to have something to do for the wedding, then you’d do it. Because you’re a good friend. When Lily knocked on the door, you paused the podcast you were listening to (you didn’t really listen to music anymore, too many songs were about the feelings that you were currently suppressing) and basically sprinted to the door.

“Woah, hey,” Lily stumbled over her sentence, a little startled at how quickly you’d opened the door.

“Hello beautiful!” you beamed at her, probably looking ridiculous with a smile that big on your face. “Come in!” you gestured for her to walk in to your place.

Lily chuckled and walked through the door, setting herself down on the couch and crossing her legs. “You’re very enthusiastic today, what’s up?” Lily gave you a quizzical look.

“I’m just excited for your wedding, that’s all!” you sat down next to her and softly patted her on her knee.

Lily looked down at her lap and then looked back up at you. “Y/N, I would believe you if you hadn’t been acting like this for two and a half weeks. What is going on with you?”

“What?” You were somewhat taken aback by her question. “There’s nothing going on. Just work and working on your wedding, that’s it.”

Lily gave you a knowing look before she spoke. “When was the last time you saw Sirius?”

“What does he have to do with anything?” You were getting more confused by the second.

“Just answer the question, as an early wedding present.” Lily casually put one of her arms around the back of the sofa.

“A week ago, maybe a week and a half? We’re pausing things until after the wedding since he’s the best man and I’m a bridesmaid and there’s shit to do,” you somewhat glared over at her. “Why?”

“Because for the last week and a half you’ve been more eager to get things done for the wedding than my mother. I’d expect every text from her to be about my wedding but not you. It’s almost like you’re avoiding something.” She gave you a concerned look. “Did something happen with you and Sirius?”

“Wha- No! Things are fine between us! Am I really being that intense?” You finally figured out what she was getting at and tried your hardest to play innocent.

Lily picked up her phone and handed it to you, “I just want you to read through all the texts you’ve sent me for the last week and a half.”

You internally winced and took the phone from the redhead next to you. Every single text you sent her was about the wedding and if you could do anything or that you had an idea or wanted to know who you’d be sitting next to, and you’d been texting her almost daily. Inside, you knew that you were using the wedding to keep yourself from thinking about Sirius and that kiss in your bedroom and that feeling in your stomach that you hated. You set her phone down next to you and put your head in your hands, elbows resting on your knees. “Okay fine, but you can’t tell anyone! Maybe Marlene, but nobody else. Not even your soon to be husband,” you emphasized before looking directly into her green eyes and taking a deep breath. “After the night all of us had ramen and hung out here, while you we were taking things back to yours and James’ car, when I got the last stuff in the cars James told me to get Sirius because he hadn’t come outside yet. Well, Sirius was in my room just looking at my books and I told him they wanted to leave and he gave me this look and kissed me and…”

“Had you never kissed him before?!” Lily exclaimed in shock.

“No, I definitely kissed him before then, calm down,” you smacked her knee. “He kissed me and it like it was a quick kiss, but I wanted more but not in a sexual way, if that makes sense. Like he tried to pull away but I pulled him back down and, oh my god this is gonna sound so fucking stupid, but when I let him go my lips felt all tingly and then he gave me that same look when he left my room. And since that he’s been texting me every now and then, like not just sexts like asking how I’m doing and wanting to talk and I don’t know if he’s being friendly or has feelingslikeIdoandIdon’twannafuckitup.” You blew out a gust of air and flopped your torso on the back of the sofa.

“Not gonna lie, I didn’t entirely get what you said but I got ‘feelings’ and ‘fuck it up’, so I think I know what you’re saying. Plus Marlene texted me that night and said you had a ‘stupid look on her face since Sirius left her room’ and we kinda put the pieces together,” Lily grinned.

You were a little annoyed that your friend made you admit what you’d been denying for a while. What kind of friend makes someone come to terms with their emotions? “I’m gonna kill both of you,” you groaned.

“I just want to say that it’s okay to have feelings. If you didn’t I would call a doctor to make sure you’re not some kind of robot,” Lily leaned over and held one of your hands. “Plus, you can’t do this anymore. Mostly because there’s literally nothing left to do for the wedding except the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and the actual. fucking. wedding,” she bore her eyes into yours and emphasized those last three words. “And on top of that, you’re gonna have to see Sirius at all of those things so you need to not act like a lunatic around him if you don’t wanna actually make things complicated between you two.”

Frowning at her you nodded. “You’re right. I can’t just avoid my problems, but it’s so easy,” you whined. “I think it’s so easy to just push all my feelings down because he’s ‘Mr. Non-Commital’ and you heard him at dinner! The longest relationship he’s ever had was with Marlene and that was back in school! All signs are pointing to ‘don’t get attached’. Plus, I’ve already been hurt way too many times by guys nowhere near as hot or as good in bed or as nice or as- Ugh! You see what I’m getting at?” You threw your hands in the air and widened your eyes at Lily. “This is a no win situation.”

Lily put her hands out in front of her, kind of looking like Chris Pratt from that scene in Jurassic World. “Okay, I get it. You’ve been hurt and that sucks. But you can’t give up just because someone attractive may or may not be into you! Why don’t you just try your hardest to be chill around him until after the wedding stuff is over and James and I are in Rome? That way, you aren’t acting like you’re going to explode, and when you do, I’ll be in another country!”

“Thanks, Lily,” you said in a monotone voice, watching her pick her phone up from the cushion next to her and begin typing a message to someone.

“I didn’t even tell you that you could tell Marlene! At least not yet,” you felt a little dejected.

“Oh, we both already knew,” Lily said casually, not looking up from her phone. “I’’m just letting her know that she owes me five quid because you told me about it first and not Marlene,” Lily shut her eyes and gave you a big grin.

“This is why we can’t have nice things.”

⭐️🌙⭐️

The wedding rehearsal itself took about fifteen minutes total. Surprisingly, weddings take like no time if just take out the actual matrimony stuff. Who knew? You definitely tried your hardest to be a normal person around Sirius. It probably just looked like you were really concentrating on standing in that one spot, that’s what you were hoping that was what it looked like. Every now and then you looked at Sirius just to see that he was looking right at you, with that smirk on his face, it might have been because Lily had asked all of you to dress nicely for the rehearsal and you settled on the dress you wore the night you met Sirius; partly because you liked torture probably, and it was the nicest dress you had. You felt your face getting warm each time you saw that smirk and prayed that people would think you were just a little warm. In November. In England.

When the rehearsal was officially over, James and Lily called the wedding party over to where they were standing, probably wanting to just thank you all for being in the wedding or something nice like that.

“Okay, you guys,” Lily began with an incredible grin on her face. “You know we love you and that you have done so many favors for us and some have even flown in to be here which means so much to the both of us.” She turned her grin up to James who was looking at her like she hung the stars, basically the way he always looked at Lily, but somehow it was with even more adoration than before, which none of you thought was possible.

James continued to look at Lily for a couple of seconds before he was elbowed in the stomach by her and realized he was supposed to say something as well. “Oh, right,” he snapped himself out of his daze, causing all of you to laugh, since this was just how James has always been around Lily. “The two of us wanted to take you all out to a nice dinner, just us, no relatives or anything. We just wanted to show you our gratitude and catch up with some of you and the rest of you can just drink and be merry,” James laughed. “We have some cars outside waiting for us. You can split up however you’d like, don’t really care either way, just be in a car in ten minutes!” He clapped his hands and walked towards the doors to the sanctuary you were in (Lily’s mother insisted the wedding be in a church).

Before you could even take a step, Sirius was right behind you, his mouth against one of your ears. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were wearing that dress just for me.” Turning around, he was standing about as close as he could without being flush against you, until he wrapped an arm around you and made it so he was truly flush against you. He was wearing a suit, something you didn’t know he owned and if Lily and James weren’t treating you to dinner, you’d be dragging him to your car.

With him so close to you, that feeling in your stomach graduated from a twinge to essentially what people referred to as “butterflies”, a metaphor you hadn’t fully understood until that very moment. “It’s a good thing you do know better, considering we’re in a church,” you said through gritted teeth, feeling the arm around you dip lower and lower down your back and you had to grab his elbow and yank it back up to an acceptable spot. “Regardless, we have to leave in ten minutes,” you rationalized.

“Oh, we both know what can be done in just ten minutes,” he whispered in your ear, sending shivers down your spine that you were sure that he could feel through your dress.

Taking a deep breath, you gathered all the composure that was left in your body, standing up straighter, looking directly into his piercing eyes. “And we both know that we’re not doing that here,” you smiled innocently. “However,” you leaned into his ear this time, “there are cars right outside, waiting for us.” The second the words left your lips, Sirius’ hand was clutched around your wrist, leading you towards the exit, causing you to stumble and tell him to slow down so you could grab your purse and jacket. Of course, he didn’t give you any time to actually put the jacket on, so when you were dragged outside you really wanted to put on that jacket, but as you were putting it on, Sirius was opening the door to one of the town cars on the curb and yanked you down into it and shut the door behind you.

“Any more coming?” the driver asked, looking at the two of you through his rearview mirror.

“No it’s just the two of us,” Sirius hastily replied. “No rush, we can leave with the rest of the cars, we aren’t in a hurry.” Sirius then pressed a button or switch, you weren’t sure, on his door handle and a partition came up between the front section with the driver and the backseat where you and Sirius were.

You gave him the side-eye. “Really?”

“You’re wearing that dress and you weren’t expecting this? Wait- that sounded awful. I mean, you look- And I haven’t-“ He paused and studied your face for a moment. “It’s been too damn long.” He was leaning towards you as he spoke and his words almost slipped out of his mouth and into yours. He kissed you quickly and forcefully, his hands gripping the sides of your face and pulling you as close to him as possible. You kissed him back with the same amount of force, your hands threading through his hair and mentally stopping yourself from just leaning over and straddling him, which gave you an idea.

You kissed him for a few more minutes, wanting to savor him, but you realized that if he was missing you as much as you were missing him, you could use this to your advantage. You began slowing the kisses down, removing your tongue from the equation and turning the full-on makeout session into soft pecks on his lips. Pulling away momentarily, you saw a look of pure confusion dance across his face. You slowly brushed your lips from his lips to his ear and sultrily said, “I thought you said we weren’t in a hurry.” You leaned back slightly to gather his reaction, which was sexual frustration and confusion.

“What do you- No,” he glared down at you. “I haven’t seen you at all in a week and a half and now you’re teasing me?” Part of him looked a little hurt, but you knew that he was playing up his reaction. “Literally any other time I would be so into this, but oh-ooh-“ He glared at you again as you slowly put your hand on his thigh and rubbed the inner part with your thumb. “This is just mean.” He squinted his eyes at you, not even flinching when the car began to move.

You smiled to yourself, turning your head and pretending to look out the window, sighing, letting your hand creep slowly up Sirius’ thigh. You felt his muscles tense underneath your hand and heard what sounded like a growl slip from his obviously clenched teeth. Your smile got a little bit wider. You’d never heard a noise quite like that from him. You looked back over to the man beginning to unravel next to you, watching him shake a strand of hair out of his eyes and turn them towards you.

“You do realize that two can play at this game, darling?” he smirked back, inching slightly closer towards you. He reached an arm across the back of the seat, hung a couple of his long fingers down, letting them find their way to your neck and let them stroke up and down the side of your neck, barely touching you causing a gasp to escape your lips and sending shivers down your spine for the second time that evening. Why did you do this to yourself? You still had a whole dinner to get through. Soon enough, his lips were brushing against where his fingers had just been. You really hadn’t thought this through. He was breaking your defenses faster than you attempted to build them up just moments before. You attempted to concentrate on the hand that was moving closer and closer to Sirius’ growing erection, just the sensation of feeling how hard he was for you, mixed with his kisses that were creeping up your neck and close to meeting your lips.

Before you completely broke, you turned your head away from him, so his lips couldn’t meet yours and moved your hand from his crotch, placing your hands in your lap. Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw that Sirius had a look of concern on his beautiful face. “Have I done something wrong? I swear I didn’t mean anything when I was talking about your dress. I-“

You put your hand on his and looked directly at Sirius. “No, nothing’s wrong.” You gave him the smirk he’d given you so often. “I just decided I wanted to be in charge tonight.” You looked down at your hands and caressed his thumb with yours.

Sirius took a deep breath and raked his fingers through his hair with his free hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving it. But why?” He had a look of bewilderment on his face.

You coyly leaned your ear over to his to whisper: “Just think about how good it’ll be when we finally get together.”

Before you had a chance to explain your wording, the driver had come around to your door and opened it for you. You hadn’t even noticed that the car stopped. You removed your hand from Sirius’ and grabbed your bag from the floor of the car, slipping your jacket on as you slipped out. You thanked the driver and kept your composure distracting yourself by looking up at the restaurant you were at. You’d never seen it or heard of it before, then again, you couldn’t really read the name of the place. The sign just looked like an ’S’ connected to wiggly line, so honestly, it could have been anything. The rest of the wedding party began getting out of their cars and making their way towards James and Lily who were standing just outside the entrance. Lily seemed to notice that you were standing uncomfortably with your arms across your chest. The redhead raised her eyebrows at you and you gave her a pointed look that said “Don’t ask”. She simply nodded, knowing not to push the subject and turning her attention to Marlene who was walking up to Lily to ask what kind of food they served at whatever this place was called, she’d always been kind of a picky eater.

Soon enough, the lot of you were sitting at a giant round table in a room separate from the restaurant. It even had it’s own door. You attempted to not be seated next to Sirius, but due to different people wanting to sit next to each other to catch up, you had no choice. Sirius, who still hadn’t taken his coat off, most likely to what you had done to him in the car, quickly excused himself, while everyone else was taking their seats.

Remus, who was sitting on your opposite side leaned over towards you. “So how are things between you two?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at you.

You lightly sighed and pretended to look at the menu. “I think it’s fine right now, but… I don’t know, I don’t think we want the same things,” you shrugged.

Remus chuckled. “Well, I think-“

“Oh no, Remus is giving his opinion, this can’t be good,” Sirius laughed, sitting down next to you.

“Oh, we were just talking about,” you began, still pretending to read your menu, “how ridiculous these prices are. Jesus Christ, Lily! I don’t even think I can afford water here,” you looked up at Lily with your eyes widened.

“Y/N, what part of ‘taking you out to dinner’ do you not understand? We’re treating you guys. And you aren’t allowed to order the cheapest thing on the menu so we don’t spend as much on you. I’m watching you, Y/L/N,” James said with a stern look on his face, pointing two of his fingers at his eyes and then pointing them towards you. You smiled and nodded, they were the ones getting married, after all. What they say, goes.

The waiter came around and got everyone’s drink order, luckily this place had your favorite drink on their menu, so you could at least relax a little bit. What you’d slipped out to Sirius was still hot on your mind. The table was soon filled with conversation, people catching up, talking about old times at school. You learned that James, Remus and Sirius were notorious for getting into trouble. They even had another friend that hung out with them but he was always quiet and died years ago in a terrible car crash into a lake where he was then eaten by an alligator.

“It’s so funny, it’s almost as though nothing has changed with you three,” Mary smiled, leaning back in her chair. “Remus is still extremely practical. I’m honestly surprised that you aren’t a professor somewhere”

“Actually,” Remus began, “I’m considering going back to uni for my doctorate. That’s the best thing about literature, they just keep making more of it.” Remus joked and looked down at his drink, obviously not liking the attention being on him in this capacity.

You put your hand on his forearm and squeezed it lightly, smiling up at him. “You’re too smart to not be great at whatever you do.”

He lightly smiled back, keeping his eyes on his drink and you removed your hand from his arm, not wanting to make him more uncomfortable than he already was. You took a small sip of your drink and looked around the table, feeling slightly out of place. As if he was reading your mind, Sirius moved his hand under the table and took yours, lightly making circles on the back of your hand. You looked over at him and smiled, feeling like everything would be okay.

The feeling of Sirius holding your hand had you in a slight trance for a moment, you didn’t realize that Mary continued talking about the three guys in their ‘heyday’.

“Of course James and Lily are getting married. I vaguely remember hearing James say that if he ever married Lily that he would… what was the exact quote?” Mary looked off into the distance trying to remember.

“Oh!” Dorcas exclaimed. “It was ‘If I ever get the chance to marry her I’m doing a musical number at the reception’!”

The whole table began to laugh as James put a hand on his chest, feigning offense. “Well now you’ve gone and ruined the surprise,” he joked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Now, let’s not forget about the infamous Sirius Black,” Alice smiled, pointing a finger to the man who was still holding your hand.

“Or as we liked to call him: ‘Mr. Non-Commital’,” Mary laughed. You tensed, unsure of what to do, wondering if you should even move. You really just wanted to be invisible.

“He used to swear that James was an idiot for pining after Lils,” Marlene added.

“But his rationalization of it was that you can’t just be with one woman at a time. ‘Sample every flavor’ is something I heard him throw around a lot,” Dorcas nodded, smiling at Sirius. You immediately dropped his hand from yours and began fidgeting with your fingers, trying to seem as calm as collected as you could to the rest of the table, even though it felt like your worst fears were being broadcasted.

“Alright, alright,” James started to attempt to diffuse the situation. “I think we’ve beaten on his ego enough for one night.”

Mary, Dorcas and Alice rolled their eyes at James and began whispering amongst themselves. You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding and downed the rest of your drink. You felt like you were going to be okay, until Dorcas let out a hearty laugh and almost yelled, “Oh my god! I forgot about ‘sexcapades’!” The three girls began laughing again.

You stood up and Sirius gave you a concerned look, “I’m just going to the bathroom,” you said somewhat defensively, taking your purse with you to fix your lipstick that you knew wasn’t looking great from how hard you had been pursing your lips together. You were glad no one else noticed you leave, you had stared at one of your forks for about thirty seconds after what Dorcas said before getting up so it wouldn’t seem suspicious.

When the door to the room closed behind you, it was like you could breathe easier now that you had gotten out of that situation, for now. You walked through the door that led to the restrooms and turned towards the women’s door until someone grabbed your wrist. “Sirius? What are you doing?” you ripped your wrist out of his hand and widened your eyes at him when he didn’t give you an answer.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he spoke softly, a look of genuine concern on his face.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” You put your best mask on, the one you’d spent years perfecting. “Everything’s fine,” you smiled and gave a small shrug.

“Y/N…” Sirius whispered, reaching for one of your hands. “I know that-“

“Black.” A man with long black hair and a large nose had walked into the hallway.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sirius said underneath his breath. “Really? Why are you even here?” Sirius nearly yelled as he turned to the man behind him.

“Am I not good enough to be here, Black? Or am I interrupting something with the woman I’m assuming is your, ahem, escort for the night?” The man had a devilish grin on his face and you wanted no part in any of this.

“I’m leaving.” You walked past Sirius and the greasy-haired man.

Right as you got to your door you heard the man say “Oh, don’t look so despondent, Sirius. We both know you have the money to just find another whore.”

You stormed out the door, walking as quickly as you could to the front of the restaurant. Not completely sure how you were getting home. Assuming you’d stumble upon a taxi or something. If you walked far enough away you could get an Uber without Sirius trying to catch up with you.

You needed to be alone.

🌙⭐️🌙

Sirius’ night already wasn’t going great when you had excused yourself right after the things the girls had said about him. If it were possible to go back in time and beat his own ass, he would. “I’ll be back,” he said to no one in particular, walking through the same door you had just used.

You walked faster than expected, and Sirius had to pick up the pace if he was gonna beat you to the restrooms. Opening the door, he saw you and lunged towards your wrist, letting his legs catch up once he knew he could talk to you.

“Sirius? What are you doing?” He honestly didn’t think he would get this far and wasn’t sure exactly what to say. When you kept staring at him, he knew he had to lay it all down.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Sirius looked up at you, trying to find the eyes of the girl he shared a car with. He hated seeing you like this.

Sirius saw your face change as if something inside of you had flipped a switch. You were shutting down before his very eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be okay,” she said with a plastic smile. “Everything’s fine.”

Sirius obviously knew that everything was not fine. He’d been in the same room as her and heard what they’d said about him. “Y/N…” Sirius began reaching for one of your hands, wanting to feel your hand against his one more time just in case you never wanted to see him again. “I know that-“

Sirius was suddenly cut off by a voice he would know anywhere. “Black.”

Snape. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said under his breath. If he weren’t in a nice restaurant, he likely would have screamed it. “Really? Why are you even here?” Sirius was trying his hardest to not explode and it wasn’t working that well as he heard his voice reverberate off the walls somewhat. He turned to look at the last person he wanted to see right then, only wanting to punch him in the face.

“Am I not good enough to be here, Black? Or am I interrupting something with the woman I’m assuming is your, ahem, escort for the night?” Snape sneered at him. Sirius only saw red. Every fiber of his being was telling him to make Snape pay for those words, but the other part focused on the fact that you began walking away.

“I’m leaving,” you said in a straight tone.

Sirius let you walk, knowing there was nothing he could do at that moment that would convince you to want to have anything to do with him.

“Oh, don’t look so despondent, Sirius. We both know you have the money to just find another whore,” Snape spat at him. He heard the door close after Snape’s comment, letting him know that you had heard everything.

Sirius grabbed Snape by the collar and pushed him against the wall. “Don’t think I don’t see the ‘coincidence’ of you being at the same restaurant as James and Lily the night before their wedding. If you even think about being within fifty meteres of the wedding, or Lily, I will be the one to handle the situation and give you what you deserve. Do you understand?”

“Fine,” Snape coughed out. Hearing that, Sirius dropped him to the floor and hoped that he could still find you.

The first place he looked was the room where he had been just minutes prior. The second he opened the door all eyes were on him.

“Sirius, what’s going on? I just got a text from Y/N saying ‘heading home, not feeling well, enjoy dinner. see you tomorrow’. Did you do something?” Lily questioned him.

“I went to go talk to her and Snape, yeah that one,” he added when everyone’s eyes widened, “saw me talking to her and assumed she was my escort and then he called her a whore and she ran off.”

“Where is he now?” James asked, the same anger in his eyes.

“Might’ve run off, I don’t know. I did tell him to stay the hell away from the two of you and said some other things,” he threw in that last part before he leaned down and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. “I’m gonna go find Y/N and make sure she’s okay,” he said quickly before bolting out the door.

⭐️🌙⭐️

You’d put your phone on Do Not Disturb right after you sent the text to Lily and got in the cab. You were grateful that the cabbie wasn’t a talkative one, or maybe he just noticed he had a girl on the verge of a breakdown in his car and knew better than to try to talk.

He dropped you off, you paid him and tipped probably more than you should have, but you were glad you found a cab so quickly. Opening your front door, the first thing you saw were yours and Marlene’s dresses for tomorrow hanging in the middle of the living room. Another reminder that you couldn’t escape this. You grabbed some leftover pizza from the fridge, walked back to your room and flopped onto your bed. You were quite hungry and flipped the pizza box open so hard, the corner of the box hit the home button of your phone.

(37) missed calls from Sirius

You sighed, picked up your phone, about to type up a text to Sirius to leave you be, when his face appeared on your screen.

You gave in.

“Leave me alone.”

“Y/N, let me explain,” Sirius pleaded.

“What could you possibly say that would make any of this okay?” You felt your throat begin to close up but refused to let yourself cry over this. You can’t cry over a guy and then be in a wedding with him the next day.

“Give me five minutes, and if after that you don’t want to see me ever again, then I’ll respect that, just please give me a chance,” you heard the worry and hurt in his voice.

You glanced at the clock on your bedside table.

“You have exactly five minutes.”

to be continued…

a/n: if you made it this far honestly you deserve an award. also lemme know if i should make a taglist. the next chapter won’t take as long to get up bc a. i don’t have surgery in the foreseeable future and b. i know where i’m taking this. i think i left an easter egg for avps in this i don’t remember i’m gonna make a grilled cheese and curl up in my sock drawer and sleep for days.

💖-ella

#hp fic #sirius black x reader #modern!marauders #marauders era fic #*mine #*sweetener

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dartingdragons · 6 years

Text

You’re All I See (Knockout x Reader) Ch.6

Am I part of the secret club yet?

"You sure you don't want to get paid back, Y/n?" Miko asked, sipping her beverage as the group exited the fast food restaurant. "Nah, it's fine. Think of it as a gift." You answered the girl with a smile as she in turn bumped her fist in the air. It was the most you could do for the group for showing you hospitality, not to mention you weren't running out of money anytime soon.

"Oh sweet, Bulk's here! See you later, Y/n!" The hyperactive girl turned on her heel to face the three of you, waving her hand before running towards the armored truck and disappeared inside. You stopped walking, the other two boys doing the same as they look at you, both of the giving awkward smiles at their friend's outburst. You didn't think anything of it, really. If anything, it was just a nickname for the girl's boyfriend or parental figure that was waiting for her inside the car. Not to mention you've heard weirder nicknames in high school.

The car didn't move yet, and that's when you noticed the Camaro and motorcycle. Your heart slumped in your chest, knowing that the Jack and Raf were no doubt taking their respective rides to go elsewhere. You'd been hoping you could spend some more time with the group, but that clearly wasn't going to happen for the rest of today. "Hey, uh, we'll talk with you later, if that's alright? We have to go." Jack stated as he gestured to his motorcycle, Raf doing the same towards the yellow vehicle. You of course nodded in approval, waving them off in understanding. "No worries, there's always next time. Try not to have too much fun without me though." You chuckled in response.

Then the two boys walked away, heading into their respective vehicles before they drove off. At first you watched them leave, unsure of what to do now while sipping on your f/d. Maybe you should follow them? It wasn't like you had anything to do today- not to mention you still had odd vibes in general whenever you looked at Jack's motorcycle. The other two vehicles you could understand, no doubt there was someone driving in them. But the motorcycle? Back at the job you and Jack worked at you sore you didn't see anyone bring it over, and now it happened here. It couldn't hurt to follow them just for a little while, right? If it was nothing then whatever, they wouldn't find you stalking watching them from a safe distance, no harm no foul. But if something more was going on... well, you just had to find out. But then you realized following them might actually be harder than you first expected, considering you were in no way capable of catching up to a car. You learned that from experience last night. Deflated from your plain being halted just before it could even begin, you're just about ready to turn around and head back home before snapping your eyes onto a familiar vehicle. Your McLaren. Parked right outside of the restaurant without you having had nothing to do with it. "What." Hesitantly, you move towards your vehicle. Please don't be like that damned Aston Martin, please don't be- oh.

Once you actually made your way over, you found the car's infotainment system on and had a little blue dot near the car's outline. So you fumbled with your pockets to find your car keys, and once you did you began inspecting them. Huh- how didn't you see it before? One of the buttons was a picture of a simplified car with parentheses signs around it. When you curiously pressed the button the McLaren's horn honked, the car moved forward just an inch. So... you assumed the car followed wherever the car keys were, and somehow while you were sitting you could've butt-dialed the car to come pick you up. Nice. Crisis averted. You definitely weren't going to question your parents on why they thought this could possibly work or how many scientists were needed to get this car ready to follow you like this- you didn't have time to make up excuses. You were losing the kids! Opening the car door, you hopped inside and placed your beverage in a cup holder before starting up the vehicle. Pulling out from where the vehicle was parked, you stepped on the gas and began following the streets you remembered the kids cars moved through. With luck, you'd manage to catch up to them at a safe distance.

Okay, so maybe trying to keep up with the kids wasn't such a good idea after all. Why? Well- you were now in the middle of the desert. You continued to drive forward, hoping you'd catch even the faintest glimpse of their vehicles. Sure you had been somewhat successful back at town, having managed to slowly catch up to them due to traffic and ensured you kept a safe distance to avoid being spotted, but once you made it to the desert hiding got a little difficult. You had nothing to hide behind so you had to keep far away from them, and unfortunately during this time you managed to lose them completely. To top this all off, you ran out of f/d. Great. "Ugh, can this day get any better?!" You cried to the sky as if it gave a damn to your woes as you threw a hand up despairingly in the air. Way to go, Y/n, always managing to get yourself lost. At least you were lost with your car, that had to count for something.

Before you could dig yourself deeper into this predicament, a sudden explosion sounding not too far off caught your attention. Your body raised stiffly, foot pressing on the break as you strained your hearing to hear for the noise again-

Boom!

Okay, so something definitely was happening. Should you investigate?... Eh, why not? Sure you could clearly nope out of this situation and nobody would notice, but some weird part of you thought Miko was responsible for it. You weren't one-hundred percent sure as to why you felt like that, but a nagging part of your brain figured that it just suited Miko to be around loud noises. Maybe fireworks?

Biting the bottom of your lip, you steered your car towards the sound, fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. "Please let it just be Miko and the kids and not a crazy robot." You whispered as your vehicle slowly but surely made its way towards the new destination, its engine rumbling softly.

The sounds grew louder and louder, and oddly... familiar? The sound of metal hitting metal, silence, explosions, then more clanking. "Miko, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" You just felt comfortable blaming this on Miko at this point, really. Anything to help the fear slowly oozing into your body as you rolled up a sand dune and saw the commotion below. Well, Miko definitely was there. So was Jack and Raf.

Along with a dozen robot. Oh, and one of them was that red bastard. Great.

The kids were huddled behind three different brightly colored robots as compared to what you could only assume were their opponents. A couple purple similar looking robots with that red one at the front with a bulky blue plated dude. And it looked like they were winning. You could just barely make out the conversation from where you were-

"You're not getting away this time. Don't worry, we'll take good care of your parents after you're gone." The blue one spoke with a glint in his golden eye, pounding his fist with a hammer attached to his other limb as the group began closing in. The other robots began carefully stepping backwards, holding their sides and glaring at their opponents. "You're not getting anywhere near them, Breakdown!" The large green figure snapped back, his own hand taking the form of a wrecking ball.

You knew they wouldn't make it. They were heavily outnumbered and injured, if you didn't do something they'd be goners. But what could you do? You've never been thrust into a situation like this and you were human, they just had to step on you. But you couldn't let your new friends die like this, not when you could at least provide a distraction for them to start running.

Numbly, you grabbed your empty bottle and slowly slid out of the car, pulling your car keys out of the ignition. Maybe... there was something you could do. But you'd have to do a lot of explaining to your parents on why you'd need a new car.

"You can follow, right? Well, it's time you learned how to catch." You spoke to your silver McLaren as if it could hear you. Taking deep breaths, you prepared yourself to make one hell of a introduction to the battle below. E/c eyes closed as you steeled your nerves and shook off whatever fear you had at this moment before opening your eyes and screamed,

"Hey, red bolts for brains! Here's your prize for stalking and threatening to kill me the first time we met!" You chucked your empty bottle and watched it spiral down to the scene below and promptly whack into your previous stalker's face.

Everyone's eyes immediately turned to you, particularly a cherry red mechanical being and a couple wide-eyed kids. For a brief moment, you sore you saw the red bastards eyes stare at you in familiarity the instant you throwed something at his frame that could do no possible damage besides potentially scratch his paint again.

"We make a habit of meeting each other, don't we? Breakdown, take care of your guests while I have a little chat with our new arrival." The robot mused, turning to his companion before beginning to walk towards you. Oh no, you weren't going to let that guy get anywhere near you after your last encounter. "You have anything else to throw at me? More paper, perhaps?" The mechanical figure chided.

"Yeah, hold on a sec. I was just getting you prepared for the real deal." You answered, rubbing a thumb over a certain button on your car keys. The robot paused in his steps, looking at you in a brief moment of confusion for what you could possible throw his way now.

Smiling, you pressed the tracking device on your car keys before promptly chucking it towards the robot. This is the third item you've thrown his way, no doubt he was definitely gonna remember you now. As your car keys sailed towards the machine your car honked in recognition before promptly backing up, then drove with its gathered speed to sail from the sand dune you were standing. What you weren't expecting during this entire ordeal was for your car to start transforming.

Limbs began separating from the vehicle to be followed shortly by a head. Parts that once made the car quickly shifted around the new form until it made a robot similar to the ones below. As the parts finally stopped moving, the robot reached a hand out to grab the car keys from mid air, their helm turning to face you before promptly winking. "I can do more than playing fetch, sugar." Her voice rang before her feet touched the ground, and stood mere inches away from its red counterpart. The poor guy didn't even have time to respond before he was punched in the face and thrown back against his blue companion.

Worried far too much for the kids rather than how well your car can handle other robots, you began sliding down the dune towards the brightly colored bots and kids, figuring you'd be much safer with them rather than standing around with no protection. As you shakily regained your balance once you made it down, you quickly made your way towards the others, and carefully made your way around the more friendly-looking bots.

"Y/n, what are you doing here?! You know Doc Knock? I didn't know we had another Autobot, why was I never told this?! Did you know the 'bots this entire time, Y/n?!" Miko questioned, looking from you to the green plated figure in front of them. The big robot didn't respond, instead using this newfound power from having another ally tip the sides in their favor to charge forward and begin barreling straight at the drones. "I was curious where you guys were going, and I got a bit of an odd vibe from your motorcycle, Jack. Coming to work and then over at the restaurant we were at? After my experience with that red robot and an Aston Martin following me at night yesterday, I had a feeling something more was going on. No, Miko, I didn't know my car had the power to transform into a giant robot and is a 'autobot'." You confessed, looking to the kids and back at the battle scene. The small, blue girl-looking 'autobot' glanced your way as you spoke before turning her attention to a nearing drone. Their gun hand aimed at the drones face before firing, causing it to stumble back before the blue robot sliced at it with a blade jutting out from their arm.

"Just stay close to us, Y/n, the bots will handle this." Jack told you and the others, making sure a good distance was kept between you and the fighting metal giants. "They're not robots, Y/n. They're cybertronians. They come from another planet." It was Raf who began explaining as you gently nudged him behind you. "Why are you telling me this now? I don't think getting specifics right matters at a time like this, if we survive this I'm more than happy to listen about how mechanical beings are aliens from outer space that take the form of cars and mine just so happened to be one! Do my parents even know it's a giant alien? I came to a town like this expecting to have a normal life, not having to see more of these things that could easily squish us under their foot!" This was a lot to take in. You weren't sure what you should even feel at a time like this.

"Crap, move!" You pushed the kids away before lunging towards them just as a blast hit right where you had been previously standing, the drone responsible quickly being subdued by the yellow autobot as you four recollected yourselves. Too close. The kids keep close to you as you guys tried to keep out of the battle as much as you could, with the occasional drone coming too close for comfort until one of the autobots came to interfere. "Look, the decepticons are retreating!" The small boy besides you called, pointing towards a swirling vortex the few remaining drones left fled into.

Followed after them was the large blue figure who turned just in time to wave at you and the others, grinning. "We'd love to stay around, but we'll be taking our leave." They disappeared through the portal, leaving none other than the cherry red giant to close in on the portal. It appeared he had a couple words to say as well, as he faced the crowd of autobots and humans behind them. His gaze didn't linger on the crowd for long, however. No, instead his crimson eyes were on you. "I have a feeling we'll be seeing each other real soon, Y/n. Until next time!" Once their body came in contact with the portal, it disappeared. Leaving only the autobots, you, and the kids.

The remaining 'cybertronians' closed in on you and the others, the blue one folding her arms over her chest as she looked over each of you before keeping her eyes specifically on your frame. So was the green and yellow bots, whom appeared unsure of what to do now with you in the midst. Followed shortly after was none other than your car, as the female kneeled in front of you and motioned for you to lend out your hand. You hesitantly did, and the silver autobot dropped your car keys in it. "You don't have to throw them to get me to fetch you something, sugar." She mused before standing back up, a hand situating itself to her hip. Hesitantly, you put your keys back in your pocket as the motorcycle-transforming figure sighed in exasperation.

"What are we going to tell Optimus about another human knowing our presence?"

#tfp #transformers prime #transformers headcanons #tfp knockout #knockout x reader #you're all I see knockout x reader #transformers imagines #my stories #maccadam

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