#Unless I can convince my parents to take me to New York again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cathygeha · 8 months

Text

REVIEW

Suddenly This Summer

Three small town romances that provide a variety of characters, issues to be dealt with, and happily ever afters that made the characters – and me – happy. Getting to read two new-to-me authors that I would read again was also a treat.

Susan Mallery’s SAY YOU’LL STAY sees Lawson and Shaye meet on the street, spend some time together during Christmas in July and wonder if it would be a fleeting moment that will quickly pass them by or perhaps provide a future for them together.

Synthia Williams’s THIS TIME FOR KEEPS Michaela and Khalil circling one another with one ready to commit and the other unable to trust that this time it will really work for them. Is the time finally right for this couple and if so, how will it come about?

Stefanie London’s BEST MAN NEXT DOOR was a surprise and my favorite of the three stories. Sage and Jamie were wonderful people that so deserved to be together. I loved everything about this story though I wished that both characters had not had to go through difficult times to achieve the maturity they did.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

Nothing is sweeter than the first kiss of summer...

SAY YOU'LL STAY by Susan Mallery. Shaye Harper has sworn off men for good. But when she meets army vet Lawson Easley during a pit stop on the road to a fresh start, she’s drawn in by the quirky town—and the handsome stranger she can’t resist. Lawson knows there’s no place better than Wishing Tree. Too bad the woman he's certain is “the one” is just passing through…unless he can convince her to give him and his hometown a chance at forever.

THE TIME FOR KEEPS by Synithia Williams. Home to care for her ailing father, Michaela Spears is on a mission: reconcile with the one man she can’t forget. She broke his heart years ago, so when Khalil appears on her parents’ doorstep in his scrubs, she knows it’s her last chance. Khalil Davenport shouldn’t have taken the job as her dad’s home nurse, but he couldn't resist her. Their timing was never right, but now can he trust that she’s home to stay?

BEST MAN NEXT DOOR by Stefanie London. For Sage Nilsen, coming back to her small Massachusetts hometown for a family wedding feels like high school all over again. Except Jamie Hackett has gone from charming boy next door to handsome best man. And sparks are suddenly flying between the popular guy and the so-called outcast. As the wedding gets closer, Sage finds herself on the edge of something unexpected—a second chance in the town she left behind…with the guy she’s never forgotten.

Buy Links:

BookShop.org

Harlequin

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

AUTHOR BIOS

SUSAN MALLERY: Susan Mallery is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels about the relationships that define women's lives—family, friendship, romance. Library Journal says, “Mallery is the master of blending emotionally believable characters in realistic situations," and readers seem to agree—40 million copies of her books have sold worldwide. Her warm, humorous stories make the world a happier place to live. Susan grew up in California and now lives in Seattle with her husband. She's passionate about animal welfare, especially that of the ragdoll cat and adorable poodle who think of her as mom. Visit Susan online at www.susanmallery.com.

SYNITHIA WILLIAMS: Synithia Williams has loved romance novels since reading her first one at the age of 13. It was only natural that she would one day write her own romance. When she isn’t writing, Synithia works on water quality issues in the Midlands of South Carolina while taking care of her supportive husband and two sons. You can learn more about Synithia by visiting her website, www.synithiawilliams.com.

STEFANIE LONDON: Stefanie London is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romances and romantic comedies. Her books have been called “genuinely entertaining and memorable” by Booklist and have won multiple industry awards, including the HOLT Medallion and OKRWA National Readers’ Choice Award. Originally from Australia, Stefanie lives in Toronto with her very own hero and is doing her best to travel the world. She frequently indulges in her passions for good coffee, lipstick, romance novels and anything zombie related. Visit Stefanie online at Stefanie-London.com.

Social Links:

Susan Mallery Website

Synithia Williams Website

Stefanie London Website

EXCERPT

Suddenly This Summer

Best Man Next Door by Stefanie London

CHAPTER ONE

Before today, Jamie Hackett had thought he’d already faced death.

Like the time he dove off a cliff on a dare, plunging into the ocean with the speed of a bullet. Or

the time he’d come face-to-face with a territorial goose who’d gone apeshit at him for getting too

close to her goslings. Or when his car skidded across a patch of black ice in the middle of winter

and he’d narrowly missed crash- ing into a big oak tree.

He’d been cool as a cucumber, every single time.

But it turned out he hadn’t really faced death. Now that he’d confronted it for real, he understood

what it felt like.

Jamie glanced around the sterile white hospital hall- way, feeling weirdly disconnected from it

all. If some- one had told him he was floating in the air, watching everything happen from above,

he would have believed it. Giving himself a shake, he reached one hand to his opposite arm and

pinched himself. Hard. He winced from the pain.

Still alive.

But the quicker he was out of here the better.

His mom stood at the administration desk, her shoulders hunched. Exhaustion seeped into her posture and made her look even smaller than usual. When she turned to face him, he noticed her blouse was buttoned wrong and her curly ginger hair was sticking out in all directions like it always did when she didn’t have time to style it.

“Ready to go, hon?” She tried to smile, but her eyes were watery and the dark shadows circling underneath made her look hollowed out.

You did that to her.

He nodded.

“Your dad has gone to get the car so he can meet us out front.” She slipped her arm into his and held him close, her fingernails biting into his skin, as if she was worried he’d float away like a discarded balloon if she didn’t hold on tight enough. “No need to rush—we’ll walk slow.”

“You didn’t have to wait around. I could have gotten a cab,” he said quietly. He kept his gaze averted from the goings-on around him, not wanting to see the people being wheeled about and the elderly folk shuffling along, walking their fluid bags like strange, lifeless pets.

It freaked him out.

He was thirty-two for crying out loud. Thirty-two with his whole life ahead of him. With decades ahead of him.

“Jamie Hackett, if you think I would let my child come home from hospital in a cab then I don’t even know…” Her voice broke as she shook her head, still clutching him tightly. He could hear the tears she was holding back, companions of the ones she’d been shedding ever since she’d arrived at the hospital yesterday. “Of course we were going to take you home.”

There was no point arguing. Patty Hackett was an overprotective mama bear at the best of times, let alone when one of her own was hurt. Although really, aside from a few stitches in the back of his head and some chest pain that felt like a couple of boulders had been propped there, Jamie was walking away from this situation a lot better than he could have.

A lot better than what would have been if his best friend hadn’t saved him.

When they made it outside, Jamie sucked in as much air as his lungs would allow, and even though doing so burned, he had to clear the hospital smells from his nostrils. It was warm and sunny out, with a clear blue sky and not a cloud to be seen. The perfect early summer day.

Perfect like it had been the previous evening when he’d decided to get a good sweaty workout in. Perfect like when he’d jogged across the gym floor, warm sunshine streaming in through the windows and the high-quality shock-absorbent flooring cushioning his feet. Perfect like when his fists had sailed at the heavy punching bag, the repetitive pounding motion better than any form of therapy he’d found to date.

Perfect…until he’d almost died.

Jamie shook the dark thoughts from his head as his father pulled the family SUV up in front of the hospital’s pick-up area. His mom rushed forward to open the passenger side door for him.

“I can open the door myself, okay?” he said. He hated seeing her worry like this. Hated knowing that he caused it. “You don’t need to wait on me.”

“Just get in the car, James,” she sighed and shot him a look that told him there was no point arguing. It was easier to do what he was told. And if she was calling him by his full name, it meant she was a hair away from clipping his ear.

So he climbed into the car without another word.

“Son.” His father looked over to him with a crinkled brow. “Let your mother fuss. She needs it.”

Jamie nodded. “You’re right.”

His father turned to face the road as the back door opened and Patty climbed in, scrambling to hoist her small frame up into the giant SUV like she always did. The ride home was filled with rapid-fire questions from the back seat.

Why didn’t you tell us you were stressed out?

Should you be talking to a professional about your problems?

Is it happening again?

The last one made a weird acidic taste burn in the back of his throat. No matter how many years he put between himself and The Great Breakdown of his early twenties, he was frequently reminded that nobody would ever forget it happened.

Because when you were a world-class athlete, your failures didn’t only become gossip—they became lore.

“The doctor said you need to keep your stress levels down and take a break from work,” his mother relayed. “This could happen again. She said that panic attacks can be triggered by working too much and not getting enough rest, and—”

“I know, Mom. I was there.”

“We care about you, Jamie.” His father’s voice was gruff. “This isn’t about blame or trying to make you feel bad. You know that, right?”

Despite everything that had happened in the past, his parents had never once made him feel like he was to blame for what had happened…even if he himself had felt like a giant failure.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“And the doctor said we need to keep an eye on you for the next twenty-four hours to make sure there are no complications,” Patty continued. The car rolled smoothly along the highway, other vehicles passing them at a rapid pace thanks to his dad’s careful—read: slow—driving. “I got your sister to set up the spare bedroom at our place. And don’t bother protesting about going home by yourself because I won’t have it.”

Jamie glanced at his father, who simply shrugged as if to say, she’s the boss. Too right. Nobody was under any illusions about who was head of their household, that was for damn sure.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mom. But what about—”

“Flash is staying at Clay’s house,” she said without letting him finish. “He said we could leave him there until you were ready to go home.”

Whenever Jamie wasn’t feeling himself, the first thing he wanted to do was to hang out with his dog. They really were man’s best friend. No doubt Jamie’s business partner, Clay Harris, would spoil him rotten with treats and belly scratches, so it wasn’t like he’d be sad having a sleepover.

Jamie watched the scenery roll along outside the window. Soon they were approaching Reflection Bay, the town where he’d spent most of his life—a town that wasn’t even big enough for its own hospital.

He’d driven along this road so many times he’d lost count, watching the silvery blue of the ocean flicker between patches of green and rugged cliff faces, the tourist-favorite red-and-white lighthouse rising up in the distance. It was the same as it had always been and yet…it felt different now.

Everything felt different.

Forty-eight hours after returning home from the hospital, Jamie was “discharged” from the Hackett Family Hospital. But not without needing to pass a rigorous interrogation from his mother. If someone had overheard the conversation, they might mistake Patty Hackett for an actual doctor rather than the elementary school art teacher she was.

But now that Jamie could taste the sweet air of freedom, he was happier than ever to be alive. Especially since he had been reunited with his canine best friend.

“Isn’t it glorious? The sun is shining. The birds are singing.” Jamie glanced down at his dog, Flash, who ambled with the kind of gait that could only be described as “walking under duress.” “Oh, come on, bud. It’s not that bad.”

The chunky fawn-and-white bulldog looked up at him with imploring eyes as if to say, please make it stop. Flash, named in the most ironic fashion, hated working out as much as Jamie loved it. In fact, it was somewhat of a local joke that the two fittest guys in town had adopted the laziest dog ever as the mascot for their gym.

But Jamie loved Flash with everything he had. The dog might not be able to move faster than a drunk snail, but he had a heart of gold. Flash was always happy to see Jamie, never judged him for working too long or for stressing out too much about his business, and loved nothing more than just hanging out. No expectations, no bullshit.

That was love.

The pair ambled along the street. His business, Reflection Fitness, sat right at the end of the main strip, on a corner. It never failed to make pride surge through Jamie’s veins to see what he and Clay had built together. Their goal had been to create a gym that catered to all the people in their small town, leaving no one to feel like they didn’t belong. Reflection Fitness had clients who were training for big goals like marathons and fitness competitions, as well as clients like Jamie’s grandpa—who was combating osteoarthritis with regular, low-intensity workouts—and Jamie’s favorite personal training client—a bubbly woman in her forties who’d decided to try weight lifting after years of thinking cardio was the only option for women. They had a trainer on staff who specialized in pre- and post-natal fitness and another who ran classes for seniors aimed at improving joint mobility. They had built the gym to be accessible for clients with mobility needs. It was important to both Jamie and Clay that everyone who came to the gym felt welcomed and catered to.

“Let’s get you inside where there’s some air-conditioning, huh?” Jamie looked down at Flash, who was taking each plodding step with great effort. To be fair to the dog, it was unseasonably hot for so early in the summer. “We’re almost there.”

Jamie turned the corner to access the gym from the back door, which led directly into the office he and Clay shared. He tried not to take Flash through the front if he could help it, in case anyone working out had asthma or allergies. But when Jamie got to the door and tried to turn the handle, he found it locked.

“Weird,” he muttered.

The back was usually open if Clay was working, which he should be, given the hour. But perhaps he’d stepped out.

Jamie tried unlocking it. Only…the key wouldn’t fit.

“What the heck?” He tried again. No dice.

He stared at the key, wondering if the knock he’d taken to the back of his head had done more damage than he’d realized. But no, it was definitely the right key.

Befuddled, Jamie walked Flash around to the front of the gym, where a sleek set of glass doors opened to a small reception area. The space was light and welcoming, with a big potted plant and a white couch in one corner. An old black-and-white photo hung on the wall, showing Clay and Jamie in their high school days, arms around each other—a tennis racket in Jamie’s hand and a basketball in Clay’s.

“Jamie!” The receptionist, Sara, brightened when she saw him. She wore a blue Reflection Fitness uniform polo shirt and her long, dark brown hair hung over her shoulder in twin braids. “How are you feeling?”

“Never better,” he replied breezily. “And thank you for sending those flowers to Mom’s place. That wasn’t necessary.”

“Everyone was thinking about you.” Her brow wrinkled. “We were all so worried when Clay told us what happened!”

Ugh, Clay. The guy had a big mouth.

“I told him to keep it quiet,” Jamie muttered. “In any case, I appreciate the gesture. Mom commandeered the flowers right away for her living room.”

Sara laughed. “That’s why I picked tulips. I had a feeling she would end up with them.”

Mama Hackett was a favorite among the staff since she often made oatmeal cookies, energy balls and other healthy treats for everyone who worked at Reflection Fitness.

“Is Clay in?” Jamie asked. “I tried the back door, but I think something’s wrong with my key.”

“Uh…” Sara’s expression turned strange, and she reached for the phone on the desk. “Let me call him through.”

“It’s okay, I’ll head in.” Jamie had his swipe pass on hand, like always, and he tapped it against the electronic reader which activated the gate into the gym.

The screen flashed red and made an angry beep sound.

First his key didn’t fit the lock and now his pass wasn’t working. What the—

“Jamie.”

He looked up and saw Clay striding through the gym toward the foyer, a no-nonsense look on his face. At six foot five with shoulders that could bridge two cities, Clay had the perfect build for the sport he’d loved as a child—basketball. He had dark brown skin, warm eyes and close-cropped curly black hair. Usually, Clay would be flashing his signature charming smile—a smile that had won over just about every cheerleader the guy had ever encountered in his high school and college days. A smile that, now, was conspicuously absent.

“You locked me out.” Jamie shook his head in disbelief. “You changed the locks on the office without telling me?”

“Outside, now.” Clay pointed to the front doors as he strode through the gate. “We’re not doing this in front of the clients.”

Sara dropped her head and pretended to bury herself in work, ignoring Jamie’s gaze pleading for support.

He let out an irritated huff. “Fine.”

The two men walked back outside and Jamie felt a pang of guilt as Flash made a noise of protest about returning to the hot summer day. The trio rounded the corner away from the front of the gym so they could have it out.

“This is for your own good, Jamie.” Clay held up his hands, signaling he didn’t want a fight. Despite being strong enough to beat most men in anything physical, Clay was a gentle giant with a big heart.

He was also, however, stubborn as an ox.

“We’re partners, Clay. You can’t lock me out of my own damn business.” Jamie gestured with his free hand toward the building next to them. “That’s…that’s got to be illegal.”

Clay folded his arms across his chest. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t take this seriously. The doctor said you need to rest and your mom told me to keep an eye on you, because she’s worried, too.”

Typical Patty. Jamie made a sound of disbelief. “I rested.”

“For two days.” Clay shook his head. “That’s not enough.”

“Man, it was nothing. You’re overreacting.”

“I am not overreacting. Do you have any idea what it’s like to walk up on your best friend lying unconscious on the floor? I thought you’d had a heart attack or something. I thought you were dead.”

He felt terrible for putting Clay through that, but he was already feeling vulnerable about this whole thing. He couldn’t let his friend see how much it had shaken him.

“So dramatic.” Jamie rolled his eyes.

“See, this—” Clay circled a finger at his face just like his mom used to when they were naughty kids “—is why I know you’re not listening to what the doctor said. You came right here to go back to doin’ exactly what you were doin’ before.”

“Building our business?” he replied, biting back his frustration.

“Running yourself into the ground. Wake up, Jamie.” Clay shook his head. “You might not be so lucky next time.”

“It’s my call to determine whether I’m ready to come back, not yours.”

“It sure is, because I won’t give you a new key until I’m sure you’re actually taking this thing seriously.”

Jamie’s mouth popped open. “You can’t do that!”

“Sure I can. It’s my name on the lease, remember?”

Oh yeah. That. He’d been meaning to get that bit of paperwork updated for almost three years now, but it was one of those things that kept falling off his to-do list in favor of more impactful items. Besides, he’d always thought Clay would never do him dirty, so it didn’t seem like a big deal.

“It’s our business, no matter what the lease says.”

“Jamie, I’m doing this because you’re my best friend. I want you to take care of yourself.” Clay looked genuinely concerned. “Coach always used to say a heart that pumps too fast is no better than one that doesn’t pump at all. Rest is as important as work.”

Jamie let out a groan. “Sitting at a desk isn’t exactly strenuous. I just need to answer some emails—”

“And then you’ll just need to look at some spreadsheets and make some calls and then some new client will come to you with a sob story and you’ll squeeze them in even though you said you weren’t going to take on any more PT clients yourself.” Clay shook his head. “I know your tricks, man. Don’t try to play me.”

“But what about the clients I have—”

“I split them up between the other trainers. It’s already done.”

“You called everyone already?” Jamie scrubbed a hand over his face. “I told you I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“I said you were helping me plan stuff for the wedding. Best man shit.” Clay grinned and Jamie found his anger withering away. It really was hard to hate the guy when he smiled. “You’re loyal like that.”

He let out a strangled noise of frustration. “I’ll call the locksmith myself.”

“Then he’s gonna have to get through me.”

Jamie considered his options. Anyone who didn’t know Clay might be too intimidated to try changing the locks against his wishes and anyone who did know him would be too charmed to want to try. Fact was, his best friend had him over a barrel.

“What am I supposed to do with myself, huh?” Jamie hated the panic in his voice. Who on earth felt panicked at the prospect of time off?

“I don’t know. Play ping-pong with your dad, go up to the Cape, sleep in. You’re a big boy—you’ll figure it out.”

Clay’s hand came down hard on Jamie’s shoulder, earning him a soft grunt. There was no reasoning with the guy, that much was clear.

Maybe Clay and his mom were right and this was serious. Jamie could have died. When he’d woken up in the ambulance, everything had flashed before his eyes—his whole life. His family. Work. His failed professional tennis career. His business. Long hours at his computer after longer days on the gym floor. Chasing the next thing, expanding the business, more clients, more money. Never satisfied. Always restless.

Was that all his life was about?

He’d always been hyper competitive, driven, and ambitious. But what if he had died the other day? What would he have left behind?

Jamie realized then that Clay was looking at him, as if waiting for him to speak. “No sweat. You want me to chill for a bit, fine. I can do that. You’ll see this isn’t a big deal.”

But even as he brushed off the severity of the incident, he knew the earth had shifted beneath his feet. What he’d thought was solid ground was now loose earth and uneven terrain. He needed to find his footing again. He needed to get himself straight. Most of all, he needed to prove to everyone that this was just a one-off. That he could handle pressure—unlike when he was younger.

Because he couldn’t ever go back to being Jamie Can’t-Hackett ever again.

Excerpted from Suddenly This Summer by Susan Mallery, Synithia Williams, Stefanie London. The Best Man Next Door by Stefanie London Copyright © 2023 by Stefanie Little. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

#netgalley #harlequin #Susan Mallery #Synithia Williams #Stefanie London #small town romance anthology #Novellas #romance #fiction

0 notes

p-artsypants · 3 years

Text

Crushed

Stuck under a collapsed building together, Chat Noir and Marinette have a heart to heart.

Ao3 | FF.net

I originally wrote this as a secret santa gift, but it strayed too far from what the giftee wanted, so I did something else. I decided to finish this anyway, and I hope you like it!

—

This akuma attack was not going great. He called himself ‘Bomb Voyage’ (“Like in the Incredibles?” “Yes, Chat. I do believe Hawkmoth ripped that name.”) And he was blowing things up right and left.

When the Lucky Charm bullhorn fell into her hands, she had some sort of plan in the works, but it all fell short at Chat’s shout.

“My Lady! Look out!”

The building right in front of her, mere feet away, exploded suddenly, the only clue being Bomb Voyage’s finger point.

There was no time to run. No time for Chat to scoop her up. Only impending destruction and carnage.

So Chat leapt, his arms wrapping around her head, and tackled her to the ground as the rubble rained down.

It felt like ages of pain before things settled. They both coughed out lungfuls of plaster dust that still hung in the air. It was mostly dark, with a scant bit of light from above.

Chat was squished, but he pushed up on his arms and felt Ladybug move slightly.

“My Lady?” He asked. “Are you alright?”

“My leg hurts. I may have sprained my ankle. How are you?”

“I took a brunt force to the back when the building collapsed. It hurts, but...I can’t really feel my legs.”

“Chat...”

“Though, that could just be bad circulation. I’m in an awkward position.”

Ladybug’s earrings chirped.

“Crap,” she muttered. “I used my lucky charm. Do you think you can cataclysm your way out of here?”

He twisted his neck in an effort to look around, though the dust of the rubble was still thick. He looked towards the light source above them, able to see where it was coming from, but it looked several feet away. “Negative, my lady. I think we might need some outside help for this one.”

She bit her lip nervously. “I don’t hear anymore explosions.”

“That’s good. Right? Maybe Hawkmoth thinks we got crushed and stopped his akuma.”

“Yeah, that’s great…unless he’s got someone waiting to take our Miraculous’ off our corpses when we’re dug out of here.”

“Ever the optimist, hmm?”

“It’s my talent,” she smirked. Her earrings beeped again and she turned her ear toward Chat. “How much time do I have left?”

“Looks like two minutes.”

“Great…”

“I can close my eyes.” He offered. They were basically nose to nose, and her hands where trapped below his arms, so she couldn’t reach up at all.

“I…I don’t know…”

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

“We need to find a way out of here,” she switched topics. “Or find a way to contact emergency services to get us out.”

“My baton is still on my back, if you can reach it.”

Ladybug groped around blindly, feeling for the staff.

“That’s my butt.”

“Oh, sorry.” She blushed, and then moved her hand up. Once she found it, she held it out to her side as she could see the screen. “I’m about to detransform, but I have a cookie for Tikki in my purse. As long as it’s still there, she should be able to recharge before they bust us out of here.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” Chat winced.

Ladybug dialed the number.

“112, what’s your emergency?”

“Hello, this is Ladybug and Chat Noir. We’re in a bit of a pickle.”

“How can we help, Ladybug?”

“A building collapsed on us, and we’re pinned and can’t get out. We’re on Rue de Lappe, not far from Bastille.”

“I’ve got your location on my map. I’m sending the fire department your way.”

“Is there any sign of the Akuma?”

“We’ve gotten similar calls about being trapped, but they stopped coming in a few minutes ago.”

“Thank you. I’m going to extend Chat’s Baton out through the rubble so they can find us.”

“Alright, I will pass that information along. Good luck, Ladybug!”

“Thank you!” Carefully, Ladybug aimed the Baton towards the little hole to the surface, and extended the staff, the top breaking through the topside.

“And now...we wait.” Her earrings beeped again.

“So...you don’t want me to close my eyes?” Chat asked for clarification.

“I’ve been thinking...if I’m the guardian, and something happens to Plagg, like he gets sick or something, you need to be able to find me out of the suit, you know? It’s just you and me...”

“Does that mean you want to know my identity?”

She grimaced. “I should but—“

In a flash of pink, Marinette remained, looking sheepishly at him. “...I need a little time to come to terms with this.”

His eyes were impossibly wide, staring at her, drinking her in in the scant light. “Marinette? Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

“Howdy?” She squeaked.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Chat?” She asked, fearfully.

“Sorry,” he whispered. He opened his eyes again, and his lip wobbled. “I just—I’m trying really hard not to cry.” Despite this, a tear fell from his eye and landed on her cheek.

She tried not to cry herself. “Are you that upset?” She whispered.

“Upset?! No! How could I ever—Marinette, I’m thrilled beyond belief! If it was anyone else—“ he clenched his eyes shut again, as more tears started to fall. “I admire you, and trust you, and respect you more than anyone else.”

“Chat...”

He smiled tenderly. “You know, I had hunches. I was almost completely certain until Kwamibuster, too!”

That made her wince again. “Oh Chat, you know I didn’t mean to lie to you...”

“I know, I know, at the time, it was too risky.” He continued to smile, his tears subsiding. “I know this isn’t ideal, but I’m glad I get to see you now.”

“Kinda makes Evillustrator funny, huh?”

He laughed. “You’re right! I forgot about that! Hey! You called yourself cute!”

“I am cute!” She pouted.

“You are cute,” he agreed, taking her in. “I’ve stared at your face a lot, but you look so so different without the mask.”

“It’s the glamour,” she elaborated. “That extra bit of magic that makes it hard to connect the dots.”

“I know how it works,” he smirked.

“Right...sorry, this is just...weird.”

“Good weird?”

“I feel naked.”

“You just say the word, and I’ll get naked with you.”

She threw him an unamused look. “Don’t be gross.”

“Sorry, I can’t help cracking jokes around you. Although, I’m sure you were wishing I was secret mystery boy right now instead, right?” He waggled his eyebrows in an attempt to hide his heartache. “So who is it? It’s Luka, right?”

It was like she had her mask on again, cheeks red as a tomato. “No...it’s not Luka.”

“Oh...aren’t you guys dating?”

“Not anymore. We did, for like a week. If you could even call it dating. He just came over to my house during my downtime, and played his guitar while I worked on commissions and stuff. It was nice and all...but I prefer the piano.” She looked away.

“Piano, hmm?” He smirked. “You know, I’m an excellent piano player...and the real mystery guy is too?”

“You can’t laugh.”

“I would never.”

“I doubt that,” she said flatly.

“I promise, I know you don’t like people shallowly. So whoever it is, I know it’s genuine.” He smiled softly, encouragingly.

Marinette screwed up her lips and admitted, begrudgingly. “Fine. It’s Adrien. Adrien Agreste.”

The sound that Chat let out was not a laugh. But it wasn’t a great sign. It was like a wheeze, but a gurgle.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just...” he blinked several times, trying to convince himself this wasn’t a dream. Ladybug was Marinette! And she had a crush on him! “I...am surprised, is all. I didn’t know you were...close?”

“I sit behind him in class. He’s one of my best friends. Our best friends are dating, so sometimes we end up being third wheels together?”

“Oh. And this is the same guy as before?”

“It’s always been Adrien.”

Chat hoped she couldn’t hear the pounding in his chest. “Oh...even when Glaciator hit? When I found you sad on your balcony?”

“Yep. He was supposed to meet us for ice cream, and he didn’t show...I kind of told Andre that love was bogus, and that’s why he got akumatized.”

Chat laughed at that. “Aww, it’s okay, Marinette. I’m sure he had a good reason for not showing up...”

“I’m used to it,” she said dully. “His father is a huge pain in the ass. I used to respect him, but now...he’s a jerk. He constantly holds Adrien’s freedom ransom to make him do stuff. It kills me! You know when I was in New York?”

“Yeah?”

“I had to beg his father to let him go. It was a class trip, and he was the only one not allowed to go! Just because his father is so concerned with his safety.”

“Can you blame the man? We’re currently trapped under a pile of rumble.”

“But as soon as I’m out, I’ll lucky charm and cure everything! Poof! Sprained ankle gone! Whatever’s wrong with you, gone!”

“What do you think your parents would do if they found out you were Ladybug?”

Marinette thought for a moment, and answered honestly. “Probably be sort of angry, and worried. But I think they would understand. They respect us a lot, even after my dad got akumatized.”

“Don’t remind me.” He groaned.

“What about your parents?” She asked.

“My mom would have been excited. I think. Worried too, but excited for me. But my father...well, he’d rip off my miraculous and make sure I never saw the light of day again.”

“That bad, hm?”

“I’m not exaggerating. I’m in the same boat as Adrien, extremely sheltered.”

“I’m sorry,” she smiled softly. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t really want you to know. Chat Noir is supposed to be my safe place, my wild and crazy side. I’m afraid if I start talking about home, I’ll admit things that civilian me doesn’t want to.” He exhaled, his chest bumping with hers. “God, it is just so easy to talk to you. Now more than ever.”

“Really? You know me that well?”

“I know enough. And maybe it’s just because I’ve got you pinned and you can’t go anywhere.”

She laughed at that. “Well, we’ll probably be here for a while. And...I still want you to hide your identity for a while, but if you want to talk about your life a little more, that’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. It really is time for us to know who each other are, I’m just...not ready.” She huffed, and his bangs fluttered. “This was unavoidable, but let’s plan for your reveal, so I can be emotionally prepared.”

“You won’t be. You will cry.”

“You say that with an awful lot of certainty.”

“Trust me, when you behold me in all of my unmasked glory, you’ll cry.”

“Alright. Can’t wait to prove you wrong.”

He smirked.

“Chat? Are you shivering?”

“Uh…yeah, kinda.”

“Are you cold?”

“Not…not exactly. I’m holding up a lot of rumble so it doesn’t crush you…and I’m pretty claustrophobic.”

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier!?”

He laughed, but it lacked any mirth and was filled with quiet panic. “Uh, just…you know…trying to stay calm.”

“What can I do to help?”

He exhaled shakily. “I don’t know, but talking about it isn’t helping.”

“Okay, well, why don’t you keep eye contact with me, and…let’s just talk.”

“About what?”

“I know you’ve got a whole list of questions you’ve been dying to ask me. Now’s your chance.”

“Damn it!” He nearly shouted. “I had a whole notebook full of questions I wanted to ask you, but it’s at my house!”

“Well, you know where I live, so you can ask me some other time if you want.”

“Deal!” He screwed up his lips. “But first, since you mentioned it, Weredad.”

“Oh god…”

“Why did you say you were in love with me?”

She winced. “To be quite honest, I thought you were going to find out who I was…and the poor excuse just flew out of me before I could think through the consequences. I didn’t think my dad would overhear anything, and I didn’t think you’d show up for brunch.”

“You didn’t think I’d show up? Me? The biggest gentleman in Paris?”

“Okay fine, I hoped you wouldn’t show up.” She rolled her eyes.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, there’s a lot of shenanigans that could have been prevented if—hold the phone, how did you do Multimouse?!”

“Fox miraculous,” she shrugged.

“The Fox! Of course!”

She laughed, his reaction calming her nerves. “I understand what you mean now, it’s easy to talk to you. It’s always easy, but I didn’t notice until you said it.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You don’t always feel that way.”

“I mean, I get frustrated with your jokes when I’m trying to be serious, but that doesn’t mean—“

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

He swallowed thickly. “Civilian me…you…you have a hard time…” He trailed off, not looking at her face.

“Chat?”

“Did you ever tell Adrien? That you…you know?”

She tilted her head at the sudden topic change. “Uh…no. I tried, but it was never meant to be. Every time I did, something would go catastrophically wrong.”

“Like what?”

“Like...I gave him this scarf, right? For his birthday. And I forgot to sign it initially, so I snuck into his house and left a sticky note on it. Somehow, it still managed to go wrong, and he thought it was from his dad.”

Chat stared at her, wide eyed. “And you never told him?”

“No, he was happy believing that it was from his dad. His happiness is all I want.”

It was hard to describe the look on Chat’s face. Almost pained, but still full of love. Like seeing something so precious it brings you to tears. “You did that for him? You really love him that much?”

She looked away, “Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately? Is he a jerk?”

“No, not at all. I just…I know he doesn’t love me back. ‘Oh Marinette, you’re such a great friend.’ ‘I’m so glad I have a friend like you.’ ‘Please stay my friend forever!’” She shook her head. “That boy has me firmly friend-zoned.”

He winced, “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that. He probably really really likes you, and just wants you to know how much he appreciates your friendship.”

“And that’s another reason I can’t confess. He doesn’t have a lot of friends, and I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” She groaned. “I sound so pathetic! It’s so stupid.” She shook her head. “I wish I had your bravery.”

“My bravery isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s gotten me hurt pretty badly, after all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he smiled at her softly. “You feel how you feel, and I just hurt myself.” He gnawed at his lip. “Actually…can I ask a really dumb question?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You don’t have to answer it…actually, no. I shouldn’t ask at all. Nevermind.”

“Well now you have to ask,” she chuckled. “I’m curious.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, but don’t hate me.”

She nodded him on.

“Why…why did you go out with Luka if you knew I loved you? Do you also like Luka? Or…are you just that…repulsed by me?”

Marinette’s mouth fell open in quiet shock, and she inhaled some dust. She turned so she wouldn’t cough in his face at least.

“Sorry,” he tried to sooth. “I told you it was stupid. You can date whoever you want…”

She cleared her throat, and then wheezed out. “You just wanted it to be you.”

“…yeah…”

“Chat,” she leaned up to tap her nose against his. “To say I have absolutely no feelings for you would be a lie.”

He looked hopeful. “Really?”

“They’re still developing. But I noticed thoughts I have about you sometimes. Missing you, thinking you’re cute…but Luka was the safer option at the time. I was trying desperately to get over Adrien. Luka and I weren’t really friends first, so if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t a big loss. But with you…” She looked into his eyes, an insurmountable amount of pain and unsaid words just beyond his reach. “I could lose everything.”

“You won’t lose me, My Lady.” He said softly.

“Oh kitty,” she moaned. “I…I never want to lie to you…but there’s something that I haven’t told you. Something I should have a long time ago. I just…don’t like thinking about it.”

“What is it?”

“Chat Blanc.”

At her hesitation, he prodded her on. “What’s a Chat Blanc?”

Her whole face tightened, lips curling into a thin line, eyes squinted hard, and brow furrowed. “It’s…he’s your akumatized self.”

“What?” He breathed. “But I’ve never been akumatized.”

“No, not anymore. You see…Bunnyx helped with it. Somehow, the event of me signing a gift to Adrien triggered a series of events that got you akumatized. I don’t know what the correlation was, but…you knew my name, and you said our love destroyed the world.”

“The world?”

“I hate thinking about it,” she winced again. “The whole of Paris flooded, the Eiffel tower knocked on it’s side, the moon exploded. Everyone, including me and Hawkmoth, turned to dust. You cried when you saw me. You asked me to save you, but you also wanted my earrings, wanting to fix everything yourself. So we fought.”

“I assume you won, if you’re here.”

“Yeah...the Akuma was in your bell. Your all white bell, on your white suit, with your white hair and blue eyes...” she shuttered. “I still see you like that in my nightmares.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I didn’t want to mention it. I didn’t want to worry you, and I didn’t want to remember. I knew I should have told you sooner, though. I’m sorry.”

“...I understand.” He swallowed and exhaled in a whoosh, all the debris above them shifting. He moaned, ending with a hiss.

“Chat?”

“Sorry, I moved and realized that I’m a little more hurt than I thought.”

“What’s ‘a little more hurt’?”

“Uh…I think I’m…I’ve been impaled?”

“What!?”

“It’s not that bad, the suit took most of the pain. I just…am having a little hard time breathing, and I thought it was from my claustrophobia, but I think something is lodged in me.”

Very carefully, Marinette reached up and felt along his back. A lot of debris was laying flush to his suit, but as she moved her hand around, she noticed he felt wet and sticky.

“Yeah, I think you’re bleeding, kitty.” She said so sadly. She touched where the wound was and he cried out in pain. It was his lower back, by his spine.

“I’m sorry!” She pulled her hand away.

“S’kay,” he hissed out. “God damn, that hurt.”

“I promise, as soon as we get out of here, I’ll magic you right as rain. Just...just hold on, kitty.”

He opened an eye to look at her, still fond through his pain. “Are you panicking?”

“Yes! I was worried when the building collapsed, but now I’m on the verge of pure panic!”

“I must admit, this is not how I expected today to go.” He breathed slowly, the pain subsiding when he held still. “Actually, I didn’t imagine this happening when I found out who you are. You being Marinette is like…the cherry on top of a diarrhea sundae.”

“Do you like cherries?”

“I love cherries.” He whispered. “I got grounded today.”

“Oh.”

“I was having lunch with my father, a rare treat. My friend texted me and I answered without thinking. My father became upset that I would do something so ‘rude’. He said if my friends were more important than him, then he shouldn’t bother eating with me. Then he took my phone.”

“That’s the kind of assholery that I’ve come to expect from Adrien’s dad. You’re in that boat too?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Come to think of it…he’s probably the reason I got akumatized in that other timeline.”

“You think so?”

“It’s a hunch. I don’t often get upset about things, but when I do, it’s usually because of him.” He sighed, ending with a wince. “That’s something I haven’t admitted to myself until now.”

“Kitty...”

“I didn’t mean to bring that up...”

“It’s okay. I’m glad you did. I want to be able to support you where you need it.” She could see that he was spiraling into depression, and quickly sought to remedy that. “What was your daydream like? When you would find out who I was?”

A twitch of a smile took his face. “I knew I would spend a long time staring at you, memorizing what you look like without the mask.” He took a shaky breath. “And I thought, when we decided to share our identities, it would be because you finally fell for me. So there was a kiss. And a lot of roses. It was sappy...but it made me happy to think about it.”

“Can I ask...what it is that you love so much about me? In case you don’t know, there’s a lot of differences between Marinette and Ladybug.”

“I know,” he smiled. “But there’s plenty of similarities. Your strength, for example.”

She laughed. “Chat, Ladybug can throw you across the city. But Marinette couldn’t even lift you.”

“I bet you could! We should test it later! But I meant your strength of heart.”

“You sound like an anime character.”

“Well, it’s important to me.” He blushed. “You aren’t wishy-washy. You don’t cater to the voices around you. You do what’s right. You want justice. Even when akumas and civilians tell us to go or step down, you get up and fight.”

“I do that?”

“Yes. The day you stood up to Hawkmoth, and you promised Paris that you would fight for them until the end? That moment, I said, ‘no matter who that girl is, I love her.’ And even now, it hasn’t stopped. I may even love you more.”

“Chat…” She sniffed. “I…I care about you so much. And I know that if Adrien wasn’t in view, I’d fall for you hard and fast. But I can’t.”

“I know, Marinette. Just knowing…that maybe someday…”

“All the more reason to get rid of Hawkmoth, right?”

He nodded, a tear slipping from his eye and landing on her cheek. “Today sucks.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s really not your fault. And I’d much prefer that you were here, under me, than being alone. I’m handling my claustrophobia a lot better because of it.”

“I’d much rather be under you too.”

He gave her a smile, and then snorted with a little blush. “Oh my lady…”

“I thought we were being mature.”

“Me? Mature? Come on.”

“Yeah, I should have known better.”

“You’re beautiful too,” he added. “I’ve always thought so. As Ladybug and Marinette. I saw you with your hair down once, and it’s haunted me ever since.”

“You saw me with my hair down?” She questioned, trying to ignore the hot blush on her cheeks.

“Yeah, it looked really nice on you. I know it’s not practical for crime fighting, but…”

“Maybe for a patrol,” she offered. “When things are calm.”

A smile graced his face as he sighed deeply.

The pile above them shifted, and Chat let out a cry of pain.

“Kitty?”

“This sucks!” He moaned, leaning his forehead down to her face. “Sorry, whatever is in me moved, and I really felt it.”

“Please don’t apologize, Chat. If anything, I should apologize, you took the hit for me!”

“My Lady…you didn’t do anything wrong. If I can help it, I will never let you get hurt.”

She closed her eyes, trying not to cry. “It breaks my heart that you would do that. I don’t want you to be a meat shield, I want you to be my partner.”

“You said it yourself. Once we’re out of here, you’ll do Miraculous Cure and set me right. So I’ll take the hits if I have to.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “Even if it hurts like a bitch.”

With her hands trapped at her sides, she couldn’t reach up and wipe his tears away. So she opted for the next best thing. She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for protecting me. I know you’re going to say it’s your job, but I really do appreciate how much you look out for me.”

“I love you, Marinette. Of course I’m going to protect you.”

She shook her head slightly. “How can you just say that so casually?”

“Why bother hiding it? You know already. I’m not going to bottle it up.”

“I just…wish I could do that. With Adrien. I wish I could walk right up to him and say, ‘I love you, you magnificent human being’ and crush my lips to his perfect face.”

Chat hid his blushing face in her shoulder. “You should. I bet you’d make his day.”

“Yeah, or he’d freak out, and sue me for sexual harassment, and then I’ll be the laughing stock of the school, no, all of Paris! The whole world, maybe!”

“Do you often catastrophize?” He chuckled. “I’ve heard you do it before.”

“Usually only with Adrien. I just…don’t want to mess things up.”

“I don’t think you will. I know Adrien. He’s a nice boy. He won’t turn you down.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Call me a psychic.”

She scoffed. “Whatever.” Then she shook her head. “Whether or not you’re confident he won’t reject me…I don’t think I’ll ever tell him. I’ve tried to get over him, but I just look at him and melt all over again. I’m sorry Chat.”

He was quiet, his face resting next to her head, cheek against her ear. After a moment of contemplation, he asked, “hey, you like pink, right?”

“Oh? Uh, yeah.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow. A dozen pink roses, maybe some red and white in there too for flavor.”

“You’re doing what tomorrow?”

“I’m going to reveal my identity tomorrow.”

“After all that? What about Adrien?”

“Don’t worry about him right now. I’ve been thinking. If you and I know who each other are, in a crisis, we’d be able to communicate better.”

“What do you mean? What kind of crisis?”

“I’m just trying to imagine what happened with my akuma. If there was a problem with my father or miscommunication, we could better solve it without identities in the way.”

“Okay, yes…” she considered. “But please don’t get your hopes up, okay? I would love to spend time with you out of the suit, but I won’t fall for you instantly.”

“I suppose you’re right. After all, how can I compare to the amazingly handsome Adrien Agreste? Well, he won’t be a problem for much longer.”

She frowned. “You say that like you’re going to kill him.”

He laughed. “No no, Bugaboo,” he said fondly. “Look, everything will make sense tomorrow, I promise…as long as I don’t bleed out down here first.”

“You’re acting really jovial for someone with a mortal flesh wound.”

“Tis a scratch.” He breathed a shuddering breath. “Or so I hope.”

“Ladybug! Chat Noir!” A male voice called from up above.

“Ugh, finally,” Marinette muttered to herself. “We’re down here!” She called.

“We’ll get you out as soon as we can! Any injuries?”

“Chat has a…bit of a scrape.”

“An ambulance is on the way!”

Marinette didn’t want to tell him it didn’t matter. Once she did the cure, he’d be right as rain.

Right?

“Marinette,” Tikki piped up. “I’m all set, whenever you are.”

“Alright. Tikki, Spots on!”

The pink flash only helped the first responders locate them quicker.

“There’s the baton!” His voice sounded closer. The light above was distorted by a rain of plaster, before it was replaced by flashlight light. “Hello?”

“We’re down here!” Ladybug called, moving her arm under Chat.

“Can either of you move?”

“Chat’s pinned, but I might be able to wiggle out, with some help.”

“We’ll get a sling. We might be able to pull you up and out.”

“Once I get my arms free, I should be able to cast the cure and set everything right.”

“Great plan, Ladybug! We’ll have you out in a minute.”

Ladybug nudged Chat’s nose with her own. “I’ll cast it as soon as I’m free. Can you hold out that long?”

“I’ll have a dozen pink roses. And I’ll wear something nice, like a sweater. Or maybe a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I heard the ladies love that.”

“Chat?”

“I’m trying to focus on something else instead of being trapped.” He explained. “Sorry, I might not be very useful for the next few minutes.”

“Okay,” she kissed his cheek. “You do what you have to.”

The fire department lowered a strap attached to a chain into the hole. “If you can maneuver that under your arms, we can pull you out.”

Using Chat’s Baton, Ladybug was able to pull the strap closer. Very slowly and carefully, she wriggled it under her armpits, careful not to jostle Chat in the process.

“Jewelry could be fun. I know she doesn’t like it when I’m extravagant, but surely she would cherish it if I gave her a ring.” He had his eyes shut tight, his brow furrowed.

Ladybug gave Chat a pitiful look.

“Alright, I’m ready!” Ladybug called to the rescue crew.

She was pulled out from under Chat. Though, she had been supporting his lower half, and he sank to the ground as she slid away from him. This jostled the debris violently, and he cried out in horrible, agonizing pain. It was the worst sound she had ever heard.

“Chat!”

He kept howling, sounding like he was being ripped apart from the inside out.

Ladybug pushed on the piles around her, hurrying to get free.

The moment she broke the surface, she called for her Lucky Charm.

It was a rose, and she teary-eyed through it up into the air, and called for the cure.

The explosion of Ladybug’s surrounded her, mending her ankle and silencing Chat’s cries.

She touched down on solid, undisturbed concrete, and turned to find Chat face down on the ground.

“Kitty!” She cried, voice cracking as she rushed to him.

He pushed up on one arm. “I’m okay, My Lady. Just a little winded.”

“Are you sure?”

He stood slowly and stretched. “Yeah. All cured.”

She hugged him. Tight and sure, maybe squeezing a little harder than she should.

“Bug, I can’t breathe.” He chuckled.

“Sorry, I just...”

He hugged her back. “I’m never going to turn down a hug though.”

Her earrings beeped.

“Are you both alright?” Asked the EMT on the scene.

“We’re all better,” Chat assured. “Thank you for your help!” He gathered Ladybug close to him and put an arm around her waist. “We gotta go though!”

Ladybug only had a second to realize what he was doing, before she was lifted off her feet and into the air.

“I can travel myself, you know. I still have time.”

“Sure,” he shrugged.

He carried her all the way to her balcony, before setting her down. Her transformation ran out just as they landed.

“Thanks for the lift, Kitty.” She scratched under his chin. But as she looked in his eyes, she saw tears. “Chat?”

He sniffled and hugged her again. “Just...a sucky day. I wanted to hug you in privacy. I know how you get when people assume things about us.”

“Well, it’s different when you’re getting handsy and when you need comfort from a traumatic experience.”

“I never get handsy,” he argued. “I just like to be close. I’m touch starved.”

“Well, from what you told me today, I believe you.”

He laughed mirthlessly, and pulled away. “I really do feel better now.” He reached up and cupped her face, letting his thumb trail across the apple of her cheek. “No matter how bad this day was, it will never taint the absolute elation of finally seeing you.”

“Chat...” she blushed.

“I must be the luckiest man on Earth. Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Ladybug, all rolled into one. I can’t believe it.”

“Two transformations and you still don’t believe me?”

He smiled. “My brain believes, but my heart never gets so optimistic.” He cast his gaze away. “Even if you...change your mind...” he mused.

“About what?”

“Nothing. Never mind. I’ll just...see you tomorrow. With a dozen pink roses.”

“I’ll get a vase ready.”

He reluctantly pulled away, like tearing himself from her was physically painful. He hopped up on the railing of her balcony, and with a little salute, he hopped into the night.

“I’m proud of you, Marinette.” Said Tikki. “It had to be hard being that honest with him.

“I didn’t really have a choice. I can’t imagine how much worse that experience would have been for him with his eyes closed the whole time.”

“It’s over now. And tomorrow, you’ll know who he is too!”

Marinette whined. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that...”

“It’s a little late for that. What? Are you going to run at the first sight of flowers?”

“I might.”

“It’ll be fine. Marinette, I know who Chat is. And I promise, it’ll all work out fine. Great even. Just, take a shower, and go to bed. Then you can wake up early and mentally prepare yourself.”

Marinette chuckled as she dropped back down into her room. “What would I do without you as a life coach?”

“Sleep through most classes.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

—

In the morning, with the extra sleep Tikki had urged her to get, Marinette rose and dressed.

Then the nerves turned on.

“What if I just fake sick?”

“Don’t you dare! You’d hurt his feelings!”

“You’re right...but I really do feel like I might throw up.”

“Just relax. You’re going to love this.”

“If you say so...”

After breakfast, Marinette wandered over to school leisurely. Tikki would say she was stalling, but Marinette would disagree and state she was simply taking advantage of being early.

At the front steps, students were gathered. No roses. In the courtyard, teens milled about. No roses. In the locker room, her locker was devoid of anything that wasn’t supposed to be in there.

“Well well well,” said Alya, with too much bravado. “Lookie who’s early!”

“Yuck it up. I was tired and went to bed early last night.”

“You sure you aren’t eager to see Adrien today? He looks pretty cute in that button up.”

In all the confusion surrounding Chat, Marinette had honestly forgotten about Adrien. Her. Forget about Adrien. Perish the thought.

“I mean...it would be a bonus.” She muttered.

“Well, he’s up in the classroom. If you were wondering.”

She wasn’t. Or hadn’t been, until now. But it seemed that Chat wasn’t ready to reveal himself yet, and Marinette still had time to prepare.

She ascended the steps and headed to the classroom.

What she wasn’t expecting, was seeing Adrien standing there, sunlight filtering through the window to make a halo in his hair. He wore a black button up shirt, sleeves rolled up, and had a dozen pink roses in his hands as he talked to Nino.

Dare she hope? Dare she dream?

She just stood in the doorway, staring, before he noticed her.

“Good morning, Marinette.” He smiled at her, looking warm and inviting and…nervous?

“Goo-goo-good morning, Adrien.” She stumbled. She glanced down to the flowers, then up to his face. “Um…those don’t happen to be for me, do they?”

With a twinkle in his eye, he smirked. “Why? Just because something is pink, you think it’s for you?”

She deflated. “Haha, right…that was really forward of me.”

With a pleasant hum, he leaned in and whispered in her ear. “I’m just messing with you, My Lady. These are for you.” He placed the bouquet in her shell-shocked hands.

“My...?” She breathed. The word was just a whisper, barely heard by even him.

His smile was broad and gleeful, squinting his eyes and coloring his cheeks. “Mmm-hmm!!” He hummed eagerly as he nodded.

Marinette had to shut her eyes as a sound like a laugh and a sob burst from her lips. Tears started immediately, and there was no way to stop it.

“I told you you would cry,” he teased.

“You jerk!” She blubbered. Then she tossed the flowers at a confused Nino before throwing her arms around Adrien, and sobbing into his shoulder. “I love you, Kitty.”

He squeezed her back. “Do you really? Because I’m getting mixed signals.”

“You’re awful. You’re wonderful. I’m a mixed bag of emotions. Just hold me.”

“Can do!”

As other students came in, seeing the couple embraced, they gave them thumbs up and congratulatory back pats.

And then Lila entered.

She halted, hid her sneer, and said, “oh no! Marinette! What’s wrong? Why are you crying on Adrien like that?”

He patted Marinette’s hair. “Happy tears, no worries.”

Marinette refused to let Lila ruin this moment. It was far too perfect. Adrien was far too perfect, the flowers, her kitty...

Mustering all her strength, she hooked her arms under his, turned and spun his into a dip.

“My lady?” He breathed, in awe.

“You’re the love of my life. I should have kissed you yesterday. I definitely wanted to.”

“You did?” He smiled drunkenly.

“Yes, like this.” And she slammed her lips to his, kissing him just like she had in her dreams.

Adrien let out a contented little mewl as he tangled his fingers in her hair.

The class went wild with roars and cheers.

Before she could drop him, Marinette righted Adrien. “Sorry, I just...wanted to do that for a while now.”

Adrien nuzzled her cheek with his nose. “Oh don’t worry, Bugaboo. You can smooch me whenever.”

Nino made a gagging sound.

“Oh, well I’m very happy for you guys,” Lila feigned a smile. “But Adrien, are you sure your father will be okay with this?”

Chloe, who had known this was coming since she saw the roses, stood and stalked over. “Okay, you’re done. Bye!”

“Chloe, I’m just trying to be rational...”

“And Adrien is the most deserving person for a happy ending...even if it’s with Dupain-Cheng.” She cast Marinette a glance and rolled her eyes. Then she looked back at Lila. “Though, he could do worse.”

This made Marinette and Adrien giggle.

Lila scoffed. “Fine! Make me the bad guy! But don’t come crying to me when Gabriel tells you to break it off!”

Adrien whispered in his new girlfriend’s ear. “Even if my father makes Adrien and Marinette break up, Ladybug and Chat Noir follow their own rules. It might not be the most fun, but we’ll make it. Then, once I’m 18, I’ll propose.”

Marinette laughed, kissing him swiftly. “Oh my sweet kitty. Let’s take it slow for a little while. We have the rest of our lives to be that insufferable couple.”

Alya, who had come in not that long after Marinette but stood quietly in the door, finally spoke up. “Adrien, I couldn’t bear to tear you away from your Princess. So I’ll take your seat.”

Adrien just grinned in gratitude and hugged Marinette. “This makes that building collapse yesterday totally worth it.”

“Does that mean...you had a crush on me?” She teased.

“No, my Lady, I fell for you.”

#miraculous ladybug #identity reveal #marichat #adrienette #adrien agreste #chat noir #ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #fanfiction #I joined the ML writers discord but like

263 notes · View notes

softpine · 3 years

Note

Could we get another you don't have to read but it's interesting text post?? 👉👈

omg i hope this is what you meant, but umm here’s some backstory about griffin’s roommates? because even my nameless extras apparently need deep lore in my mind?? fjkjsd

TW: mentions of drug addiction, homelessness, religion, abuse, and biphobia. + me not being able to stop talking ever.

jeremy; 19. gay. [also the guy from this post.] jeremy grew up smack in the middle of the bible belt. his parents wanted him to grow up and be a pastor like all the generations before him. he was a model child and no one expected him to run away, so his parents actually thought he was kidnapped when, on a random tuesday, he left in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on his back. the police found him wandering towards the bus stop just a few hours later and dropped him back at home. everyone then repeated the same cycle again and again for years, before jeremy’s parents got fed up and agreed to legally emancipate him if he agreed to just stop embarrassing their family. he finally hit the road on his own when he was 15.

he met griffin at a train station out west a while later. griffin had just left his aunt’s house, and neither of them had any place to be. jeremy is the one that taught him how to pickpocket (although there was a lot less flirting involved in jeremy’s method – he relies heavily on the “dumb tourist desperately needing directions” angle). but jeremy can never stay in one place too long, so he left. a year later, they happened to bump into each other in another state and decided a coincidence like that was too big to ignore. so they started traveling together and eventually ended up in nyc, where they stayed. (well, kinda. jeremy disappears for weeks at a time and comes back with all kinds of stories.)

griffin sometimes gets pissed because jeremy likes to equate their 2 childhoods, but they were really nothing alike. sure, jeremy’s family was oppressive and he could never be himself around them, but they were wealthy, they loved him, they never laid a hand on him, and they’re still hoping he comes home someday. jeremy didn’t leave because he had to, he left because he wanted to. but he can’t seem to grasp the difference. still, he listened when griffin told him he should reach out to his family and let them know he’s okay. now they have scheduled phone calls once a month and they’re all happy with that amount of communication.

all in all, jeremy is still a kid. he loves comic books, action figures, the atari he & griffin split 50/50, and going to the movies. he’s always looking for the next big adventure or something to make him feel more alive. unfortunately, that’s taken him to some darker places with drugs and alcohol, but he’s doing okay right now. he was worried about moving into an apartment because he thought it would make him feel too trapped, but he actually likes having a place that he chose, that no one is forcing him to be at. oh and no, he and griffin have never dated. jeremy just doesn’t know what personal space means.

eddie; 34. straight [but probably aro/ace in modern terms]. he’s already been divorced three times, which he assumed is because he's a pushover, never fights for anything or takes his own stance, and seemingly lacks passion in every aspect of his life. for almost ten years, he worked as a personal accountant in the upper east side. his days were mundane: he ate the same breakfast (oatmeal), the same lunch (ham & cheese sandwich), and the same dinner (chicken noodle soup) every day. somewhere around the time of his third divorce, he realized he wasn’t going to find fulfillment unless he searched for it, so he quit his job, cashed out his family inheritance, and traveled through europe. as he was living in hostels and hitchhiking and relying on the kindness of strangers, he started to become well-acquainted with the homeless communities in every place he visited. he realized how out of touch he had become, and how privileged he was to be bored with his life. and thus, he had found his passion.

when he returned to new york, he got a new job in finance for a nonprofit organization for the homeless. that was nice and all, but he never got to see the benefits of his work, so he started volunteering at food banks and shelters. that’s where he met jeremy and griffin. jeremy was fascinated by how truly dull eddie is. he kept waiting for eddie to reveal some deep, wild, secret part of him, but it never happened. eddie never even bragged about his adventures in europe; he would always turn the conversation back around to others. by the time jeremy realized he really is that boring, he was already looking up to eddie as an older brother type (and griffin was just along for the ride).

eddie is the one that’s actually renting the apartment and then renting out the extra space to griffin, jeremy, and vincent at dirt cheap rates while they get on their feet. he agreed to keep doing this as long as they all have jobs (pickpocketing doesn’t count) and try to stay clean in jeremy’s case.

vincent; 21. bi. vincent grew up comfortable, but not wealthy, in queens, with his family who emigrated from singapore before he was born. his parents later got divorced, and now he’s the oldest of a combined total of seven siblings, though he’s always been closer to his mom and stepdad. growing up, his grades were just average, he had a few friends but was too shy to be popular, and he wasn’t particularly athletic either – he was on the swim team for a while, but he hated the competitive aspect. his favorite part was staying behind after practice and having the pool all to himself; he would float on his back for hours, just watching the pool lights reflecting on the ceiling. he struggled to fit in at school. this all changed when he started weightlifting during his senior year. he mainly started doing it as a way to keep himself busy, but he soon realized that the more fit he got, the more attention people paid him. he liked that.

soon after, he started his first relationship with a girl, kelly, who he intended to marry someday. they graduated high school together and both enrolled at the same college – though vincent hadn’t decided a major yet – and things were going great. he even came out to her as bi and she took it really well (especially for the time). they were settled into an apartment of their own at 19.

in his quest to figure out his major, vincent took up all kinds of new hobbies, his favorite being drumming. he even started a garage band with some of his friends. they started playing house shows, which ended up being somewhat popular, though they don’t expect to make it big anytime soon. at one of these shows, vincent ran into griffin and they bonded over their love of rock music. when vincent found out that griffin didn’t have a place to stay that night, he invited him to sleep on his couch – understandably, kelly was angry that he didn’t ask first.

kelly got increasingly more upset as time went on and vincent & griffin became better friends. even though nothing romantic ever happened between them (and i sure hope not, because griffin was like 16 at the start), kelly was convinced that vincent was cheating on her and that she was only there to cover for his “true” sexuality. when they inevitably broke up, vincent was devastated. not only that, but he now had to find a new place to live asap. that’s when griffin mentioned that he and jeremy were renting rooms from eddie and that vincent was welcome to join. and that takes us up to the present! (well, the “present” being 1987).

#THIS IS SO LONG #imagine being me and having all of this flood your brain when you're trying to sleep at night!!#free me!#anonymous #asks #saviorhide #brandi answers #camellia ask #drugs tw #addiction tw #homelessness tw #religion tw #abuse tw #biphobia tw #homophobia tw

78 notes · View notes

sugarcubetikki · 3 years

Text

The Ladynoir Fight Scene

I’m going to talk about the Ladynoir fight scene in the NY special and consequences of that because that was the biggest conflict in that episode. And a lot of the fandom have mixed opinions about it, I hear different opinions all the time. I’ve heard things from it’s all Ladybug’s fault to Chat Noir isn’t fit to be a superhero. I want to present some of my own opinions and analyze through the entire situation.

Firstly, I’d say the actual situation was caused due to a chain of events. Honestly, Adrien had quite a solid plan and it would’ve worked if he wasn’t trapped in the room with Marinette (basically if Aeon and Jess weren’t scheming). They were put in the worst case scenario and a lot of events led up to it: Marinette convincing Gabriel to let Adrien come, Gabriel’s own desire to go to NY for “villainous” reasons and wanting to leave Adrien out of it, Plagg wanting Adrien to have more freedom, Adrien being afraid of disappointing Ladybug, Aeon and Jess’s plan.

A chain of events adding together to lead to the worst situation as possible. Obviously, this was necessary to create conflict and evolve the characters.

Even if a chain of events did lead up to this, the characters did make mistakes.

Adrien

Let me clarify that his mistake wasn’t coming to New York but it was rather not informing Ladybug.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to New York?”

I do understand his situation, it was the first time he was entrusted with a responsibility, and he was so afraid to blow it and disappoint Ladybug.

It’s important to note that he thought he was obliged to stay in Paris. He thought she would be mad if he went to New York because he wasn’t able to carry out his responsibility. He didn’t understand that she wouldn’t be upset for telling her that he wasn’t going to stay in Paris. He was only given the responsibility because he was able to do it due to being in Paris. But if he couldn’t stay in Paris, that wasn’t his fault, and Ladybug would’ve understood that. If he informed her, she simply would’ve found another solution. No anger involved.

This also says a lot about Adrien. He feels obliged to do things and if he can’t do them, he’s expecting disappointment and anger. Wonder were that mentality came from? I’m looking at you, Gabriel.

With that mentality, he felt that informing Ladybug would anger her, because he doesn’t know what freedom tastes like. He’s allowed to have emotions, and he’s not always obliged to do things. As long as he communicates he’s fine. The result of his mistake comes from once again...his sheltered life and trashy parent (not to mention listening to Plagg).

Also, for people saying he doesn’t deserve to be Chat Noir for making a mistake, let me remind you that the whole point of the show is for the characters to learn from their mistakes. If they don’t make mistakes, there’s no development or conflict, and if you’re going to say he didn’t learn enough from his mistake, I’ll say accepting that you’ve made a mistake enough that you feel like you’re unworthy and punish yourself by taking away the one thing that makes you happy is more than enough.

Plagg

People say Plagg should know better. I agree. He should.

But he’s not Tikki. He’s more laidback (cue theories of Plagg having bad owners in the past).

And it’s important that he’s with Adrien because his influence on Adrien encourages him to get out of his shell, have more freedom. That doesn’t always go the right way though.

Like this time. I mean, there was no reason for Plagg to tell Adrien not to inform Ladybug, unless he also expects anger due to being abused by bad owners in the past which also makes him somewhat poor socially. I wonder if he sees a bit of his past self in Adrien. Coming back to track anyhow (save this topic for another time).

Plagg’s laidback nature and yearning for Adrien to have more freedom naturally pushes him to encourage Adrien because he cares.

And for Plagg, he actually gives some pretty useful tips for a backup plan. I mean, he’s a free spirit, I can’t expect him to be all strict and responsible like Tikki. But in all honesty, he seriously needs to take kwami tutoring classes if they exist. Tikki would be willing to offer lol.

Marinette

This one is going to be long. Because I’ve heard a lot of unreasonable claims against Marinette (as usual unfortunately).

Firstly, people think it’s hypocritical of Marinette to tell Chat to take care of Paris, and then blame him for coming, when she shouldn’t have been in New York herself. Like I said, she wasn’t mad at him for coming to New York, she was upset because he came without informing her. And she wanted him to take care of Paris, because he was her partner, and she thought he was going to be there anyways. He could alert her if it came to the worst case scenario, what if she wasn’t able to access her phone, or issues such as time zone differences. It’s obvious that she’d have to travel back whenever there’s an attack as she’s the only one who can purify the akuma and use the cure to fix everything. And saying she shouldn’t have gone in the first place? How else would they have the special? Also, she’s not obliged to stay stuck in Paris either, they can use their space powers or the horse miraculous to travel back anyways.

Second of all, people blame her for being mad at Chat. Saying that she shouldn’t have been mad in the first place. Since Chat is all supporting of her and all...

Well, I say she had every right to be mad.

In her point of view, she does have every right to be mad.

And comparing this situation to Chat being supportive of her when she makes mistakes isn’t fair. Those situations are different.

The most common comparison used is Miracle Queen and it’s not a fair comparison.

The mistakes she made didn’t involve anything that could make him angry. She was honestly torn up about it and communicated.

Over here, Chat didn’t communicate, and she was in a position where she could be angry, because the consequences of his mistake are also her own responsibility.

If he did communicate beforehand (I’ve said this too many times), he would’ve been upset about it, but she wouldn’t have been, she would’ve assured him that he needn’t be upset and she’d think of another backup plan instead.

But he didn’t. In her eyes, he could’ve and didn’t. And she doesn’t know if he would’ve told her. If there wasn’t an attack, she might’ve never found out. How is she supposed to feel about that?

His explanation doesn’t make sense in her eyes. It makes sense to us, the audience, because we know of his sheltered life, we know that he struggles with these kind of things. But she doesn’t. She knows nothing about his background. She doesn’t know his life behind the mask And it’s not her fault. She can only rely on their bond and partnership.

Ladybug: Why didn't you tell me that you were leaving?! Cat Noir: I was afraid you'd get angry!

Look at Ladybug’s perspective for a minute, forget about Adrien’s poor social skills, and really think if his answer was valid.

It doesn’t make sense why he would think she would get angry for telling her. It kinda sounds like he lacks faith in her (which we know is not the case). He hasn’t made a mistake this big before. And the way he reacts about it is that instead of confiding in his partner, he chooses not to tell her and makes decisions without her knowledge behind her back, I mean, how could she not get angry for that? Because they’re both the heroes of Paris. They’re meant to confide each other in things like this, If there’s a problem, they’re meant to communicate so things won’t go wrong.

Ladybug could’ve easily left Paris without telling Chat either. But she didn’t. She told him because he was her partner, and they work together as a team. She expected him to cover for her, and alert her, so she could make her way back to defend the team. But when he comes face-to-face with a problem? One that directly links with him not being able to stay in the city to defend it, he didn’t tell her. Instead, he leaves without her knowledge, and she didn’t know that Paris was left defenseless. Both of them our heroes. It’s both their responsibilities. When she confided in him, he didn’t do the same. And when asked why? All he says is that he was afraid she would get mad at him. That reasoning doesn’t even make sense, and it’s not something she can accept for not confiding in her. It runs deeper than just not informing her, it makes her feel like he’s not reciprocal in their partnership, that he lacks some sort of faith in her, that he thinks she would get mad that easily, and use that as an excuse. Remember, this is the same person who asked him:

“You don’t think I’m as evil as your nightmare, do you?”

Him not confiding in her is a scar to their bond. Not only does it endanger Paris. But it also makes her feel like he doesn’t have faith in her. He didn’t have enough faith in her to tell her that he was leaving. That he could use her getting angry as an excuse.

We know that due to his poor social skills and bad parent, he feels obliged to do things and expects disappointment when he can’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in her, more that he expects anger and disappointment when he can’t do something, and he was never taught to communicate when he comes across such a situation. And the fact that this was the first time he was given such a huge responsibility by her, and faces a problem, he doesn’t know how she’ll react, so he’ll expect she’ll react in the same way such as “someone we know” because he doesn’t know any better. Since he was never taught that communication is valid in a situation like this, he didn’t understand.

But she doesn’t all that about him. You’re all mixing fanon with canon. She knows barely anything about his personal life. How on earth is she supposed to know that he’s lived most of his life alone and his little experience with people? If she knew that, she probably would’ve reacted differently. But she didn’t. She assumed the first thing that came to mind.

So, maybe the line “I can’t trust you anymore, can I?” was more out of spite than anything else. She was just hurt.

Moreover, after he did accidently cataclysm Aeon, it wasn’t like she was jerky about it. She didn’t blame him after that at all. She said nothing to him. Because she does trust him. She does know that he didn’t mean to do it, and she probably guessed he was feeling guilty. Because unlike his poor social life, he does know that him enough that he’d feel guilty for doing that. I mean, anyone would, honestly. And even when Paris was destroyed, she said nothing to him after that, because she was considerate enough to not push the line, and not add even more to his guilt to what he was feeling. And she definitely felt bad about the whole situation herself.

In a overall, that whole argument was miscommunication and it really shows how troublesome their secret identities can be at times. That it limits what they know about each other and can cause misunderstandings. Since there was so much miscommunication and tension between them, they weren’t able to work together as a team, which lead to them being distracted, and causing the disaster.

This is why it is so important for them to trust and confide in each other. It makes them stronger as a team. And the New York Special definitely made them even more stronger after going through that conflict.

#sugar analyses #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #ml #mlb #miraculous new york #ml new york #ml new york spoilers #miraculous analysis #ml analysis #ladynoir #ml ladynoir #a 2000 word essay about why communication is important #geesh #very long post #but that's not unusual for me

68 notes · View notes

moonbeambucky · 3 years

Text

Turn Back Time

Pairing: Lance Tucker x Reader Word Count: 2617 Warnings: fluff, embarrassing moments

Summary: Theo's embarrassing mistake makes his parents wish they could turn back time.

A/N: We're skipping ahead to the future! This takes place in October 2039 and yes this is another Theo-centric drabble but it's fine because we love him. There are more mentions of The Price of Astrophile universe collab with Allie so don't forget to read Astrophile if you haven't already. Thank you to my love @all1e23 for beta reading 🍕❤️

It’s quiet in the house, silent mostly apart from the gentle hum of the washing machine that fills the background as your eyes gaze over the pages of the sturdy book that rests in your lap. Your focus is interrupted every now and then when Cashew lets out a deep snore you’re surprised hasn’t woken him.

He’s curled up beside you on the couch with his head resting against your thigh. The book can wait so you’ve set it off to the side, rubbing your palm in long, gentle strokes along his body. It’s hard not to notice how he doesn’t climb up as easily as he used to. You vividly recall the day you adopted him and it’s hard to believe that was thirteen years ago but just like Cashew isn’t a puppy anymore, your kids aren’t children.

Ariel is living in New York and though you knew this was coming for a long time you still miss her every day. It made sense for her to be there with more opportunities in dance. She was loving every moment training at the American Ballet Theatre.

New York had offered more than just dance, Ariel’s heart had been there ever since she met Ollie. You understood the difficulties of a long distance relationship, having done so with Lance for a while. It still amazed you though how dedicated they were to each other despite their age. Their friends enjoyed the convenience of being face to face while Ariel and Ollie spent more time having “dates” over FaceTime until they were able to see each other in person again.

Now you’re the one that has to FaceTime her, thankful that no matter how exhausted she was after a long day of dancing she always has time to speak to her parents. Lance knew the rigorous training she was going through, reminiscent of his own Olympic training. “You don’t have to call us every night,” he would tell her and while Ariel knew she didn’t have to, she could see passed the smile on his face knowing how much her Dad misses his Starfish. If a few minutes a day made her parents happy she would give that and more without question.

Seeing her over the phone was good but in person was even better and last weekend you were able to do that. It was her twentieth birthday and you and Lance flew up to celebrate. It didn’t matter that you last saw her two months ago, both of you hugged her like it’s been forever.

She was more than settled in at the Barnes’ house and you couldn’t thank them enough as they offered to have Ariel stay with them. You were certain Cassie had a lot of influence on their decision, emphatically telling them all the reasons why Ariel should live there.

Truthfully she didn’t have a lot of convincing to do. You and Lance were as close to the Barnes’ as Ariel and Cassie. You had a long discussion with them and they kindly offered Orion’s old bedroom. She had been living in the apartment above their bookstore for the last few years so they did have the space. Plus they considered Ariel family and they wanted to make sure she was safe as she navigated life in a new city.

It was sad that Theo couldn’t make it and no one was more disappointed than him. He would use any opportunity to see his friends in New York and it killed him to have to miss this trip. Theo was training to become a lifeguard and his classes were every Saturday; missing even one would disqualify him from the program.

He was able to FaceTime as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Ariel, watching her blow out the candles on the cake Cassie made for her. The phone was passed around so Theo could say goodbye to everyone, heat forming on his cheeks when Ori told him how much he was missed. His smile curbed just a bit when Leo grabbed the phone and teased that he wasn’t missed that much.

Theo was only alone for a few days and while some seventeen year olds with a house to themself might throw a party Theo was focused on practicing. He stayed long after class was over to continue swimming laps in the Olympic size pool. With his test coming up he needed to practice as much as he could.

The sound of the door shutting puts a smile on your face. Before he even announces himself you know it’s Theo, you can tell by the way he shuffles inside, dropping off his bag near the front closet like he always does.

Cashew slowly lifts his head up as Theo plops down on the couch. “Hey mom,” he said quickly, smiling at Cashew who slowly got up to turn and face Theo.

“You’re home early. I thought you’d be practicing some more.”

He looked up from Cashew to answer you, still giving the good old dog scratches behind his ears. “They had some private lessons so I couldn’t stay. Did you have lunch yet? I’m gonna make something before I get into our pool, unless you needed it?”

You couldn’t help the smile on your face knowing Theo had grown into a kind and considerate young man; not that you expected anything else. You and Lance worked hard raising him and Ariel with manners and to treat everyone with respect

“I ate already, thank you Pumpkin.” Theo dropped his head to Cashew as fond embarrassment came over him at the sound of his nickname. “And the pool is all yours though I do wish you would take it easy. You’re sure you haven’t been pushing your knee too much?”

His shorts are bunched just above the scar from the ACL surgery he had earlier this year and the injury, although common, was devastating to Theo. He loved being active so bringing all of his activities to an immediate halt hurt more than the pop felt in his knee. He was eager to get back into everything which made you worry. Then again, as his mother you would always worry about him.

“I feel good, trust me Mom.” Theo reassured you with a smile. He got up from the couch and stopped to plant a kiss on your cheek before heading to the kitchen. You helped Cashew down, his nails tapping slowly against the floors as he followed Theo, hopeful and waiting for some food to drop.

As you were folding laundry you didn’t expect Theo to be there, startling you enough that a pair of folded socks went flying out of your hands. He laughed as he went to pick it up, snickering still as he asked, “Do you know where the Bluetooth speaker is? Mine broke.”

Pursed lips held feigned anger for Theo laughing at you but you couldn’t keep it up. “It might still be in the garage from the last time Ariel was home.”

“Thanks,” he said, tossing the rolled up socks your way. He turned on his heels before backtracking, flashing a smile as bright and white as the freshly folded towel he took from the pile, throwing it over his bare shoulder.

Theo was ready to swim again, and not long after you heard music blasting from the backyard. Your pool wasn’t large enough to accurately practice the timed laps he needed to complete for certification but he was able to work on other things, like perfect all of his strokes and practice retrieving a diving brick from the bottom of the pool. It was a little awkward and Theo supposes that grabbing a person will feel just as foreign. Then again he’s kind of done it before.

Last year when his friends from New York came to visit everyone was helping Ariel pack up things for her move. Ollie even brought an extra suitcase so he could bring back some things in advance to ease the trip she would have to make the following month. As her best friend Cassie was at her side, holding the list Ariel made and rightfully ignoring it as she pointed at random things in the room to see if it was something Ariel wanted to take. (And no Cassie, there was no need for Ariel to take the pink bowling pin from her seventh birthday party with her to New York.)

Leo was doing his best to help, at Cassie’s insistence. He would much rather be hanging out with Theo who is much luckier than him for not having to help pack up. His eyes shifted to the open door, hoping the sound of the person coming up the stairs was Theo, or Ori even. It was a good thing Ariel’s room didn’t face the backyard because Leo would have been running outside if he got a look at what was going on.

Theo can’t escape the memory of the day he taught Ori how to swim. Somehow he was lucky enough to be alone with her, without Leo’s disapproving stare weighing him down. His own nerves were doing that for him but he pushed them aside as much as he could.

Ori was embarrassed, thinking she was too old to be learning how to swim at twenty-three. Her makeshift doggy paddle was enough to fool others into thinking she simply preferred the shallow end to stay near her younger siblings when they were little.

The truth was the deep end was unpredictable. There were too many what-ifs and if Ori could not solidly control a situation then she simply wouldn’t go for it. But things didn’t seem as scary with Theo there. Maybe it was the look in his eyes, honesty swirling in the reflection of the water below them; or his smile, with kindness pouring out from the soft pull of his lips. There was no need to feel shame and with Theo she never had a reason to.

It was one of the best days of his life, not only because of the time he was able to spend with her but because Ori trusted him. He kept her safe and taught her as much as he could before the sky decided to open up on them.

Every time he gets in his pool those memories wash over him. Theo can’t help the heat that creeps on his cheeks, a minor distraction he tries to shake off so he could continue practicing. But when he remembers her scent, fresh lavender that’s soft and pretty just like Ori, it has him swimming through the clouds.

It was hard not to think about Ori, she’s been on his mind ever since they met. He was a child then with a big crush on that pretty girl with the big smile and gorgeous eyes; but with every passing year his feelings have grown and Theo knows deep down in his heart there's a reason why he can't shake this crush. His mind drifts with hope for the future.

Eventually he was able to focus, staying out there until long after Lance got home. Dinner was quick and you and Lance could see how much Theo had pushed himself all day. He was exhausted, unable to control his yawning in between chewing his food. The sun had barely begun to set when he said goodnight to you both.

The rest of the night was spent in bed, cuddling up with Lance as you watched a movie hearing the gentle patter of rain against the windows. Cashew was resting at the end of the bed, surprising you when he lifted his head up at the sound of the toilet flushing down the hall.

“Good boy Cashew,” you cooed, leaning forward to pat his head, “You heard Theo, good boy!” It was nice, for a moment, to believe Cashew wasn't as old as he really was.

You settled back against Lance, feeling him press a kiss to the top of your head. His hand rubbed up and down your arm gently, reaching down to squeeze a handful of your bottom.

As you lifted your head up towards him, Lance’s growing smirk told you that Cashew might have to temporarily move to his bed on the floor. He leaned in to capture your lips, your need for him growing deeper until everything came to a record scratching halt.

“Mmmm just like that baby.”

You pulled away, puzzled by the foreign sound of a woman whose pornographic moans grew louder and louder.

“What the fuck? Where is that coming from?”

Both of your phones were on the nightstand untouched and the movie was still playing so it was unlikely that the remote had been accidentally touched. Lance chuckled as he sat back against the headboard, wishing you would get back in bed so he could pull those same sounds from you.

You scanned your bedroom following the lewd sounds until you stopped dead in your tracks. On the bathroom counter your eyes widened in horror, staring at the sleek Bluetooth speaker, the same device Theo was using earlier. Lance must have taken it back inside before the storm.

Your feet carried you in a hurry, jumping back in bed in a frenzy, disturbing poor Cashew as you buried your face in the pillow.

“What?” Lance asked, first with a laugh which faded into concern as you shook your head, muttering a slew of “no’s” into the fabric. “Y/N what’s wrong?”

Your head turned to the side, peeking one eye open at Lance who couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer.

“It’s… Theo.” Your face cringed as you said his name. “He must have been too tired before to disconnect his phone from the speaker…”

Lance’s lips pressed into a thin line realizing he would have to handle this embarrassing situation since there was no way you could.

It wasn’t that Theo wasn’t open with you. He never shied away from bringing Amber over the house, asking for your advice on sweet things he could do for her especially when they got back together but there were some things he definitely felt more comfortable talking about with his Dad.

Lance let out a heavy breath, closing the door behind him so you didn’t have to hear that awkward conversation.

“Cashew help me!” you pleaded, patting the spot on the mattress next to you for him to cuddle.

He plopped down beside you, licking your face as you gently pet him. The moans abruptly stopped and you felt some relief though a bit of sadness lingered. Although Theo would always be your pumpkin he was no longer a little boy.

“Theo’s all grown up now huh Cashew?” His head tilted slowly, a reminder that he too was all grown. As the door creaked open you lifted your head to Lance, hesitantly asking, “Everything good?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a small laugh, “Yeah... he’ll be fine.”

Getting back into bed, Lance adjusted his position since Cashew had taken up a good portion of the middle. With Ariel in New York and Theo graduating next year it made you both realize just how much time had passed and because of that Lance didn’t take it personal when you snuggled with Cashew instead of him. He threw his arm over both of you, flashing that same smile that spoke the words he didn’t need to say.

You were both feeling the same thing, the yearning of wanting to turn back time and not let your babies (and puppy) grow up as fast as they did. Or at the very least, remind Theo to disconnect his phone from the speaker!

#lance tucker x reader #lance tucker fanfiction #lance tucker x you #dad!lance tucker #lance tucker fluff

140 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 71-76

Let the joy of love give you an answer

And I will hold you when you're lost Just walk on to the light 1938 Bizarre Summer Every road will lead us to a memory of

Great Days

When I started reading the Battle Tendency Manga, one of my goals was to find connections between Part 2 and the others, because I feel like Part 2 is sort of isolated from the rest. You never hear anyone talk about the Pillar Men in Part 3 or 4, and Joseph Joestar never appears again, save for an entry on a genealogy seen in JoJolion.

But thematically, there’s a lot of connective tissue here. I already pointed out the scene where Smokey steals Joseph’s wallet in his first appearance, echoing Joseph’s final appearance, where Josuke steals his wallet in Part 4. And I already mentioned the Italian connection. Hirohiko Araki’s love for Italy is pretty well-known in the fandom, but only two JoJo parts have the distinction of taking place on Italian soil: 2 and 5.

But there’s other, subtler connections. Joseph’s Clacker Volley relies on angular momentum, much like the “Spin” techniques used in Part 7. But then you also have this moment in Battle Tendency where Caesar explains Hamon to Joseph, and compares it to the way a discus thrower spins around to gain distance on his throw. In the same vein, the fictional Ripple techniques used by all the good guys is just an extension of something natural. Everyone gains energy from respiration and blood circulation, but Hamon users can amplify that many times over to do amazing things with that energy. It’s very similar to the lessons Johnny Joestar learns about “Spin” in Part 7. I never really thought “Spin” had much to do with Hamon, and conceptually they may not be related, but the way they’re presented to the audience is very similar.

More Part 5 connections, you ask? Well how about a trip from Rome to Venice? No assassins on the train this time, so Joseph doesn’t have to steal 100 cars to finish the journey.

And how about a meeting with a mysterious person wearing a strange disguise...

Who turns out to be a lady? What’s weird about this is that when I went through JoJo in order back in 2017, I never noticed the Lisa Lisa/Trish connection. There was just so much crazy stuff happening in Parts 3 and 4 that I forgot all about how Lisa Lisa debuted.

So yeah, let’s get back to the main plot. I mean, I was going to talk about some connections with Part 6, but I seem to be drawing a blank. Joseph’s parents died when he was very little, so there’s no way for him to have a contentious reunion with an absent parent. There’s no way for his mom or dad to reveal that they were looking out for him this whole time, but they couldn’t tell him how or why. I mean, Lisa Lisa kind of reminds me of Jotaro. They’re both stoic badasses who smoke cigarettes. But that’s kind of a stretch.

Anyway, Joseph convinced the Pillar Men to let him live for another month so that he could give them a better fight later on. To hold him to that promise, they implanted poison rings in his body, which will kill him in exactly 33 days, unless he defeats the Pillar Men and receives the antidote. Caesar realizes that they both need more training to face the Pillar Men again, so he takes Joseph to Venice to meet his Hamon Master, for more training. That’s Lisa Lisa.

I’m confused as to why Lisa Lisa wasn’t brought in a long time ago. The plot progression of Part 2 implies that she only heard about this crisis when Caesar contacted her for more training, but we’ll soon see that the Ripple Clan has known about the Pillar Men for thousands of years, just as the Pillar Men knew about them.

Actually, now that I think about it, why didn’t Straizo recognize the Pillar Man in Mexico then? You’d think he would have taken one look at the guy and said “Oh shit, these dudes are back,” and forgotten all about his dreams of becoming a vampire like Dio. Maybe Straizo had just lost all perspective by then. Well, we’ll see if that gets explained later.

Anyway, Lisa Lisa starts the training immediately, by putting a mask on Joseph to control his breathing, which is a vital component of Ripple/Hamon stuff. One thing Caesar explained to Joseph before they left for Venice is that their Hamon powers were about equal. The only reason Caesar’s seems stronger is because he’s learned to concentrate it into smaller points, like his fingertips. Joseph, on the other hand, has to express his Hamon power through his entire hand, which reduces its effectiveness. Caesar compares this to the spray of water from a water pistol. The smaller the nozzle, the more powerful the stream.

As for Speedwagon, well he just flew back to New York. Joseph forbade him from telling Erina about the bind he’s in, so Speedwagon simply tells her that he’s bumming around Italy for a month. Meanwhile, Lisa wants the boys to climb the Hell Climb Pillar.

So the Ripple Clan has this island castle off the coast of Venice, which they built in 39AD to train their students. This was after the Pillar Men wiped out most of their guys, so I guess they wanted to really ramp up their training for the future. Lisa opens the front gate and the first step inside takes you into this big pit full of oil, and she just kicks them inside without a word. Ha ha, Lisa Lisa is awesome!

So the object of the Hell Climb Pillar is just to climb out of the pit. Except the only way to do that is by clinging to a sheer pillar in the center and ascending 24 meters (about 79 feet). Oh, and there’s some sort of fountain built into the pillar that keeps it covered with oil at all times. The only way to make this work is by using Hamon power to cling to the oil and work your way up.

Caesar is familiar with this test, and he at least has a general idea of how to do it, but he’s never attempted it before, and he knows a lot of students have died in the attempt. The first thing he figures out is that it’s such an exhausting process that if you fall off part way, you won’t have enough stamina to start over, so you really only get one try at this.

He spends most of his climb, however, worrying about Joseph, because Joseph’s Hamon skills are so rudimentary that he doesn’t even know how to cling to the pillar in the first place. Fortunately...

Hermit Purple? In my Battle Tendency? It’s more likely than you think. Joseph tries ripping his shirt and fashioning a makeshift rope for himself, but Lisa cuts it with a dagger before he can even try to use it. I’m somewhat skeptical that this would have worked anyway. She may have only foiled his attempt for his own benefit. Joseph might have wasted a lot of precious energy trying to use this trick before giving up and doing it correctly.

So, after all other options are exhausted, Joseph finally follows directions. He watches Caesar for a while, then realizes that Caesar has been clinging to the oil with his fingertips, and not his palms. It looks precarious, but Joseph remembers what Caesar told him about the water pistol and figures out that this is an application of that concept. So he quickly catches up to Caesar, only to discover that the pillar gets harder to climb around the 18 meter mark.

Around that elevation, the Pillar “protrudes”. I think that means that it gently widens as you go up, something you can’t really see until you’re already climbing up there. So now you’re not climbing straight up any more at a 90-degree angle to the ground, you’re more like 95 or 100 degrees, making it that much more of a struggle to hold on.

But things get even worse when Joseph discovers a small crack in the pillar. It’s the only handhold on the entire pillar, so he figures he can get a firmer grip on that and rest a bit. Big mistake, because it’s booby-trapped, and when he touches the crack, it turns on this high-pressure stream of oil at the 20-meter level. Oil just spews out from all sides of the pillar, and the pressure is so intense that when Caesar sticks a pen into it the oil stream cuts it in half.

Joseph thinks Caesar is angry at him for his blunder, but Caesar’s actually worried for Joseph’s safety. He only knows one way to get past the oil stream, and he isn’t sure Joseph has the skill necessary to pull it off. See, you can use Hamon to cling to the oil, but you can also use it to repel the oil, and protect yourself from the high-pressure stream. But Caesar now has to use use both of those principles simultaneously. He has to cling to the pillar while moving through the stream. He ends up doing this mid-air jump thing, and it works, but now he has to haul ass to get to the top of the pillar. It’s not just for his own sake, but Caesar feels that he has to convince Lisa Lisa to call off the test to save Joseph’s life. He doesn’t know how to do the trick Caesar pulled off, and Joseph’s the kind of guy who might get desperate or frustrated enough to do something drastic and get himself killed. But when he reaches the top, there’s no one around.

But he needn’t have worried, because Joseph’s drastic idea actually works. He apparently can’t repel and cling at the same time like Caesar, so instead he just clings. Instead of passing through the oil stream, he clings to it, sliding across the flow of oil to the edge of the current, then flipping over it, where the pressure is low enough that it won’t hurt him. Then he bounces off the top side of the oil stream and clings to the outer wall of the pit.

Everyone is impressed, except the walls of the pit are even harder to climb than the pillar, and Joseph can’t quite make it to the top. Caesar saves him with just 10 cm to go.

Joseph is still sore at Lisa Lisa for putting him through all of that, but she tosses him an upside-down glass of water and Joseph is surprised to find that he can hold the water inside the glass with his Hamon, something he couldn’t do back in Rome, when Caesar told him they needed to train. So now Joseph’s finally on board with all of this, and Lisa introduces the boys to he assistants, Messina and Loggins. They put Caesar and Joseph through a grueling three weeks of training montage, until finally...

...They go shopping! Some guy with a pompodour tries to steal a necklace from Lisa, but she catches him and lets Joseph deal with the guy. Joseph covers the dude in mustard and then he complains about her carrying around a bright red stone like that for pickpockets to see. Wait... red stone? Yeah, it’s the Red Stone of Aja.

On their way back home, Lisa explains the backstory of the Pillar Men. They created the Stone Masks to improve themselves, and tested the technology on humans. No one knows how the Stone Masks work, but the “bones” that jut out of them somehow bring out “latent power” in the human brain and it turns them into vampires.

I never really considered that before, but I suppose the bony spikes in the masks are kind of analogous to the effect of being pierced by the arrows in Parts 4, 5, and 6. Part 5 offers a partial explanation for the Stand Arrows by saying the heads of the arrows were carved from a meteorite found in Greenland, and there was an alien virus in the meteorite. You get cut by this metal, and get sick from the virus, and you either recover with a Stand power or you die. There was a text piece in Part 7 that tried to connect the Stand concept with Hamon, the Stone Masks, and “Spin”, suggesting that the latter three were attempts to achieve what Stands can do, and I guess that makes sense. Maybe the Stone Masks were the Pillar Men attempting to invent whatever the alien meteor was supposed to do. Except it’s not as advanced, so it can only do vampires instead of Stands.

Eventually, Kars’ experiments led him to the discovery of a particular stone that amplifies and focuses light. He believed that if he could work that into his Stone Mask technology, then he could create a more powerful mask that would bring about greater improvements into his own body. The problem was that he needed a bigger, more flawless stone than the ones that were available to him. And that’s why they went to Rome to find one. The 1st Century B.C. Ripple Clan couldn’t stop the Pillar Men, but they did manage to secure the stone they were looking for, and it’s been in their possession ever since. Lisa Lisa holds it up to the sun and blows up part of her boat just to show off what it can do.

Joseph suggests that they just destroy the thing. After all, it does them no good, and it means everything to their enemies, so why keep it around? But there’s some legend that says it will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men if the Red Stone of Aja is destroyed.

This seemed kind of hokey to me at first. Lisa Lisa even admits that she doesn’t understand what that legend means, but she’s convinced that she has to protect the stone anyway. But then I remembered Tonpetty, the leader of the Ripple Clan in Part 1. He taught Will A. Zeppeli how to use Hamon, but warned him that it would lead to Will’s gruesome death. Presumably, Tonpetty had some sort of gift of prophecy, and maybe it’s not far-fetched to think that others in the Ripple Clan had the same ability. So maybe someone, a long time ago, foretold the ultimate fate of the Red Stone of Aja, and the Ripple Clan has been following that vague counsel ever since.

This might explain how the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men in the first place. It never made much sense to me how the Pillar Men would travel to Rome and this secret band of warriors would be there ready to oppose them. It’s also kind of convenient that the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men’s Stone Mask research. I mean, the Pillar Men barely acknowledge humans as it is, so why would Kars deign to explain anything to them?

Now that I think about it, this might be why the Ripple Clan turned to divination in the first place. Their enemies were so mysterious and their motives so baffling that they may have had no choice but to consult fortune-tellers and psychics for insight. And, one way or another, they managed to get some solid intel this way. Kars really was doing R&D on Stone Masks. He really did go to Rome in search of a “Super Aja”. Will Zeppeli did die, as Tonpetti warned him. Kars really did return in 1938, as the Aztec’s predicted. And it really will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men without the Red Stone of Aja. Lisa doesn’t know how that works yet, but she knows it’s true.

But that’s not important right now. For now, it’s time for Joseph and Caesar to complete their training by heading back to base for a final showdown with their instructors. Joseph’s final test will be a battle with Loggins, so I assume Caesar has to take on Messina. But when Joseph shows up for his test...

He finds two people on the battlefield. One is Loggins, and the other guy is killing him.

And yeah, it’s Esidisi. Who invited him? Well, Joseph was going to fight him in a week or so anyway, so why put off tomorrow what you can do today?

#jojo's bizarre adventure #battle tendency #joseph joestar #lisa lisa #caesar zeppeli #esidisi #robert e o speedwagon #erina joestar #loggins #messina

31 notes · View notes

that-crow-kid · 4 years

Text

to define a way of being

by @galactic-cam (galactic_cam on ao3) for @slothbeans (slothbeans on ao3) in the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

the story is here on ao3

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, background May Parker

Summary: Peter Parker had ADHD. He’d never gotten an official diagnosis, and it’d never been on his medical records. All he had was the vague memory of a doctor at his four-year-old check up recommending he get tested - and then his parents dying before the appointment could be made. He's done his research - there's nothing else it could be. But he'd adjusted, and he was good at school, so it hadn't really mattered all that much.

And then, because the spider bite put its greasy little fingers on everything else, it had to grab that, too.

It had been a rough few days. Well, no, scratch that, a rough few months.

Peter Parker had ADHD. He’d never gotten an official diagnosis, and it’d never been on his medical records. When he was super little, like, before his parents died little, his pediatrician had told them that he should probably get tested. But then they’d died, less than a week later, and Peter was left with no official diagnosis, just the remnants of a memory of the doctors appointment. He’d reinforced this idea all throughout his life with his own research, but he had never told Ben or May. He figured they had enough to worry about, what with their four-year-old nephew suddenly coming to live with them after Ben’s sister-in-law and brother tragically died in a plane crash and all.

So he’d just kept quiet. He was incredibly smart, and nobody ever accommodated for him, so he learned to adapt. Maybe not super well, but his grades were stellar despite the ADHD, so nobody ever really cared enough to diagnose or medicate him.

And then he’d been bitten by the spider and it had gotten worse.

He’d always identified with Percy Jackson’s view of ADHD: You can’t streamline your thoughts because you get much more input. It made sense, and it was kind of how he felt. But then he developed superpowers, and it made more sense than ever before.

He was getting 15 times the input he’d been getting before, between the super hearing and the super sight. It was pretty useful when he was fighting - if he was ‘focusing’ on one guy, he was also aware of the other guy pulling out a knife from a hidden pocket, and could adjust accordingly. It was not so great for school. It was already hard when you were acutely aware of the people whispering across the room - it was worse when you could actually hear what they were saying, and what the kids in the classrooms next to, across the hall from, above, and below you were all talking about.

When his grades took a dip, he wasn’t shocked. He was mad at himself, of course, that he was letting his ADHD get in the way when he’d always been able to manage it, and since Peter Parker was good at stuff, there was a massive hit to his ego. He quit most of his after school activities to compensate - he needed to be doing stuff he was good at - and not at school where he was doing sub-par - and the thing he was suddenly good at was fighting crime.

And then Tony Stark had shown up at his door and whisked him away to Germany to steal Captain America’s shield, and his Homecoming had happened, and suddenly he was going to Mr. Stark’s lab in the newly rebought tower twice a week and staying over at the compound once a month.

Mr. Stark’s labs were actually a safe haven. They were sound proof, and Mr. Stark always had loud music playing, and most of the time there was nothing in there that messed with his senses. Mr. Stark worked strangely, jumping around from project to project unless he found one that really grabbed his attention. That style of working really clicked with Peter - he’d always just sat down and tried to do whatever it was he needed to - which had never really worked that well - but working in the lab, bouncing from thing to thing? That was perfect.

Today was different.

Peter had gotten his report card last week, and since it was now Tuesday, that meant he got to be scolded by Mr. Stark now, on top of the disappointment he’d gotten all weekend from May.

See, his grades were bad. Like, really bad.

Well, to a lot of kids, his grades were average, even pretty good. But for Peter Parker, top of the class in one of the country’s best schools, every teacher’s favorite Peter Parker, anything below a 90 was an extreme rarity. Anything below an 80? Where several of his grades were? Gods save the earth, because it was going to implode.

May had mostly been confused, with that constant disappointment rushing through her words. Why had he gotten Cs? He was supposed to be Peter Parker, perfect student, perfect kid.

And now, Mr. Stark was going to take away his suit. His spider-manning was entirely reliant on his grades staying up, Mr. Stark had been clear on that. And how could he be Tony Stark’s protege if he got Cs? Mr Stark was halfway through his PhD by Peter’s age.

Today was probably going to be the last time he saw Tony.

That was upsetting - lab time was the only thing (other than spider-manning) that he looked forward to anymore. He was good at lab time, and Peter Parker was good at stuff.

Of course, his brain gave a little “not anymore, you’re not.” Which, not cool, his brain was supposed to be on his side.

When he walked into the lab, Mr. Stark wasn’t working on anything, which was unusual, to say the least. He was seated, facing the door, a look of such disappointment on his face.

Peter’s eyes focused on the floor. Wow, Mr. Stark sure had some nice tile under the epoxy that covered his lab floor. How could Peter have never noticed before?

“Peter.”

Tony’s voice startled him a bit, even though he knew that was why he’d been looking at the floor in the first place.

“Hey, Mr. Stark! How are you today? I’m really great. What are we working on today?” His sentences all came out in a rush, barely leaving any space between the words.

When he glanced up, Mr. Stark was looking at him, a smirk of amusement was tilting his lips, even though the rest of his face was still etched with disappointment.

“What happened

Peter shrugged, eyes going back to looking at the floor.

“C’mon Kid, I need an actual answer. I know you’ve been doing all your work, and I know you’ve been home by curfew, unless you’ve hacked your suit again and convinced Karen to lie to me about it. So why’re your grades so low?”

“I- I don’t know.”

“Peter, you are the worst liar in the world.”

Peter sighed. “I know.”

“So? What happened?”

Peter glanced up. He looked at his mentor’s face, expecting disappointment, but instead he found… worry? And maybe curiosity?

“I have ADHD.”

“What? That’s not in your medical files -”

“I know, it’s not an official diagnosis. I was going to get one when I was little but… my appointment was after the plane crash, and…”

“You never did.”

“I never did. And I adjusted, kept my grades high, and nobody ever thought I could possibly have ADHD.”

“So what happened here?”

“The spider bite. It was always hard having ADHD because I noticed so much, but there’s a difference between being aware that the kids in the back of the room are talking and being able to hear what the class on the other side of the school is discussing with perfect clarity.”

Tony nodded. “I can only imagine.”

“But so my focus and participation went down, as did the quality of any work I did anywhere but in here.”

“Peter, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Peter shrugged, but he knew the answer. He didn’t want Mr. Stark to think badly of him. How could he, Tony Stark’s protege, have ADHD?

Tony sighed. “Kid, did you know I have ADHD?” Now that caught Peter’s attention. He abruptly looked up. “What?”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, kid. Dear old dad paid a lot to cover that up. And I wasn’t nearly as good at hiding it as you. I was all the way hyperactive, and Dad refused to medicate me. Told me to get over it, or that he wasn’t going to fuel a drug addiction in his son. His excuse changed.”

“But - But you were so good at school!”

“Dad paid off MIT to keep them quiet, but I assure you kid, I failed… several classes..”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

There was a quick beat.

“So, kid, what do you want to do about it?”

Peter, who’s eyes had refound their way to the floor, snapped back up to Tony. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you want to get a professional diagnosis? See a therapist? I’ve been meaning to rope you into therapy for a while now, this might just be the perfect way to start.”

“No - No, Mr. Stark! I don’t need therapy!”

“You might not need it yet - which I doubt, considering you fight crime in New York and I’ve seen you have several panic attacks - but all of the avengers go, and you’re an avenger-in-training. Gotta get you ahead of the game, kid.”

Peter sighed. “Fine. Okay, Mr. Stark.”

Tony pulled him into a brief hug, then slapped his back. “Brilliant, I’ll get on that for you later. For now, though, you wanna do something fun?”

Peter smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds -”

“Fun?” Tony broke in, a smile dancing across his face.

“Fun.”

#the friendly neighborhood exchange #iron dad #irondad #spider son #spiderson #peter parker #tony stark #TONY STARK AND PETER PARKER #tony stark has a heart #ao3 #fanfiction #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #iron man #spider-man #adhd #adhd tony stark #adhd peter parker

110 notes · View notes

oureuphoria · 4 years

Text

Liars, Humans and Werewolves, Oh My.

Synopsis: Your father (a werewolf) and your mother (a werewolf) were concerned about your friend-making skills so they made deal with Jungkook to befriend you (a human). He knew he shouldn’t have agreed, he knew from the moment he spoke with you that it would blow up in his face but he genuinely believed what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. It was a friendship founded on lies but to Jungkook it was the realest thing he knew. or “I don’t study fictional characters for fake friends, Y/N.”

Genre: fluff, angst, crack

Pairing: werewolf!jungkook X human!reader

Word count: 7.9K

Warnings: I don’t think there is any but lemme know if I’m wrong.

Note: Hiiiii!! Okay, so this oneshot was long overdue I am so sorry but I hope you enjoy. I’m not American and I’m not a werewolf so if any information is inaccurate I sincerely apologise. I proofread but there's a chance there might be some mistakes because I am a fool.

You approached your father as he was loading the car. “Why do we have to go?” You whined while also sluggishly lugging extremely large bags into the car to help him. “It’s a learning experience Y/N. Stop whining.” Your face fell at your his stern exclamation but the second he turned around you stuck your tongue out at him. “I just don’t understand the fundamentals of going to New York for 2-weeks just for a stupid party where you, mom and Miri have loads of fun while Henry and I suffer.” He ignored you as he closed the trunk and told you to get in. You were not making the car ride easy and your dad had to threaten to leave you on the side of the road to get you to stop complaining.

You were fully aware that werewolves were often stigmatised and misunderstood but you couldn’t help but panic a little when you were stuck in a room full of them. Sure, your fear was foolish since both humans and werewolves had been at peace for centuries but for some unrecognisable reason, all knowledge of the peaceful history left your mind the moment you entered the huge hall. Your dad was a human but turned before your mom gave birth to your eldest sister, Miri. She came out a werewolf, you and your younger brother Henry, however, didn’t. Although your sister was considered a full-blooded werewolf (and thanks to your mother an extremely prestigious werewolf at that), you and Henry were outcasts. It was uncommon for human-turned-werewolves to reproduce humans ‘lacking the wolf gene’ and being dragged to this party with your family just reminded you of the fact that you were in retrospect, a failure. At least you had your 14-year-old failure of a brother by your side.

While everyone coexisted in tranquillity, it was unorthodox for a human to know about werewolves unless they were a werewolf’s mate or in your rare case, a failed human child of two werewolves. You were sure you could never be any werewolf’s soulmate or anyone's soulmate for that matter, your heart was sworn to Netflix and 50 cats. The unorthodoxy of your situation meant that there was always an impenetrable tension between you and werewolves, one that made you extremely uncomfortable.

Despite all the weird stares and snarls that were hurled your way, your dad was optimistic. He always thought that being a human was great and that these parties were just simply learning curves that you needed to get past. “Henry, if you eat one more cupcake you’ll turn into one. Slow down!” He mocked you before shoving the other half of the cupcake in his mouth. You rolled your eyes and walked away to find him a napkin before you were kidnapped by your father. “Dad, what-“ “Y/N, say hi to the Jeons.” You didn’t really remember the Jeon family that much. All you knew was that your father and Jeon Songwook used to be super close. You also knew that when Songwook later married his beautiful wife, he had 2 children. Junghyun and Jungkook. Junghyun was the eldest and graduated with your sister, he was standing there clad in an expensive suit next to his girlfriend who’d you’d met at the last extravagant party. Jungkook was standing there also clad in an expensive suit with his eyes trained on your sister. You mustered the best smile you could though you were sick and tired of being the family’s pity show and tell story.

“Y/N, I’ve heard a lot about you, you’re the same age as Jungkook right?” You nodded subtly, unsure where this conversation was going. “I heard you got a perfect score on your SAT.” You saw Jungkook’s face morph into one of anger in the corner of your eye. “Dad-“ Before Jungkook could finish his father put his hand on your shoulder. “Walk with me, Y/N?” You looked at your father for help but he just shrugged. Your mother mouthing ‘don’t fuck this up’ at you as you walked past her. “Jungkook, he’s very athletically talented but he’s not the most academically inclined. He got into Princeton but purely on sports and I’m concerned that if he doesn’t get his grades up, he won’t have a back-up plan.” You nodded understandingly, he seemed like a genuinely nice man from what you could tell so you listened to him.

“What are you asking me to do, sir?” He chuckled at your worried eyes. “Just call me, Songwook, Songy if you want, that’s what your dad calls me.” You let out a small laugh, fighting back the urge to yawn. “I know that you’re going to Princeton too and I also know you’re taking a class in photography. Your dad showed me a couple of your photos, they really are beautiful.” Before you could even begin to thank him he continued. “My son is majoring in corporate law, like you, and I just thought it might be easier for him to start off if he had the support of someone as intelligent as you.” “Sir, I’m really not that smart-” He cut you off with a wave of his hand. “Nonsense, every parent in this room wishes they had a child as smart as you.” You laughed a little harder than last time. You wished that was true but you knew it was quite the opposite. Everyone here was just glad they weren’t raising two humans.

“So, do you want me to tutor him?” He nodded with a smile and you smiled back half-heartedly. You were already on bad terms with the werewolf society and now you were about to get on the bad side of the human one. Jungkook went to your high school but it was big and you never really talked to him. He was popular, naturally, and the attention that he generated was mostly from girls, also naturally. He was seen as untouchable though, he was nice, polite and a true charmer but he never stayed with a girl long enough to call her his. It felt weird to call him a fuck boy because he didn’t fit the image. He wasn’t reckless or cruel and he wasn’t a complete boneheaded idiot with a lack of morals. He was admirable, truly and from what you had known there was not a single person who hated him. You had a theory that he was emotionally unavailable because he was waiting for his mate but you never spent too long on it, you never really cared enough to.

Songwook walked you back to the cluster that was your merged families and once your family was alone you were bombarded with questions from your parents. “What did he say to you?” You gave them a pointed look to which they gave you a playful slap on the arm. “Hurry!” You took a deep breath creating suspense before ruining all their hopes in one sentence. “He just wanted me to tutor his son.” Your dad elbowed you slightly before letting out a long sigh. “We were worried he was going to ask you to marry Jungkook or something.” You started laughing uncontrollably before stopping abruptly. “What’s Miri doing with him, she knows he’s just into one night stands.” Your father shrugged before your mother interfered. “We warned her but your sister is old enough to make her own decisions.” You scoffed before turning to face them with crossed arms. “So, she can have sex with a guy that you know is going to leave after but I can’t buy a Nintendo Switch? She’s only 2 years and 7 months older than me!” Your parents just blinked at your outburst before they floated away to go impress another family.

You went to find Henry but he was nowhere to be seen and you literally searched everywhere. He was probably hiding in the men’s room on his phone watching Netflix but you couldn’t just go in there. You saw Jungkook leaning against a wall on his phone so you approached him without really thinking about what you were going to say. “Jungkook!” He looked up from his phone and gave you a tired smile. “This might be a little weird but do you think you can go into the men’s bathroom to see if my brother is in there?” He looked at you with widened eyes, he nodded slowly before making his way to the bathroom, you trailing behind him, he turned around and scratched his neck sheepishly. “Uh…what’s his name again? Sorry, I forgot.” You let out a laugh that you were trying to suppress before letting him know that his name was Henry.

Once Jungkook made it out, your brother next to him, you gave him a huge beaming smile. “Thank you!” He just nodded in return before making his way off to the bar. “Oh shit, you have a crush on Jungkook!” You turned around to look at your brother with a face of confusion. “What?” You gave him a good slap on the back of the head but he was undeterred. “You totally find him cute.” You rolled your eyes before putting your arm around his shoulder. “Everyone finds him cute. Now, I think I found a way to convince mom and dad to let us buy a Nintendo Switch.”

You had spent hours with Henry, even though he was 14, you were closer to him then you’d ever be to Miri. That wasn’t her fault though, it just turned out that way. “So, are you going to buy the new Resident Evil game?” You already knew where this was going. “Yeah, so that you can play the entire game before me.” He groaned at your stubbornness, refusing to let that one incident go. “How many times must I say I am sorry?” He was swinging your arm back and forth while exclaiming dramatically. Eventually, though, your parents came back and let you know it was time to go back to the hotel.

You were moving to New Jersey in 3 days and Henry did not like that. “Take me with you, I can fit inside your luggage if you make a little room.” Henry had been attached to your hip ever since this week had started. “I told you, I’ll kidnap you after I leave so it doesn’t seem suspicious.” He laughed, flopping down on the couch next to you. “I’m going to miss you. I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive as the only person of culture in this household” You furrowed your eyebrows at him. “Dad’s okay sometimes.” He gave you an all-knowing look and you sighed. “Okay so you’ll have to be the only person of culture for a bit but I’ll be back before you know it.”

Jungkook had avoided you the first week there. Whenever you tried to approach him he’d pretend he was busy or blatantly ignore you. You called your dad for help and he just said he’d talk to Songwook about it but it had been 2 days and he still made you feel like a plague-infested rat. You were in the library, reading over your schedule and trying to make sense of it. You were horribly bored but there was nothing better to do so you sat there and played games on your phone.

“You’re a snitch.” The voice scared you so much you threw your phone and lost at the game. “And you made me lose a chance at beating my high score!” You picked up your phone and looked up to be met with an angry Jungkook. “Yikes, who hurt you?” You went back to your phone but he snatched it out of your hand. “I don’t need your help.” You put your arms up to ‘surrender’ though you had no idea why he was so angry. “I didn’t know, your dad-” “My dad doesn’t care about my grades, just my reputation. You’d know all about damaging your parent's reputation though so no wonder he asked you.” You gulped, that was unexpected. “Gee, thanks.” You packed up whatever you had out on the table as quickly as you could and left. “Fuck…Y/N wait I didn’t mean that!” You heard him yell after you but you didn’t care, this was the one place where you thought you could escape it but your image followed you everywhere as long as a werewolf was there.

You rented an apartment alone, not wanting to deal with the havoc of dormitories or live with your sister and her chaos. You had saved up enough to maintain yourself for a while, doing small jobs at your dad's law firm sure helped but now you needed a real job. You weren’t too stressed about finding a job yet because you had some time and you were a master procrastinator. What really stressed you out was college. If anyone found out about your ‘background’ everyone would think that you bought your way in and that was the last thing you needed, all you had to do was avoid anyone you knew and remain unnoticed. Which would be hard considering your sister and Jungkook were around.

Thinking about Jungkook was starting to make you mad again so you got up and stretched, ready to unpack the few boxes that now contained your entire life. The apartment came furnished and you had already been up there to get the bulkier stuff settled with your family’s help so now you just had to sort through smaller things which you did with a frown. Once you were done, you expected to feel a sense of completion, excitement even, but you felt nothing. If anything you felt scared.

It was a Wednesday in your second week of college. You desperately hoped it would go better than your first week though you can’t think of a way for it to go any worse. But of course, the world is full of surprises. “Y/N!” You turned the other way when you saw Jungkook jogging towards you. You tried to walk with as much speed as you could muster but he was an athlete, you should’ve known better. “Y/N, I’m sorry, what I said was horrible.” He stopped in front of you while you looked at your feet. “It’s okay, I won’t snitch. I already forgot about it.” You tried to reason but he clearly didn’t believe you. “Why’d you turn around the other way then?” You stayed silent because you had no good excuse. “Let’s meet for lunch, my treat, I owe you.” You shook your head quickly. “I already ate lunch.” He looked at you weirdly before laughing. “Y/N it’s 8:30, I believe we call that breakfast.” Your face morphed into an embarrassed smile as you wished desperately for the ground to swallow you whole.

“So, you’re an alpha?!” Jungkook gestured for you to quieten down as while he looked around cautiously to see if anyone overheard. “No way, you totally don’t seem like an alpha.” He looked at you with an offended face which you just shook off. “Come on, alphas don’t run after people just to apologise, Jungkook.”

“Well, they can.” He retorted with just as much spite as you. “Evidently.” You looked him up and down while you said it and he flicked your forehead in response. You tried to take a bite of your burger but parts of it started slipping out. “I don’t know why they say Miri is the better sister, you clearly have so much class.” He said this while you were trying to eat your now deformed burger but you were not enjoying the scrutiny. “You’re so funny.” You replied mockingly which just made him laugh in return. “So, why the sudden change of heart? You used to look at me like I ran over your dog.” He winced at the memory before putting his fork down. “It was embarrassing, I never asked for help before and it was weird for me. Besides, I didn’t actually need help my dad was just paranoid.” You nodded understandingly because you sure did understand, you hated asking for help just as much as the next guy but you weren’t as well-rounded as Jungkook was, you definitely needed help in some areas.

“If I was a werewolf, I’d be an alpha, right?” Jungkook gave you one look before laughing obnoxiously, you put a hand on your heard feigning offence. “You’d be a beta.” You were now genuinely offended but pushed that back for the moment to provide room for your curiosity. “Why?” When he looked at you with a playful gaze you were prepared for a snarky comment. “Because people who want to be alphas are automatically betas. You don’t choose your role, your role chooses you.” You gave him a playful nudge into the wall as he was walking you home. “Okay Gandalf, when did you get so wise?” He laughed harder than he should’ve and you gave him a questioning look. “Who even is that?” Your eyes widened in shock. “Gandalf, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit?” When he still looked at you with the same blank stare you shook your head disappointingly. “Only a nerd like you would reference something from Lord of the Rings.” You nudged him a little harder this time but he was more prepared. “Y/N, I really am sorry about what I said.” You waved him off. “Admit I’d make the best alpha and I’ll forgive you.” His eyes met yours in an annoyed glare but they still seemed so beautiful to you. You had to tell yourself to stop staring before it got awkward. Maybe Henry was right, maybe you did have a tiny crush on Jungkook, but in reality, who didn’t?

“You’re late.” You quickly sat down in front of him, 15 minutes after you’re appointed time. “I know, I’m sorry. The lecture ran over schedule.” He shook his head in fake disappointment and you sighed before playing along. “A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” Jungkook looked at you blankly, blinking far too much in an attempt to make you realise how random your references were. “Gandalf, again.” He muttered ‘nerd’ under his breath and went back to his papers. You hit him with your pen. Despite his father’s word, Jungkook was doing well but you had to admit that he was trying a lot harder than he did in high school.

“Thanks for joining me, I didn’t want to study alone.” You peered over your shoulder to look at the group of girls that were staring at him and giggling. “Could’ve asked someone from your fan club.” When he looked up at you in confusion, you cocked your head to the side that they were on and he sighed heavily. “They do that to every guy, trust me.” You nodded your head with a teasing look which he didn’t find amusing but he didn’t say anything after and you grew worried. “Hey, do you mind covering for me for tomorrow’s 2pm class? I have a wolf thing I have to deal with, just tell the professor that I had a meeting with my coach.” You nodded hesitantly, concerned about what had been stressing him out so much but you didn’t press. It had been 2 weeks since your lunch with him and since then you’d found out a handful of things about Jungkook. He was a competitive swimmer, he had a fear of microwaves, he did not hook-up with your sister and he didn’t like sharing information about himself.

When Jungkook showed up the day after the 2pm class he had to miss, he looked horrible. He had a cut on his lip that was healing and scattered bruises on his face. With how fast werewolves healed, you assumed this was far better than what it had been last night. “You look like roadkill.” You wanted to ask what had happened and if he was okay, but you knew where that would have gone so you skipped the small talk. “Shit, really?” He seemed panicked about what you said which made you even more concerned, it was obvious you were kidding. “No, you look fine just a little beaten. Are you okay?” He didn’t face you so you grabbed his shoulder to make him though when you did you felt a bandage through his shirt. He winced at the contact and you pulled your hand off like it was a hot stove. “Sorry. Jungkook, what happened?” He turned to you and smiled, pulling you by the forearm to your morning class. “There was already a pack here and you can’t have two alphas so I had to fight him. But I won and I’m fine. Trust me, he looks even worse.” You laughed but it seemed half-hearted, you were glad he shared this much though, it was more than you hoped for.

“So, recap on the class. Professor lost his shit at Daniel because he kept swinging on the chair and fell. We discussed conflict of interest in workplaces so shit got gory and someone walked in drunk. Welcome to Ivy League, huh?” He chuckled but it seemed fake and you wondered if he was even listening. You didn’t press further, you thought he had done enough sharing for that day. “Anyways, I have my photography class now so I’m going to go.” He nodded absentmindedly and you walked away with a clouded mind and a heavy heart. You worry made you realise that you definitely liked Jungkook in a completely non-platonic way. You were royally screwed.

You had made a friend in your photography class, his name was Berlin and he approached you for help at first which you didn’t really mind, you needed friends anyway. He asked if you wanted to join him after class to take some pictures around the college to help him with his new DSLR. You agreed with a little hesitation, unsure of how he got into the class with that little knowledge about cameras but you didn’t think much of it, his parents were probably rich. He had a black eye too but he told you it was from his martial arts classes and you believed him because it seemed like a genuine excuse. You had explored almost every surface of the giant campus and surprisingly had a lot of fun, it was refreshing to find someone with the same hobby as you. You called it a day at around 6pm, your class having finished at 4pm. You said goodbye and went home, determined to eat the cereal you had been craving. After saying goodbye, you went home to your eerily quiet apartment, you missed Henry.

“So, how’s college going?” You were eating with your sister who had finally found time for you in her extremely busy schedule. “It’s fine, I hate Professor Golden though.” She laughed, almost choking on her food so you passed her the cup of water. “Thanks. I totally remember hating Professor Golden too, we all made jokes about his last name.” You laughed a little before returning to your food. A thick tension grew in the air, your talks with her were always silent and awkward. You had very little in common.

“I can’t believe my baby sister is already a college freshman.” She cooed at you and you couldn’t help but laugh. She was almost 3 years older but sometimes she made it feel like 13. “Any college guys you find cute?” Your brain stopped working for a moment and you were unsure if you should tell her. “Come on, you can tell me.” She tried to pry it out of you while you just nervously smiled, trying to avoid her questions. Eventually, you gave up because it wasn’t like her to give up on gossip. “I think I like Jungkook.” Her face dropped dramatically and it made you panic a little. “Miri, what’s wrong?” She held your hand and looked at you sympathetically. “Y/N, he’s a werewolf.” She said something that wasn’t new to you. You’d repeated this to yourself far too many times to count. “I know. I’m not expecting anything to happen, I didn’t even expect this to happen it just did. Besides, I’m not in love with him, I’ll get over it.” You felt judged under her stare but you knew she meant well, no matter how harshly she came off sometimes. “Well, he rejected my advances so I really don’t think he’d be interested in you. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

Miri said stupid things often. She lacked the emotional filter behind her words and offended people a lot. You grew thick skin thanks to her but this was where you drew the line. Your entire life you felt lesser than her and she promised you that she’d never do anything to make you feel that way and yet here she was, making you feel like you’ll never amount to her prestige. “Sorry, I need to get back I forgot I had a paper due by 5.” You left a $50 bill on the table and left before she could say anything else to potentially worsen the low blow she just gave you. You felt bad for walking away so abruptly, but you were not in the mood to argue with her, not again.

Unfortunately, your plans of moping on the couch all day were ruined when Jungkook had come over after hearing about the failure of a lunch with your sister, however, you spared him the details. “I bought a bag of junk food, McDonald’s and a whole pack of banana milk.” You smiled at him thankfully from your sad position on the couch which you were sure you were chemically bonded with now. “Did you get popcorn?” He was sorting through the bags before turning to you. “And risk dying via microwave? No thanks.” You laughed before getting up to join him. “Wait till I tell your pack that their alpha is scared of microwaves.” He gasped before clasping his heart dramatically. “You wouldn’t dare.” He started chuckling straight after, an adorable smile on his face.

You watched like 3 movies already and Jungkook was yet to feel sleepy, you, however, were seconds away from passing out. You were both on the couch, legs intermingled under the blanket, your head on his shoulder. It was your first time being this intimate with him and you hated how good it felt. “Jungkook, I’m sleepy.” You looked up at him and he smiled sweetly, forcing you to immediately look away. So, much for ‘getting over it’. “I’ll get going then.” He stood up to stretch, you following him. He grabbed his things off of your coffee table and walked to the door.

“Jungkook, wait!” He turned around as he watched you come towards the door with the pack of banana milk. He fought back a smile as you dropped it into his arms. “Take it, you like them more than I do now.” He chuckled as he watched your eyes intently. “Thank you.” You smiled back at him before realising he was staring at you. Your smile fell as you stared back. “What? Is there something on my face?” You moved your hand to go over your face and he shook his head through hushed laughter. “Goodnight, Y/N.” He had just opened the door when you called out his name and once he turned, you kissed him. He didn’t pull away, just stood there in shock, you first to pull away actually and a flood of regret came crashing into your head immediately after. “Jungkook, I’m so sorry-” Before you could finish he was out the door and you cursed yourself for your spontaneous impulses.

Jungkook had ignored what had happened miraculously, even during your apology he seemed unbothered. He probably felt bad for you but you were just glad he wasn’t mad or upset, besides, now you could truly focus on trying to get over him. You spent most of the day working on your study notes, trying to memorise stuff as best you could. By the time you stopped, it was already 8pm and you had skipped both lunch and dinner. You scavenged your fridge to look for something edible and settled on a pudding cup. College Y/N was doing great.

At around 9, you got a knock on your door which you cautiously went to answer, after seeing that it was Jungkook through the eyehole you opened the door to let him in, strangely, he was really angry. “What the fuck is this, Y/N?” He held out his phone of you to show a picture of you smiling, the sender being Berlin. “It’s a picture of me, how do you know Berlin? Are you friends?” Your lighthearted tone made Jungkook realise it wasn’t your fault that Berlin decided to get to you and that there was no way you could have known. “Y/N, Berlin is the alpha of the pack I took over, he’s messing with you to get to me.” You were mostly shocked but you also felt a little upset. You genuinely thought he was your friend. “I don’t want you anywhere near him, he’s dangerous.” You shook your head a little. “Sure he may be a little mad at you but we’re friends, I-” “I mean it, nowhere near him.” You held your hand out for him to pass his phone over so you could double-check that it was Berlin. You compared the number to the one on your phone to realise that it was indeed him. “You have his number already, fuck Y/N.” Your face hardened before you turned to him. “Sorry, I don’t have a ‘wolf’s intuition.’” You added air quotes for effect which he didn’t quite appreciate.

You noticed his wet hair and his gym bag. “Did you just finish training? Jungkook it’s nearly 10pm.” He shrugged, grabbing his phone back from you and crash landing onto your couch. You couldn’t help but wonder how he could look so beautiful all the time. Sure, you always knew that he was good-looking but it felt like you were looking at a completely different man than high-school-Jungkook. He had endearing eyes, they could look so wide at moments and so closeted in others. His lips were soft, perfectly contrasting his sharp jaw, complementing each other beautifully. He was incredibly alluring in so many ways and it was impossible to escape it, no matter how hard you tried.

Jungkook held onto his shoulder, seeming like he was trying to soothe it from pain. You got up from your seat across from him and moved to stand behind him, taking over his hands and rubbing his shoulder for him. “Fuck, you’re good at this.” You hummed in agreement before laughing jokingly. “I am, right? They should call me Dr Bones.” He leaned his head forward to give you more access, ignoring your joke. You could physically feel how tense his muscles were and it made you worry a lot. Jungkook was the type who could work himself to death, stare at his dead body and still claim that he didn’t work hard enough. “Stop, or I’ll fall asleep. Thank you though.” He got up and grabbed his bag from the floor and made his way to the door. He turned around right before he left. “Y/N. I mean it, stay away from Berlin.” You nodded but you weren’t sure how you were supposed to just start avoiding him without seeming suspicious, besides, he was your only photography friend.

“Hey, Y/N!” Berlin took the seat next to yours like he had been this past week, you didn’t say anything about it because you thought it would be fine but you did begin to regret it when he started whispering to you. “Why so quiet?” You gulped while playing with your camera bag. “I just didn’t get much sleep.” He nodded though you were sure he didn’t believe you. “Meet me behind this building after class. It’s important.” You probably shouldn’t have agreed and you probably shouldn’t have followed through with it but you did because you were an idiot. “You’ve been quiet. Jungkook told you, didn’t he?” You were playing with the sleeves of your jumper when you nodded, he sighed in return. “He took away my pack, my position, it seemed only right that I take something of his.” You gave him a pointed glare, staring at him without a wave of newfound anger.

“I’m a person if you haven’t realised. Not a pawn in your stupid scheme for vengeance. Whatever you have with Jungkook is between you and him, don’t drag me into this.” You were about to walk back but he stopped you, blocking your way with his arm. “Y/N, don’t make me hurt you. All I want is for you to tell Jungkook to back down from my pack.” You smiled with feigned innocence. “Why don’t you tell him? I thought alphas were supposed to be brave…or did Jungkook take your balls too?” Berlin pinned you against the wall, his hands around the collar of your jumper. “You don’t wanna fight me, Y/N.” You pushed his arms off of you, straightening out your clothes. “You’re right, I don’t but since you so gracefully shared with me your perspective, I feel like I have to.” He laughed mockingly before leaning down to stare directly at your face. “And how do you plan on beating a werewolf?” You smiled again, so sweetly it made Berlin sick. In all honesty, you were terrified. If he called on your bluff this would turn into a complete shit-show, you had no fighting experience, you were all bark and absolutely no bite.

��I’m going to fucking kill you.” Before you could decipher where the voice came from Berlin was leaning against the wall against you in pain after the fresh punch to his face from Jungkook. When Jungkook’s eyes locked with yours, he cocked his head to the side. “Go.” You would have protested but his face kind of scared you. You walked away, looking over your shoulder every few steps to make sure no one was dead.

“What the fuck were you thinking? Y/N has nothing to do with this.” “But she does, doesn’t she…?” Berlin started and Jungkook eyes narrowed. “She’s going to find out eventually and then she’ll hate you for not telling her.” Jungkook grabbed him by the collar while he was still against the wall. “If she finds out, it won’t be from you.” He let Berlin go roughly and glared at him before walking away. “She’s going to hate you, you know!” Berlin screamed but Jungkook continued walking away, unsure of how Berlin even found out about Jungkook’s secret.

“Stripes or no stripes?” Jungkook was making you choose between his endless collection of ties and you were so bored you started counting the dots on a polka-dotted one. “Y/N!” You snapped back into reality and faced him with a sheepish smile. “Sorry…no stripes, makes you look more mysterious.” He nodded before putting his stripped ties to the side. “Why are you so stressed about this dinner, anyway? It’s just my family and your family in some fancy restaurant talking about the same boring things over and over.” Jungkook desperately wanted to tell you what had changed but he couldn’t, not yet. “No reason, I just want to impress your parents.” You gave him a scrutinising look and he just avoided it. “Since when do you care about impressing anyone?” He sighed before snatching his polka-dot tie out of your hands. “Go get ready, we’re going to be late.”

“Take the next left…and the destination should be on your right.” You spoke while mocking the navigator which just made Jungkook stare at you weirdly. “I’m bad with directions, I live off of this thing.” You held up your phone to gesture to the navigation app before getting out of his car. “Do I look okay?” He asked nervously and you looked at him, he looked much better than okay. He was clad in slacks and a dress shirt, no tie to your distaste. You remembered arguing with him after he had chosen to not wear a tie after all your efforts. His hair was getting longer but you loved it, especially the way he had styled it that night, not to mention the fact that he had his sleeves rolled up and his top few buttons open. You stopped yourself from staring too long by nodding. “Do I look okay?” Your eyes morphed into offended ones when he winced. You scoffed out loud but he just laughed at your reaction. “I’m kidding, you look great nerd, now move it, we’re already 15 minutes late.” You rolled your eyes, mumbling as you walked in. “Maybe if you didn’t make me spend 40 minutes helping you choose a tie…” He elbowed you slightly, reaching the reception desk and asking about your reservation, once you had taken a seat everyone, including Henry, had their eyes on the two of you.

“Sorry, we’re late,” Jungkook commented, shaking your parent's hands as he sat down. “Wardrobe malfunction.” You joked as you secretly pointed at him. Everyone laughed a little and you were glad you had relieved some of the tension. You saw your brother the day before and boy did he have a lot to tell you, he seemed so excited about this dinner and you were still yet to know why. Now that you were here it seemed like everyone knew something you didn’t.

“How’s college going, made any friends?” Jungkook’s mother asked, directing it at you. You choked because of the sudden question and scoffed down half the glass of water. “College is fine, I haven’t really been focused on making friends.” She nodded, Songwook laughing before joining in. “I wish Jungkook was the same. He befriended half the entire campus on the first day!” Everyone laughed while Jungkook shook his head jokingly, your mom suddenly called your name. “Y/N, could you grab me another napkin dear, I already spilled wine on mine. Clumsy me!” She giggled but it seemed fake, you wondered why she didn’t just ask a waiter to do it. You stood up to grab one from the desk nonetheless.

The moment you left your mother leaned in. “Tell us, Jungkook, does she know?” He shook his head, his father joining in. “I’m glad you suggested we make Jungkook befriend her, otherwise we would have never found out.” “Found out what?” Your mom gasped when you were behind her, napkin in hand. The entire table was silent. “Wait...you forced Jungkook to befriend me? Do you think I’m that intolerable?” Jungkook rubbed his palms over his face, the inevitable was coming. “Y/N, we just know how you struggle with making friends and we thought it would be better to start you off with one,” Miri spoke this time with a tantalising tone.

“So the whole tutor thing, that was a part of this as well? That’s why you were so mad at me about telling my dad that you were ignoring me? Because you didn’t want to fake being my friend?” You directed the question at Jungkook that time and he tried to apologise but you stopped him. “This isn’t about my social skills, is it? You still pity me for being a human so you gave me a werewolf to make me feel better!” You were speaking in a hushed tone so you wouldn’t warrant any unwanted attention but internally all you wanted to do was scream. “Henry, did you know about this too?” When he didn’t reply you scoffed, throwing your hands up in defeat. “Y/N, darling, we-” Songwook had spoken this time but you were quick to cut him off. “Forget it. I’m leaving.” And with that, you grabbed your bag and left. “Y/N come back, I’m your ride.” Jungkook tried reasoning but you were still walking away, your pride clearly getting in the way of your rationality because walking 30 minutes in heels was not rational.

You stared at your sore feet in your Iron Man pyjamas as you cried to Spongebob, this wasn’t your proudest moment but you liked to think there were worse ways you could’ve handled the situation. Your family (Henry and your dad) kept blowing up your phone so you turned it off and sat not-so-peacefully on your weirdly comfortable couch. You heard a knock on the door and you didn’t open it, already knowing who was behind it. “Y/N, let me in please, I have your food.” The idea of opening the door to Jungkook seemed painful but you were also painfully hungry so you opened it anyway, snatching your food out of his hand. You tried to close the door but his foot jammed it and he pried it open with ease despite you using all your effort to keep it shut. You needed to start bulking.

After he got in, you gave up and went back to your couch where you wrapped the blanket back around you and continued watching TV, now with food in your hand. “Y/N, I’m sorry but you have to believe me, I genuinely wanted to be your friend ever since we had that first lunch together, I promise.” You didn’t reply, in fact, your reaction (more so the lack thereof) had him thinking he didn’t even say anything at all. He grabbed the remote from your table and turned off the TV. You gave him a fleeting glare but didn’t say anything else. “Y/N.” You didn’t react once again, eating your pasta with aggression. “Y/N, look at me.” He grabbed both of your shoulders so he could turn you to face him. “I mean it, I’m sorry about how it started but I promise I wanted to be your friend.” You put your foot down, your sadness overpowering your hunger. “Wanted is past tense, should I be worried?” You joked but the tear that slid down your face taunted you straight after. You wiped it quickly but before you knew it more were springing down. He moved his hand to softly wipe your tears away and let out a breath of relief when you didn’t flinch away.

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil. But these are so stop crying, nerd.” You darted your eyes up so quickly the blood rushed to your head. “Gandalf!” He smiled at how excited you were. “I don’t study fictional characters for fake friends, Y/N.” Your excitement fled a little but you smiled at him slightly. “There was a reason we had that dinner tonight.” Your smile fell and your face looked puzzled. “Why?” Jungkook took a deep breath before continuing. “If I tell you, you can’t get mad at me. I kept it from you because we all wanted to tell you tonight.” You nodded a little hesitantly, scared about what he was going to tell you.

“Y/N, remember that night you kissed me and I walked out?” You nodded, wincing at the memory. “That night, I found out you were my mate.” You inhaled so quickly you started choking. Jungkook pat your back though it seemed useless. Once your cough calmed down, you punched Jungkook on his arm harshly. “You asshole! I spent that entire night sulking because of you.” He laughed but your glare made him stop abruptly. He took both of your hands in his. “I panicked, I wasn’t expecting it to be you.” You thought he was disappointed so your smile turned into an apprehensive one. “Oh…” He grabbed your face by the chin and made you face him. “I wasn’t expecting it but I was so fucking glad it was.” You started feeling bashful under his gaze so you tried to avoid his eyes. “Is that why Berlin was so adamant on dragging me into your issue, did he know too? I let that bitch use my good camera!” Jungkook sighed at the memory of him but he nodded nonetheless. You jumped up from the couch quickly. “Wait, that means I can turn and then people can stop looking at me like I’m an alien!” Jungkook nodded, laughing at your random outburst. “Only if you want to though, you don’t have to decide that yet, we have time.”

He pulled you back to the couch, this time you landed on his lap. He wrapped his arm around your waist and you leaned your head on his chest. “You’re an ugly crier.” You sat up to frown at him but he just pulled you back to his chest. “I lied, it’s just because I never want to see you cry again.” You pinched his arm and he exclaimed loudly. “What was that for?” You laughed before cuddling into him again. “Insulting me for your selfish desires…wait I have pasta!” You sprung out of his lap to go back to eating your food, turning on the TV in the process and Jungkook wondered how he managed to get paired with someone quite as unique as you.

“I think you’re half-fish.” You said once you saw Jungkook after the swim meet. “If I was would you still love me?” You stopped walking to ponder before shaking your head. He cocked his eyebrow at you before you nodded in agreement with yourself. “I hate fish so, no. Unless you were like a merman, that would be hot. Wait but what if you turn into an actual fish then how-” He pulled you by the arm to continue walking to his car. “I was kidding, Y/N.” You were still stuck in thought. “Yes, but the premise is interesting.” He pinched your cheek in a surprise attack. “Remind me why I’m dating a nerd?” You shrugged before interlocking your hand with his. “Remind me why I’m dating a fish?” He gave you an unamused look which you instantly matched before laughing at him.

“Can I drive?” You asked, mustering the most convincing face you can create, already in the passenger seat. “No,” Jungkook replied sternly, hoping you’d let it go because his resolve was quick to disappear with you. “Please, I need to practice.” He frowned before whining childishly. “Y/N, this is a Mercedes Benz can’t you practice on a Toyota or something?” You rolled your eyes at his dramatic rejection but you came up with a better plan. “I don’t know anyone who drives a- wait, do you think your friend Hoseok would teach me? He drives a Toyota.” Jungkook gave you an annoyed look before begrudgingly exiting the car. You got out excitedly as you rushed to the driver's seat. “You’re evil, you know that?” He asked angrily and you nodded, giving him a kiss on the cheek which forced a smile out of him.

The second you started the engine he began tutting in disappointment. “What?” You turned to him annoyed but he just moved over you to grab the seatbelt, clasping it in place and giving you a kiss which you had to pull away from before it escalated. “I did that on purpose because I knew you would do it for me.” Jungkook just hummed in fake agreement but you paid it no mind. You always felt obnoxiously happy each time he kissed you and you were almost sure you’d never stop. “Jungkook?” He turned to expectantly before you gave him a beaming smile. “I love you, fish or human.” He turned away from you, annoyed at your random confession. “Just focus on the road, okay?” You nodded dutifully and about 5 minutes into your drive home, he randomly called your name. “What, did I turn 0.3 seconds too late?” You joked but he just stared at you.

“I love you too, nerd.”

#jungkook #jungkook imagines #jungkook fic #jungkook imagine #bts #bts fic #bts scenarios #bts imagines #werewolf jungkook #bangtan #bangtan fics #jungkook fics #bts fluff #bangtan fluff #bts angst #jungkook scenarios

644 notes · View notes

seaweedbrain404 · 3 years

Text

Wolfstar Au: Understanding and Crêpes (pt 4 of Parties and Morning Regrets)

pt 3

epilogue pt1

read it on ao3

just the epilogue left now! obligatory tag @icitlali

“I’m still in love with you”

Sirius’ voice rang through Remus’ head as he walked into the flat. There was no ignoring this. There was no way for Remus to just push this down and not deal with it like he did with so many other things. This time, Remus wasn’t going to fuck it all up even though it was very tempting to, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

He had been home for about an hour when Lily peeked her head around the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing”

“You’re being all weird, you haven’t talked to me once since you got home”

“Sorry, it’s just-“ then Remus realised he didn’t quite know what to say. Would he tell her about earlier? Part of him desperately wanted to because this was his best friend but another part of him, wanted to ignore it. “Have you still got Sirius’ number?”

“Yeah… why- why do you want it?”

“I think I should talk to him, he showed up at the bakery and I freaked out on him”

“Oh- yeah, hold on” Lily said before disappearing from view, she came back a couple seconds later with a piece of paper and a dumb grin on her face.

“Don’t say it” Remus groaned as she sat down on the bed, facing him.

Lily faked offense. “I wasn’t going to say anything but…..”

“I know, you were right- in a way, I guess”

“Obviously” She stood up again and kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you changed your mind”

Remus mumbled something incoherent as Lily left the room. He then stared at the piece of paper for another hour before getting the guts to dial it. There was a vague list of things in his head that he wanted to say to Sirius but when a familiar voice answered the phone, his mind went blank.

“This is Sirius Black, hello?”

“Sirius, it’s me”

“Remus?”

“Yeah”

“What”

“Look, about what happened earlier… it’s not that I don’t want- well, it’s just that… would you come by the bakery at 2 tomorrow? I want

to talk to you and I promise I won’t lose my temper this time”

“Fine, we can talk then”

“Thank you”

“Bye”

“Buh-bye”

That was part of the battle won. In all honesty, Remus didn’t expect Sirius to agree to that. Remus had been nothing but harsh and felt he may have deserved what Sirius said about him. Maybe Lily was right too. Maybe he was just a git, set on making himself miserable but that didn’t mean he should get to make everyone else miserable too.

He stared up at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach. Remus was determined to make it right or at least to hear Sirius out. There was still a large part of him yelling to completely abort mission but he couldn’t. He didn’t know why but it was Sirius and Sirius had always made him feel things that he didn’t understand.

The next morning he was at the bakery at 11am, in for the busier part of the day. It went by as smooth as you’d expect if not for the fact that he was a little jumpy. Marlene and Dorcas had noticed and kept sending worried looks his way. He wasn’t going to say anything though, not unless they asked directly and even then, he doubted he would say much.

Sirius showed up at 1:30, and waited half an hour for Remus to finish up and be able to leave. At 2:04, the pair were walking out the door in a tense silence.

“Let’s get crêpes” Remus said just to break the silence.

Sirius looked at him funny. “That’s a bit of a walk though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah but I can sit down in there, I’ll be okay”

“If you say so”

Another silence descended upon them before Remus broke it again. “You’re right”

“Sorry?”

“You’re half right” Remus amended, “I was being a bit of a bastard… and an asshole”

“Took you long enough to figure out”’

“Yeah- I’m sorry I never let you finish”

Sirius sighed, glancing over at Remus. “It’s fine- I mean, it’s obviously not but you’re really only a bastard and an asshole like half the time”

“What about the other half?”

Sirius shrugged, not elaborating so Remus tried something different.

I was wrong- in the sense that you have changed… a little”

“Oh?”

“Yeah but I don’t think it’s a good change, you’re quiet and it freaks me out that you’re not as bouncy as you used to be”

“My brother died”

Oh fuck- Remus hadn’t expected that and now he was at a loss so, for once he let Sirius speak.

“That’s why I stayed so long… guilt and- well fear” Sirius sighed, pausing for a moment. “It was only supposed to be an apprenticeship- at the firm, y’know to get my feet on the ground but then Regulus- and… well, I couldn’t just leave”

“I’m sorry”

“Yeah, I was going to just stick it out but then you and James both left the country and it just wasn’t worth it… trying to break away from them”

Remus hadn’t thought that him leaving England had any effect on anyone. The only person he thought cared about him unconditionally was the one going with him.

“I swear I was going to and I nearly had enough as well” Sirius went on, “I showed up at your house and all… but your dad said you left that morning”

“I’m sorry” he repeated, “that your parents were shit and that they made you feel like that and about your brother”

“See, you’re not the only one who gets a tragic backstory” Sirius nudged him playfully.

Remus admired how easily Sirius could joke about this. He would certainly not be able to, he let himself laugh quietly with Sirius despite this.

“So I lied- when we broke up” Sirius explained even though that made nothing any clearer.

Remus looked at him, they were at the crêpe place. This gave him a chance to think before he could say anything. For years, he had been convinced that the reason his first proper relationship fell apart was because he wasn’t a woman. At least that’s the reason Sirius had given him at the time.

Once they were seated and ordered, Remus had mulled over it enough. “You lied?”

“Yeah”

“I- um mind elaborating?”

“You know I’m the oldest and there was a lot of pressure- and my parents hated you… I wanted to go back for you, once I could but you never gave me the chance” Sirius clarified, “then my brother… and I just couldn’t get myself to leave”

The crêpes arrived and the two tucked in, Remus being the first to break the silence again. “I thought I left everything about England, except for Lily, behind and it was… it was just a shock, my walls went up”

“Yeah, I noticed” Sirius took a bite of his crêpe before continuing, “you get like that when you’re upset.. like when your mum died”

“So I was a miserable git all year?”

“Something like that” Sirius shrugged. “Have you talked to your father?”

Remus sighed. “No”

“Oh-“

“I did try… I called when I was in hospital but it went straight to voicemail and… he never called back, so neither did I”

“I’m thinking of staying in New York”

“Good, it’s a nice place”

“I’m not staying here because it’s a nice place”

A comfortable silence fell between them as they finished their food. They got up to leave when Remus put his hand on Sirius’ wrist. “Wanna go back to mine?”

“Yeah” Sirius gave his signature smile, a smile Remus didn’t realise he hadn’t seen since they reunited at the party a couple days ago. A smile had missed dearly.

They walked closer to each other this time around. Remus’ hip felt sore but he probably wouldn’t be bedridden when they got back so he figured it would do best to ignore it.

Once or twice their hands brushed before Sirius got fed up of subtleties and just laced their fingers together.

“So we’re doing this?” Remus asked, glancing at Sirius.

“I want to” Sirius stopped, causing Remus to stop with him. He turned so that they were facing each other and took a step closer.

Before Remus realised what was going on, Sirius was kissing him. It was innocent and full of longing. Remus didn’t hesitate to kiss back, hands making their way down to Sirius’ waist to pull him closer. Sirius’ own hands were on Remus’ neck and in his hair.

Sirius was the first to pull back, taking Remus’ face in his hands. Foreheads pressed together, Remus laughed. “I missed this” he admitted.

“Me too” Sirius chuckled, stealing one more kiss before grabbing Remus by the hand and pulling him along. “Now come on, let’s go”

They got to the flat in no time but not fast enough. They’d hadn’t gotten in the door properly and Sirius was already kissing Remus, pressing the taller man against the wall.

“Remus?” Lily’s voice could be heard from further inside the flat.

Remus pulled away and put his hand over Sirius’ mouth. “Yep, just me- I’m heading into my room” He pushed Sirius off and gestured for him to go. “I’ll talk to her” he whispered, leaving a stray kiss on Sirius’ jaw.

He walked into the kitchen, very happy that Lily hadn’t decided on watching telly or really doing anything in the sitting room.

“Did you talk to Sirius?”

“Yeah… about that-“

“Oh Remus, what did you do?”

“He’s here- waiting, in my room…”

“Oh” Lily’s eyes widened in understanding. “Do you want me to-“

“Yes please Lily” He pulled her into a quick hug.

“Right-“ She giggled, bouncing with excitement. “I’ll go, have fun”

“You’re the best” Remus didn’t hear her response nor did he care to. Instead he made his way back to Sirius.

“Hi” He said, getting in the door but it seemed that Sirius was in no mood to talk.

He grabbed Remus by the collar and pressed him against the wall, standing on his toes to deepen the kiss.

Remus pushed back, hands settling on Sirius’ hips. He pushed the shorter man onto the bed and pinned his arms over his head.

Afterwards, Remus found himself collapsed in Sirius’ arms. His face was tucked in the crook of his neck and there were fingers tracing shapes on his back.

“Fancy some pasta?” He asked, voice muffled by Sirius’ skin.

“In a bit” Sirius replied, holding Remus’ chin up so that they were looking at each other. He pressed their foreheads together for a moment before Remus kissed him again, just because he could.

#marauders #the marauders #lily evans #remus lupin #sirius black #wolfstar #wolfstar au #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar fic #sirius x remus #remus x sirius

16 notes · View notes

bndz · 3 years

Photo

(normani kordei, twenty-two, cisfemale, she/her) * hey, i’m looking for the office of adrianna king. they’re the intern who’s known around the office as the airhead, if that helps? not to be a gossip, but i’ve heard that they’re humorous but talkative, is that true? i also heard that they’re the one who brought her pet fish to work. anyways, here’s the coffee they ordered.

& i’m back at it again with another character ! it me , tay ! i have another child & her name is adri . she’s my bubbly little baby & i love her chatty ass down ! i have some points about her below & i am so excited that i got to bring her here . tw : religion , homophobia , toxic parents & mentions of physical violence .

𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒔 !

NAME : adrianna king . NICKNAMES : adri . GENDER : cisfemale . PRONOUNS : she / her / hers . AGE : twenty-two ( 22 ) BIRTHDAY : 23 september . ZODIAC : libra . HOMETOWN : miami , florida . CURRENT RESIDENCE : new york city , new york . ETHNICITY : african-american . SEXUAL ORIENTATION : bisexual . OCCUPATION : intern . ( the art department , but more so visual art )

𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 !

FAMILY : born & raised in the city of miami , adri grew up in a household that was highly religious . her family was heavily involved in the church with her mother also being a pastor herself . because of this , her parents were very strict & super controlling . they monitored almost everything surrounding adri since she was their only child , trying to prevent anything they deemed negative & wrong to consume their daughter .

this caused for adri to at first obey them because she was a child , but as she reached her teenage years she saw how toxic her parents could actually be . they were the definition of religious hover parents & it was slowly starting to cause adri to resent them . they would spend hours lecturing her if she wore something they thought was inappropriate . they would call her names & say she was being fast for her age . they would tell her she was going to go to hell if she didn’t listen to the word of god .

it all came to blows when adri was figuring out her sexuality . all her life she was told that liking the same sex was wrong , but she was having feelings for the same sex . at first she felt internalized homophobia , but as she started to grow into her own person & renounce the teachings that were drilling into her head , she started to accept herself . she knew that her parents were going to condemn her , so she didn’t ever plan on coming out until she moved out . sadly , her father did a random check of her phone & found texts that she didn’t delete to a girl she was dating at the time . it was literally a shit show in the king household . slaps & many sessions of trying to pray the gay away later , adri had to pretend as though she was not bisexual . she had to break up with her girlfriend & was removed from public school to be home schooled at sixteen . to say she hated her parents was an understatement .

as the years went on , adrianna was counting down the days until she could be off to college . during her senior year she applied to the furthest schools from miami . she had to beg her parents to let her attend an out of state college , but because her act at home was convincing , they allowed her to stay with her aunt in new york to attend college . they were still going to be as controlling as ever , but it was a step closer towards freedom .

SCHOOL : adrianna attended hofstra university & majored in art . while she was in grade school , adrianna gravitated towards painting because it was the best way for her to get what she was feeling out . attending college was the best thing for her . although her aunt was as strict & religious as her parents , she used college as a way to wild out . she was sneaking out easier because her aunt worked overnight shifts as an rn . she was enjoying the ounce of freedom that she had even if her family was on her neck 24 / 7 . she had a lot of pressure to graduate & get a job , so that she could live on her own & she knew that the arts wasn’t the best major to find a joke as quickly as she wanted . but graduation came quick & adri was literally scrambling .

MASTER’S : after college , adri was literally running all over nyc trying to look for a job . it took her months to finally land a job interview at master’s & she honestly thought she flopped . when she got the position as an intern she was literally over the moon . she absolutely loves working at master’s & she’s hoping she can move up the ranks . being that she’s new at the position , she’s trying her best to fit in & get things done in a timely manner . she does struggle a bit because it’s her first big girl job , but she’s working on it day by day .

𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 !

BUBBLY : you could easily describe her as someone that lights up the room with her smile alone . adrianna is super cheerful & very positive majority of the time . she has a hint of pep in her voice that almost sounds like she talks with a smile & she usually does . she just loves to talk & interact with others .

FLIRTATIOUS : due to her personality , adrianna is naturally friendly & flirtatious . she will flirt with ya boo & it won’t even be intentional. that’s just who she is . some may call her a thottie because she does live her best hot girl life , but she truly does not care . she does what she wants because she’s poppin’ ! ( see connections for some mess surrounding this trait )

TALKATIVE : honestly , she will never shut up. she talks very fast & says a lot & it can also be alot . she just loves to talk y’all . she will talk anybody’s ear off who will listen . she can’t help it .

DITZY : def’ has her moments where she’s super lost . it takes her a few seconds to understand jokes sometimes & can def’ lose her train of thought as well . she can be a little dumb , but she’s just all over the place . somebody help her , please !

in general she’s like a bimbo , but not to the worst degree . she’s v aware & just has her moments . she doesn’t like when people try to be condescending towards her because of her personality , so she can get a little defensive & snappy when pushed to that degree . it takes her a lot to snap , so i doubt she will be popping off unless she is truly offended . she’s also not that confrontational , but if she has to defend herself , she will . ( she lowkey can get creative tbh ) she’s just here to befriend people , okay !

𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 !

001 . enemies . i feel like because she’s genuinely nice it would have to be a huge reason for her to dislike someone . so , pick your poison . 002 . friends with benefits . we always love these , don’t we ? she’s with all the shits , okay . head hot girl at your service ! 003 . exes . not to be that garbage bag , but i’m pretty positive adrianna probably cheated on all of her exes due to boredom . she is someone that needs change in her life bc of how she was treated at home . if she feels stagnant , she will just pull some bs like cheating & move on to the next . truly her biggest flaw & someone gotta smite her ass for this fr ! 004 . besties . someone give her a baddie bff pls ! 005 . a work boo . v self explanatory . 006 . a muse . since adri likes to paint , this could be someone that inspires her artwork or even let’s her paint them on occasion . again , i am terrible at thinking of connections , so i’m down for all the plots !

𝒇𝒖𝒏 𝒇𝒂��𝒕𝒔 !

001 . she is type one diabetic . 002 . is a huge bad bunny stan . 003 . a bratz doll collector . 004 . is into art & loves to paint . 005 . her guilty pleasure is watching bad girls club .

#masters.intro #tw religion #tw homophobia #tw toxic parents #tw physical abuse #tw body image

11 notes · View notes

papcrplancs · 3 years

Text

( Leah Lewis, 24, Cis Woman, She/Her ) * hey, i’m looking for the office of Kimora Li. they’re the Personal Trainer who’s known around the office as The Traveler, if that helps ? not to be a gossip, but i’ve heard that they’re Free-Spirited but Reactive, is that true ? i also heard that they’re the one who used her sick time to ride her Motorcycle down the coast. anyways, here’s the coffee they ordered.

oops, look who decided to pick up another muse ajfkajfk. this is Kimora, aka Kim. she’s a personal trainer for all your muses fitness needs! like this if you want to plot, and i will come find you! probably over discord unless you are not on there.

FACTS

Name: Kimora Li

Nickname(s): Kim, Kimmy

Age: 24

DOB: December 9th, 1996

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Label: The Traveler

Sexuality: Pansexual

Hometown: Camden, Maine

APPEARANCE

Height: 5’5

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Brown

Ethnicity: East Asian (Chinese)

Aesthetic: Black, White, Muted tones, Motorcycles, Dive Bars, Pintrest board can be found here.

BACKGROUND

Career: Personal Trainer

Education: High School Diploma, National Personal Training Certification, Associates Degree in Exercise Science

Traits: Free-Spirited, Bold, Brave, Intelligent, Empathetic, Reactive, Short-Tempered, Closed-off

Kim’s Mother immigrated from Shanghai to marry her Father, having her only a year into their marriage

Kim grew up excelling in sports, falling in love with physical activity. She did everything from Soccer to Gymnastics, championing in every single one

Her parents were very supportive, showing up to every game or match, cheering her on, and their relationship was always very strong

A month after graduation, Kim left home, and fell in love with traveling. She found her way all around the North East, trying every new food or activity that she stumbled across. Her love of adventure and travel still exists to this day.

Not long after leaving home she met a girl, and fell hard. She was everything Kim dreamed her to be; kind, compassionate, strong. Plus, she rode a motorcycle which was just a bonus

They dated for 3 years, traveling up and down the East Coast, Kim even learning to ride a bike herself along the way. The two of them joined a Biker Club together, finding solace in like minded people who loved to travel the country

When a member of their biker club tragically died in an accident, Kim broke down. She turned to substances to deal with the grief, pushing away her now Ex-Girlfriend who, rightfully, wasn’t ready to put up with that

The breakup set Kim straight… for the most part. She won’t do anything hard, but she still has a beer and smokes a joint if it’s offered

She left the club not long after the break-up, deciding it was best to be solo for a while. She moved back up to Maine, getting a small one bedroom apartment, and working towards her Personal Trainer certification.

She loves the job, because she can make her own schedule, giving her the freedom to travel whenever she wants. Plus, she gets to stay active which, even now, is so important to her

Not long after getting her degree, she got a job at Masters. She’s a personal trainer specifically there for Rolfe and the Actors, but she’ll train anybody in the building if they’re willing to pay her— she’s only on salary for the Actors

HEADCANONS

Kim tore her meniscus in her left knee. The doctors weren’t convinced she’d be able to go back to Gymnastics, but she did and won her division

Kim has a sleeve tattoo on her right arm that she added to, slowly, for every state she visited

She’s visited every state except Hawaii and Alaska, because most of her travel is done on the back of her bike, and it’s harder to get to those

She wants to travel out of the country at some point, specifically to visit China for the first time

She 100% did use her sick time to ride her bike along the coast. And she’s do it again, bitch. She got bored

She keeps her Bike stored even though it’s expensive as hell, because it’s her baby. It’s a Harley Davidson and that is all i’ve got cause i have to research motorcycles more

She will take you on a ride on her bike if she likes you.

She runs a fitness Instagram that’s pretty popular, and that’s partially how Masters noticed her in the first place

She ain’t here for that toxic fitness BS. if you’re in the gym with her, you’re there to get STRONG. No talk of “weight loss” or “getting skinny” we only gET GAINS IN THIS HOUSE

She’s worked at Masters for about 2 years now, so assumed connections/friendships are welcome!

WANTED CONNECTIONS

Trainees (open to any, multiples welcome): Do you wanna work out with Kim? (And test me on my fitness knowledge that i’ve gained in the last year?) You can!!! Whether your character is someone she’s on salary to train, or pays her privately, she’ll work with you

Work Friends (open to any, multiples welcome): Maybe they just see each other at work, occasionally chat in the elevator, and are friendly around the office!

Friends (open to any, multiples welcome): the kind of friends that go to happy hour together, and hang out more outside of work

Best Friend (open to any): Hears all of Kim’s problems, hang out constantly, a confidant of sorts, and are thick of thieves. She’s probably forced them to go to the gym at least once— up to you whether or not they hated it

Roommate (open to any): New York City ain’t cheap. Split that rent for your little shoebox!

Work Enemy/Enemy (open to any): We can flush out the why, but maybe these two just… do not like each other. Two very spirited people tend to struggle to get along!

Ex (open to any women indentifying character, but i’m flexible): this is incredibly niche, but if you want to be her biker ex girlfriend? By all means.

FWB (open to any): It gets lonely out here. nothing like another person to keep you company

#masters.intro #kimora *#tw alchohol mention #tw death mention #tw drugs #body image tw #kinda on that last one #she's a fitness coach and i just wanna be better safe than sorry!#anyways #hello here is my new muse pls plot with her

7 notes · View notes

nelllraiser · 3 years

Text

adventures in guilt | dave & nell

TIMING: shortly after nell summoned a shark-jellyfish demon. PARTIES: @seizethecarpe and @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: dave returns the jacket nell forgot on the boat, and the two try to navigate a life with guilt. CONTENT: sibling death mentions.

Dave carefully folded down the coat over his arm, smoothing out the material idly. That wasn’t the full reason, the texture of the scales under his fingers was captivating, more interesting than anything else nearby. But this was the college campus, Dave wasn’t sure he would want to touch anything else, the risk of beer stickiness on everything was too damn high. It was drizzling, cool gusts biting the needles off of nearby trees and blowing them around the park bench. As unbothered as he was by the cold, Dave hated icy winds. The sooner the ‘caster showed up, the better. He waved at her when he spotted her, standing up from the bench. This’d be interesting.

Generally Nell didn’t come to campus this early. Her visits to the university mostly consisted of visits to her friends, and the occasional sleuthing for a bounty, but classes hadn’t even begun yet for the day. Thankfully she hadn’t overslept, because the witch hadn’t slumbered in the first place. With Bea gone to New York, the house was just herself and Luce, and far too much like it had been when their third sister had been struck down, existing only as a ghost. It made for restless nights that came more often than they already had, though Nell had managed to fill a good amount of them with work. As Dave came into sight, Nell felt the familiar sensation of guilt flooding her stomach, a feeling that hadn’t left her since the accidental deaths she’d caused— but one she’d learned how to manage in a way that allowed her to function rather than wallow. Unfortunately the sight of the selkie brought all the regrets of that day back the instant she set eyes on him, though she squared her shoulders in sheer refusal of letting them overwhelm her. Finally getting within speaking distance, she gave the man a nod before speaking. “Hey.” Shit, what else was she supposed to say? There had to be something else, right? “Thanks for keeping my jacket.”

“Wasn’t about to do anything else with it,” Dave said, handing it over, scrutinising her with a trademark scowl, that did little to show what he was really thinking. Somehow, she looked older now than the last time they’d met, and he knew how that kind of guilt could eat at someone’s youth in the worst possible ways. But he also knew that the younger you were, the more important it was to be able to hide that kind of shit, and he had no doubt that plenty of her younger friends didn’t see it at all. “You holding up alright?”

Under any other circumstance Nell might have jokingly asked about whether or not the jacket was his color, or if he’d sneaked one single try on. Nevermind the fact that she was fairly certain he wouldn’t even be able to get his arm into the sleeves of the tiny jacket. Instead, she just accepted the jacket wordlessly before layering it over the sweater she was already wearing. Yet another thing she hadn’t inherited along with her lack of fire abilities was the heightened body temperature that went along with it, and Nell was almost endlessly cold in the winters of Maine. His question caught her wholly off-guard, rather convinced that he still thought her some idiotic, and guitless spellcaster who didn’t know what she was doing, and didn’t care to think beyond that. Surprise flickered ever so briefly over her features before it was quickly replaced with a frown, and suspiciously drawn eyebrows. “I’m not the one who got eaten by a demon shark.” She wasn’t about to admit the truth to a man who’d witnessed one of her greatest mistakes when she barely admitted it to herself.

“No. But I know a thing or two about being eaten by guilt,” Dave replied slowly, like the words were being dragged out of him. That he knew he could offer her the comfort that people who hadn’t been there couldn’t. He still wasn’t convinced she deserved it. He wasn’t convinced power like that, the kind that was at once a tempest and could summon a tempest, ought to be allowed to live. But that sorta shit wasn’t his call to make, not unless she was deliberately slaughtering people. Hell, in a town like this, there was probably some sort of person who specialised in ‘casters.

Nell watched the man with a guarded gaze, as if trying to see below his exterior to see what secrets or well-hidden intentions were hidden underneath the apparent concern he was now exhibiting. Though even calling it concern might be a bit of a stretch. His words seemed reluctant— almost as unwillingly spoken as her reply was. “And you think that’s what’s happening to me?” Nevermind that it was the truth. Beyond her inability to properly express herself was the question of why he was bothering with her in the first place. WIth the way he’d reacted on the boat paired with his attempts to pin her against the railing- she’d thought he’d want to get in and out of this situation as quickly as possible.

“Don’t know. It’s why I’m asking. Doesn’t mean you gotta answer.” Dave replied with an off handed shrug tracing his fingers over the grain of the bench. The arm of the bench had been smashed off once or twice before, the wood was a different age to the age of the sea, but even still there was an unnerving stain deep inside the grain of the wood, that couldn’t quite be washed out no matter how hard the college tried. Dave knew a thing or two about that sort of stain, too. “Well,” he said after a moment, “If that’s all,” He eyed her, just the hint of softness buried in all his wrinkles. “I know how busy you young folk are. Wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“But...why do you care to ask?” Nell replied with another question, still not entirely willing to answer his question. There was still a wariness to her gaze, as if she were waiting for him to turn around and start yelling like he had on the boat. Why did he care whether the guilt was eating her alive or not? She couldn’t help shake the feeling that Dave was simply waiting to turn the tables once again, that he’d change his mind and cast her out just as easily as the coven and her parents had. He was right about her being busy, though. Between the demon cult, her bounty hunting, and potential new jobs she’d been kept running. Still...there was something making her want to linger despite her anxious certainty that nothing good would come of it. Perhaps it was the smallest hint of softness beneath his words, and the fact that she found so little of it these days. “What about you? You said you know about being eaten by guilt.”

“I can take the question back if it bothers you so,” Dave replied with a nonplussed lookin on his face, because the answer to her question was complicated as hell. “Sure do. Life as long and messy as mine, I got plenty to feel guilty for. Not summonin’ demon sharks, I’ll give you that, but enough messes with a body count, that’s for sure.” Dave rubbed the bridge of his nose. Grey clouds overhead were beginning to promise rain. He wasn’t about to share the nature and brunt of his messes, whether they were the sinking boat variety, victims of a monster Dave had failed to stop, or drowning someone who… it was probably not right to have drowned. “Just saying, storing that emotional stuff like a Molotov’s just gonna have it blow in your face. I’d know.”

“It doesn't bother me,” Nell commented defensively, even though the opposite was true. She just didn’t want to admit such a thing. Not to herself and certainly not to the man who’d already see too much of things she wanted to hide or forget. “Does my question bother you?” She posed the rebuttal as a means of trying to get the burden of explanation off herself, shifting it in Dave’s direction instead. The mention of a body count wasn’t something she’d expected from the selkie, and it was plain to see her curiosity had been piqued. Fortunately, she knew better than to ask for details at a time like this, but that didn’t stop her from asking another question. “Well then...what do you do with it?” Her tone was uncomfortable, arms folded defensively over her chest. She wasn’t fond of appearing weak in front of people she barely knew, or asking for help at all, but desperation was starting to get the better of her. Besides- maybe he would just think she was asking for someone else’s sake.

“No,” Dave replied honestly, eyebrows raised at her defensive demeanor, quietly letting her know that he could see just how reticent she was to talk about it. But he didn’t push again, getting ready to leave her to her coat and her guilt when she pried another question out of herself. Dave’s look was probably more understanding than she’d like, but he still sighed.

“Agh, hell,” Dave ran his hand through his hair, turning so he was side on to her when he leant against a nearby fence, his brows dipped deep in thought. For all his gentle cajoling, he wasn’t quite ready to open up to a stranger either. “Different things for different guilts. Some folks act like they never did anything wrong, bottle it up and continue on like nothing ever happened. Some folks spend a lifetime chasing a type of redemption that doesn’t exist, so they can do enough good to outbalance the bad, like it’s some cosmic scale they just gotta weigh up right. Hard to say which way leaves you more fucked up. Guess I deal with it with something in the middle. ‘M not a good person, but I can ensure I don’t make the same fuck ups as before. Focus on what keeps me going. If I face judgement after, I’ll have earned it.” He looked at her sidelong, trying to parse her reaction. “That answer your question?” As vague an answer as it was. There was no talking about the nights with angry outbursts, darker shades that he saw the world in, how quickly his mind twisted to the thought of solving issues by killing. He barely knew this girl, after all.

Nell still didn’t understand why he’d taken the time to answer her questions to begin with, constantly surprised when he continued to linger with her as they spoke. She was silent as she mulled over Dave’s words, trying to fit them into cracks that lived in her as a result of her own guilt. She knew redemption wasn’t an option, one good thing didn’t magically replace one bad. And ignoring her guilt had never been an option for her, not when she was much better at wallowing in it. “So what you’re saying is it doesn’t get any better,” Nell snorted somewhat derisively, but it was meant as a comment at her own expense rather than Dave’s. She was thankful for his words, even if they hadn’t necessarily filled her with hope. Her foot scuffed at the ground, still uncomfortable despite letting the clam shell of her emotional state open in the slightest. “I mean- thanks for answering. I guess it makes sense that you just gotta learn from it and then deal with it.” After all that had been her experience so far, hadn’t it? Something about not being a good person struck a nerve in her, and she couldn’t help but think of how close Adam’s guilt had gotten him to making a lifelong mistake. “I think trying to be better is at least...the mark of a decent person.” That was the closest she managed to get when it came to offering Dave an opinion on his judgement day.

"Wouldn’t say it doesn’t get easier with time,” Dave replied, tilting his head until his neck cracked, easing some of the tension this conversation was giving him. “More manageable, less raw. Easier to put these things in perspective. You’re still young, you’ve got time to figure out how you want to deal.” Even if it didn’t, Dave was always aware that when he talked to young adults about shit, they had so little framework for how much they still had time to change and grow that he didn’t want to say shit to stifle that. The surest way to keep someone the same was to tell them they had no chance of changing. He looked at her sidelong, the tiniest corner of a smile on his face. “I like to think so,” he replied, in a distant, hypothetical way. It wasn’t something he was interested in applying to himself.

He was right, technically. Nell was still young. But it felt like she’d been aged some fifteen years in that last twelve months alone. Being raised in White Crest meant she was more than familiar with its oddities and quirks, but she hadn’t remembered the little town being quite so emotionally destructive. Or maybe she’d just been too wrapped up in the swaddle of youth to experience it herself before she’d left, only to return after seeing how gruesome the rest of the world could be. For some naive reason she hadn’t expected it to follow her back home, but here she was with the literal scars along her arms and neck to prove otherwise. Her lips pursed as Dave refused to take part in her little charade of ‘asking for a friend’, feeling set off kilter when he addressed her and the guilt she held directly. “I never said I was talking about me,” she replied stubbornly as her face took on a somewhat petulant expression despite it being obvious that she’d been doing just that.

The beginning of his smile also caught Nell off-guard, and parts of why she’d found it so hard to believe that he could turn his anger from the boat around so quickly fell into place. She’d wanted him to be the persecutor, to tell her that she’d fucked up and confirm her as deserving of the guilt that lived in her chest like an iron set of chains. To give her the punishment she felt she deserved like her mother had done. The realization had her looking away from him, not wanting to give away any more emotion than she already had. “So you...what? Don’t have time to figure it out anymore?” For once her words weren’t meant as an old person joke at the expense of who she was asking. “Or have you just been letting it ‘get easier’ and put into perspective? And that’s the thing you’ve figured out?”

“Hmmm,” Came Dave’s noncommittal response, just looking at her sidelong. When she pouted like that, it was damn hard to remember that the girl was an adult who had gotten folk killed, not just a lost kid finding her way through the world. Which was what made her more dangerous.

“No. Just got bigger fish to fry.” It was a pact he’d made with himself a long damn time ago, as unhealthy as anything else on his list. He’d face his penance, whether that came at the end of a hunter’s knife or an Aipaloovik’s embrace. Dave knew damn well there were consequences to the choices he’d made over the past couple years, but that didn’t slow him down. He’d face it all, but only once the fury was dead, and he had his family’s pelts once more. He could carry the other, less important deaths he’d caused by choice or negligence or malice until that day. He was, in fact, doing just what he’d told Nell not to, letting a guilt define every part of him. “When it came down to it, I learned to carry what I needed to so that I could do what I had to. That’s all.”

“Yeah...yeah I get what you mean,” Nell mused as she thought back to the other times guilt had threatened to consume her. She’d gotten Bea killed. Watched her sister die because she’d been reckless and selfish, and hadn’t taken care of her problems properly. But even as that sickening knowledge had clawed away at her gut, she’d learned how to stomach it well enough to focus on bringing Bea back. Done what she needed to do...just like Dave had. Or at least it sounded that way. At this point she wasn’t sure what else there was to say, already feeling as if she’d said perhaps a little too much. “Anyway...thanks for the jacket.” Nell shrugged her shoulders to help it sit better on her shoulders as she stood and waited to see if Dave had anything else to say on the subject of guilt and otherwise.

“Sure,” Dave replied, noting the quick shut down of conversation with a wry smile. He straightened, shaking his head to work out any cricks as he began to turn to leave. “I know when I’ve been dismissed.” He began to walk away, before turning back to give her a stern look. “Don’t summon any more demon sharks, kid. I won’t be so nice next time.” Dave said, tapping the top of his head like he was tipping his cap to her. This time when he turned, he did not look back. Hell, he even whistled a tune he hadn’t been able to hear for 30 years.

#// don't look at me im emo and love dave #wickedswriting #ch:dave #adventures in guilt #sibling death tw #chatzy

11 notes · View notes