#and surprisingly some of my old drawings resurfaced and were getting some notes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vanderlindemorgans · 3 years

Text

Cross My Heart (Chapter 1)

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Explicit/18+

Summary: A traitorous Agent Whiskey returns to the United States on the run. Being cast out by Statesman, he soon finds that you're the only person he can turn to - the embittered former flame from years long passed

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: Eventual smut, some references to alcoholism and drug use. Reader is in her late twenties but there is an age gap between her and Whiskey. Chapter specific warnings include some graphic descriptions of blood and injuries and some alcohol consumption. Also I know nothing about Texas or horses.

Read on AO3 | Next Chapter | Masterlist

To say things hadn’t gone to plan would be a dramatic understatement. In his case, however, the results of his arrival in Cambodia had proved even more disastrous than he could have ever imagined. Though really, if he’d have stopped to think about it for even just a second, he would have seen that his plan was doomed to fail from the beginning.

Stalking through the busy streets of Dallas, Jack tried his best to keep as low of a profile as possible - you never knew who could be wandering the city searching for him, and after the stunt he pulled with Eggsy and Harry it could almost be guaranteed that he had some sort of warrant on his head. It was probably foolish of him to even come back to the United States in the first place, but really, where else did he have to go?

He didn’t entirely know where he was going now either. He couldn’t return home, as it would most likely be swarming with Statesman agents and the like hunting for him. He was almost certainly cast out of Statesman for his actions by now, so any former friends he could usually turn to in situations like this would be of no help at this point, considering everything that happened. For once in his life, Jack was well and truly alone. The acknowledgement of that fact itself did nothing to alleviate his anxieties, only doing more to further the ever growing void in his stomach. His eyes darted between the various passersby, none of them taking a single notice of him to his relief. He’d have expected to draw more attention to himself, in fact when he stopped to take a gander at his reflection in one of the shop windows he passed by he was almost stumped as to how he had managed to keep under the radar so well - you couldn’t much see it with the way he kept his head down, but upon closer inspection one could easily spot the large nasty gash of blood split across the side of his cheek, complimenting several different bruises that were forming underneath. His clothes were either torn from navigating through the thicket of the Cambodian jungle or scuffed from his confrontation with the two Kingsman agents. The only part of him that was still in almost perfect condition was his damned hat, surprisingly enough. In the most blatant use of the term, he looked like an absolute wreck. If he weren’t on edge from the constant vigilance of potentially running into one of his former colleagues, he might’ve laughed at himself over it.

Escaping from Eggsy and Harry had been the easy part - they’d left him tied up with his own lasso off to the side, but in all the confusion and spate of heroics in trying to distribute the antidote, they had neglected to keep any sort of watch on him. From there on, all it took was the simple slice of a knife he had hidden away in his back pocket and just like that, he’d slipped away into the shadows, running for his life through the thick and sweltering heat of the jungle. He’d wanted to retreat back to the plane he’d used to travel there in the first place but upon realising that Statesman could use radar to track him, he instead was forced to navigate himself to a nearby airfield used for moving cargo. After that it was just a matter of stowing away on one of the planes to ensure his arrival back in America, touching down in Dallas of all places. Jack was fully aware that he was lucky to have his life - if things had gone differently he’d have ended up with a bullet in his head or something much worse. For that much at least he was somewhat grateful for. Somewhat.

Almost as if by instinct, he drifted towards a bar in the downtown area of the city, stumbling in and being assaulted by the smoke-scented air that greeted him the moment he opened the door. It was by no means a classy place, yet he didn’t much care in that moment. Any place was better than aimlessly wandering the streets like a stray mutt. Striding through the crowds of patrons ranging from tipsy to drunk, he came up towards the bar and pulled a couple of notes from the inside of his jacket pocket. “A glass of whiskey, if ya will” he requested, sliding the notes over to the disinterested bartender on the other side of the counter. Some part of him felt stupid for ordering the drink of his agent namesake, but some side of him felt like reminiscing on old times a bit. In light of him going rogue, they’d most likely be passing on that codename to another agent. Probably to Ginger most likely. He caught himself sneering at the thought of her, a deep burning sense of hate starting to fester in him. He never did like her much.

Taking the glass of whiskey in his hand, he let the warm rush of liquid seep down his throat, feeling consumed by the blazing burn it left on his tongue. So this was how it all ended for him: hiding out in a dingy dive bar, drinking himself to death while he waited for the inevitable. His mind ran over all of his options from there on, running down the short list in less than a minute tops. He had no job, no friends, nowhere to run to, no-one to turn to.

Unless…

Jack’s mind began to nag on something, a faint memory from years long since passed starting to resurface, the face of someone he hadn’t thought of in what felt like forever creeping into his thoughts gradually. He was in Dallas, right? An idea began to form in his head, recalling days spent during the summer out on a ranch north of the city, of your warm smile and intoxicating eyes that one could get lost in. Waving over the bartender, he pondered on his idea further. Would you even want to see him after all this time? He remembered the way things ended between the both of you, the bitterness and bad blood that most likely still lingered.

It was possibly an idiotic idea to begin with. Hell, you might not even be in Dallas anymore: the last time the two of you spoke was at least a good seven years. But it was the only option he had left. Throwing his head back and downing the last remnants of whiskey in his glass, he threw down a couple of extra notes for the bartender on the counter and sauntered off, fully sure of his next course of action. Like it or not, you were his best chance he had of survival. He just hoped that you didn’t hate him too much to turn him away after everything that he put you through.

___

Wiping a line of sweat from your brow, you found yourself cursing the suffocating summer heat. After living there for so many years you thought you’d be used to it but every June through to August the intensity of the blistering sun always managed to take you by surprise. If only you could simply relax a little, lounge by the pool sipping on cognac and smelling of lilacs, without a single care in the world. Instead, you were out in the sun, tending to each of the horses that your ranch housed. You ran a horse riding ranch only a couple of hours outside Dallas, tucked away in the deep necks of the Texan countryside. It was originally your parents business, and you’d practically lived there your whole life. It wasn’t your original plan to take over the family business, some part of you angling for something more than life as a simple ranch hand but when both of them tragically passed only a few years before, you felt you owed it to them in a way to take up the mantle to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Some things didn’t take much adjustment in a way - you’d already known the procedure for cleaning the stables and tending to the horses like the back of your hand, and the inheritance money left behind had made it easier to pack everything up out of your small city apartment to move back home on such short notice. The thing that did take some getting used to was their absence. Stepping back into their well loved home, seeing the photos still hanging on the walls, the folded pages of the books your mother kept on her bedside that would never be opened again, the places where they should be but simply weren’t - that wrecked you more than anything you could ever imagine.

At first you didn’t even sleep inside the house - it was just too painful to see them everywhere around you, and you couldn’t bring yourself to remove the cheerful family photos from the walls, even if it was only for a little while. The first two months back home were spent in the backseat of your car, curled up with a blanket that you’d managed to drag out from the house. You tried to carry on with business as usual but everything felt bleak around you. Some part of you wanted to blame someone, anyone for what happened. Sometimes you’d felt tempted to blame yourself in some way. Eventually, things did become easier. The emotional weight started to lift, and you were able to get through the day without having to take five to pull yourself together. Nothing was the same as before, but the flow of your life started to settle and become something resembling normal again. And that, in your opinion, was probably the best way it could have turned out.

Doing a onceover the stables to check everything was in its correct place, you pulled the large doors closed and surveyed the landscape around you, taking in the stunning visual of the sun beginning to dip below the skyline, mellowing out into a lively and beautiful sunset. With the front gates locked and everything with the horses all taken care of, you trudged back up to the house at the centre of the property, your mind drifting to the glass of liquor you intended to pour yourself the minute you got inside. It had been a long day, full of tiresome frustrations and irritations. Being in the middle of July, your ranch saw frequent visitors, including kids who were out of school and being taken out of the city on a sort of day trip by their parents. That day in particular had involved a birthday party for some kid, and you’d been out there giving riding lessons to the whole group of them.

Usually lessons were conducted by one of your other employees but in cases of events you tended to take on more tasks yourself. To be perfectly blunt about it, the day had gone horribly. Surprisingly enough, the kids were fine, no, the real piece of work was the birthday boy's mother. She’d insisted on trying to take control of every single aspect of the event and was overly critical of every little thing you did, and was an all round exhausting person to deal with. When the party was finally over and everyone had packed up and left, you remembered breathing a huge sigh of relief and thinking “thank fuck, she’s gone”.

Twisting open the front door to your house, you tossed your keys off to the side and immediately set off in search of something to drink. Grazing your fingertips along the refined wooden edges of your liquor cabinet, you pulled on the handles and reached your hand in to select a bottle. What you really wanted was something strong to take off that stressful edge of the day behind you. You felt your eyes settle on a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey stuffed towards the back and couldn’t help but smirk to yourself, a vague memory teetering on the precipice of your mind. Shaking the thought away, you instead choose a bottle of bourbon, placing it on top of the cabinet as you reach for one of the empty glasses stored inside. As you poured a glass for yourself, you felt your mind get lost in a haze, wandering between the events of the past few hours and what you’d planned to do with the rest of your night, and, admittedly something you were ashamed to say, a lingering thought to do with that bottle of whiskey you’d passed on over before. Fucking Jack Daniels, I swear to god…

Your body might as well have been on autopilot then, as you didn’t take any conscious note of anything other than the burn of liquor on your lips. If you hadn’t been so distracted you might have noticed it earlier - the distant sound of footsteps coming closer up the driveway to your house, the sounds turning into thuds the nearer they got. Too lost in your thoughts and too tired from the nightmarish day you endured, you were only pulled from the depths of memory by a loud bang on the front door. Furrowing your brow, you shot a confused and worried glance over to the front of the house, already beginning to feel alerted and wary. Who the hell could that be at this hour?

There was another bang on the door, this one more insistent than the last, and you felt yourself jump at the suddenness of it. Would it even be safe to go answer it? For a minute, you contemplated the idea of ignoring it and pretending you weren’t home, however once you realised whoever was outside could most likely see the lights on from the windows you dismissed that idea with disappointment. You’d have to go answer it, you knew that, but something didn’t feel right to you. Cautiously rising up out of your seat, you took a small step towards the entryway of the house, and through the fear managed to call out “Who’s there?”.

Taking another moment to contemplate whether or not it would be worth fetching a gun for this, you heard the voice of the person on the other side answer back, a voice that had you freeze in a mixture of shock and disbelief the instant you heard it. “Darlin'? It’s...it’s Jack, could you…”.

You didn’t even give him a chance to finish his sentence before you had bolted to the door, hastily unlocking the deadbolt and ripping it open to reveal him standing before you. Something in your heart stopped the second you saw him - he was the one person who you never, ever, in a million years ever expected to see again, much less on your front doorstep. You drank in his appearance, the first thing your eyes being drawn to was the large bloody slash across his cheek. His eyes were looking down at you pleadingly, a look you weren’t used to seeing on him. From when you’d known him he’d always looked so confident, so self-assured and pulled together, so to see him so browbeaten and, dare you say, defeated, unnerved you in a way. You could feel your mouth hanging open slightly, the words being there but your mouth being unable to form them, your eyes only fixated on his own dark and vanquished gaze as your mind raced a million miles a minute. There was so much you wanted to say, to ask, yet the only thing you were capable of verbalising in your shock was the one question that pushed itself to the forefront of your mind.

“Jesus fuck, Jack, what the hell happened to you?”.

#agent whiskey #agent whiskey x reader #jack daniels x reader #jack daniels #kingsman #kingsman: the golden circle #kingsman fanfiction #yes i write reader insert fic now what about it

118 notes · View notes

bi-the-way-i-love-bunnies · 4 years

Text

(In which Draco is Harry’s healer and now he has to look through his pensieves in order to save him au. Also, Harry travels)

Drarry drabble:

“I don’t understand,” Hermione whispered as she gazed down at the seemingly lifeless form of her best friend. “I know we haven’t spent as much time together as we should, but he’s dying?”

Behind her stood Ron Weasley, a comforting presence, though he wasn’t fairing much better. It was disheartening to watch, even for Draco’s standards.

“Yes, well,” he went back to his notes, using it as an excuse to look away and keep busy, “Even a person like him can’t be so lucky all the time can he?”

His team was one of the best at St. Mungo’s and upon their discovery, he estimated that Potter was cursed within the last month.

“He was in Jakarta at the time,” Hermione said, “Only came back last week. If we had known…” The look on her face said enough.

Everyone knew that Harry Potter decided to leave England in order to travel and see the world. What exactly he was doing remained a mystery but the general public believed that he was spending his days relaxing and sightseeing the world, fitting for the boy who couldn’t seem to catch a break.

Meanwhile in England the remaining golden trio has been trying to keep the Ministry together and help capture the remaining death eaters with the aurors. It has been 7 years since Voldemort has been gone. During the beginning of all the rebuilding, Draco heard enough of the small whispers that the golden trio had some sort of falling out, though he never quite believed it. Judging from the tension in the room, it was obvious that they still cared for one another deeply. Just because one moved on with their lives doesn’t mean that he left everything of his past behind.

“Right,” Draco got back to what he was planning to say before Granger got all emotional on him. “There’s little chance of recovery,” he warned, “but if we move fast enough we might be able to make a breakthrough if we find out what cursed he was hit with, seeing as he’s a high priority patient.” Merlin knows what would happen if the public found out they let their savior die.

“Luna’s his mind healer. She has pensieves of Harry’s memory stored in her clinic. He always bottles his latest memories of his trips and shows them to her.” She bit her lip before adding, “although it’s highly confidential, if you’re able to help him in just any way, you’ll be allowed clearance to view.”

Ron interrupted before Draco could reply, “Remember Malfoy if you use these memories in any way to hurt him you will be sorry.” He gave the blonde a pointed look, “Harry has had a tough time after the war and if you end up leaking anything, and I mean anything at all, you will be on the receiving end of my wand, and I know some pretty mean hexes.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it Weasley,” it was the next head auror he was talking to after all. “Just left Lovegood know that she’ll be expecting me.”

And that was how he ended up in this current situation having tea with the Ravenclaw in her clinic. He sipped his earl grey tentatively as she came back to the room with a box full of Harry’s pensieves.

She smiled sweetly before setting them down on the long table.

“These are all the memories he pensieved while he was in Indonesia. He visited quite a handful of times you know. Something about it kept pulling him back in.”

She levitated their cups as she made her way out of the room, giving him some privacy to focus. Before she closed the door she turned back to him to give him a warning.

“Draco, as one healer to another I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt a patient. But know that we would never betray Harry’s confidence and given your history I’ll have you know that a lot of people care for him. Don’t betray his trust, Draco.”

He nodded in agreement and when she left, he slowly poured the bottles into the pensieve, the newest model allowing multiple memories to be viewed at once. If he was being honest with himself he was a bit anxious to know what his old rival’s been up to. Sadly, he acknowledged that his old obsession with Potter back at school was making a comeback. As he was pouring out the last bottle he couldn’t help but notice a note attached to the label.

‘Loving can hurt, yet loving can heal and mend your soul. Remember to keep your love in these photographs, Harry, and they’ll help lead you home.”

Obviously one of Lovegood’s encouragements he mused as he poured the last one in. He stared at the pensieve for a beat longer before plunging in.

He expected a warm sunny beach, or yet a luxurious hotel for Potter to be relaxing in. What he wasn’t expecting was to see children in poverty in a small room. They were huddled over small books and there was an adult at the front speaking. With a small jolt he realized that this was a classroom. He searched around for Potter before finding him next to a little girl around the age of 5 or 6. He had a small piece of parchment out and it looked like he was trying to draw.

He spoke to the girl quietly before presenting her with what he drew, earning him a delighted smile. He watched the memory continue as the group of students eventually moved on from their school day and watched Potter instead. Salazar, since when could Potter draw? As Potter finished yet another art piece a small memory made him remember that Potter was friends with Thomas, who was now a famous artist in England. He wondered if Thomas ever gave his friend lessons. This might’ve been a year or two after the war since Potter didn’t look like the scrawny teen he once knew. Actually, judging from the state from when he was admitted to St. Mungo’s, all the traveling clearly benefited him deeply.

Another memory and they were in a more public area, but this time Potter looked closer to when he just finished the war. Here, Potter was speaking with an old man, deep in conversation. A turn of his head showed a different group of kids, yet their situation didn’t seem any different from the group in the previous pensieve. After a while, he saw Potter hesitantly approach and open a bag, giving the children and their parents some basic necessities like soaps he got from his hotel to small snacks from a local vendor. He proceeded to sit down when he was done and engaged in small talk with the locals, the man he was speaking to earlier leading the conversation. He watched Potter slowly grow more relaxed and laugh more freely. At some point he moved on to entertaining the children. Draco watched on until the sunset before shaking his head reminding himself that he was on a mission.

More memories afterwards showed more of the same thing. Occasionally Potter would spend some time for himself but he would always move on to the streets to engage with the locals. A lot of the pensieves had the old man from the second memory.

Potter drawing, Potter handing out whatever he could spare, smiling, laughing, and surprisingly even dancing to the song some local street band was playing. Apparently his dance skills have improved quite a lot since their fourth year.

Eventually he came across a memory that stood out in more details. You could tell with the more vivid colors in the pensieve that this was quite an important memory to Potter.

“Have you found her yet?” he asked after a small woman entered back into the room with the old man Draco nicknamed Rani.

“We think she wandered too far under the bridge. It’s getting late and she still hasn’t returned,” the woman replied shakingly. “If something happened to my daughter…” she trailed off but the silence filled in what she was trying to say.

He watched Potter get up from where he was sitting. “I’ll find her.”

“Are you sure?” Rani asked as the Gryffindor walked towards the door. “Jakarta is a very friendly city but Naya is young and easy to prey upon.”

“I’ll be back by tomorrow at best,” he hitched his backpack over his shoulder. “Give Indah my love and tell her I’ll try visiting soon.”

He followed Potter through the pensieve once he left, watching as they passed barracks, railroad tracks and bridges. Eventually he watched Potter pass under a bridge before a small ambush took place, Potter’s attackers shielding a small child behind them.

He watched at the last second as Potter got hit square on the chest, which barely fazed him, before he threw an Expelliarmus and stunned him. Once it was over and he got Naya back to his mother, Draco replayed the fight scene over again and watched as the attacker fired the spell, noting the color and making out the incantation.

He watched Potter one last time, all relief and smiles showing in his face as he watched Naya reunite with her mother. Ever the heroic Gryffindor still. He briefly wondered if these people would miss him if Potter- he shook himself from these thoughts and he resurfaced from the pensieves.

He found Luna Lovegood watching him softly before nodding to herself and helping pack back the memories. A look behind her at the window told Draco that it was already night.

“Thank you for letting me borrow the pensive Lovegood,” Draco said while slowly moving the contents to their original bottle, “I think I got what I needed for Potter’s case.”

“He was quite happy wasn’t he,” she spoke out of the blue, “I think he truly needed that after the war and all.”

“He did look...rather well, yes,” he agreed, unsure of where the conversation was leading. He may have wondered about Potter in the past but it never got him anywhere. He didn’t realize how much he missed the git until he saw him basking in the joy of just spending time with others and engaging in their culture. He wondered what else he had missed with Potter’s life and suddenly he was a bit too keen to find out.

“I think Harry needed to see that the world wasn’t all that bad after Voldemort was gone. But even though he didn’t find exactly that, I think it makes him happy. Being part of their lives and doing what he can. Humans lead such intricate lives,” she paused appearing to be in deep thought. “I secretly think that if it was all sunshine and rainbows like Harry wanted to find, he would’ve gotten bored after a while you know? Life can only be good when you see the bad too. And in all his pensieves he saw a mix of both. Poverty with a sense of community. They had the simple pleasantries he couldn't have afforded here.”

Draco thought back at the Potter he knew from Hogwarts. He thought back to all the bitterness and jealousy that he felt when Potter was always the one in the spotlight. Even with everything going on at school, the git just wasn’t able to have a normal year. He reflected back to what Lovegood said about simple pleasantries. He knew all too well what that felt like after the war. Those were some dark days before he was finally able to apprentice as a healer when Penelope Clearwater decided to give him a chance.

They finished in silence as Draco bottled up the last of it.

However before he left, Luna sent him off with a message, “When Harry finally wakes up, give him my love will you?”

He was already on his way before he could tell her about the low chances of Harry’s survival, yet he didn’t doubt Luna’s words. And for Merlin’s sake when did he start referring to her as Luna?

Entering St. Mungo’s was a blur or pressure and distress. Him and his team worked hard to form some sort of antidote potion (a counter spell wasn’t made yet), and the whole time he couldn’t stop worrying about the git. He knew as a healer it was his job to remain calm and collective for the efficiency of the case, but he really needed Potter to wake up afterwards. Although they still didn’t see each other much, Draco was determined to fit himself into Potter’s life. There was just no way he couldn’t when he recalled what Potter was like in Jakarta. He wanted to know how he changed and all the ways he could smile and bring joy to people’s faces just by engaging in small talk or dancing without a care in the world.

He thought of all the things this would change for them as they fed Potter the potion, and he thought of all the things he needed to say as Potter slowly awakened after a few hours.

“Malfoy?” Potter stated groggily as he sat up, “God, I remember the last time I was here. Do you need me to do those annoying question checks to see if I’m fine?”

Draco felt the corner of his lips quirk up as he scribbled Potter’s new status on his notes. “Yes, Potter. Not even the boy who lived can escape standard check ins, no matter how annoying they are.”

He looked up just in time for Potter to let out a fond sheepish grin. “Yeah I reckon so, though I have no idea what you could possibly ask me.”

A beat of silence was shared and Draco felt a swell of anticipation for what he knew was going to come. He could tell Potter knew too just by reading his face. He was always an open book.

“I guess we’ll have to start off with the basics,” Draco smiled, approaching closer until he was standing to Harry’s side, “Tell me about your trips to Jakarta, Potter.”

#drarry #drarry fics #drarry fic #the beginning may sound interesting but honestly it's not what you think #mainly me being self indulgent about harry potter traveling the world and being his Gryffindor self #healer!draco #kinda based on ed sheeran's photograph #also i just watched an interesting document about Jakarta #there's just something so heartwarming about experiencing other culture's you know?#pensieves #pensieve #luna's a mind healer here #and she's one of harry's closer friends #don't worry the golden trio are still close #harry potter #hp #hp drarry #my fic #harry potter fic

63 notes · View notes

octonaut-belle · 3 years

Note

I’d um-

Still like to see that old drawing you showed as a writing? The one with Tweak and Belle trying to save the twins and Peri?

OUGH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT

HAD TO DIG THIS OUTTA THE ARCHIVES OF MY PHONES NOTE

Context:

Belles ears twitched as she stood with the group, she had heard something- over Bianca talking about the recent storm she and her Cubs had been in and Marsh’s chatter, along with the others. She watched as Tweak turned and Marsh’s speech faltered, both looking at the same place she was.

Her stomach twisted; that didn’t sound right. At all. Like water receding but far too fast and too soon.

“Belle?” Bianca chirped,

“Tweak?” Captain added at the same time as the two took off running. Marsh soon following.

They’d both heard it. It was a tidal wave. The closer they got the more they could hear the Cubs talking to Peri about the shells they have found now that the water was gone, and their speed picked up.

Belle was the first there, having ran just before Tweak did, Marsh further behind. She’d barely gotten her arms around Peri when the wave crashed into her.

It sent her into the water, pulling her deep down as it did so. She inhaled right before, holding her breath as she reached the surface. She looked around, the others on the beach about to jump in when she screamed out:

“No! Not without the gups! Get to the gups! I got it!”

Belle was a surprisingly strong swimmer given her weak ankles, and as Peri cling to her back she found herself pushing harder to swim along the shore.

She was still frantic as she looked for the twins, finally spotting Orson floundering in the water.

She dove for him; grabbing his scarf in her teeth like a mother would do to a kitten. Ursa- she had to find Ursa. Trying to stay calm as she carried Peri on her back- who was ripping at her fur- and Orson in her teeth- floundering in his reasonable fear- she was struggling to find the other cub.

By some twist of fate by Lady Luck, Tweak resurfaced in that moment, carrying non other then Ursa, clinging to her back like she would her Uncle.

“I- I got er!” Tweak sputtered out, and Belle gave her a thumbs up, the two swimming along the beaches shore, both knew fully well swimming against the undertow was an awful idea, even as the adrenaline faded.

“The currents getting softer here-“ Tweak said as she swam ahead, finally able to move towards shore and flop onto the beach. Muscle aching. Belle joined her, dropping Orson gently.

“Let me just call the gups-“ Belle chirped, tapping at her collar. Nothing.

“Oh no.”

“Lemme try-“ Tweak muttered as she did the same, again, nothing. “Shoot.”

Belle sighed, looking at the twins who were huddled around Peri. “We’re cold!” they cried, and the lynx nodded.

“I bet, but you were also very brave.” Belle said softly, getting down to their level. “I’m proud of you both.”

“We were?” Orson squeaked.

“You are?” Ursa sniffled.

“Very.” Belle hummed, pulling them in for a hug. They leaned into her, she was rather warm after all. “How about I start a fire?”

“Yes please!” The two chirped, and she smiled. “Of course.”

Belle turned to tweak. “Got a plan?”

“Fix up our collars-“ Tweak huffed as she tinkered with her own. “But for now. Looks like we might be spending the night.”

“Of course.”

Hopefully.. the crew wasn’t waiting time in finding them.

#stuff for belle #writing #old writing please

7 notes · View notes

garrou · 5 years

Text

garou arc timeline because i was having trouble parsing exactly how many days it lasted

all off the top of my head so i may have some points mixed up

day 1:

garou is introduced to the story. he beats up all of the criminals gathered by the hero association as well as the three heroes that were supposed to be acting as guards for the meeting

garou defeats tank top vegetarian

garou defeats tank top master and some of his underlings (did this happen on a different night ??)

day 2:

garou defeats several lower-class heroes he happens upon in the street

garou meets tareo for the first time

garou defeats golden ball and spring mustachio

garou meets saitama for the first time unknowingly, but is of course immediately dispatched with a chop to the shoulder and passes out for the night in the middle of the street

day 3:

garou wakes up in a pile of trash bags that he was apparently moved to in the night

garou meets tareo a second time

garou fights metal bat, ending in a draw

garou is first confronted by the monster association but declines their offer to join

garou seeks out watchdog man but has to withdraw from the fight

day 4 (and probably eventually late enough at night to technically leak into a fifth day):

garou wakes with a fever and plans to lie low for a few days, but tareo happens to be forced into the shed he’s staying at by his mean “friends” and they talk for a bit

garou is ambushed by several heroes but defeats them all despite being ill. tareo gets scared of him and runs away

genos fights garou but is interrupted by bang and bomb, who beat the shit out of garou. to his credit he keeps trucking the entire time

but regardless before either side can be victorious the bird costume guy just. picks him up by the arms. and flies away. garou screams at him and complains the entire time but eventually he passes out while they’re in the air

garou wakes up at some point mid-day in the monster association. they tell him to go outside and kill a hero. sword hands guy and bug guy are sent to tail him

garou eats an inhuman amount of food at a restaurant without paying and is followed by saitama (who forgot his wallet and used chasing after garou as an excuse to get out of it)

garou comes across tareo again and saves him from some bullies

saitama finds garou and garou tries to pick a fight with him but is knocked out immediately. tareo manages to wake him up shortly after, however

sword hands guy and bug guy show up and fight garou. garou tells tareo to run and holds his ground fairly well until a third monster shows up having captured tareo, which distracts him just long enough that sword hands guy lands a hit, which in turn is enough to put an end to whatever fumes garou is running on. garou gets cut to shit and is presumed dead by all present

tareo is taken back to the monster association hq

garou wakes up sometime in the late evening or night, completely vital again. at this point he’s not entirely human anymore, though he still looks it his regen abilities have skyrocketed and his clothing is fused to/a part of his body.

garou enters the monster association hq to look for tareo (though he wouldn’t admit that’s why)

garou begins eating monster corpses as he kills those he comes across, presumably because his transformation is using up so much energy that he’s starving All The Time

garou breaks into the cell that sword hands guy has taken tareo into and kills him and starts to lead tareo out

they come across rover but he gets them away by backing away slowly which surprisingly works

three other monsters attack them and garou takes care of them but not before they agitate rover

garou and tareo split up, tareo runs away while garou fights rover

rovers attacks end up landing garou in the room with gyorogyoro and orochi where he confronts them

garou fights orochi

??? (orochi wasn’t in the webcomic and this is as far as the manga has gotten so it’s unclear what’ll happen here to make up for the discrepancies)

garou resurfaces outside of the monster assoc hq to confront the remaining heroes, having begun to show physical signs of transformation into a monster

various s-class heroes try to confront him but all fail. saitama cant manage to catch him at this point and garou ignores saitama in favor of the s-classes

garou threatens to kill tareo if they don’t stop him. no one really makes any moves to stop him but eventually saitama intercepts

garou is still like “i’m gonna kill the kid over here if you don’t stop me!” and saitama points out that tareo isn’t even where he is headed, that he knows tareo isn’t in that direction, and that he is bluffing

garou and saitama fight sorta; garou can take saitamas punches pretty easy at this point. saitama calls him soft and points out that he’s holding back/going easy, i.e. that he isn’t fighting to kill

as they fight some s-class heroes gain vitality and garou acts surprised and saitamas like “dude. You Were Fighting Them Non Lethally. You Left Them Alive On Purpose.” which garou refuses to admit

garou gives his longass speech about his actual reasoning for doing what he’s doing—it’s not just that he wants to be a monster, his ultimate goal is to be a unifying factor for all mankind by being something everyone universally hates and fears; he naïvely believes that prejudice, war, crime, bullying, etc. will all be cast aside in favor of trying to defeat the God-Level Monster Garou. he demands to know why saitama is a hero, to which he of course replies it’s a hobby

garou gets pissed off at the fact saitamas motivation is so menial and that he can’t land any real hits on saitama and transforms further and then further again but he still can’t really do shit and he starts to lose steam and get to be more small and humanoid again

saitama really starts to dig into him at this point like he points out that what garou really wanted was to be a hero, but he thought it wasn’t going to work out so he settled on being a monster instead because “a monsters job is easier”

saitama punches away his monster form. literally punches it away and it crumbles and he’s like, inside there. what’s up with that

garou, seeing his purpose as being null, loses the will to go on

bang beats him up a little bit and he doesn’t bother to fight back, but he notes bang isn’t really trying to hurt him that hard

other heroes insist garou has to die, but tareo cries and insists he’s not a bad person because he’s saved him multiple times in just a few days

tareo’s support makes him realize he doesn’t really want to die here

garou escapes, with only saitama being able to actually process what direction he even went in bc he was moving so fast, and isn’t seen again in the webcomic for literally half a decade!

some unspecified time later idk a few days

king, while visiting an old abandoned dojo with a mummy, starts to go to a waterfall out back to get a drink but gets scared and runs away upon seeing garou is there

garou notices him somehow despite the fact that he’s sitting under a fuuuucking waterfall like hello? well that’s fine sweetie glad to see u again

#webcomic spoilers #opm spoilers #just wanted to write a timeline and posted early my bad #long post #edit: refined again MY APOLOGIES for no readmore ... im on mobile so its finnicky

61 notes · View notes

myforeverforlife · 6 years

Text

a voice of your own.

It’s not that you hate being deaf. Despite all of the hardships, you’ve always managed to adapt to them with a determination and a smile all of your own. You even cherish many of the friends and memories that you’ve made along the way. But during your first year of college, you meet a hearing boy who intrigues you like no other. As the two of you get closer, you find that the old longings, your wish to be able to hear again resurfaces. How you wish you could hear his voice, his laughter, the sound of your name on his lips.

Word Count: 6,867

Masterlist

For most young children, dreams are fickle, always changing. Most children have dreamed of obtaining simple things: toys, snacks, good grades.

When you were younger, all you wished for was the ability to hear again.

A brain injury as a child in a horrific accident left you with traumatic damage and hearing loss. The doctors had explained it to your father and grandmother over and over, but they were still stuck in a state of disbelief.

“Deaf? That can’t be possible, how can she be deaf? She’ll never be able to hear again?”

After lots of testing, it was concluded that you had lost almost all of your hearing in both ears, with most of the damage affecting the temporal lobe of your brain. You could vaguely pick up on extremely loud noises, like the sounds at a construction site, but they only registered faintly in your ears. Never again would you hear the sound of water as it spewed from the faucet, of the door closing shut as your father came home, of your grandmother shuffling across the floor in her slippers.

Never again would you hear the magic of speech, of verbal communication. It didn’t help that the accident hadn’t only affected your brain’s temporal lobe. Certain areas related to language were affected as well. “Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas,” the doctors had told your father. “Leading to something called global aphasia. Your daughter is likely to have difficulty retaining or expressing language – possibly both.”

You and your family had taken notice of a change in the way you spoke after the accident, words harder for you to speak and to remember. You didn’t want to read aloud, much less laugh or speak for fear of shocking others with your voice. Forming sounds in your mouth now felt foreign to you, and the few times that you had tried to read aloud during speech therapy lessons, you had been so embarassed by the corrections that the speech-language pathologists had given you. Remembering new vocabulary was also a struggle, and you often had to work harder than others in order to remember these new words.

Left with only a few ways to communicate, your father and grandmother tried to teach you sign language. It was difficult at first, especially since you didn’t even want to attempt to learn. In your eight-year-old mind, you were content with writing out your thoughts on paper for the rest of your life. But your family knew better, and watched as you grew more and more frustrated by how much time it took to write out what you wanted to say.

The pathologists had also tried to work with you to get your speaking abilities up to par, but it was agreed that if you preferred to sign instead of speaking, it was your choice. Your memories of what things sounded like, what you had been able to hear before the accident motivated you, always calmed you down whenever you were fed up with having to go over speech and language lessons for what seemed like the hundredth time. At least you could remember what some of these words sounded like to you, long ago.

And so, you finally began to learn how to sign.

Surprisingly, you found that signing didn’t confine your ability to speak, but instead gave you new and more creative ways to communicate. Sign language even conveyed meanings of words differently than they did through speech, and you were soon actively searching out new signs, showing them to your family.

But most children at school weren’t as understanding. A lot of them stared at you from afar, murmuring about how you couldn’t hear anymore. When you thought about it, it seemed ridiculous how they would whisper about you – it’s not like you could hear them anyways, they might as well just speak like they usually did.

Staying in your classroom and keeping up with the other students was difficult, even with an instructional aide, and you were moved to a special education classroom. You would spend most of your time in the special education class, with a couple of hours each day in the general education class taking part in things like art activities and physical education for the remainder of your public school experience. That experience, however, was a short one.

Your grandmother was the one tasked with picking you up from school, and she grew increasingly worried about your changes in mood and motivation. Even with help from services provided by the school and therapy sessions, you were still struggling and never looked forward to leaving home. After about a year, you were taken out of public school altogether and placed in one for the deaf.

Despite being slow to warm up to others, you soon felt more at home in this school than you did in your previous one. You even made friends, joking with them and making up inside jokes that even the teachers couldn’t follow. You still had difficulties in certain areas, but seeing other children who had the same or similar conditions as you helped with overcoming the sense of alienation, of strangeness that you had once felt.

When prospects of college came nearer, you grew worried once again. “What if I don’t feel like I can communicate with everyone?” you asked your friend, Junmyeon. “What if people laugh at me?”

“Even if they laugh at you, it doesn’t matter,” he signed back to you, face determined as his hands moved. “It’s their loss if they don’t want to get to know you.”

A smile formed on your face involuntarily, and you were grateful for your friend’s words of comfort. “Thank you, Junmyeon,” you said, emphasizing the sign for his name. Names in sign language were tricky: you could either finger-spell a name, but that usually took too long, or come up with a sign to represent that person’s name. Junmyeon once had a sign for his name that his parents gave him, but kids at school ended up making a new one for him once they saw how well he did in class. Junmyeon’s name in sign language was the sign for “smart”, signed with a “J”.

“You’re welcome, Y/N,” he replied, signing your name just as enthusiastically, the word “happy” signed with the first initial of your name.

You burst into silent laughter, body doubling over where you sat as Junmyeon grinned down at you.

As your noiseless giggles died down, Junmyeon’s face grew wistful. “I wish I could hear laughter. I bet it would be beautiful,” he said, drawing out the sign for “beautiful”.

You felt guilty about your own worries once you remembered those of your friend’s. Junmyeon had been born deaf, had never known the sound of his own voice. It was hard for him to imagine what laughter sounded like, despite people’s attempts to describe it.

Gently, you laid a hand over his. Although you didn’t say anything, you knew that he could understand what you were trying to tell him.

“It’s okay. At least we have our signs.”

And with your signs to support you, you entered college. Ironically, as an English major.

“How will you learn?” your father had signed to your with concern on his face. “How can you do presentations if you do not speak? What if you have problems communicating with others?” When you had first expressed interest in going to college, he had thought that you would pick a school for the deaf, like the one you had been going to for years.

“I can sign!” you yelled back through your symbols, the hand movements sharp as you glared at him. “And I can write. I can write just as well as any hearing student.” It was true. If anything, your grades in writing and reading were always the highest out of all of the subjects that you took.

You saw your father’s chest heave up and down as he sighed, a hand coming up to his forehead as he kneaded it in thought. “Okay,” he finally replied. “I have faith in you.”

But even your family’s support and your burst of confidence weren’t enough to stop the shaking of your legs on your first day on campus. You had contacted the school’s special services department, and they had provided you with an aide to help you follow along in your classes. Minseok, your aide, had greeted you with a big smile when he met you at the student union before your first class.

“Hi,” he waved to you. “I’m Minseok,” he finger-spelled slowly. “But my friends use this sign instead.” He made the sign for “cat”, his hands moving to imitate whiskers on his face as a slight flush appeared on his cheeks.

“All of your friends are deaf?” you asked with a smile, hoping that he understood that you were joking. Luckily, he followed what you meant quite well.

He gave a small chuckle before shaking his head no. “Not all, but some of them. I can introduce you to them sometime if you want?”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

Having Minseok with you in class was much less nerve-wracking and frustrating than you thought it would be. Although you took notes yourself by following along with whatever was on the board, Minseok took notes as well of whatever the professor said that wasn’t included in the papers or presentation slides, making sure to sign to you anything that was said verbally. Your professors were kind enough to make sure that you knew where to access these handouts and slides online if you ever needed to go back and look at them once more.

As the two of you were eating lunch in the cafeteria, you saw a boy approach Minseok from behind, your friend still completely unaware. Before you could tap Minseok's hand to alert him, the stranger reached out and ruffled his hair.

Minseok quickly glanced up from his plate, sauce sticking to the corner of his mouth as he looked up to see who it was. Once he saw the boy, his face broke out into a grin.

The new boy’s lips started moving, and you watched him silently. “A hearing boy,” you thought to yourself. Minseok’s lips moved as well, too fast for you to guess what he was saying.

“This is Y/N, the girl I told you about,” he told Baekhyun before looking back at you. “This is my friend, Baekhyun,” he said, spelling out the last word. “We’ve known each other since high school.”

You gave the new boy, this Baekhyun, a small wave before turning back to your food and picking at the pieces there with your fork.

“She’s not much for conversation, is she?” Baekhyun asked his friend.

“She’s a little shy. I’ll catch up with you later?” Minseok didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, and he could tell by the way that you were moving the same piece of pasta around on your plate that you were anxious for Baekhyun to leave.

Baekhyun gave a tentative nod before moving the strap of his backpack higher up on his shoulder. “Okay, see you later,” he replied before walking away, looking back over his shoulder a couple of times towards you before he left the cafeteria.

“Sorry,” Minseok apologized, making sure that you could see his hands, the way they timidly signed.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “It’s just that I’ve been so used to going to a school for the deaf for so long that sometimes I forget what it’s like to be around so many hearing people.”

Minseok gave you a sympathetic look before moving his hands once more. “My cousin says the same thing. Jongin has been deaf since he was a baby, and he grew up only going to deaf schools. Even now, he goes to a high school for the deaf.”

“Is that why you decided to become a special services aide?” you asked curiously. Minseok had told you that he was a part-time student as well as working with the university, and you wondered why a student would voluntarily take on this challenge.

“Sort of,” Minseok said with a thoughtful expression. “But also because I enjoy signing. I like being able to communicate in another way, besides using my voice. Signing is beautiful, even if others can’t understand it.”

Touched by his sincere words, you could only find it in you to give him a small reply: “Thank you.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Minseok asked, one eyebrow lifting as he watched you apprehensively. It was already your second week of classes, but Minseok was still worried about you getting lost on campus.

“I’m sure. Thank you for everything, Minseok.” You decided that you wanted to check out the library after classes since you had time until your grandmother came to get you, but Minseok had some urgent matters at home that needed taking care of, and he wouldn’t be able to accompany you.

“Okay, but if you need anything, just text me.”

“I will. Bye, Minseok!”

And that’s how you found yourself wandering amongst the shelves of books on the library’s fourth floor, eyes wide as you took in what seemed like endless rows of books and tables. The signs on the walls were printed with warnings that “This is a quiet study area!”, although it’s not like you would give them any trouble.

A sudden tapping on your shoulder caught you off guard, and you turned around with your breath caught in your throat only to see that boy, the one who had greeted Minseok on your first day here.

“Hi,” you saw his lips mouth. And then they continued to move, but you couldn’t tell what he was trying to tell you.

“Crap,” he cursed to himself as he saw the confusion on your face. “You’re such a fucking dumbass, Baekhyun,” he mumbled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbs flying furiously over the screen before he turned it around to show you. “I’m Baekhyun,” it read. “The guy that you saw with Minseok before?”

You nodded, instinctively raising your hands to sign before remembering that he wouldn’t be able to understand. You pulled your own phone out, suppressing a smile when you saw Baekhyun shifting on the balls of his feet as he waited. “Such an impatient kid,” you thought. Finally, you showed him your own screen: “I remember you. I’m Y/N. Minseok’s been helping me in my classes.”

“I know!” Baekhyun replied with a grin before remembering where he was, and that you couldn’t hear him. A frown formed on his lips as he erased his previous sentences and started anew. “Can we exchange numbers? It’ll be easier than talking like this.”

Within a matter of seconds, the two of you were settled down of the carpet of the library, facing each other but with your eyes looking down at your phones.

Baekhyun: where’s Minseok?

🌸: He went home early, I’m waiting for my grandma to pick me up

Baekhyun: were you by yourself this whole time?

He looked up from his phone to stare at you in shock, mouth open in disbelief. You looked up as well, shaking your head before glancing back to your phone once more.

🌸: He left like 20 minutes ago.

Baekhyun: 😫 next time he leaves, you should text me! i’ll keep you company

He groaned aloud as he realized how strange it might have sounded before sending another text.

Baekhyun: not in a weird way i’m so sorry about that

To his surprise, your body began to shake with silent giggles, your phone in danger of falling out of your hands.

🌸: It’s okay, I get what you meant.

Baekhyun: thank GOD, minseok would’ve killed me if i scared off his new friend ☠️

You found out that Baekhyun was a first-year student as well, still undecided in his major.

Baekhyun: my mom wants me to go into business and my dad wants me to go into kinesiology but i don’t even know what to do

He rolled his eyes, a proud smirk appearing on his lips when you grinned at his reaction.

🌸: You still have time, don’t worry too much about it. Isn’t that what college is for, finding out what you want to do for the rest of your life?”

Baekhyun: i wish my parents saw it the same way as you 😣

Baekhyun: what are you majoring in?

🌸: I’m an English major.

Baekhyun: 😮 so does that mean you’re like a good writer and all that stuff?

🌸: I think I’m pretty decent. 😅

Baekhyun: can you do my essays for me?? 😄

🌸: If I didn’t know you were joking, I would’ve gotten up and left right now.

“No!” Baekhyun exclaimed out loud, ignoring the icy glares shot his way by a couple of students sittting close by.

You lifted a finger to your lips, placing it there in a shushing motion. Judging by the other students’ reactions, your new friend was quite noisy.

🌸: You’re going to get us kicked out!

Baekhyun met your gaze after reading the text on his phone, eyebrow raised as he gave you a mischievous smile.

Baekhyun: i’ll tell them it was you 😂

🌸: Of course, it was the mute, deaf girl and not the annoying boy next to her.

Baekhyun: hey! i’m not annoying 😭i just have a lot of energy

🌸: Uh huh, sure.

Baekhyun: minseok didn’t tell me you were this mean

You peeked at him from out of the corner of your eye, catching the pout on his lips but the slight smile there as well.

🌸: And he didn’t tell me you were so childish. I guess we both got tricked.

Unable to stop himself, Baekhyun burst into laughter, hand coming up to his mouth as his eyes crinkled up with joy.

Aware of all the evil looks everyone within a ten foot radius was now giving the two of you, you stood up, dragging Baekhyun outside so that you wouldn’t be reprimanded for causing a disturbance.

He was still giggling, body shaking with laughter as you pulled him to a stop under one of the streetlights outside the library. “I’m sorry,” you saw his lips form.

Shaking your head, you let go of his hand that you had been holding the entire time. “It’s nothing,” you signed back without thinking, not even realizing that you had signed instead of texted until you saw Baekhyun watching you in awe.

His fingers flew over the screen of his phone once more, a look of determination on his face.

Baekhyun: will you teach me how to sign?

You froze, sure that you had misread his text, that this was all a figment of your imagination. Slowly, you began forming a reply.

🌸: Are you sure?

Baekhyun: yeah! i want to learn, and i think it would be easier for you if we signed instead of having to text all the time

Baekhyun: i can’t promise that i’m a top-student, but i’ll work hard! 👏

It would be silly to deny that your new friend didn’t amuse you, didn’t interest you in any way at all. But still, you had your worries. It had been so long since you had formed a close relationship with someone who didn’t speak primarily in sign. Even your family, your hearing father and grandmother chose to speak only in sign at home so that you wouldn’t feel left out. What if instead of getting closer to him, you ended up feeling even more alienated? What if he realized just how different the two of you were?

“Y/N?” Baekhyun’s face grew worried, brows lifting up slightly as his lips parted, trying to figure out what to say.

Biting down on your lip, you typed out your response quickly, hoping that this sudden burst of courage swelling up inside of you would last.

🌸: Okay, I’ll teach you.

“Really?” Baekhyun said aloud, looking back up at you after reading the text. “Thank you,” you saw him mouth.

You brought one of your hands up, slowly doing the sign for “Thank you” and feeling a swell of pride when Baekhyun copied it as well. A goofy smile appeared on his face as he repeated it, over and over. "Thank you, thank you."

You had known that Baekhyun was an enthusiastic person, but you had underestimated how much effort he would throw into learning sign language.

“Hello!” he greeted you and Minseok the next afternoon when he saw both of you walking together.

“You know how to sign?” Minseok asked in surprise, both aloud and with his hands.

“I’m...” Baekhyun’s nose scrunched up as he frowned, trying to sift through the signs that he had been studying last night from the Internet. “I’m learning?”

Immediately, you burst into applause, beaming proudly while Baekhyun’s expression changed to one of relief. “You’re doing well! I’m impressed.” Minseok relayed this to Baekhyun with a look of wonder himself, unable to believe what he had seen.

"Thank you!" Baekhyun returned, a tinge of pink appearing on his cheeks as he basked in your praise.

“When do you want to start lessons?” you signed, watching as Minseok translated what you said to Baekhyun.

Baekhyun said his response aloud, eyes on yours even while he spoke to Minseok.

Minseok tapped your shoulder with a finger, drawing your attention before signing. “He said he’s free tomorrow afternoon. He has work later on today.”

You silently mouthed an “Okay” in return, holding up six fingers and making sure that Baekhyun saw them.

“Six o’clock?” You read from the movement of his lips, and you nodded.

“Don’t be late,” you signed with a teasing smile, watching with interest as Baekhyun first looked at your signs, and then to Minseok for the translation.

He burst into laughter once he understood what you had said, head thrown back as he did so. “Okay,” you saw him mouth, and then something else that you couldn’t decipher.

“He said that he’ll try not to be,” Minseok made his signs loose and casual, just like the way Baekhyun had said it verbally.

You grinned before giving Baekhyun a thumbs-up. “I’ll see you two tomorrow,” you said before giving them a wave and walking away.

Just as Baekhyun was about to ask where you were going, Minseok laid a hand on his shoulder. “She said she’ll see us tomorrow. Her grandma should be here to pick her up.”

Immediately, Baekhyun’s shoulders drooped slightly, a pout playing at his bottom lip. “Oh,” he mumbled lamely.

“You’ve never been interested in learning sign before. How come you didn’t want to learn from me?” Minseok asked, the pitch of his voice high as he grew more curious.

“You’re not her.”

Minseok groaned, pushing Baekhyun away and walking off in the opposite direction. “I should have never introduced you to her.”

“Hey, I’m grateful to you for that!” Baekhyun yelled after him, cupping his hands around his mouth as he did so.

The only indication that Minseok gave of having heard was by throwing up a middle-finger, not even looking back to see Baekhyun’s reaction.

Baekhyun chuckled to himself, checking the time on his phone and walking off to his next class. As his steps along the grounds of the campus drew him closer to his classroom, his thoughts were drawn to you. If he was being honest, his interest in you ran deeper, his curiosity driving him to figure out what it was about you that intrigued him so much. Even during your first actual conversation together, you hadn’t walked away like most people would have. Granted, you had stayed at first out of politeness, but Baekhyun remembered how genuine your smiles were, how you had beamed when he tried to copy your signs.

Your signs were special to you, that much was obvious. But Baekhyun could see that your appreciation for sign language stemmed from something with more meaning. Every motion of your hands was graceful, embodied every emotion that you felt when you signed. Although Baekhyun couldn’t understand what you had signed, he could guess the general feeling behind them. It was like you gave every sign a new meaning, a renewed vivacity that resembled your own cheerful nature.

Baekhyun wanted to truly understand what you meant, to be able to read every nuance and feeling in the way that you signed. He wanted to know the person behind the signs.

He wanted you to know all this, and more.

Baekhyun's hands ached more than they ever had before in his life, muscles tired out from the extra use over the course of his sign lessons with you. But he still wore a grin on his face when he practiced, eyes trained on your hands as he followed every distinct movement. It had only been a month, but the two of you had already met up at least a dozen times for lessons. Baekhyun's sign vocabulary was growing exponentially, and you were taken aback by how much information he was retaining in such a short period of time. There were still many signs that he didn't know, but you always made sure to fingerspell them out for him whenever you two came across a new word.

As the two of you sat across from each other at one of your campus's Starbucks, you waited patiently as Baekhyun tried to string his thoughts together into a comprehensible series of signs.

"In my class today, we had a... p-o-p q-u-i-z," he spelled out the last words with a puzzled frown on his face.

You giggled to yourself before doing the sign for "pop quiz", waiting until Baekhyun copied it to ask him a question. "Which class was it?"

Although you couldn't hear it, judging by the way he leaned back in his seat and pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth, you could tell that Baekhyun had given a groan of frustration. He raised his hands, both of them hovering before him as he hesitated before signing. "...Talking?"

"Public speaking?"

"Yes!" He signed back, gesture broad and eyes widened as he remembered which sign he had been trying to make. "Public speaking! I did okay."

"Are you sure?"

That particular string of signs was a sort of inside joke between you two. When you had first taught it to Baekhyun, he had taken any opportunity that he could to use it. He had even used it around Minseok to tease him, and the older boy had shaken his head at you.

"At least you didn't teach him swear words," he had signed to you while mumbling it aloud for Baekhyun to understand.

With a cocked eyebrow, Baekhyun waited until both you and Minseok were looking at him to reply. "Are you sure, dickwad?"

His words had sent you into a coughing fit, with Baekhyun grinning devilishly at your reaction while Minseok had looked between the two of you with an icy glare on his face. "Both of you are children," he said before getting up and stalking away.

Now in the present, Baekhyun chuckled softly to himself at your signs. "Yes, I'm sure," he replied. "The pop quiz sucked major ass."

You groaned inwardly, grateful that the people nearby couldn't understand what he was saying. "Good signing, Baekhyun," you told him sarcastically. The sign that you used for Baekhyun's name was the sign for "laugh", signed with a "B".

"Thank you," Baekhyun said smugly, shooting you a wink. "What are we learning today?"

"Honestly, I'm tired." Your shoulders slumped forward, your lips pulling downwards.

"Food?" Baekhyun asked before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Baek: there's a really good burger place down the street!!!!! i'll drive!!!!

🌸: You just really don't want to study today, huh?

Baek: hey you're the one who brought it up first what do you say teacher? food?? please?

When you looked up from the text, you saw Baekhyun waiting for your reply with an exaggerated pout, head resting on top of his hands like a child.

"Okay," you signed. "But only for today."

"Are you sure?"

🌸: shut up before I change my mind

Baek: okay okay jeez

You and Baekhyun eagerly hopped into his brother's hand-me-down car, a particular splotch of misplaced color and a slight dent on the passenger side door catching your eye.

"Car a-c-c-i-d-e-n-t," Baekhyun explained to you when you pointed it out.

"A big one?"

“No, little. But scary.”

You nodded in acknowledgment, staying silent as Baekhyun began to back up out of the parking space. It was mutually understood that both of you would be unable to sign or text each other during the car ride, so you both enjoyed each other’s company in comfortable silence.

Although neither of you spoke, he stole glances at you every so often, and you pretended not to notice. Or at least, until you began to fear for your safety.

When you caught him looking at you briefly while he was driving across an intersection, you tapped his shoulder and nodded towards the road.

Taking the hint, Baekhyun’s head whipped back forward, stopping just in time as the car in front came to an unexpected halt.

Your hands tightened their grip from where they were clutching anxiously onto your seatbelt. You hadn’t even noticed that you had been doing that. Keeping your focus solely on the road, you were taken aback to suddenly see the car pull into the drive-thru of an In-N-Out.

“Really?” you asked Baekhyun as the car in front of you ordered.

“What?” he mouthed, staring back at you just as puzzled. “You don’t like b-u-r-g-e-r-s?”

You did the sign for “burger”, then continued on. “I do. But when you said you knew a good burger place, I didn’t think you meant In-N-Out.”

Judging by the look on his face, you had completely lost him. Maybe you had been signing too fast, or maybe there had been too many signs that he didn’t know.

“Later,” you told him, hoping he would understand.

Baekhyun nodded, but the furrow between his eyebrows was starting to worry you a bit. When you had finally gotten a bag of food settled in your lap and had driven back to the campus’s parking lot, you pulled out your phone.

🌸: I said that I didn’t think your “good burger place” was gonna be In-N-Out. Everyone knows that place, I wasn’t expecting you to hype it up like some secret hole-in-the-wall restaurant. 😂

Baek: it’s in-n-out you HAVE to hype it up 😤

🌸: Okay, okay I get it.

Baek: was it hard for you when you first started learning to sign? i thought i was doing really well until i only got like 3 words out of your last sentence

🌸: It was definitely hard for me too. It’s not something easy you can pick up immediately, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re doing well.

Baekhyun gazed up at you hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He paused for a second, before stretching an arm over the car console to hold onto one of your hands. “Thank you,” he signed with his free hand.

“You’re welcome.”

Something about this exchange was different, maybe it was the serious mood that had fallen over both of you. Maybe it was the close proximity that you were in, you and Baekhyun sitting not even a foot away from each other as you both hesitated, waiting for someone to speak up.

All of a sudden, Baekhyun twitched in his seat, head turning from side to side as he scanned his surroundings worriedly. His hand slipped away from yours as he continued to look around. The bags of fast food that you had bought lay forgotten on the floor of the car as he grew more anxious.

“What? What is it?” You signed frantically, pausing only when you noticed that Baekhyun had brought his hands up to cover his ears.

He snuck a look at out the window closest to him, then back to you. “Car a-l-a-r-m,” he told you. “Noisy.”

Oh. “Are you... okay?” you asked tentatively, unsure of what to say. Had it been an ear-piercing, shrieking noise, striking out through the air? Were your memories of what car alarms sounded like still reliable enough to look back on?

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Baekhyun’s hands dropped to his chest, coming to rest over his heart as he breathed in and out. He stared ahead, eyes blown wide as he tried to calm himself from the sudden scare. When he noticed you staring at him, he flashed you a goofy smile.

You tried to mirror it, but you were too busy caught up in your own thoughts. It wasn’t often that you wished to be able to hear again - in fact, you rarely did at all. When you were younger, you used to wish for it almost daily, a hopeful, naive wish of a child. You thought that you were past that stage of your life, that you were finally comfortable with who you were and what your circumstances were as well.

But one little car alarm had managed to unravel you, to have you wondering once again what it would be like to hear, to be like Baekhyun.

The boy in question waved his hands in front of your face, brows drawn upwards as he tried to get your attention. “Y/N? Are you okay?” you read from his lips.

You nodded, breathing shaky as you exhaled. Maybe this doubt hadn’t been as sudden as you thought, maybe it had been festering in the back of your mind for a while. After meeting Baekhyun, you had caught yourself a couple of times imagining what it would be like to hear, to listen to his laughter, to what he had to say.

You wanted to know what your name sounded like coming from his lips.

A sudden vibration from your phone startled you, alerting you of a new message.

Baek: are u sure you’re ok?? do you need me to do anything? grab water? roll down the windows?

🌸: No, it’s fine. I was just thinking.

Baek: you looked pretty serious about it wanna talk? or not if im being too nosy just tell me and ill shut up

You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, staring only at the screen of your phone as you hesitated. There weren’t many people that you had opened up to about your biggest worries, the thoughts that haunted you during the deep of night. Your father and grandmother tried their best to understand, but despite their deep love for you, they were still hearing people who had never had to struggle with hearing loss and brain trauma. They could sympathize with your loss and grief, but they could never truly feel what you felt. Your best friend Junmyeon understood a bit more, but since he had been deaf since birth, it was hard for him to grasp the concept of yearning for a lost ability. You were worried that Baekhyun wouldn’t understand, that he would be uncomfortable with your deepest thoughts.

But he had been understanding and kind for as long as you had known him. He had been patient, had treated your words with a kindness and genuine curiosity that you had rarely seen from others. He made an effort to understand what you thought, to speak to you in ways that were comfortable for you.

Baekhyun didn’t pretend that there wasn’t something that distinctly set you apart from others like your family did, the way they always went out of their ways to protect and keep you safe. He knew that you were different from the beginning, but instead of letting this shape his perception of you, he continued to see you for who you were.

Y/N, not just a girl with traumatic brain damage, but Y/N the college student. The English major. The type of person who makes sarcastic remarks but still holds a lot of care and interest for the loved ones around her.

Baekhyun was here not because he felt pity for you, but because he truly wanted to know you. You had a lot of respect for him for that. Maybe something other than respect.

🌸: I was just thinking about what it would be like to hear again.

Baek: minseok told me that you used to be able to hear when you were little

🌸: Did he tell you everything?

Baek: no and i didn’t ask, i didn’t want to be all nosy

Baekhyun was many things: curious, playful, bright, but nosy was not one of them.

🌸: Can I tell you what happened?

Baek: Y/N only if you want to if it makes you uncomfortable to tell me you don’t have to

🌸: I want to. You’re one of my closest friends. I don’t know, do you ever get that feeling where like if you don’t tell someone something that you’ll explode?

Baek: yeah i get what you mean

🌸: For some reason, I’ve been feeling like that lately. When I was little, I was in a pretty bad accident. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember how scared I was when I couldn’t hear anything, when I realized how hard it was for me to study. Words got jumbled up in my head and the doctors told my dad that I’d probably end up having trouble with language. I guess that’s why I was so stubborn about doing well in reading and writing in school.

At first it was really hard. It was hard to keep up with my friends, to keep up with schoolwork when I felt like my life had restarted and I was learning how to live again. That was when I really wanted to hear the most. I felt like without my ability to hear and communicate with others, I was lost. I started to feel like that again recently too.

Baek: really? why?

He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, a concerned look on his face although you didn't catch it.

🌸: Sometimes I just wish that I could listen to what you have to say, to not have to rely on texting or on Minseok to translate for me.

A few tense seconds passed before you got a new text.

Baek: is it because i'm not good at signing?

Your head shot up, pain on Baekhyun’s face and your own.

"No," you told him. "That's not it."

"Then what?" he mouthed, still slightly hurt from the misunderstanding.

You typed away more quickly than you ever had before, showing him the screen instead of waiting for the text to reach his phone.

🌸: I want to hear because I want to know what your voice sounds like. I want to know what your laugh sounds like too, especially when you laugh so hard that your sides end up hurting.

Baekhyun's pupils moved from side to side as he read through the lines of text before moving back to meet yours. "Really?"

Nodding, you did your best to ignore the overwhelming bunch of nerves starting to rise in your chest.

"Why?"

"I like you."

Baekhyun simply stared at you, and you began to worry that he had forgotten the sign for "like". That couldn't be possible, could it? I mean, he had been learning a lot and maybe you had unrealistic expectations- oh wait, hold on. Sometime during your inner meltdown, Baekhyun had started to sign.

"You... like me?"

You nodded once more, biting on the inside of your cheek as you waited for a full answer.

"Are you sure?"

You huffed out impatiently, signing a loud "YES! I like you! You make me smile every day. Whenever I see you, I don't want to say goodbye."

Baekhyun reached out to take your hands in his own, his fingers shaky as he licked his lips nervously. His thumbs ran over the backs of your hands before he removed one of his. "I like you too. Hearing, or deaf, I like you. A lot."

As soon as he finished, you gave a silent laugh of relief.

"You hear me now," he continued. "A-l-r-e-a-d-y. And I hear you. I like you a lot, a lot, a lot."

"Okay, I get it!" you signed back with a silly smile, bashful from all of this new affection.

Baekhyun brought your hands up to his lips, placing a sweet kiss on top of them before letting go and resting his hands on your hips. He pulled you closer, his lips coming to meet yours.

It was startling to realize that in those two kisses, those two simple acts of love that you could read every emotion and thought that Baekhyun was trying to tell you. Things like "I like you, I want you, I cherish you, I hear you", all understood through the slightest of touches.

And so you kissed him back, just as passionate in what you had to say. "I like you, I hear you."

"I understand you."

A/N: okay I feel like I say this for every new fic but I SWEAR this time, this is my favorite fic that I’ve put on here. For one of my classes last year, we studied special education and I wanted to incorporate this into my writing somehow. There are some really good books out there about figures in the deaf community, I’d definitely recommend looking into them if you’re interested! Also, if I got something wrong about traumatic brain damage/special education/etc. please tell me so I can correct it! I tried my best to use class notes and the internet to make sure I was using factual information (trying to describe what type of damage there was took a lot of reading through my notes and I’m still worried I’ve messed up something lol)

#kpoptrashtag #exo #baekhyun #baekhyun scenario #baekhyun fanfic #exo scenario #writings

258 notes · View notes

mama-m1na · 5 years

Text

Three Rings: Chapter 1

~~~I~~~

It was a surprisingly nice morning in Temecula, California.

The sun was hidden by light grey clouds and there was a nice breeze going by compared to the usual bright and dry weather in June.

A teenage female let out a yawn as she made her way down the street towards the park just down the street from her home.

She wore a dark plum, knee-length dress with black wedges and had a brown, leather purse across her body. Around her neck was a pentagram necklace with purple gems and on a shorter chain was an amethyst pendulum with a small charm with a ‘T’ displayed on it. On her left pointer finger was a gold ring with three small diamonds on it; which, was a gift from a friend. Hanging from her ears were a pair of silver, hoop earrings.

Her black hair was left down for the day to just reach her thighs and the length of the dress allowed a decent amount of her golden-brown skin to be left visible as her brown irises speckled with golden flecks were turned down to the screen of her phone.

‘I’m going to meet with the council right now,’ she sent into her discord server before placing her phone back into her purse.

Quickly looking around to make sure no one saw her, the ravenette went behind a fence and headed under the bridge which went over a ditch in the middle of her park.

Going to the second column, past all of the random graffiti, she found a symbol etched into the concrete of three crescent moons tangled amongst each other surrounded by a larger circle.

Taking one last look at her surroundings she held her right hand over the symbol and said, “Lacus.”

It felt as if the floor disappeared from underneath her feet as the surroundings disappeared from around her before changing to the scenery of the entrance of a train station.

Putting her hand back to her side she was about to enter the building when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window.

“Ugh,” she scoffed looking at how one of her eyes was open slightly wider than the other, “I look so dead inside.”

Taking a small booklet from her bag that read ‘Magical Registration: Identification Card’, she opened it and swiped it over the scanner at the turn gates before walking through and entering her train which had arrived on time for once.

Upon taking her seat the female sighed as the train began to move before taking out a tube of concealer from her purse and a compact.

Using the mirror to see, she put concealer on her eyelids before blending it out with and air puff.

She then put away the tube of concealer before opening the second part of the compact to reveal a small eyeshadow palette and got an eyeshadow brush from her purse before using a light plum shade all over her eye.

After making sure it was even she pulled out a liquid eyeliner and applied it extremely carefully due to the fact she was in a moving vehicle.

It took about forty minutes for the train to get to the ravenette’s stop and she just spent the time responding to people on her discord server.

Resurfacing from the subway, the ravenette found herself standing in front of a building with Roman styled columns and a large sign that read ‘Magic Registry’.

Once again taking the green-covered identification card the female entered before showing it to the secretary who sat at the front desk before being led to a conference room at the top floor of the building.

Upon opening the door the female earned the attention of six elderly looking creatures already sitting at the circular table in the center of the room.

“Hello Ms. Ibadora,” a woman covered in scales greeted, “It’s nice to see your actual face for once.”

“Yeah well I decided to actually try on my appearance today and thought it would be a waste to cover it with a mask,” the ravenette chuckled before taking a seat closer to the door, “So why am I being called in today?”

“We have another job for your circus,” a man with pointed ears said handing the girl a file from across the table, “This one is much more important than the previous jobs you’ve handled.”

The teen’s eyes widened as she read over the contents of the file before she looked up and asked, “Are you sure you want the Three Ring Circus to handle this one?”

“Do you believe you are incapable of completing it?” a human woman asked causing the ravenette to shake her head.

“That’s not it,” she explained, “We’re a group of reject, teenage witches and wizards… Are you sure a job this important should be given to us?”

“I’m sure you’ve handled it much worse,” a human man chuckled, “We let you stay together as an official guild for a reason.”

It was silent as the seventeen-year-old thought about her options.

“Alright,” she finally said slipping the folder into her purse which didn’t show any sign of holding anything in it, “We’ll get it done as efficiently as we can.”

Saying her goodbyes the female exited the conference room and was about to leave the building until the secretary called for her.

“You should probably take this as well,” the woman said handing the ravenette a long envelope.

“A wand permit application?” she read with a raised brow.

“Your old one is about to expire isn’t it?”

“Oh, you’re right well thank you.”

“No problem, see you next time, Ms. Ibadora,” the secretary said earning the attention of a young male walking down the hall.

‘Ibadora?’ he thought with wide eyes walking after the ravenette who had just walked out the doors of the building.

“Kitsami, wait!” he called just as the female was about to descend into the subway again.

“Hm?” she asked looking up to see a familiar looking elf in a Royal Guard’s uniform which consisted of a red, blue, and gold outfit paired with white gloves and boots with a blue cap.

“So it is actually you,” the blonde male stated looking down at the slightly shorter female.

“I’m sorry do I know you?” she asked as the wind picked up a it causing her raven locks to flutter slightly.

“I’m Fidel Einnor, I was in the same year as you in the Trinity Institute,” he explained as the light of recognition flashed through the female’s eyes.

“That’s why I thought you looked familiar, it’s so good to see you again!” she chirped embracing the male for a moment, “You’re part of the Royal Guard now? Congratulations! It must have been a hard thing to do after just graduating.”

“Thank you, and it really was,” he chuckled, “So how have you been, I haven’t seen you since you graduated early after 9th grade.”

“Well, since then I’ve been a Peacekeeper for the past three years and I’m also the Ringmaster of the Three Ring Circus,” she said brushing her hair behind her ear.

“A Peacekeeper?” he asked with a small frown, “since you were only fourteen? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Says the one who’s in the Royal Guard at seventeen? You’re seventeen now right?” the ravenette retorted, “plus it isn’t that bad once you know what you’re doing.”

“The Royal Guard doesn’t have to go out into the other world and try to keep both worlds safe,” the blonde sighed, “We only stay here.”

“That’s probably why they let me become a Peacekeeper then,” she shrugged, “Considering I didn’t even know this world existed for half of my life. I just knew plain old everyday human life and that I had to hide magic otherwise my parents would call me a freak. Hell, even now I’m being called a freak here because I’m the first witch in my clan within the past ten generations and now I’m the clan head so… Fuck…”

She took a deep breath before taking out a sticky note from her bag and writing something down before handing it back to the male.

“Text me so we can talk again later, I need to pick up a book and I want to get there before it gets flooded with teenagers,” she smiled before descending back down into the subway to wait for her train.

When she emerged from under the bridge the ravenette crossed the street to get to the bus stop and wait for her bus.

When the vehicle arrived she pulled out her student I.D. that read ‘Rhamina Miyu; Grade: 11’ and showed the bus driver before paying her reduced fee.

As she found her seat, the ravenette sent a text in her discord server.

'So we all got another job,' she typed while looking out the window of the air conditioned bus, 'And we're being transferred to Japan.'

Within moments of sending the message she was getting bombarded with questions about their new job and how they were even going to get there.

The ravenette merely shook her head at all the questions and told them that she would give them details at their next practice which was in two days.

Once at her stop Rhamina got off and walked across the street to her local Barnes and Noble.

She spent quite a bit of time browsing through manga but also looked over some of the stationary they offered.

‘Forty-five dollars for a traveler’s journal?’ she thought looking through the nicely made, leather journal, ‘I could make this for cheaper and better suited to my needs.’

After purchasing the latest volume of ‘Children of the Whales’ and a brush pen, the teen walked over to the craft store behind the chain bookstore to get the supplies she was looking for which were leather fabric and elastic cord.

Once the female got home she immediately got set on making the journal by first making the journal inserts from paper and cardstock she already had then made the cover using the leather and elastic cord.

After the two pieces were finished she just slipped the inserts into the elastic bands in the spine of the leather cover and also slipped her Magical I.D. in it for safekeeping before taking out her wand permit application and filling it out with green ink.

The next day for the female was just spent looking up schools in the area of where they would be stationed as to not draw attention to themselves as a group of sixty teenagers randomly showing up in Japan.

As she did this she mentally thanked her parents for not living in the same house as her.

Her father lived with his new wife in Washington state after he divorced from her mother but also had a house he kept in Japan from his time being stationed there in the U.S. Navy.

Her mother was also in the Navy and was currently on a ship in Hawaii.

Both of her parents were quite appalled upon finding out that she was a true witch, even going as far as keeping her true name from her until she found out from her outside family, but eventually her father began to grow accustomed to the idea and slowly began to support it.

Rhamina’s mother on the other hand… Well, she hasn’t actually spoken to her mother in almost three years. They’ve only contacted each other over email and even then there was almost no emotion behind those words.

Calling her father, Rhamina asked to use the house in Japan for the time they would be working there and he agreed.

The rest of the day the female just read over the files and took notes in the new journal she had made the day prior.

At around four o’clock she received a call from one of the members of her troupe.

“Hello?” she asked as she finished up a sentence she was writing before cracking her back over the chair at her desk.

“Mina, G-lo wants to know if you want to come over to the park cause his phone is like dead,” the voice of her friend, Jamie, requested.

“Sure,” the ravenette replied as she began to put the papers away, “I’ll be there in a bit, I just need to change.”

After ending the brief phone call, the ravenette made her way to her closet to change out of her house clothes into a plum colored shirt and a pair of bleached, denim shorts.

She then put the journal into her purse as well as her phone before heading out of her house, making sure the doors were locked.

It took less than ten minutes to reach and find the pair of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds sitting at a table under the sun.

“Mina!” called the taller blonde as she ran up to hug the upperclassmen.

“Hi, Jamie,” Rhamina greeted before turning to her fellow Filipino neighbor, “and hello to you G-Lo.”

“Hi, Mina,” the taller male greeted before the trio began to walk around the almost empty park.

“So, are we really being transferred to Japan?” Jamie asked once they reached a more secluded part of the park.

“Yep,” the ravenette replied popping the ‘P’ at the end, “According to the case report there are a lot more magical anomalies in Japan than there should be, even for an Asian country. Our job is to actually find out what’s causing it, report it back to the Council, and put a stop to it rather than just apprehending someone.”

“So we’re getting an actual job is what you’re saying?” G-Lo asked as the wind blew past them.

“Aw, and I was just getting used to Temecula!” Jamie pouted slightly before asking, “What about school?”

“Well, I’ve already contacted the Trinity Institute about that and they’re sending some professors to a local high school for you guys so you’ll be fine,” Rhamina explained, “Oh, that reminds me, make sure your wand permits and Magic IDs are up to date. As soon as we get there we won’t have much free time.”

“Mina, you’re so lucky graduated early and don’t have to deal with school anymore,” G-Lo said earning a chuckle from the said female.

“I don’t have to deal with school anymore but I have to deal with being a clan head while being completely disliked by almost everyone in the magical community for existing,” she retorted, “I would honestly take that over school though, it’s funny making adults get so frustrated over me but not being able to do anything about it because the council favors me.”

“Yeah, that is funny,” G-Lo chuckled remembering the stories of the times Rhamina had been in meetings with said adults.

When their walk was over Jamie was picked up from the park by her mother and the other two walked back to their kuldesac together since they lived in houses right across from each other.

As soon as the female had changed back into her house clothes she looked at the case reports and just knew she would need to make copies of them for the others in the troupe.

Instead of using her printer and wasting ink the ravenette decided to use a spell to have one of her pens copy down all of the files word for word, and image for image.

Normally she wouldn’t resort to using magic for something so mundane but she didn’t have time nor the heart to do it any other way.

The next day the teenager begrudgingly woke up early and changed into an anime t-shirt as well as a pair of normal denim shorts with her normal wedges.

Checking the time to see it was around eight in the morning she sighed before getting her chia pudding that she made the day before as well as her purse which had her traveller’s journal in it.

Immediately she left the house locked the door and called G-Lo; while, walking over to his house.

“Hello?” he asked groggily, making it obvious to the female that he had just woken up.

“Jello, it’s already eight o’clock, the meeting starts at nine and the bus will be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Wait, shit! That’s today!”

The ravenette chuckled when the line went dead and five minutes later the teen appeared at the front door of his home.

“You forgot didn’t you,” Rhamina accused as they began their walk to the bus stop which was on the opposite side of the park.

“I set alarms but they didn’t go off,” he replied brushing his unstraightened hair out of his face while they waited in the shaded area.

When the bus came around the two presented their student IDs before paying and taking a seat.

Rhamina uncapped her Chia Pudding before pulling out a spoon from her purse and beginning her meal.

She tried to offer some to the fifteen-year-old but he denied it saying he was just going to buy something from the stores across the street from the high school.

At eight forty a multitude of students had gathered at the still locked gate of the performing arts wing of the school and were complaining about how the school never let’s them in on time.

“Fuck this,” Rhamina hissed as she made her way to the gate with her pendant glowing a light purple.

Along with that her eyes were glowing a soft gold color and her hair began to float as her raised her left hand.

Snap!

With the snap of her fingers the ravenette then pulled the gate opened without the silent alarms going off as her hair fell back down and neither her pendant or irises glowed.

“Mina!” a female called with a surprised/scolding tone.

“What?” she replied as she pulled over a nearby garbage can to keep it open, “We have an important meeting today and need to get started as soon as possible.”

“But we’re Peacekeepers!” the same female voice said worriedly.

“We only get in trouble if we get caught now get in the fucking gate,” Rhamina said pointing at the other kids already walking in.

“Good, someone already opened up the way to the tent,” she said as she walked through the open door of a classroom only to end up in the inside of a circus tent.

After waiting about ten more minutes Rhamina stood up from her spot on the ground and called, “Hey, Band!”

“Hey, what?!” was the simultaneous reply she got before everyone stopped talking and the tent became silent.

“Can someone shut the tent?” she asked glancing at the open archway before a short male closed the door causing it to phase out leaving a closed tent flap in its place, “Thank you, Zack.”

“Now!” she said snapping her fingers once again causing rows of desks to appear in front of the seats where the audience would usually sit, “As you guys are taking your seats what are the status on the recent missions we were given?”

“Trumpets finished their mission with no problems!” a Mexican female called giving a thumbs up.

“Alright, thank you Vivian,” Rhamina said before turning to another section of seats, “Everyone else finish?”

She earned a series of positive responses and nods before opening her purse to take out her traveller’s journal; however, she kept it open near and on her as she cleared her throat.

“Okay, now that basic stuff is out of the way, onto why most of you were actually excited about a meeting for once,” Rhamina said as multiple folders began flying out of her purse and landing in front of each occupied seat, “If you checked the discord server then you’ll already know that we’re going to be transferred to Japan for awhile and those are copies of the case reports for this job of ours.”

“As you know when thinking of places where magic runs rampant, Asia is at the top with the amount of creatures they have,” she explained earning agreements from the Asian teens in the troupe, “But recently there are an alarmingly higher rate of magical anomalies in Japan and the Council believes there was an interference to the peace.”

“So we’re all going to Japan to apprehend someone?” a smaller girl with curly, purple hair and glasses asked.

“Not exactly. With the extent of what has been happening recently the Council believes it is a group of at least ten people who did it and not only are we tasked with apprehending each of them but we have to fix all the anomalies and make sure they don’t happen again,” the ravenette said looking down at her notes momentarily.

“That’s all?” a male sitting towards the back asked with a shrug.

“Don’t get cocky, Justin,” Rhamina said with her eyes narrowed slightly at the male, “It sounds easy but we have some obstacles.”

“Now, you probably don’t know who they are since I’m sure none of you are as much of a weeb as me-” “Bet!” a Filipino female called from the front row next to a Mexican female with short brown hair.

“But I’m talking about the Sailor Senshi and Phantom Thieves of Hearts,” Rhamina continued, mostly ignoring the interjection of her sibling, “The Sailor Senshi are basically guardians and personifications of various celestial beings in space. They are seen as local heroes and normally we would have to do something about them being so flashy about their powers but it’s too late for that since they have basically become quite normal in Japan so we’re leaving them alone. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts are seen by the public as criminals but they’re only doing vigilante work which is what we used to do before becoming Peacekeepers so we’re just going to leave them alone as well.”

“How exactly are they obstacles, hoot?” another Filipino with short-ish brown hair asked from the third row.

“With both groups acting as the guardians of Japan they might see our presence as a threat and normally we would want to avoid them but with what we’re trying to do it’s inevitable we’ll cross paths with both groups,” the ravenette sighed before cracking her neck, “So we’ll basically try to convince them that we mean no harm and not get in their way and hopefully they won’t get in ours.”

“What happens if they do?” another male, this time Filipino, named Justin asked.

“What happens to anyone that gets in the way of the Three Ring Circus?” Rhamina asked instantly causing laughter to erupt throughout the tent.

“Hey!” the female barked, causing the ground to shake.

It was silent as she continued, “I’m being serious. I don’t want any conflict with them but we have a job to do so if they get in our way we know what to do.”

“Are there any questions?”

A few hands were raised and Rhamina picked her sibling first.

“Yes, Kerstin?”

“So we’re being transferred to Tokyo, Japan right?” the darkette asked earning a nod from the seventeen-year-old, “Where exactly will we be living?”

“I found some decent apartments in Tokyo that will be paid for by the Council and I have a house that you, Sam, Chloe, and Tijarah will be staying in with me,” Rhamina replied before choosing another person for questions.

“Alright!” Rhamina said at around 2:50 in the afternoon, “So we’ll be leaving for Japan in about three weeks so make sure you keep training and make sure all of your documents are up to date with the registry! That’s all for today so you’re dismissed.”

As soon as she said that the kids began to exit the tent and ended up back in the school hallway next to the gate they entered from.

Once it was only G-Lo and Rhamina in the tent she swiped her right hand from left to right with her palm held out causing the desks to disappear.

“Well, since we’re here do you want to go to Round 1?” Rhamina asked as they approached the gate which she now had to lock.

“We have three hours till the bus to take us home so might as well,” the male replied.

With that the two teenagers went on the twenty minute walk from the high school to the mall in which the arcade was.

They spent the first two hours playing arcade games and eating some food before they both decided to go up for karaoke.

“Why did I agree to do this?” Rhamina asked on the stage nervously holding a mic.

“No one else was doing it,” G-Lo reasoned looking through the song book, “Plus no one will pay attention.”

“Oh! I think you know this song!” he stated entering the song number as a familiar drum beat began to play over the speakers.

“G-Lo, you edgy bastard,” Rhamina chuckled as the lights began to flash different colors.

“Ever on and on I continue circling with nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony,” the male started while reading the lyrics from the small screen in front of them as the ravenette had begun the dance in the background, “Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing. And suddenly I see that I can’t break free. I’m-”

“Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity with nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony,” the ravenette continued not paying attention to the audience they were gaining, “To tell me who I am who I was uncertainty enveloping my mind till I can’t break free and-”

“Maybe it’s a dream maybe nothing else is real but it wouldn’t mean a thing if I told you how I feel,” G-lo sung again as Rhamina dropped to background vocals, “So I’m tired of all the pain all the misery inside and I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night.”

“You can tell me what to say, you can tell me where to go but I doubt that I would care and my heart would never know,” the ravenette sang glancing down at the lyrics every so often, “If I make another move there’ll be no more turning back because everything would change and it all will fade to black.”

“Will tomorrow ever come? Will I make it through the night? Will there ever be a place for the broken in the light?” G-Lo sung now doing the dance with Rhamina, “Am I hurting? Am I sad? Should I stay or should I go? I’ve forgotten how to tell. Did I ever even know?”

“Can I take another step? I’ve done everything I can. All the people that I see I will never understand,” both teens began singing as they now noticed the large crowd at the base of the stage, “If I find a way to change if I step into the light then I’ll never be the same and it all will fade to white.”

As both teens danced during the guitar solo Rhamina glared at the boy mentally saying, ‘Liar!’

“Ever on and on I continue circling with nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony,” G-Lo sang with a shrug in response to the ravenette, “Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing and suddenly I can’t break free, I’m-”

“Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity with nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony,” Rhamina took over once again now plotting ways to get back at the younger male, “To tell me who I am, who I was. Uncertainty enveloping my mind till I can’t break free and-”

“Maybe it’s a dream, maybe nothing else is real but it wouldn’t mean a thing if I told you how I feel,” G-Lo continued starting to get a bit tired from the performance, “So I’m tired of all the pain all the misery inside and I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night.”

“You can tell me what to say, you can tell me where to go, but I doubt that I would care and my heart would never know,” Rhamina sung feeling the same fatigue, “If I make another move there’ll be no turning back because everything would change and it all would fade to black.”

“If I make another move, if I take another step then it all would fall apart there’d be nothing of me left,” Rhamina sang as the song changed key, “If I’m crying in the wind, if I’m crying in the night will there ever be a way will my heart return to white?”

“Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me where I am? I’ve forgotten how to see, I’ve forgotten if I can,” both teens sung pushing because they knew the song was almost over, “If I opened up my eyes there’s be no more going back ‘cause I’d throw it all away and it all would fade to black.”

As the two stood in their final pose, panting, the audience cheered loudly and the ravenette sat down on the stage.

“Never will this happen again!” she hissed at the male while trying to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think they would pay attention,” G-Lo responded as both of them walked off the stage and sat down to get drinks and take a break.

While the two were sitting many people came up to say what a great job they did performing and one of the workers even came by to give them a free ice cream each.

“So, I saw that you finally did a face reveal on your Youtube channel,” G-Lo said as they were finishing up their dessert.

“Yeppers, it was on the ‘Senbonzakura’ video I did,” Rhamina replied throwing away the paper around the cone, “It was so much more editing than I would usually do though so I might just stick to the simple drawings in the background I use.”

That night the ravenette sat at her Wiccan styled altar and picked up her tarot cards after saging them.

She shuffled them with her eyes closed, focused on their job on Japan before drawing the three top cards.

The first was the Knight of Cups, upright. A creative, dreamy individual, the Knight heralds new relationships, and friends. As a situation, he brings that holiday feeling- a sociable, languorous time spent musing on the infinite possibilities of life in a sunshine glow. If one falls for the Knight romantically, he may offer affection but one may feel uncertain about his potential as a long-term partner.

The second was the Six of Cups, upright. Past and present mingle, bringing happiness and stimulation. One benefits from skills acquired and contacts from the past, and appreciate what one’s life experience has brought them. An old friend or other acquaintance resurfaces, and one may enjoy time spent reminiscing. The company and ideas offer a spark of inspiration for future schemes and adventures.

The third was the Ace of Wands, upright. As a symbol of creative masculine energy, this card expresses inspiration and good communication, and favors all new plans and projects. Whether one is setting up a business or hoping to start a family, embarking on a trip away or an artistic pursuit, the Ace predicts great success. It’s the perfect time to take an important step forward.

‘Well, this seems like our mission will go smoothly then,’ the ravenette thought as she put away the cards.

If only it ever went as smoothly as she wanted.

~~~Fin. Chapter 1~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Song Used:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPLxGctIQJE

Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgeQPTq2xqk

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436497388884225850/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#Three Rings #Chapter 1 #Rhamina Miyu #G-Lo #Kerstin Vera #Samantha Fatimah #Tijarah Charlize #Chloe Rayer #Sailor Moon x Persona 5 #Fanfic #Ringmaster

1 note · View note