#and when given the chance I have to practically bully myself into actually resting
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“Haha I’d love the chance to sleep thirteen hours straight” says me
“Well now that I have the chance I’m going to push myself to write instead” says me
#don’t worry I’m going to bed#that moment when you realize you’re going and pushing yourself too hard again#I feel like I push so hard all the time that I don’t even know how to take a break#and when given the chance I have to practically bully myself into actually resting#because I’m so used to white knuckling it and just Dealing y’know?#anyways I’m going to sleep for 13 hours night night
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Just Practice - Chapter 17
here’s the ao3 link
The hospital garden was nestled along the northern side of the building and overlooked a small pond. Perhaps it was too generous to call it a garden. In reality, it was only a few flower beds of orchids and lilacs stowed carefully in terracotta pots. When the weather was nice, the patients would often spend some time there on the benches to get some fresh air. It wasn’t much but it definitely beat being cooped up in a hospital room with that stale, sterilized air that always made her feel more like a laboratory specimen than a human being.
After her surgery, Annabeth was allowed to visit the garden provided she went in a wheelchair to avoid agitating her knee. The doctor’s initial diagnosis had proven to be accurate once they ran some imaging tests on her: it was, in fact, a torn ACL. Annabeth had suspected as much, and she opted to get it operated on sooner than later. The surgery had gone quite well, actually. She had been lucky enough to only suffer a partial tear, according to her doctor. If she had suffered a complete tear, it could have possibly made both surgery and her subsequent recovery much more difficult.
Nonetheless, Annabeth didn’t feel particularly lucky. Honestly, in the week that she spent at the hospital, she hardly felt anything at all. Just numb. Her physical therapy sessions were the only things she had to look forward to in order to get her mind off of things. Otherwise, she was mainly stuck confined to her bed with her leg suspended in that god awful brace. Piper had brought her some novels to occupy her time, but Annabeth couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to anything she read.
Today was the first day the weather had been clear enough to head outside, and Annabeth had jumped at the chance to get out of her stuffy hospital room as soon as she could. She sat outside staring at the pond with her brain turned off, watching ducks glide across the water’s surface and preen their feathers.
Within another day or two she would be discharged from the hospital and would have to head back home, but she really didn’t want to. Her father had dropped by the day after her injury, but his visit was practically a formality. He had stayed for all of five minutes, only making sure she wasn’t dead really, before he left. On top of every other shitty thing that had happened to her recently, his visit only served to rub salt in the wound.
Sometime mid-afternoon, one of the orderlies told her that she had a visitor. Annabeth had been expecting Piper or Jason, but she was surprised to see Reyna approach her instead.
Reyna gave her a small wave, her hand hidden in the sleeve of her purple sweatshirt. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Annabeth said, blinking. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Reyna shifted on her heels. “I’m not intruding am I?”
“Funnily enough, my schedule is quite free these days,” Annabeth said lightly.
That managed to get the corner of Reyna’s lips to tug upwards. “Glad to see your injury hasn’t done anything to change your god-awful sense of humor.”
“It’s quite bad mannered to bully the infirm, you know,” Annabeth sniffed.
Reyna rolled her eyes and sat down at the bench beside Annabeth. “How’s your leg doing?”
Annabeth sighed and said, “It’s recovering. Just got surgery done a few days ago.”
“Surgery?” Reyna frowned.
Annabeth nodded. “Turns out I tore my ACL.”
Reyna grimaced and said, “Jeez, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The doctors said that I’m lucky it was only a partial tear,” Annabeth said, smiling weakly. “But I don’t feel particularly lucky.”
“D-Did they say anything about how long it’ll take for you to make a full recovery?” Reyna asked hesitantly.
“They were pretty wishy-washy about it,” Annabeth said, shrugging. “Guessing they don’t want to be liable for being wrong. Only estimate they gave me was that I could walk normally in about two weeks or so. After that, depends on how well I respond to physical therapy.”
Reyna was silent for a while before she said, “Meet me at the college circuit someday. I’ll be waiting there for you. And then we can finally settle things.”
Annabeth picked at the hem of her shirt with a wan smile. “What’s there to settle? I haven’t beat you a single time. There’s a clear winner here, and it sure isn’t me.”
“You of all people should know you’re only as good as your last race,” Reyna said. “People in our sport can never afford to rest on their laurels.”
When Annabeth was silent, Reyna quietly said, “You look like you’ve already given up.”
Reyna’s words stung and made Annabeth recoil. “I’m sick of giving myself false hope.”
“The way I see it, hope has nothing to do with it. The only question is if you still want to try. If you still want to compete, then you’ll keep pushing until you find a way through,” Reyna said, shrugging.
“Now, I’m not here to tell you whether you should keep going or not. That’s up to you. But don’t hide behind hope as an excuse. If you want to stop, then own it.”
Annabeth stared at her lap for a while and said, “I- I don’t know. I need more time to think about it.”
Reyna nodded and said, “I don’t blame you. It’s a big decision.”
There was another pause before Annabeth cleared her throat and said, “I never got a chance to apologize. For what happened at the meet, I mean.”
Reyna furrowed her brow. “What is there to apologize for?”
Annabeth dug her fingernails into her palms. “I cost you the race. If it weren’t for me, you would have won state and placed nationally.”
“From what I recall, a certain someone was screaming at me to let her go because I was, and I quote, ‘throwing the fucking race’,” Reyna said dryly.
“Sorry about that,” Annabeth mumbled.
Reyna gave her a smile and said, “You have nothing to blame yourself for, Annabeth. It was my choice to stay and help you.”
A lump formed in Annabeth’s throat. “But why though? Why did you help me?”
“I already told you,” Reyna said, mock-exasperatedly. “Because we’re friends.”
“And that was enough of a reason?”
“There are more important things than high school cross country races, Annabeth,” Reyna said simply.
Annabeth bit her lower lip and struggled to wrap her head around Reyna’s answer. They were friends, but not so close that it made sense for her to abandon the championship for her sake. Maybe Reyna was just like that with people she deemed friends or perhaps it was just a decision made in the heat of the moment.
“And you don’t resent me or anything for it?” Annabeth asked.
“Not one bit,” Reyna said firmly. “I would do it again if I had to. I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”
“You think too highly of me,” Annabeth said quietly. “But thank you.”
Reyna raised an eyebrow and said, “So you would have left me lying in the mud with a fucked up leg just to a win a race then?”
Annabeth paused and said, “Well, when you put it that way, I suppose not.”
“See? Told you: there are more important things,” Reyna said, smiling. “Besides, I don’t want you using your injury as an excuse for when I inevitably kick your ass.”
That got a watery laugh out of Annabeth. “I’m just glad you don’t hate me.”
Reyna rolled her eyes fondly. “Of course not.”
Annabeth hid a smile and stared up at the clear, blue sky for a while before something occurred to her. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Percy told me,” Reyna said, shrugging.
Annabeth furrowed her brow and said, “You have his number?”
“No, we just happened to run into each other somewhere, and I got a chance to ask him.”
Annabeth’s heart beat faster in her chest. “D-Did he say anything else to you?”
Reyna shook her head. “No, but he looked like a mess though. Did something happen?”
Annabeth nodded and felt a lump form in her throat. Slowly, she told Reyna about everything that had unfolded after she had left her with Percy. Reyna listened quietly and intently the entire time that Annabeth spoke, but Annabeth couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Annabeth finished by saying, “I know I shouldn’t have cornered him like that just because I was so angry about my knee, especially the whole confession thing, but at the same time, I can’t help being frustrated that he still refused to open up, right to the very end.”
When Reyna was silent, Annabeth looked at her and said, “You once said that you thought he lied all the time about how he felt and what he wanted. Is this what you meant?”
“Not exactly,” Reyna admitted. “I thought it was something more malicious, but after seeing how he is around you, it’s obvious how much he cares for you.”
“If he does,” Annabeth said softly, “it’s not in a way that I understand.”
“You’re not alone in feeling that way, I would imagine,” Reyna said. “We all have different ideas of what it means to love and be loved, and sometimes those ideas don’t match up.”
“And there’s nothing we can do about that then?” Annabeth asked.
Reyna shook her head. “No, it just means you both need to talk to about your needs. It’s not wrong to teach someone how to love you the way you need them to.”
“I would if he bothered to listen,” Annabeth said tersely.
“Really? From what you’ve told me about him, he seems to listen to you a great deal,” Reyna said, sounding surprised.
Annabeth worried her lower lip and hesitantly said, “I mean, yeah, I guess that’s accurate. But there’s still something that gets in the way, and I don’t know what it is.”
“I said this before, but it seems like he’s holding something back,” Reyna said. “Not in the way one hides secrets, but in the way you shoulder a burden, quietly and without complaint. Maybe it’s just that over time that weight has become too much to bear.”
Reyna’s words instantly struck a chord in her, even though she hadn’t fully processed them yet.
A wry smile danced on Reyna’s lips. “Reminds me a lot of my sister. Something about how sad their eyes look.”
Annabeth blinked in surprise - she had always pegged Reyna as an only child. “Wait, you have a sister?”
Reyna nodded and said, “Yeah, seven years older than me. Her name’s Hylla.”
She looked like she had more to say, so Annabeth remained silent and watched her. Reyna buried her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt and stared up at the sky with a sigh.
“My dad was a physically abusive piece of shit growing up, so much so that my mother left him. Unfortunately, she didn’t bother to take us with her, for whatever reason, so we had to fend for ourselves. As the older sibling, Hylla took it upon herself to protect me until she was old enough to move out and take me with her,” Reyna said.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Annabeth said quietly.
“It’s whatever. We’re fine now, for the most part,” Reyna said, shrugging. “But sometimes I can tell that it still eats at Hylla. It wouldn’t be that big a deal, but she has a hard time opening up or putting herself first. Over the years, I’ve tried my best to help her through it, but it’s something she still struggles with.”
“Eventually, I realized that there was really nothing I could do,” Reyna said, pursing her lips. “So instead I swore to myself that I would be open and straight-forward about everything, in the hopes that maybe if I could show her there was another way, it might change something. And who knows, maybe it’s all for nothing, but at least I am being true to myself and honest about what I want.”
Reyna traced the lines on her palm and swallowed thickly. “But it’s really tough. People think it’s easy and assume nothing scares me but they’re wrong. I’m terrified, like all the time, but seeing how much it tears away at my sister, keeping everything locked up inside, I— I don’t ever want to live that way.”
“I think you’re amazing,” Annabeth said softly. “I can’t begin to imagine how much courage that takes.”
Reyna gave her a smile and said, “Thanks. That means a lot.”
Annabeth shook her head. “I should be the one thanking you, for sharing all of this.”
“It’s no problem. I only brought it up because your situation reminded me of my sister and I. Maybe I’m totally off base about that, I don’t know,” Reyna said.
“No, um, it was definitely helpful,” Annabeth said.
Reyna took Annabeth’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You still look conflicted.”
Annabeth laughed breathlessly and shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I guess I’m still having a hard time accepting that we’re even in this situation. It just hurts to find out that I didn’t know him anywhere near as well as I thought I did.”
“Why does that have to hurt?” Reyna asked. “What is it that troubles you so much?”
Annabeth had to pause and really think about Reyna’s question because nothing immediately came to mind. It was only now that she realized that it was actually kind of strange that she was so distraught about this to begin with. It wasn’t like there was anything particularly awful about the situation. After all, this sort of thing was totally common, but it still seemed to profoundly unsettle her all the same. She was just having a hard time understanding why that was the case.
“It’s hard to say,” Annabeth admitted. “I think it’s because Percy’s the only person in my life that I have ever truly been able to rely on, and finding out that I don’t fully know him scares me. If I don’t know him, utterly and completely, then how can I count on him? It just makes me feel really insecure, like this is all a house of cards that could come tumbling down at any moment.”
Reyna sighed and said, “I don’t know. I just think knowing someone is a pretty impossible standard to set for yourself.”
Annabeth furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, in my experience, a person isn’t something to be known like a fact in a book,” Reyna said. “The human heart isn’t something quite so definitive. A person is always ever in the process of unraveling, constantly revealing themselves moment by moment, piece by piece. None of us ever really knows one another, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is the effort we make to know one another, not whether we succeed. That’s all that love is: finding someone that you make the effort to know, to discover and rediscover, over and over again. And they do the same for you.”
“But then how can we ever trust anyone?” Annabeth asked desperately.
“You take a leap of faith,” Reyna said simply. “I wish I could say there was some trick to never having your trust broken but that’s not possible. Trust, by its very nature, is a brittle thing, but that’s also what makes it worth anything. The only reason trust holds any value at all is because it is something that needs to be earned.”
Reyna’s words made Annabeth recall what Percy had told her atop Aspen Peak. She hadn’t fully understood what he had meant at the time, but now she realized that there was a power to vulnerability that she didn’t know existed. It was a paradox but only by opening herself to heartbreak could she ever find what she was looking for: something permanent.
Annabeth managed a half-smile and said, “Percy told me it was like letting someone touch your heart with their hands and praying they didn’t crush it between their fingers, but that it was something we needed to do anyways.”
“That’s a pretty good way to put it,” Reyna laughed.
Annabeth sighed and said, “Would be nice if relationships weren’t so fucking complicated.”
“Agreed,” Reyna said, yawning. “I should probably get going. It’s getting late.”
Annabeth nodded. “Thanks again for visiting me and for the advice. It was really helpful.”
“And thank you for listening,” Reyna said, smiling.
“I hope someday I’ll be able to live as strongly as you do,” Annabeth said.
“You already live that way,” Reyna said, shrugging. “You just doubt yourself too much.”
Annabeth worried her lower lip and nodded. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
Reyna offered one final smile and said, “Guess I’ll head out then. Keep me posted about your leg and everything. When you can walk, we should hit up the batting cages again. Take your mind off things.”
“I’d like that,” Annabeth smiled.
“See you later, Annabeth.”
“You too, Reyna.”
Annabeth watched and waited for Reyna to leave before she sighed and headed back inside the hospital herself. She felt lighter for the first time in weeks. Reyna’s advice stuck in the back of her mind, and Annabeth took some time to digest it. She had a feeling it would help her figure out her path going forward.
:::
Piper came to pick her up on the day she was discharged from the hospital. By then, Annabeth could walk with the help of a brace that helped keep most of her weight off her knee, but she could only walk for a few minutes or so at most before the strain piled up and became too much. Piper leaned against the side of her car and watched Annabeth hobble over before she rushed in and gave Annabeth a hug.
“Didn’t realize you were so happy to see me,” Annabeth joked.
“Shut up,” Piper mumbled against her skin. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”
Annabeth swallowed thickly and whispered, “Thanks, Pipes.”
Piper pulled away and offered a gentle smile. “Ready to go then?”
“Yep.”
Piper opened the passenger’s side door for Annabeth and waited for Annabeth to take a seat before she did so as well. Annabeth rolled down the windows and relished in the late April breeze when it flowed across her face. Piper started the car and turned the radio on before she pulled out of the hospital parking lot and onto the interstate.
Once they were on their way, Annabeth turned to Piper and said, “You’re still okay with me staying with you right? I complete get if that’s not an option anymore.”
“No, you’re totally fine,” Piper assured her. “It’ll be nice to have some company. Besides, my place is too fucking big for only one person.”
“Your dad’s still away on a shoot then?” Annabeth asked.
Piper shrugged. “Probably. Didn’t bother asking.”
Annabeth nodded slowly and turned back to the window, but Piper looked at her and said, “Your parents aren’t going to flip out about this right?”
“Oh, I’m sure Helen will kick up a fuss, but that’s kind of par for the course,” Annabeth said.
“I’m all for it and everything, but have you really thought this through? I mean, leaving your family is a huge decision,” Piper said.
Annabeth gave her a significant look and said, “In all the time you’ve known me, when have I ever not thought things through?”
“Alright, fair point,” Piper admitted. “I’m still worried though.”
“I was going to have to leave for college anyways. This is basically only moving up the schedule. Besides, I’m pretty sure they’ll be glad to finally see me gone,” Annabeth said.
Piper grimaced and nodded. “I wish you didn’t have to go through all this. Especially now, with your leg and all.”
“It is what it is,” Annabeth said, shrugging.
They drove along in silence for a while before Piper glanced at her again and said, “I, uh, wanted to ask you about something unrelated.”
“Fire away.”
“I’m not sure if you know anything, but Percy has been acting really strange lately,” Piper said. “I’ve tried asking him about it, but he just smiles and says that it’s nothing.”
Annabeth sighed. She had been expecting this, but it was still rough now that it was finally here. Slowly, Annabeth began to explain the whole fake dating arrangement from the start of the school year and everything that had happened since then, culminating in their confrontation after her injury. Piper didn’t say so much as word, but Annabeth noticed the way her fingers tightened around the steering wheel so hard they drained of blood.
When she was done, Annabeth watched Piper with bated breath, waiting for the worst. Piper just exhaled forcefully and said, “Christ, what a mess.”
“I know,” Annabeth said mildly.
“So this whole time, you guys weren’t actually dating then? You were just lying about it?”
Annabeth hung her head and said, “Yeah, pretty much.”
Piper was quiet for a moment before she shook her head incredulously. “I mean, I knew something was up with how jittery you were about the whole dating thing, but I never expected this.”
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” Annabeth said. “I was afraid you’d be mad at me.”
“Oh, I am mad at you. Furious, actually. But I’m equally as frustrated with Percy. As bad an idea as it was on your part, he should never have accepted. He knows better,” Piper said, fuming. “A pair of idiots, the both of you. What were you both thinking?”
“I’m sorry,” Annabeth said.
“Well, what’s done is done, I guess,” Piper sighed. “Honestly, maybe this what the both of you needed. Maybe now you’ll finally sort out your relationship.”
“Or maybe this is the end of it for good,” Annabeth said wryly.
“Love the optimism, babe.”
Annabeth huffed a laugh and said, “I’ll try my best to fix this, but I don’t know if I can.”
Piper was quiet for a while before she said, “Give it another shot. Maybe things will be different now that he’s had time to think about all this on his own too.”
“Yeah, you might be right,” Annabeth said.
There was another pause before Annabeth said, “You’re not gonna rescind your offer to let me crash with you, right?”
Piper snorted and said, “I have half a mind to, but I won’t. As stupid as you are, you’re still my best friend, and I’m not going to turn my back on you.”
“I don’t appreciate the insult, but thank you,” Annabeth said, smiling.
Piper glanced at her and jabbed her with her elbow. “Don’t look so happy with yourself or I might change my mind.”
“What, I’m not allowed to be happy that you called me your best friend?” Annabeth asked innocently.
Piper rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t try and schmooze your way out of this, you know what you’ve done. Especially, after that whole spiel about how you always think things through too.”
They pulled up in front of Annabeth’s house, and the brief levity in the air dissipated immediately. Annabeth set her jaw and took a deep breath, but her heart still beat faster in her chest anyways. Piper gave her a look of concern and squeezed her forearm.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” Piper whispered.
Annabeth shook her head. “No, this is something I need to do alone.”
Piper nodded but she still looked worried as Annabeth steadied herself and stepped out of the car. She hobbled to the front door and stepped inside with the spare key hidden beneath the flower pot. It was quiet inside the house, but the cars were still in the driveway so her father and step-mother had to be home. Annabeth pursed her lips and made her way upstairs to her room.
There was a suitcase hidden in her closet, and she pulled it out and opened it on the floor of her bedroom. She packed as many clothes as she could inside and stuffed her laptop, charger, phone charger, and water bottle inside her backpack. Once she was satisfied that she had everything prepared, she sat on her bed with a sigh.
Annabeth took a look around the room and felt a sudden rush of nostalgia wash over her. This was probably the last time she would ever come here, she mused. It was littered with all sorts of knick knacks and photos, posters and sketches. As much as she hated living in this house, this was the only place she could call her own. Leaving it almost felt like killing a part of herself off. Her step-mother would turn it into a storage room or something once she was gone, and soon there would be no trace that she had ever lived here. Something about that hurt, even though Annabeth knew it was for the best.
She stood up, feeling more than a little melancholy, and steeled her heart. There was still one last thing she needed to do. Annabeth put her luggage in the hallway and tentatively stepped into her father’s study. Thankfully, he wasn’t there. She riffled through the drawers of his desk in search of the old brown briefcase he stashed old letters in. It was always weird to her that he just kept letters, but he said he liked to have records in case companies tried to swindle him out of money. It was hidden away in some dark corner, and she dumped the contents onto the carpet.
There were hundreds of envelopes so it took her some time to sift through them all, but a few minutes later Annabeth’s worst fears were confirmed. There was an unopened letter addressed to her from Berkeley, dated October 4th.
That wasn’t the worst of it however.
There was another letter from Stanford. Northwestern. Duke. Cornell. Dartmouth. All dated from late September to early October. All unopened.
Annabeth had always felt something off about the fact that her Berkeley letter never reached her. She had dismissed it as a fluke but during her stay at the hospital it occurred to her that there could have been a more malevolent explanation. Seeing the letters now only confirmed her worst suspicions, but the sense of betrayal still hit her harder than she had anticipated.
She snatched the letters and stormed downstairs, as quickly as she could with her brace. Her father and step-mother were in the living room watching the news.
Helen blinked in surprise and said, “Annabeth? I didn’t know you were home from the hospital.”
Annabeth ignored her and held up the envelopes, her hands trembling. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, dear,” Helen said mildly.
“These are college letters. Addressed to me. Why did no one tell me?” Annabeth asked.
Helen shrugged and said, “I didn’t think they were important.”
Her excuse was so bad, it actually made Annabeth’s head hurt. “How could you not think that those might be important to your step-daughter, a senior in high school?”
A gleam of irritation flashed in Helen’s eyes. “You have been getting letters since junior year, and they always just asked you to apply, so I thought these were more of the same.”
“Let’s pretend for a moment that your terrible excuse is valid - you still should have shown me these,” Annabeth said.
“You’re still a child. Talk to your parents with respect,” Helen snapped.
Annabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “You literally lost me the chance to go to fucking Stanford, so you’ll have to forgive me for not having much respect for you.”
“Annabeth,” her father warned.
The smart thing to do would have been to drop it then and there. Nothing good could have come of this. The damage was already done. Continuing this would only make things worse.
Annabeth knew all this, but at that moment, she was filled with such uncontrolled rage, rage that had been built upon years upon years of horrid treatment from Helen and her father who couldn’t be bothered to care about the fact that his new wife routinely emotionally abused his first-born daughter, that she couldn’t bring herself to stop.
“She fucking knew this was important and she hid these from me anyways,” Annabeth snapped. “She’s so insecure about that fact that I’m more intelligent than her kids that she has to sabotage me.”
“Annabeth, that’s enough,” her father said sharply.
Annabeth turned to him and balled her hands in fists. “And you! You never say anything. You just let her treat me like absolute dogshit, and you don’t even care.”
“Young lady, you are so disrespectful that it honestly blows my mind,” Helen said coldly. “How you can accuse me of treating you poorly when you never bother to interact with the family and treat us like strangers is beyond me.”
“That’s rich coming from the person who couldn’t be bothered to visit her step-daughter once in the hospital,” Annabeth snorted.
A vein bulged on Helen’s forehead, and Annabeth knew she had her. “The reason I do my best to stay out of the house isn’t rocket science. From day one, you have done absolutely everything you can to make me feel unwelcome in this family-”
“Let me tell you something that you don’t seem to understand: no one is ruining your life, dear,” Helen interrupted. “You ruin things yourself and blame everyone else for it instead. You are just an ungrateful, spiteful little girl that does nothing but cause people pain.”
Annabeth stiffened like she’d been hit in the face with a shovel. Her thoughts turned to radio static and her chest squeezed so painfully that it was hard for her to breathe.
No words came to her.
Without meaning to, she turned to her father.
“D-Dad?” Annabeth asked, her voice cracking.
Annabeth wasn’t even sure what she was asking for, just that at that moment, she felt very much like she was seven years old again, asking him to check for monsters hiding in the closet. Back then she had taken it for granted that he would help her, that he would keep her safe. Suddenly, it made sense why she kept looking to him whenever Helen tormented her, even though she knew he would never come to her aid. She thought she had abandoned that hope a long time ago, but now Annabeth realized some small part of her had still held on to it, like someone tending to a dying flame.
Still, there was nothing that could prepare her for the silence in the living room at that moment as her father simply sat there, his lips pressed in a hard line, still not looking at her.
Annabeth forced herself to take a deep breath. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t going to let Helen win this.
No, instead, Annabeth turned to her father and offered him a strained smile. “Since it is apparent that you aren’t going to say anything on my behalf, like always, I just wanted to tell you a few things before I left. And yes, I am leaving. I’m done living in this house, which should delight the both of you. I don’t know that would even worry you, but rest assured: I’ll figure things out on my own, like I always have.”
When Helen bristled at the accusation, Annabeth offered her a smile like poisoned honey and said, “Before you open your mouth, feel free to shut the fuck up. I’m talking to my father right now.”
Helen went red, but Annabeth stared her down, begging her to say something. Helen glanced at her father, but for whatever reason, he didn’t come to her aid this time. She shook her head incredulously and left the living room, leaving Annabeth alone with her father.
When she was gone, he looked at Annabeth for the first time and said, “You went too far.”
“I honestly don’t give a shit,” Annabeth said simply.
Her father opened his mouth to chastise her, undoubtedly, but Annabeth bulldozed on through.
“Don’t bother to defend her. I’ll be gone in a few minutes anyways, and then it won’t matter since you’ll never have to see me again. But until then, you are going to shut up and listen to me,” Annabeth said.
Her father pressed his mouth in a thin line, which Annabeth took as permission to keep going.
“I don’t know when or how things went so wrong between us. I still remember how it used to be, back when mom was still around,” Annabeth started.
“She’s gone, Annabeth,” he interrupted.
“Yeah, I fucking know, but you don’t seem to realize you weren’t the only one she left behind,” Annabeth yelled.
“She left me, too, you know? And you have punished me for that, every day since she left,” Annabeth said, her voice cracking.
Annabeth steadied herself before she got too emotional and shook her head. “But I want you to know something - I am proud to be my mother’s daughter. Despite your best efforts to make me feel otherwise, I will not apologize for that, for being here, for existing. And I’m done looking to you for help or safety or even acknowledgement given you’ve long since proven to be utterly incapable of that. And I want you to know that someday I’ll find people who love and accept me, and I won’t ever have to spare a second of my life thinking about you and how you made me feel. Someday, I’ll heal and you’ll be nothing more than a bad memory.”
With that, Annabeth left to retrieve her luggage from the hallway before he could respond and left the house for good. Piper was pacing around her car and rushed over to her once she heard the door open and threw her arms around her.
“Are you okay?” Piper asked. “It sounded pretty bad in there.”
“Yeah,” Annabeth said, nodding. “I finally let go of something I should have a long time ago.”
Piper studied her for a moment before nodding to herself. “Alright, looks like that’s settled then. Let’s go get something to eat!”
Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “You’re dropping it, just like that?”
“You look like you’ve got it figured out on your own,” Piper said, shrugging. “Besides, I can tell this is something I can’t really help you with anyways.”
Annabeth smiled despite herself and shook her head. “I never thought the day would come when Piper McLean would know when to let sleeping dogs lie.”
Piper rolled her eyes and stashed her luggage in her car trunk. “Don’t make me change my mind about letting you stay.”
“That’s an empty threat if I’ve ever heard one,” Annabeth said, sliding into the passenger seat.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Piper muttered.
“But seriously though,” Annabeth said, clearing her throat. “Thank you. For everything. It means more to me than I can say.”
“You’re welcome,” Piper said softly. “I’m happy for you. Leaving that hellhole was a long time coming. You definitely made the right call.”
“What happened to all the asking me if I was sure about it and stuff?” Annabeth asked.
“I’ve always wanted you to leave. I just didn’t want to influence your decision,” Piper said.
Annabeth was quiet for a moment and said, “You’re actually a really good friend, huh?”
Piper gave her a cheeky grin and started the car. “I’m offended that it took you so long to notice.”
#knuffled fic#just practice#percabeth fic#percabeth fluff#percabeth angst#annabeth chase#percy jackson
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Bully Part 2 (Bakugou x Reader)
Pairing: Bakugou x Reader
Genre: Crack, fluff, slight angst, Baku-having-feelings-and-being-soft (bc that's totally a genre)
Sequel to Bully (part 1)
Word count: 2,319
Tags: @yuki-osaki @liviitehe @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog
a/n: This ended up being longer and slightly more emotional than I expected. Seems like I’m following the trend of getting the BNHA boys to say what’s really on their minds (I’ve already done this for Todoroki in case you were wondering), so Baku will be ooc and soft here.
This came out later than I intended because...let’s just say I was having a mental breakdown over a really long and really naughty Todo fic here and I ended up calling my little cousin and crying and laugh-crying and shaking and losing my collective mind because none of my friends would know what I was going through. And I was in no headspace to write fluff afterwards, she had to force fluff headcanons into me to go back to normal. Yall should thank her. Enjoy~
None of us had any idea how or why Bakugou suddenly started acting this way. Apparently, he was completely normal until I walked in. All I did was open the door to the classroom, my gaze just so happened to land on Bakugou, and suddenly I heard loud stomps towards me.
I held out a defensive hand, ready to shoot out branches at him if he got too close. "Bakugou-" I threatened. And he did the unthinkable. He gripped me in a choke hold around my shoulders and neck.
Actually, no. He...hugged me?
My clenched fists and the hush that fell over the rest of the students told me this is the first time all day he's done something out of character, something I definitely wasn't expecting. We hadn't talked since I almost jumped out of a window last week. This entire week, he was ignoring me. I was preparing for the day he would finally confront me, and I pictured it would be an aggressive encounter.
This is far from anything I'd imagined.
I never ever thought this porcupine-head could even show affection, that he even has a single gene of softness in him. Yet he was embracing me tightly, nuzzling his face in my neck. The shock of it all made me freeze up and cast a sideways glance at Midoriya, who was just as freaked and confused.
"Get off, Bakugou, what are you-"
The boy lifted his head up, his scarlet eyes softened into fondness and a gentle smile on his lips made the rest of my words catch in my throat. This entire expression was foreign to all of us. His face can look like that?
"I missed you over the weekend."
My jaw dropped. HIS VOICE CAN SOUND LIKE THAT?? The smooth and sweet honey tone was way out of character for him.
But like hell I trusted any of this.
I wiggled my arms up to push his weight off me. "I don't know how you managed to become such a great actor," I succeeded in separating from his vice grip, "But if you think disorienting me like this can be some sort of revenge, you're sorely mistaken."
Bakugou tilted his head, resembling a sad puppy. "What do you mean?"
I straightened my uniform. "Nice try, I know you're just acting so you can, like, throw me off the building or something."
That seemed to hurt him, his jaw gaping open before holding my face in his calloused hands. "I'd never do that to you."
I quickly swatted his hands away, wary that he was about to blow my face off. "Don't. Touch. Me."
The boy froze in place, then rubbed the back of his neck. Regret seeped through his eyes as he stared at the ground. "I'm sorry, about everything."
A strange warmth rushed through me. Something about how genuinely vulnerable he looked shook my entire being.
"I just...really wanted you to give me a chance all this time, but I went about it the wrong way." He encased me into another bone-crushing hug. "But I want to make up for it."
I felt a thud in my chest, probably from fear that he might hurt me.
At that moment, the teacher walked in. "Alright everyone, take your seats." He noticed Bakugou's position, gawked for a second, and cleared his throat. "Uh, Bakugou, let go of (L/n) and take your seat."
"I dare any of you extras to yank me off, I'll blast you into next week!"
He's back, kind of?
Nobody made a move to do anything, they were all frozen by the sight of Bakugou clamped onto me like a koala.
"I'll survive...somehow," I assured them, unsure myself how exactly I would do that.
For the entire rest of class, the boy clung onto me. He had taken over the seat of the person who normally sat on my left and scooted the chair over so he can stay attached to me. Though I reasoned for him to hold onto just my arm (since he wouldn't let go no matter how many times I asked), he hugged my waist with both of his arms, face buried in my neck. I was just glad he left one arm for me to write notes with.
If this was just an act, he did a splendid job of keeping it up. I thought he would've given up after an hour or two, but he stayed like that even after lunch until the end of the day. Anytime anyone would even walk past us, he would glare at them until they scurried off.
It was super weird at first, but I got used to the arrangement somehow. I hate to admit it, but I even felt comfort by his warmth. His breath tickled my neck as his solid arms held me in a vice grip. I found myself hoping this wasn't acting, and thanking whatever miracle made this happen. This was never going to happen again, I might as well enjoy it for now.
.
"Back off, you damn Deku!" He bares his teeth at the cowering Midoriya, still attached to me at the hip.
I sigh, finally fed up with this whole ordeal. "Midoriya, I'll handle this, I'll call later."
The poor broccoli boy nods and scampers away from us. Bakugou insists on not letting go until I'm home safe, even when I repeated that I live in the opposite direction as him. He won't even let Midoriya near me.
I lead us both over to a bench outside of school. I'm still not convinced that this isn't an act, but I might as well try to talk to him after the incident last week. "Get off," I order, scooting over to one side of the bench. When he doesn't obey, I add, "I wanna talk, so I need to see your face."
After a brief moment of hesitation, he eases off my body, rolling up to sit facing me with a leg propped up on the seat. A dumb smile is on his face.
God, that still freaks me out. I stare at him calculatingly. He hasn't said a word to me the whole day, only barking at other students as he holds onto me. I want answers. "You're sure this isn't some stupid revenge plot to get back at me?"
He shakes his head, propping his arm up on the seat and resting his head there. His wordless, lovestruck stare probing me.
I sputter, "Why are you acting this way then?"
"I like you."
I almost choke at his quick response, my chest throbbing again. "S-Stop looking at me that way, I can't take you seriously! I admit, it's freaking me out!"
"My feelings freak you out?" he says sweetly, brushing the side of my face softly.
I slap his hand away, "You don't have feelings for me, just drop the act already!"
His smile disappears. "It's not an act, I'm being serious." Hurt laces his voice.
I cross my arms over my chest. "Yeah, well, it's very hard to take you seriously when you've been a heartless, pompous, mean jerk for all of middle school."
Bakugou's eyes downcast and his arm falls into his lap. "I...I don't know how else to show how I feel." Raw emotion drips from his eyes as he bites his lip, almost like he's gathering his thoughts. "I act like a jerk because... I just feel so pressured. Everyone expects so much of me just because my quirk is so strong." A dark chuckle emits from him, "Even my mom has ingrained it in me that I need to be strong so I don't burden anyone with being weak. So I've been projecting my frustrations onto everyone else. Deku is just the easiest person to pick on because he's the weakest person, he has no quirk! And I'm just self-centered because I have to tell myself that I'm strong or else...I might slip. Call it an inferiority complex, I guess."
I won't lie, I didn't go into this expecting a therapy session. Part of me does sympathize with him, but the rational side of me is still skeptical of this entire monologue being an act. I wouldn't put it past him for thinking up such an elaborate plan in a week. And none of it excuses him for telling Midoriya to kill himself. "Not that I don't believe you, but so what?" I blurt out.
He grabs my hand in both of his, eyes fully emotional and staring into mine. "I like you, (Y/n). I see how kind you are to everyone else, how you've stayed by Deku and supported him this entire time. I admire you. You're the kind of person who I know would become a great hero because you always know just what to say to people to make them feel better, not to mention you're so badass too. And...in a way, there's something in me that wants you to care about an idiot like me, too."
Tightness tugs in my chest. Damn it, he needs to stop being so emotional, I can't handle it. "I want to help you, Katsuki, but what you said to Midoriya crossed a line. I can't overlook that."
His head drops onto our joined hands and his body starts shaking. "Damnit!" he grits out, "I can't believe I've done so much wrong that the person I like can't even forgive me."
I shut my eyes, not wanting to see him cry. "Katsuki-"
Bakugou's head snaps up and takes my head between his hands. "Do you even have the smallest feeling for me?" His red orbs swim in tears.
A soft spot in my heart persuades me to gently rub the wet trails off his cheeks. "I'm...not sure." I won't lead him on, I really don't know how I feel anymore. It's that I hate him, I don't like the things he says or does.
"Help me, (Y/n)," he practically begs, "I'll become a better person, I promise, but I need you to guide me, please."
This sudden magnitude of emotion other than anger disorients me. Is this something he's kept locked away somewhere in the recesses of his mind? I absently nod in agreement against some of my better judgement.
His shaking form steadies as he stares me down quietly. "Can I...kiss you?" he whispers out of the blue.
My lips slightly part and my eyes widen as he leans into me, softly pressing his mouth against mine. Our kiss is innocent, as if time just stood still and washed a warm glow on us. My stomach flips weightlessly, and I gently grip one of his wrists to ground me. He pulls away just for a moment, letting us linger in the moment and sensation of one another.
His eyes flutter open, facing me with the same loveliness he's showed me all day, before confusion suddenly dawns on him, and then his cheeks color red and he pulls away, almost retreating to the other edge of the bench.
I blink, not sure what just happened, but the tumbling in my abdomen still present. "Uh...Bakugou...?"
The boy doesn't even want to face me. "Did I really just do that?" he mutters to himself, the raspy growl that's more characteristic of him returning.
My heart sinks. "Do you-?"
"Hey, don't look so upset," he glares at me before flushing again. "I...somehow...know everything I did... It was me...but it wasn't...really me."
"But everything you said-"
He growls and crosses his arms over his chest, looking away from me. "Everything I said was true! I just... I'm surprised I did it, and I was such a pansy about it."
I roll my eyes. He's back, for real this time. "Well, if that's the case, I won't hold you accountable-"
"Wait," Bakugou sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I stand by everything I said, even the whole...thing...about you helping me." It almost hurts him to say it.
I fold my arms over my chest and stand up. "You don't have to force yourself to be good if you don't want to. Things can go back to the way they were."
"I don't want it to!" he yells. "I'll work at being less of an idiot if it means...that you'll...go out with me."
I examine him, all red-faced and uncomfortable, unable to look me in the eyes. "I'm not gonna go easy on you."
He stands up and finally garners the courage to look at me again. "I'm willing. I'll try hard, I promise."
After thinking it over a moment, I relax my figure and place a kiss on his cheek. "That's your reward for consciously admitting that you have a problem."
Bakugou's eyes bulge out of his head and I have to suppress my chuckles. "Will there be more rewards?" he mumbles.
"Only if you really try." I lean forward, catching him off guard and finally letting out a small fit of laughter. "You know for most of the day, you were hanging onto me like I was you handbag, now you're shying away from me."
He scratches his burning neck. "Hey, that wasn't me."
"It was a you that probably showed your deepest darkest wants," I tease, a smirk playing on my lips.
"Sh-Shut up, don't be so smug about it!" He lightly shoves me away, digging his hands into his uniform pants pocket. "You're the one asking for it because you liked it, stupid."
"Ah-ah," I hold up a finger like a teacher reprimanding a kindergardener. "First thing is for you to stop calling people names."
He groans. "Fine. (Y-Y/n)." His cheeks color all over again.
I slip my hand in his and his blush intensifies. "Was that so hard to do?"
"Shut up," he mumbles softer this time.
He's a fixer-upper, he's still got a lot to learn, but hopefully, he'll get there eventually.
#Bakugou x reader#my hero academia#boku no hero academia#bakugou fluff#bakugou katsuki#angst#crack#bakugou imagine#bakugou scenario#gender neutral reader#mha x reader#bnha x reader#mha fanfiction#bnha fanfiction
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Empathizing With The Enemy: How Toronto Artist BØNES Highlights My Newest Theory
I have never experienced confidence in hip hop music until I began listening to Toronto artist, BØNES.
I had mentioned before on my Twitter that I am taking a different turn on this blog for the next few posts. Given the restrictions of COVID settling slightly since the end of summer, (please don’t jinx it, I live in Ontario people) I have had the chance to finally go out and explore the music scene of my city physically again and I’ve realized that I have taken a lot of these artists for granted.
In all honesty, I hadn’t experienced hip hop music in the modern scene. In fact, music that is labelled as “hip hop” in the modern century turned me away because of it’s egotistical and materialistic themes; especially when it came to new artists trying to “make it big” in the hip hop industry.
My only experience and/or knowledge of hip hop comes from my dad’s old Biggie and N.W.A records as well as the really old Kanye songs I had downloaded on my iPod when I was in high school. However, there’s something so enlightening about BØNES’s music that is different to what the new up and coming artists are putting out.
BØNES, also known as Joe to the peasants that have the honour of interacting with him on a normal basis everyday (myself included), is a hip hop artist from Toronto, Ontario - which is something you don’t hear everyday (subtle Ontario satire for you there, I’ll wait for the applause to end). I actually have the honour of knowing Joe outside of his music career and I think it is his positive, down to earth personality that gets portrayed so vividly in his music, that makes him such an interesting artist. However, I will be referring to him for the rest of this post as Joe - not just because I want to be a little less formal but also it is extremely difficult to continue to press and hold the O key and click 6 consistently. I may or may not have arthritis by the end of his post which would totally be worth it if it meant the last thing I ever typed was BØNES in all caps.
Though it’s different to determine what exactly makes BØNES music so unique, I seem to catch myself finding similarities between him and an artist from Detroit, Michigan who calls himself JMSN. Though their music is completely different - the concepts are quite similar. Take a genre, modernize it and make it, well BØNES. For example, I very vaguely classified Joe’s (arthritis is kicking in) genre as hip hop however, I really don’t think “hip hop” is what it is. Let me explain.
According to writer and essayist Greg Tate, who had also written a fabulous essay called Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture, hip hop is a “complex culture comprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as “MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,” which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language that philosopher Cornel West described as “postural semantics Tate, 2021).” Interestingly enough, other than “rhyming,” Joe’s music doesn’t necessarily embody all aspects of hip hop; it evolves them the way we wish modern day hip hop does.
However, one part of his music that embodies the ideologies of hip hop is something called the “knowledge of self/consciousness (Tate, 2021).” I personally believe that this aspect should be at the top of a genre so popular such as hip hop. None of these newer artists embody this aspect which is disappointing to say the least because, as a genre predominantly African American occupied and originated, this genre should scream confidence and self strength. This was done by older hip hop artist who would use their music and platform to talk about their struggles as a community, eg. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message" (1982).
And the beauty of hip hop is portrayed through language. See, modern day hip hop (please don’t ask me to name any of these artists, I will butcher anything that doesn’t start with “Lil”) seems to be riddled with very forward, egotistical remarks about how much wealthier they are than everyone else, how many “chains” they have or my personal favourite: how many “bitches” they have. Please, this USED to be a PG blog but look how far we come. We’re saying “bitches” on this blog.
There’s a difference between saying that and “now I’ve been stuck in this place and I’m aiming to grow (Thankful, 2019)” or “came a long way and I’m so damn proud (I Ain’t Miss A Damn Thing, 2020).” This switch in language embodies confidence in a way that is personal to the listener themselves rather than make them feel discouraged about now being at the same social class as the artist.
Joe’s (arthritis is back again) music is so empowering and cleverly phrased, as well as the context is all based around growth as he shares his experiences through his journey of self growth; by using a theory I like to call “empathizing with the enemy-” ahhh yes, we’re getting psychological in this one. You thought we were done with all the psychology. WRONG.
This theory is based around how individuals gain personal profit by “empathizing with the enemy.” This theory is embodied in this one BØNES lyric, and dare I say invented it: “I can’t really blame [him] if he’s nervous.” After listening to BØNES’s music, I began looking into the difference between gaining confidence and growing confidence. Gaining confidence is filled, or I guess ironically, is an empty confidence that is filled through materialistic things or bullying in order to fill a void in their character; a doubt that if they’re not on top, they will never amount to anything. This is so popular in modern day hip hop, when artists give value to sex, drugs and other controversial things in order to stay relevant or seem like they are “above” something. This does nothing for the listener; in fact, it does the opposite. I originally began researching this theory through literature; the effect words have when put together, the difference between “I can’t really blame [him] if he’s nervous” and “he should be nervous.” Notice how the words are similar, but the first one seems less demanding and forceful, where as the other one seems much more confident and self preserved; the concept of “you don’t have to like me, I like myself,” as corny as it sounds.
BØNES idolizes self growth, which is a constant theme in his music, and self consciousness. My theory is because of how far he has come as a person, and I am sure that the reason he is as charming and kind to everyone as he is, is simply because he is happy and kind to himself. And that means a lot when it comes to being an artist.
Many artists chose to fill a void with their art while others use it to spread the love and passion they have when they practice their art with others. This is so evident in BØNES’ music and it’s what differentiates him from newer artists trying to make it today. Rather than give in to the normal, consistent and boring themes of hip hop, his bubbly personality has changed the lyric game for the better.
Why is this important? Music is such a huge effect on the listener, the language more than anything, and it’s important that we understand the effect language has on people, especially in music. I am biased, as an English major, but if you’ve read my essay “Making Love vs. @&!$ing: How Music Has Watered Down The Value of Romance,” you probably already know my views on how important language is when it comes to music, mostly because lyricism evolves from poetry...I say as I look at the gigantic portrait of Shakespeare hanging from my wall. Or even compare different ways heartbreak is portrayed through music - that new Olivia Rodrigo song on Tik Tok versus “I Would Rather Go Blind.”
LANGUAGE IN MUSIC IS IMPORTANT. And BØNES understood the assignment. Let’s just say, I have a gym playlist especially made with Thankful and I Know on them because I feel just a little bit more confident when I look in the mirror afterwards.
As I begin this new series with pride in my little province (another little satirical joke for my Ontario people) and the artists within it, I want to urge you all to go listen and support your local artists and talents.
Oh and also go vote. Thanks. #OCanada
#canadian writer#canada#canadian critic#music#hip hop#poetry#lyrics#new artist#rapper#singer#musician#psychology#language#literature#canadian author#writer#author#blogger#novelist
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More HTBY deleted scenes
Alternate title for this one is 'Local Impostor Bullies Local Gremlin'
Then, Yellow and Lime both were assigned to Trep and Addison's group. From the second they approached, Trep could smell the trouble on the air - although, he couldn't be sure that wasn't just the glare Purple was sending their group. Still, it wasn't much of a surprise when Lime took the first opportunity he got to speak with Trep privately. They were just in the doorway to weapons, Addison and Yellow slightly north of them in Communications - close enough to be well within hearing range for an Impostor, not that Trep had much to concern himself over given he knew exactly where Lime was.
"Alright, this is a perfect opportunity - you in, or what?" Lime asked, and Trep didn't even bother looking at the other while he worked at setting an electrical panel back to rights.
“That highly depends on what you’re planning,” Trep responded, knowing full well it actually didn’t much matter at all - he was unlikely to help, anyway. “Make it quick - if the Captain catches you whispering to me so much, he’s going to grow suspicious.”
"Easy - we kill Red and Yellow," Lime said, as if we're the most obvious thing in the world. It took some effort for Trep to not immediately snap at Lime - but he'd been doing this for years, now, and managed to stay calm.
"And when the rest inevitably point at us, their buddies, for the crime?" Trep asked.
"We come up with a story. Say we were working in here, and it must have happened while we were separated. How hard could it be? Doesn't your crew trust you?"
"In theory, though I can't be sure how deep that trust runs. It's a poor plan," Trep answered. As Lime went to speak again, growing obviously agitated, Trep lifted a hand. "The better play would be to kill Red and pin it on Yellow," Trep continued, "if we both blamed her, the others would have no reason not to trust us. Not even Purple could stop us - they'd only see her as trying to protect Yellow."
Lime stared at him - eyes piercing beyond their visor - and Trep saw the moment adrenaline rushed through the younger's form. Trep snapped the panel closed and turned to look at Lime, who's hands were clenched into excited fists.
"That is a good plan," Lime agreed, "let's do that!"
"No." At Trep's single word, Lime froze - the almost cheerful tension in his body all at once threatening to deflate.
"No? What do you mean - it was your idea!"
"Yes, which I shared with you only to prove how little you were thinking your plan through. Unfortunately, this plan won't work either."
"Why?" Lime demanded. Trep leaned against the wall and crossed his arms as he gave the other a pointedly cold glare.
"Because if I even think you’re going to lift a hand against Captain Red, I’ll eviscerate you long before you have the chance."
"Wh - are you fucking kidding me?" Lime asked, voice rising for a brief second before he forced it back to a whisper. "You too? Seriously? If this is a joke, it’s -"
Trep lunged forward, pushed Lime against the wall, and pressed the whole of his arm into the other Impostor’s neck, effectively cutting him off. Briefly, he glanced outside the door - but uploads took awhile, and Addison and Yellow were both still bundled within Communications. Satisfied, Trep turned his attention back to Lime, who was trying - and failing - to push him off with a snarl.
“No joke,” Trep said softly, leaning in close to be sure Lime could hear him - and, of course, in an effort to intimidate the younger Impostor. He let a little of himself bleed through, saw the slight glow of the red of his eyes reflect back through his own visor, felt his abdominal maw ripple in warning. “I am a very thin thread away from doing it right now, just to be absolutely sure.” To prove the point, he slipped his true tongue free and brought the sharpest point of it up to rest above one of Lime’s hearts. At first, there was no further response but anger from Lime - until Trep pressed the tip a bit closer and felt it pierce into the other’s skin. When he felt Lime’s heart rate skyrocket in response, he smirked.
All at once, Trep stepped back and smoothed his hands down his suit as his shape practically snapped back to normal, gut sealing as if nothing had ever been there. He watched Lime slouch slightly against the wall, relieved despite himself.
“Lucky for you,” Trep continued smoothly, “I’m not quite so quick as you to throw my fellows under the bus, if I can avoid it. I am watching you, though - and it’ll be far better for you if you heed my warning.”
"Oh fuck off," Lime grumbled as he straightened, “choosing humans over our own - you and Purple should be ashamed of yourselves. Whatever. I'll just - do it all myself, I guess!
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here is what i think of jikook - the ship between BTS Jimin and BTS Jungkook. i know i'll probably get alot of hate and disagreement on this matter, but i really wanted to share my thoughts with other people. please don't attack me over this, it is merely an opinion and even if yours is different to mine, it doesn't invalidate it. let me begin.
i think Jimin and Jungkook are real to some extent and i believe they are a couple. *cue the screaming of outraged taekookers across the globe*. now, just let me repeat myself, just as my opinion doesn't invalidate yours, yours doesn't invalidate mine. i really do believe that they are real.
why, i hear you say. here's why.
in korea, alot of times friendships between the same gender are just seen as skinship and for some that is true, but for Jimin and Jungkook, i don't think it is. when they first formed the band with the rest of the members, Jimin was a very zealous and flirtatious friend to Jungkook. he'd always comment on how much he liked and adored Jungkook. he also always asked for kisses and other forms of affection and he was practically glued to Jungkook's side, feeding him compliments and trailing him wherever he went. now this could've been seen as a thing that normal friends did, platonic love is very strong after all, but Jungkook didn't really respond well to the attention. he was naturally a very shy, guarded guy that valued his space and was quite awkward. then he was bombarded by this eager friend that always seemed to have an eye on him. he pushed Jimin away firmly and told him to back off. he always seemed tense whenever Jimin instigated these types of things. he even told Jimin to stop. this all implied that he didn't feel comfortable with Jimin's behaviour and that it wasn't a natural, flowing thing that happened between them. then there was the matters of him ranking Jimin last in looks, singing, style etc. also the harsh, cold things that he'd say to Jimin. from these events, it became clear, or so people thought, that Jungkook hated Jimin.
so when the situation completely changed; Jimin being more aloof and not so obsessed with Jungkook and Jungkook actually caring and coddling Jimin, it struck many as odd. but not me. it was clear to me from day one that Jungkook cared for Jimin far more than he'd ever admit or show. little gestures such as: looking at Jimin for encouragement, letting Jimin support him when he didn't know what to say, actually seeming more relaxed with Jimin than other members, heck him even saying that, "Jimin hyung is very nice and the person I find easiest to talk to. i'm just cold (shy)," all pointed to the obvious - JUNGKOOK LIKES JIMIN AS WELL. *the taekookers gasp*.
and slowly over time it became even more apparent. let's take for example: the gcf in Tokyo. now this itself is quite intimate for Jungkook. to take Jimin to another country, just the two of them, without cameras for a couple of days was something very sentimental and arguably unlike Jungkook to do. *cue taekookers pulling up youtube playlists of sentimental taekook moments*. no, i don't mean to say that Jungkook is an ice prince with an unbreakable heart of cold. nope. what i do mean to say is that he's quite reserved, especially back then, and i haven't seen him do something quite like that for anyone else aside from Jimin. even more strange, he made a video, hence the gcf in the title, starring Jimin (who didn't know at the time that it was going to be aired) and their travels and experiences through Tokyo. now here's the part where it gets interesting. Jungkook has already said that his editing of the gcf was based of an already existing youtube video where it tells you how to video your lover. yep you heard me. *cue squealing of taekookers saying that that doesn't mean anything*. pretty sure it does hun, but that's not the point. anyways, in the video it gives a list of instructions some being stuff like doing shots of your lover framed by an airplane window or of your lover eating or against a mirror. one of the last steps was to use music that meant alot to you and held an element of something that you related to yourself. and guess what music Jungkook used? a gay love song by Troye Sivan, who is one of the biggest gay icons out there. if that doesn't tell you anything, then i don't know what will. another thing that supports my earlier point of Jungkook's ever clearer admiration of Jimin is him getting Jimin and only Jimin a birthday present. now this may seem a tiny thing, but Jungkook is very bad at giving gifts and hasn't given a member a birthday gift before Jimin. and after him, he didn't do so again. this is very telling. it's clear proof that Jungkook does love and care about Jimin and even if people say he doesn't, it can't lessen what he feels or take away from the truth of these statements. and it is very clear, as i have earlier shown, that Jimin loves and cares for Jungkook too.
now i understand that all this can be written off as extremely intimate friendship, but there was something very eye-catching and unique about jikook to me, from the beginning. if i told you every little thing about why they are possibly real, we'd be here a while and i have got to get some beauty sleeo, it's already 12 am.
so if you wanna know the ins and outs of this explained as best as possible, please go on youtube and search for:
The Ultimate Jikook Video.
it tells you alot of what you need to know. heck that video coupled with my suspicions were the real things that got me into believing that jikook is real. please watch it. you will not regret it, i PROMISE.
this post is slowly coming to an end, but there's one more thing that i need to address. often times when i bring up jikook, I'm treated like I'm just a delulu 11 year old girl or something. people say this even though they don't know a single thing about jikook. they don't understand and aren't willing to see the receipts to why it might be real. not only with jikook, but with alot of gay ships, shippers are made to feel like crazy, obsessed sasaengs when we really have a valid and mature opinion just like everyone else in this world about EVERYTHING. what's really immature is dismissing a person's opinion about something that you know nothing about.
and just as a disclaimer, i know tons about taekook. i try to look into every ship before i make judgements. and really, jikook have been the only ship that I've ever thought might actually be real. that might not mean anything to you, but it does to me.
i've talked about alot of what i wanted to, so i'm gonna end the post here, but before i do i just want to say that i love you. despite what race, gender, sexuality or ship you ship or group you stan. in the end we all have one thing in common: we're all living, breathing humans that have a chance at life. and bullying someone and spoiling what is their only chance is wrong and such an awful thing to do. what seperates us shouldn't be whether our skin is brown or white or whether we like kissing a guy more than a girl. what seperates us is the things we do, for good and for bad. that's why my blog is safe to everyone, no matter who they are, if they're a good person. remember that if no one loves you, not even yourself, i will.
❤❤❤❤
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Broken Harmony Pt28
Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU
Master List 1 Master List 2 Prologue Beginning Previous Next
“Mlle. Bourgeous.” Chloe and Marinette stopped talking when Bruce addressed her. She straightened back up, defaulting into her original demeanor. It was a front when she felt threatened, similar to his if he was honest.
“M. Wayne.” Her tone held wariness and Damian could tell she was expecting a less than warm welcome. He wasn’t sure if that was just because it was what she was used to or because she was expecting it from Bruce specifically. Marinette rubbed the girls back soothingly and he caught the confused look that passed between her parents.
“Would you like to join us for dinner?” No one expected that least of all Chloe. She physically recoiled and looked about ready to decline but Marinette spoke up first.
“I’d really like to catch up if you don’t have any other plans.” The poor girl looked like she’d woken up in an alternate dimension. Apparently that lost look moved Marinette’s parents enough for Sabine to go into mom mood. She walked up to Chloe and put an arm around her shoulders.
“We’d love for you to join us” Tom gave her an encouraging smile and she looked like her brain melted.
“Okay.” Before she could think about it or reconsider they were all seated in the dining room. She still looked extremely uncomfortable but didn’t appear to be ready to bolt anymore. She was situated between Sabine and Marinette and kept inching closer to the latter as if afraid Sabine might turn on her. Given what she’d said about being a bully he could understand why.
“So Marinette have you given any thought to what school you want to transfer to.” He watched his soulmate blink in surprise at the question before her cheeks turned pink.
“No actually. Between making your gifts and talking to the ‘not sisters’ there wasn’t a lot of time. Besides, I’d like to get to know Damian better first because I have a feeling he’ll go with whatever I want but I want it to be a school he actually likes too.” The boys awed over her sweetness while Damian rolled his eyes before Dick hooked into the other thing she said.
“Wait what do you mean ‘not-sisters’?” Damian scowled before answering.
“Babs decided to hack into Marinette’s computer so she, Steph, and Cass could see her.” The boys erupted into complaints that the girls got to meet her first but Bruce just let out a sigh, running his hand down his face in annoyance. “I told them it was an unacceptable violation of privacy, and that holds for you lot as well.” He pinned each of his brothers with a glare, lingering on Tim.
“I feel insulted that you believe we would resort to such tactics.” Tim’s words were only met with another glare. Bruce stepped in before it could go further.
“Marinette is Damian’s soulmate. They will decide what safety measures to take and we will abide by them. They do not need our interference or meddling. It will also be up to Marinette to decide what she wishes to share with us.” He stared down each of the boys in turn but also lingered on Tim.
“Oh come on, you act like I’m the only one who does research. Besides you’re the one that asked me to clone her phone.”
“You did what?” Damian’s voice was soft but the other boys flinched. Bruce just gave a tired sigh.
“I figured there were things on it Marinette would want later so I had Tim clone it so we could give the actual phone to the police but she would still have everything. After what happened tonight I think we can all agree that giving them the only copy of that harassment is a bad idea.” There were nods and grumbling from around the table but Chloe turned to Marinette.
“What harassment?” His Angel’s cheeks flushed pink again.
“It’s really nothing. They were just getting out their frustration.” Her words had the effect of a bomb going off. Denials were shouted from almost everyone present. Damian was fairly certain he heard Jason muttering about getting his guns while Sabine said something in Mandarin that almost made him blush. It was Tom that let out a piercing whistle to get everyone’s attention. His wife shot him a surprised look but the rest simply dropped their grumbling to a reasonable level.
“Sweetheart, Bruce showed us those messages before he left last night. That’s not frustration. They were threats and worse and you didn’t do anything to deserve them.”
“Can I see the messages?” Everyone seemed surprised by Chloe’s request.
“I don’t see how that could possibly be a good idea.” Bruce’s words pushed the girl back into her ‘holier than thou’ mode. Damian could practically see the superiority dripping from the girl.
“Because I know them and unlike Marinette I don’t have a romanticized view of those losers. I can tell what is out of character or not and tell you the likelihood of them acting on those threats because I’d be willing to be not all of the are idle. If I’ve learned anything about Rossi it’s that she’s capable of getting people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise. The only people she hasn’t managed to corrupt in some way are Marinette and myself. Adrien knows she’s a liar and she still somehow got into his head enough to make him think this is acceptable and that Mari is the problem.”
Marinette was frowning in thought while the boys tried to dissuade Chloe from wanting to look at the phone. Damian could tell they were just putting her back up more but didn’t see anyway to fix that so he just stayed silent.
“She’s right.” Everyone was silenced by Marinette’s soft words. She looked at Bruce and they could all see the pain in her eyes. “Chloe has both an inside and outside perspective of the situation that’s invaluable. I’m too close to the situation and you’re all too far away. Chloe’s the best bet we have to stop anyone from doing something foolish and making things worse.”
Damian watched as his father contemplated her words. His brothers just looked at each other. He had a feeling they were trying to come up with another argument. Marinette’s parents were both oddly blank so he had no idea what could be going through their heads. Chloe was just staring at Marinette in shock. She obviously didn’t expect anyone to agree with her.
“Thank you.” The words were soft but the feeling behind them made Damian think they weren’t just meant for this one instant.
“Tim, give her the phone.” Tim looked like he was going to argue but Bruce’s face made him think twice about it. “We can’t afford to leave resources on the table right now. If Marinette is willing to trust her then that should be good enough for the rest of us.” Tim gave an annoyed grunt but did hand over the phone.
Chloe made sure to angle herself so that Marinette couldn’t get a look at the screen, which Damian was grateful for, before unlocking it to look at the messages. The more she read the more shocked her expression became before turning sickly. He had a feeling she got to the one with the detailed suicide instructions. She handed the phone back to Tim looking a little queasy.
“I’d say the immediate physical threats would come from Alya, Adrien, and Kim. The rest don’t seem likely to take action on their own, but it won’t stop them from ganging up on Mari or trying to intimidate her through texts and social media.”
“Why those three?” It sounded like a normal question but Damian could tell Tim was using it as a test. Chloe sighed and rubbed her temples.
“Kim used to think he was in love with me and despite my showing no interest and being a bitch actually thought he had a chance. Judging from the tone of his messages he’s transferred that infatuation to Lila and she’ll use it to her advantage in any way she can. The idea to go after Mari would come from her but it would be Kim that’s the most likely to act on it. Adrien…” She paused and looked to be holding back tears. Marinette put a comforting hand on her arm and she took a deep breath before continuing. “His messages are extremely possessive. It’s clear that he considers Mari his property and is not going to react well to her leaving or doing anything he hasn’t approved of. As for Alya, she’s the most volatile. She’s always been brash and jumped into things without thinking but with Lila there to stoke the fire and aim her negative feelings I’d say she’s the most likely to get akumatized and go after Mari beside’s Lila herself.”
Damian had to admit she made a good case and given the interaction last night with Adrien he knew she was right about at least one of them. Marinette was right, Chloe would be a good asset in this battle. Tim looked like he wanted to argue but Damian caught his eye and shook his head. None of them knew these kids well enough to contradict Chloe’s opinion.
“What do you think Angel?” Marinette started a little at his question before looking at Chloe. The two simple stared at each other for a minute before she gave a small, tired sigh.
“I trust her judgement. I know she’s right about Adrien and as much as I don’t want to believe it of the others my judgement is compromised and I know Chloe’s head for politics makes her more observant and analytical than the average person. If that’s who she thinks is a threat then they are.”
He could tell how much it hurt her to say those words and admit that people she once considered friends were a threat. He wrapped an arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder thoroughly drained. The rest of the table was murmuring about precautions and threat levels but he just wanted to concentrate on his soulmate and offer what comfort he could. It was actually kind of peaceful. That didn’t last.
“Little M! I didn’t expect to see you here, how have you been?”
Master List 1 Master List 2 Prologue Beginning Previous Next
Tag list for Broken Harmony
Thanks for all the positive responses! Here’s the tag list I’ve go so far. If I missed anyone let me know.
@crazylittlemunchkin @iggy-of-fans @captainmac6 @shizukiryuu @origami-dreams @yamadochie @drama-queen-supreme @miraculousbelladonna @mjisntme @zebrabaker @driftingmoonlitpetals @slytherinhquinn @politelyvicious @mystery-5-5 @constancetruggle @synnesstra @im-here-for-the-content @slytherinsheashire @myriad-of-passionate-pettiness @cyborgcandy @rhub4rb @satans-favorite-homo @beautym3 @ayuchan07 @zalladane @moonlitarchangels @mooshoon @mindfulmagics @saphiraazure2708 @chrismarium @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @tog84 @littleredrobinhoodlum @cupcakeandkisses @kiara-rose-blackthorn @moonlitarchangels @graduatedmelon @lunar-wolf-warrior @tbehartoo @zoerayne2426 @ellerahs @heaven428 @my-name-is-michell @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @myownworldstayout @alexzandria-747 @k-rena-k @vivilakitty @redscarlet95 @un1cornf1ghter @bookreader20003 @nataladriana9 @resignedcatservant @blue-peach14 @royalchaoticfangirl @melicmusicmagic @dani-ari @captain-rice @magic-miraculous @valeks-princess @fiendsangelical @chloe-bourgeois-is-big-gay @ladylb @vixen-uchiha @spicybelladonna @asteriodd @thatrandomfandomsgirl @laurakinneylance @casual-darkness @sam-spectra @romanoff-queen @ki117h3dr4g0n @thequietestlilbucket @silvergold-swirl @alwaysnumberonetruth @bigcheeseyboi @alexresides @grandmaveitch @bluefiredemon @emjrabbitwolf @brinxiethebear @xxmadamjinxx @shadowberrybinch @tinybrie @t-nikki10 @yuuki-uzumaki @kurogaya913 @roseinbloom02 @7-sage-7 @northernbluetongue @violatiger8 @schrodingers25 @sassy-spocko @lysslovsanime @jessigurl-design @danielslilangel @creator-josie @skystarssun @kuhakuanon @tritaledkitsune @interobanginyourmom @kandi-pie @eliza-bich @asianfrustration13 @two-faced-biatch @goggles-mcgee @asianfrustration13
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violent ends (chapter 6)
(chapter 6)
series masterlist
genre: hunger games!au
pairings: huang renjun x oc, na jaemin x oc
warnings: kissing, language, violent deaths, fighting, angst, fluff, + nsfw
previous | next
Athena’s POV
Every night since I've arrived to the Capitol, I would go and sit out on the balcony after training. It's calming and sobering to rewind the events of the entire day.
For example, I had just finished telling Taeyong about my plans with Jaemin in private. I made sure that no one else, especially Renjun, knew what was going to happen. Of course, Taeyong wasn't too happy about me being with a boy. Or at least pretending to be with one. However, he said it doesn't matter to him, just as long as I win.
I also thought about how we were gong to be evaluated and given rankings tomorrow. Rankings, ranked from one to twelve, are assigned by the Gamekeepers to tributes, after they are given fifteen minutes to show off their best skills. These are very important, since these are televised to the public and show people who they should sponsor.
I hear the door slide open from behind me.
"You here to kill me, yet?" I joke, seeing Renjun.
"Maybe." He shrugs, sitting down beside me.
We both stare down at the Capitol below. Watching as a group of citizens are walking, having the time of their lives. For them, the games were the most excited part of their whole year.
I speak up, "They look so happy"
"If I lived like this everyday, I would be happy too," Renjun says, matter of factly, "The food. The apartments. Who wouldn't be happy?"
Frowning, I state, "I wouldn't. Do you wanna know why?"
"No, but your probably going to tell me anyway." Renjun rolls his eyes.
I wonder what he truly thinks about the Capitol and the games.
"Haven't you seen the kids from twelve? They look so small and malnourished. I would feel bad for living like that, when there are others, like them, who can't." I shake my head.
"Where'd you get those ideas from? Jaemin? They look fine to me."
I begin to throw a pebble off the roof. However, a invisible force causes the pebble to bounce back into the balcony.
"Do you know why they have that? It's so the tributes can't jump off." I try to make a point.
He plainly stated, "I don't get why they would do that."
Frustrated, I ask, "Have you ever even thought about all the things you might not ever get to do?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. There's so many things I never got to do. You know, all the things teenagers are supposed to do. Like first kisses and love and all that stuff." I shake my head.
"Probably cause no one has ever wanted to be with you like that." He laughs at me.
Sharply, I just reply with, "Jaemin would."
"Of course," He repeats to himself, "Of course, he would."
Taken aback, I inquire, "What's that supposed to mean?"
He just shakes his head.
"Okay, fine. Then, have you ever kissed someone before, Renjun?" I interrogate.
His nose wrinkles in disgust, "Ew, how did this conversation get so long and gross?"
"Renjun, it's just a simple question." I state, nonchalantly.
"Fine," He answers quickly, "I never got the chance to. So, no."
I let out a laugh of relief, "Well, now I feel better about myself."
Renjun just shrugs, "I just don't get why it's such a big deal."
"How can you know it's not a big deal if you've never tried it?" I suggest.
He stares at me blankly. After pausing to think about my words, a little smile appears on his face.
"Lee Athena, it sounds a little like your trying to get me to kiss you right now."
My eyes widened in denial, "No. I'm really not."
He just chuckles to himself.
Without carefully considering the weight of my next words, I speak, "Although, you did say you didn't think it was a big deal."
"And?" Renjun pressures.
Out of my mouth slips, "So I guess it wouldn't be weird if you did."
He looks at me like I'm dumb, "Are you even listening to what you're saying?"
"I guess not. Never mind, then. I think I'm really tired and delirious. I'm going to bed." I quickly muster out, before practically running back into the apartment.
"Wait."
I run back into the living room and up to my own room. I really think I'm going crazy. It's only after shut the door to my room, that I realize the weight of what I just did. How messed up must I be to basically come on to Huang Renjun?
Huang Renjun!
Someone who's going to be trying to kill me in several days. I just tried to get him to kiss me, even though I'm about to have fake relationship with another boy. Which, Renjun can not know is fake. Otherwise, my whole game will be jeopardized and I could lose all the sponsors.
Knock. Knock.
"Who is it?" I play dumb.
"Lee Athena, open this door." Renjun commands, sternly.
I let him in the room, before beginning to plead with him, "Can you just for-"
Suddenly, he just quickly started leaning in.
Closer and closer.
Then, he just paused from hesitation. It was almost as if he was thinking, am I really about to do this?
However, the next thing I did was the result of no thinking on my part.
I grabbed his face and closed the gap. Oh my god, why are his lips actually so soft? This is so wrong. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. Our lips just slightly touched for about eight seconds, before I moved away.
"Oh my god, did I really ju-"
Huang Renjun kisses me hard. This time, our lips began moving. He set a pattern and I just followed his lead. This time it felt less foreign, almost natural.
If I had to describe the feeling, it felt like I got punched in the stomach, just without the hurt. Instead, it just felt really warm. I almost felt like I could melt into a blazing inferno any second.
It was one of the best things I've ever felt in my life.
He pulls back, studying my facial expression.
"See, I was right. Not a big deal." He coldly shrugs before quickly leaving. I don't stop him, either. This is what I deserve. I'm the one who walked myself into this situation. Maybe it's better, if I just block it out of my memories.
However, as I'm waiting with the rest of the tributes to be called in for examinations, it's the only thing I can think about.
"You look like you're about to throw up. Nervous?" asks a concerned Jaemin, sitting next to me.
"Just a bit," I lie, "I really don't want to mess up."
"Hey, it's okay. I know you're going to be great." He comforts, sweetly.
A mechanical voice comes over the speakers, "Lee Athena."
"Please, just don't kill anyone." Jaemin trys to ease my fake nervousness with a joke.
"No promises." I wink before entering the gym.
I look up to see the Gamemakers, where they had watched us during training. Luckily for me, District 2 is one of the earlier groups they see first. That means, they are more awake and still excited.
I walk over to a table, where I see a large assortment of weapons to choose from. I grab multiple throwing knifes and place all of them in my left hand.
I inhale and look at the human-shaped targets in front of me. There were two targets on the head, chest, and stomach. I inhale, before I finally begin my rampage.
One target after the other, hitting with perfect precision. Even after I completely finish the target directly in front of me. I continue randomly throwing knifes, all precisely hitting the fake-humans.
I stop after there are no more knifes left. Peeking up, I see the Gamemakers clapping in awe.
Although, I'm not done yet. No, I need to give them something that they have no choice but to remember.
I return to the table and pick up an axe. I look up and gave a sweet smile to the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane.
Without looking at the target, I hold the axe behind my head, then throw straight at it.
Once hearing a thud, I smile in delight once I see it has hit the designated spot.
The groin.
With one last innocent smile, I make my exit.
"Oh my gosh, that was absolutely everything!" Doyoung gushed to me, sitting down on the couch.
"What happened?" asked a confused Renjun.
"I hit the target in the dick." I explained.
Doyoung cried out, "Language, Athena!"
"Oh shit, my bad. I meant the no-no square." I tease. Doyoung is one of those people who are fun to purposely stress out.
"Athena, quit bullying Doyoung." said Taeyong with a hint of playfulness. He came in from the kitchen and turned on the television. Surprisingly, I see Seulgi following him in.
There’s a small part of me that wants to score high for her. Especially, since her outfit is the reason I have gained any support so far. I really don’t want to throw away the opportunity she helped provide me.
On the screen appears the host, Caesar Flickerman. One of the things he was known for was changing his hair color for the games every year. This year, his powdered-blue hair was styled in a low ponytail.
“As you know, the tributes were rated on a scale from one to twelve, after 3 days of careful evaluation. The Gatekeepers would like to acknowledge that it was an exceptional group.
From District One, Jeno with a score of 10. Also, Haechan with a score of 9."
Those were really good scores. Although, nothing unexpected from a Career.
“Then, we have District 2. First, we have Huang Renjun with a 10.”
“Wow!” Doyoung claps loudly. Renjun just cringes at the man.
Caesar’s voice becomes more high pitched, “Then, we have Lee Athena with an 11!”
Well, I guessed they liked my little stunt. Although, I can let this go to my head. Especially, since this means I have to be prepared for a huge target on my head.
“Well done, both of you.” Taeyong praises, content.
We pay attention to the rest of the scores. Jaemin received a ten, which I know he worked hard for. Compared to the Careers, the rest of the tributes were not as high. However, this doesn’t mean they’re not as much as a threat. Many people like to use a strategy of hiding all of their talents until they step into the arena.
We all head back to our rooms. Renjun, of course, avoiding any sort of conversation with me. I lay down on my bed and sigh.
Tomorrow, everything’s going to change.
#nct au#nct smut#nct dream imagines#nct series#nct dream#renjun#jaemin#haechan#jeno#nct#nct dream smut
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Notes and Excerpts from “YoRHa Ver. 1.05″ Novelization
I took notes so I could refer back to them myself as I write fics, but I could never find as much information as I wanted about the stage play prior to reading this, so I thought I’d share for those who may not be able to read it. If you are able to get a copy, I really encourage you to do so! The story is in NieR: Automata: Short Story Long (in Japanese, NieR: Automata: A Short Story.)
I took notes on things like android physiology and psychology, A2′s personality before these events took place, a vague outline of what happened, and more. There are some spoilers for the stage play, but if you’re familiar with her backstory from the game and the “Beasts of Slaughter” audio drama, you already know the gist of them.
[canonicity]
The novelization sees to be from 2017, which means that the version of the stage play it would be adapting is 1.1 (which I believe was released in 2015). This would presumably then be the first time the stage play was updated after the release of the game, despite the novelization being called 1.05. The 1.2 stage play (the most recent, from 2018) came about a year after this novelization.
[plot]
The Pearl Harbor Descent Mission is their first mission. Guided by their operators, Futaba and Yotsuba, and under orders from Commander, 16 units are deployed.
While approaching the ground, they come under fire. No. 2, No. 4, No. 16, and No. 21 are the sole survivors from the squadron. No. 2 becomes the leader now that No. 1 has been killed, but feels unable to lead
They request that Commander abort the mission, as they were not supposed to proceed if they lost more than 4 units, but have lost 12. Command refused, ordering them to proceed and cutting the transmission. No. 2 tries many times to contact Command, recognizing this mission is certain to get them killed, but is ignored by her. Later successes at contacting Command are met only with reiteration that they are ordered to continue the mission.
During an intense battle with the Machines, the 4 YoRHa units encounter members of the Resistance.
Lily (one of the Resistance members) is infected with the logic virus. Until this time, the Resistance (who seem not to have any units capable of hacking) thought the only way to respond was to kill someone as there was no hope of saving them, but No. 21 (a Scanner) is able to cure her of the virus.
The group makes their way to the location of the server room. The Machines have evolved again, and they don’t know how to fight them. Lily, who has become able to use their attacks after being infected with the logic virus, uses a gravity wave to stop the Machines, but she isn’t able to move while keeping the Machines in place. Dahlia, Margaret, and No. 16 stay behind with her. Everyone is aware that the 4 are certain to die. Later, No. 16 detonates her Black Box, taking them out along with the Machines.
No. 21 makes an excuse (perhaps true) about needing to stay behind to hack the elevator to get it to run. The truth is that in addition to this, she is infected with a logic virus that is resistant to hacking. The rest of the group realizes this, and Anemone stays with her to provide a mercy kill. After this, Anemone runs out into the battlefield in the hopes of getting killed by the Machines.
Rose, Erica, Gerbara, Sonia, Shion, No. 2, and No. 4 arrive at the server room alone, where they encounter the Red Girls. The Red Girls inform No. 2 and No. 4 that they were created and sent to Earth to die, that Commander knew the conditions would be worse than she told them, and that abandoning them to this fate was the plan all along.
They have bombs attached to their Black Boxes, which are set to go off if they die in the server room. The real purpose of their mission was to collect data for use in creating future models; it was intended all along that the entire squadron would die.
A strong and unpredictable Machine attacks them. Soon, No. 2 and No. 4 are the only ones left. The Red Girls want to kill No. 4 in front of No. 2 just to see how she reacts, but No. 4 survives and sacrifices herself to save No. 2.
[the resistance]
The Resistance members seen are said to be the sole survivors of a 160 person troop from the Eighth Descent Mission, 200 years ago. (Perhaps they didn’t know Jackass survived, or perhaps she is an android from somewhere else and joined the Resistance at a later time?)
In the timeline, this event can be found in the year 11732. This is 7,543 years after the collapse of Project Gestalt, exactly 200 years before the manufacture of YoRHa units was approved, and 205 years before the first YoRHa unit was operational.
Despite being created before Project YoRHa (and thus the Council of Humanity) was in the picture, they seem to actually believe in there being humans on the moon. They have tried to contact them and believe themselves to have been abandoned by the humans due to not having heard back.
The Resistance named themselves so as to feel more like a family and individuals, as android units don’t typically get individual names.
[android physiology and psychology]
Androids have “artificial muscles” which can become “tight from nerves,” just as humans tense up. They can also experience many other physiological indications of emotions, such as a heavy body, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, and stomach pain.
Causes of death for androids include battle injuries, accidents, damage to their chassis (body/physical framework), cognitive malfunction, and logic viruses. (This isn’t necessarily a comprehensive list.)
Androids are, at least up to this squadron, hard-coded to fear their own destruction “to promote higher chances of survival.” Despite this, they are still capable of suicidal thoughts and self-sacrifice.
It seems androids are capable of dissociation and being paralyzed with fear.
Androids can sustain cuts, bruises, and scars. If they can bruise, we can potentially assume that the blood they have is a “layer” between their artificial skin and the machinery covering below it.
For an android, their Command’s orders are absolute. They are also “manipulated” into not questioning fishy things. Even if they notice suspicious things like a recon squad who found the server room and never returned, they won’t falter in following Command’s order to go there.
It’s not supposed to be possible for an android to get lost, due to having location data.
It appears that androids can have symptoms similar to PTSD (such as hypervigilance, nightmares, “people who struggle constantly from the terrible memories they were given”), whether a result of real memories or the simulated memories they are given.
[simulated memories]
All androids (at least between the Resistance members and the YoRHa squadron) are given “simulated memories” to “be like humans.”
“Everyone was aware that simulated memories were not real. But to the individual, they all seemed real. Simulated memories were just as vivid as, if not more vivid than, the real memories they had.” But they still value their real memories more.
These memories can be of happy lives, or cruel experiences. Either way, it seems that these memories influence who they are.
No. 2′s memories are of living alone with her grandmother in the countryside after losing her parents at a young age. No. 4′s were of being a happy, sociable high school girl. Rose’s memory is of being a little boy with a military father. One remembers being bullied. A couple of Resistance members imply their memories are of being child soldiers.
There is no indication as to whether the practice of implementing simulated memories continued or was discontinued after this mission.
[logic viruses]
There are predictable stages of the logic virus infection progressing. The first outward sign seems to be jerky movements, as the virus causes them to slowly lose control of their bodies. When their eyes are shining red like a Machine’s, it’s in the terminal phase.
Machines were already weaponizing logic viruses prior to the Pearl Harbor Descent mission.
“The logic virus that the Machines spread could all of a sudden overwrite data in an android’s cyberbrain. Then it would destroy the android’s consciousness and take over their body.”
There may be different types of logic viruses. When Lily is infected and is saved through hacking, she realizes she is able to use enemy attacks such as gravity wave. They are unsure whether this is a different type of virus, which copies its own attacks into an infected unit, or whether the virus adapted in this way because Lily lacked attack power.
Even after sustaining injuries that would be impossible to survive, a dead android can be infected and “animated” by a machine to attack their comrades.
The logic viruses are also capable of evolution, as No. 21 becomes infected with a logic virus that she is not able to hack out.
[changes between generations]
Rather than having one Operator per field unit, they have Futaba and Yotsuba fulfilling this role for the entire squadron. (Based on the names, there may be two or more other operators who do not appear, but that’s only speculation. In the context of counters, ‘futa’ is two and ‘yotsu’ four, but it might be coincidence; and we don’t know if the first and third, or any others, are even operational if it is true.)
“When Rose and her companions had been manufactured, there had been rumors and stories about humans. No. 2 felt a bit of a generation gap. A difference of two hundred years was no small amount of time. No. 2 rarely heard stories of humans.”
In No. 2′s generation, single-digit numbered models are Attackers, 1x (i.e., 10-19) are Gunners, and 2x are Scanners.
No. 2 is surprised to hear that there is a weapons merchant among the Resistance, noting, “Currency economics had existed a long time ago. She remembered hearing that the occupation of merchant disappeared along with the collapse of the system...”
Unlike the Resistance members, the YoRHa squadron have shields to the logic virus, however these shields are clearly not impervious to being rendered ineffective by the virus’ evolution.
The Resistance members don’t seem to be familiar with Scanner-types or hacking.
Newer models have better resistance to Machines’ gravity attacks, recover faster, and are more durable.
Machine cores appeared to thermal sensors as an unusually cool spot in their bodies, which allows androids to locate their core (which is their weak spot). However, Machines evolved to put heat-insulating material around their core to disguise it. This makes the Resistance members and squadron units unable to defeat them, so presumably weaponry has changed by Automata.
This is said in an interview with Yoko rather than the stage play, but it feels relevant to note that this mission was almost certainly before (and, in fact, a big part of the reason) the “emotions are prohibited” rule was implemented.
[relationships]
“being with No. 4 made No. 2 feel more at home.”
The Resistance works to cleanse the Earth of Machines not for humans, but for each other.
The Resistance see one another as family. No. 2 reflects that she doesn’t understand the concept of a family, but there are a number of parallels between how she acts with her comrades and how the Resistance members act with one another, so the accuracy of this is perhaps debatable.
No. 2 is prone to brooding. No. 4 seems good at picking up on when this is happening, and tries to comfort or distract her.
[Seed]
Seed is noted to be old, both through her memories and the deterioration of her body.
Seed is said to be a celebrated warrior, and says that she “lived with humans, shared experiences, and stormed the battlefield with them.” (Note that this would put her at around 10,000 years old, but since Popola and Devola are that old, it’s not out of the question.) She says she has been to Earth 3 times to fight Machines, and her first mission was in the desert.
Currently, she is an experimental unit whose purpose is to test new prototype equipment and participate in simulations with it, even though the experiments are known to be hard on her body.
Seed either genuinely believes there are humans on the moon, or is lying to No. 2 about it.
She begins to question whether her memories of fighting among the humans are real or artificial. Perhaps it is not a coincidence then that she is soon killed in the process of testing “magnetic field-resistant skin.”
Seed’s death occurred quite close to the Pearl Harbor Descent Mission. No. 2 later speculates that it may be because she was too sympathetic to the YoRHa soldiers, if she knew they were doomed.
At the time of Seed’s death, No. 2 doesn’t understand why, even though Seed should have been backed up and able to be moved to a new body, Commander refuses. She is simply told, “This is already a decided matter.”
[A2/No. 2]
Before and during these events, No. 2 is loyal, naive, and emotional. She gets scared easily and is often on the verge of tears. Her comrades are more important to her than anything else, including her own life.
Granted, given that two or three separate people tell her to find a reason to live, she may not particularly value her own life.
She tries to stay optimistic so long as there is the “potential” for success, no matter how slim.
No. 2 thinks little of sacrificing herself, at one point reflecting, “If she couldn’t become as strong as No. 1, then at least she could become a shield for her comrades.”
Even though it shouldn’t be possible, No. 2 seems to have an abysmal sense of direction. She gets lost in the small Resistance camp. She gets lost in “this small orbiting base” (presumably the Bunker?). It’s acknowledged that this is very odd -- “How the hell could an android get lost? She thought she would be suspected as a defective model.” -- but never explained.
The Commander describes No. 2 as a “mediocre specimen lacking extraordinary qualities.” When faced with this statement, No. 2 apologizes, reflecting that “Just as the commander had said, she was average in every way and had nothing she was exceptionally good at. No. 2 knew it too well.” She also describes herself as a “boring, unexceptional model.”
The word “potential” has significant meaning to her, after Seed told her that “being average means she has the potential to improve in every way.”
“She understood how Lily felt, because she also had an inferiority complex of feeling like useless baggage.”
No. 2 has always hated fighting and wishes she didn’t have to.
“Not wanting to bother her comrades. Not wanting to be a burden to her comrades. That was how No. 2 had fought, in training and on the battlefield. Everything she did was for the sake of her comrades, but her comrades kept dying.”
No. 2 blames herself for the Resistance members dying, since she was the one to convince them to cooperate.
When having to kill her zombified, infected former comrades: “No. 2 felt something die inside of her.”
When No. 2 comes to after the explosion, her first thought is that someone stronger should have survived instead.
She only learned recently (to Automata’s “present day”) that Anemone had survived. Until that time, she had thought herself the sole survivor of the entire mission.
In present day, she continues to have frequent, recurring nightmares of that mission.
[misc]
The androids predating them created YoRHa to spur android evolution, because with the Machines evolving, the androids were struggling in the war.
When a unit has “made significant contributions on the battlefield,” they may fill out a request form to receive a name, which then must go to the board (Council of Humanity?) for approval. This may or may not be the case for Futaba and Yotsuba (since they have potentially numeric names), but is said to be true of Seed. (Whether this is actually true of Seed or was implemented as part of a cover story is, of course, unknown.)
The Resistance wants to give No. 2 a name, but she feels she has “no right to have a name, not without having produced any results.” She asks that they wait until after the mission, but really she is against it without going through the proper channels.
The Bunker(?) has different rooms that simulate different situations, such as one in which location data is not available. However, this does not seem to be where the current units’ battle simulations take place, as Seed remarks that units don’t go there unless they are “experimental subjects or staff.”
excerpts
“What should I do... I can’t be a captain.”
She [No. 2] couldn’t. Why me, she thought. Why did she survive, and not No. 1?
.
Anemone was speechless. No. 21′s eyes were both blood red. It was a symptom from the terminal stages of infection. It was a miracle she was operating the terminal in this state. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she had gone rampant minutes ago. She must have held it together via sheer willpower, to get No. 2 and the group to the server room.
“Please. While I’m still myself.”
Anemone leveled the gun at No. 21. She struggled to keep her hands steady.
“Any last words?”
No. 21′s mouth distorted into a smile. Or rather, she tried to smile.
“Who would you pass them on to, even if I had any?”
“I’ll hear you out. Even if I die right after this.”
“I’m glad I met you. These memories are real. Thank you.”
.
[When No. 2 asks Seed why she takes part in the dangerous and painful experiments:]
“Well, I should be retired by now, after all.”
Seed’s chassis was covered in scars. Perhaps they had stopped production of her original parts; much of her body used parts that were obviously not of her original design.
“I left everything on the battlefield. Do you understand?” she asked, to which No. 2 shook her head. She had never even been in a battle, so she couldn’t imagine a battlefield either.
“Anger, sadness, fear, and even happiness. I have none of it now. There’s nothing in this empty head of mine.” Seed looked down at her hands. “But when I’m holding a weapon, I forget all of that. Even if this is a simulated battlefield.”
.
[Seed’s message to No. 2]
“If you’re seeing this message, then that means I’m no longer a part of this world.”
She stopped breathing. She thought her heart would stop beating too.
“Unlike humans, we’re told that androids have no souls. This message is the closest thing to a soul that I can leave you with.”
“No...” Her voice sounded far away.
.
Why couldn’t they upload her [Seed’s] data to a spare chassis? Technologically speaking, avoiding death was possible. Yet.
“Why? I can’t accept that!”
The commander had already disappeared.
“I can’t... accept that...”
Her shoulders involuntarily shook. Pain rose from the bottom of her throat. No. 2 cried alone in a deserted hallway.
.
The night before--after Lily had told No. 2 that “Rose is my only captain!”--No. 2 had curled up in a fetal position at the edge of camp. No. 2 had felt unreasonably dejected until No. 21 came up to her to explain the situation.
.
What determined who lived was not power or intelligence. It was sheer luck. Even so, she was chosen to live. A fate chosen on a whim. Then, she had to do whatever being a survivor entailed.
Destroy the Machines. Destroy everything. Nobody would get in her way. She would kill anybody who tried. Whoever that person would be. [...]
First, she had to escape this shitty place. After she repaired her chassis, she would go massacre the Machines. She would ruin them, one by one. That was her reason to live...
.
She had died during that battle. Her old self was buried under the rubble with her comrades.
That’s why even if she knew Anemone was alive, she didn’t go out of her way to contact her. She didn’t know what to do if she met her. But now she had a perfect excuse, in the form of a fuel filter, to go talk to her.
She peered toward the direction the box specified. She could see some high-rise structures beyond the sandstorms.
“Guess I’ll go.”
She walked, kicking sand as she went. She called out her comrades’ names in her head. But she felt nothing.
She was empty inside.
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NOT My Hero Academia: Part 1 – Ch.4
“Midoriya!” Iida called out to me on my way out of the school later that same day. He caught up to me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “That was very impressive, keeping up with all of us the way you did.”
“Ah! Um… thanks…”
“Expelling someone…” Iida put a hand to his chin, motioning with the finger of his other hand animatedly, “At first, I couldn’t believe our own instructor would do such a thing, but I suppose that’s how it is at the top!”
I didn’t get it. Why…? Why come up to talk to me? It’s not like I knew this “Iida” guy. ‘Maybe… It’s just cause we left at about the same time, so he spotted me in the crowd…?’
“You two!” Uraraka came running up next. “Headed to the station? Wait up!”
“Ah, Infinity Girl!” said Iida.
She looked surprised by the nickname, “I’m Ochako Uraraka! Um, you’re Tenya Iida and Midoriya… um… Deku! Right!!”
“Deku?!” I exclaimed.
“Hmm?” She looked confused, “During the test, that Bakugo guy said ‘Damn you, Deku!!’ right?”
Sweating nervously, gesturing wildly, and avoiding eye contact with the too cute girl, I managed to stumble out an explanation, “Um… my real name is Izuku… ‘Deku’ is just Kacchan being a bully…”
“A derogatory pet name then?” muttered Iida, clearly bothered by that.
“Oh gotcha!! Sorry!!” Uraraka apologized, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. But then, clenching her fist in front of her and smiling brightly, she continued, “But ‘Deku’ well… It just screams, ‘Do your best!!’ I kinda like it. The way it sounds.”
‘Oh, man… Too cute…!’ Judging by how hot my cheeks felt, I was blushing even more deeply now. ‘This changes everything!’
“Deku’s fine!!”
Iida tried to talk me out of it, but I ignored him. Because… if even the name “Deku” could become something I could wear proudly…
And regardless of the way the other students looked at me, or the way our teachers treated me…
If Uraraka could still smile at me cheerfully…
‘I just might like it at this school after all.’
…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I HAVE…!” the students heard a voice call from down the hallway.
We all knew that voice. And I knew it better than most… I grimaced slightly, but I couldn’t deny I was still a little excited. ‘He’s here…’
With a gust of wind, All Might was suddenly leaning into the room from the door frame.
“... COME THROUGH THE DOOR, LIKE NORMAL!!”
My classmates muttered to themselves and each other, excited and freaking out over the Number One Hero.
All Might whistled a tune, marched to the front of the room, turned his back to us and posed exclaiming, “Hero basic training! The class that’ll put you through all sorts of special training to mold you into heroes!!” He faced us again. “No time to dally. Today’s activity is BATTLE TRAINING!!”
From the seat in front of me, I heard Kacchan mutter “battle…” with a grin in his voice.
All Might continued, “And for that… you need these!!”
Parts of the wall to our left slid out with a rumble. There were containers inside with numbers on them.
It was our costumes. Specially made for us thanks to U.A.’s uniform subsidy.
Mine was a simple, thin, reinforced body-armor. I hadn’t been able to decide on a design, though, so the company had just given (left?) it a plain black.
It had holsters and compartments for all the weapons Master had given me.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“As promised…”
I stared, wide-eyed, at the assortment of weapons, armor, and other additions to my costume -- many which I didn’t even recognize. Let alone know how to use!
“K-Kurogiri-sensei… This is…”
‘This is too much!!!’
“You’ll start training to use them immediately. But as for what you’ll take to school with you…” Kurogiri-sensei pointed to a selection of four items, “These should be sufficient for most situations.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There was an extendable/retractable bo staff, smoke pellets, net-grenades, and a trick-gun. Although, I had a simple grapple-gun, instead of the trick-gun at the moment, since it still needed to be approved. Once it was, though, I could discard the grapple-gun in favor of the trick-gun’s grapple setting. One less thing to carry.
The suit covered my entire body, including my head. I could see and breath through the part covering my face, although I wasn’t sure what the material was. All-in-all, it was… not really a look that suited me, in my opinion. But it would do for now.
Until I… actually figured out what look would suit me…
.
When we made it to the training grounds (a faux-city), I was surprised to see an older student next to All Might. Apparently, he was “Mirio Togata,” All Might’s teaching assistant.
“Don’t mind me!” he said, waving and smiling at the class, “I’m just here to observe for now.”
All Might explained the rules of our “indoor anti-personnel battle training,” and we drew lots to determine the teams.
I ended up teamed with Uraraka (‘Seriously? I can barely say two words to her…! Jeez, where’s that plant when I need it?!’) and, just my luck, facing off against Kacchan (and Iida) in the very first matchup.
As All Might was encouraging the two boys to “adopt a villain mindset” and “not hold back,” Kacchan bragged about how “certain his victory” against us was.
Uraraka and I waited outside while the villains prepared for the battle.
Strangely, strategizing for a battle, preparing to face unfair odds in order to train… to get stronger…
It almost felt like I was back with Kurogiri-sensei and Master.
“So that’s you Deku? Cool costume!! Real practical-looking!”
I didn’t answer her, instead staring at the blueprints of the building we were to infiltrate.
“...” Uraraka stared at me, at my face that was only just barely visible through my mask. “... Are you worried?”
“-hm?” I looked up at her. “No. Why?”
If anything, she was the one who looked worried. “It’s just… Bakugo, he’s… the one who bullies you, right?”
I lowered the blueprints. “Yeah. We’d better be on guard.”
‘Actually… yeah. Why aren’t I worried? Since…’
“Kacchan may be a jerk, but he’s amazing… He’s stronger than me in almost every way. Iida too. Their quirks…” ‘Are only tools.’
“... We should come up with a strategy!” Uraraka smiled at me, pumped.
‘Kacchan is sure to come straight at me. So…’
I smiled back. “I… have a few ideas, actually.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Back in the monitor room, All Might was distracted. He’d been distracted from the moment he recognized the two boys in his class. Well, he’d known they’d both gotten in, but… with Aizawa’s reputation, he’d expected that green-haired kid to have been expelled already!
He was worried. He’d found out when he’d saved Bakugo that the boy had a nasty temper. And his quirk was incredibly strong! And, he might’ve been imagining it, but… there seemed to be a dangerous tension between the two boys.
But… as the teacher, he couldn’t…
‘No. Midoriya is just another student. A quirkless student… but a student. Someone I’m meant to teach and prepare to become a hero. If the kid has made it this far on his own, then he can handle himself.’
… But there was no need to let things get out-of-hand, right?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When we got the signal to start, Uraraka used her zero-gravity on me, and, grabbing her, I I grappled us to the top of the building.
While we couldn’t be certain of where the “villains” were holed up, it was likely to be higher, rather than lower.
--“Higher ground is easier to defend,” said Kurogiri-sensei, “This is a natural human instinct, as well as a fact of battle.”--
‘And also,' I thought to myself 'by coming from the top… we just might catch them off-guard.’
A sneak attack wasn’t just our best chance, but, really, our only chance.
--“Even when you’re outclassed and outmatched, the element of surprise can even any odds.”--
So it was unfortunate that we were up against someone with enough speed to, potentially, counter that key advantage.
...
I had been right: Kacchan had already headed downstairs to try and attack me directly. But there was only one entrance into the room containing Iida and the weapon.
Uraraka and I tried to circle around and inside through the windows, but Iida spotted us just in time.
“Bakugo! They’re up here!” he yelled into his micro transceiver.
He rushed at me, since I was closer to the weapon, but Uraraka managed to slap his shoulder as he passed her.
He floated into the air. He’d lost his speed advantage!
But before we knew it, we could already hear the sounds of explosions closing in on us. There was no time!
I barely managed to hide myself against the wall containing the door before Kacchan came barreling through it.
--I rushed through a portal, only to be grabbed from behind and pinned to the ground.
"When entering a new space,” Kurogiri-sensei said, “people will rarely look to the side in those first few seconds.”--
Without even pausing, Kacchan charged at Uraraka, who was about to touch the weapon. But before he could land a blow, I threw one of the net-grenades, and-
*ki-ching!*
-he found himself trapped in a net!
He tried to blast out of it, but I knew the net was too strong for that.
Unfortunately for us, Iida managed to use his recipro burst to reach a wall and-
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
All four of us stood in a line in front of the rest of the class, our masks removed. Kacchan was literally smoking with rage, muttering about a “fluke.”
“Well, I’d say… The V.I.P. of this battle was Iida!!” exclaimed All Might, “I wonder why? Anyone know?!”
“I do, All Might-sensei,” said Momo Yaoyorozu, her hand shooting up. “Not only did he capture both heroes, but he stayed focused on his goal and found a counter-strategy when facing an attack from an unforeseen direction.”
“Very good, Miss Yaoyorozu!” All Might congratulated her.
But, from next to the teacher, Mirio cut in.
“I dunno…” he said, thoughtful. “I think the V.I.P. was Midoriya.”
My gaze (everyone’s, really) shot up from the floor to look at him. My jaw was on the ground in shock.
“I mean, the Hero Team shouldn’t have stood a chance of winning, yet Midoriya showed ingenuity in that sneak attack of theirs. It should have guaranteed them victory! They only failed because the Villain Team had a card hidden up their sleeve.”
“... Yes … You’re correct…!” All Might was sweating nervously, “But I’d, um… also add that the Hero Team should have kept their eyes on both opponents, even if they believed them to be immobilized!”
Mirio nodded. Still smiling, he turned to us, “Yeah, true. It’s hard to do in the middle of battle. But, as you found out, it’s best to stay aware of all your surroundings!”
All Might quickly got the next match moving after that and, freed from the awkward tension, the other students started crowding around me.
“Cool moves, man!” “I wouldn’t have thought to go from outside!” “Where’d you learn to fight like that?!”
Even Todoroki stopped to give me a “Well done” before leaving for his own match.
I did my best to laugh off their questions (I couldn’t tell them about Master, after all), and, thankfully, they were distracted when the next match started.
Kacchan was still smoking. But when he saw how quickly Todoroki’s power ended the match-
-he stopped.
I noticed the look in his eyes.
But when I saw Kacchan leave early… I didn’t feel any desire to go after him.
Really, I didn’t.
I…
Didn’t…
.
… Right?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Beginning]
[Previous Chapter] - [Next Chapter]
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for the oneshot request: hurt and comfort remile where emile gets beat up by one of the students in his college (bc he’s gay and this idiot kid is a homophobe) and remy tends to his wounds since they know a thing or two about how to take care of your wounds after a fight. you can decide if they an established couple or they’re just friends - i don’t mind either way. i hope this request is okay to write
CV: Okay to write? Oh it was certainly okay–it was brilliant! Thank you so much for requesting. I love Remile so much, and I hope I was able to write what you had in mind here. Have a wonderful day!
CW: Homophobia, Implied/ Referenced Bullying and Violence, Injury, Hyperventilation
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A lot of things worried Emile about that day.
His swollen eye, for one. It stung to hell, and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to put an ice pack on it. He hoped neglecting it for a while wouldn’t make it worse. The cool wind was hitting it, sending both pain and relief across his face, and Emile couldn’t decide which was worse–going without the cold, or taking the extra beating by nature itself.
For another, he still had two classes to get to before he could go home and rest the ache in his muscles–and maybe find that ice pack he was craving. He dreaded other students, or worse, his professors, asking what had happened to him. Emile imagined the worry etched on their faces, their kind voices letting him know he could trust them, he could tell them-
He didn’t want to tell anyone. Emile just wanted to pretend it had never even happened.
There was the grand societal worry–about what it meant that kids were still being abused for who they were. That people could be so cruel to harm someone who hadn’t done anything to them. Emile hadn’t even known the guy, but, somehow, he had known him. He knew him as someone who was out and proud, someone who smiled when he told people he was gay. He was active in his school’s LGBTQ+ Alliance, and worked at the counselor’s office, hosting a support group for queer kids in the area.
He worried that maybe it wasn’t a question of how the guy had known him, but why this hadn’t happened sooner.
Or who was next.
Emile thought of the kids he worked with, the ones he talked to, told they’d always have a safe place to come to, but what if it wasn’t a safe place at all? What if Emile was only putting them in danger?
But maybe, worst of all–in some misguided, hopeless delusion that he’d always be smiling for them, always be the one who had it together, who was always there to help–Emile was worried about Remy’s reaction.
His partner, Remy, was the light of his life. The only one who didn’t see him as naive because he looked on the bright side. The only one who supported all the extra responsibilities he took on because, if he could help, he was going to goshdarn help. The only one Emile could lean on just as much as Remy leaned on him.
Even though it scared him. Leaning on someone else–it took time to learn. Emile had never given himself that luxury, despite, objectively, knowing how bad that was for him. He was a psychology major; he was going to be a therapist. Emile could see his own destructive behavior. It was a slow process to mend it though.
Emile didn’t want Remy to see him like this. If they saw him, with his swollen eye and cut lip and bruising arms and legs that no one could even see under his winter attire, Emile was afraid he’d break.
The world felt so big, while Emile felt so small. Without a tether, Emile felt sort of distant from it all, like maybe he could pretend it hadn’t happened. His worries were breaking down his walls–the horrors of an unjust world singing its mournful tunes. The world wasn’t a happy place–Emile knew that. But sometimes it hit you full-on in the shape of a fist and awful slurs and falling helplessly to the ground at the feet of bigots and their sneers.
Emile hadn’t cried. Not a single tear. He really really didn’t want to. The moment he cried, they had won.
He knew he would cry as soon as he saw Remy.
But Emile couldn’t bring himself to go to class, opting for, the first time that semester, to skip. He thought, ironically, how Remy would be proud. They always said Emile needed to loosen up. Needed to take more care of himself too. That’s two points in one action.
Instead, his feet took him closer to the on-campus Starbucks, packed with students studying, and a line long enough to wrap around the building. On a cold day like this, he shouldn’t have been surprised people wanted hot beverages and a warm place to sit. He hadn’t realized until now he’d been hoping it would be slow.
He hadn’t actually realized where he was going until he saw the long line.
For a moment, he froze, eyes landing behind the counter, the long room away from where he stood, at his partner, juggling cups, looking busied, but unfrazzled–completely in their element. Emile loved coming in here and sitting at a table close by, just to watch them over his laptop screen, talking to them when business was slow.
The people around him parted slightly, regulars recognizing him and others just shocked at the mess that was his face. Emile ducked, face burning. Remy was busy. He should leave, come back later-
“Emile?”
Emile’s head jerked up, eyes landing on the figure approaching him. His heart dropped into his stomach at the sight of a green apron, thinking for a moment it was them, before he looked further and he reached a darker pair of eyes than he was expecting–warm, but not golden. Brown.
“Roman?” he croaked, eyes widening when he realized how he’d sounded.
“What happened to you?” the other asked. Futilely, Emile reached up, trying to hide his face. “Sorry. We should get you to Remy.”
“What? No!” He shook his head insistently. “Remy’s busy. This can wait.”
“No offense,” Roman said, raising an eyebrow at him. “But I really don’t think this can wait.”
Emile went quiet. Roman took his arm, steering him towards the counter. Remy was so focused, they didn’t even notice them until Roman spoke up.
“Remy, I’m covering for you. Give me your orders.”
“What?” Remy looked up, confusion lining his features. It didn’t take long for his gaze to gravitate to Emile, eyes widening. “Emile?” they gasped, slamming down the paper cup they’d been holding. Thankfully, nothing had been in it yet.
“Hey, Rem,” Emile said, fighting back the tears stinging hot at the back of his eyes. Remy practically threw their orders at Roman, who Emile assumed had been on break. Remy rushed around the counter, taking Emile gently and rushing them out. Emile could feel the eyes trailing after them, whispers like screams demanding what had happened–demanding Emile’s secret weaknesses.
They twisted and turned through the corridors of the Social Sciences building, where the Starbucks was located, until they found an empty, unlocked room. Remy pulled him in and shut the door behind them, turning to look Emile over now that they were at a safe distance. Emile didn’t give them the chance, though, finally giving in to his tears and crashing into them.
He felt their arms wrap around him, encasing Emile closer to Remy’s comfort and heat, cradling the back of his head, pulling him in close so Emile could feel like all of the world was there, that he may have been small in comparison, but Remy was big enough to protect both of them, that Remy was the tether that stuck him in this moment.
Emile’s breath hitched and hiccuped, but he couldn’t stop. The tears kept coming–his whines–his sorrows–his fear that had carried past the moment of being knocked to the ground–his worry that the world was so unfair with no way to fix it–it all boiled over in his desperate clutching of Remy’s apron, then the back of his shirt–whatever drew him closer–secured him there with his partner and not the cold ground–not helplessly curling up–alone–his worries speeding off ahead of him about how no one had heard–no one had helped–anything could have happened.
“Em,” Remy’s voice cut through his spiralling thoughts, and Emile gasped a little, too quiet, not able to get anymore breath in. “Em, you need to breathe. Count with me, okay?”
And so they counted. The same thing Emile did with his group. The same thing he’d taught Remy to help with that friend of theirs. It took an excruciatingly long time, but they counted.
Once Emile had his breathing under control, he finally looked up at his partner. His vision was a little blurry, and he couldn’t tell if it was just the fact Remy had taken off his glasses, or if it also had to do with tears. Remy took his puzzled look to mean he wanted his glasses back, though, and carefully slipped them back over his ears.
Eyes a bit clearer, he focused on them. Guilt gnawed at his gut. “I’m sorry.”
A series of expressions crossed Remy’s face. “Don’t you dare apologize for this. This is not your fault,” they said, but their tone wasn’t harsh. In fact, it couldn’t have been more than a scared whisper.
“I shouldn’t have come while you were working,” Emile tried to clarify, but Remy shook their head.
“I would have dropped everything even if Roman didn’t offer to cover,” Remy said. “I don’t care what I’m doing. If you need me, I’m always there for you.” They looked over his face, and Emile felt a hot, dizzying shame. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Just some guy,” Emile said, trying to speak evenly, trying to have it come off as no big deal. “Homophobe.”
Remy’s eyes grew angrier. They curled their lip. “Disgusting.”
“He’s just ignorant,” Emile shrugged. He felt sorry for the guy–thinking he had to pick fights just to feel secure about himself and his misguided beliefs. Remy shook their head.
“I’ll track him down and beat him up myself,” they said, but Emile frowned at that.
“Don’t do that,” he said. Remy deflated, looking him over again.
“Well, at least let me patch you up.”
Emile smiled, but he doubted it came off with his usual cheeriness. “You and what bandages?”
“The cafe keeps first-aid on hand downstairs,” they said. “Could you wait here while I get it?”
Something rose up in Emile’s throat at the thought of being left alone right now, but he nodded anyway. “Of course.”
Remy looked him over, probably seeing right through him. They looked at him, then at the door, then back.
“Really,” Emile reassured. “I’ll be fine.”
Remy had a look in their eye as they undid their apron, shucking the leather jacket they had underneath. Emile wondered how it hadn’t gotten hot in the cafe wearing those layers, but he was thankful for it now, the heavy jacket being thrown over him. Remy bent down, kissing the tip of his nose.
“I’ll be right back, babe.” It was the first time they sounded like themself that day. Emile hated that he’d made them so sober and serious, even if for a good reason.
And they were back, as quick as they had said. Emile barely had time to sit at one of the desks, hugging the jacket close.
Remy came back with an ice pack.
“My savior,” Emile teased, but he grabbed the pack immediately, pressing it to his face. It stung, but, like the wind, it helped.
“Need your arm, hun,” Remy said, bringing a chair closer to sit next to him. Emile looked down at both arms, unsure which they meant until he noticed it: a scrape that had gone right through the material of his hoodie.
Peeling off the hoodie and rolling up his sleeve, Emile presented the arm, which Remy went straight into disinfecting. They worked in silence, and Emile ran his thumb over and over again across the material of Remy’s jacket.
“You know, it’s usually the other way around with us,” Emile said, breaking the comfortable silence they had built up. Remy’s curious eyes met his. “I’m always stitching you up.”
“Well, I guess I get to take care of you for once,” Remy smiled. “Good thing I have practice.”
“It’s not a good thing you get into so many fights,” Emile said. He tried for serious, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to sound anything but slightly amused. “Especially when I wasn’t around to help you after.”
“It’s a good thing we’ve got each other now, then, right?” Remy said, and there was something so soft to it. “We get to keep an eye on each other.”
With those words, Emile’s guilt morphed into something far warmer, better. He looked deep into Remy’s eyes, reading easily between the lines.
It would take a long time–learning to lean on someone else–but Emile was glad it was Remy.
#sanders sides#remile#emile picani#ts sleep#remy sanders#requests#i still suck at endings but hope you enjoy!#i'm in the middle of the next one but requests are still open if y'all are interested#tw homophobia#tw implied/ referenced bullying#tw implied/ referenced violence#tw hyperventilation#tw injury
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Best Laid Plans of Gods & Shield Maidens
Masterlist
Loki Laufeyson Masterlist
Pairing: Loki Laufeyson X Plus Size Reader OFC
Warnings: Smut, self-loathing, bullies
Summary: After years of chasing after the reader, Loki finally gets his chance to show her how he truly feels. Though it takes a masquerade for the reader to understand just how much he has longed after her and only her when he could have anyone in the 9 realms.
Request: @lovesmesomehiddles: Can you do a plus size reader x Loki (set in Asgard) where he is head over heels in love with reader, but she doesn’t understand why when he could have his pick of any woman and in order to show her how he feels about her and it leads to smut?
A/N: Look it! I got a request! I believe I would call this an AU where Thor did take the throne and Loki has become his advisor. Frigga, Odin and the readers mother have all passed.
Words: +4,700
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Y/N was young for an Aesir, one Loki had found himself following with fleeting glances the more she grew into a woman. The girl had wonderful magical talent, one even his mother took into account, taking the young girl under her wing to teach, meaning Loki got to know her well, and that was more than he could have hoped for.
Her mother was an event planner of sorts for Frigga, and inevitably Loki knew it meant the young woman would follow in her mother’s footsteps, seeing as they knew little of who her father was. Rough and tumble for even an Aesir woman, Loki found it a trait he couldn’t dismiss, especially when she put Thor on his ass more times than any could count.
Loki considered her his shield maiden. There had been numerous times the moment she came of age the dark prince invited her to attend the extravagant balls and feasts her mother helped put together. Each time she declined only to hide in the chamber on the opposite side of the palace she and her mother occupied.
It wasn't her mother preventing her from attending, he truly didn’t understand it until he happened to overhear a conversation between several other attendees. It was very hurtful and had he not been specifically ordered to behave or face the whip; Loki would have removed their tongues himself.
It seemed his shield maiden, though appearing confident was very shy, a bit of an outcast such as himself due to her shyness and being favored by the royal family. The jealousy that came from the others made his hair stand on end, having left the festivities that night to wait out the ball with Y/N, practicing seidr.
This did and did not make since all the same. Frigga doted on the girl, more so than he or Thor who were more than accomplished warriors, centuries old while she was a few decades.
Was this the talk his shield maiden endured when the two of them weren’t walking the gardens? Was this why he found her in her mother's chambers when she wasn’t with him and he made an excuse to deliver things that any servants could have?
Short of confessing to her in the open, which Loki swore he had done numerous times and even spoken to her mother on the subject; it still appeared she lacked the confidence to allow him to court her.
Yes, he could force her to do so, but that wasn't the way he wanted. It was a crude way of thinking, one that would do more than ruin the beautiful, confident woman she had become. The very one he was watching direct the servants in how this feast was to be prepared, and the room decorated.
Stopping at her side, Loki knew she sensed him there. Skillfully she directed a servant while holding out a hand for him to place whatever he had brought her this time.
Y/N was no fool, she could sense his care for her, but she didn't understand why he picked her over the others. Thick frame covered in the garb of a man because she despised dresses. A cool hand wrapping hers made her jolt and spin on the god as he tugged the calloused hand to place a kiss over the knuckles.
Letting out a quiet yelp, she met Loki’s gaze. "My prince," she breathed, knowing formalities were in order as they were in public.
"Loki, always Loki to you love," he whispered across the soft flesh, allowing her the hand back, stepping closer to watch the servants hang gold, ebony, evergreen, and burgundy tapestries from the ceiling. It seemed Thor wanted a masquerade for the arrival of the royalty of Alfheim.
Clearing her throat she tried to push it to the side. "Did Thor tell you his plans for this one," she hummed looking to Loki who still watched her close, her cheeks beginning to warm.
"Aye, it appears his majesty has come up with something crafty, though I have a feeling his wife may have her hand in it as well," Loki chuckled. "It's very elaborate if I do say so myself."
"It is," she smiled back at the god before looking away.
The idea behind the masquerade was each man or woman, would be assigned an animal with their invitation. That in turn meant their lover, or whomever they chose to attend with them were to be gifted a similar mask along with matching clothing. Honestly it sounded like a match maker scheme since most of the invitations she had sent out personally were mostly single men, and women.
"Have you received a parcel yet," Loki asked, of course she hadn't, it was still locked safely in his chambers. The god gave a sly smile, noting her slight look of shock that she would receive anything.
"Me? No, of course not," she laughed, it had been a thing she had put out of her mind.
"Don't sale yourself short love, it would be an honor for anyone who chose you as their guest, you are a very wonderful creature," Loki spoke knowingly, placing his hands behind his back to watch the decorating along with her.
"Hmm. Someone desperate then," she hushed under her breath, watching the servants closely, but felt a chill as Loki took in a sharp breath; a thing he normally done when he was about to let someone have a piece of his mind.
"I will not endure you speaking of yourself in such a way," Loki snapped, not meaning it as he did, but now that he was in a position to assure no one spoke ill of her, he felt she shouldn’t take up the mantle herself.
Turning slightly, she eyed Loki close, what was said under her breath wasn’t meant for him to hear but it made her fluster and feel the need to take up for herself.
"Then tell me why you," she began calmly but with authority, taking Loki off guard, "the crowned prince of Asgard, and royal council to the Alfather Thor have an interest in a subject such as myself when you have numerous others who would be better suited to serve you as a lover? I'm nothing but an arranger for the courts elaborate festivities, I would bring no honor to yourself or the crown."
Taken aback, Loki was silenced for the first time in a long time. Damn tradition damn the powers that be for deeming how royalty and non-royals were to interact.
"You think I care for honor," Loki began calmly, kindly actually, as he moved with her the instant she began to step away as if heading towards the kitchens. "As long as you have known me, you know factually that in no way would I do anything to hurt or to degrade you. I care too much for the woman you have become. Tradition, fate, all be damned. As long as you are by my side, none of that matters to me."
That was a bit of a shock, making her pause in the corridor, both moving out of the way as others passed busy with work. Stepping into the columns with Loki, still not sure how to approach the subject of the god forsaking fate and tradition for her.
"You can’t forsake all for me. I'm-," she began not backing down as he tugged her out of the way of a cart and into his body.
"Anyone worth their salt would know what a pleasure it would be for you to be by their side for the rest of their lives,” Loki admitted, wrapping an arm carefully around her torso to pull flush. “You forget; I myself am nothing more than a bastard child spawned by giants with no claim, no reason to be kept here or given the position I am."
Keeping Loki’s gaze, hands clenching at her side, wanting so badly to touch him as her chest ached. She desired to wrap her arms around him, hug him close and not let go but all her brain could do was cobble words together in a weak excuse to push way and hurry towards the kitchens.
Stepping out of shadow, Loki looked after his maiden as she hurried down the corridor. Quickly he spun on his heel, needing to assure her gift was ready to be sent, she should receive it and several others when reaching her chambers for the night. She would know who it was from obviously; as if the present confession wasn’t a giveaway.
Stepping into her outer chambers, Y/N was relieved Loki had left her alone for the rest of the evening. Moving into the bedroom, using seidr to call for light only to freeze at the sight of an elegantly wrapped parcel on her bed.
Approaching it slowly, she treated it as if it was a poisonous animal and stared at it for Norn’s knew how long before finally tugging the leather string. Smoothly the soft outer fabric fell away to reveal a beautifully crafted dress that didn’t appear too flamboyant and a wolf mask laying atop it all.
Only one man, god, was to wear the wolf mask, same was with Thor who was the only to wear a golden eagle mask along with Jane. A note tucked under the mask caught her eye and carefully she tugged it out.
‘Please,’ was all the note stated as she carefully took the mask in her hands to run fingers over the midnight black fur, buttery soft and glittering like stars in the night sky. Teeth made of moonstone glittered as she looked down to note the jewelry that was to go with the set up.
The only jewelry she owned was that of her mother and what pieces Frigga had gifted her. Using sider she lifted the garments and other things as she called forth a form her size to appear at the edge of her bed, everything laying on it as it would her.
The neckline was low but still kept an elegant since of decency but as she circled to the back, oh gods it was very revealing. It was open back, gold chains holding it closed with emerald accents and appearing it stopped at the small of her back.
Taking a deep breath she moved to the front once more, eyeing the elegant jewelry and mask. The dress, though a glittering black twinkled with green highlights and beautiful light golden knot work appearing to be inlaid with seidr. Knowing Loki it was.
Looking over the necklace, running wolves carved from emerald encircled the entire neck with matching earrings, but the wolves there were woven into a knot like circle.
Taking a deep breath she honestly couldn’t think about this. She needed a bath and rest. Leaving the dress on the form, she stepped into a candle lit bath, one already drawn in the marble tub with steam rising from it and the edge lined with expensive oils and soaps.
The sparkle of a note caught her eye on a chair near the tub, the one she placed her robe and night clothes on. Taking a deep breath to step towards the chair and immediately note this wasn’t her old clothing; these were new, elegant, soft things. Feeling the fabric as she took the note to look over the beautifully scrawled writing.
Simply stated it read; ‘Consider it love.’
The next morning she didn’t take a second look at the dress until that evening when retreating to her rooms.
Time grew near, visitors arrived, and Y/N found herself, reluctantly readying for the masquerade. Looking at the dress, the thought sprang to mind there was no way she could do this. Having not gotten the chance to speak with Loki all day, let alone the few glances she was able to catch from him did little to calm wracked nerves.
The princess of Alfheim appeared to hem Loki up every chance she had gotten, and every time Loki did manage to get close to Y/N he was drug away. There was no doubt in her mind the princess was getting on his nerves, knowing Loki despised the attention the elven princess was giving.
“It’s easy love-,” came the calmness of Loki, lithe fingers running over her clothed forearms and making her jump slightly but continued to glare the at the dress. “Put on the dress and join me in the dining hall, I assured they served your favorites as well.”
“You’re supposed to be entertaining delegates,” she spoke looking back to note this was a well-placed illusion.
“I am. Regardless; you should come to the masquerade love. Please,” he spoke quietly giving her arms a reassuring squeeze before he was gone.
Trying to calm her nerves, she looked at the mask on the mannequin, no one would notice her. It was simple, put the garb on, go appease the dark prince and never speak of this again.
“Where is your shield maiden brother,” Thor asked Loki silently as they sat at the head table, the chair Loki’s guest was to sit in empty.
The two were in their garb, Loki the wolf and Thor the eagle, except for Thor had his matching counterpart next to him. Jane smiling under her own mask every time Thor moved to place a hand on her thigh.
“She’s coming,” Loki spoke up looking to the entrance.
“She’s a very shy creature, but she is more than worthy wouldn’t you agree,” Thor spoke. The two looking up as the visiting elven Kings daughter, Jastera, dressed in an elegant white peacock mask and matching gown, stepped to the table eyeing Loki like prey but they all knew that was the wrong move.
“Would your highness care to join me at my father’s table? I would enjoy your company,” Jastera began eyeing Loki seductively.
By the Norns, not this. Preparing to decline the request, the princess having hung on him all day, Loki wasn’t sure he could take much more of the put-on preening to his character.
There was as an announcement of one entering, the god looking from the princess to the door where one of the guard escorted his shield maiden to the table. The wolf mask she wore matching his only it was slenderer than his own.
“Excuse me,” Loki spoke quickly, getting to his feet to escort his guest to the chair next to him, the princess in the white peacock mask remaining, albeit begrudgingly.
Stoically, the princess eyed Y/N as Loki helped her to seat before taking his own. “I am the crowned princess Jastera of Alfheim, realm of the light elves," the white-haired woman spoke, eyeing the gods guest closely through her mask.
Norns, this elf couldn't be serious. Having taken the seat Loki had showed her, she was relieved when the god sat brusquely next to her, clearing his throat to lay a hand gently on her glittering knee.
Calling her name, Loki began to list her title as such, "royal shield maiden and seidr master to Frigga Freyadottir, my personal confidant and member of the royal family," Loki finished quickly and stoically, eyeing the other through his own wolf mask.
"Forgive me, I meant no ill will to a student of Frigga herself," Jastera was quick to remedy.
"Be sure to remember that, I will not have my shield maiden insulted," Loki spoke sternly receiving a look from Thor but it appeared the king shared in the sentiment.
Once Jastera left in a hurry, Loki turned to his guest, taking her hand to bring to his lips as he had the day before kissing the lightly scented flesh. "A dance love," he echoed, meeting her gaze, watching a blush creep over her chest to under the mask.
"Yes," she choked out as Loki carefully tugged her to nervous feet and out to the center of the room with Thor and Jane.
Taking their places, the music had begun as Loki tugged her close and kept all focus on her as they moved about the floor. "Your beautiful love, it suits you," he spoke, carefully guiding her over the floor.
She was clumsy by nature and couldn’t fathom why she wasn't tripping over their feet but the slight twinkle in Loki’s eye told her he may have something to do with it. "You're a wolfish creature Loki," she whispered with a smile, knowing he knew what she spoke of.
"Yes love, but it would appear I am your wolfish creature," he hummed, carefully guiding her to the music.
"Hmm, appears so," she hummed, for once enjoying the revelry instead of being locked in her chambers.
As the night wore on, guests began to retire, leaving the rowdy crowd that had drank too much. Thankfully she drank very little, turning to Loki as he guided her around the room on his arm proudly, to speak to him of turning in for the night.
"I have another surprise for you," the god purred, the two still downing the masks. Gracefully Loki led her out of the banquet hall and through the dark, quiet corridors to his own chambers.
"My chambers are that way," she smiled, but he only shook his head and hinted to his own.
"I believe you will like what I have planned. Neither of us got to partake of the feast," Loki admitted, guiding her through his outer chambers. Steeping into his bedroom, past the darkened bed to a well-lit balcony that held a small table with food waiting for them.
"I'm flattered Loki, but this dress doesn't feel as if it will allow-," she began, taking masks and clothes in a whisper of seidr. In moments she was covered in his robe, a light shift underneath while clothing himself in lose lounge clothes.
"Better love," he asked, taking a seat and tugging her across his lap unexpectedly.
"Loki," she yelped, careful of placing her entire weight on him but he was quick to scold her gently to think she could hurt him. Gingerly she settled into him for seidr to pull the table close.
"Allow me love," he hummed, reaching for a meat pastry to lift to her lips.
"I'm a pet now," she questioned, Loki smirking at her boldness, but still taking a bite.
"More than that. Do me the honor of allowing me to court you," he spoke, sitting the pastry down and turning her to face him slightly.
"I would advise against it, but I believe you have been courting me since the day I turned sixteen; if we are honest on the matter," she admitted, smiling as he cupped her cheek gently, thumb brushing the crumbs and oil from her lip.
"It appears so love. It was then I spoke with your mother; she did give her blessing," he hummed, looking her over with a growing smile.
"I know. She and I spoke of it often, so did Frigga and my mother before they both passed-," she admitted, swallowing the lump at the thoughts of their mother's death but calmed in seconds.
"I know love. They would both be very proud of you," he smiled as she relaxed into him, the food forgotten. Sliding to the seat, her legs in his lap, Loki leaned close, pressing his lips to hers, tasting the faint remnants of the pastry and the mead both had partaken of.
Carefully her hand laced into his hair, the gods freehand tugging at the string on her robe, pausing as it feel open to pull away and meet her gaze. "Is this what you want," Loki asked quietly, watching her suck her bottom lip between her teeth, the image making his manhood twitch.
"Yes. I have denied us long enough; that is if you will have me," she smiled, knowing what his answer was, emerald orbs sparkling with the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes, my shield maiden, a thousand times yes," he whispered, gathering the thick framed woman into his arms to hastily carry towards the bed.
The room now lit by a low light to illuminate the massive bed surrounded in candles. The mattress was covered in lush blankets and furs, the god holding her close to shuffle across them on his knees to the center. Gently settling back on his heels, Loki moved the woman to straddle his hips, an arm under plump buttocks and the other around her torso, drinking in the open robe.
"I don't want to take you like a beast love. I want to enjoy us," he whispered, carefully laying her back for the robe to fall away in a wisp of seidr, leaving her in the thin shift.
The same seidr that took the robe took his shirt, only leaving his pants which did little to hide his excitement at having her in his bed. Closely Loki watched her every move, running his hands along smooth, plump thighs to gently ruck the shift slightly above clothed core.
Only continuing at her nod, this time Loki didn’t stop until the light fabric was tugged over her head and instinctually her hands went to cover bare breast.
Bowing over his shield maiden, Loki spoke across her lips, "I want to see all of you lover, please,” he hushed, lips pressing to hers greedily. In moments it broke for Loki to pepper kisses along trembling jaw, to soft throat, nipping the pebbled flesh.
With a breathy moan, her arms unraveled, hands reaching to Loki, placing one on his neck, for the other to caress the taught flesh of his side. More kisses peppered down plump body, over fleshy belly for calloused fingers to loop into sheer panties, tugging at them for her to lift plump hips for them to be discarded.
Another kiss, this time to the top of ready slit, making her gasp out. Never had she thought it would come to this, the god, the very dark prince between her legs, kissing the most intimates parts of her. Releasing him to prop on her elbows to watch, tugging bottom lip between her teeth as Loki didn't hesitate to kiss over delicate nub before suckling at it.
“Norns,” she all but screamed out, trying to keep herself propped with one hand while the other reached to lace in his hair, scratching the scalp. Never had she had this attention, a lap and suckle making her moan out and buck involuntary, whimpering for more.
Letting out a chuckle Loki paused to look at her ecstasy clouded face. "Found your sweet spot have I,” he hummed, making aching core clench around nothing. Drinking in the panting wreck she had become, a blush creeped up her pebbled chest and neck. “Relax and allow me to attend to my princess.”
Delving between delicate folds, Loki prodded at wet core with his tongue before sweeping back up to attend to delicate bundle of nerves. The overwhelming pleasure had her falling back to the mattress, the hand in his hair tugging slightly to earn a gasp as Loki pressed first one, then another digit into wet center while lapping over delicate nerve.
He gave another chuckle at her desperate whimpers and quiet prayers muttered to him. Fingers curled beautifully to caress the perfect spot inside her while keeping attention on needy nerve. She tasted more delicious than he could have ever imagined, and in moments he felt her clench around his fingers before she cried out her release.
It had only taken moments for Loki to bring her first orgasm crashing down on her, thighs shaking as fingers wrapped in his hair and the others in the furs. Even better than the ones she had given herself, shivering at the loss of his digits but relishing in how tenderly Loki kissed over shivering flesh to her lips. The taste of herself on his made her shiver harder and crave him more.
The feel of the god situating between splayed legs, deepening the kiss for a moment while free, erect manhood prodded between wet folds had her grinding down on him, begging. "Please,” she whimpered, not having to beg long before Loki sank painfully slow into tight core.
Loki had to pause, hovering over her, anchoring next to her head with one hand while the other caressed along her jaw. "Norns lover," he breathed, careful he wasn’t hurting her, it left Loki curious to if he was her first.
Reaching up a shaky hand to place to the nape of his neck, Loki was taking time pressing into her, his care a turn on in itself. Slowly she moved her hips, Loki teasing as he would pull away only to sink deeper with each pass; it may have been mere centimeters each time, but it felt more than that.
Carefully her free hand drifted along the arm anchored next to her, feeling muscles twitch. She had toys, but none like him, Norn’s none like he! Loki was a god, all god, pushing the breath out of her lungs as he fully sheathed himself inside of tight core.
The burn and stretch overwhelming as he stilled, bowing to kiss over her flush chest. Letting out whimpering pleas for him to move, Loki did so, ecstasy flooding her body as he rocked his hips against hers.
Lips kissed along her jaw as thrust deepened, becoming desperate as she felt him swell within her, lips falling to hers and calloused hand slipping to her nape of her neck. The god grunted down her throat, tongue slipping past her lips to tangle with hers and swallow the whimper the hard thrust caused.
The air around then filled with sounds of flesh and desperate pants as Loki refused to allow her lips from his. He had waited so long for her, to feel her like this, to worship her, he didn’t want to release her just yet. Feeling lightheaded, he barely broke it, the two of them taking in gasping breath as he thrust harder, making her cry out.
Quietly, passionately, Loki whispered prayers to her across swollen lips, her tongue darting out to soothe the tender flesh as he thrust deeper into her. Desperately Loki begged her to cum, felt her clench around his girth while using seidr to dance over delicate nerve to give the final push as he spilled deep inside her.
All she was allowed was a muffled whimper the moment they feel from the edge, the hand on the nape of his neck and wrapped around his bicep clawed as her sight blacked for an instant. Panting, she drank in his praises, feeling his sweaty forehead laying between her neck and shoulder, lips pressing to the pebbled flesh there.
Keeping his weight off of her, Loki carefully slid spent man hood free, arousal coating the sheets as he remained over her. “My princess," he hummed, rolling them to their sides, her body going limp as he brushed fuzzed hair out of her eyes.
Giving Loki a lopsided smile, she relished in the feel of him caring for her, the hand brushing once elegantly styled hair away gliding along plump side to tug her thigh over his hip. "My prince," she panted tiredly, leaning close and enjoying the chaste kiss he gave.
“Stay here love, in my bed, share my chambers,” he spoke gently, hand on her thigh rubbing the soft flesh, causing it to pebble at the raw emotion he was showing.
“For how long,” she hummed, pulling closer, the tickle of the furs making her shutter but in a good way.
“Till the end of time, if I may use such a worn-out phrase,” he smirked, showing the young god who had attempted to court her all those years ago.
“Hmm, why not,” she hummed, leaning in for a kiss and getting more than she bargained for.
Wrapping a hand around the nape of her neck once more, Loki pressed her back into the mattress, the kiss needy and full of passion. Finally breaking it to allow her to breath, noting her drunken look.
“So loving, you truly have desired me after all this time,” she stated, moving closer while Loki slipped a thick fur over them.
“You will never know just how much lover,” he hummed, pulling close to pepper her with kisses and settle in for a few moments before carrying her to the baths.
Tags are open and Reblogs always welcomed!
Tags: @marshyrebelcloud @cruel-kitten @moonfaery @dark-night-sky-99 @gramaeryebard @katstablook @andiyholly @jovanna-shewolf @nickyl316h @aslandia726 @furstinnajoelle @itsbqueenthings @collinsstanharbour @jazzieomega @bambamwolf87 @tomhardy41 @drakonwild @scorpionchild81 @devilbat @wayward-student-philosopher @blah6666 @jane-777 @the-minus-four @cherrygeek86 @iamverity @get-loki @alexakeyloveloki @moonlightprime
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2-Blind First Date 100 writing prompt challenge - ConVin
Pairing: Connor x Gavin Reed
Setting: Detroit
Warning: Swearing, Gavin being Gavin, Cute Gayness
Summary: Tina found out about Gavins little crush after he let slip when they were drinking and now she’s determined to get his mind of it. So, with a blind date and Gavin being the nervous wreck that he is, will he be able to find love?
Words: 4776
Requested: No, however it is part of a 100 writing Prompt challenge I’m challenging myself to do, I found this on DeviantArt from ribonsnlace and wanted to give myself more than just Descendants and I needed more Android Connnor cuteness
Side note: (I’m not changing the side note because it’s the exact same excuse) For anyone reading my Harry Hook fanfiction, ‘Wings are made to Fly’ I promise I will update soon, I’ve just been so busy and had a slight bit of writers block on it for a while that I needed to try something else to get me into writing again, thanks for understanding :D
Three months, three months since Connor came back, three months since Gavin made it up to Connor, three months since Detroit became Android friendly completely and life was quite comfortable. The DPD were no longer searching for Deviants, the policies on them had changed and now, both Android and Human were charged under the same code, anything they did were now seen as completely the same under any court of law in most states; the only difference in laws now, Anti-Android acts and protest were completely illegal and anyone caught involved with such a thing were to be immediately arrested and brought in for questioning.
Unfortunately, with everything going on and all the new laws being enforced, Gavin had no time in trying to spend any moment with his new found friend; the only moments he could steal from the Android were about an hour or so at lunch and maybe a few moments after their shifts but it seemed, after that, neither one of them could get a moment alone.
So, Gavin sat in his home, sat and drank his problem away.
The rugged detective had told no one, not a single soul about his developing crush on the Android. From the moment they met, the minute he punched the Android in the stomach, he knew he was done for, the detective couldn’t resist how breath-taking they had made something that was just machine and code, making him detest everything around him even more than before. When the revolution was over and Connor no longer worked alongside them, Gavin realised just how much he actual missed the man and his attraction grew a little stronger every day, each day, staring at the empty desk across the bullpen just pining. The day Connor came back, he had planned everything he was going to say, planned his apology and if the Android wanted, he had planned a place for them to spend some time together but when the day came, he just sat there, unmoving and scared, no matter how much he talked to himself, he couldn’t bring himself to stand up, march over and speak. When he finally did speak to Connor, plucking up the courage to make a move and leave the old Gavin behind, he wasn’t expecting what the Android had to say, he felt like such a terrible person, ashamed of everything he had done, if he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t even tried to prepare himself for the hatred or the distrust that would be thrown at him but when he spotted the Androids hand reaching out for him, he was more than happy to take it and restart his life.
Now was just the matter of trying to get any time with him, he knew he could probably just ask when he was free or maybe even just cut straight to the chase and ask him on a date or he could … he could …
Gavin sighed, once again, bottle in hand, drinking his thoughts silent which normally helped … if Tina wasn’t currently sat across from him in the booth they’d chosen at some dingy little bar they had found. She hadn’t been convinced by his ‘I’m fine’ and ‘Nothing’s wrong’ when she’d confronted him but even the younger detective knew she’d need a couple of whiskeys thrown down his neck before he’d reveal anything, which to her surprised, did not take very long,
“I’m sick of it … no matter how much I try to get him alone, he always gets called to do something” he grumbled, chest practically laid on the table, arms crossed in front of him as he rested his chin atop them, “Why the hell does life have to get in the way, I mean, the bastard doesn’t sleep so why the hell can’t he spare a few hours” he growled, staring at the almost empty glass that had been neglected in front of him; he gave a simple huff of annoyance as he glanced over to his best friend whose face was that of an annoyed parents,
“Have you even asked this guy out? Like actually walked up to him and said, ‘hey, you free tonight?’ or maybe, ‘hey, next time you have some time on your hands, you wanna maybe hang?’, have you actually done that?” the woman asked, clearly regretting even getting him into this situation; for the entire time she’s known him, she already knew the answer to that question but apparently he’d only ever listens to her when she spells it out in plan simple god damn English and from the way the detective looked away, she was right,
“Well, not exactly … no … but I can’t, I barely get a moment alone with him, he’s always surrounded by someone and even if I do get a chance to ask, I can’t, what if he doesn’t want me like that or what if he just isn’t built like that at all … UGH” he groaned louder, hiding his face in his arms like a child who just couldn’t get his own way. Tina took a long sip from the cocktail she had been nurturing in her hand, trying so hard to hold herself back from shaking some sense and maybe a little bit of courage into the overgrown marshmallow,
“Okay, who the fuck are you? Gavin Reed has never cowered away from asking someone if they wanted to go back to his house for a fuck before so why should asking someone out be any different? You like the guy, right?” Tina asked, waiting for the tiniest nod from the man across from her before continuing, “There, so stop being such a pussy and don’t bring the bullshit of, ‘but it’s commitment’, I don’t want to hear it, you’ve dated people before so this is no different, you always put up such a strong and badass front so use it and go for it, if he rejects you then we can down a few bottles of vodka and cry while watching Toy Story 3, alright?” She asked once more, taking a deep breath and another sip of her drink as Gavin finally looked up from his little hidey hole,
“But I don’t know the first thing about Androids, I don’t even know if he’d be capable of love like that and Hanks always around him, I’ve heard him call that idiot ‘Dad’ before so that’s gonna be one hell of a wall to get through and why would he go for someone li-“ Gavin had to pause, jumping into a sitting position as he watched Tina almost do some crazy spit take, choking slightly on her drink,
“Wait … YOU’VE GOT THE HOTS FOR CONNOR?!” She screamed, the entire bar of drunks and horny couples around them turned to glare at the two as Tina leaned across the table, wide eyed and very serious, all the while, Gavins eyes flew around their booth in a panic, his fingers gripped the edge of the table in fear of his best, slightly drunk, friend, “You mean to tell me, that the guy you’re talking about, the guy you’ve obviously be fawning over for ages now, is Connor, practically Hanks son anyway, Anderson, the Android you tried to mur…well, the Android you hated … wait a minute, you told me earlier that you’ve been crushing on him since you … met … him … oh god, Gavin, tell me you didn’t bully him because you were in love with him!” she begged, her eyes a lot less stern and now filled with pity,
“Okay … I won’t then” Gavin mumbled, his gaze lowering down to his, now almost, pure white knuckles. He could tell he had just given Tina the most hated types of headaches when she sighed in both defeat and annoyance,
“Gavin … how the hell did you think this would ever go …” she whispered, more to herself than anyone around her as she leaned back into her seat with a soft thump, her cocktail long forgotten now, “if I know you, and I do, I know you aren’t ever gonna try, so, how about, we get you a few more drinks, take our minds off of it and if you still don’t think you can even begin to try when you’re sober, I set you up with a friend, see if you can maybe get away from this whole thing?” She asked, knowing full well that the idiot in front of her will probably come running to her by tomorrow to help, like he had done a few times before when he needed to get laid and couldn’t find someone himself,
“Okay … If I can’t bring myself to do it, you can set me up and get my mind off him …” he mumbled defeatedly, sinking into his seat a little, he grabbed the remains of his drink, downing it in one as if it was the first drink he had had in years and by the looks on Tinas face, she understand his mood.
True to his word though, Gavin approached Tina the next day, only a few minutes before they were meant to leave and begged her to be set up with someone and in her opinion, he looked just that, desperate, but, she wasn’t going to say no.
So for the next few days, before, during and even after work, she googled and called and messaged away, trying to get everything in place, all the while, Gavin tried his hardest to keep his mind off of the cute little Android that would always walk in smiling and laughing away with Hank and the others, lucky for Tina, that was a perfect enough distraction for her to make sure he would never catch wind of any of these plans and soon, everything was done.
December 21st, the day of Gavins blind date and boy, was he nervous. Tina had told him the date, time and place but nothing else, the plan was; meet in the park near his apartment at 6pm, that would give him enough time to go home, shower, change and get there, his date would, hopefully, show up and they would head out to a little café she had found that was a cute, new, Android friendly place that was also owned by one, they would talk, share stories, laugh and hopefully, really like each other then, they would leave the café and, if it went well, arrange to meet again, that was the plan but the leather covered detective wasn’t so sure.
It was now 6:15pm, it was snowing, not heavily enough for him to leave but enough to make him regret all this, he felt like an idiot. Maybe Tina did this to teach him a lesson or maybe the person knew who he was and how much of an asshole he was so decided not to come without telling him or Tina; with a sigh, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, ready to leave until, the small droplets of snow stopped hitting him.
Looking up towards the sky, he spotted the familiar silhouette of an umbrella covering the bright illuminating lampposts of the park and blocking any more pieces of freezing snow from attacking his hair, someone must have seen him but he was too far gone to even turn around and see what empathetic person had decided to pity him with some cover from the weather,
“You know, I might not be able to feel the cold like you do but even I know that you could catch your death out here” a smooth voice spoke out from behind him causing Gavin to freeze and this time, not from the freezing temperatures, he didn’t dare turn around, he wanted so badly for the voice to match who he thought it was but he was too scared that if he did, it would be someone else with the same voice, so he continued to stare at the umbrella … until the voice spoke again, this time a little closer than before, “I don’t really know how these ‘dates’ work but I’m pretty sure we can’t talk if you don’t at least look at me” the voice chuckled and Gavin could just picture the goofy smile.
So, with enough courage, the man turned slowly, his gaze moving down to the ground, the first thing that entered his line of sight was some nice, clean trainers, definitely and obviously not picked out by the man himself; moving his gaze up were the usual jeans that Gavin had come to recognise with a simple yet nice navy blue shirt tucked in covered by a nice but definitely different jacket. Finally, the detective pulled his gaze up enough to take in the mans features and his heart almost stopped at the sight.
Connor, the Connor, stood in front of him, his usual goofy smile etched on his face as he held the umbrella above them both, his hair as perfect as ever, his posture as perfect as ever, him as perfect as ever and that was enough to make Gavin bit his lip hard and blush which must have been bright enough for the Android to see since his head tilted to one side and his expression turned to one of confusion,
“Gavin, are you okay?” he asked softly, stepping ever so closer, “Your body temperature seems to have risen slightly above normal, are you getting sick?” he continued like the cute little innocent Android he was; quickly, Gavin shook his head and chuckled nervously, running a hand across the back of his recently shaven undercut,
“Yeah, I-I’m fine … it’s just … I didn’t know Tina had asked you and I was worried you weren’t gonna show since it’s getting later and I was getting nervous about this whole thing and …” the detective realized just how much he had started rambling, pulling his hand quickly to his side and chuckling once again, looking slightly to the side, “I’m fine … erm … you wanna still head to the café?” he asked, pointing nonchalantly towards the direction he was given which obviously was a good sign since the Android seemed to light up again, nodding excitedly, “Cool, let’s go” he mumbled as he turned away to start walking when he felt an arm link hesitantly with his, pausing any movements thereafter,
“Is this okay?” the android asked nervously, looking down at his feet, “I’ve seen people do this before and thought that maybe, we could too…” he explained, shooting Gavins heart with millions of tiny little heart shaped bullets, making him melt almost immediately as the man realized just how new Connor was to all this, so he grabbed the Androids wrist, pulling his arm tighter through his, making the link stronger between them,
“Of course it’s okay, it’s your first ever date, gotta have some experience, right?” the detective reassured, making sure their arms were tightly interlocked before taking the Umbrella from Connors other hand and leading them out of the park and into the just as quiet streets.
Amazingly, not many people had decided to come back to Detroit after the revolution and the people who did were still quite wary, however, there was a lot of unwanted attention but lucky for them, it seemed they actually slept and were nowhere to be seen.
So, as the harsh wind blew through the winter air of Detroit, the two of them silently strolled towards a single illuminated store on the street, the sweet smell of baked goods instantly assaulted Gavins nose causing the detectives stomach to growl like a dying whale speaking into a megaphone, normally that would have made him exclaim about his hunger while trying to hide how self-conscious he was becoming but apparently, since he was already insanely nervous, his self-consciousness grew immensely and, even in the dark, his blushing face wasn’t too easy to hide.
A soft giggle caught the rugged detective off guard, turning his gaze towards the source of the noise, the sight in front of him was almost too much for him to handle; Connor covered his mouth with his hand as he giggled, the little wrinkles around his eyes brightened his face in a way that could never be done before, this was probably the first time Gavin actually ever saw the Android laugh and he never wanted to see anything else,
“I … I guess I’m hungry” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he looked away as if he was now a teenager in love, “Probably should go and sort that out” he offered, peering back up at the man in front who was now gazing back with a fond smile only causing the older man to look away once again, heart racing like a jackhammer.
Without another word, Gavin continued their journey, pulling Connor quickly alone with him, hoping to any being above that the puppy dog android didn’t decide to scan his vitals and luckily, before Connor could reveal if he had or not, both their movements had stopped as they were now stood right outside of their date location.
Gavin was about to speak, state the obvious or something stupid but it seemed like his entire tongue had been strapped down and banned from speaking when the only thing he could do was make a strange hum of acknowledgment as he pulled open the door, gesturing for the Android to walk in which he did after closing and shaking the umbrella.
Once inside, it didn’t take them long to get seated at a small little two seated table near the window which normally Gavin would have avoided at all cost but … TINA HAD RESERVED A GODDAMN TABLE FOR THEM … so here they were, in view of anyone who walked past, neither one of them brave enough to speak as they both skimmed over the menus. Finally, Connor couldn’t take the silence as he pushed the menu to the side and politely folded his hands on the table,
“From all the signs I’ve been noticing, this is just as strange for you as it is for me, isn’t it?” the Android asked, smiling nervously as he watched the detective in front of him look up quizzically from his menu, “I’ve never been on a date before and to be honest, I’ve never really thought about anyone romantically, everything has been quite hectic after becoming deviant, learning emotions and doing things for myself, I’ve never really had time to think about the most human thing out there” he explained, noticing how Gavin had leaned himself onto the table to listen better, “When Tina cornered me, I was quite confused, she had started rambling about dates and potential relationships, at first I was very sceptical and didn’t really feel ready to push myself into things like that with people I didn’t know … but then she said your name and, well, I was quite amazed you hadn’t asked me first, I would have preferred you to” he finished, his shy gaze moving to his now twiddling fingers, which instantly caught Gavins attention.
It had taken the detective a moment to process the information Connor had just released to him but it was enough to have him, once again, speechless. His heart raced again as he realized that Connor had been wanting him to ask instead of Tina, that meant that he always had a chance and he was going to blow it away, wow he was an idiot,
“Wait, you wanted me to ask you out on a date?” Gavin asked, not confused per say, he just wanted conformation of that one statement which seemed to tickle the android a little as a small little chuckle blessed the mans ears,
“Well, a little, yes, I mean, I didn’t exactly know about all this dating or relationships but I was hoping you would ask me to spend more time with you, until now, I didn’t realize I had an attraction towards you” the android answered, a small blush appearing across his cheeks which instantly answered a question Gavin didn’t know he had, Androids do blush blue and now the asshole realized he was probably going to have to open up a little too, so he did, at least, he did the best he could,
“Since we’re confessing our sins, I should probably tell you that this whole attraction isn’t recent” he started, looking a little ashamed as he head lowered slightly, “the moment I saw you in the break room, I thought you were … well … hot, it pissed me off that an android could look that good so I tried to get it to go away by being an asshole to you which apparently didn’t work because when you left … I missed you … a lot, I missed your smile and your goofy way of talking and just, anyway, when you came back, I was ready to stop being a dick because I still had this huge crush on you and I wanted to try and actually get to know you better but I got scared, I thought you’d hate me and even when you said it was all cool, I still thought you’d hate me so I kept drinking to try and forget but that didn’t work and … yeah …” his eyes flickered back up to Connor who was watching him very intently, obviously keeping track of everything he just said making Gavin realize just how much he laid on him, “Sorry, that was probably way too much to dump on you on the first date … I know, how about we forget all that, all the crazy shit that happened, order food or drinks or whatever and get to know each other … wait, what can you have?” the detective mused as he lowered his gaze down to the menu, quickly perusing each item until his attention was caught by a soft chuckle across from him,
“That’s because you have the human menu” the Android mentioned, holding up his blue coloured menu with a cheeky smile, “our menus are different, they created a simple way for everyone to identify the different items here” Connor stated, to anyone, it would have sounded like he was being a know it all but Gavin to see the little twinkle behind his eye, revealing his little joking manner.
The rest of the evening went off without a hitch, they ordered food, chatted, joked, Gavin hesitantly tried the strange little smoothie looking concoction of Connors, which he had to admit, tasted like blueberries,
“…And then, she handed me this bright pink drink, I mean, it was like a glow stick and I was like ‘oh no, I am not putting that into my body, I just downed an entire bottle of Hennessy, no way’ and she was not letting up, so I took the glass, prayed to whatever deity is out there and downed it … wanna know what that bitch Tina gave me?” the detective asked as he ranted about one of his many drunken adventures, from the other side of the table, as Connor stared with intrigue, there was a little nod which gave Gavin the indication to continue, “That lying little bitch, made me down an entire glass of Pepto-Bismol, you know the stuff for stomach acid, she told me it was a cocktail and I downed it, to be honest, I can’t remember most of the night after that” Gavin finished, taking another bite out of his food as Connor gave him a soft giggle, obviously finding it quite amusing what with being around Hank and his humour,
“That was quite a story” the android thought out loud as he sipped on his ‘smoothie’, even with his limited knowledge on human gatherings and outings, he still understood a practical joke when he was told one, “It seems your friends are quite the tricksters” he commented with a smile and as the other man sent a cheeky smirk towards him, he had never felt more at home, something about this felt perfect, to Connor, Gavin felt like his long lost safe place, the piece he was truly missing,
“Yeah, Tina knows just how to make a night fun or deadly, I swear she’s out to kill me” he chuckled, placing his fork down with a light clatter onto the plate, “but, what I really want to know, does the ex-deviant hunter have any stories to tell? You must have done stuff over the year you weren’t here” Gavin asked, leaning his elbows onto the table to get a little closer to the Android which must have been a good little flirting technique when Connor, ever so lightly, bit his lip, moving his gaze to the side,
“Well, there wasn’t much I could do, I mostly stayed in Hanks house … well … there was one time I let Sumo into his room early one morning, he told me he never allows Sumo into his room when he’s in there but his alarm had been going off for at least ten minutes, he was refusing to wake up, so I allowed our little attack dog in to make sure he wasn’t dead … he didn’t appreciate that very much, especially when he started chasing me around the house with dog slobber all over his face” the Android chuckled, recited the story as if it was only yesterday, a huge grin graced his face setting Gavins chest on fire, the grin slowly turned into one of love and happiness, “That was the first time I ever called him dad” he whispered softly which seemed to melt Gavin into a little puddle on the floor.
The both of them sat for a little while longer, smiling and giggling every so often when they caught each other’s eye, neither speaking as the night continued on, patrons left and the café became quiet enough for Gavin to realize that the staff seemed to be getting giddy from watching the detectives date,
“Hey Connor, it seems to be getting quite late, we should probably head out before Hank sends a search party” he mumbled with a small blush covering his scarred nose, his chair scraping on the floor as he carefully stood, placing some money down on the table and a tip for the staff before holding out his hand for the Android to take, “Come on, I’ll walk you home” he offered, well, more told than offered but he didn’t want to come off pushy.
Gavin watched with slight amusement as Connor slowly placed his soft hand in the outstretched one nervously, standing from his seat ready to leave but the detective could easily see the slight movement of the Androids eyes between him and their hands.
After about 20 minutes of comfortable chatter and soft hand squeezes, the street leading to Connors home came into view causing both detectives to slow their pace until they had completely stopped, standing on the corner under a bright streetlamp, the light washing over the two of them as they turned to gaze at each other. Connors eyes seemed to glow brighter than they normally do, making Gavin step just that little bit closer like a moth to fire, something seemed to draw him in and he didn’t want to disobey,
“I know I’m going to walk you to your door but I guess I don’t want Hank to disturb us before we go our separate ways … but I wanted to say … thanks, for all this, agreeing to the date and … everything, I guess I wasn’t all that used to the idea of 2nd chances so all this, it was really nice and it helped, I’m just happy you-“ his words were cut short by a pair of incredibly soft lips pressing against his chapped ones, silencing any further thought that were to slip out and who was he to deny one of the sweetest ways to say ‘shut up’, so the detective closed the distance between their bodies, wrapping his arms tenderly around the androids neck as he made sure that Connor knew how much he never wanted this night to end.
Unbeknown to either men, two pairs of eyes were watching their every move through binoculars from a silent house not too far down the street, a grumpy older Lieutenant with greying hair and a younger overly-excited detective who was currently exclaiming how she was the worlds best matchmaker.
#detroit: become human#Connor#RK800#RK800 Connor#Gavin Reed#ConVin#Connor x Gavin#Connor x Gavin Reed#Connor Anderson#Fluff#Blind Date#First Date#Cute#Date#Gay#100 writing prompt challenge#challenge#prompt challenge#Writing Challenge#Tina Chen#Hank Anderson
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Some Things are Not Dialectic
So much has happened to me since I last wrote on this blog. To sum it up in a nutshell: I changed therapists (something I have been meaning to do for a while now), I was hospitalised yet again for just a little over a week this time, voluntarily, for recurrent suicidal thoughts, where I was tentatively diagnosed (yet again) with BPD, and the new therapist I started seeing after coming out of the hospital diagnosed me with Asperger’s. I also started a DBT program, which I am now six weeks into. Previous therapists, if you have read any of my other posts, have diagnosed me with Bipolar I, but after only two sessions with the psychiatrist at the hospital, and in the wake of him talking, at length, with my husband about my history, I was informed that I probably have Bipolar II and BPD. My regular psychiatrist disagrees with this and stated that it is probably complex trauma (or C-PTSD) and Bipolar I. I am inclined to trust the diagnosis of the latter more, as I have been seeing her for two years now. And now I also have an Asperger’s diagnosis from my new psychologist. What a mess. After all these upheavals, I feel emotionally at sea.
I also decided to swap medications at the hospital (the Seroquel was not helping my insomnia and was making me gain a bit of weight) and finally gave Lithium, the supposed “gold standard” of Bipolar medication, a chance. And it made me terribly ill. I was so nauseous all the time that after 4 weeks of struggling along, I had to give it up. I even broke out in a rash, but no professionals, not even my GP, wanted to listen to my misgivings, so I just informed them all that I was coming off it. My psychiatrist respected my decision, but wants to put me on something else. I am reluctant, because I have tried all sorts of medication for extended periods of time, and there are always negative side-effects, or they don’t do what is intended. I was told in the hospital by the psychiatrist that Lithium would be ideal for someone like me who has ambitions, wants a career, and doesn’t want to sleep for 20 hours a day, so when I experienced intolerance, I felt so disappointed. I even spent some time blaming myself. I have found my overall experience with taking medications really draining and time-consuming. I feel as if I am trying, and even doing everything I should, but it’s just not paying off. One method that I have tried in the past on my hospital visit before this one was ECT, and I did find that somewhat effective, but the results were not long-lasting enough. And, after reading about the experiences of those who get regular sessions of ECT, I worry about the possible effects it would have on my long-term memory if I was to go down that route. If there were any negative side-effects within this vein, it would be incompatible with the way in which I want to live my life, including my career goals.
While I was in the hospital, I was referred to a centre that specialised in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). I have read about DBT previously, and wanted to try it out when I received a previous diagnosis of Borderline “tendencies” in Norway, however, as I lived in a small town, there were no DBT groups available nearby, and so my therapist gave me a booklet to read up on it on my own. I had also previously stumbled upon the therapist that founded DBT (Marsha Linehan) when I was studying my Bachelor of Psychology. She later admitted that she actually had been diagnosed with BPD herself, and so DBT was a hodge-podge of different therapies and western and eastern practices that had worked for her. I thought the refterral would take longer to process than it did, but it was processed more-or-less straight away after I came out of hospital. I attended the three commitment meetings and was successfully offered a place, and, after all that I had heard and read, was excited to begin. But six weeks in, I feel let down.
Let me preface what I am about to say by stating that I think there is a lot of good methods to help tackle negative feelings that DBT offers, but a lot of the skills surrounding self-care are competencies I already possess (and so nothing new). There are also some aspects of DBT that are just not really relevant to me specifically, but that’s alright. If I look at it as more tools I can fill my emotional toolbox with, not everything is going to fit. I enjoy and aim for self-improvement, and this is what attracted me to DBT in the first place. On the other hand, I am an analytical person who enjoys testing concepts and seeing if there are any potential flaws in what I am learning, and the method of delivery of the current program I am in doesn’t seem to leave room or space for that. I am finding aspects of DBT condescending, basic, and invalidating. I don’t feel that my prior knowledge or skills are being acknowledged as strengths I am bringing to the table that I can build upon. It is almost as I, along with the rest of the group, am being treated as if I am clueless, and that the therapists and coaches involved in the DBT group sessions are the autocratic, absolute experts on everything we should be doing and what we are doing “wrong,” something that I feel is quite harsh given that most who suffer from BPD also have C-PTSD, or, conversely, that those with C-PTSD can often be misdiagnosed with BPD. After researching some more, I have found that I am not alone in these misgivings.
I decided to share some of my criticisms just this morning with my individual coach. We met at a cafe near where I live, after I dropped the kids off at school. Towards the end of the session, she asked me directly if I ever felt she had invalidated me in our individual sessions. I decided to be honest and tell her that I had felt that. I have only just started acknowledging past trauma, some of which occurred years ago, to both myself and my therapists. It’s mostly because I feel that it is time to do so, because the thoughts and feelings were coming up more and more regularly, intrusively and involuntarily, to the point where I feel like I can’t ignore them anymore. Three weeks ago, I disclosed to my coach in an individual session about the trauma and sexual abuse I had experienced via school bullying. I told her that she had laughed briefly after I had told her about a boy who had pinched my bottom in front of the whole grade on a dare when I was was 13, and said I didn’t blame her, maybe she laughed out of surprise, but when I also told her that she had, in the same conversation, told me not to worry about “stupid school” (her exact words), she denied having said that to me at all, and got quite defensive.
She even said that perhaps I had just “experienced it that way,” and just refused to acknowledge that she had said that at all. I felt so gaslighted,so triggered (my mother tried to gaslight me all the time) and am now unsure whether I will continue with DBT. I left really shaken up, which was tough as I had had a really rough week and had actually woken up in a good mood, and had to then work really hard to turn my thoughts back around again. Upon reflection, I think the coaches are badly trained and unprofessional. This might be what is making the delivery sub-par. Maybe it’s just yet another case of “you get what you pay for.” Now, the question is, do I continue, and just try to focus on implementing the skills, instead of worrying about my obvious personality clash with the therapists and coaches involved? Sigh.
Now, to address the Asperger’s diagnosis: I actually feel it is a good fit. She got in an expert who took me through the diagnostic criteria before giving me the diagnosis, and, for the first time in a long time, I felt validated. I have been doing a lot of reading since receiving my diagnosis, and have found a number of interesting facts about females with Asperger’s, such as they are more likely to be overlooked for diagnosis compared to that of boys, as they do not present with the same symptoms, and are often misdiagnosed with (interestingly) Bipolar, BPD, or even OCD, because it was (until recently) considered a diagnosis exclusively reserved for boys. They are overlooked because they tend to be great social mimics (as females generally are more socialised than men), which masks the symptoms and difficulties females with ASD face. I believe that one of the reasons for my life-long fascination with human behaviour (to the point that I decided to study it), is due to my desire to fit in, when I have always felt different. I have, as my husband has also observed, a number of special interests that I enjoy talking about at length in social settings, and often fail to pick up on the social cues of boredom in the individuals I am talking to. But, that’s alright. It is part of the diagnosis. I am working on it. I might not ever get there, but that is alright too. In my research on the subject, I found a delightful blog from Tania Marshall, as well as her book, entitled “I am Aspien Woman,” which discusses the unique struggles of females with Asperger’s. The blurb to the book states: “Have you ever wondered about a friend, a partner, a mother, sister or daughter? Wondered why she says she feels 'different'? Out of step with her peers, she may struggle keeping friends and a job, yet she has multiple degrees. Bright from early on, she may have singleminded focus, sprinkles of anxiety, sensory and social issues, be gifted in art, writing, science, research or singing. Maybe she is a woman on the Autism spectrum, with a unique constellation of super-abilities, strengths and challenges?” I relate to all of this. I was a precocious reader with an eidetic memory from an early age. I have multiple degrees, and am creative, but struggle in social situations. It’s who I am, and I accept it. When I told my GP, who also closely follows my mental health progress, that my current psychologist has diagnosed me with Asperger’s, she dismissively stated that “everybody is different - we are all on the spectrum” - to which I have to say - what a load of crap. There is different, and there is different. I have always been a person that marches to the beat of her own drum, sometimes to my detriment. But it’s just how I am.
So, what if I don’t have BPD, or Bipolar, but rather “just” Asperger’s? I am high-functioning, so I can understand that it took a long time to identify it, but, on the other hand, it feels as if going through all of the struggles I have been through could have been prevented if only I had had a therapist that was skilled enough to really listen to me, to pick up the signs, and to validate me. I am hoping I have that now with my current psychologist, and am looking forward to working together with her toward a brighter future where I can accept myself and also work on my issues in a safe space.
After years of not sharing my thoughts or being as assertive as I want to be, I have found that recently I have been coming out of my shell in this respect, and those around me aren’t liking it. Apart from the example above, on the day I was leaving the hospital, there were a series of delays concerning my release, that, when they all added up, frustrated me so much, I had to say something. I sometimes think that those in the so-called “caring” professions abuse their power. Whether it’s bad training, an authoritative personality, or other traits that are, in my opinion, not suited to these professions that are the cause, it is a dilemma which is vital to address. Of course, #notalltherapists. But, in my long-standing experience with mental health services, and as a psychology graduate myself, it is enough to cause concern. Too often, patients are discounted because of what’s wrong with them, dismissed because the health professional believes themselves to know better, or put into the “too hard” basket for so-called “difficult” behaviour. But what needs to be acknowledged is that the person that is standing in front of them is there because they are seeking help, and should be looked at as an individual, and not necessarily by the box the therapist wants to fit them into. More duty of care, more empathy, and more acknowledgement, is needed.
#mental health#mental disorder#mental illness#Mental illness recovery#mental health mindfulness#mindfulness#bpd#bpd things#therapy#dbt#dbt therapy#aspergers#biipolar#misdiagnosis#mental health blog#self care#gaslighting#trauma#cptsd#cptsdhealing#creativityisrebellion
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New Plan!
Characters: Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi
Words: 9,119
Summary:
Kokichi Ouma, leader of the mysterious group of thieves that go only by DICE, is going through the motions of orchestrating their biggest heist ever when an unexpected bump in the road changes everything. That bump in the road is a detective and his name is Shuichi Saihara.
Essentially the events of That’s the Thing About Airplanes from Kokichi’s POV
Read on AO3
Kokichi Ouma was ready to be bored out of his mind for the next eight hours as he boarded the flight behind his motley crew. He was trying to keep himself busy by being generally exasperated with them. They were supposed to be posing as different family units or strangers that didn’t know one another, but King was supposed to be Rook’s uncle and they were touching each other’s butts while handing the lady their boarding passes. Bishop and Hearts were practically leaning on each other like they were tired or whatever, but they were supposed to be total strangers. Maybe they could be rewritten as half siblings or a whirlwind romance or something? Ugh whatever.
Kokichi would normally kick their asses about this, but he’d already anticipated their horrid 2 AM acting skills. The lady taking boarding passes was a plant. Jack had wriggled herself in as a flight attendant three days ago. She was currently taking boarding passes because of an understaffing issue. An issue that may or may not have been of natural causes...
Anyway, she’d get on the flight and smuggle the tea on board. The heist plan didn’t really involve the plane at all, so this was kind of unnecessary, but god would he want that half-way to Paris hot tea party. Besides, he wasn’t really one to leave much to chance when it came to scheming. Although that characteristic was more out of habit than any sort of innate perfectionistic tendencies. He was a king of thinking on the fly, but nowadays he rarely ran amok in that court because he just so happened to also be just as much of a genius at premeditated mischief.
It was a good thing Jack had volunteered herself for the plant job. He’d call her the most competent of DICE at 2 AM if she hadn’t drawn a dick on his boarding pass while checking it.
“Wow, it’s almost like you’ve actually seen one, you virgin loser.” He had told her as he tucked the pass into his hoodie pocket.
She smiled at him like he had complimented her handwriting or something inane like that. “Thanks! I’ve been working on my portraits. My boss is a real inspiration in my art you know…”
“I’d love to meet him someday,” Kokichi replied congenially, “He sounds handsome and brilliant and like he should always be listened to.”
She gave a thoughtful humm, “Actually he’s kind of a prick.” She blew a raspberry at him.
He frowned. “Well that’s rude,” he commented with an offended tone, “And out of character.” He shifted to an angrier persona. "Do you want to ruin everything?" Maybe it wasn’t entirely persona, he was a little tired too after all.
“Relax boss,” Jack said, looking at the screen in front of her with all the boarding information, “It says here you’re the last passenger.”
To be honest Kokichi’s concern-o-meter for this heist was in the negatives. He was pretty much bored by how well thought out this plan was, but he felt like he had to make a point and he was rarely ever honest besides.
Kokichi huffed moodily. “Yeah sure, but what if that detective from the smithsonian, like, stole the security camera footage from this airport or something totally plausible like that.”
He was kind of planning this conversation out a couple steps ahead. He did that sometimes, when he was bored. She’d refute him by calling the detective a goody-two-shoes or something and he’d say something about caution and she’d dismiss him and then something would pop up later where he could say ‘I told you so’ and re-establish his authority. The same happened when Ace wanted to prove how buff he was by lifting the mammoth bones from the Smithsonian. They'd had to stash it insecurely and the police got to it before they could come back for it later. That was a big ‘I told you so’ moment and as a result no one questioned him on his plans for the Louvre this time around.
Weirdly enough, his conversation forecast did not come to pass this time around.
Jack frowned, looking at the screen. “Hey, what was that guy’s name again? The guy from the Smithsonian.”
Kokichi frowned. “What, the mammoth?”
“No, like, the detective.”
Kokichi squinted at her. He was an evil mastermind, he could recall the exact angle of every laser scanner in the Louvre, of course he could remember the name of some guy. Shuichi Saihara. The novice detective whose dumb friend had tripped that allarm the night of the Smithsonian heist. They’d only had three minutes to get out with the picture frames and hide the mammoth because of him. The detective had showed up at a couple heists and had gotten in the paper, but honestly the mammoth thing was a bit of a fluke. They really hadn’t had a lot of time to stash it. Overall not a big deal.
Which was why it was weird that happy-go-lucky Jack of all people was bringing him up.
“What about him?”
“He’s, like, on the flight I think.”
She showed him the screen and sure enough, Shuichi Saihara was sitting in economy class by the emergency exits. Well, it didn’t really say that on the screen, but given his seat number Kokichi could triangulate it from the diagram of the plane he had memorized. Not that he had really needed to that, but… wait… what if he did need to...
A light bulb went on in Kokichi’s head. In cartoons lightbulbs were just a little blink that meant a switch had flipped for a single eureka moment, but for Kokichi it was more like the real life current of electricity as all of the steps of a brand new heist plan tripped over each other to course through his mind. He forgot to be bored for a second as his brain was lit up with a new scheme and all the possible scenarios that could accompany it.
He had been missing this.
Something... unexpected.
Something... exciting.
Something... unnecessarily convoluted!
Jack took one look at his carefully not grinning face and groaned with exasperation. “Awww boss you ain’t changing the plan again are ya? You already wrote us like a 100 page novel about the first one…”
“Eh, fuck that plan.” Kokichi said doing some mental calculations, “Get me ten parachutes and see if Clubs has extra sleeping drugs I want you to put them in the passengers’ drinks. The strong stuff. Direct Queen towards the rooftop diagrams I shoved in his carry on. Tell me when it gets to be around 1:34 AM Paris time.”
She looked at him with annoyance at the sudden deluge of tasks. “Oh yeah, sure thing. And what are you going to do?”
He gave her his biggest, bestest, shit-eating-est grin. “Be myself, of course.”
Then he turned and boarded the plane, imagining and relishing in the weirded out look she was definitely giving him.
When he got to the entryway of the plane from the boarding hallway, he came upon Rook gossiping with one of the flight attendants. Kokichi heard something about a wedding and a honeymoon before Rook spotted him and excused themselves to find their seat.
“Good evening, sir.” The flight attendant said, still clearly coming off of the social high of talking about his personal happiness. Kokichi decided to slam him down from it, hard.
“It will now that I’m finally on the same damn plane as my husband.” He gave his best impression of a disgruntled everyman, which meant it was a great impression because his best was always great.
“R-right.” Ah yes, the security of making someone else feel socially awkward. Kokichi would make a great playground bully, that’s for sure. At least he was self aware. And putting his talents to good use! Bullying pseudo-law-enforcement was 100% valid according to all levels of morality.
As he walked down the aisle he noticed the rest of DICE ahead of him chattering like sparrows as they moved to the back of the plane. Originally they had planned to keep a low profile and have a pre-heist tea party before touching down in Paris, but now…
Kokichi spotted him, sure enough right by the emergency exits. He looked dead tired and about to doze off, so Kokichi took a second to make some quick observations he hadn’t gotten the chance to get on the night of the Smithsonian heist. The guy had this very detective-esque trench coat with lots of pockets, which was a shame because it meant that if Kokichi decided to pickpocket him he’d have trouble figuring out where his wallet was. Something that didn’t really fit Kokichi’s imaginings of a stereotypical detective, however was that the guy was around his own age in the mid twenties and didn’t seem like the grizzled gumshoe type at all. In fact he was kind of anti-grizzled. He had a boring pretty boy face like a model or something and instead of the full beard and square jaw Kokichi had half imagined any time the word “detective” came up in his mind’s eye he had eyeliner accentuating the only hair on his face and a very breakable looking face. Ok that was a very play ground bully thing to think. Except young people weren’t really as fun to bully as old people because they actually might be poor or emotionally insecure or something, which always made Kokichi feel a semblance of an emotion akin to guilt. But this guy was flying to Paris in the summer season and had been in America a couple weeks before, so fuck him basically. Didn’t he have a job or something?
Oh shit the guy was looking at him, how long had he been doing that?
Don't panic, analyze then act.
He seemed freaked. Probably because Kokichi had been staring at him for a couple seconds now.
He put on a menacingly friendly grin and slipped into the seat next to the detective. Not the one in front of him, or one of the ones in his completely empty row, or even the aisle seat, literally the one right next to him. He put his elbow on the armrest the detective had so kindly pulled down for him.
The guy still looked super freaked out, so Kokichi tried to shift his grin to the more congenial side of menacing.
“Hey, aren't you Shuichi Saihara?” He asked, extending his hand. He thought about coming up with a pseudonym but was too busy being delighted by the absolute terror on the detective’s face. “I'm your biiiggest fan.”
The guy shook his hand like it was the lever for his very own personal electric chair. Dramatic much?
It seemed to freak him out so Kokichi decided to run with the ‘biggest fan’ thread, chattering on, “I read aaall about that thing with the hairy elephant and the stupid ugly criminal you've been tracking.”
He would keep talking about the ironic impudence of this imaginary criminal but it really seemed like Saihara was having a dissociative episode while he was talking.
He frowned. That was kind of boring. “Hey are you like deaf or something?” That would be kind of extra boring because then Kokichi would be trying to bully a deaf dude and that would be lame. “Hey. Heyyyy. Earth to Shuichi Saihara.” Maybe he could thread some truth in here. “Geez I didn't expect you to be this boring in person…”
That seemed to get him.
Saihara shook his head like he was getting the dust out and stuttered out an "I-I-I'm sorry, what?"
Well maybe he had the soul of an old man, if not the looks of one, Kokichi thought to himself as he blithered on. “Have you been ignoring me? Not a very nice way to treat your biggest fans." He crossed his arms. "I, like, totally hate when heroes don't live up to your expectations."
Guy still looked half asleep… Maybe a change of scenery was in order…
Kokichi noticed the chatty flight attendant from earlier coming down the aisle. It was time to act on his earlier framework...
He said something like “You can make it up to me,” but honestly even he wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying anymore. That was the only warning he gave before reaching over the detective to break his chair. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have thought it was awkward, but it wasn’t like he had to care about what this guy thought. He was going to leave him on the plane and probably never see him again.
Kokichi held himself back from giggling when the detective toppled over backwards.
“Oh no!” He feigned surprise, “How could this happen?”
"What happens to be the problem here gentlemen?" The flight attendant asked right on cue.
Saihara was looking pretty dubious but also not that talkative so Kokichi thought about the right words to spin this.
Distract. You’re the threat here, Kokichi.
"What's the problem? You're asking me what the problem is?" He shifted his tone to that of a white soccer mom used to getting what she wants. "The problem, good sir, is that this Rusty bucket of bolts you call an airplane just tried to give my husband a concussion! I could sue for this, you know."
The flight attendant broke easy.
"I'm so, so sorry sir." He quibbled. "Here, we'll make it up to you. It's a long flight and we don't have many guests so I can upgrade you both to first class with no additional charge."
Kokichi gave a rather hearty harrumph. Not bad as far as harrumphs go.
"You better. Or my lawyer will be hearing about this."
Hah. If Kokichi tried to talk to a lawyer he’d probably get arrested. Small claims lawyers were like cops but with even less spine and more capitalistic tendencies in his book.
The flight attendant didn’t seem to care about the rot of society, though, and tarried forth to first class. Saihara hadn’t quite caught on yet, so Kokichi grabbed his arm. For some reason he didn’t expect the detective to be so draggable. Detectives just didn’t seem that way. Like they could be dragged, but Saihara seemed too tired and confused to not be dragged. Thrilling! Boring. Okay okay don’t get ahead of the horses here. Horses? Uh.
First class was more Kokichi’s style. He let Saihara shuffle into the window seat so he’d be able to keep a look out for Jack’s signals in the aisle.
"Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you." The flight attendant said as Kokichi sat down.
Ugh it’s like he actually cared about his job or something. Being in customer service must be insufferable.
Kokichi didn’t actually want to harrass this asshole when there was a perfectly good fake cop right next to him, so he replied with an apologetic smile, “Of course. Ah, I'm so rry for causing so much trouble, it's just the honeymoon you see and everything just has to be perfect, you know?”
"No, it's quite alright, I understand completely." The flight attendant seemed to relax a little, “I went through the same trouble with my husband. Really let me know if I can help you at all.”
Droll. “Thanks sooo much!" he intoned gratefully. He turned to Saihara who still looked like he was in shock. "Wasn't he just the nicest Shuichi?"
Saihara blinked at him. "... If you had enough money to hire a lawyer that could sue an airline so frivolously then you would've already been in first class."
Hey! That sounded like something a detective would say!
"I'm just stingy." Hah. Beat that logic. Nice one Kokichi.
Saihara squinted like he was about to bless Ouma with another brilliant deduction.
"... Did you sit next to me so you could convince that gay flight attendant to put you in first class?"
Wow!!! He was thinking!!! He was totally wrong but at least he was trying.
"I can't believe you figured it out!" Kokichi did his best impression of a widow revealing a dark secret on prime time television. "It's true…Detective Saihara I was lying about being married to you the whole time. I thought you knew..."
"Wha- of course I knew that!" Saihara sputtered.
"Oh! How can you ever forgive me?" The flight attendant was definitely out of range by now so this seemed like a good time for some melodramatic tears. "Waah!"
"H-hey! Stop that." Wow what a bad detective. Is that how you comfort people? Sad.
Kokichi was about to weep even more for the loss of chivalry when the asshole shoved something at him. Was that… a handkerchief? This guy just had a handkerchief? Is that not something that only people in movies do?
Weird.
Kokichi snatched it from him, exclaiming, “"Oh wow! What a gentlemanly thing to do!"
He proceeded to make his most grotesque snot noises imaginable.
“A-are you alright?” The detective stuttered out.
Kokichi pondered a couple iterations of “no, and it’s your fault” before deciding that was boring and saying “Perfectly fine.” He flicked out the handkerchief and held it a bit to make sure Shuichi noticed it was clean before tucking it in his pockets. “Just a liar is all.”
"A-a liar?"
Kokichi frowned at him. "No, where did you hear that?" He made an expression of disgust. “Ick, I hate liars after all.” He put on his manic pixie dream girl sees a light bulb for a first time look. “That's why I'm such a big fan of yours, Shuichi.”
"I-is that so?" Ah, the panic of a person unprepared for social interaction at two am was a sight for sore eyes. “Um.” Or maybe it said nothing of Ouma’s own skill that this guy was an awkward glob. "Y-you seem to know my name, but, uh, what's yours?"
A question! An inquiry! One for which Kokichi had the perfect answer....
"Kaito Momota."
“What.”
Wow! What a flat tone Saihara had! Almost like he didn’t believe him or something absurd like that.
Kokichi waved his hands dismissively. "I know, I know, isn't that the name of your friend who was in the paper? That's why I read it, by the way," he said matter of factly. "Because we have the same name."
Ugh, he was adding too much supporting detail. That’s something bad liars do and he wasn’t a bad liar. He was the best liar. Accept no substitutions. Unless they were really good at lying about being a substitution… then they would probably be the best liar…
Ok whatever ranking of liar he was it was probably good enough to fool-
"... I-is that another lie?"
Ah fuck.
"Neeheehee… ya caught me." Best to bail early on this kind of thing. "If you guess my real name by the end of the flight I'll give you a prize!"
"Like Rumplestiltskin?"
Really? Was his own charade getting that cartoonish already?
“Aww man. You guessed it the first try. That's no fun.” Logically this was boring but he was doing okay as far as airplanes went. "I guess now you'll just have to guess my second, less cool, real name instead."
As great as he was at being evasive in all situations why was the subject not changed by now.
"... Honestly I'd much rather be sleeping through this flight." The detective rubbed his face, and Kokichi noticed the darker shades of his eyelids weren’t all eyeliner. He must have business. Something that was keeping him up at night.
Kokichi determined some short term goals for this conversation. Find out why the detective was going to Paris was primary among them. That information would narrow down his field of options for how to spend the rest of the flight.
Kokichi scoffed. “Why would anyone get on a flight to Paris at 2 AM if they weren't prepared to be up all night?" He shifted back into the fanboy thread, "Oh! Oh! Oh! I bet you've got another case you're hot on the trail of, huh Mr. Detective?”
Saihara seemed to hesitate. “Uh, sort of.”
Kokichi thought he was going to say something more but after a few seconds of silence, it was clear he needed further prompting.
"What kind of answer is that?" His words seemed to surprise the Detective, which was a bit silly considering that they had been having a conversation, where words being exchanged should be the norm. "How can you only sort of be solving a mystery?" Kokichi lied through his teeth. "You know, I just so happen to also be a world class detective."
“Really? Saihara’s skeptical and unassertive response was less of a question in this conversation and more of a way to measure how gullible he was.
"Yes, really!" Kokichi replied, storming ahead, "And as a real life detective I just so happen to know that when you're working a case you work it with 100% of yourself!"
Saihara made this weird, soft sound. It took Kokichi a moment's consideration to realize it was supposed to be a laugh because it sounded not at all like the howling cackles growing up with DICE had familiarized him with.
"I guess you're kind of right about that…” He fidgeted with the edges of his coat. “There's, uh, this case that I've been looking into for a long time now and I guess I have really been putting 100% of myself into it. My friends think I'm going a little crazy…"
Ooh, that was something.
“Your friends? Like that purple haired guy who was in the paper? The one with the dumb name?”
Considering the nitwit Saihara had been romping around the Smithsonian with, the detective must really be off the deep end on this case to be considered looney by his friends.
Kokichi was predicting a silly story that he could use to justify to DICE his choice to sit next to the detective the whole flight beyond satiating this little whim of his for a taste of the unexpected. He imagined them laughing about the detective from the smithsonian who thought the Eiffel tower was a secret spaceship or something as Kokichi explained how he just had to stick around to make fun of him.
Oh shit the detective was saying something.
"-him and one other friend think I'm making this thing about the Louvre up… and maybe I am a little crazy."
… The Louvre, huh?
Kokichi scrutinized the detective. He couldn’t mean… “The Louvre? Like, someone's gonna steal the Mona Lisa?"
"Uh, no." The detective looked away as if mildly embarrassed. "I think, uh, someone's going to take the plumbing from the renovated bathrooms…"
Kokichi’s brain registered two things about Shuichi Saihara at the same time. One: he was a real detective. Not a hopeless buffoon of a gumshoe like the ones you saw in video games about dystopian court systems and gay lawyers. He had made a real life deduction and had done so accurately. He was on a case. The second thing he realised was that Shuichi Saihara was a direct threat to his entire operation.
People usually categorize threats as something to induce fear. Some would describe the fear as “bone chilling.”
When Kokichi registered a threat his toes got cold. Not because he was scared or something dumb like that, but because his blood suddenly had a better place to be.
Kokichi’s brain raced with possibilities, brand new scenarios and personas that he could put on. Like he had been sitting at a boring ass company play only to realize that the curtains were rising to reveal a dramatic opera where he was the star. Ok, Kokichi wasn’t exactly a poet laureate when it came to analogies, but he was excited okay?
Kokichi shuffled the deck of options and picked a card.
"Wow. You must be really smart to have figured that out." Ok, good thought to start with praise. He has a low self esteem. "You know…" Kokichi leaned in. Shuichi leaned away. Good. Make him uncomfortable by getting in his bubble.
Now, just for fun, lie wildly.
"I just so happen to be the leader of a secret organization with about 10,000 members. We rule the world from the shadows. I think we could use a detective like you."
Shuichi obviously didn’t believe him, which was, to his credit, absolutely fair. “That- that has to be a lie. There is no possible way for such an organization to exist.”
Sad detective, falling for the classic hiding in plain sight maneuver. Disguise the truth of DICE in an unbelievable lie and he doesn’t believe any of it.
"And here I was thinking you were particularly clever." And, twist. "Seeing as you've refused to join my organization… it seems I'll have to kill you."
Oh man that really seemed to frazzle the good detective. What, had he never gotten a death threat before? Typical. It would be funny to see his expression if Kokichi were to just stab him right now. Except ew because blood and also ending human life. Yikes. Weird train of thought.
"But I'll let you leave this flight with your life if you can beat me in a game."
That seemed to calm the detective down a bit, like he realized Kokichi was just joking. It’d be funny when Kokichi pulled out the knife later. Ah, ah, ah, no spoilers.
"How about Russian Roulette with a full barrel?"
Shuichi sputtered, "This is a plane, you don't have a gun!"
Kokichi considered the ‘my ruse has been discovered….’ line again before he realized he’d used it like twice now and tossed it aside for: "Oh that's right, left it on my tchotchke shelf, silly me. Well I guess if you just want to beg like a dog and then split your guts open that would be acceptable."
Wow ok a little harsh there. Kokichi’s single brain cell devoted to tact whispered. What? No. No filter. Fuck you brain trying to conform to social conventions, shut the fuck up and stay out of my personality.
"Um, no that would kill me."
"Damn, nothing gets past you… Hmm… Ok, how about…" Kokichi reached into the pocket he usually left his Yu-Gi-Oh deck in. "A shadow game!"
He held up the cards only to realize they were actually just a normal playing deck. Oh yeah, he left his deck at home because he thought Rook might steal his blue eyes while he slept on the plane. Shit. Oh well, playing cards could be fun too.
"It's time to du-du-du-du-du-du-du-duel!"
Shuichi blinked. "A...duel? Shadow Game...?"
"Hmhmhm... Yes, the loser's soul will get sent to the Shadow Realm…" he shuffled them so that Shuichi and him would draw the same cards, "We each pull one card from this deck, and whoever has the largest number wins!"
Shuichi looked rather befuddled but Kokichi kept going full steam ahead.
This wasn’t really a game of chance anyhow. That wasn’t the point. The game had two motives, the first being to gauge Shuichi’s reactions to different scenarios, the second being to build up Kokichi himself as someone intimidating and mysterious. The card game wasn’t extremely telling, but the ensuing bout of rock paper scissors was.
Kokichi was keeping pretty busy predicting what Shuichi was going to pick next in order to make it a tie, but Shuichi didn’t protest at all to the mindless repetitive game it must have been for him. He was either easily impressed by rock paper scissors or just too awkward to tell Kokichi to fuck off.
Apparently the guy sitting in the row in front of them had no qualms about such things. He hit the back of his seat and grumbled “Oh my God shut up already.”
A bunch of weirdly indignant thoughts ran through Kokichi’s head.
Wow! Rude asshole! Mind your own fucking business! Get some damn headphones!
Shuichi looked like being told he was annoyed by a random asshole was his equivalent of seeing a ghost as he muttered out some inane apology.
Not that he cared about how this guy felt, but him suddenly clamming up just wasn’t very fun at all.
Just when he was making headway too…
… Maybe it was time to get rid of the distractions.
"Gosh Shuichi you really were being just too loud. You're like the loudest person I've ever met."
Shuichi looked at him like he was crazy which Kokichi appreciated for a millisecond before raising his voice to say, “Ugh that game was getting boring though, and no one won so it's probably time for something else.” He leaned over the aisle, noticing that Jack was standing in the aisle at the back of the plane chit chatting with Spades as Queen stole pretzel packets from the snack cart.
"Hey,” he called, “When's drink service?"
The three DICE members under his scrutiny froze like they had been caught doing something they shouldn’t be. They were probably gossiping about him again. Great.
Jack got her bearings fairly quickly, pushing the drink cart up the aisle. "Coming right up~" She trilled cheerfully.
As she passed by to start service at the front of the plane, Kokichi noticed a little green vial tucked into Jack’s sleeve. Most likely the sleep drug Kokichi had requested before he got on the plane. Hmm. He wanted to get rid of the distractions, but he wasn’t exactly sure distractions included Shuichi anymore. The flight was still pretty long and Kokichi knew he’d be bored out of his mind forever if he didn’t get through this whole game gambit with the detective.
Another spur of the moment change of plans was in order and it hit Kokichi with yet another wave of excitement.
"Hey, Shuichi!” He exclaimed, “We should have a tea party!"
Shuichi gave him another look. “A tea party? I don't think they ha-”
Kokichi didn’t have the patience not to speedrun Shuichi’s disbelief.
“Well oooobviously you wouldn't know anything about it.” He interrupted. “I'm the leader of a super secret organization after all, so of course I know about the super secret drink menu available on all air planes.
Shuichi frowned. "But they couldn't bring anything to-”
He stopped listening. Something something blah blah blah doubt doubt doubt.
Kokichi shook his head dismissively, getting ready to set up an I told you so moment.
“Just watch.”
When Jack rolled up with the drink cart she made a hand signal that told Kokichi things were going well on DICE’s end of things. "And what would you fine sirs like to drink?" She asked in a register slightly higher than usual. Jack was being smarter than Kokichi about this and had basically contoured all of her distinctive facial traits away, so Kokichi wouldn’t have to worry about Shuichi tracking her down from this interaction.
"A cup of hot green tea."
Pretty much the only reason he was going along with this impulsive plan of his was that the only person who would get any heat for it if things was south was him. He wouldn’t put DICE’s livelihoods in danger for a whim such as this.
"Sure thing!"
Was this even a whim anymore?
"And what about you?"
Of course it was.
"Shuichi here will have the same thing."
If it wasn’t then it would have to be something else.
And if it were something else, then Kokichi wouldn’t know what it was.
He couldn’t afford to be that stupid.
"Of course.” Jack smiled almost a little too fakely. “Anything added in like sugar or cream?"
She was obviously double checking that Kokichi didn’t want this bastard drugged.
"No, we're both taking it plain today."
"Oh, really? Alright then."
She poured the tea.
“"I hear you two are on a honeymoon? That's so lovely. Can I see the rings?”
Kokichi usually appreciated that Jack was quick to catch on to things, but she was bordering on insubordination at this point.
"You know what I hear?” Time to play real housewives of DICE with this gossip again. “That lonely flight attendants should realize they're sad and nosey losers who should keep their noses out of happy people's business."
Aw shit she was going to think he was flustered and covering up something wasn’t she.
"Teehee~ Yes sir! Enjoy the flight." Yeah she totally was on to him
Wait no because to be on to him she would have to be right and she wasn’t so there.
Oh shit wait Shuichi was still here. Looking extremely awkward and unsure if he was also supposed to start bitching at flight attendants like it was common etiquette or something.
"That was all code you know.” He brushed it off. “Super secret organization stuff. You probably wouldn't understand."
"Uh, yeah." He said, "I probably wouldn't."
Wow this guy was funny. Kokichi was moderately glad he wasn’t in a drug induced coma right now. Moderately glad was pretty good for an airplane vis a vis emotional stability.
"Neeheehee…” He let himself laugh a little. “Drink the tea Shuichi, I've got to pull you into a false sense of security before your final trial."
Shuichi frowned. "I feel like by pointing out that you're trying to lull me into a false sense of security you have essentially not done so."
"See, but because you feel that way it means I have succeeded in lulling you."
Shuichi frowned again, but seemed to see no logic in arguing. He decided to take a sip of his tea instead. Kokichi noticed the asshole in the chair in front of him was asleep. So was the guy in the seat across from his, and the woman in front of that guy was dozing too. Everyone else had a drink and would be soon to follow.
Everyone except for…
“So how do you like the tea, Shuichi?” Ouma asked.
Shuichi was drinking that hot leaf juice like a pro who didn’t even feel the burn. He made a contemplative expression.
“It’s pretty good as far as tea goes.” He shrugged. “I’m more of a coffee guy.”
Kokichi felt a little offended on the behalf of DICE’s custom blend as well as all of the classy tea drinkers in the world. He shook his head
"Fff, what are you, a cop or something? Next you’ll be telling me you like donuts more than cupcakes."
Shuichi made a weird face before looking away.
"Holy shit," Kokichi said. This was the perfect time to both change the subject and do a little investigating of his own. " Are you a cop? Like a really funny undercover cop who decided to pretend to be someone with the exact same job?"
"Uh, no, that's not it."
Was it something about the donuts then or- wait no that was stupid it was obviously the cop thing.
Shuichi was looking out the window now. "I, uh, did used to be a force detective."
"Huh," Kokichi remarked, trying to peek around at Shuichi's face, "Were you fired or something? You must've been pretty bad to get fired from some backwater police station."
"No that's not it." He seemed to be leaning into some sort of memory, "I quit actually…"
Ugh, who gave this fucking loser the right to be interesting. It was totally unfair.
Kokichi kept digging, "Man why wouldn't you want to be a cop. Clearly the most respectable public service someone can provide for their country…" but that was totally a lie. Cops suck.
Shuichi frowned. "I, uh, kind of disagree with that." He was pulling at his fingers like he was trying to stretch them like taffy. "I met a lot of people on the force who really did care about making the community better, but I feel like the existence of law enforcement is really a symptom of larger societal problems, and that the structure of power doesn't work to reduce crime or violence but instead works increase it by giving a group of privileged individuals the power to instill generational trauma in communities."
Uh… huh. Kokichi took a moment to process that because he had never thought about “cops = bad” beyond their innate fuddy duddy inclinations to stop him specifically from doing whatever the hell he wanted. What the fuck? Did this guy actually have, like, opinions??? And legitimate reasons for them??? Who gave him the right??? How could Kokichi hear more of them???
Pff wait he was probably some rich kid who took maybe one social justice class in college and became a stooge of the state anyway. Maybe he was, like, a real policeman's embittered assistant or something.
"That's lame." He lied, "cops are the cops, do you want folks to be murdering people left and right all the time??? I bet you've never even met a criminal." Hehe that one was a bit ironic, he'd laugh about it later.
Shuichi furrowed his brow at him, "Well, I have… I was a homicide detective, actually. I've arrested murderers in person many times..."
What???? Is this what talking to all strangers for extended periods of time was like? You found out they actually had lives? And cool careers? That they made their livings in murder?
Nah, Shuichi was probably an exception. You don't meet an anti cop homicide detective everyday after all…
Kokichi decided he was being too endeared so he planned out a new branch of conversation that would hopefully make Shuichi squeamish, or at least unnerved.
He put on his best enthusiasm face. "Tell me about a murder! Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
Shuichi blinked at him, surprised at his sudden shift in mood. "Uh, alright then…" he said.
Shuichi started to go into detail about a case he had solved his first year on the force. Some guy turned up dead in a public pool and everyone else had basically given up on the case. Shuichi was describing how he figured it out through deductions and use of specific forensic techniques, and to be honest he wasn't exactly a master of suspense. Kokichi was able to deduce the murderer from the details Shuichi chose to include. No, none of that was why he was completely mesmerized with Shuichi while he talked.
Hearing about the things that Shuichi did to get to the evidence in the first place was… impressive???
No that couldn’t be right.
Maybe it was just weird to see a mousey guy like him get as jazzed up as Kokichi about solving murders, and not even in a weird or vaguely creepy way. He just seemed like… Kokichi hadn't thought about it in a long time but when he was a kid he read a shit ton of mystery manga, where the heroes were detectives. He had since then moved on to more sophisticated literature such as airplane diagrams and police radio transcripts, but Shuichi reminded him of those detectives instead of the old fuddy duddies with which he had begun to associate the profession. He was just kind of… cool. Yeah that was the word for it. Cool. Like he was always going to get around to the right answer no matter what. Yeah, he had that abstract "coolness" factor that had drawn Kokichi to protagonists as a kid.
Kokichi wanted to steal it from him. Break his composure, become the center of the stage in this narrative. Yet, at the same time he suddenly dreaded his own inevitable heel turn. This was something rare, he decided, getting to talk one on one with Shuichi like this. It would probably never happen again.
So Kokichi listened. He teased, interjected, and prompted superfluous explanations, but he listened.
And Shuichi talked. He talked about murder most foul, crooked cops, elusive evidence, and the friends he made along the way. Shit straight out of a manga that Kokichi was spending his Saturday morning hyper-fixating on.
The conversation only ended when Shuichi had to get up to use the toilet. A stark reminder that manga wasn’t real and in meatspace human beings had to shit every now and then. Kokichi watched him go and felt a little sad. Like he knew whatever it was worth, the moment had passed. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and now all he had was to dissect it over and over again in his head until it became mangled beyond recognition...
Yeah yeah ok, world's tiniest violin, scattered ashes, ceremonial boat burning, yadda yadda.
Kokichi had a heist to pull off, no time for any of this silly stuff. He dismissed whatever weird feelings were bubbling in his chest and decided to go with the more practical inspiration that struck him. He took a couple seconds to plan out his grand exit. He decided to leave Shuichi a note and justified to himself that heists had been getting boring lately and as a proper game master he should give Shuichi a hint. Hmm were his initials too much? It might seem like…
Well he didn't really know what it seemed like, which was weird because he was a genius. Was he actually trying to figure out how Shuichi would react to this? He hadn't really thought about what Shuichi's opinion of him had been because he had only started thinking of Shuichi as an actual person halfway through the flight. That was the thing about being in a close knit organization, he always thought about DICE as an extension of himself and everyone else as some sort of nebulous other he had to predict the movements of. Sometimes he forgot that if you spent a lot of time talking to some stranger you find out they have brains and lives and stuff.
Speaking of things that probably have brains and lives and stuff, things seemed to be going good with DICE. Jack had signaled him that she told everyone about the plan when she came by to collect trash.
Of course, he and Shuichi were the only ones she took trash from. Everyone else was fast asleep, all according to plan. Kokichi had written some last minute details on a napkin he had put in the trash bag, so they all knew they were dropping soon.
They were also all probably gossiping about him. He supposed that's what he got for ditching them to sit with a detective dressed in black like a sexy motorcycle. Wow that was terrible where did his brain even get that line and how could he use it to make Shuichi freak out. Probably pretty easily...
Except if everything went according to plan maybe he wouldn't have the chance. Not like this. He imagined himself yelling the comment at Shuichi from the safety of a getaway chopper, like in the movies…
Ok his note was basically done now. Oh hmm. This actually seemed kind of desperate, the note. It kind of screamed "track me down to the end of the world please" like some sort of piss baby cry for help.
Aw shit. He was thinking about what Shuichi thought about him again...
Speak of the devil and he shall appear but Kokichi was already here and hadn't talked about himself in a bit, so Shuichi showed up instead. His hands were wet which meant he washed them and goddammit it was insufferable how tolerable this guy was. Did he have no weaknesses besides being generally awkward and also being someone who used to be a cop? Ugh wait the latter was kind of cool too. Insufferable.
Well you know what they say, if you can't beat em plan to jump off an airplane because you did beat them they just don't know it yet.
Kokichi decided their final trial together deserved some dramatic build up, so he bowed to Shuichi as he got up to let him sit back down.
"Welcome, combatants." He illustriated, "Take your seat and prepare for the final trial."
Shuichi gave him a wary look as he slid back into his seat.
"What is it this time?" he asked.
Kokichi considered pulling out the crying on that one, but got too excited about how Shuichi would react to his pulling out the knife instead. Thusly he reprimanded the detective’s lack of enthusiasm with a single tsk.
“You could stand to be a little more concerned mister detective, it’s your life on the line after all.”
Shuichi gave him a dubious look, like he trusted airport security and general societal norms to keep him from being murdered.
Kokichi wanted to tear down the walls of that trust.
He pulled out the knife.
Shuichi’s reaction was instantaneous. He practically jumped away from Kokichi in his seat. Weirdly enough... that just made Kokichi realize they had been sitting pretty close before...
How did that happen?
Eh no time for that.
“Is that a knife?” Shuichi yelped, “How did you get a knife on the plane?”
It was weird how Shuichi stuttered about everything except things that were actually dangerous. Well maybe Kokichi having a knife wasn’t really dangerous, but Shuichi didn’t know that and here he was saying complete words. Sentences and all. And yet it still had the streak of incredulity running through it that shot through to Kokichi’s head faster than his own signature panta-redbull blend.
“Oh, a villain's got his ways.” He said in a way that he thought was pretty cool and mysterious.
Shuichi still seemed to be panicking a bit and Kokichi was getting a little tired of that so he brushed past it.
“Now this game's pretty easy to understand, but you gotta be skilled,” he explained matter of factly, “I'll go first to show you how it's done.”
When some other kids had showed him this game when he was an even tinier bastard they had started off slow and slowly sped up. But he was still kind of leaning into the shock factor, and going slow was lame. He started stabbing the table through his fingers at a breakneck pace.
“H-hey!” Shuichi exclaimed (oh so now he stutters), “You're gonna hurt yourself doing that!”
“Pff, as if I would.”
The thing about this game is that it required rhythm, and rhythm required predictable repetition, and being predictable was the antithesis to everything that brought him joy in life.
He sped up.
“Here it's really easy.”
He went even faster.
The knife went *thuck thuck thuck* as it massacred the table.
When you did something the same way for a long time it gave you time to think about things. It didn’t really give you anything specific to think about, though, so Kokichi always felt like he was wasting time.
The knife went *thkthkthk* between his fingers.
He wanted to consider next steps. How long he would do this for and what would he do if Shuichi lost the game…
Instead he started thinking about when he learned the game. He remembered he had picked it up from some of the older kids at one of the homes. The only other thing he remembered about them was one time they had stood by a rose bush with him, tearing off thorns and pushing them into their fingertips. Kokichi had done it and remembered that it didn’t feel like anything at all.
*Schlick*
Your fingers are full of blood vessels and nerves, but if you push down to the cartilage-
Oh wait.
“Agh!” Shuichi exclaimed from beside him, “You’re bleeding!”
Kokichi was bleeding.
He was looking at his hand. His knife had nicked a millimeter of skin on the inner side of his ring finger, just at the junction between the tip of his finger and the second part of the ligament. It occurred to him that he was in pain.
“Ow,” He said on instinct. Or maybe he thought it in his head. It didn’t matter because he was busy also thinking about how Shuichi had just grabbed his wrist and pulled it over to him.
The detective placed Kokichi’s hand in his lap like a sandwich he was saving for later while he ruffled through his coat pockets. He drew out a bandaid and lifted Kokichi’s hand again. His fingers were longer than Kokichi’s, and they felt sort of cold, like his blood had better places to be than his fingertips. They were very, very gentle as they wrapped a bandage around the bleeding finger. Almost like Shuichi cared or something.
The detective’s greyish green eyes flickered up to him and Kokichi realized Shuichi had really long eyelashes. “You really ought to be more careful.” He said in his soft way.
Kokichi was honestly having more emotions than were necessary about this, so he focused on the annoyance.
Man, good at figuring things out, is interesting, has opinions, and actually cares about other people? Was this guy even a real person??? That seemed like too many character traits. Geez Shuichi, why did mom let you have all of the attractive personality qualities?
Did he say attractive? He meant annoying.
Shuichi squinted at him. His eye lashes weren’t that long, he was wearing eyeliner. Kokichi had already noticed that. He just had to start thinking coherent thoughts again.
“What is it? Are you alright?”
Yeah, for sure.
Shuichi was still holding his hand and Kokichi decided it was time to not be touching another person again, so he quickly whipped it away. He tried to settle into a boastful kind of hands behind the head pose, but worried that the effect was lost by the sudden squirming of emotions in his gut.
"Geez," Kokichi said petulantly, "I can't believe you actually beat me."
He stomped everything down. It was time for action not... not whatever this was.
Shuichi blinked at him in confusion. "Beat you? But I didn't even play…"
"Doesn't matter." Kokichi shifted to a new pose where he leaned his arm on the rest in between them and propped his head up, positioned for his next steps. "The rules were if I cut myself I lose, and I lost."
“...Although, it doesn't matter if you join my organization or not anymore, Shuichi."
Shuichi looked at him in confusion and Kokichi found it kind of frustrating that he didn’t know which aspect of this that Shuichi was contemplating.
“Uh, it doesn’t?”
Very eloquent, Shuichi, that clears things up.
"Nope." Kokichi moved a bit so that both elbows rested on the arm rest and propped his head up closer to Shuichi’s. "Because I've already done something much more important than winning."
As Kokichi leaned in Shuichi leaned back. Shuichi was staring pretty intensely at his eyes which made this the perfect opportunity. Kokichi’s hands went lightly down to Shuichi’s waist, where he put the detective’s seat belt into a dreadknot.
“W-what's that?” The detective stammered, no doubt as alarmed by the proximity as Kokichi had anticipated.
Kokichi hadn’t really anticipated what he would say next though.
He went with, “I've stolen your heart.” He felt a millennia of DICE movie nights spent making fun of romantic comedies crash against his soul and decided to change the genre before he embarrassed himself. “Because I'm a thief you know?”
He was practically breathing in Shuichi’s ear by now, which made this next part a little hard. He unbuckled his seatbelt. Then, in a fluid motion Kokichi’s hands went behind his head as he arched to place them on the aisle armrest. He did a handstand for an instant on the arm rest before landing his feet across the aisle on to some poor bastard’s tray table.
When he came up for air he observed that he had knocked a cup over and that Shuichi had just noticed his own seat belt malfunction. The detective’s look of dawning realization felt like a standing ovation.
"Hmmm, I really should kill you, now that you've seen my face," and maybe he would if DICE were that kind of organization. It was kind of troubling that the police would get sketches, and the gang would probably harrang him about it. But eh, what can you do.
Certainly not murder. You can’t just murder people. That’d be dumb. Boring even.
Kokichi hopped down from the tray table and grabbed his heist bag. It would’ve been bad to forget that, he considered as he pulled out his mask, Louvre cameras are a lot more reliable than a half asleep detective’s recount.
Said detective was certainly fully awake now, looking at Kokichi in an utterly gobsmacked manner. Kokichi felt like he was sinking his teeth into the stem of a rose thrown from the audience.
"... But I think that'd be a waste, don't you?" Maybe the trouble was what he was looking for, after all. He wondered if they would fingerprint the arm rests when the plane touched down. They wouldn’t find any matches in any criminal database, so it didn’t matter much to him. He put on his gloves anyway before tossing Shuichi the note he had written.
No time for second drafts. He thought as he started walking down the aisle.
“Somebody! Stop him!” Shuichi yelled from behind him. It was so manga detective that Kokichi wanted to scream.
The rest of DICE was already getting up with their parachutes on, and a few turned towards Shuichi’s call. Thank goodness they were wearing their masks because he wasn’t sure if Shuichi could still see down the aisle or not. He might’ve seen Jack’s face, but she had been wearing a lot of makeup so it was probably fine.
She certainly didn’t seem concerned. She was checking the knots the only actual flight attendant on the plane was trussed up in.
Ace, always a little over eager, wrenched open the emergency exit as Kokichi was still putting his parachute on. He felt the drastic change of air pressure in those spaces you feel it in your skull and stomach. He hadn’t realized how warm the inside of the plane was until the cold air sucked it out.
He used convenient zippers to close up his hoodie pockets, knife included, and buckled up the rest of the parachute’s straps.
He looked back, just once. Shuichi was peering out at him in the aisle. He looked like his world was ending and Kokichi reveled in the power of that. That he was just that important to this detective.
The curtains are about to drop but there are still people screaming in the balconies.
He smiled.
The encore wasn’t up to him.
“So long, Mr. Detective!" He got to the window. "Better luck next time.”
Kokichi jumped back first out of the plane and the walls and the aisles and the lights of the plane slipped out of view through the emergency exit one by one.
And he fell.
He fell and flipped over to take in the view of Paris below. The city of lights indeed. It was beautiful, he supposed.
He fell, letting himself enjoy the breeze a bit before reaching terminal velocity.
He didn't though.
Enjoy it.
It felt like getting on a fucking awesome roller coaster except it’s also your every day ride to your job at some dead end minimum wage desk.
It was… boring. Routine.
Just victory, just the Louvre, just air.
Even as the other members of DICE whooped and hollered on their descent, Kokichi realized the fun part of the heist was already over. The whole heist was over.
He could predict it all.
He would deploy his parachute, he would float down to the Louvre, and he would orchestrate a perfect heist.
But Kokichi Ouma realized then that he would never stopped falling.
#saiouma#oumasai#shuichi saihara#kokichi ouma#fanfiction#Phantom Thief AU#ouff yall im gay and probably have adhd so that's my excuse for going absolutely feral on this#first time writing ouma so hope yall like it#writing
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request: “Could I request a fic where Reader is an accident prone person and keeps messing up trying to be a hero and is portrayed as a villain but has good intentions and keeps trying to explain that they aren’t bad and Ellie is the first person to believe them and then they get close cause of that???” + “I would like to request a fic where reader is new to the school and is having trouble with bullies and classes and Ellie finds them having a break down and a ton of angst and general hurt/comfort ??? Sorry if this is a lot”
synopsis: When everything you say comes true and people do whatever you say, you have to watch your words. You do the best you can, but sometimes you get too comfortable and forget. No one believes that your intentions are pure… Until one day. Even after that, though, life isn’t perfect.
author’s note: These requests seemed to fit really well together, I hope y’all don’t mind that I combined them! Sorry if the ending isn’t the greatest, I kinda pushed myself through some writers’ block with that one so it wasn’t perfect.
warnings: Nothing that isn’t standard to X-Men. (No incest while Wolverine creepily watches, though, so I guess this has less content warnings than X-Men.)
Since you found about about your mutation around four months ago, all you’ve ever wanted is to help - but when you asked that bank robber to just stop and he collapsed dead, you were immediately labeled a villain.
“You don’t understand, I’m trying!” You told the Avengers at the time - they approached you first - but because you told them that, they didn’t understand and may never.
Sure, there’s times when you’ve been able to do the right thing. You can coax a cat down from a tree by simply saying “The cat in front of me is safely in its owner’s arms,” and perform other such small acts of kindness, but they never seem to outweigh the major fuck-ups that have you written off as a bad person.
Until today.
“We just want to help you, Hyperbole,” Professor X himself says, rolling towards you.
“Stay back!” you warn, and his hands freeze on the wheels.
You look at your World History teacher, dead on the ground. You’d told a friend that her brain’s the size of a pea, and it was so.
“I didn’t mean to,” you tell them. “It was an accident.”
“I’m sure it was,” Cyclops scoffs.
“It was!” you protest, eyes welling up with tears. You hate this - you hate being on the run from your parents because you off-handedly said they’d kill you when they found out about that quiz you failed a couple months ago; you hate that your best friend still eats worms after you joked she eats like a bird, you hate all of this and just want it to go away. Your powers don’t work on paradoxes, though, so it’s not as simple as saying “I’m not a mutant anymore.”
“How?” a girl asks. She’s one of the newer ones, closer to your age. You can’t remember her codename.
“Negasonic,” Colossus warns. Right, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, like the song.
“Well, everything she says comes true, right? So if she says it was an accident, then it was. What happened?”
“I said that she has a brain the size of a pea. I- I wasn’t even thinking about it,” you explain, shocked that someone is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt. “People do what I tell them to do, too. So, when I told Professor X to stay back because I didn’t want to hurt him…” You gesture to the man.
“Your first kill…” the professor breathes, looking to you in realization. “You told him to stop.”
“Yes, I just wanted to help; wanted him to stop robbing the bank,” you agree, nodding eagerly.
“And the Empire State Building?”
You choose your words carefully, not wanting to repeat the incident: “I said that there was a stray mutt the size of the goddamn Empire State Building wandering around New York. Next thing I knew, Thor was striking the Empire State Building with lightning and the Fantastic Four were wrangling a giant dog. It was an accident, it’s always- It’s often an accident.”
“Thank you for reminding us all that it’s important to give our fellow mutants the benefit of the doubt, Miss Phimister,” Professor X commends the drop dead gorgeous girl who believed you. “What is your given name, Hyperbole, and can you make it so that I can move closer?”
“You can move however- You can move as you choose to move,” you tell him. “My name is Y/N. My name is Y/N L/N.”
Professor X suggests to you that you do your best not to speak until you get into the habit of speaking carefully on the flight to the school, and you practice his advice, communicating in writing, gestures, and with Ellie, texts. You’ve been at the school for about a week, and she’s your only friend so far.
Y/N: Thank you for believing me.
Ellie rolls her eyes. She cares for you in her own way, but that doesn’t mean she’s not annoyed that you’re constantly thanking her. It makes Ellie feel… Chivalrous, and a strange feeling bubbles up in her chest when you gaze at her in that way you do.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s rough having a mutation where it’s easier to hurt others than to help them. I get it, that’s all.”
You give her an insistent look. It’s easier to talk with her over text, so at least there’s that. If you had to talk to her verbally, you’d be a blushing, stuttering mess. With this, all you have to do is shoot her some expressions and type whatever you want to say.
Y/N: It’s a big deal to me.
Her resting face (translation: scowl) intensifies, and her cheeks turn a little pink with what you assume is frustration. You don’t want her to be angry enough with you to abandon you, so you quickly apologize.
Y/N: I’m sorry.
Her eyes linger on her phone screen a little longer than it takes to read the message as she sighs, annoyed expression fading.
“It’s fine. I’ve just got P.E. next period, not looking forward to it.” It’s true that she doesn’t enjoy the strenuous physical activity that is training, but what she’s truly upset about is how absolutely perfect you are. The only reason she vaguely stands a chance is because you’re too nervous to put yourself out there, for some reason.
Against her own selfish desire to have you for herself, Ellie says: “You should try to make friends in your next class. Some okay people are in there, they just don’t know you’re… You.”
You nod - not sure what she means by that - and the both of you finish your lunch in silence before heading off to your separate classes.
You don’t actually go to your next class, though, fucking off to the roof of the school. The judgmental glares and unintelligible whispers you’ve received this week drive you nuts; you just can’t stand it all.
You miss home.
You run back inside before you’re any more tempted to do something that Ellie might regret - you know she only bothers with you so that neither of you are completely alone - dashing down the stairs until you find your shared dorm, eyes blurred with tears. You sob and sob, not sure how long it’s been but all of the sudden Ellie is there.
She doesn’t say the things she “should,” she knows. She doesn’t shush you and tell you everything’s okay, because she’s always thought that was stupid; telling you to shut up and that your problems don’t exist as a method of comfort is ridiculous.
“What’s going on?” Ellie instead asks, and you weep more because you can’t just tell her without potentially fucking up again. “Right, dick move, okay, uh… Just- Just let me know what I can do when you can.”
Her presence alone is comforting when it comes to coping with all of this.
You continue to sniffle and shake, but your tears subside and you’re able to write on your whiteboard.
Everyone hates me
“I don’t hate you.”
For now but once I fuck up
She grabs your hand to keep you from continuing to write, and you could drown in the depth of her eyes.
“The more you worry about that, the more likely it is to happen. Trust me.”
Okay then I have you for now but that doesn’t make me any less stupid
“What do you mean?”
I tested into that stupid AP English class and I don’t understand any of it at all
“That doesn’t make you stupid, it’s AP. You can get a class change, you just have to talk to the teacher.”
TALK
...Accompanied by a glare before you erase the board.
I just fucking hate it here I miss my real life I miss my real friends and my parents
“Your… Real friends?”
You know what I mean
She scoffs. “Yeah, I do.” Her expression’s illegible, but your best guess is done with you.
And then she walks out.
You know you’ve fucked up, but you don’t follow her. You don’t deserve her friendship, you don’t deserve any of this - good or bad. You don’t deserve anything.
You lay back on your bed and just stare at the ceiling. You wish you could just stay like this, silent and not hurting anyone. Not even yourself. You’re drenched in misery, sure, but you’re in so deep it almost feels like nothing; like those last moments of drowning before everything slips away.
You can imagine what your friends would say to this:
“Come on, I’m eating worms and you’re the one who’s depressed?”
“Seriously, calm down, Y/N. You’re so overdramatic.”
Sure, they’re not the greatest friends, but they were all you had and you feel you owe them for that. You miss them. As you think about it, though, you realize that Ellie hasn’t said anything like that. She listens to you. She relates to you.
You can’t believe what you reduced her to, even if you didn’t do it consciously.
“Hey.” She’s back. Why is she back? You don’t deserve her. You don’t sit up. “You’re not supposed to have shoes on the bed,” she remarks. You don’t even scoff, which tells her your funny bone isn’t working, which tells her you feel even more like absolute shit than you did earlier.
She kicks off her shoes and takes yours off for you, laying next to you on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” you tell her, and she tries not to let her shock show. Your voice is raspy with lack of use, so you clear your throat. “I’m sorry,” you say again, now stifled by your throat tightening. She’s been here for you the whole time and you weren’t even careful about what you said in writing. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. This is… An adjustment. For both of us, honestly. I should’ve been more patient.”
“You’re already more patient and understanding with me than anyone else.”
“So?” Ellie asks, head turning so that she can look at you better.
“What do you mean, so?” You scoff, smiling in confusion as you face her. “You don’t- You don’t often invalidate my feelings, that’s already more than I’m used to and more than- More than I feel I deserve.”
“Getting better already,” she notes, the ghost of a smile on her face. “And what I mean by ‘So?’ is that even if I’m not a complete asshole all the time, that doesn’t make me a perfect person. No one is.”
“That’s fair,” you admit. “But-“
Ellie looks at you pointedly and you blush, turning back so that you’re flat against the pillow. She feels something warm inside as she observes your side profile, and not the typical fire of anger that she feels when looking at a person because everyone’s just so fucking obnoxious and- She wants to kiss you.
She turns back to look at the ceiling, like you’re doing, cheeks on fire as well. The tension is awkward, to say the least, but there’s something intimate about just laying here together. She pulls you closer, not on top of her but nestled in her side. You adjust to the position, but don’t say anything, instead balling up part of her loose tee shirt in your hand that happened to rest on her stomach.
“Hey, Y/N?” Ellie nervously starts, and your eyes hesitantly cut up to her. “Do you wanna go see a movie or something, sometime? Together?”
“Sure?” You’re confused and slightly disappointed, you’d expected a more serious question - for better or for worse.
“I- I meant, like, together, like…”
“A date?” You ask, and the fruit appears in your hand. You offer it to her, and she shakes her head, failing to hold back an amused smile. You whisper something about it going to someone who needs it.
“A date,” she agrees. “And- And maybe neither of us will go on dates with other people?”
“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” you wonder, unable to contain your glee. A blush spreads across your cheeks and a smile spreads across your lips.
“Yeah,” she confirms - clearly a little embarrassed - and you know that there’s at least one thing your lips can do that won’t cause damage. You rise up to her level from where she had you tucked under her arm, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
You return to your original comfortable position quickly, of course, as to not make out with the wrong part of her face; however, she pulls you back in for a kiss in the place you do want to make out with - at least, the one on her face. You respond eagerly as her fingers tangle in your hair before you eventually part, sitting up.
All you have to say is: “Wow.”
Ellie nods.
“Like… Wow.”
Ellie nods again.
“I’m the one who’s not supposed to be talking, so please say something-”
“Something,” she blurts.
“...Before I fuck up and do something like that.” You huff out a laugh. “Maybe- Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I really don’t- Don’t want that kind of control over you. Over anyone, but definitely not someone I’m dating.”
“I trust you. And- And I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I’m sure you’re aware that that means a lot coming from me. Don’t worry.”
You wish she was the one who was able to make you do whatever she wanted so that it’d be easier for you to not worry.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she reassures you, and you can’t help but break down again. Sure, you’re happy that a hot girl with a fantastic personality is now your girlfriend, but that doesn’t cure you; doesn’t make you feel like you deserve it. Only one thing can free you from what you are, and you’re not that daring. “I- Uh, I’m sorry.”
You shake your head, face hidden in your hands, and she wraps her arms around you. It’s a bit awkward, sure, but the embrace is appreciated.
“Sorry- I’m sorry, I just- I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeatedly apologize, sobs garbling your speech.
“No, no, don’t apologize. It’s hard, I know it’s hard. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” she consoles. “I’ve got you.”
“But- But what if I…?” You remove your hands from your face so that you’re able to meet her eyes.
“You won’t,” she says, sounding like she truly has all the faith in the world that you won’t. You’re not entirely reassured, but…
This is enough. She is enough, more than. You nod, and she pulls you closer now that you’re not shielding your face. The both of you recline on the bed for-
For you’re not sure how long, but long enough for you to feel at least better, even if things aren’t perfect; even if you aren’t perfect, and yet everything’s perfect.
That’s an idiom, though, not a hyperbole.
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