#anyway. This will probably get split into more than one chapter
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Jimmy hadn't realized he was alive. Not at first. He'd been frozen to the spot, static buzzing in his ears and eyes shut against the incoming pain.
He flinched, when a too warm hand touched his shoulder.
"Hey, Jimmy." Tango's voice cutting through the static, a hand cupping his cheek, "You're quite the treasure, hm? You make letting those fools paw through my hoard worth it."
Jimmy hunched in on himself, his wings coming up in a protective mantle. He was too scared to make any noise, too frozen to open his eyes. He didn't want to see his troupe. Not like this.
"Hey now-- hey sh sh shhhhh. . ."
Jimmy felt a rush of cold air, before something scooped him up and tucked him close. It felt almost like a giant hand, but a little bit too cold and smooth. He didn't dare look, ignoring the vertigo of sudden movement.
It took him being dropped onto a pile of something soft and warm to shock him into opening his eyes with an 'oof--'
Jimmy wished he hadn't. He'd been deposited in a nest-- one much bigger than any avian would make, obviously big enough to house a dragon comfortably--
And Tango was staring at him.
Tango. As a dragon. Right.
He couldn't look more different that the form he'd taken as a human to trick them into his lair. His scales were silver, as far as Jimmy could tell, what with the horrible lighting and the shock and the way everything was sort of swimming--
So he was a good dragon then, not one that would torment Jimmy just to eat him later. Maybe. He had just-- Nope. Not the time to think about that.
The dragon circled Jimmy once, almost like a dog bedding down, before plopping next to him, one big eye staring at Jimmy.
"You're not going to keel over from stress, are you? I hate losing my treasures."
Jimmy pulled his wings tight around himself, "N-no. I'll-- I'm not going to die."
"Good." Tango huffed out a soft breath of mist, draping a big wing over Jimmy like throwing a blanket over a birdcage.
Jimmy let out a soft 'eep-'. Then he went quiet. He was probably in shock.
He was most definitely in shock. Jimmy's memories were fuzzy, at least for the next few-- somethings. The next stretch of time.
It came in waves, almost.
The memories were tinged with fear and static first; who wouldn't be terrified of a dragon? Tango brought him food and water, and bundled him up in warm furs and draped him in jewelry. Like Jimmy was a glorified statue. To be fair, it was how he'd been acting.
Then Jimmy either got over his fear or got used to it-- he couldn't remember which. Probably both-- and out came the anger. Tango had murdered his entire troupe on a whim! He had probably done it to more adventurers in the past. And now he was treating Jimmy like a pet-- a very spoiled pet, but still a pet--
There was a lot of yelling, and a lot of static, and there was an attempt at escaping-- It would have never worked, but Jimmy had to try. Multiple attempts at escaping. Anger turned into a desperate need to be free, a yearning for the sun and the open sky after so long without it.
Tango was patient through it all, in a way that pissed Jimmy off even more. It was like-- like anything Jimmy did was so entertaining. Like Jimmy was a disgruntled kitten.
The anger lasted a long time, swinging down into despair and back again. Nothing he did could make Tango angry at him. Nothing he did could get anything other than a condescending grin and an amused laugh and a wing draped over his head in the nest at the end of the day. Tango even started bringing him along when he went to work on his lair; he put Jimmy on a magic leash, one that let Tango keep him close. Tango said it was 'to keep him safe'
There was only one time where Tango did anything to hurt Jimmy. And it wasn't even anything bad, the static said. It hadn't really hurt him.
Tango had clipped his wings.
Jimmy had attempted to throw himself to the floor from the very top of the swooping ceilings of the treasure room. It was the highest place he could get to, trapped underground as he was.
Tango had caught him before he could to anything to truly hurt himself, carefully slicing his flight feathers short and crippling the avian for who knew how long.
It was humiliating.
The static had taken most of the next stretch of time from him-- but it didn't take everything. Jimmy knew that he'd finally found a way to piss Tango off. Somehow. Whenever he reached to grasp at those memories, they always seemed a little bit out of reach.
Tango just wanted to be his friend. Why had he been fighting so hard against him? Jimmy should be happy to have a friend as great as Tango! Who else could say that they were best friends with a dragon?
Jimmy's feathers grew back in as gold as the treasure Tango loved to drape on him. It was comforting, for the dragon to help him preen them.
He couldn't quite remember when he'd made the pact, but he had. How else could he have ended up with more magic than he knew what to do with, and the ability to hear Tango calling for him anywhere in the lair or the Citadel above?
Jimmy was given free rein of the place, after the pact. Tango seemed overjoyed to have someone to show all his clever traps and passages and hidden doors and puzzles and treasure to. There was always some new trick to learn, or some new spell Tango wanted him to try, or some new magic artifact for Jimmy look at or wear or use.
Jimmy didn't quite know when he'd picked up singing, either. It wasn't singing like most humanoids sang. It was birdsong. And it was something Tango could hear no matter how far away from him Jimmy wandered.
The dungeon continued to bring in adventurers. Wanna-be heroes, after gold or magic or who knew what. Time was a fickle thing, down in Tango's lair, and Jimmy had no way of telling how long it'd been since he arrived. Whenever he asked, Tango would give him an answer that wasn't really an answer. Surely he'd been here for less than a year.
Tango started letting Jimmy help. The adventurers made for good magic practice. And not all of them were the punch first, ask questions later kind of adventurers.
Jimmy couldn't help but warn them about the danger. That this was a dragon's lair.
Tango found it amusing, how some of them tried to backtrack, after they found out what they were up against.
He didn't let them, of course.
Jimmy found it at least a little bit interesting, how Tango's lair was set up to reward those who played his games and solved his puzzles and were clever in ways Tango hadn't thought of yet. His troupe had had so much trouble because they'd ignored all of it, in favor of slogging through the dungeons and killing the monsters.
The fastest he'd ever seen a troupe get down to Tango's lair proper was less than a week.
That was the first troupe where Jimmy had a significant hand in guiding them past the worst of the danger. He'd grown fond of them. They had treated Jimmy like one of their own.
Tango let them each choose one piece of treasure.
They'd earned it, Tango whispered through the bond. He did give treasures away to those who had earned the reward. And besides, they'd treated Jimmy so well. Even before knowing this place was a dragon's lair.
It was up to them to get out with the treasures, however.
Tango didn't let Jimmy help them on the way out.
#tangotek#jimmy solidarity#team rancher#team rancher au#dark ranchers#viviwrites#dragonfrost au#dont mind me#first draft go brr#gotta learn how to actually draft and rewrite SOMEHOW#but my need to post what i write also needs attention#i have NO patience#the first chapter of unsung melody is the first (second-ish technically) time i have done the whole. write in drafts thing.#I'm liking it so far#time will tell if i continue it#anyway. This will probably get split into more than one chapter#depending on how long i stretch it out into#last time 800 words turned into 2.5k.#this one is 1.3k already#hermitfic
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The other Bronze – Pt.7.1
Okay guys... since I'm having just too much fun writing the Beach day, here are about 7k of Beach and we're not done that's why I decided to split Pt.7 into two chapters😉
I hope you have fun with this part - the next one will be coming in a couple of days ❤️❤️
Lucy parked her beloved holy Cupra in a parking deck near the Beach to one have the car away from the sun so it won't heat up so much and two give you some more time to “prepare”. As she killed the engine she turns over to look at you
“Firstly... I'm proud of you for not destroying my Car by pushing any buttons” she grinned and you rolled your eyes playfully “and secondly... it's about a five minute walk to the Beach... it COULD happen that I get recognized by fans... if so, please don't start trouble – most of them are REALLY nice and also really respectful... but you know yourself from previous encounters there are some that are rude...” she said insistently.
“Lucy... it's not the first time I'm out and about with you...” you rolled your eyes annoyed
“You once kicked a man in the knee” your sister raised her eyebrow at you
“He was inappropriate, extremely rude, loud, demanding AND intoxicated...” you defended yourself remembering this encounter
“You were 10” your sister reminded you
“Mills and Jill bought me the biggest ice cream as a reward” you grinned happily at this particular memory
“They always rewarded you for shitty behaviour... he could have hit you... he was fairly drunk” Lucy said rolling her eyes again “but we're not talking about the past... we're talking now... please don't start trouble IF we encounter fans...”
“As long as they're cool, I'm cool” you shrugged your shoulders. Just because Lucy was the older one it didn't mean you couldn't be just as protective of her as she is of you
“I'm able too handle it, okay...” she said insistently again “... I'm not even sure if we run in to them anyway”
“Yeah okay... I TRY to behave” you huffed and opened the door “I take ice cream as payment”
“You can shove that ice cream up your...” your sister started as you smirked at her
“Kinky”
“Stop it” Lucy groaned as she took your bags and locked her car “Stanway turned you into a monster... definitely going to “talk” to her about that”
“If you hurt her I'll leak baby videos of you” you threaten her light hearted
“I know you would” your sister grinned as she laid her arm around your shoulder pulling you into her side and press a soft kiss to your temple “I really missed you Bubs”
“You're too young – never thought I'm going to say THAT but here we are – for Menopause.. what's with the hormonal stuff” you looked at her pulling a face never being one for affection in public
“Just enjoy it, Devils Spawn” Lucy mocked “and remember you can ALWAYS come to me for anything... advice, talking, venting, even if you just need a shoulder to cry on... I'm here Bubs”
“I know” you whispered softly
“Okay... than lets go... as soon as we're close to the Beach you need to stumble a lot... you did that... and you had this loopy grin... uh... and you only called Keira by her name... everyone else had nicknames... Alexia was “pretty spaniard”, Atiana was “flawless spaniard” and Mapí was “colorbook spaniard”...” your sister listed off
“I left out Ona?” you looked confused
“Oh no... she was just “spaniard”... you have another hour to find a new name for her.. and you basically got everyone to scramble around for you... just... hold back with Tana... she is shy anyway and you calling her flawless probably made her a little uncomfortable” Lucy shrugged her shoulders before asking you to told back on the flirty comments towards her teammate
“No flawless spaniard... got it” you nodded seriously – today was for funnies’ anyway
“Good... they won't take you serious if you do it right anyway, so... flirt away if you can justify yourself to your girlfriend if there are clips leaked” your sister grinned evilly
“You are honestly one big bitch” you said bewildered at her implication while she just started laughing pulling you along
Of course Lucy got recognized by some fans on your way to the Beach and she patiently signed and took pictures with all of them while you waited near by. You noticed a small girl – maybe four or five – who looked longingly at your sister. You slowly shuffled towards the girl not to startle her you crouched down next to her
“Hi” you said smiling friendly as the girl just looked at you afraid “What's your name, wee one?”
The girl just keeps staring at you but at least she didn't run or scream so you took that as a win – that's until you remember that you are in Spain where small girls probably don't speak english. You didn't speak spanish.
“Y/N” you tried it the old fashion way pointing at yourself before pointing at her looking at her expectantly smiling
“Bella” she said in a tiny whisper and you smiled wider as she answered you
“Hola Bella” you know opted to sit down next to her on the sidewalk as your sister was still occupied with signing stuff. You decided to “talk” to the girl pulling out your phone for a translation app since your spanish was more than broken – or more non existent.
“Cómo estás” the robotic voice of the App suddenly spoke and you smiled at the girl
“Buena gracias” she answered shyly which you actually understood
“¿Qué estás haciendo aquí solo?” the unpersonal voice said again after you quickly tipped in your question
“Esperanto a Lucia” Bella answered and you tried your best to type in what she said and finally concluded that she said she was waiting for Lucia
“¿Es Lucía tu... hermana? ¿mamá? Tía?” you really became a fan of that App after asking the young girl if Lucia was a relative and she seems to understand what you mean.
“No... Lucía Bronze... ella estás justo ahí” the little girl shook her head and pointed towards your sister.
“oh... OH... Lucy” you said understanding suddenly before typing quickly in your app again “¿quieres conocerla?”
Bellas eyes grow big for a minute before she started to fidget with her fingers looking down ashamed “no tengo un bolígrafo” she said quietly
“Okay... now I need your help, kiddo” you mumbled before holding out your phone to the little girl signalling her to write down what she just said. After a minute she seems to understand and started typing. You waited patiently until she handed your phone back looking at the screen looking up at her surprised
“What you need a pen for?” you said more to yourself than her typing out the question already
You communicated like this for a while and you learned that Bella was actually Isabella she was 5 years and 3 month old, she lived with a lot of children and Signora Viola in a big house, they currently are on an adventure – you looked around and saw a playground near by so you put together that the girl bolted once she saw Lucy and she was a BIG Fan of the Barcelona Femeni. You asked her again if she wanted to go over where you could see your sister wrapping things up and again the little girl got all shy. You told her that there was nothing to be shy about and that “Lucia” was just a normal person like her and you. Isabella shook her head furiously looking at you shocked comparing Lucy to “normal” people. You laughed wholeheartly before holding out your hand offering it to the small girl. After a second she took your hand and you slowly walked over to where a few fans were still standing around your sister waiting patiently.
“Oi Bronze” you yelled from a few feet away grinning widely as all heads turned to you your sister not even bothering to look up where she was signing a picture of – herself
“I said.. OI BRONZE!” you yelled louder as you came closer the little girl half hiding behind your legs
“I don't react to rude fans” your sister said calmly ignoring your presence before smiling for another picture “I thought we talked about it”
“Good thing then that I'm firstly NOT a fan and secondly I have found the most precious fan you'll ever meet” you grinned at your sister carefully pushing the small girl in front of you
“Where is her mother? Please don't tell me you kidnapped a kid” Lucy looked at you pleadingly
“Just... sign something for her it'll make her day... she doesn't have a sharpie tho...” you said and your voice told you're sister that you'll talk later. She trusted you so far that you didn't kidnap a little girl and crouched down to smile friendly at her.
“Hola soy Lucy y tu quien eres?”
“Isabella” the little girl answered shyly and pressed herself against you
“Hola Isabella, ese es un hermoso nombre.” Lucy smiled at the little girl
“Muchas gracias” Isabella mumbled “Mi mamá me lo dios antes de convertirse en ángel”
“Fuck” Lucy mumbled as it dawned on her and she looked at you “She doesn't have a mom?”
“From what I got through the app she's an orphan... and she's a big fan... so.. make her day” you gritted the last part through your teeth smiling down at the girl reassuringly
“Tu mamá eligió el nombre correcto: un hermoso nombre para una hermosa niña” your sister smiled warmly at Isabella “Qué puedo hacer por ti, Conejita?”
“no tengo papel ni lapiz” the girl sounded sad suddenly which made you perk up
“I told you to make her day not to make her sad” you looked at Lucy confused
“She said she doesn't have pen and paper so I think she would like to have an autograph but has nothing where I could write it on” your sister explained looking at you annoyed but her voice didn't show it because she didn't want to give a false impression to the kid
“Can you occupy her for hot minute?” you looked at your sister and she immediately knew you had an idea
“Sure... in comparison to you I speak spanish” she smirking at you
“In comparison to you I look good” you said before pushing Isabella towards your sister smiling at her encouraging
When you were sure the girl was happy enough talking now more freely with Lucy you searched your sisters back for her wallet before grinning brightly as you found it, took some money (a lot to be honest – but hey... she gets a good salary) and went back the way you came from the parking deck. Unknowns to your sister you immediately spotted a Jersey Shop when you exited the parking space and that's where you went. You quickly found the shop again, looking at kid jerseys as a blonde salesgirl walked over to you smiling
“Stalker much?” she asked and you immediately noticed the voice turning quickly on your heels
“Caro?” you asked confused but broke into a smile quickly as you recognized your new friend
“I see you're still alive so your sister didn't kill you?” she smiled
“She was THIS close.. but no.. she didn't kill me – but she overdosed my pain meds and let me made a fool out of myself in front of the whole team” you rolled your eyes
This made the german girl burst out laughing knowing immediately which team you were talking about
“You didn't call me.. or texted...” you said faking sounding hurt
“Yeah... funny story... I paid the Uber with your 20 – forgetting what was on the back of that bill” she said embarrassed
“Are you serious?” you looked at her stunned
“Yeah... sorry” she grinned apologetic
This time it was you bursting out laughing “That is such a Me move”
“You know I'd love to chat more but my store manager is already looking over... so... what can I help you with?” Caro put on a fake smile feeling the eyes of her boss on her
“I need a Jersey... for a five year old... Bronze on the back... and a sharpie if you sell those too” you said quickly as you didn't want to get her into trouble
“Anything you want to tell me?” the blonde grinned at you as she skilfully grabbed a plain Jersey
“Just met a girl... from what I got she's an orphan... she's a fan” you said as she pushed the small jersey into your hand and led you over to the printing station
“With the number?” Caro asked not wanting to push the subject
“Yeah... go all out... my sister is paying” you grinned thankful for the topic change as you held up a bundle of bills
About you 15 minutes later you left the store grinning a small bag in your hand and your sister about 150€ lighter (110 for the jersey and 40€ tip for the staff) but in your bag was a brand new kids Jersey with your sisters name on the back of it. You were still smiling as you rounded the last corner spotting your sister immediately sitting in the shade next to Isabella with an ice cream in her hand. You stopped for a second to take in the scene before quickly taking out your phone snapping a picture before yelling over to them
“OI BRONZE... can I have an autograph?” you grinned as her head snapped up at your voice
“Everything for my biggest fan” she smirked back at you as you walked over to them snatching Lucys ice out of her hand before tossing the bag in her lap
“Sign that and make that girls day” you said as you licked the ice cream “For good heavens... what's that?” you pulled a face making Isabella giggle
“Liquorice and Lavender” your sister answers distracted as she looked into the bag “You bought a Jersey?”
“What is wrong with you??? Are your taste buds this fucked? You have disgusting taste... and yes... I... you... you bought a jersey... a kids one... UWCL version... did you know the jerseys here are freakingish expensive?” you gagged trying to get the taste of the ice cream out of your mouth as Lucy told you you just had a lick of Liquorice ice cream
“I bought a jersey?” Lucy asked you confused as she pulled said item out of the bag
“Yep.. took your money... it's your jersey, so your money” you shrugged your shoulders taking a glance at the small girl who sat beside you silently watching your interaction but became big eyes when she saw the jersey.
“We'll talk about that later” Lucy shot you a glare before signing the Jersey and holding it out to Isabella telling her something in spanish. The small girl first smiled so widely she could have lit up a whole dark alley in seconds. Then she seems to remember something as she retreated a little bit getting a sad look on her face mumbling some spanish words. Lucy frowned at that and for you it looks like she tried to reassure the girl to take the jersey. Suddenly you noticed a woman coming running out of the playground area looking franticly around.
“Luce... I think that's this Viola woman” you nodded towards the woman with your head “I think precious Bella here bolted without telling someone”
It was in the same second as the woman spotted the little girl coming running over quickly rattling spanish words a million miles an hour – which caused you to just look at her bewildered and Lucy at least tried to keep up. Isabella looked down her hands behind her back. You gathered it was a spanish scolding which sounded even worse than all the scolding you received (are still receiving) from your sister.
“What is she saying?” you mumbled leaning slightly towards Lucy not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of that womans rant
“I have no clue” your sister whispered back
“Didn't you tell me you speak spanish?” you teased Lucy under your breath
“If she would speak spanish I would probably understand enough to string together what she's saying... but that's catalan” Lucy answered and you nodded understandingly
The womans head snapped in your direction making you shuffle carefully behind Lucy as the womans look could kill a dead guy. She took a few deep breaths before starting to talk to your sister who looked lost.
“Tell her you speak bad spanish – but not catalan” you nudged her from behind making her pushing back against you roughly but followed your idea talking to the woman in spanish. She seems to understand what Lucy tried to tell her immediately slowing down on the words pronouncing them more clear. The two talked for about five minutes (which you stayed for safety reasons behind your sister – you would easily volunteer her as a tribute if you had to) before Lucy gave the woman the little jersey and it looked like she made her something promise as you made out the words “Isabella” and “Camp Nuo”. Both – the Viola woman as you named her and little Isabella – said their goodbyes before going back towards the playground.
“Soooo... what was that about” you asked after you made sure the woman was gone
“Isabella really bolted – apparently she does this quiet often... and you were right... she's an orphan, lost both her parents about a year ago due to a car accident” Lucy said sadly “This was the housemother... she told me that Isabella is a good kid – very smart... introvert... reads a lot.. and sadly gets picked on a bunch because she's not as outgoing...”
“Luce... you told me once not as long as you play professional” you said your voice low and your sister knew immediately what you meant
“It's just not fair... I was painfully shy when I was younger and she deserves someone to stand up for her and tell her it's okay” your sister replied and you noticed it really bothered her
“I know Lucy... but.... you know yourself” you tried to bring your point across
“Yeah I know...” your sister huffed defeated
“I mean... mom would lose her shit if you come home for Christmas with a little girl calling her “Grandma”... I actually dig it...” you grinned trying lift your sisters mood
“She would definitely go hard on the egg-nog” Lucy mused but you saw a small smile tugging on her lips
“So... when are you going to see Isabella again?” you ask knowingly
“I've invited them to the next game... Viola said she needs to speak to some other people about it and yeah... I hope they can make it happen” your sister shrugged her shoulders
“Will you tell Ona... sorry... will you tell the spaniard about this incident? I really need to get into the headspace of being high” you asked mumbling the last part to yourself
“Maybe... when we have a quiet, uninterrupted moment” Lucy looked at you pointingly
“I slept till nearly lunchtime...” you defended yourself
“And I didn't met Isabella until 30 minutes ago you space cadet” your sister looks at you stunned by your not-logic
“Oh yeah... didn't think of that... uh... ice cream” you started before you got distracted by a small ice cream shop
“You really rock this pretending to be high scenario” Lucy looked at you proudly
“Thank you” you grinned “now... ice cream and then beach?”
“Course” your sister laughed as she pulled a five Euro bill out of her wallet “you really took my money???”
“It's not like I'm working” you shrugged your shoulders turning to the ice cream guy pointing to the two flavours you wanted – Espresso dark chocolate and Speculoos. Your sister paid for your ice cream grumbling under her breath but smiled as she saw how happy you looked with your ice cream cone.
“Bubs... beach rules apply for Barcelona beaches as well, do you hear me” Lucy looked at you intensely
“Awww man come on....” you whined licking away on your ice cream
“No... you don't go into the water without telling either Alexia, Keira, Ona or me... I would say Ingrid too but you haven't met her officially” your sister said stern
“It's the black haired Norwegian... girlfriend of the colorbook spaniard” you grinned being proud of yourself
“How many words did you spoke with Ingrid?” your sister raised her eyebrow as she led you towards Mar Bella Beach
“Ehrm... none?” you wrecked your brain for a second
“Exactly” Lucy grinned “By the way....” she pulled out her phone “... your hour starts... now”
Immediately your whole body language changed sinking against Lucy for support gripping your cone a little tighter starting to stumble along
“Why now?” you whispered
“Because in about 2 meters we're in eyesight...” Lucy whispered back holding onto your side tightly as you rounded the last corner
Just as your sister said you spotted the Barca femeni team immediately. Some of them were playing beach volleyball while others opted for relaxing in the hot sun and you instantly made out Keira. Which wasn’t hard – the only white white person in between a bunch of lovely tanned girls and she sat under an umbrella to not sit directly in the sun. So typical english.
“Keira is so english it's embarrassing” you mumbled making your sister burst out laughing “What... even YOU have a tan”
“Without tan-lines” Lucy smirked evilly
You really wanted to gag and whine but it would have blown your cover before your prank even began
“I hate you” you growled under your breath before getting interrupted by a VERY upset spanish voice
“Really Lucia... again??” Alexia exclaimed shocked and angry
“NOT my fault this time... she overdosed herself” Lucy held both her hands up in surrender letting go of you which made you “stumble” in the sand
“holasita pretty spaniard” you grinned trying to look as loopy as possible
“Ay dios mio...” Alexia mumbled as she pinched the bridge of her nose
“You look so pretty” you “slurred” and your sister gave you a secret thumbs up
“You told me before, Cariño” the Captain huffed “But thank you”
Right this moment you heard a “cuidadosa!!” and the volleyball hit you on the side of your head making you drop your ice cream cone
“María Leon!!!” Alexia yelled turning around in anger “I TOLD you not in this direction!”
“My ice cream” you whined looking down where your ice cream hit the sand
“I'll get you new ice Bubs” Lucy jumped in deciding to play along a little bit
“Oh no you won't” the blonde (pretty) spaniard interrupted your sister “María will buy ice cream... for EVERYONE”
“Que???!!!” Mapí exclaimed while you squealed happily
“I want that one” you pointed at your melting ice cream in the sand – you really liked playing the drugged one it seems to get you free stuff.
“Bubs... you need to choose something new... the place here doesn't have Speculoos... but the strawberry is really good” Lucy found fun in your little play too “supporting” you – even if it means she would lose 50€
“But I want Spec... Specs... Loos... Specloosers” you pouted mispronouncing the word on purpose
“I know... but look... you can have strawberry now and Speculoos later okay?” Lucy tried to “negotiate”
“What have you done to her?” suddenly a very arrogated Ona stood next to the two of you with Alexia still “discussing” with Mapí about how stupid actions have stupid consequences
“I did nothing... you told her where her painkillers were” Lucy defended herself again and this time you helped her out
“Thank you friendly spaniard – you're a good friend” you smiled all teeth at Ona
“You two can't be left alone for a few hours without causing trouble??” the small woman said bewildered and you heard Keira snickering behind you “Welcome to their World, Ona.. you will have A LOT of situations like these”
“Kei” you happily exclaimed turning quickly
“Hey Bitsy... come here a second, will you... your sister has to talk to the friendly spaniard for a moment in peace” your fellow englishwoman smiled inviting and you took her up on it and stumbled over to her.
“Hey Kei” you smiled “loopy” as you plopped down beside her on a towel
“For how long do I have to pretend to not notice that you definitely not high?” she asked you smirking after she studied you for a second
“What... How... Why??” you stared at her shocked
“Bitsy please... cut me some slack... I told you before... I was always able to tell.. what did Lucy promised you if you could pull this off?” Keira grinned speaking in a low voice not wanting to out you since you seemed to have fun
“50 bucks if I could pull it off for an hour without you noticing” you huffed sadly
“It took me one look if it makes you feel better” the english grinned “but I'll play along because it's actually fun seeing what you can come up with”
“Thanks Kei...” you smiled slightly before looking up “which of them did I call flawless?”
This time it was Keira bursting out laughing as she pointed at Aitana who was relaxing in the sun wearing an orange bikini, big sunglasses and a big white hat.
“At least I got that right” you looked impressed
“Do I have to remind you already that you have a girlfriend?” Keira smirked
“Doesn't mean I can't appreciate beauty if I see...” you started before you stopped abruptly your mouth dropping wide open as you see another woman approaching “Fuck me sideways... WHO's that... she's gorgeous”
“Huh??” Keira looked at you surprised before turning around looking who literally made you speechless
“Really Bitsy? Are you really drooling over Jenni?” she asked you with a raised brow turning back to you
“Gonna name her sexy spaniard” you grinned texting Georgia immediately who you kept in the loop all the time
“You have a girlfriend” Keira stressed
“And she just said either sexy or damn girl spaniard...” you grinned showing Keira the text from your girlfriend
“You two are really made for each other” the englishwoman groaned starting to massage her temples knowing she will have a lot to put up with in the future
“Don't worry Kei... you're going to be the one giving me away when we get married” you grinned
“Your sister won't let me do that” the blonde grinned
“She won't be able to walk because she fucked up her knee even more and I'm not walking next to her hobbling self” you waved off
Keira laughed and hugged you into her side smiling as Lucy came over having finished her talk with Ona about how this time it wasn't her fault that you were “high”
“Hey Bubs... you behaving for Kei?” she asked you smiling
“She's very good” Keira confirmed not showing that she knew you were in fact very much not high or overdosed
“Good... wanna join me and Ona over there?” Lucy pointed over to where Ona just laid down on her towel
“Nope” you answered popping the “p” “... not getting involved in your lovey-dovey shit”
“You're unbelievable you know that?” your sister exclaimed rolling her eyes “I have a very high self-control so not everything is about... THAT”
“You can't even say sex around me... what will you do when you find out that I have sex?” you asked the fact that you could pretend to not know what you're talking about helped you immense to rile your sister up
“Don't remind me” Lucy mumbled shivering
“Our Kid is growing up, Luce... let her be” Keira laughed swatting her exes shoulder playfully
“It must be your influence... if it would my influence she'd die a virgin” Lucy grinned back
“It's young love...” the blonde englishwoman rolled her eyes but smiling “... should I remind you how we were...”
“Please don't” you interrupted quickly “I already got scarred for life by her”
“Keira, Lucy.. you remember Jenni, sí?” Alexia interrupted your little banter appearing out of nowhere right next to Lucy
“Sí... hola Jenni... Cómo estás?” your sister smiled friendly laying her arm around your shoulders pulling you into her side away from Keira
“Estoy bien, muchas gracias...” Jenni smiled back pushing her sunglasses into her hair
“Pretty spaniard” you whisper yelled waving over excited trying to get Alexias attention which made Jenni looking at you confused raising an eyebrow at your antics
“Sí y/n?” Alexia looked at you grabbing your good hand to stop your waving
“Who's the sexy spaniard?” you ask “whispering” nodding her head excessively towards Jenni
Alexia closed her eyes breathing deeply her hand shooting up to her forehead starting to massage it as Jenni made a surprised noise
“Who?” the dark haired spaniard asked confused and surprised
You stayed in “character” making a little squeaky noise trying to “hide” behind Lucy
“Overdose on pain meds” your sister grinned widely before pointing towards Alexia “this is pretty spaniard... Aitana over there is flawless spaniard, Mapí is colorbook spaniard and YOU apparently are... what is Jenni Bubs?”
“Very sexy” you mumbled from behind Lucy
“Very sexy spaniard... welcome to the gang” your sister laughed as Jenni continued to look confused as hell
“I... can't follow” Jenni said her spanish accent thick as she spoke english
“Dear Mary mother of god” you half moaned “she sounds very sexy too... keep talking” you peaked over your sisters shoulder looking at Jenni expectantly
“Stop drooling... you are in a relationship” your sister said as she turned her head looking at you
“I'm so sorry Jen... don't take her seriously... she's... she's a walking disaster but really lovely at the same time – she's Lucias little sister” Alexia explained “you can always ignore her”
Jenni slowly nodded her brows still raised. You peaked out behind your sister again trying your best to look as loopy as possible. You took a step around Lucy just for Alexia to push herself between you and Jenni
“Y/n no... sit with Keira in the shade and...” she tried to keep you away from Jenni as you happily interrupted her
“Colorbook spaniard!!!” you yelled across to Mapí and waved
“Baby Bronze!!!” Mapí yelled back and also waved happily “You're high again”
You stumbled around Alexia and Jenni towards Mapí and NEARLY got to her as you were hauled back as someone grabbed you around your waist
“No Bebita... we don't interact with Mapí right now” Ona said softly
“But she...” you started to pout but Ona ignored you successfully
“No no... no buts... come on.. back to your sister you go” the blonde spaniard said firmly
“You're mean” you pouted towards your sisters girlfriend
“And you're high... so nothing new on both sides” Ona replied dry as she pushed you forward her arms still secured around your waist while you started to wriggle around trying to get rid of Ona
“No Bebita” the blonde spaniard said sternly before looking towards Lucy who had an amused smile on her face “Help please?”
Your sister grinned as she made her way over and got in front of you “Behave Devil Spawn – or I'll make sure you'll behave”
“But the colorbook spaniard wants to play... she needs super...spicion” you lulled mixing up words
“Mapí can play with Pina and Patri... you can play with Keira in the shade” your sister said winking at you before pulling you away from Ona “Thanks for catching her in time Babe”
“No problem... I don't want to think about what these two would do” the blonde smiled slightly
“I'll let you drive my Cupra in the Camp Nuo parking lot if you get Jennis number in your “current state”...” Lucy lead you over to Keira whispering in your ear as she did so
“You serious?” you whispered back surprised
“Dead serious... because I REALLY want to witness that” Lucy chuckled under her breath
“Deal” you grinned and stumbled in her arms for good measure.
“Hey Kei... can you keep an eye on dopey here?” your sister said as she basically dropped you next to Keira
“What's in it for me?” the englishwoman smirked raising her brow behind her sunglasses
“What do you want?” Lucy asked as you already trying to bolt toward Mapí once again just for Keira to grab your shorts pulling you back down without even looking at you
“Nandos... for the next year... every time I'M home...” Keira smirked
“Okay... Deal...” your sister agreed quickly
“That's all I'm worth... Nandos? You could have had anything and you chose Nandos?” you exclaimed outraged
“Your sister has nothing I would want... so Nandos it is... and now be quiet I want to relax and enjoy my day off” Keira said as a matter of fact as your sister left grinning to herself
“I can go to the colorbook spaniard” you said happily knowing Alexia was watching you with hawkeyes and you have to remain “high”
“No” Keira said offhandly and closed her eyes “and don't even try it... firstly I will notice and secondly Alexia will notice too”
You huffed pouting glancing over to the blonde spaniard who was in a conversation with Jenni but you could tell she was having an eye on you
“What's the deal with them two” you asked quietly
“Huh?” Keira asked lifting her head to see what you were talking about “Alexia and Jenni? They had an... agreement for a bit...”
“Stress relieve agreement?” you questioned
“Yes... Alexia then met Olga” your other sister said as she laid back down closing her eyes again
“If I go to Alexia... will you stop me?” you asked already forming a plan in your head to get Jenni Hermosos number
“Oh god... what do you plan now?” Keira groaned knowing the small change in your voice
“Lucy upped the stakes” you grinned
“You will NOT hit on Alexia... I don't care what Lucy promised you, you will not embarrass you and in hindsight me since I'm responsible for you” the englishwoman said firmly
“No no no... no hitting on the scary woman... who's not so scary once you get to know her” you said quickly shutting down any concerns Keira might have
“Okay... if you go STRAIGHT to Alexia okay... I know you're not really high but I also know you AND Mapí... the two of you mean trouble” Keira pointed her finger threating at you
“I promise... and you know I keep my promises with you” you nodded your head
“Before you go... where's your sister?” the blonde asked
“Currently at the booth over there with Ona... drinking something red-ish...” you said after you spotted your sister
“You coming home with me tonight” Keira mused a smirk playing around her lips
“I am?” you asked confused
“Yes... pretty sure she's drinking Sangria... so you don't WANT to be home tonight” the englishwoman grinned as you pulled a disgusted face
“Seriously??? How do you know that??” you dry heaved
“I dated your sister for years... I KNOW what wine does to her” Keira laughed heartily as you threw out an “EW”
“Yep.... I'll definitely sleep at yours tonight” you said flatly looking over to your sister again shivering as you were “blessed” with the sight of your sisters hand on Onas ass while she drank her Sangria and laughed at something one of her teammates said (you haven't met that one now)
“Who's no.3 over there?” you asked Keira interrupting her relaxing once again
“Cata... Cata Coll... our Keeper” she answered after looking up from her position again
“Didn't she receive a yellow last game... how can a keeper get a yellow?” you remembered
“She went all Karate Kid on a player outside of her box” Keira answered patiently all your questions enjoying the interest you're showing.
You haven't showed that much interest since your last injury which she understood but it also hurted not only Keira but Lucy as well when you pulled away from them and everything that involved football. So when you started to show interest now Keira grabbed the opportunity to pull you back into it and if it was just a little bit.
“Catara Kid?” you grinned
“Basically... I'll make sure the kiddies pick up on that name” Keira laughed “I don't know what you have planned but if you want to strike you should do it now... because if you interrupt Alexia once she's relaxing you're in for it...” the blonde grinned and pointed towards Alexia who was about to sit down on her towel
“See you in a bit Kei” you quickly stood up before “stumbling” away while Keira just shook her head smiling
You knew Alexia was watching you since she twitched every time you “stumbled” ready to jump up and catch you (or pick you up). You smiled and congratulated yourself internally for doing such a good job. You came to a stuttering halt in front of her staring down on her.
“What can I do for you, Cariño?” Alexia asked carefully as you swayed slightly in the sand
“You are reeeeeaaaally pretty” you said starring down at Alexia who rolled her eyes but smiled anyways
“You came all the way over here to tell me? That's very nice of you, pequeña” the blonde spaniard smiled friendly not even trying to argue with you
“No... I want to ask you something” you mumbled looking around
“Oh... okay” Alexia looked a little taken aback “What's your question, Cariño?”
“Where is the sexy spaniard... I want to ask her something” you grinned loopy
“You want to ask Jenni something? And what would that be?” the blonde raised an eyebrow expectantly
“It's not your business that I want to ask her how she's so sexy” you “spilled” part of your plan – which you did on purpose
“Ah... okay... you just need to turn around and ask her” Alexia grinned having seen Jenni standing behind you
You turned quickly losing your balance and stumbled backwards right over Alexia and fell into the sand with a squeak. Jenni chuckled lowly as she delicately stepped over a swearing Alexia crouching down next to you
“You okay, little Bronze?” she asked smiling as you let your head fall back with a groan
“Peachy” you groaned out kind of embarrassed but since you were smart you turned the situation into your favour “I hate sand... is everywhere” you mumbled
“Yeah... sand tends to do that if you fall into it” the black haired spaniard chuckled
“Is your fault... sneaking up on me's not nice” you slurred
“I'm sorry... I didn't mean to scare you” Jenni smiled
“You not scary... Lexia is scary... she yelled at me you know” you mumbled as you brushed some sand of your arms
“Did she now? That's not very nice Alexia” the dark haired grinned at the blonde
“Explain to her WHY I yelled.. and I didn't even yell at you – I yelled at María” the blonde answered rolling her eyes
“I know spanish, you know... wait...” you said acting like you have to remember it
“Don't hurt your head, Cariño... you promised to never say it again” Alexia quickly interrupted your thoughts as you yell out a victorious “HA” and turning to Jenni
“Cállate la Boca, matildo hijo de puta! That's it... that was what I learned” you smiled widely at the shocked face of the dark haired one
“Dios Mio...” the blonde groaned “You can't remember your own name but THAT you remember”
“Mapí taught you that?” Jenni asked still working through her shock
“Yes ma'am” you grinned proudly
“I can see why Alexia yelled at you... that's something very bad to say” Jenni said firmly “Don't say it again”
“Say what again?” you said acting like you already forgot what you said just a minute before
“The spanish phrase you just said” the dark haired answered confused
“Give up, Jen... she won't remember anyway... it's easier to play along... she tells me every time she sees me that I'm pretty” Alexia chuckled shrugging her shoulders
“You are pretty” you said coming closer to Alexias face “so pretty”
“See what I mean...” the blonde directed to her fellow spanish national teammate “... thank you, Cariño... it's always nice to get a compliment”
“Okay wow... WHAT did they give her” Jenni laughed loudly
“Ask Ona... she apparently got her the good stuff for a sprained wrist... where is your splint by the way Cariño?” the blonde answered Jennis question before noticing your missing splint
“Was uncomfortable... left it home” you mumbled shyly
“It doesn't help your recovery if you don't listen to the doctors Cariño” Alexia sighed
“Look who's talking” Jenni mumbled under her breath
“But it hurts... not a nice splint” you pouted sadly
“I know Cariño... but it helps you getting better faster” the blonde said sympathetically
“You know...” you started before throwing in a theatrical pause “... you are so pretty”
“Ugh...” Alexia huffed out at your short attention span as Jenni laughed again
“This is amazing...” the dark haired laughed
“You are very sexy” you smiled loopy
“Thank you little Bronze...” Jenni laughed “... but I think it's time for getting rid of the sand, hm?”
“Ugh...” now it was your time to huff “... I hate the sand... gets everywhere”
“I know... come on... I'll help you wash it off since you would probably drown in the shower” the dark haired laughed
“You sure? I can too” Alexia looked at the two of you sceptical
“It's okay... It's my fault she fell...” Jenni nodded smiling
“Yeah... it's her fault” you threw in for good measure
“Off you go then... don't leave her out of your sight for a second... she'll be gone, trust me” the blonde warned before making a shoo-motion with her hand
Jenni pulled you up into a standing position and you swayed around a little bit
“Huuuiii” you smiled as you swayed
“And you probably need some water too.... I'm pretty sure your circulation is low...” the dark haired spaniard smiled friendly as she grabbed your hip securely
You leaned against her letting her lead the way towards the public showers passing your sister on the way you held onto Jennis waist hearing Lucy choke on her Sangria as she realized who just passed her. You grinned to yourself knowing exactly how it must look to anyone as you held your other hand up behind your back flipping your sister off.
#woso image#keira walsh x reader#lucy bronze x reader#barca femeni#ona batlle x reader#lucy bronze#jenni hermoso x reader#alexia putellas x reader
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Lucky Break Chapter 1
Yandere Straw Hats x Reader
4.9k words
Now onto the real meat of the story! Just letting everyone know now, as far as yandere stories go, this one is a bit of a slowburn. It will take a while for the yandere tendencies to become blatantly obvious.
Previous / Next
The first thing you registered as your consciousness came back to you was an unbearable splitting pain in your head. It felt like your head exploded and was shittily put back together. You groaned and raised your arms to shield your eyes from the unrelenting light above, it was blinding even though your eyes were still closed.
The second was that you were soaking wet and smelled like fish.
“Look! She’s starting to wake up now!” You recoiled from the excessively loud voice, curling up on your side and covering your ears. Everything is too much right now, you want to go back to sleep.
“Keep it down, she probably has a headache from you bashing her head into the side of the boat,” the second voice was quieter but gruff. He sounded annoyed.
“It was an accident! I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled the last part, seemingly a touch embarrassed.
You try to open your eyes to assess the situation. It takes a few tries, the first attempt does nothing but blind you, and the second isn’t much better. The third time a head comes into view and mercifully blocks out the sun. Finally, your eyes are starting to adjust and you can make out some details, like the fact that this person is wearing a hat.
You rub at your eyes, trying to make them adjust and focus faster. When you pull them away, you’re seeing much more clearly. The person with the hat is still there, staring at you with pure fascination. Now that you can really look at and make eye contact with him, he flashes you a huge grin.
“Hi!”
Oh, this is the one with the loud voice. You wince slightly, but force yourself to respond. “Um, hi?” Yeah, you’re in no condition to come up with anything more interesting or complex than that.
“You feeling better after sleeping?”
Another man, one with green hair, kicks the guy with the straw hat in the side, “She wasn’t sleeping, you knocked her the hell out.”
Straw hat boy didn’t even flinch from the kick, simply shrugging it off and saying, “What’s the difference? Sleep is sleep, right?”
The two started going back and forth, arguing about what counted as sleep. While they bickered, you take the opportunity to look around. There’s only three people here including yourself. You’re all on a boat with nothing but the ocean in sight. How did you get here? You just glanced back and forth between the two in confusion before what they were saying clicked. Knocked out?
“What do you mean I got knocked out?” You don’t remember that happening. The last thing you remember is… what? Absolutely nothing is coming to mind. Trying to focus and think harder didn’t do anything but send a violent pang through your head.
“Oh yeah, you fell outta the sky and into the ocean!” Straw hat boy perked up, appearing excited all of the sudden. “You looked like you were drowning so I pulled you into our boat but accidentally hit your head. Sorry!”
“I… Fell out of the sky?” That can’t be right.
“Yeah! What were you doing anyways? How did you get up there? Can you show me? I wanna see!” With each sentence he scooted closer to you, his nose was practically touching yours now.
“I… don’t know,” you admitted.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You gotta know how you did that,” he whined.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.” You’ve wracked your brain for literally anything you could work with, but came back with nothing. It was nothing but a blank slate. “I can’t remember anything,” you mumbled more to yourself than anyone.
It was silent for a moment, then the green haired man hit the back of straw hat boy’s head, jostling the hat a little, “Good going Luffy! You hit her head so damn hard you gave her amnesia.”
Luffy was as unbothered by this as the kick, “What’s that?”
Green hair groaned, rubbing his hand down the length of his face, “It means what she just said, she can’t remember anything.”
Luffy’s jaw dropped, his expression of mild confusion being traded for one of shock and horror. He whipped his attention back to you and grabbed onto your shoulders, “So you can’t tell me how you got up into the sky?!”
Him shaking you and yelling was doing nothing for your headache. You put your hands on his chest to try and get him to calm down and hopefully unhand you, “Buddy, I’m not even sure I can remember my own name right now, much less explain whatever I was getting up to before.” That wasn’t a joke, even your god damned name is escaping you right now.
Luffy didn’t let go, but he did reel back in shock. “Really??? You forgot your own name???” Finally, it seemed as if the severity of the situation hit him and he looked genuinely concerned. “Zoro, you know about this kind of stuff! How do we fix it?”
“I just knew what the word meant, I don’t know how to fix it! I’m a swordsman not a doctor,” Zoro huffed at Luffy. “The best thing we can do is take her to an actual doctor and hope they know what to do.”
Luffy nodded seriously, “Don’t worry, we’ll take you to a doctor, uh… um…” His eyebrows furrowed, “Hm, we need to give you a name.” He let go of you and instead placed a hand on his chin and went deep into thought, mulling over what to call you while making exaggerated ‘hmm’ noises.
Eventually, his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers, “I know! We’ll call you Lucky! You know, because you’re lucky that we were here to help you!” He grinned and nodded, clearly pleased with what he came up with.
“Was she also ‘lucky’ when you gave her a concussion?” Zoro jeered. There was no real malice to the sentence, just a playful jab.
Luffy pouted and swatted at him, “It was an accident! And I said I was sorry!” He focused back on you, “Do you like it? Can we call you Lucky?”
It did have a certain ring to it, and it’s not like you had anything else to work with, “Sure, Lucky sounds nice.”
Luffy beamed and was quick to snatch up one of your hands in both of his, vigorously shaking it, “It’s nice to meet you, Lucky! I’m Monkey D. Luffy, and that’s Zoro! We’re pirates, and I’m going to be the king of the pirates!”
These guys are pirates? Do pirates even have kings? You dismiss the thoughts and reply, “It’s nice to meet you too, Luffy.” You try to pull your hand away, but he’s still holding onto it tight. Instead, you reach your other hand over to Zoro who is reclining on the side of the boat with both his arms crossed behind his head. “It’s nice to meet you too, Zoro,” he just stared at your hand for a moment, but before you could get embarrassed and pull it back, he returns the friendly gesture.
“Yeah, yeah, you too, Lucky,” His handshake was brief, simply grabbing your hand, shaking it once, and letting go. If it weren’t for the small, relaxed smile, you would assume that he hadn’t really wanted to.
After that, the atmosphere was calm and casual. You learned quickly that Luffy was an extremely friendly person. You’d just met and he was treating you like some old, long lost friend. He especially loves talking about being a pirate and his dream of being the pirate king, telling you all about things like the Grand Line and the One Piece. All things that you’d obviously never heard of.
Despite being aware of (and the reason for) your condition, your lack of knowledge surprised him. “You don’t know about the One Piece either? C’mon doesn’t it sound familiar?”
You roll your eyes, he had the same reaction to you not knowing about the Grand Line either, “No Luffy, I already told you that I don’t remember anything. Nothing you’ve said so far is ringing any bells for me.”
Luffy huffed and crossed his arms. He had his thinking face on again, and you waited with mild intrigue to see what he would say this time. Even Zoro, who you thought was napping until now, was side-eyeing him.
Luffy nodded to himself suddenly, his eyes now alight with determination, “You know what? I’m not just gonna take you to a doctor.” You froze. Did he not want to help you anymore? Was he gonna ditch you the second he could? He flashed you another one of his smiles and continued, “I’m going to help you get your memories back, too!”
“Really? Why would you want to do that?” You were baffled as to why someone with aspirations as big as his would want to waste time helping some random person.
“Because I like you and think you’re cool,” he answered like it was the most obvious answer. Then he grins even wider and scoots closer to you, “Also I want to know more about you and where you came from, I just know it’s gonna be awesome!”
You didn’t know what to say, but luckily Zoro spoke up instead, “How are you gonna do that? For all we know she could never get her memories back.”
“I’ll figure it out, it can’t be that hard. If we do lots of stuff, something has to be familiar!” Ever confident, Luffy happily told Zoro his idea, clearly pleased with himself. His eyes widened and he snapped his fingers, “Oh! I have another idea! We’ll get some meat, I bet that eating some will fix it!”
“I don’t think that’s gonna cure it, Luffy,” Zoro shook his head at his captain’s antics.
“How would you know? You said so yourself that you’re not a doctor!” Luffy stuck his tongue out at him, then suddenly snapped his head up to the sky. “Look! There’s some meat right there!”
You look up to see a bird flying overhead. You weren’t sure how Luffy planned on catching it, much less cooking it on a wooden boat in the middle of the ocean. He did seem awfully sure of himself though, so you simply sat back and watched to see what he did.
Luffy stretched and rolled his shoulder, seemingly winding up for something. “Gomu gomu no,” he spun his right arm around, reeled back, and shot his arm out in the direction of the bird, “pistol!”
His. Arm. Stretched.
You stared, slack jawed and horrified, as his arm continued to stretch and stretch all the way up to the bird. A quiet ‘what the fuck’ slipped out of you as you watched all this. Even without your memories, you knew this wasn’t right.
As soon as Luffy grabbed hold of the bird, you could see his expression shift to panic as he realized that the bird was much farther away and bigger than previously anticipated. Just as quick as his arm got up there, his body followed, essentially slingshotting him into the sky.
“Luffy!” Zoro scrambled to grab the oars and immediately started rowing in the direction the bird was flying. “You, keep your eyes on him so we don’t lose him!”
You sputtered at him, not at all recovered from the earlier shock, “What the hell was that??? How did his arm do that?
“He ate a devil fruit and is a rubber person now, don’t worry about it, just keep watching him!” Zoro fired out all of this like it was common knowledge, even having the audacity to shoot you an incredulous look.
“You’re saying all that like I know what any of those words mean,” which you did not!
“Lucky!” Zoro snapped at you, “You can ask questions later, we need to only worry about him right now! If he falls into the ocean he will drown!”
His outburst successfully quieted you down. As much as you needed to know more, you could admit that it wasn’t as important as following after Luffy. You two hadn’t made it far before you were yelling at Zoro to turn.
“There’s people in the water, you need to go around them!” With the speed he was rowing at you were sure he would give all these guys the same head injury you got.
Zoro didn’t heed your warning, “They can either get out of the way or hop on, I’m not turning or stopping.” True to his word, he didn’t do either. The three men were able to grab on and pull themselves aboard.
Briefly, you wondered if maybe they were in the same situation you were in, but realized that wasn’t the case immediately when they pulled swords on you and Zoro. You paled instantly, panic coursing through your veins as they demanded you surrender the ship to them.
Zoro grabbed you by the back of your shirt, dragging you over to where he was sitting and shoving the oars into your hands. “Keep rowing, I’ll deal with them.” You couldn’t row anywhere near as fast as he did, especially not with how bad your hands were shaking from the intruders.
If you had blinked, you would have missed it. Zoro drew one of the three swords -wait three?- and did one quick strike with it. This move sent all three of their swords into the ocean. All of them went white as a sheet as they focused on the swords on his hip.
“P-Pirate hunter Zoro! We wouldn’t have done this if we knew it was you!” They looked like they were about to either throw up or pass out from their nerves. You were frantically hurried out of where you were seated as they insisted on rowing instead. Just to be nice, definitely not to get Zoro to spare them.
The swordsman put the sword he drew back into its sheath, but didn’t take his eyes off them. You were continuing to watch for Luffy, something that was becoming harder as they got further away. By now they were little more than a speck in the distance.
Hoping that these guys were local to the area, you ask them if they know where a giant bird like that could be headed out here. They exchange looks and the one in the middle speaks up, “It’s probably headed for Orange Town, it’s on an island nearby.”
The other two nod enthusiastically and chime in, “Yeah! That’s definitely where it’s going! Tell you what, we’ll take you guys all the way there as a thank you for sparing us!” Even though you had asked the question, they were all looking at and speaking to Zoro.
Part of you questioned if they were telling the truth. Yeah, it wouldn’t be smart to piss off someone called ‘the pirate hunter’ more than they already had, but at the same time they seemed just a little too eager to go there.
As they led the way to Orange Town, you felt more and more sure of your suspicions. They started ranting about how some girl managed to trick them and steal their ship with all their treasure inside. They lamented that their boss was sure to be furious with them for such a careless blunder. While you were attempting to be polite and nod along to their ramblings, Zoro was entirely uninterested, only focused on scanning the horizon.
Finally, an island comes into view. Along with the island, you can see an absolutely massive ship docked on the side of the island. It looks like there’s a… circus tent on it? Is that normal? You suppose you don’t know enough about ships to dispute it.
The hitchhikers are ecstatic to see the ship, so you assume it must belong to that boss of theirs. You can only hope that they won’t cause any trouble for you after this, but after how they “introduced” themselves, you’re not feeling very good about that.
The literal second they docked the boat they took off towards the circus ship you saw. Zoro was next off the boat and helped you step off, too. It was amazing to have your feet on solid ground. Trailing after Zoro, you ask if he thinks Luffy is here. “Can’t be sure, but I hope so. We’ll look around for a bit and leave for another island if we can’t find him.”
As you leave the docks and enter the town, you can’t help but notice that it’s completely empty. It has to be late morning or early afternoon, yet there isn’t a person in sight. There isn’t even any noise that would indicate the presence of a human being. Something in the back of your mind tingled, like being somewhere like this was familiar.
“Do you think it’s safe to be here? Why isn’t anyone walking around?” Something about this felt off. This didn’t look like it had been abandoned for long.
Zoro shrugs, “Maybe they’re all inside?” Immediately, he approaches the nearest home and knocks on the door. No one answered. Naturally, his next step is to just barge in like he owns the place. He looks around a bit, hands on his hips, before turning back to you. “Never mind, guess they all left,” he sounded way too casual about this strange ghost town.
Hesitantly, you follow in after, taking it in for yourself. It only gets stranger when you’re inside. The table was set and there was even food on the dishes. Like everyone had to leave with absolutely no warning. It was honestly chilling. What could have scared so many people off like that?
Zoro is rummaging through the cabinets and drawers, looking for who knows what. Your eyes are drawn to a white box in one of the open cabinets. You step closer and pull it out, it’s a first aid kit! Oh, you could definitely use one of these right now.
“Hey Zoro, I’m gonna use this to clean up that gash on my head,” you hold up your find to him, hoping he won’t mind if you take a break from looking to do this.
“Clean it? I already rinsed it with sea water when you were still knocked out,” he quirked a brow, but looked unbothered. “Whatever, go ahead. I’m gonna keep looking for Luffy.”
You internally cringed at the idea of an open wound having sea water splashed on it, but kept your mouth shut and simply went to look for the bathroom. After finding it, you were finally able to get a good look at yourself since waking up. You looked like shit. There were bloodstains running down the front of your shirt, and some remaining flecks of blood on your face. There was a green bandana tied diagonally across your forehead, and it was soaked in blood. That must be where the wound is.
Gingerly, you untie it and peel it off. You can’t help but wince as the blood has adhered it to you, pulling painfully where you’re hurt at. It’s bad. The gash is about the length of your thumb and looks deep. It’s definitely going to leave a scar, but hopefully you’ll be able to use your hair to cover it.
Not wanting to waste time, you open the kit to take stock of what you have to work with. Lucky for you it doesn’t look very used. You pull out some disinfectant and bandages and set them on the counter. Checking the nearby closet, you find some towels and add them to the pile.
The water is also thankfully still running, and you wet the towel and start washing the blood off your face and around your injury. Once you got that taken care of, you cupped your hands so you could flush out your wound. It stung, but it was necessary. Now that it was rinsed out and the area surrounding it was clean, you felt relieved that there didn’t appear to be any redness around it. There was some swelling, but that was normal given this was a blunt force trauma injury. All you needed to do was put on the disinfectant and bandages to make sure it didn’t become infected.
It took everything you had to not scream the second the spray-on disinfectant made contact. It burned so bad that it made your eyes tear up, but you had to endure it. Keeping this clean until you could find a doctor was crucial, and you honestly doubt you’ll be able to find one on this weird ghost island.
Dressing the wound was the hard part. You honestly weren’t sure how to do it, so it looked sloppy to say the least. Just some wadded up cloth over the gash with some gauze wrapped around your head to keep it secure.
You looked at the green (but mostly red now) bandana on the counter and decided to try washing it out. You’re pretty sure it isn’t yours, nothing about it feels familiar to you. It might be Zoro’s, he did say he had been the one to take care of your injury earlier.
Filling the sink with soap and water, you set to work trying to get the blood out. You wind up having to drain and refill the sink a couple times, but do eventually get it to a passable state. It’s back to being mostly green again! You tied it around your wrist for the time being until you could return it.
Given that the place was abandoned, you figured it wouldn’t hurt to take the first aid kit with you. Depending on how long it takes to find a doctor, you could need to replace the bandages yourself.
As you’re leaving the bathroom with the kit in hand, you notice a bedroom with an open closet down the hall. It… It wouldn’t hurt to get a change of clothes would it? Your clothes were mostly dry, but you definitely smelled like someone who had taken an unplanned dive into the ocean. You’re already stealing one thing, might as well double down.
Lucky for you, there are some clothes in there that fit you, and you even like what you found! Maybe Luffy was onto something with that nickname for you. Being able to change into clean, dry clothes felt heavenly.
As you were folding up your old clothes to put into a bag you found, you noticed that your pockets had some things in them. Curiously, you check out what you have. In one pocket is a baggie containing some fish shaped treats and a weird tube thing.
“Aww, aren’t you just an absolute sweetheart!” You cooed at the adorable stray cat you’d stumbled upon. It was happily munching on the treat you had given it. It takes everything you have not to squeal when the cat rubs its face against your leg and begins purring loudly.
You pull your trusty laser pointer out and click it on. The cat’s eyes widen and it’s immediately on the hunt, pouncing on the light with all the ferocity of a lion going in for the kill.
Your eyes shot open as you remembered your first memory. Admittedly, it wasn’t very helpful, but progress is progress! Experimentally, you click on the laser pointer. Just like in your memory, it shines a red dot onto the floor. You shrug, click it off, and put the cat toy into a pocket in your new outfit.
Onto the other pocket. You pull out a necklace. The chain is a simple gold one, and the pendant is a skull and crossbones biting a wand between its teeth over a lattice patterned back. It looked brand new, but felt surprisingly fragile, like you could snap it in half with your bare hands. You flip it over and closely examine it. Strangely, it didn’t feel familiar to you at all and didn’t spark any memories.
Still, it looks nice, and you must have had a reason to have it on you. You decide to put it on and slip it under your shirt. A part of you felt inclined to keep this secret, but you couldn’t place why. Surely you would piece together how and why you had this eventually.
Finally done, you put the strap of your satchel bag over your shoulder and leave the house. Taking a quick look around, you don’t see Zoro anywhere. Which does make sense, you guys still need to look for Luffy. Picking a direction, you hurry off to do the same, wanting to make up for lost time.
You round the first corner and immediately run into something. Tumbling to the ground, you look up to assess what or whoever you just plowed into (praying it isn’t the person whose house you basically just robbed).
You are face to face with a giant white lion.
This is it. You’re done. You survived almost drowning in the ocean and head trauma only to be eaten by a lion. You were unable to move, locked in place by your own terror as the lion steps closer to you. His head was massive compared to you, the mouth alone would be able to easily take your head off in one bite.
Instead of immediately eating you, he starts sniffing you instead, appearing to be very focused on your pocket. Wait! The treats! Carefully, very carefully, you slip your hand into your pocket to pull out the baggie of cat treats.
“E-E-Easy there kitty, do you w-want some treats?”
Against your better judgment, you try talking to him. Instantly, his eyes snap up to yours and he growls. The sound cuts right through you, and you’re pretty sure that if you weren’t horribly dehydrated, you would have pissed yourself.
In your panic, rather than grabbing the treats and throwing them as far away from you as you could, you just dumped all of them into your lap. Great. He gets to eat his appetizer off of his main course!
Thankfully, the clear smell of the cat food made the growling stop. He zeroed in on them, and helped himself. Much to your surprise, he’s shockingly gentle and doesn’t bite you at all. Despite the baggie being completely full, he eats them all in one bite.
While he’s still chewing, you try to carefully scoot back and away from the predator. You get maybe a couple feet away before he swallows the morsel and his eyes are back on you. He closes the gap in one step and ducks his head down to sniff at you again. You internally curse yourself. Shit! Now he thinks you have food and of course he wants more.
“No more!” You shake the empty bag in your hand for emphasis, “See! It’s empty, no more!” Your voice was going higher and higher by the second. The lion sniffs at the bag, then goes back to you. Presumably trying to find anything else hidden on your person.
Just as you think that he’s about to pounce and bring an end to your existence, he does something unexpected. The lion licks your face, and then plops his head onto your lap.
Huh?
Your hands hover well above his head, having no idea what to do. His mane tickled at your nose as he nuzzled in further. What the hell is going on? Hesitantly, you lightly bring one hand down onto his fur. He doesn’t try to rip your arm off for such an offense, instead, he simply closes his eyes and gets more comfortable.
Your other hand joins in and you find yourself actually being insane enough to pet him. You’re not sure what’s more shocking. That you’re petting a lion, or that it’s letting you. The mane is so soft that you can only assume someone else must be brushing it. You suppose that makes sense. There’s no way a lion could be this friendly to you without having previous experience with humans.
“You’re a nice lion?” You say this more to yourself than the animal in front of you. Feeling more emboldened by the lack of any negative reaction, you reach up to scritch at his ears. He loves it, licking at you again.
Every single self preservation instinct left your body. You start petting the large predatory feline as if he’s a regular house cat, even cooing at him and switching to your baby talk voice, “Aren’t you just the sweetest boy?” Is this a stupid thing to do? Yes, but how many times are you going to have an opportunity to do this?
The downright magical moment is interrupted by a voice in the distance. “Richie! Where are you? We need to find that bird that got shot down and bring it back, you better not be eating it!”
The lion perked up and looked in the direction the voice came from. With a huff, he stood up, licked your face, and then wandered off to find the owner of the voice. So Richie is the lion’s name, and that must be who takes care of him.
As you’re brushing the copious amounts of hair off yourself, something clicks. Hang on. They’re looking for a bird that got shot down, and if they need a lion to retrieve it, it must be huge. Luffy! Surely it must be the same bird that flew away with Luffy in tow!
You spring up onto your feet, if he’s here he could have been hurt from the fall. Right now you need to focus on figuring out where he landed and getting to him before they do. Just because Richie didn’t tear into you doesn’t mean that Luffy is going to be as lucky.
#one piece#yandere one piece#one piece x reader#one piece x you#one piece x y/n#one piece reader insert#yandere#platonic yandere#monkey d luffy#zoro roronoa#lucky break
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Nothing you can take | c.s.
Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x fem!reader
Summary: you and Sejanus make a bet involving you and Coriolanus, that you’ll have to become a couple in order to get some money from him, but everything changes when the two of you fall in love for each other for real.
Warnings: fake dating AU, (kinda) enemies to lovers, bet to fall in love trope (if I can call it like that), sunshine x grumpy/black cat x golden retriever trope, light violence and mention of blood, romance, comedy (I think), (probably) slow burn, fluff, angst
Word count: every chapter of the series will have a different amount of words
A/N: hi! Here we go with my first Coriolanus story!! I don’t know if Coriolanus is OOC here, because I watched the movie like one month ago and I still have to read the book, but I did my best to make him similar to the character I saw. Anyway this is a fanfiction, so please don’t be mad at me if he’ll be, I’ll probably need him to be for the storyline. I apologize to the people in the tags, because I’m really late with the upload, but I’ve been really busy in the past few weeks. Anyway, I hope you like it. Enjoy! X
Tag list: @meeksity, @mxacegrey, @astess, @jasmineee05.
Masterlist
Prologue – Don’t fall in love with me
“Coriolanus Snow? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. What’s the matter, Y/N? You think you can’t make him fall in love with you?” Sejanus asks with a grin.
“Oh no, I was just thinking about the amount of money you’re gonna give me when I’ll win”.
“Don’t, he’s not easy”.
“A challenge, uh? Even better!” You exclaim. “Now excuse me, but I have to go. Before your last drink, watch me sing and put under my spell mister Coriolanus Snow”.
“Careful, Y/N. You don’t wan’t to fall in love, right? People say he’s got a very cute pair of blue eyes”.
“I prefer the color green as my money, Sejanus. Prepare to lose”.
“I think you don’t know what’s coming for you, Y/N”.
You run to the stage, your place in the world, where you can finally give free scope to your passion: singing. Singing has always made you feel free, but tonight, perhaps due to the tension of the challenge, you feel a constriction in your chest. You and a little tipsy Sejanus have agreed on a bet against Coriolanus, but you have a better idea to win: you will tell him everything immediately, in order to pretend to be together for a while, so Sejanus will pay you and you will split the money with Coriolanus. No one will be fooled in the end, right? And then everyone knows that he needs that money too, so he certainly won't suffer from it. While you taste the victory on the tip of your tongue, the words escape your mouth. You apologize to the audience and your gaze falls right on Coriolanus, who isn't paying you the slightest attention, while he's drinking a beer on the sidelines, his Peacekeeper uniform making his eyes as blue as the tide stand out. Sure, Sejanus was right, but that doesn't change anything: a pair of light eyes isn't enough to make you fall in love.
Coriolanus Snow goes to the Academy, he dresses well, but that doesn't mean he's rich, far from it. You, on the other hand, were kicked out of the Academy because you didn't like their behavior, which is why Sejanus is your best friend. You always had the feeling that Coriolanus liked to follow the rules, but in reality he probably preferred to have control, power or money more than a conscience. That's why he's never been kicked out and you've never particularly bonded. It's not that you're greedy, no, it's just that you need money for your family and if a stupid bet can get it easily, then you will do anything to earn it, since the pub doesn't pay you enough for your fantastic shows. And anyway, Coriolanus is certainly an attractive guy, which isn't a bad thing.
“This song is dedicated to all the handsome blue-eyed boys here,” you announce, then grin, while some of your fellow soldiers make fun of Coriolanus and he finally notices your presence. “This song is called Nothing you can take from me and I dedicate it to my old school friend, Coriolanus Snow. Come say hello to me later, Coryo!” You exclaim with a wink and notice his gaze shift to you. For a second, just one, you feel a shiver run down your spine. You would never have believed that playing with fire could make you feel so cold.
Your song makes everyone present dance, everyone except him obviously, who continues to stare at you coldly, without smiling or saying a word, like a marble statue and this almost scares you. It also happened at the Academy, but there you didn't pay attention to it, also because there was no need to win his attention, but here there is a lot of money at stake and you need it desperately.
You descend onto the stage with a feline leap, you leave your guitar aside, while a roar of applause and compliments accompanies you behind the scenes, hoping that Coriolanus will follow you. The door closes behind you, but when you turn around, no one is there. Well, no big deal, it means you'll go look for it later or tomorrow at the latest, there's no rush anyway. But you feel observed and this sensation worries you a lot: it's as if you have someone behind your back.
"Well?"
You turn around, surprised that he's there. Up close he's taller than you remember and you can see his blonde hair well, even though it's shaved. His arms are crossed as he looks you up and down, but without eyeballing you, just a look of pure curiosity painted on his face. So why do you feel like a hunted animal?
“Coryo”.
"Do not call me that. You asked me to come here, right? You asked for my attention in front of everyone. I'm here now. What, the cat got your tongue?” He asks you, a crooked smile somewhere between amused and mischievous that gives a sinister light to his face. He has enough charm to seem like the Devil.
“Don't get any illusions, it's just a game”.
“I don't like playing and you don't like winning, as far as I know.”
“Those games are abominable and I think you know it too, since you're here, right?” You ask him. His smile fades and inside you rejoice, because you know you've hit the mark.
“Speak quickly, Y/N, the rooster crows early in the morning.”
“I have a proposition for you,” you tell him, getting dangerously close to him. He doesn't take a step back, but you see him on guard, almost as if he expects to be stabbed at any moment. “I bet Sejanus that I would make you fall in love with me,” you reveal to him and he smiles wickedly. “I only did it because he promised me money in return and my family needs it. I'm telling you this because I think we could pretend to be together for a while so he'll think we're really in love. In the end, I will split the money with you, since you need it as much as I do,” you explain to him.
For a moment, he observes you, perhaps because he is trying to understand whether you are sincere or not, then he nods, his face serious.
“You know, maybe I was wrong about you: you like winning as much as I do.”
“I wouldn't play if it wasn't for a serious reason. We both know that Sejanus pays and well."
“But he's your friend, right? I wonder why he is doing all this."
“Maybe he's just bored.”
“Perhaps,” Coriolanus repeats, thoughtfully. “Anyway, Tigris must never know. I only ask for this in return,” he says and you offer him your hand.
"Deal".
“And try not to fall in love with me, Y/N. Unlike many others, I don't like playing. You wouldn't survive."
“There's no danger, Coriolanus,” you say, shaking his hand.
Now you feel less sure: why do you feel like you've just sealed a pact with the Devil?
#erule's masterlist#coriolanus snow x reader#coriolanus x reader#coriolanus fanfiction#coryo x reader#coriolanus snow fanfiction#coriolanus snow head canon#coriolanus snow x you#coriolanus snow blurb#coriolanus snow imagine#coriolanus snow one shot#coriolanus snow fluff#coriolanus snow fake dating#coriolanus snow x fem!reader
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When Sun and Moon meet - S2
Zuko x Fem!WaterBender!Reader
Enemies to Lovers
As one of the Princesses of the Northern Water tribe, you were blessed with a gift by the moon. However you were permitted to be allowed to use the gift at all costs. From many hidden waterbending usages, the aftermath of the avatar visiting the Northern Tribe had led to your beginning journey, hiding yourself as a water bender as a princess from the Northern water tribe
Warnings: none
Masterlist
҉ * ‧͙ ⋆ ⁺ ༓ ☾ Chapter 8 - Failed
I grabbed the paper against the wall, a missing poster of Appa with a picture of Appa and Aang in boxes. Where did Appa go? I looked around to see a bunch of the same missing posters flying around and found someone who I didn't want to see. Zuko. He was holding the same paper as me, as well as looking around to see where these papers even come from. I snatched the paper from his hand causing him to turn around. “What do you think you're doing?” Zuko glared at me. “You came to Ba Sing Se just to track the avatar?” I spat.
“How is that your business?”
“Because your trying to capture someone that benefits your father only”
“I'm the son of the Fire lord-”
“Yes I know that! which is why-”
“Lee!” The old man said out loud, calling to Zuko. “Lee?” I questioned as Zuko groaned. “Okay, whatever your name is you can't just constantly chase the avatar forever” I whispered so only he could hear. Zuko turned around and reached behind my head, making my eyes widen at the contact till he yanked my hood down. “Ow!” I yelped. “Do you want people to find out about your identity?” Zuko scolded as I glared at his attempt of ‘keeping me hidden’. “You could have been more gentler” I scoffed while he rolled his eyes.
“Anyways, I was just saying that your just wasting time finding the avatar”
“Wasting time?!” He spat “You wouldnt understand the situation i'm in”
“No I wouldn't” I stated more confidently than I should have which made Zuko look at me dumbfounded.
“But I feel like you getting the avatar won't actually fulfill you” I attempted to stop him
“I got banished from my nation, having a scar to prove my humility and you get everything that you want yet you chose to run away!” My eyes widened at his anger “You’re pathetic, still wanting to go to the fire nation after getting ejected” I hissed but looked to my side and saw a girl, who was quite nervous. She had two braids and was wearing the earth kingdom attire. Zuko looked towards the girl as well, feeling awkward. “Oh…Lee, who is this?” She looked towards me with saddened eyes. My mouth was dry as I couldn't come up with an earth kingdom name. “Limi” Zuko squeaked “Also…part of the uhh circus”. I glared at his stupidity, Limi? Really? And Circus?? “Yep im Lee!” I presented smiling and slightly bowing “Now I have to go do my circus-ie duties” I waved off but not forgetting to glare at Zuko once more and left to get Aku.
҉ ☾
“Alright Aku, let's go see Sakari, '' I said softly, ushering Aku to start moving. My mood was left completely sour from that occurrence. I didn't leave for no reason nor did I get everything I wanted. Sure, my past was probably not bad unlike his but it's not like I get everything. Oh well I shouldnt take his words to heart, it's just Zuko. “What in the world is that?” I turned Aku to get a better look at the lake, though I swore I saw something. “Let's take a closer look” Aku starts moving down to the lake. I hop off finding my surroundings quite suspicious. I take a closer look at the water, using my water bending to split apart the liquid to different sides. Before I saw what was there a whole wall came in front of me. I turned around and saw the Ba Sing Se guards. “You must have figured it out” a man with a deep voice and a black mustache with black hair tied back. “No I haven't” I said “yet”. I immediately take advantage of the lake behind me, using it to block the rocks coming towards my way. Using my waterbending to wrap around the guards ankles, making them fall back. Everything was going well until I felt the rock hands behind my wrists. I yelped in surprise, feeling them lock behind me. “Whatever you're hiding from your people isn't going to last long.” I spat.
“It's better for Ba Sing Se”
“Oh really?” I mocked. I felt tugs behind my wrist and internally panicked. Oh no where are they even taking me? “Let me go!” I yell, my eyes widened slowly by Aku getting hurt by the soldiers attempting to capture him. That was my last straw, I immediately tried to moisten the rocks behind me with the water in the air softing it for me to either manipulate or melt off. Luckily it was near a lake so the moisture was able to melt the rocks off. I ran to Aku, shoving the people behind me with water. “Even if you go back to Ba Sing Se no one will believe you” I glared at the man. I felt enemies coming towards me with their bending, I closed my eyes and lifted my hands from the impact but I felt none. I opened my eyes and saw them. Their eyes were widened in shock. My arms fall to my side only for their whole being to fall on the ground. This time, it was my turn to be shocked.
“Her hair!” One of the guards said. I looked up to see my hood completely off, I immediately pulled it down which made the other soldiers get up in relief. What in the world is happening. “Not only she’s a princess, she is a blood bender” The man glared which made me look up in shock. A bloodbender? The waves of anxiety caused rain clouds from above. This is not the best time right now. From the few seconds of shock, I felt the rock hands fill my whole hand, to my wrist to prevent me from using any form of water bending. “Wait! Stop!” I scream attempting to resist. The rain becomes heavier as the soldiers glare at the clouds in annoyance. How come I'm so slow when it comes to this? My resistance faded when I felt the water consuming my vision.
“Y/N? I don't think she’s fit to be a princess” “Her personality just doesn't…fit”
Huh? What are these voices? I opened my eyelids with some struggle, groaning as I got up. Where am I? I look at my surroundings, the best way to describe it is me…being on a cloud. Everything felt foggy, just faint silhouettes of my people. “Shame it was Yue who died instead of Y/N”. My eyes widened as I looked down miserably. “She is a betrayer in the end” “Poor Chief Arnook”. I attempted to speak up but the whole environment turned pitch black. I couldn't see anything around me. “You expect the water tribe to respect you” an eyeball outlined in white popped up. I flinched and moved back, glaring at it in confusion. “You’re the one that left us after all” The eyeball blinked. “Wait! I can come back!” I tried to compromise it, sweat dripping behind my neck. “Don't even think about it, you're not welcome here.” I'm not welcomed? To my own nation? A wave of people came back, including my father, Sivoy and Yue. They all looked at me in disappointment, I felt tears coming down my face. “Please…say something” I scream desperately. “I can't believe my own daughter left her family” My father said, taking Sivoy. I trembled, falling down on my knees. “Yue…please” I beg, praying she would say something encouraging. “You left me, Y/N…how could you?” Yue glared at me. I said nothing, just went down looking at the floor. “Things haven't changed Y/N, still the selfish, self centered, princess.” the voices kept repeating against my ears. “You should have died back there Y/N” I gripped my hair, silently praying for them to stop.
I woke up, breathing heavily. Sweat dripped off my face onto the cold rock floor. I got up attempting to run away but I felt a force stopping me. The jangling already gave me the hint. I was chained to the ground around the wrists. “Let me go!” I scream as loud as I can, attempting to break the chain. “I need to prove it to my family! To my nation!” I cried out loud, trying to get someone to hear me. “I'm a princess…im a princess…” I move my forehead against the rock cold floor. I sniffed heavily, trying to keep my breathing stable. I lifted my head up, trying to scan the weak part of the chain. Luckily I was able to navigate it and kicked it with my foot. I was tired, really tired. “Should I even go back home?” I lean back to look at the ceiling. I really have no one…
҉ ☾
I managed to get out of that horrible place with ease. I was able to use one of the teachings Sakari gave me for closed areas. Trying to find gaps with oxygen, since this area was under water it had more water moisture in the air which I was able to find an area to exit from. I pushed back the lid where it was originally there and looked around my surroundings, There was no one…not even Aku. All my motivation to explore was gone, I didn't even want to meet Sakari anymore. I lean my head against the floor of a slope and rethink my dream. Was it just a nightmare? Or was it true? I usually brush off horrible thoughts but that…sounded too real. They were right too…I haven't changed at all. I left my tribe, I'm a traitor. I'm not some regular person, I'm a princess who left her duties for her own selfishness. This is such a stupid adventure, I haven't found what I needed at all. I just found what I already lost. “You should have died back there Y/N” I heard it again. This is a sign. I stood up from the ground looking at the sky, thank god it isnt night. I walk towards the water, stepping in. I felt the coldness around my legs. I continued to walk towards my key to make everything better. This is for my people.
<- Back - Next ->
a/n: Hello!! Sorry fro not uploading im trying to upload once every week but it will be delayed a lot!! Im going to try to upload this on my own feed so uh y eah!!! Hope yall had fun really and take care of yourself! Holy shti im tired
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taglist: @luvkvni @katovano @karmaswitch @someonesmember @velvet-spider @sh3sa1dwhat @nerdisthenewcool @meiraloves2dmen @fqnfics101 @iluvme547 @leaderwon @yukihatesreoyo @heart4hees @4l3x1s @kkissaku @corpsebridenightamare @newjellis @fatkish @pbeckn26 @jasminesacademia
#zuko x reader#prince zuko#zuko#zuko atla#zuko avatar the last airbender#zuko avatar#atla#fire lord#fire lord zuko#the gaang#gaang#zuko fanfic#zuko x y/n#zuko x you#alta zuko x reader#reader#reader insert#female reader#fem reader#x female reader#zuko imagine#alta x reader#avatar last airbender#prince zuko x you#prince zuko x reader#prince zuko x y/n#waterbending#waterbender reader#waterbender#avatar the last airbender
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To The Flame chapter 10
Series masterlist
Pairing: Dark Javier Peña x Fem!reader
Chapter word count: 2.8k
Chapter tags/warnings: smutty smut smut, piv sex, rough piv sex, doin' it over a musty couch, squirting (dont look at me), angst (teehee), bad dirty talk, wifey's silly lil jokes
Chapter summary: You and Javi make the move to Colombia and get settled in.
A/N: Hi babes!! I hope you enjoy this new chapter! I'm super excited bc it's the last one until we dive into the deep end and get into some scary shit 😈 Next week is already written and loaded up to be posted next Friday. Also let's ignore the way I misspelled "Colombia" in the last chapter bc I'm too lazy to go fix it 🫣
*****
The apartment is even smaller than Javi had described. Even he looks surprised walking in. It’s one of those things that you can tell immediately just by the entrance. It opens up directly to a ‘hall’ that splits into the kitchen and living room, which also appear to be relatively cramped.
With just a short look, you can already see that there are cobwebs in pretty much every corner and musty rugs draped over most of the floorspace—probably to cover some kind of a stain. The kitchen, which is closest to the hall, has cabinet doors hanging from their hinges, more broken tiles than not, and a boarded up window.
You glance nervously up at Javi, who mutters a curse and sets your carry-on bags down on the hardwood floor. He reaches over to flip the light on, which doesn’t do much but cast a dim glow across the outdated green and orange walls. He huffs out a breath and runs a hand through his hair as you wrap your arms around your torso.
He chews on his cheek and turns his attention to you.
“Well,” he starts. ”I didn't expect it to be luxury, but…”
A roach crawls across the floor in front of the two of you, making you both take a step back.
“Maybe at least uninhabited,” you supply, pulling a surprised laugh from him.
He wraps an arm around you, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to the side of your head.
“We’re gonna make it work, baby. I’ll fix it up nice for you.”
You grin at him, tucking yourself into his side.
“You can start by getting rid of the bugs. And maybe painting over those ugly orange walls.”
“Whatever you want, baby,” he laughs.
He looks up and cranes his neck to see inside the living room.
“Right after I fuck my wife on our new dusty couch.”
He doesn’t give you a chance to respond before he’s picking you up and carrying you over as you playfully protest.
“Javi, ew! I’d rather you fuck me on the floor with the roaches,” you giggle. You don’t even want to think about what might have transpired on this couch prior to your arrival. It looks to be at least a good twenty years old. He plops you down on it anyway, a layer of dust jumping up just as you expected it would.
You make a fake gagging noise as he climbs over you, already nuzzling into your throat.
His hand trails down to cup your cunt, making you moan as he covers your lips with his. His fingers push into the waistband of your pants, then your panties, and then further until the middle one is able to prod at your entrance, already wet with anticipation. You gasp as he sinks it down to the knuckle, gently rubbing your walls as he starts to pump at a slow pace.
“Oh, that feels good, Javi,” you moan as he starts to lick down your throat to your collarbone. His other hand starts to tug your shirt up, lifting it enough to expose your bra-clad chest. He pulls his hand from your core much too quickly and makes you lift your arms up so he can remove both articles, your pants and underwear close behind.
Javi growls at the sight of you bared for him. He shucks off his own clothes and settles back on top of you, enveloping your lips once again. You’re reminded of the first time he brought you home, when he had laid you down on his couch and worshiped your body for hours.
You savor the way his hands roam your body, squeezing and pinching everywhere he can. He eagerly swallows your moan when he grasps your breasts harshly, your back arching in pleasure. Your arms wrap around his broad shoulders as he bites your lip, pulling a whine from you now.
“Oh, you like that, hermosa?” he taunts with a glint in his eye. But you’re too busy panting and feeling to care about his teasing. You just want him to put his damn hand back where he started from.
“P-Please, Javi,” you beg breathily. He smirks at you and slowly ruts his hips, making you shudder a moan as the underside of his cock rubs against your swollen clit. He repeats the motion at a teasing pace as he lowers his head down to brush a whisper into your ear.
“Please what?”
Your entire body feels like it was lit on fire, an icy warmth coursing through your veins and settling into your abdomen. You can feel the way your wetness seeps out of you and is picked up by Javi’s cock to lubricate every pass as he grinds against you.
“Please touch me,” you beg, trying not to let it sound like a whine. Javi just smiles wider and moves his hand to gently caress your face. He presses a gentle, teasing kiss to your lips.
“Like this?” he asks. You glare at him, biting your lip to hold back the moans that attempt to tumble from you at the next drag of his dick. You grip onto his back and steel your gaze to his.
“Javier F. Peña. I fucking love you, but if you don’t put your cock inside me right now, I’m going to put rat poison in your dinner.”
You’re honestly surprised you were able to get such a sentence out without stumbling from his distractions. You also have no idea how you’re able to hold your laugh in as it tries to claw its way up.
You watch as his eyes widen, his brows raising dramatically. A laugh starts to bubble from him as well, and you both lose it. It takes a moment for you both to settle back down from your giggling fit, but when you do, it’s from your asshole husband taking the opportunity to do exactly what you’d requested.
You yelp his name as he parts you, shoving himself completely inside with one swift thrust and a heavy grunt. Your fingers claw at his back, his skin already slick with a thin sheen of sweat from the heat of the apartment. He immediately lands against that spot deep inside you that makes your jaw drop and your toes curl.
His head drops as he starts to shallowly thrust, your excessive arousal making the glide smooth and effortless.
“How do you feel so fucking good every. Damn. Time?” He dramatizes the last words with harsher rolls of his hips, your eyes rolling back as you whimper at the pressure he delivers with each punch.
His thumb is back on your clit before you realize he was moving his hand, making you clench around him as your body jolts at the sudden pressure. He circles in time with his thrusts, providing you with a heat that licks up your spine and settles low in your belly.
He starts to move at a faster, rougher pace, and a strange feeling overtakes you. It makes your entire body shake as it consumes you, your blood running hot and your head getting foggy at a rapid pace.
“Javi, p-please,” you beg, though you’re not sure exactly what for. Just that he’ll deliver. He chuckles darkly at you.
“I know, baby, I know. Let go for me.”
And you do, you allow the pressure to overflow as you come around his cock, tilting your head back as you moan and your body shudders. The orgasm is blinding, the intensity making your eyes screw shut in pleasure. It feels different from any you’ve had before, somehow much more intense and prolonged. Javi praises you through it, though you can barely hear him.
“Oh I new you could do it, such a good fucking girl.”
You’re sweating too as you come down, your body still shuddering with the aftershocks. Everything is blurry when you open your eyes, whether it’s from your rattled brain or the tears lingering in your eyes, you’re not sure. Javi, mercifully has stopped his movements, and is just watching you with awe.
You grumble at him since your words refuse to work. He’s throbbing inside of you but you can tell he hasn’t come yet. Though it must have been a damn struggle with how much you’d tightened around him.
“Look at the pretty mess you made,” he instructs you with a rasp in his voice as he tilts your head down to where you’re still stretched around him. You obey and look down, only for a gasp to fall from your lips.
You snap your head back up to look at him upon seeing the soaking wet mess between your thighs. There’s a liquid dripping down both of your thighs—and Javi’s, who watches you with a predatory gaze.
“Looked fucking perfect squirting on my cock, sweetheart.”
You give him a sultry smile, still lost in euphoria. Suddenly, he growls and pulls out, dragging you up with him until you’re turned around to face the back of the couch. You clench at the way he manhandles you so you’re flush against it, your arms falling over the edge. He’s never been this rough, and you had no idea how much it would turn you on.
He thrusts back into you without a word, the both of you groaning in unison. Your cunt aches with overstimulation, but it quickly turns into a soft, building pleasure as he starts at a steady but harsh pace. He grasps your hips roughly as he pummels into you, chasing after his own end now.
“Take it like such a good girl,” he grits. You just whine as your fingers scramble for purchase on the back of the musty sofa. You can already feel a steady build up between your legs despite your recent orgasm.
“‘S good, Javi,” you whimper, trying to convey what you’re feeling despite your melting brain. He keeps his thrusts up, punching into your most sensitive spot each time. It’s not long before his panting grows uneven, his weight growing heavier as he pushes you further into the couch.
“You gonna take my cum, sweetheart? Gonna get full up of me again?”
You nod eagerly, pushing your ass back as much as you can even with the harsh and rapid slap of his hips against your flesh.
“Please, please, Javi!”
He comes inside you with a deep curse, holding you tighter as he slams roughly into you, triggering your second orgasm. He holds you tightly to him as spurt after spurt of his seed paints your walls, each twitch of his cock making you whimper.
You both stay where you’re at, breathing heavily as you try to get a grasp on reality again. Javi is sticky against you, and you push him off after a moment to get some airflow. He grumbles something behind your back but falls away anyway.
You collapse against the back of the couch, your head resting on the cushion atop it as Javi rounds it to find the bathroom. You smirk as you watch his pert ass walk away. It only takes a second for him to come back out, carrying a towel he found to clean you up with. He does so, and then grabs soap from your bag for the two of you to shower, where he promises you between kisses that he’ll take you out on a date the first Friday he has off of work.
****
It wasn’t super hard to get into a new routine. At least in the first few days, when Javi was still at home. The two of you would spend the day making small renovations here and there while trying not to fuck on every surface. Boxes would come in from Texas, and you would unpack those while Javi went out for more supplies. He would come back with meals and little things for you.
You hadn’t had the chance to explore the city yet, but it didn’t sound like Javi was super fond of that idea. It is a very dangerous part of town after all. He just wants to wait a bit and make sure it’s completely safe for you first. But you were content to stay at home and finish up little projects or stick your nose in a book. Everything was going really great. It only got a little tense once Javi had to start back at work.
The first day Javi came back from his job, you could tell he had a rough day. You hadn’t even realized he’d entered the apartment until he walked into the living room and scared the shit out of you. He’d either ignored your startled reaction, or had been too tired to notice. You’d simply gotten up to greet him with a hug, and then gone to warm up dinner while he showered.
You’d eaten in silence after your attempt in asking him how his day had gone. His response was swift and cut you down quickly. You couldn’t really blame him, you’ve heard about how awful his job would be for him to get used to here. So you both ate without speaking, him without really glancing your way. It made your stomach twist in a nagging way, which you wanted to slap yourself for. You know that he wasn’t ignoring you and that you had done nothing wrong, but the insecurity was there in the back of your mind the whole night.
After dinner, he made slow, silent love to you and fell asleep tangled in your loving embrace. He apologized right before he’d fallen asleep, though you weren’t sure what for. You’d assumed it was for his distance that night, but then the second day was about the same, quiet throughout dinner and until you both went to bed.
It was the third night that he came home angry. He still didn’t want to talk much, but he did bend you over the dining room table and fuck your brains out almost the second he got home. He praised you this time, letting you know how much you help him after his long days, and that was at least enough to ease some of your worry.
But his stress didn’t ease at all through the rest of the week. Or the next. You just stayed patient and accommodating, hoping that he would adjust to the new job. But now it’s Friday night on the second week, and you’re watching his golden chest rise and fall after he’d fallen asleep early, after your love-making. Completely having forgotten about your date.
You’ve been looking forward to it all week, thinking about where he would take you and what you should wear as you fixed things around the house. Went through your dress options as you covered those hideously painted walls in the hall, tried to remember what restaurants the two of you had passed on the way here as you fixed the hinges on the broken kitchen cabinets.
You had everything picked out a couple of days after he’d promised to take you out. Only a few boxes from Texas have arrived so far, so you didn’t have many options, but you settled on a baby pink sundress you know he likes. You even picked out accessories that came in the same box as the dress.
Though you won’t admit it, you’ve been lonely in the house without him. You’ve powered through because it should only be this month that he’s this busy, but that hasn’t stopped you from feeling a little alone. Hence picking outfits weeks before dates.
You really wanted to go out and make a friend or two, but Javi said he preferred if you would stay at the apartment just these few weeks so he could scope out the area. You have, because you can’t deny that’s probably smart, but it doesn’t mean you have to like it. This date was going to be your first chance to get out since you moved in.
You try to ignore the soft ache in your chest. You know he didn’t do it on purpose, and that it’s been a rough couple of weeks for him too, but it still hurts a little bit that he really didn’t remember. It’s half your fault, you suppose, that you didn’t remind him. But you didn’t realize you would have to.
You sigh and roll over, thinking about what to work on tomorrow. Maybe you’ll get Javi to replace the kitchen tiles if he’s up for it. He’d brought a lot of things to fix up the house that first weekend, but most of the stuff needs to be handled by him. He doesn’t want you to hurt yourself with some of the most strenuous tasks.
Your eyelids start to drop closed as you hone in on your husband's rhythmic breaths coming from behind you. Maybe, you think right before you fall asleep yourself, you’ll go out on your date tomorrow instead.
*****
Oh, what's that? Javi's already turning into a dick? 👀
Hope you enjoyed babes!! I'm beyond excited for y'all to read the next chapter! Series taglist is open as usual if you would like to join <3
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#pedro pascal#fan fiction#ao3#pedro pascal smut#smut#pedro pascal characters#fluff#javier pena fic#javier pena narcos#javier pena x you#javier pena x reader#javier pena smut#javi p#narcos fanfiction#javier pena fanfiction#narcos fic#dark javier pena#dark pedro pascal#javier peña
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haven
battinson! bruce wayne x f! reader
chapter five
Summary: After the sudden deaths of your mother and grandmother, you’re forced to return home to Gotham…and to the man who broke your heart three years ago. Back in Bruce Wayne’s inescapable orbit, you vow to get to the bottom of your former best friend’s new cold personality. But Bruce’s secrets aren’t what you’re expecting. a
a/n: I won't lie, I love this chapter, especially because it shows one of my favorite things about this reader very clearly--the fact that she only has one braincell. She's been surprisingly fun to write, even with all of the angst!
Series Masterlist
word count: 2.6k
The doors opened with a noise so loud she winced.
When she looked up, she was face to face with a gun.
Y/n was afraid in a distant sort of way. It was, sadly, not the first time she’d been held at gunpoint pursuing a story. But the first time had been with a wire under her shirt and a whole bunch of cops around the corner.
This time, she was alone.
And the man on the other end of the gun was a cop.
“Shit,” Lieutenant Gordon said and, mercy of all mercies, put away his weapon. “What are you doing here?”
For some reason, the disappearance of the gun kicked the fear up a notch. Her heart suddenly tried to take flight. She took a deep breath, dizzy now, and managed to say, “Got a second for that interview?” Her voice was too high. Probably not the best time to crack a joke, but she obviously wasn’t thinking clearly.
Behind Gordon was a shadow.
No, a man.
The Batman.
His mouth was slightly parted, what she could see of his face…almost shocked.
“You two look awfully surprised to see that someone followed you. The blindingly bright light wasn’t very hard to find.” She should shut up, she thought distantly. She still wasn’t sure if they could be trusted. But the fear was ebbing away, slowly but surely.
Gordon pinched between his eyes, the movement pushing his glasses up to his forehead.
“There’s a locked gate that requires a code. There’s barbed wire.” He sounded like Alfred when she and Bruce had gotten into something they were told not to touch or do as kids. Tired dad voice, they called it, snickering behind his back.
She hooked her thumb in Batman’s direction. He still stood absolutely still, cape blowing in the breeze, his mouth closed now. “Followed this guy in.”
Gordon looked over at the vigilante. “This is the girl you–”
“I remember,” Batman said in that voice of gravel and smoke. It sent a thrill of fear through her. Actually, his voice was kind of sexy, now that she was thinking about it.
She was losing her mind. She had barely slept in a week and she was losing her mind. She was with two men she wasn’t sure if she could trust, on top of an abandoned building where it would be very easy to kill her, and she was thinking of sexy voices. Well, one sexy voice in particular. No offense to Gordon, she thought wryly.
“I’m also, um…a journalist.” This was directed at the vigilante. In her experience, honesty opened up more doors than it shut. She was usually pretty good at figuring out when to lie, particularly about her profession, and when to tell the truth. Or when to split the difference. She trusted her gut more often than not, and right now, she was relatively at ease. “Couldn’t help it, sorry.”
“So you just…” Gordon waved a hand vaguely.
“Followed the light? Yeah. I just hope it doesn’t lead to death like it usually does.” God, she needed to stop cracking jokes. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. “So if you’re going to murder me, can I please at least get a good quote first?”
“This concerns her anyway,” Batman said, shocking her so much that she nearly toppled over the edge of the tower. And–oh shit, the tower was really tall and had absolutely no walls or rails or anything to protect her from the drop. She took a shaky step back towards the elevator, but it had returned down below. Heights had never been her friend. An irony, Bruce liked to point out, because she lived in a tower. Then that would almost always start an argument about what “irony” meant.
“Are you sure?” Gordon said. The wind whistling in her ears made it hard to hear. She hoped the question wasn’t Are you sure we shouldn’t kill her? and was instead simply Are you sure we’re going to trust her?
“We can always throw her over,” he said. There was something almost familiar about his voice, she realized, but then the words caught up to her.
She gulped, dizzy again, but Gordon did a double take. “Did you just make a joke, man?”
The Batman gave no indication that it had been a joke. She gripped the pepper spray tighter. Not that it would help her if she got tossed over the side, but it made her feel a little better.
“He’s kidding, don’t worry. Tell her you’re kidding, she looks ready to puke.” Gordon crossed his arms, clearly not intimidated in the least by the hulking figure of the vigilante.
“I’m kidding,” the Batman said with a cutting glance towards Gordon. “I don’t kill people.”
She squinted at him, unable to clearly see him in the darkness. She really couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. She guessed he had to have at least some sense of humor about all of this. He was dressed as a fucking bat, after all.
She decided to trust them. “Okay, which means I’ll be really upset if you make an exception for me. I’ll haunt your ass. Yours too, Gordon, because supposedly you’re the only cop who isn’t corrupt in this city.” She crossed her arms and shivered. As long as she ignored the sheer drop surrounding her on three sides, she’d be fine. “Though I’m not convinced yet. I’ve been gone from Gotham for too long.”
“The force has changed a lot in a year.” Another look exchanged with the vigilante. “But I understand the sentiment.”
Y/n glanced around, keeping her eyes on the view instead of the drop. “So no one else has ever followed you up here?” she asked curiously. She saw what she was pretty sure was a spotlight on the far side of the platform. “Because seriously, the light is a dead giveaway.”
“His girlfriend did once,” Gordon said, and he smiled. “But no one else.”
“Wasn’t my girlfriend,” the Batman mumbled. Mumbled. He was suddenly less scary when he sounded like any surly man denying any attachment to a woman.
Her ears perked up. “Oh? She got a name?”
They both gave her looks that said they knew exactly what she was up to. She shrugged, the perfect picture of innocence. It was worth a shot.
She changed tactics. “You said this concerns me. What does?”
“The murders you witnessed,” Gordon said. “We found ties to the Gallo family. I was coming to fill him in.”
“The Gallo family,” she repeated. She knew this already, but better to play at ignorance in case they gave her more information. That and it hadn’t been confirmed by someone who was on the investigation team. “The mobsters in New York?”
“The very same.”
“Was the one who got away one of them?” she asked. Because that would be bad. Very bad.
“We didn’t get any information out of the other three. One…committed suicide not too long ago, actually. Part of why I’m here.” Gordon sighed. “Getting rid of Falcone created a vacuum. The Gallos are just the first ones powerful enough to fill the space.”
Falcone. She knew the name. Knew the story. Knew he’d been responsible for the deaths of Bruce’s parents. That was one death she hadn’t begrudged the Riddler–at least Thomas and Martha had gotten justice, in the end.
The Batman turned and looked over the city. His figure cut a dark shadow across the city skyline. “Any ideas where to start looking?”
“So you can bust some heads?” Gordon said. He was smiling. Y/n looked between them. It was fascinating. They were obviously close but this only confirmed it. She itched to take notes but she didn’t want either of them to snatch her phone. Damn, she should have set it to record when she was in the elevator. Gordon continued, “But no. We’re coming up empty so far. None of the typical informants have heard anything about the Gallo family. As far as we know, none of them are actually in the city. If they are, they’re laying low.”
“Could you identify them again?” Batman asked. His eyes glinted in the darkness as he faced her again. She noticed he hadn’t come any closer to her, unlike Gordon who was only a couple of feet away. Instead he was near the edge, about as far away from them as he could get. Was it to make her feel better, safer?
“Maybe, with the help of the video.” She knew eyewitness testimonies were shaky at best. And the more traumatic the event, the more unreliable the testimony could be. But a video helped and would do wonders in court. “What does this mean for me?” she asked. “Am I supposed to stay locked up forever, afraid to go out in case there’s a mob hit on me? Or even just a regular murderer trying to take out a witness? Because both of those are kind of shitty.”
“Yes,” Batman said at the exact same time Gordon said, “Probably.”
Her heart sank.
“We’ve been protecting your identity as best we can,” Gordon said in a sure tone that again made her think of Alfred. She wondered if Gordon had kids. “But we can’t be sure there isn’t a leak in the department. We’re still plugging all the holes left behind from Falcone.”
She winced. “Okay, I’ve done two bad things so far.” The Batman crossed his arms. Gordon motioned for her to continue. “First, I may or may not have been loaned out to the Tribune on special assignment to report on my own case. So the editor definitely knows my identity. And I also may or may not have reached out to a GCPD officer to be a source.”
She heard the Batman sigh even over the noise of the wind. Gordon was pinching the bridge of his nose again. Their response made her feel like a little kid getting in trouble and it made her bristle. She bit her tongue to keep from immediately defending herself.
“Which officer?” Gordon asked and his tone told her all she needed to know. He didn’t trust some of his fellow cops, if any.
“He hasn’t even agreed to be a source yet, and besides I have the right to protect–”
“Which officer?” Batman cut in, the sharp growl of his voice startling her.
The sound of it made her spit it out. “Martinez.”
Both men visibly relaxed. “Martinez is solid. There’s a reason I brought him with me to get your statement,” Gordon said. “We can trust him.”
“Okay, good. That’s good. See? I’m not a total idiot.” She relaxed marginally.
“Maybe you’re just lucky,” Batman said.
She laughed humorlessly. “Lucky? Well, buddy, you know what I was doing the same day I witnessed a fucking mob hit? Burying my mother and grandmother. And don’t even get me started on the rest of my personal life right now.”
“He didn’t mean it,” Gordon said with a sharp look. “His humor takes some getting used to.”
Batman mumbled something under his breath again that sounded a lot like I can talk for myself. But he didn’t actually butt in.
“Okay, whatever. What can I do? I don’t want to be killed, obviously, and I don’t particularly like the idea of being locked in an ivory tower either, nice as it is.” What she didn’t say was that she wasn’t sure she could handle being locked in Wayne Tower with Bruce Wayne. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t be reminded of how close they used to be and the distance between them now. And all of that on top of the immense grief she experienced at unpredictable times. She never knew when she’d be reminded of her grandmother and subsequently that she was gone. Around every corner, through every doorway, was the potential for a punch to the gut when she remembered her grandmother was dead.
“What can you do? Stop sneaking into construction sites at night, for one,” Gordon said with a soft snort. “But any information, anything, you come up with while working on this story, send it to me, too. And we’ll work with you on identifying that fourth suspect.”
“You aren’t going to tell me to stop investigating?”
It was the Batman who answered. “Would you actually stop?” His voice was rough on her skin, giving her goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold or the fear of heights.
She shrugged. “Probably not. But I don’t want to die, either.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he said. He took a step forward. She noticed how broad his shoulders were, how sharp his jaw was, how his gloved hands were clenched into fists at his side. She really, really should have found a way to sneakily record everything. She was probably closer to the Batman than most people had ever been.
She swallowed. “Don’t worry, Wayne Tower’s plenty secure.”
“Still. I’ll be around.”
“That sounds a lot like stalking.” She raised an eyebrow.
“I promise I won’t peek in your windows.” A twitch at the corner of his lips.
“That sounded a lot like another bad joke,” she said. But she smiled.
“Let me drive you home,” Gordon interrupted. He was glancing back and forth between them, eyebrows raised. She wanted to protest, but she doubted her luck had held long enough for her to be able to get a taxi back home.
“What, that’s it? Two whole pieces of information and you go home? You guys don’t text or anything?” She crossed her arm. She really hadn’t gotten any more information that she didn’t have–except for the suicide of one of the suspects. If it even was a suicide. “This meeting could have been an email.”
“Never know who’s listening,” Gordon said. He tilted his head towards the vigilante. “Besides, he’s paranoid. Only calls if he needs something. Hates texting.”
She eyed the man in question. If he hated texting, maybe he wasn’t as young as she thought. Then again, Bruce hated texting too, old man at heart that he was. But he was the exception, not the rule.
“I’d really appreciate it if you two kept me in the loop too. Quid pro quo,” she said.
“For your article?” Batman asked. There was a certain edge to his words that made her think he didn’t like reporters. And really, it made sense. If she was trying to keep her identity a secret, she wouldn’t like reporters either. They were a chronically nosy bunch even when they weren’t working on a story.
“For my life. If I survive this, yeah I’m going to write a hell of an article. But I kind of have to be alive to write it, don’t I?” She crossed her arms again and stared him down.
“Quid pro quo,” Gordon said. “As long as you two agree to play nice.” He chuckled, like it was part of a joke.
“Keeping her alive is nice,” Batman said. Another joke? Every interaction between him and Gordon solidified the fact that they got along well and were around each other often. No way Gordon didn’t know the guy’s real identity. But if they were as close as she suspected and if Gordon was as honorable as everyone said…no way was he going to let any hints slip.
Her mind spun as the two men talked quietly about off the clock watches of Wayne Manor. She now had two very reliable sources for her article–if they really did keep her in the loop–and a new certainty that an op-ed for the Batman was in her future. She doubted any reporters in Gotham had spent as much time with the vigilante as she already had. Her veins thrummed with that inner fire.
She might be able to expose a mob conspiracy and the Batman’s identity in one fell swoop.
It was all she could think of as Gordon drove her home.
Next Chapter
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Echoes of The Heart [I]
pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader // geto suguru x fem!reader
genre: fluff, future smut
words: 3.1k
summary: Having Gojo Satoru as a roommate comes with a weekly price. And while your best friend is busy fucking random people almost every Friday night, this time you find yourself at a nearby bar, where you meet a mysterious man, Suguru, that has his ways of entering your heart.
Next Chapter
As the city lights filtered through the windows of your shared apartment, you sighed softly, realizing it was once again time to make yourself scarce. Gojo Satoru, your charismatic and enigmatic best friend, was entertaining yet another admirer tonight. Before you could make an exit, Gojo leaned against the doorway, a sly grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he watched you gather your things.
"Off on your secret mission again, huh?" he teased, raising an eyebrow playfully. You rolled her eyes, a smirk tugging at your lips.
"Someone's got to make sure you don't cause any earthquakes, Satoru." You shared a knowing look, an unspoken understanding of your unique dynamic.
With a dramatic sigh, Gojo feigned a pout.
"You're the best wingman a guy could ask for," he remarked, earning an exaggerated eye roll from you.
"Just promise me you won't bring the house down, okay?" you retorted with a smirk, the familiarity of your banter filling the room with a sense of companionship that only years of friendship could cultivate.
Gojo had been your best friend for years, and even though he was a total goof, he held a special place in your heart as someone who supported you through shitty situations. If it weren't for Gojo's demeanor, you would have ended up desperate and even depressed. You owed the guy a lot, and leaving once a week in order for him to get some, was probably the easier way you could repay him.
With a resigned smile, you expressed your farewell and slipped out the door, giving them the space they would soon need.
Finding yourself amidst the vibrant lights of Tokyo, you allowed your feet to take you on a long walk around the city to help clear your head. Eventually, you sought solace in the warm ambiance of a cozy bar. Nestled on a stool, you ordered a drink, the clinking of glasses and hushed conversations providing a comforting backdrop as you navigated the swirling thoughts in your mind.
You caught yourself adrift in a sea of uncertainty, your future stretching out before you with a disconcerting lack of direction. You stared into your glass, contemplating the void that lay ahead.
You moved in with Gojo when university started a couple years ago. And even after your graduation, you decided to stick to it for a little longer. Splitting the rent was ideal for you, since you had yet to find a stable job. Gojo on the other was simply used to it, or at least that's what you believed.
Because if there was one person without any money-related worries, it had to be Gojo. You never let him help you on that, however, since your biggest goal was to build your independence yourself. He never asked for you to part ways as roommates, so you thought that maybe he was too lazy to look for a new place and move out. Or he was too much of a gentleman to kick you out. Whatever the reason, it was more than okay for now.
It would be way too lonely without him anyway.
As moments turned to minutes, and you got lost in contemplating your future, a mysterious man took a seat beside you, his lip piercing glinting in the warm ambiance, a man-bun crowning his head, and a captivating sleeve tattoo peeking from beneath his white shirt.
Engrossed in conversation with the bartender, he exuded an intriguing presence that gradually pulled your attention from your own introspections.
With a glance at your phone, your gaze shifted, fingers tapping the screen in an act of implicit awkwardness, and quiet anticipation.
It was then that the man turned his attention to you, his words laced with curiosity, "Waiting for something?"
You found yourself opening up, your voice carrying a mix of resignation and a touch of vulnerability as you spoke. "My roommate, who's also my best friend, he's... busy tonight," you began, a wry smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
"He pretty much kicked me out so he could have his...fun." Your words held a hint of playful exasperation.
"But truth be told, it's not just that. There's a lot on my mind lately, and I needed some space to think. Uni is over, and it's like I'm staring at a blank canvas, unsure of what to paint. I work at a cafe in the area, but that's not really what I want to do for the rest of my life."
Your gaze drifted, as if searching for answers in the amber depths of your drink.
You could not comprehend where this sudden urge to overshare came from.
"So, here I am, in this bar, trying to find a bit of clarity in the chaos."
Yup, you were already starting to regret it.
The man's lips curved into a wry smile as he listened to your words, a glint of amusement dancing in his eyes.
"Ah, I see. Though, a bar might not be the ideal setting for philosophical contemplation." he mused, his tone light and playful.
"But it's totally a place to find some camaraderie and fleeting connections, if nothing else." He leaned slightly against the bar, his gaze locking with yours.
You felt your cheeks getting hot. The way his eyes locked on yours felt like he was getting access to your soul, the door of which you had gladly opened. There was something enchanting about him, about his aura, about-
"You know, I'm a regular here. Friends with the bartender and all that," he added with a subtle nod toward the person behind the counter.
"And if there's a connection with someone interesting, well, who am I to pass up a chance for an eventful night?"
Your laughter twinkled in the air as you responded, "You'd get along well with my best friend, Satoru."
His eyebrows rose in curiosity. "Satoru, you say?" he inquired, his voice tinged with interest.
"I suppose you could introduce us. Now, about the other thing..."
His gaze held a sense of reassurance as he responded, his words carrying a soothing quality.
"You know, life has a way of unfolding unexpectedly. Sometimes the paths we take aren't the straightest, but they often lead us to where we're meant to be. So don't stress too much, sweetheart, you'll get there."
If it wasn't for the music and the conversations in the dimly lit room, you swear he would be able to listen to the strong pounding of your heart against your chest.
What the hell was going on with you?
Getting flustered over a guy felt like a distant memory until now. The feeling was odd, and started to scare you. You had barely exchanged any words.
There was something about his presence, the way his hands tapped on the glass, the way his lips moved as he spoke, the way a few strands of hair covered the sides of his forehead that had you utterly trapped in his beauty.
As you were about to thank him for his little advice, a woman entered the scene, the familiarity in her demeanor suggesting a deeper connection. She wrapped her arm around the man's waist with an affectionate grin, interrupting your conversation.
"Suguru! It's been forever! We need to catch up," she exclaimed, her voice carrying a hint of warmth. Suguru's lips curved into a polite smile, his voice calm as he replied, "I'm actually here with a friend right now, but yes, let's do that another time." His gaze shifted towards you, a subtle signal for you to step in. You met his gaze and responded with a gracious smile and a nod, subtly letting Suguru off the hook.
The woman's frustration was palpable as she let an exasperated sigh. And yet, she eventually relented, leaving Suguru and you alone once again, after mumbling something you didn't quite catch.
Suguru offered an apologetic smile, a rueful chuckle escaping his lips. "I don't even remember her name," he admitted with a shake of his head.
"We've only met once or twice, purely for... enjoyment, you could say."
Your eyebrows quirked up in curiosity, the contrast between your lives and her own experiences stark.
"I've often wondered how you and Satoru can engage in these casual relationships without things getting complicated," you confessed, a touch of perplexity in your voice.
It was true, even though you had discussed it with Gojo before, you couldn't imagine yourself having sex with someone just for "preservation purposes" as your friend claimed, whatever the hell that meant.
Suguru's gaze held a depth that matched his insight as he looked into your eyes.
"Intimate relationships only lead to hurt if there's a deeper connection, emotions involved beyond the surface," he explained, his tone tinged with a mixture of wisdom and experience.
"Sometimes, keeping things light and detached is a way to avoid that pain. But," he added softly, "it's not a path everyone can or should take."
It was a moment of profound connection, as you both exchanged perspectives on the intricate dance of human emotions. You frowned a little at the thought of him having the same habits as Gojo.
It shouldn't matter to you y/n, it's not like you had a chance, anyway. Right?
Suguru's fingers deftly pulled out a cigarette, and after a few thoughtful puffs, he extended it towards you.
"Wanna?" he asked, a casual offer tainted with a hint of caution.
You shook your head with a small smile, your reply laced with a hint of amusement, "Nah, I don't smoke."
Suguru's lips curved into a grin.
"Wouldn't want to be a bad influence," he remarked, his tone light. "But you know, sometimes it's the only thing that helps me unwind and calm my nerves." He offered the cigarette once again, his gaze curious.
Without having no control over your actions, your fingers reached out to accept it, and you eventually brought it to your lips with an unpracticed ease. In that moment, you seemed to channel an unexpected familiarity, handling the cigarette as if you'd been doing it for years. The way you inhaled, held it between your fingers-it was a revelation that piqued Suguru's intrigue, a silent reminder that appearances could often be deceiving.
You offered a grateful smile as you returned the cigarette, your words carrying a touch of realism.
"Thanks, but I think it's probably not the best time for me to develop a smoking habit," you commented as you came back to Earth, a hint of humor in your tone.
Suguru chuckled in agreement, his gaze fixed on you with a mixture of understanding and intrigue.
After that time passed by faster than expected. Suguru tried to keep the conversation light, avoiding to talk much about himself, but rather focusing on general matters that wouldn't bring your spirits down.
The clock showed almost two in the morning.
As you conversed, a call interrupted your interaction. Suguru excused himself and moved a short distance away to take the call. Upon his return, he offered you a small smile as his hand found its place at your back, touching it softly, as he expressed his appreciation for your company.
"I should be on my way, unfortunately. I had a delightful time with you tonight."
You nodded softly, your eyes reflecting a touch of sadness.
Suguru extended his hand, finally introducing himself.
"Suguru Geto. You probably heard my name from that woman earlier but it would be rude to depart without a proper introduction."
You reciprocated with a smile, sharing your name in return.
The unexpected softness of his hand against yours, his eyes locked onto yours, held a certain magnetism. He pressed a gentle kiss to your hand, his gaze warm and lingering. "Remember, y/n" he murmured softly, his lips curving into a smile, "if you ever need that cigarette or just a chat, you know where to find me."
It was a farewell that left an impression, an unspoken connection formed in the midst of an ordinary night. He left as quickly as he had appeared and you were left alone again, but this time with a new kind of torment occupying the spaces of your mind.
As you walked back home, your thoughts were still swirling around the encounter with Suguru. His mysterious charm had left an indelible mark, and your steps seemed lighter as you approached your shared apartment.
Unlocking the door, you entered to a rather unexpected sight. Gojo, shirtless and casually clad in a pair of pajama shorts, stood before you, an air of nonchalance about him. Beside him, the woman who had occupied his attention earlier offered you a small smile and a casual greeting before walking past you and making her exit, leaving a sense of quiet acknowledgment in her wake.
Your lips curved into a rueful smile as you watched the woman depart. It was just another ordinary night in the life of Gojo Satoru, that fucking idiot.
Gojo's grin widened as he looked at you, his curiosity piqued. "So, how did your night out go?" he inquired, a playful glint in his eyes.
You chuckled, a hint of mischief dancing in your gaze. "Well, for once, I'd say you kicking me out was actually a lucky move," you admitted with a playful smile. "I met someone at a bar a few blocks away. We talked, had a pretty interesting conversation." You paused, your tone lightening. "It was different..."
Gojo's eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "Oh, I see how it is. You're finally stealing my spotlight," he quipped, a laugh bubbling in his voice. It was a fleeting moment of camaraderie, a shared understanding.
You slipped off your coat and set your bag down, your playful demeanor intact as you turned to Gojo. "Hungry?" You asked with a grin. "I'm thinking of whipping up something to eat. You interested?"
"I mean, sure, but it's three-"
You couldn't help but tease, "You're awake anyway. You don't like your guests overstaying their welcome, you have to escort them out." Gojo chuckled, a lighthearted twinkle in his eyes. "Ah, come on, I've got manners," he retorted, his voice filled with feigned innocence.
He followed you into the kitchen, the ease of your banter a testament to your deep friendship. You started gathering ingredients and utensils, setting about the task of preparing a meal for the two of you. It was a scene that showcased their camaraderie, the moments shared beyond the unpredictable adventures that often colored your lives. (Mostly Gojo's, unless going to work is considered an unpredictable adventure.)
As you moved about the kitchen, Gojo took a seat at the table, his grin still evident. "So, this guy you met, is he more handsome than me?" he quipped, his tone playful.
You turned to face him, a knowing smirk playing on your lips. "Hmm, it's very possible," you replied, your eyes twinkling.
The playful exchange continued, a dance of words that had become second nature between you. Talking to Gojo was as easy as breathing, after all this year it was only natural that you were comfortable with each other.
Gojo leaned back in his chair, feigning exaggerated offense. "I can't believe it," he lamented dramatically. "I've been outshone by a random guy from a bar!"
You chuckled, a warm affection evident in your gaze. "Well, Satoru, there's only one way to find out," she responded, her tone light. Gojo's curiosity was piqued, but before he could dig for more details, you raised a hand to halt him. "Actually, nevermind. Sorry, but I'm not sharing any more details," you declared with a playful smile. "I don't want to jinx it." It was a moment of lightheartedness, a comfortable familiarity that made your friendship so enduring.
Gojo's gaze held a thoughtful glint as he nodded in agreement. "It has been a while, hasn't it?" he mused, his words carrying a touch of understanding. You nodded, with a wistful smile.
It's also a dreadful occurrence.
"Exactly, that's why I said I don't want to jinx it," you admitted, her voice soft. As the food was served and you both settled at the table, you mirrored Gojo's grin.
"Funny thing is, I didn't even get his number, or Instagram, or anything, really." you confessed, a hint of disappointment in your tone. "But he did mention he's a regular at that bar."
Gojo's laughter filled the air, his amusement evident. "Well then," he quipped, his tone playful, "guess you'll have to pay that bar another visit sometime soon."
You nodded, eyes sparkling with a mix of playfulness. It was a shared moment of encouragement, a reminder that sometimes taking chances and stepping into the unknown could lead to unexpected connections. Your best friend's encouragement was exactly what you needed at the moment.
"I'll definitely consider it, yes."
Gojo's soft laughter filled the room, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "But hey, you know I'm the only man you really need, right?"
Your own laughter bubbled in response as you playfully shook your head. "Oh, Satoru and that fucking ego of yours."
You both focused on your food after that, your voices dying down.
As you took a couple bites, you couldn't help but notice Gojo's sudden shift in demeanor, your concern evident in your furrowed brows. He stopped eating. Instead, he started fiddling with his fork, his ocean blue gaze drifting away from focus.
"Hey, what happened?" you asked, your voice laced with genuine worry.
"If you don't like the food, you can just tell me and I'll make you something else."
He shook his head, a somber expression lingering on his face. "No, it's not that," he said softly, his gaze distant. He looked back at you, his lips curving into a faint smile.
"Thanks for the food, y/n, but I'm just not hungry anymore." His tone held a hint of finality. Without further explanation, he stood up and turned to leave, his words carrying a sense of weariness.
"I think I need some rest, it's been a long night." It was a sudden departure which only left you with a sense of unanswered questions and an unexpected void in your shared space.
You took a deep breath, your worry for Gojo lingering even as you cleared the table and tidied up. With a determined mindset, you decided that discussing it could wait until the morning, unwilling to disturb him at such an hour.
Later, as you settled into bed, your thoughts shifted to Suguru, his enigmatic presence and your intriguing encounter at the bar. The events of the night played out in your mind like scenes from a movie, a delicate tapestry woven into your consciousness.
In the quiet of the night, you found yourself navigating the delicate balance between concern for your friend and the unexpected connection you had found with a stranger. And as the night wrapped around you, you drifted into dreams.
Dreams where everything's just feels right.
moraxine, august 23.
#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jjk fanfic#jujutsu kaisen fanfic#gojo satoru x reader#gojo satoru#gojo x reader#satoru x reader#getou suguru x y/n#suguru x reader#getou suguru x reader#getou x reader
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chapter 1107 spoilers
Howabout that cover? Howaboutthat cover? How ABOUT that cover?
Bepo, with a lovely warming pot of tea (or a kettle at least), and a club? (to protect the captain?), finds him skiving off with a snow leopard, a funnel, and maybe an empty bottle of Vodka. Chapter title is: "I've been looking for you", and it refers to the giants, I think, looking for the Straw Hats, and Usopp (especially), looking (out) for the giants, and Catarina Devon doing what, exactly? But Caribou, snivelling little sop of a man that he is, looking out for Blackbeard (his current lord and saviour). But, I'm with Bepo, looking out for Law!
The Blackbeards' land on Egghead and St. Jay Garcia Saturn says he knows all about Blackbeard's background, and Catarina knows it too, and I think it's maybe something separate from the "D" initial, cos', after all, it is in Teach's public name. But we see Van Augur--(like, why is the anime captioning him as Van Ogre when Augur is written clearly on the screen? But anyway). The last time we saw him
was
here in chapter 1081 when Bepo went Sulong and escaped with Law. Most of us thought that Blackbeard's crew had been split in half because
it was assumed that events were happening concurrently, but
Van Augur and Catarina Devon are here (on Egghead), and perhaps Van Augur could have warped himself there, but here he says
he hasn't mastered the warp warp fruit enough to get him and Catarina off the island, so it's unlikely that he could have warped himself all the way from Winner Island. SO, did they pursue Law and Bepo, and the two are nearby, or with the giants, or, or, or? Or is there some other explanation (about Van Augur--I know that Law's whereabouts is still relegated to cover pages)? I'm not a close reader, so I'm happy to have anything pointed out.
But, looks like Catarina will be able to clone
Saturn, and looks as if Saturn knows it. Of course, this guy below (Caribou) would be relevant. Can't wait to see his role!
I'm out of order, of course! I don't think that Law got recaptured, but I still think there might be a giant connection. And speaking of the giants
Usopp's reaction was just
heartfelt, was, ahhh, my heart, and Nami and Chopper were really cute too. And yeah, it's been some time, so the quick recap was necessary. AND, lots of small things I just loved either for humour or poignancy, like:
Brook abandoning everything for the sake of a cup of tea (even though he says he wasn't stopping for a cup of tea)---and Lilith sending forth messages (to raise the barrier, I'm guessing) because Brook is all too calm that the Sunny is heading towards the barrier, and bound to be fried by it. Lilith is not at all equipped for dealing with Straw Hat madness. And no-one can seriously out-machismo
Zoro. He's just too silly and strong. And!!!
the Pacifistas turn on the army, the army needing to suppress a workers' revolt. And that's Kuma in the bottom picture, isn't it? It looks like Kuzan, but PX is written on the cap, I think, in the picture. Again, let me know, please!
Bonney just
being in awe that
she gets to see Nika (and Nika teaches her how to throw a rubber punch, extra future bad news for Saturn, I hope). And
Kuma and Vegapunk (what's the far right image?) take in Nika too. Love Franky's way with words here:
telling Bonney she needs make use of her legs, and Vegapunk decides he's gonna stay (or die), and Borsalino's gonna make sure of it. But!
the power of love is all pervasive! (at least when Sanji's wearing the boots). Although his love was used for protecting Bonney rather than Vegapunk, and probably has more to do with Germa modifications than love, but it is Sanji's motivator, and attacks Kizaru's knowledge of "how things work"!
Kizaru/Borsalino's face in the first panel really shows how much power he's losing. Sentomaru took a path Kizaru could have taken, but didn't. He's following Bellamy's path, so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. Because he's too smart to be a blind lackey. Being an aware lackey is some powerful conditioning/mental gymnastics.
And I think that's about it. Hoping Kid gets a cover page soon too!
#one piece#trafalgar law#blackleg sanji#monkey d. luffy#usopp#roronoa zoro#catarina devon#van augur#borsalino#kizaru#jay garcia saturn#vegapunk#straw hats#one piece spoilers#op spoilers#opspoilers#chapter 1107#chromamanga#chromacaps#chromalami#blackbeard pirates#long post#fixed some mistakes.
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It’s Not Love, but It’s Pretty Close
✎ series summary: Rafe never intended to fall in love with you. I mean, you were just his client/fuck-buddy, right? What happens when he realizes you’re more than that?
✎ chapter summary: Rafe made you a promise, and he intends to keep it.
✎ warnings: vomiting, mention of drugs and drinking
✎ characters: Rafe Cameron
✎ word count: 807
✎ author’s note: I decided to split this into two parts because it would’ve been too long, but the next part will be out, hopefully, soon.
series masterlist
The pounding in your head begins as soon as you regain consciousness. The churning in your stomach quickly follows. You jump out of bed and bolt to the bathroom, emptying the contents of your stomach into the toilet. You’re too busy heaving into the toilet that you barely register the sound of footsteps on the cold, tile floor. You feel someone’s hand gather your hair out of your face and pull it back into a makeshift ponytail.
“Easy,” the person says, gently rubbing your back with their other hand.
It feels like hours before you feel well enough to lean away from the toilet to take in your surroundings. You blink slowly, willing the blurry room to come into focus. You hear the sound of the toilet flushing and turn toward a familiar figure.
“Rafe?” You whisper, unsure. ‘It can’t be,’ you think.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he sighs, confirming your suspicions. No one else ever called you “sweetheart.”
You rub your blurry eyes, trying to get a better look at him.
“What happened last night?” You ask, your memories from the night before disappearing.
“I found you at a party. You were high out of your mind, so I took you home.” Rafe explained briefly.
‘Home?’ You thought. You may be hungover and coming down from the cocaine high, but you were conscious enough to know this wasn’t your house. ‘Did Rafe consider his home yours too?’ The thought came into your mind before you could push it away. ‘No, he just made a mistake, that’s all.’
“Hey, you still with me?” Rafe asks, noticing how you zoned out.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”
“Good. Let’s get you off the floor, yeah?” Rafe stands up, holding a hand out for you to take. You take his hand, a shiver running down your spine at the contact. He lets go of your hand once you’re standing, and you immediately miss his touch.
You watch as he bends down again, rummaging in the drawers beneath his sink until he finds what he was looking for. He hands you a brand new toothbrush and some toothpaste, saying, “I know you feel like shit right now, so go ahead and clean yourself up, and come downstairs when you’re done.” Then, he’s gone as quickly as he had come.
You quickly brush your teeth and shower, finding that he left a shirt and a pair of shorts for you on his bed. When you’re done, you find your way downstairs.
The smell of waffles hits your nose as soon as you enter the kitchen. Rafe is sitting at the kitchen table, doing something on his phone, a plate of waffles in front of him and another plate to his right. He looks up as you enter, setting his phone down.
“Feeling any better?” He asks as you sit down next to him.
“Nope,” you answer, studiously avoiding his gaze.
Rafe sighs, pushing the plate of waffles closer to you. “You need to eat,” he says sternly.
When you don’t make any moves to start eating, he says, “It’ll make you feel better.”
Reluctantly, you pick up the bottle of syrup, pouring a decent amount on the pile of waffles. After your first hesitant bite, it doesn’t take you long to devour the waffles on your plate along with Rafe’s portion that he offered you. You hate to admit it, but he was right about eating making you feel better.
“Thank you,” you mumble once you finished eating and the table is cleared off.
“Don’t mention it,” Rafe replies.
“Anyway, I should, um, probably be heading out,” you say awkwardly, fiddling with the hem of your his shorts.
“Actually, you’re gonna be staying here for awhile,” Rafe says, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.
“What?” You ask, finally looking up at him.
Rafe sighs, pushing himself off the counter and walking towards you. “I thought cutting you off would work, but it seems you’re more resourceful than I thought,” he begins. He’s reached you now, and you’ve backed up far enough to hit the wall. “So, you’re staying with me until we get you clean,” he explains matter-of-factly.
“What are you talking about? I don’t need to get clean,” you defend, tilting your face up to meet his eyes.
“Look at you, (Y/N). You’re destroying yourself.”
“I’m fine,” you say adamantly, albeit unconvincingly.
“That’s a lie, and you know it,” Rafe says, a crease emerging between his eyebrows. “Admit it, (Y/N). This isn’t the life you want.”
You try to turn your head, trying to avoid his piercing eyes again, but he doesn’t let you this time. He gently grasps your chin, bringing your eyes to meet his.
“Let me help you.”
You hesitate for a moment. ‘Is he right? Is this the life I want?’ And then, you nod.
“Okay.”
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Obedient Chapter 5
roman roy x fem! reader
Summary: You and Roman decide to celebrate his small achievement at his apartment over 2 bottles of wine.
Warnings: hints at ED, crude jokes
Word Count : 3.8K
Notes: Alright I needed to be kind to you after the last chapter of the series. Also I can't believe I posted 5 chapters already.
Chapter 5: Parking Lot drop off
After Roman spent a good long while gloating in Kendall’s face, you decided it was enough. You were going to celebrate. Just like you promised him earlier. You both were going to celebrate together. Just you and him and possibly a drink. He needed this.
You both ended at his apartment. This was your first time ever seeing him apartment actually. The location was incredible though. He lived in one the skyscrapers that made up New York City's skyline in Lincoln Square. It was just a 5 minute walk away from Central Park. But something told you that Roman didn’t ever take walks around the city. Why would he? He didn’t need to.
You walked in, expecting the most from it, and were still blown away by his apartment. You walked through the front door and were visited by a long hallway with the entire right wall being a window out to the city. This hallway pretty made up your studio apartment, credit your apartment was small, only having 2 rooms, your living room/kitchen and your bathroom. But your living area was pretty large enough to fit all your stuff in it. But you weren’t ready for the rest of the apartment.
You were completely amazed by how someone could live in something like this. Someone came in and slept here every night. “I get why you never come to the office now.” You were only halfway joking.
Now the living room. That was something else to see. The couch was practically as big as a king sized bed. The walls were either some kind of fancy wood or just a window. And there was a bookshelf full of book, you doubted Roman even read before. You tried not to gawk at it too much. You couldn’t even believe he had a staircase either. There was another fucking floor.
Roman barely paid you any mind though. He just needed to get out of this suit. He pulled his suit jacket off, laying it on top of his couch, undoing his tie and throwing it right onto of his jacket. He undid his shirt a bit so he could breathe better. He was finally relaxed. Not entirely, he never was fully relaxed, but relaxed enough and comfortable enough with you here.
“Okay you can finish scanning for blind spots to rob me at night.” He scolded you, grabbing a bottle from a small cabinet he had with wines in it. He had two glasses in his hand while he settled on the couch. You joined him, kicking your shoes off, pulling your legs up as you practically curled up onto the couch. It was insanely comfortable. You grabbed a glass from him as he twisted the cork open. He poured you a glass before himself.
“Well fortunately for you, I couldn’t find any blind spots.” You took a sip of your wine, resting your head on your arm. You wouldn’t stop looking over at the view. He had such an amazing view of the city. You could practically see the top of most buildings in New York from here.
“Well offer is still on the table if you wanted to live with me.” He hinted again. He wasn’t super amused by his apartment. It was just another thing to show off to people. He mainly only did it to seem better than Kendall. Once Kendall and Rava split up, Roman got this apartment because Kendall got his new apartment. He just wanted to one up him in some way. Kendall’s was 29 million, so Roman needed to get something more expensive and higher. Something with a better view. So, he settled for a 38 million dollar apartment. Right across the park from him. Kendall was on the east side while Roman was on the west side of Manhattan.
“Roman.” You exhaled. Your head fell, looking up before looking at him with your answer. It wasn’t going to happen. Ever.
“Jeez alright fuck you. I don’t wanna live with you anyways, probably would give me Gonorrhea or whatever the fuck.” His only defense was a joke.
He always tried to make jokes to cover up whenever he was serious about something. He just wanted to keep people guessing. No one took him serious anyways. Why would they?
“I’m pretty sure between the two of us, you’ve actually gotten or have Gonorrhea.” You striked back before pouring yourself another glass. You weren’t a wine person, but it wasn’t too bad. You were celebrating anyways.
“Oh ya, that must be why I’ve been bleeding out of my dick for a week. I just thought I finally hit womanhood.” He snickered behind his glass. You stared over at him, just enjoying his company.
It was nice. Calm. Nothing to stress the other one out. This was just a moment of contentment that you both shared together in this room. No pressure from work or professionalism.
“You’re a fucking idiot Rome.” You shook your head. That must’ve been the first time you ever called him that. Everyone close to him did. And by close, you meant his siblings or certain people who worked for his dad like Gerri. It caught him off guard for a bit, but he was happy to hear you call him that. It made him feel just a bit closer to you.
“Yeah… I know.” His lips allowed themselves to grow into a soft smile. His eyes were glued to you.
He didn’t care about what or who you were before he met you. Which he usually did. He never really talked to anyone he thought was below him. He had deep rooted classism heavily taught to him, and he never unlearned it, he wasn’t planning to either. But you made him kind of finally see there was no real difference.
But that’s not why he was staring. Not cause he was even thinking about the difference of class between you two. But because he thought you were one of the most gorgeous people he has ever met in his life. The way your hair fell, to the shape of your lips, to how you moved your hands when you talked quick enough. Or even just the way you talked to him. Like an equal. Someone with worth. You were harsh, but behind it, you had such a soft and caring tone to you. Everything about you made him just feel an almost, kind of obsession. You were never something he looked for, he never was really looking for anything or anyone. But here you were. In front of him. Laughing and giggling at all of his jokes and making fun of him back. Celebrating his dumb achievements with him. He wanted you. Bad. But he had so much fear of messing it up that it held him back.
“Aren’t you gonna call me a terrible assistant?” You tried to break the silence that fell onto both of you.
You didn’t mind the silence though. It wasn’t awkward. It was comforting. You didn’t need to speak to each other to fill the emptiness in the room. Despite all of the amazing artwork and other things Roman had in his apartment, they barely existed in the scheme of things. When there was just you and him either talking or not, he was the only thing even grabbing your attention. You tried to move your eyes to look at other things, but that calming effect the city and the light usually had on you was now replaced with Roman. The same calming comfort.
“No... I don’t need to. Cause you did it for me.” His laugh was so weird but so infectious. It wasn’t really like a normal laugh. Logan even once compared it to a hyena. But whenever you heard it, it made you wanna laugh along with. It was usually stifled or muffled. Or broken in between his words. Like he was so excited to tell the next joke. Or say the next thing that popped into his head.
You flipped him off, his hand smacking your hand down. His hand never left yours though once he dragged it down. You stared at him for a bit before pulling your hand away from his. It was too weird. It was too intimate for you.
You used to not be a very affectionate person, swearing off all kinds of touch from whoever. But as you had gotten older and into more relationships, you seemed to relax. Now you did enjoy affection. But sometimes that old habit came back. And right now, with the comfort, and with Roman, and the light, and the wine, it felt too intimate. Too much. You didn’t want to ruin it with Roman either. Even if you didn’t want to admit to yourself it was more about your crush on him than anything else. How could you not at this point?
The way you looked at him and the way you saw him, like actually saw him, was all it took for you to even realize it. But you were in denial about it. Like most of your crushes. You never wanted to admit that vulnerability to yourself.
And first off, you weren’t even allowed to have a crush on him. He was your boss. On every level, you were beneath him. And you didn’t want that kind of attention. So, you need to suppress these feelings as much as possible.
And second off, look at him. He wasn’t really the most conventionally attractive person you’ve met. He was odd looking, he was short, he was weird and disgusting and he wasn’t the most respectful person ever . He was rude and arrogant and selfish. He was the worst person you’ve ever met. Second. Logan had to be the first. But you saw a lot of good qualities in him. Even in his appearance. Every part of his face made sense together. It would look odd on others, but they made sense on his face. Especially when he laughed. You couldn’t explain your attraction to him. Maybe cause you didn’t think you were too different. He was good company. He made you laugh. He made you smile. And he did go out of his way to do certain things. Like getting you the dresses for the party. He knew you wouldn’t have a clue on what to wear. You didn’t even own anything expensive enough to wear at the party. But he had it covered. He was gonna make sure you were comfortable enough. It backfired though when he humiliated you. He had his moments.
“Uh- so how are you settling in now?” He asked. He wanted to know; genuinely. See. He had his moments.
“I’ve been settling in fine. I think it was difficult a bit at first with you not showing up a lot, but everyone’s been super nice. I even met your cousin the other day in the break room.” You mentioned. Roman shifted a bit. He tried to think on what cousin that worked there before he finally remembered the tall dufus who got hired merely on the bases of coming out of the vagina of his dad’s brothers nutsack. Not that he was any better. He just came from the CEO’s nutsack. Granted Logans brother use to be CEO, before Logan fucked him over and practically stole it from Ewan. “He was such a sweetheart.” You praised. A hint of jealousy kind of took over Roman once he heard the compliment leave your lips.
“Yea except for the fact he’s fucking useless. You know I think him and my sister’s husband are fucking. I see them together more than him and Shiv.” Roman began to start a rumor out of pure jealousy and envy. He knew they weren’t actually fucking. Tom was Shiv’s little lap dog. If she said sit, he would do 5 other tricks just to impress her and then sit. He was at her feet all the time. “I wouldn’t be shocked, they’re in an open marriage. I actually dated this blonde Tom fucked at his bachelor party.” He tried to brag. Your face scrunched up in disgust at the thought of dating or fucking someone else that your brother or sister in law also fucked.
“Jesus Roman.” You murmur.
“No come on. It was afterwards. It was some sex party. It’s fine” He tried to blur the lines of how fucking odd that was. He didn’t know how to back peddle his way into making this any less weird than it was. “They didn’t even technically fuck. He just came in her mouth.” He tried to reason. Somehow it was way worse.
“In that case, I don’t want to share a glass with you.” You teased.
“Oh yea?” He asked, his eyebrows raised. He grabbed your glass before licking the entire rim of it. You let out a squeal, screaming his name before he handed it back to you.
“You’re so fucking gross.” You whined, getting up to get a new glass from his cabinet.
“Oh, come on, it was so long ago. I should be more worried than you. You can’t act like you haven’t had cum in your mouth before. I bet you let someone cum on your face last month.” He sipped the last bit of his drink before getting up with you to get a new bottle as well.
“Why are you so obsessed with the idea of people cumming on my face?” You jokingly asked. It was mentioned maybe once after you accused him of the same. But it was fun putting Roman on the spot like that.
The thing about Roman is, whatever he said, no matter how insane it was, no one knew if he was lying or telling the truth. Only cause what he said all the time was so outrageous. Even the night of the party. Jess calling up Kendall’s dealer. He said it as if it was a joke, but Jess and him knew it was true. It was kind of an open secret. But you hadn’t been working there long enough to know that yet.
“Cause I wanna see what it looks like with cum on your face.” He answered, grabbing another bottle of wine. He helped you find another glass, nonchalantly.
“Roman, you are one of the nastiest people I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.” You grabbed the glass from him. You rarely ever took him seriously. No one did. Roman always said shocking things to get a reaction. “Let’s not pretend like you don’t want to fuck me too.” He fired back at you. You rolled your eyes at him, assuming that’d shut him up. Reality was, you did.
“Follow me. I wanna show off how rich I am.” He led you towards his balcony. You were looked around, getting an entire view of the city. You could see most of it from where you stood. The balcony went around most of his apartment.
Roman sat down on some chairs he had outside, and you followed. Your eyes watched the skylines and then down to the floor. You could barely see people, but you could hear how noisy everything was, all the yelling and the honking and street noises and laughter. It brought a sense of happiness to you. You never imagined being somewhere like this to even see this kind of view of the city.
“You’re not gonna jump, are you?” Roman asked, breaking your gaze from the city to him. You shook your head no.
You both decided to just spend the night together, laughing and drinking. It had gotten too cold outside, and you both went back inside the house where you continued your night. Before you knew it, it was 3 am and you both had fallen asleep. Your head laid onto his shoulder as he was slumped on the couch, his head leaning on yours. Your legs scrunched up and near him. You both kept each other at a distance yet were close to one another.
You woke up to Roman still asleep on the couch next to you. You shot up from the couch, still careful not to wake him. You searched the apartment for your phone before finally finding it. It was dead. Fuck. You found Romans to look up the time. 7:43 am. Fuck. You both have to be in the office in just over an hour. Roman could make it on time. You weren’t sure you could. Your apartment had to be at least 30 minutes away from Romans apartment and then the time it took you to get ready and then go back to the office would take an extra 50 minutes. You grabbed your shoes before hearing a sneaky comment being made right behind you.
“Oh no, did we have a one night stand that we can’t take back?” Roman voice coarse and not as energetic as it usually was. Your line tightened in a thin line before looking over at him.
“I need to get home so I can get ready for work.” You tried to explain. You hadn’t even looked at your makeup yet. it had to look awful after sleeping in it.
“Just get ready here.” Roman shrugged, getting up from the couch finally. He stretched before finally settling.
“You know I can’t Rome.” You tried to reason with him.
“Yea yea you don’t want people thinking you’re a whore who’s fucking her boss even though that’s exactly what you are.” He headed to his kitchen to make himself a coffee. “Look, i'll send my driver. You won’t be late. Just have coffee with me in the meantime.” He was ready to beg. He sent a quick text to his driver before grabbing you another mug.
“Fine. Uh- Can I just charge my phone?” You asked. Roman nodded and you panicked to find one. You found one and plugged your phone, waiting for it to turn on.
“Hey, can you get the fuck up and make your coffee?” He called out to you. You pulled away from the phone and went to Roman. You searched his fridge for milk, not finding a plant based milk. Not shocking to you. In all honesty you couldn’t find much in his fridge. He had just milk for his coffee, water bottles, alcohol and some fruit. Not much. It reminded you of your own fridge.
“Do I not have any milk? Oh god you’re not one of those environmental fucking hippies that only drink dirt and eat grass.” He scoffed. You didn’t have the heart to tell him. You shook your head and sipped on your coffee.
You decided to sit with Roman for a while before the driver got here. You put your cup into the washer for him before leaving the penthouse. And off you went home. Despite the harsh morning yesterday, you do think you found it in your heart to forgive Roman for the party. You just couldn’t tell him.
You removed your makeup and charged your work iPad while getting ready once again to see Roman. And off you were to work. This was so much easier than taking the subway. And way faster than the train from your neighborhood to FiDi. You even had time to get yourself a coffee you’d actually enjoy drinking. You ordered for one for Roman too. He thankfully was on his way from work since you woke him up early. You sat in his office and reviewed your notes. You had been texting Jess all morning. You were planning on finding a new wardrobe for yourself since you were finally getting paid today. Actually, you didn’t even check your paycheck yet. You didn’t want to. You were scared.
Roman burst into the room, grabbing the latte you left for him, taking a sip. “Wait let me see yours.” He insisted, grabbing yours to see the sticker on it saying oat. “God you’re even more pretentious than me. I can’t believe you lied to me.” Romans laugh stifled before setting it back down. He wouldn’t stop mocking as he even went into a bit on you ordering the coffee for yourself, feminizing himself in a terrible offensive way.
“Rome. Quit it.” You tried to stop him, but you were too busy laughing at him, which only encouraged him more. He actually seemed excited to work with you. He was still incredibly lazy, but less lazy now that he had someone pushing him to actually do stuff for him. No wonder his dad and brother had assistants. That must be why they got so much work done. Or Roman was just trying to impress you.
You just spent most of your time sitting back after Roman went to meeting after meeting, but he just went you texts the entire time. You and Jess sat back during a meeting together while Roman and Kendall worked on their meeting together.
“What are you laughing at?” Jess smiled, looking over at your phone. She was glad to see you so happy after the party. Though she wasn’t too happy about the whole Kendall Roman thing yesterday, it wasn’t on you. It was purely between them. Beside Jess adored you and you adored her. She couldn’t ever take that on you, even if Kendall made her do more work and went off on some emotional roller coaster. All she could think was; at least it wasn’t Roman.
“Nothing. Just a text.” You reassured her before putting your phone away. But Jess saw another text from Roman pop up. She didn’t have the nerve to bring it up. But she saw your face light up and your smile return as you answered it. Oh god. Not you. She was in complete horror. Not you and Roman. The thought disgusted her. As it would with anyone.
“Alright, so where are we going after work?” She wondered. “Do you want to get dinner too?” She offered. She knew about your past issues; she knew how you were still. You ate, just you really took it out on yourself whenever you did not eat as good as you wanted. It was a vicious cycle you went through. But you were doing good enough to get dinner tonight with Jess. You nodded and began to go over your plans of where you wanted to go shopping.
She was excited for you. You seemed happier. You were lighter on your feet. You were laughing more. You were kind of miserable when you first started, but you got the hang of it fairly quick with Roman. And now you actually had a job rather than stressing yourself out about your qualities and skills and not understanding why you couldn’t find anything. You were not in panic mode anymore.
Your heads turned, hearing Kendall and Roman leave together. “Fucking twat.” Roman said loud enough for Kendall but low enough for the board and investors.
“Sorry Jess, I’ll see you again after the parking lot drop off.” You joked before Jess followed Kendall and you followed Roman.
“What the fuck is a parking lot drop off?” Roman asked.
Chapter 6
#roman roy#succession#succession hbo#hbo succession#hbo original#hbo series#hbo max#shiv roy#siobhan roy#kendall roy#roman roy fanfic#roman roy x reader#roman roy x you#succession fanfic#connor roy#willa succession#greg hirsch#cousin greg#tom wambsgans#logan roy
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Enough to Go By (Chapter 4) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic
Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 4
You think about Tenko more now, but you’re allowed to – he’s your patient, and if he was your patient at the clinic, you’d expect to see him for a follow-up on the four gunshot wounds you cleaned and dressed. You’re allowed to think about him, so you think about him. You think about him a lot.
The thoughts take two directions. One is just wondering about him – how he’s feeling, how he spends his days, what he’s thinking about, what he thinks of you, whether he’s thought about you at all. The other is thinking about the situation he’s in. His parents and grandparents and his sister are dead. He’s been missing for fifteen years. He’s got a quirk and he’s a villain, ambitious and strategic enough to target UA High and escape alive, albeit badly injured. His guardian is a cloud of mist in a suit with some kind of split personality. And there’s someone else in his world – two someone elses. The doctor he referenced, who wouldn’t help him, and the one he calls Sensei, who gave him his new name and a hand to wear over his face and set him up to fail.
You think about Tenko a lot, but you can’t think about him all the time, because now that you’re a nurse, you’re twice as busy as you were before. The doctors expect more of you, and so do the other nurses – and so do the MAs and CNAs and high school students who are starting their apprenticeships, since you now have three years’ experience to go with your reputation for smoothing things over with difficult patients. Your friends keep you busy, too. They might call Kazuo to find out if something’s wrong with them, but they call you to find out what to do about it.
“You need to get a scan,” you say to Yoshimi for probably the fifth time. “I know you don’t want to –”
“It’s weird!”
“Not any weirder than whatever Yoji does when the two of you are at second base,” you say, and in the background of the call, someone snickers. If you had to guess, you’d say it’s Mitsuko – she has the guts to bully Yoshimi into making the call, combined with the brass balls to feel comfortable eavesdropping. “It’s called a mammogram. You’d have to start getting them at some point anyway, just like we all do. It’s just to make sure there’s nothing weird going on.”
“Stop it. You’re freaking her out for no reason.” Yoji’s there, too. “It’s probably just an STD.”
You’re stunned into silence for a second by the sheer classlessness of saying that about one’s own girlfriend, but you bounce back fast. “First of all, they’re called STIs, genius. Secondly, there’s not an STI on the planet that gives you nipple discharge. Yoshimi, get the scan. I’ll go with you if you want. Just get it done.”
“Can I do it at your clinic?”
“Uh –” You glance at the Imaging queue. Things look quiet, but you can’t count on that to last – but if you report Yoshimi’s symptoms, which include soreness, nipple discharge, and what she describes as a weird rash, you’re pretty sure the doctor on call will bump her to the head of the line. “Yeah, come in now. I can’t stick around after my shift, though. I have stuff to do tonight.”
“Ooh, stuff. Let me see –” There’s some rustling, which you can only assume is Mitsuko grabbing the phone. “Is stuff tall, dark, handsome, way too serious, and currently working as a sidekick?”
“That would be stuff,” you admit. “It’s not a big deal. We’re just grabbing a drink after our shifts.”
For the first time since you and Kazuo broke up, you have a date, and it’s Kazuo’s fault. Or maybe it’s you and your friends’ fault, because you decided to throw Kazuo a twentieth birthday party and invited a few of his friends from UA. One of those friends is Sugimura Hiroki, who fits perfectly with your type of dark-haired boys who want to be heroes and who’s so painfully shy that it took him six beers and the entire party to talk to you. You were sort of weirded out by that. You’re not very intimidating, and you spent the first half of the conversation trying to figure out if he knew you were quirkless, since you learned the hard way that it’s something you need to disclose up front. But the two of you eventually worked your way around to the point, which was that Sugimura wants to get to know you better, and he tripped over his tongue so badly that you finally just asked him out to end the suspense.
It’s taken you a while to actually schedule the date, but tonight’s the night, and you’re sort of anxious about it. Luckily, work is busy enough to keep you distracted. Your lunch break ends while Mitsuko is still going into increasingly nasty speculations about Sugimura’s physical attributes, and you hang up the phone without saying goodbye.
There’s a message waiting for you on your computer, from the front desk. FOF. Can you take him?
It’s not Tenko. You know Tenko wouldn’t come here again. You send the same message you did when it was him. How F are we talking?
Jumpy, talking to himself, chainsmoking. He’s in costume.
“In costume” could literally mean that the patient’s wearing a costume, but it’s also code for when the front desk thinks the patient’s a villain. You’re used to dealing with villains by now. Send him back.
When the knock on the door comes, you’re ready and waiting, and the CNA ushers in a tall man in a black-and-grey bodysuit – so “in costume” was literal this time around – and a paper bag over his head. You’re momentarily transfixed by the paper bag, and more so when you realize that he’s bringing a lighted cigarette to his mouth while wearing something highly flammable on his face. The CNA shuts the door and bolts. You face your patient and introduce yourself. “Have a seat if you feel comfortable doing so. What brings you in today?”
“I’m not – whole.”
That’s concerning. “Are you injured?” Your concern grows when he gestures at his face. “It would really help if I could see the injury. Can you take the bag off?”
He shakes his head. Instead he reaches into his pocket and produces a torn full-face mask. You look at him, then at him, putting the pieces together. “How do you feel right now?”
He doesn’t answer – maybe can’t answer – so you default to the face chart you use when little kids aren’t able to express how they feel in words. Your patient points to scared, stressed, anxious, angry. Then he throws in happy, possibly to mess with you, or to distract you from the fact that the first four emotions indicate that he’s ready to snap at any second. “How about this?” you ask, after thinking it over. “I can ask the doctor to give you something that will help you calm down –”
“Please!” The patient bursts out. Drug-seeking? “No, I don’t need it, sister! I’m so calm it’s hard to believe.”
“Okay, then we’ll just have it here in case you decide you want it. As an option,” you say, keeping your voice smooth and calm. “Either way, this is a quiet place to wait. You’re safe in here with me. And if you want, I can sew up your mask for you. Would that help?”
“You can do that?”
“Easily,” you say. “Can I see it for a second? I need to make sure I grab the right thread.”
The patient hands the mask over, which is a good sign. You’ve established at least a little bit of trust. You examine the mask and decide that you’ll need the thinnest-gauge needle and thread you have. “I can definitely fix this,” you tell the patient. “It might look a little rough, but it’ll cover you up like it did before. And it should last until you get where you’re going.”
The patient nods. You stand up. “I’m going to get some supplies, and a little anxiety medication if you decide you want it. I’ll be right back, okay? Just wait here.”
The patient nods again. Given how labile his mood is, you need to be fast about this, and get back before he gets upset or decides to leave. You step out the door and shut it behind you, heading for the supply closet, but you’re waylaid on the way there by one of the doctors. “We need you up front. Now.”
“I can’t. I have a patient, and he’s –”
“I don’t care. We’ve got a hero coming to visit, and we need somebody to keep things calm,” the doctor says. Shit. “Figure out what they want, get them as little of it as you can get away with, and get them out of here.”
“Which hero?”
The doctor shakes his head. Great. “Just hurry.”
You can’t go just yet. “My patient’s got a lot of anxiety and he’s in costume. I need him to stay calm. Can you –”
“2mg diazepam. I’ll put it in the chart.” The doctor unlocks one of the medicine cabinets, extracts a prefilled dosage cup, and hands it to you. “Go.”
Diazepam is long-acting. Hopefully long-acting enough to keep your patient quiet while you get rid of the hero. You skitter back down the hall with the dosage cup and hand it over to the patient, along with a tiny bottle of water to wash it down. “I’ll be right back. Just finding the right thread.”
The patient downs the pill dry, which is both good and bad for you. You shut the door again and head for the lobby. You don’t make it there. A cloud of black mist boils up around you, swallowing you whole.
By the time your feet hit the familiar wooden floor of the bar, you’re already out of patience. “No. Send me back right now.”
“Shigaraki Tomura has need of you. You will assist him.”
“Not right now I won’t. You snatched me from work,” you say. You’re facing the wall and the All Might poster again, and you don’t want to turn around. If you see Tenko, it’ll make it harder to say no. “If I go missing, people will notice. Is he dying?”
“No,” Kurogiri says.
“Is he in imminent danger of dying?”
“No.”
“Then send me back,” you say. If Tenko’s asked Kurogiri to get you, it means he needs medical assistance – or follow-up. You’ve needed to follow up anyway. “I can come back later.”
“No, I need you right now!”
“How much later?” Kurogiri asks, ignoring Tenko’s protest.
You think it over. You can dispense with the hero situation quickly, stitch your patient’s mask, and sneak out of work early. They’ll have to give you the emergency time off. You’ve never asked before in three years of working there. “Ninety minutes.”
“That’s too long. Kurogiri, don’t let her leave!”
“Ninety minutes. I’ll be in the alley behind the clinic.” You ignore Tenko, too, in favor of focusing on Kurogiri. He’s the one who decides if you leave or not. “All right?”
The mist wells up around you again, which counts as a yes. You land on your feet in the hallway, reorient yourself, and head for the lobby again. Tenko wants you again – needs you, your stupid brain corrects – but he’s going to have to wait for you to sort this out.
The hero in the lobby is Uwabami, the Snake Hero, and she’s got two sidekicks with her. No, students. You recognize one of them from your limited viewing of the UA Sports Festival and feel a spike of guilt run through you. She’s from Class 1-A. The same class Tenko tried to kill.
You don’t need to think about that, and you don’t need to feel guilty, because you didn’t do anything to her. You force yourself to focus. Uwabami wouldn’t have brought high school students here if she was doing any kind of investigating, which means your patient and any others who might be nervous around law enforcement are probably safe. The question of why she’s here still remains. You step forward. “Welcome to Yokohama Free Clinic South. What can we help you with today?”
“We’re on patrol,” Uwabami says. “My interns gave some feedback that our patrol involved a little too much publicity –”
The students look unrepentant. Good for them. “So we’re engaging in some down-to-earth patrolling,” Uwabami continues. “Tell us about how heroes support your clinic.”
Heroes don’t support your clinic. Most heroes strongly dislike the free clinic network, and the feeling is mutual, for a bunch of reasons you’re more than willing to articulate. Then you think better of it. Picking a fight with a hero in front of hero students is a bad move if you want to get out of here any time soon, and if you’re going to keep helping Tenko, you need to stay completely off the heroic radar. You focus on the students instead. “You’re on internships, right? They’re supposed to show you what life will be like as a hero.”
“Yes,” the girl who’s not from 1-A says. “They’re supposed to.”
“We have a program like that here, too,” you say. You gesture for them to come forward, and they desert their supervising hero at high speed. “A lot of our nurses and techs started working here in high school. Let me introduce you.”
You’re on much more solid ground talking about this. This clinic and this program saved your ass – without their sponsorship, you’d never have been able to get around your quirklessness as a barrier to nursing school, and you started getting on-the-job clinical training while most other nursing students were stuck in the classroom. You catch yourself evangelizing a little bit, but you don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to do. You’re proud of the work you do as part of the clinic. It’s nice to get to talk about it.
You clear the hero students out in half an hour, hoping you’ve impressed them even a little bit, then hurry back to your patient. The diazepam’s kicked in nicely, and he chatters away to you while you stitch the tear in his mask. You learn that his name is Jin, or Bubaigawara, or Twice, which you’d guess are his first name, his family name, and his villain name, in that order. He doesn’t say how his mask got torn and you don’t ask, but you send him on his way in a better mood than before. “Thanks, sister,” he says on his way out the door. “You could be worse. You’re a saint!”
Different tone, different pitch, completely different meaning between the first sentence and the second. It reminds you of Kurogiri. You know enough villains now that you can compare them to one another. You shake your head, bemused, then head back inside. Time to guilt-trip your boss into letting you leave two hours early.
Your guilt-trip is successful, mostly because of how you handled the hero situation, but as you’re trying to sneak out, Yoshimi arrives for her scan. After you cajoled her into the office, you can’t abandon her to some random tech. You do abandon Mitsuko in the waiting room, though – she says the words “nipple discharge” as loudly as possible, then starts picking on the scant amount of makeup you did for your date. You don’t feel bad at all for leaving her behind.
Yoshimi’s scan goes quickly, and just like you feared, it nets her a follow-up appointment at the main branch of the free clinic tomorrow. Tomorrow’s your day off. You promise her you’ll go with her – you, and not Mitsuko or Yoji – then talk the doctor into sending her home with a dose of a different anti-anxiety medication than the one you got for Twice. Then you check your phone for the time. Almost ninety minutes exactly. You race out to the alley.
The mist engulfs you almost the instant you set foot in the alley, and you’re in the bar a moment later, facing Kurogiri. Tenko’s nowhere to be found, and before you can ask the question, Kurogiri turns and sets off through a doorway, deeper into the recesses of the building. You follow him, wondering if this counts as being taken to a secondary location. Or maybe the bar counts as the secondary location, even though you’ve been here before. Either way, you’ve listened to way too many of Mitsuru’s true-crime podcasts.
Kurogiri leads you into an absolutely filthy room. The floor is covered – empty wrappers, empty cans, old newspapers and magazines, plastic cases for game disks and chips. You have a bad feeling about who lives here, and when Kurogiri clears his throat and speaks up, you’re proven right. “Shigaraki Tomura. I have brought the girl.”
The only semi-organized spot in the room is a desk with two monitors on it, a keyboard in front of it, and Tenko slumped down with his head pillowed on one arm. He looks up, and for a split second, you can see that he’s happy even behind the hand. Then his face turns bright red and his expression twists into a snarl. “I told you not to bring her in here! Get out!”
You don’t need to be told twice. You duck out the door and retreat about twenty feet down the hallway, listening as Kurogiri tries to placate Tenko. “You asked for her to be brought to you immediately, not for me to summon you when she arrived. I followed your orders to the letter.”
“I didn’t want –” Tenko breaks off, swears. Then he mumbles something, and Kurogiri chuckles. “Don’t laugh at me!”
You check your phone. You aren’t supposed to meet Sugimura until eight, but you’ve got no idea how long this particular encounter is going to run. You might need to tell him you’re running late. You’ve just sent the text and tucked your phone away when Kurogiri reappears. “We will return to the bar,” he says. “Shigaraki Tomura awaits you there.”
So Kurogiri warped him to the bar. You wonder what that was all about. Was Tenko embarrassed that you saw how filthy his room was, or just embarrassed that you saw his room at all? Or did he change his mind about wanting you here? The last thought upsets you. You follow Kurogiri back into the bar and find Tenko sitting at the counter. It’s an improvement from the last time you saw him, when he was sprawled out and bleeding from four gunshot wounds, but this time he’s got his arms crossed, clearly pissed about something. His face is still red behind the hand. There’s a bloodstained bandage taped to his right shoulder.
A pile of supplies appears on the bar as you come closer. “What happened this time?”
“It wouldn’t stop bleeding.” Tenko uncrosses his left arm to gesture at the wound. “This is the fourth one I’ve used.”
If he’s gone through four bandages, it must be pretty deep. “How long ago did it happen?”
“Two hours,” Kurogiri says. “Shigaraki Tomura sent me to retrieve you immediately.”
“Can you fix it or not?” Tenko snaps.
“I need to see it first,” you say. You come a few steps closer, sit down facing Tenko on the barstool next to his, and reach for the bandage. He doesn’t stop you from unwrapping it, and you detour to glove up before you start peeling the fabric of his shirt back from the wound. It’s oozing blood rapidly. It’s jagged at the edges, and deep – if you suctioned the blood away, you’d be looking at exposed muscle, and you’re so horrified by the fact that Tenko’s been badly hurt again that you ask a question you shouldn’t. “How did this happen?”
“Hero Killer,” Tenko says, and your stomach lurches. “I thought he might be useful, but he’s just like the rest of them. Obsessed with the precious Symbol of Peace.”
You don’t know very much about the Hero Killer, except that he kills or cripples heroes and he’s not in Yokohama any longer. Tenko’s still ranting. “Why can’t anybody shut up about All Might? Don’t they know –”
“That he’s not gonna fuck them?” you interrupt, and Tenko nearly chokes. “I guess they can dream.”
Tenko’s expression is contorting behind the hand. You’re pretty sure it’s not the result of your explorations of the wound, because you’re not touching it. You watch, concerned, as his shoulders shake and his mouth twitches, until awkward, rusty laughter finally issues from his mouth.
You always try to make people laugh. You’ve been in the habit since you were little. It’s an effective strategy for defusing tension, whether the joke is funny or not, and your jokes are usually at least kind of funny. But you always liked making Tenko laugh when you were kids. You were always just a little prouder of that than you were with other people. Tenko made people smile all the time. He deserved for somebody to make him laugh, too.
Tenko’s laughter is brief and uneven, because he’s trying to get it under control. “Stop it,” he finally snaps at you. His mouth is still twitching. “It’s serious.”
“Right,” you agree. But you can’t resist another joke. “It would be a novel strategy. If you can’t beat the Symbol of Peace, make him unfuckable instead.”
“I can beat him,” Tenko says, but his voice is strained to the point of snapping, and his shoulders are shaking again. “Can you fix my arm or not?”
“I can fix it,” you say, “but I’ll need a suture kit. And I’ll either need to cut your sleeve or you’ll need to take your shirt off.”
“I’m not taking my shirt off.” Tenko’s face is red again. “It’s ruined anyway. Just cut it.”
You cut his sleeve open from the neckline and peel it back, then go looking through the medical supplies. Kurogiri took your advice about additions to their supplies, and nothing turned up missing at work, which means they honored your request to steal from someone else. You’ve got local anesthetic this time, which is good, because you need it. You start numbing the edges of the wound, asking every so often if Tenko can feel what you’re doing. When he stops saying yes, you open the suture kit.
It’s a bit weird, but putting stitches in is one of your favorite parts of the job. You can get in the zone with it, even when the patient wants to talk. Tenko wants to talk. “People talk about the League of Villains out there. Don’t they?” he asks. You nod. “What do they say?”
“Um –” You’re not sure this is an answer Tenko wants to hear. “They’re wondering why the attack on UA happened.”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Like, if there was a message behind it,” you elaborate. You need to be careful, with the stitches and with this line of thought. “More than just killing All Might, because lots of villains want to do that. If there was a message, it didn’t get out. The police and UA haven’t shared much information – not even how the breach happened in the first place.”
Tenko scoffs. “They don’t have a clue. They won’t see it coming the next time we hit them, either.”
He’s planning something else. Your blood runs cold, and for a moment you’re torn about whether or not to ask. Tenko makes the decision for you. “What else do they say about the League?”
“Not very much, otherwise,” you say, and Tenko swears. “There are a lot of villains, just like there are a lot of heroes. People talk about the ones they see the most of.”
“Which heroes do you talk about?”
“I don’t really talk about heroes.” You tie off a stitch, trim the thread to the appropriate length, and take another. “One of my friends has this nasty crush on Endeavor, so we talk about him sometimes, but otherwise – no.”
“Your friend has a crush on Endeavor,” Tenko repeats.
“Like I said. Nasty.”
You’re conscious of Tenko staring at you, and you will your face not to heat up under his gaze. You don’t even know why he’s staring, and you’ve got stitches to do, so it doesn’t matter. Your phone buzzes in your pocket – probably Sugimura, probably confirming your date. A date you’re not sure you want to go on anymore. Did you ever really want to go on it? Or did you just say yes because –
“You look weird.”
You look up from the stitches, startled. “Huh?”
“You look weird,” Tenko repeats. “Your clothes are different and you’ve got stuff on your face.”
Tenko and Mitsuko feel the same about your makeup skills, apparently. “Sorry.”
“Why do you look like that?” Tenko presses. You tie off his next stitch. “Are you going on a date or something?”
You answer without thinking about whether it’s the smart thing to do. “Yes.”
It’s quiet for a long stretch of seconds. “Go on your date, then,” Tenko says. His voice is flat. “I don’t need you.”
It stings. You don’t want it to, but it does, and you look down at the cut on his shoulder so he won’t see it on your face. “You still need a few more stitches. At least let me finish them.”
“No. Get out.” Tenko jerks out of your grip. You barely have enough time to cut the hanging thread on your last stitch. “I don’t want you here. Kurogiri –”
“Shigaraki Tomura, I’m not sure that’s wise.”
“I didn’t ask you!” Tenko swats at you open-handed and you leap backwards. “Get out! I don’t –”
You don’t hear the end of that sentence. Kurogiri warps you away too fast, and possibly saves your life. He drops you back in the alley behind the clinic, holding half a suture kit and still wearing bloodstained gloves. You peel them off and dump them into the garbage, furious with yourself. You shouldn’t have said that. You shouldn’t have talked about your life at all, and above all else, you should have remembered that you were talking to a villain, not your best friend – that whatever’s left of your best friend isn’t enough. He’s angry with you, and he’s been having you followed. Just how angry is he? Angry enough to hurt you? Or angry enough to never talk to you again?
You’re sickened and more than a little scared to realize that you’re more frightened of the latter possibility than the former. It’s entirely possible that you’ve never been in less of a mood to go on a date.
But you do go on the date, because you said you would, and it’s – fine. There’s nothing to complain about, but there’s nothing to be excited about, either. You and Sugimura hug to say goodbye, and you promise to text each other about setting up another one, and then you walk home. Mitsuko texts you, wanting details, or DETAILS, but you’ve got nothing to share. It was just a date, and no matter how many times you try to tell yourself otherwise, you’re angry about it.
Not because of Sugimura asking you out, not because you agreed, not because you went. Because you told Tenko and gave him a reason to get rid of you. Why does this keep happening? Why do you keep finding him and losing him, over and over again? What is it going to take for you to hold on?
“So how was the date?”
The voice emanates from the alleyway on your right and you nearly jump out of your skin. Tenko’s there, hand down from over his face, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He hasn’t changed his shirt. “I didn’t think heroes were your type.”
“They aren’t.”
“Then why were you on a date with one?”
“He asked.”
“And you just go with whoever asks?” Tenko looks half-incredulous, half-disgusted. You shake your head. “Forget it. Come with me.”
You shake your head again and take a step back – away from the alley, closer to the street. Tenko looks frustrated. “Come with me,” he repeats.
“What, so you can kill me?” You take another step back, well into the glow of a streetlight. You see shock flicker across Tenko’s face. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“Well, I don’t want to kill you,” Tenko fires back. He looks surprised at himself for saying it, but only for a moment – then he repeats himself, with more conviction. “I don’t want to kill you. You’re supposed to be my sidekick.”
Your jaw drops. “You remember?”
“I don’t remember everything.” Tenko takes the hand called Father out of the back pocket of his pants and studies it for a moment. Then he puts it away. “I remember that.”
Some kids played a different game every day. You and Tenko always played the same one, with a rotating cast of classmates at your side. All the heroes in the world were working together to fight one big villain, the worst villain the world had ever seen, and Tenko could never decide which hero he liked best, so he played a different one every day. But no matter which hero he played, no matter who else was playing with the two of you, you were always his sidekick. You reminded him every day that you didn’t have a quirk, and he always said the same thing in response, no matter which hero he was pretending to be that day, even though he didn’t have a quirk, either: You don’t need a quirk to be on my side. My quirk’s enough for both of us.
“Come on,” Tenko says again. He holds out his hand, three fingers and his thumb folded down, his pinky finger extended towards you. “Are you coming or what?”
You’ve never seen the world in black and white, but some things are unmistakable: There’s a line here, not visible to others but clear as day to you. On one side of it is Tenko and the darkness that’s swallowed him, the evil that surrounds him, the terrible things he’s done and is planning to do. On the other side is everything else – your dreams, your friends, your family that’s always loved you but used you anyway, a world that’s punished you time and time again for being born without a quirk, the knowledge that the world is so much crueler to so many others. You don’t think Tenko’s planning to kidnap you, to never let you leave. You’ll come back here, physically. You’ll go home and go to sleep and wake up early on your day off to take Yoshimi to her appointment at the main clinic, but you know instinctively that if you cross this line within yourself, there’s no coming back. Tenko was your best friend when you were five years old. Is he worth it?
You hate yourself for asking the question. You leave the light behind and link your finger with Tenko’s. “Where are we going?”
The black mist rises and wells up around you both. “You’ll see,” Tenko says, and for the first time since you found him again, he smiles.
#shigaraki tomura x reader#tomura shigaraki x reader#shigaraki x reader#shigaraki x you#x reader#reader insert#shigaraki tomura#please hold
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5 - Essence
I did it! I finished a fic!
*makes note in calendar for this is a day to be MARKED*
Never mind that I already have a spin-off idea… this is complete. And, I’m actually really proud of it. There are clumsy parts, I can always see things I want to improve but I think the ideas are good and I like it.
Hope those who’ve enjoyed the previous chapters think I’ve done this part of Scotty and Virgil’s story justice. And will forgive how viciously I’ve tortured a metaphor…
Presence, Absence, Divulgence, Patience…
💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚
Virgil and Scotty’s plan was simple. 726 meant 7th floor. His room was 625. So he just needed to get up one floor and along a room… unless the numbering was haphazardly allocated. But it probably would be fine.
They slipped out of the door and hurried away from the ruckus happening elsewhere on the psych ward. Virgil took a moment to wish whoever it was improved health very soon. They turned the corner. Well, Virgil did, Scott cut through the corner just to show off. Then they were out of sight and could breathe for a moment. Virgil clutched the pillow he’d brought in one hand and the waistband of the undignified pyjama pants in the other. Which meant no hand free to hold Scotty’s but he was in the lead and half way down the corridor anyway. So Virgil followed.
They’d get caught on the main stairs or in the lift so they were going to use the fire escape.
Scott hung back as they approached the door and let Virgil do the honours of leaning on the bar to open it. He jumped in horror as alarms blared and he clutched the pillow to one ear while trying to block the other with his shoulder, waistband still clutched with a white knuckled grip. Scotty gave him a meaningful look so he swallowed hard and leapt out on to the metal staircase. They were… a long way from the ground. As his brother had suggested, he dropped the pillow over the edge and watched it fall and land in a hedge. Then he tiptoed as quickly as he could up one floor and crouched by the door… hopefully nobody would look up. He closed his eyes and tried to tune out the harsh clanging noise which seemed to be trying to split his brain into two. The scent of cut grass and sun baked concrete was overwhelming after the antibacterial monotony of the hospital ward.
It worked like a dream. Three people came rushing out on to the stairway, one spotted the gleam of white below and they thundered down and down and down the stairs, the vibrations making Virgil’s teeth rattle. He hardly dared breathe. Scott however, refused to be stealthy and was standing on the railing doing a ridiculous victory dance. Virgil hissed at him to get down. He knew Scott wouldn’t fall, his balance was borderline superhuman, but it would be bad if he was seen.
Right, he had made it this far and still had his pants. Now to get on to level seven.
This part did not go to plan. They had forgotten… the fire doors only opened from the inside. Scott facepalmed in despair and Virgil told his brother not to blame himself… he hadn’t thought of it either. Ok. Take stock and work the solution.
The door wouldn’t give a millimetre. Scotty suggested smashing it with a rock but the rocks were seven storeys down along with the people he could still hear hunting them. Virgil looked around desperately. The window to the room nearest the fire escape was cracked open. It would have to do.
Scotty took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye, smiling encouragingly. Virgil felt encouragement was all very well but how was he going to climb over there with one hand unavailable? He didn’t want to risk falling to his death without his trousers either. Scott suggested maybe if he’d got more rescue scout badges he’d be able to fix them. Virgil scowled at the familiar dig because he’d spent more time on music than tying knots and whatever.. but it did give him an idea. Mr Made-it-all-the-way-to-Falcon didn’t seem willing to part with his belt, so Virgil tore a strip off his pyjama top and bunched the waistband tight, tying the excess fabric together. Then cautiously let go. It held.
Alright.
He did feel a little wobbly as he climbed over the railing but hoped that was just a natural reaction to the horrifying drop below him rather than any lingering effects of the sedatives. Scott gave him two thumbs up then rubbed the back of his neck as he frowned over at the window. Virgil hoped he wasn’t having second thoughts because he couldn’t do this by himself. He hooked a foot around the railings behind him and feigned a confidence he didn’t have to bolster his brother by letting himself tip forward until his hands caught the windowsill. Ok. He pulled at the window to open it more and froze in horror.
It was a hospital. Of course every window would have a limiter on it to restrict how far it opened. So people couldn’t climb out.
Or in.
He looked back at Scotty who was in full pacing SmotherHen mode. Virgil could just ask his brother to pull him back and they could come up with another plan but found he didn’t want to give up yet. Resolutely not looking down he kept a firm grip on the windowsill with one hand and slipped the other into the gap, feeling for the mechanism that was causing all the trouble. There was a screw. He put all of his strength into forcing it loose, fortunately the fine motor control seemed to have returned along with his strength. He grunted with the effort then bit his lip. It wouldn’t do for someone to hear him now.
It moved! Then it spun and came off in his hand. He let it clatter to the floor, too late for stealth now, and pushed the window open wide. Thankful for the years working on his upper body strength he heaved himself through the window and slithered to the floor, landing with a thud and his trousers round his knees. His face burned and he scrabbled to make himself decent, looking in panic around the room for anyone who might have seen but… the room was empty. He sighed in relief and got to his feet.
This room smelled different. It was a different kind of empty to the ward he’d been on. The sort of empty that had recently been full then emptied suddenly but not yet scrubbed clean. Maybe the occupant had gone home. He hoped the occupant had gone home. Virgil stood there, a little lost all of a sudden, wondering whether he and Scotty would both get to go home one day.
Scotty squeezed his shoulder. That meant he was proud. Virgil glowed. It had been a pretty awesome stunt all things considered. They were a great team. And they were nearly there.
He opened the door slowly, silently and peered out. All was quiet. He started moving stealthily to the next room, but had to turn back to shush Scotty who was whistling nonchalantly. He’d get them caught! And worse, it was horribly off key. Virgil was sure he did it on purpose to annoy him.
The next room said 726! This was the one! He went to high-five Scotty and over-balanced slightly as his childish brother moved his hand away just in time. He really was an idiot. But he was Virgil’s favourite idiot so it was good he was here. He looked around one last time then tried the handle and pushed open the door.
And froze.
He’d got it wrong… must have misheard the number. This was some old guy’s room. The stench of antiseptic and panic was strong in here. Virgil clenched his fists in frustration and turned away. He’d just have to check every single room in the place. He knew his brother was here somewhere and he wasn’t sure when the chance to sneak away would come again.
He took three steps then froze as his brain caught up with the information his eyes had sent through moments before: Dad’s jacket was hanging on the back of the chair next to the bed.
Huh?
He shuffled back and looked again. Maybe just a similar jacket? A foot was sticking out from the bottom of the sheets, the man was tall like Scott, but it was thin and frail. This guy was about 80 and had a beard and looked… done. Poor guy.
He glanced at the name card that had been inserted into the slot at the foot of the bed.
Tracy, Scott Carpenter
His heart soared and plummeted within a single breathless moment. It must be a mistake… everything was wrong. The little of this body not padded by bandages was skeletal, ancient-looking. Where there should be strong warm hands were wires and splints and the darkness of bruising. The man’s cheekbones were like knives, below deeply shadowed eye sockets in which reddened eyelids flickered. Sweat beaded his face. The little hair visible beneath the dressings on his head was too long, the beard too… beardy. The click and whirr of the machine breathing for the stranger was alien. The heart rate monitor was agonisingly arrhythmic and definitely too fast. His brother’s pulse was always steady - Virgil had felt it many times through a tightly gripped wrist as they stood somewhere way too high and Virgil’s own heart raced in anticipation of the next crazy stunt. Or through a gentle thumb in a handhold when he was nervous. Or best of all ear to chest when surrounded by his brother’s arms.
There was a familiarity but… no. This wasn’t his brother. It couldn’t be.
He looked up at Scotty who smiled at him sadly and tilted his head towards the haggard face on the pillow. Virgil crept closer and slipped into the chair to study it. The ears were the same, except a little swelling behind and even more bruising. He couldn’t even start to think about any human could get into this state, let alone…
Virgil’s eyes dropped to the faint white scar on the bottom of the man’s jaw, just to the side of his chin. The relic of an old misadventure, barely visible under the patchwork of red and black and purple, but instantly recognisable to the boy who’d tried to tape it together with sticking plasters. If they’d owned up and his brother had got the stitches he needed at the time, it would never have scarred. But, as with so many things, those blue eyes had pleaded with him and he’d done his best to help.
He looked back over his shoulder to where Scotty had been standing guard, seeking his reassurance.
But he was gone.
He turned back to Scotty in the bed, heart torn into shreds by his inability to help this time. This was beyond sticking plasters and hugs and promises not to tell. His head swam and the other words that voice had said to his father, the ones he had refused to acknowledge or understand, came floating to the surface. The possibility Scott might not…
No. Not while Virgil still had blood in his veins. They were together now and everything would be alright.
He reached out a tentative finger and stroked the one small area of cheek that wasn’t obviously injured and then rested his head gently on the pillow alongside his brother’s, close enough that his face brushed the side of Scott’s but not so close he might cause painful pressure. Little brother inhaled deeply through his nose, seeking a semblance of calm to counter the fear rising in his chest and then held his breath, hardly daring to believe. Hiding behind the antiseptic and the plastic and the soap and the hollow cleanliness of it all, something was filling the emptiness. A faint melody, unique, as familiar as his own. A music that meant safety, and that he wasn’t alone. A music that meant home.
The constant erratic beeping noise slowed, almost imperceptibly, and fell into a steady rhythm.
A brand new score had been opened. But Virgil knew the notes now. They’d compose this next version together.
💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚
#thunderbirds are go#thunderbirds#thunderbirds fanfiction#idontknowreallywhy fanfic#scott tracy#virgil tracy#Tw: mental health#Tw: hospital#Tw: war#Presence fic
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these summer nights (chapter one)
pairing: DCA sun/moon/eclipse x reader
mentions: summer camp au, gender neutral reader, alcohol consumption (reader takes a shot), ocs (kind of)
a/n: well it's finally here! and in time for summer too! im so sorry ch1 is such a beast omfg... i tried to split it, but there was no solid point for me to do so, so it ended up over 10k words LOL (<- in agonee). check out the masterlist for more info on the fic (tags & summary). hope u guys enjoy! :D
word count: 11.8k+
masterlist
ao3 link
You’d found the job listing in a Craigslist ad, of all places.
Because who even used Craigslist nowadays anyway? You, apparently, in your boredom and desperation to get a summer job. Your semester was about to end and you’d found yourself looking at a very uneventful, money-less summer. You’d completely forgotten to apply to internships with the whirlwind of work and studying you had to do while school was in session. Which inevitably led to you scrolling through all manners of websites and flipping through newspapers in an attempt to find a job at the last minute that you could possibly do. You needed the money, you had to admit. Bills didn’t pay themselves and the on-campus job you had during the school year unfortunately didn’t carry over into the summer.
At first your eyes had glanced over the ad in the dreary haze that’d come over you due to hours of mindless scrolling. Then you did a double take when you saw the pay. Thirty-five dollars per hour. Thirty-five. What the hell?! That was significantly more than the minimum wage you were earning through your university. If you did this job, you’d be cruising for a bit during your final year in school. It almost made you think it was a scam.
You quickly skimmed through the job’s small blurb. It was for a full-time summer camp counselor at some place called Camp Fazbear. Three months in the woods with a bunch of kids. Hm. You opened a new tab and did a quick search for ‘Camp Fazbear’. Links to an official site popped up. It seemed legitimate—that was good enough for you. Closing the tab, you returned to the job listing and skipped right down to the requirements.
You didn’t really have any experience with children on your resume, but that pay was seriously no joke. And they covered lodging and food for you? Holy shit, it was a steal. It wouldn’t hurt to apply. You might as well, honestly, especially with how unsuccessful you’d been with getting any responses from other internships. A few clicks later, you’d submitted your resume and reference letters through the website’s portal. Your hopes weren’t too high, but you’d be dumb to not at least attempt to get an interview. What was that saying about missing all the shots you didn’t take? Yeah, that.
A few days later, you got a response email asking for your availability for a phone interview. And suddenly, things seemed to be moving a bit too fast for your tastes.
You’d nailed the “interview,” apparently, for you were sent a bunch of papers to sign. Waivers, background checks, contracts, housing agreements. You had to watch some trainee videos, take a drug test, and do a joint CPR and first aid course. And as soon as you were done with your finals, you packed up your things into a large suitcase, settled the sub-leasing for your apartment for the summer, and drove your way down to Camp Fazbear.
It was a bit of a long drive, going from the small city your university was in to the middle of the woods. You watched as concrete and brick buildings were replaced by wide, open fields and vibrant green forestry. You got lost a few times, made a few wrong turns and got off at an exit that you swore was the right one, but eventually you found yourself passing under a large arch over the road that said Welcome to Camp Fazbear. There was some drawing of a bear on it, but you didn’t get a good look at it. Probably the camp mascot or something.
You eventually came up to a security checkpoint. The guard lounging around in the little cabin flashed you a lazy grin and checked your I.D., cross referencing it with a list he had. Then he lifted the gate arm, waved you in, and returned his gaze back to the small T.V. on the desk in front of him. You eased your car back into motion, cruising down the road until you had to make a turn onto a dirt pathway. Not too far now—you were close. Sure enough, a large, wooden lodge appeared as you rounded a corner, surrounded by trees and bushes.
There was an area in front of the lodge that looked like a small parking lot with all the dirt packed down and uniform. There was another small, silver car positioned by a bush. You parked your car in front of a tree with a small parking sign nailed to it, killed the engine, and unbuckled yourself so you could step outside. Immediately, the fresh smell of leaves and grass, wood and earth, invaded your senses. You inhaled deeply and exhaled it all in a deep sigh. The air here was much fresher than the city’s. It made you feel lighter. You closed your car door behind you and clicked your keys to lock it. You didn’t expect anyone to try to rob you all the way out here, but still, habits.
Dirt crunched under the soles of your sneakers as you made your way up the few stairs of the lodge to its entrance. But before you could rap on the door, it swung open of its own accord, a tall, blond-haired man beaming a smile at you.
“Ah, you’re here early!” he said brightly, stepping to the side to wave you in. “Saw you pulling in on the cameras. Come in, come in!” You thanked him and stepped into the air-conditioned room. You recognized his voice as the man who did your phone interview.
“You must be Mr. Emily?” you asked as you spun around to watch him close the door behind you. He was wearing a pair of blue overalls over a white shirt. He nodded and confirmed your own name, then began to walk across the room. It was a small reception area, by the looks of it, with a desk to the left and a few chairs and couches to the right. Potted plants decorated the corners of the room. Fairy lights were strung up over the entrances. Cute.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Mr. Emily asked you as he led you through the reception area and into a larger room with more seating arrangements that had a rather tall ceiling. A chandelier hung elegantly in the center of it. Interspaced doors lined the wall to your right. Glass windows let in golden sunlight that bathed the area in a warm glow. There was a staircase that led to an upper gallery to the left with more rooms connected to it. Directly across from you was a large set of glass doors that led further into the camp, from what you could see. “I imagine the drive must have been a bit of a long one.”
“I’m fine, thank you. It wasn’t too bad,” you told him, still looking around at all the decor and furnishing. There were some bright stuffed animals sitting on a few of the sofas and loveseats. A wooden smell permeated the air, likely due to the strong oak the building was made of. Mr. Emily led you into one of the rooms along the rightmost wall. It was his office, from the looks of it, with a large L-shaped desk tucked in the far left corner and a few chairs positioned in front of it. Pictures and drawings lined the walls. Most notably, though, were the blueprints he had, either along his desk’s surface, or pinned to the walls.
“Excuse the mess,” he said hastily as he began clearing away some of the blueprints, rolling them up to shove to the side. You couldn’t really make out what was on them, but the ones on the wall looked like… robots? Kind of cool. “I hadn’t expected you to be here so soon! Not an issue, of course. Better early than late!” He shot you a smile that you mirrored as you sat down on one of his chairs.
“Sorry, traffic wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.” You’d left pretty early, too, just in case. You scratched the back of your head and found yourself looking at a little bear plushie that sat on one of the shelves above his desk. Aw.
Mr. Emily waved a hand at you in dismissal as he sat in his desk chair across from you. “All good. Now. I’ve received all your paperwork, of course. Let’s see…” he trailed off as he rummaged around and pulled out some papers from within one of his desk drawers. He started leafing through them. “You did the required training and got your certifications. Good, good. Contract has been signed, a direct deposit has been set up… Excellent.” He mumbled to himself a bit as he clipped the papers together and shoved them into a manilla folder with your name on it. He then set it to the side and looked up at you. “Right! So, since you’re here a bit early, I’ll have one of our more senior counselors give you a tour. I’m waiting for the others to arrive so I can get introductions and the small orientation out of the way.”
You nodded, fidgeting slightly with your fingers. “And the kids haven’t arrived yet, right?”
Mr. Emily shook his head and bent down slightly to grab at something under his desk. “Oh no, no, they’ll be here in a few days. We need to get a few more preparations done and get all the new counselors ready for their duties.” He straightened up and lifted a small tote bag into the air to hand over to you. “Here! Your uniform and a few other things!”
“Thanks.” You grabbed the bag from his hand and looked down at the design on it. There were little suns and moons all over it. Peeking through the top of the bag, you saw two collared orange shirts tucked inside along with a little nametag and a water bottle. There was also a keychain and some stickers. Your gaze softened. How nice! “I’m assuming I have to wear the shirt every day?”
“Yes,” Mr. Emily confirmed. “It makes it easier for kids to locate their assigned counselor. You’re allowed to wear any sort of pants with it, be it jeans or khakis or shorts.”
You bobbed your head alongside the information you were receiving and opened your mouth to ask a question. But before you could get it out, there was a knock at the door.
“Enter!” Mr. Emily called out, and you turned around to see another man walk into the office. He was rather tall, with light brown hair that appeared even lighter in the sunlight, tanned skin, and dark blue eyes that immediately landed on you. He gave you a smile. Mr. Emily clapped his hands together. “Ah! Michael! Perfect timing.”
“This one of the newbies?” Michael asked with a bit of an English accent, quirking an eyebrow up at you as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans.
You introduced yourself. “Am I gonna be known as a newbie for the entire summer?”
Michael grinned at you. “Pretty much. But hey, at least you’re not the only one.” You sighed to show your reluctant acceptance.
“Michael here will give you that tour I’d mentioned,” Mr. Emily told you as he stood up from his desk chair and started gently ushering the two of you out. You stood up and patted your pockets down to make sure you still had your phone, keys, and wallet. You did. “Go on, I still have much to do. I’ll contact Michael once the others have arrived so you both can come back here. Off you go!”
“Alright, alright, see ya Henry.” Michael waved a hand as he exited the office with you trailing behind him. You gave Mr. Emily a farewell, your tote bag slung over your shoulder, and jogged to catch up to Michael while he walked towards the exit leading to the rest of the camp.
“He seems nice,” you mused out loud, stepping outside into the warm sunlight and slight breeze wafting through the air. Ah, this was nice.
“Who, Henry? Yeah, he’s great,” Michael replied with a faint smile. He made his way down the stairs of the lodge and started leading you across a wide, open space. “Crazy smart, too. He could be doing anything, and yet he’s here.” There was a moment where Michael looked thoughtful, but then he shook it away. “Anyways. Welcome to Camp Fazbear, where happiness and fun come to life, yadda yadda. This is the main pavilion area.” He waved his hand across the large space you were in. There were hardly any trees apart from the ones lining the pavilion’s perimeter. A couple campfire pits were spread out here and there, surrounded by massive logs and a few chairs. There were some picnic tables as well.
Michael pointed to another large, wooden building to the left of the space. “That’s the main mess hall. It’s where the kids go for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Err… oh! There’s a map over here if you wanna check it out.” He walked over to a large board to the side of the mess hall that had a map on it protected by glass. You stepped up closer so you could observe it.
“Man, this place is huge,” you commented as your eyes raked over the map. A ziplining area, lake, pool, field, rope course, bathhouses, and a bunch of other miscellaneous buildings were just a few of the things that greeted you. Shit, you hadn’t expected it to be this big. It was kind of scary, but also very exciting. You’d give anything to be a kid staying at this place for the summer—it looked like it would be a hell of a time.
Michael snorted. “Yeah. Makes it a pain when you have to walk everywhere.” He gestured at you to follow him and the two of you continued your way across the pavilion and onto a path lined with more trees. There were a bunch of other workers milling about, likely helping to get the camp ready for opening in a few days. Most of them looked busy, but a few offered you and Michael a smile or little wave in greeting. At least the people here were nice.
“So… you’re a college student, right?” Michael asked you after a moment of silence interrupted by the occasional crunching dirt or snapping twig under your shoes.
“Yeah, going in the final year for my Master’s program.” You couldn’t help but let your gaze drift about, taking in the way the honey-colored sunlight filtered through the green canopies above you. It was gorgeous. Very scenic. You could get used to this.
He hummed. “I’m a fourth year grad student. A lot of our counselors are college aged, if not most. ‘S why we have a kinda high turnover rate. People graduate and go off to do other things.” Grad student? You wondered what he was getting his PhD in.
“Makes sense.” You paused as you remembered one of the questions you had. “Actually, what do you guys do when it’s not summer? Close down everything?”
Michael shook his head and watched a bird fly overhead through the leaves. “Nah. Well, we close for two months, but then we reopen as a winter resort kind of thing. We get a lot of snow over here. Then we close again for another two months and open back up the summer camp.”
“That’s pretty cool,” you admitted, thinking about all the work that must go into switching from a camp to a resort. “Seems like a lot to do, though.”
“Oh for sure”—Michael shot you a grin—“but we have hardworking people, so it works out.”
It’s a minute before you both emerge into another open space, this one with brightly colored cabins positioned around it. You recognized the characters on some of the cabins as being the same as the stuffed animals you saw in the first lodge.
“Who are all those characters?” you asked, pointing to one of the cabins that had a white and pink chicken painted on it that matched its similarly-colored decor. “Are they all camp mascots? I thought there was only the bear.”
Michael gave you an odd look and stopped in front of the cabins, where there was another small fire pit with benches around it in a circle. “Mascots? No? Those are the main counselors.”
You gave him an odd look back. “What.” You thought you were the main counselor—or one of them, anyways.
He stared at you. You stared at him. “What do you mean ‘what’? Didn’t you read the job description?”
At that, your look turned slightly sheepish. “Um, I may or may not have skimmed it and any paperwork Mr. Emily sent to me.” Embarrassment crept up your neck and into your cheeks. Maybe you should have read through things more carefully…
Michael’s look turned incredulous. “Okay, first of all, ew, call him Henry, he’s not that old. Second of all, did you really accept this job without fully researching it? Did nothing about the animatronics pop up during your interview??”
“Listen, I was desperate,” you half-heartedly argued. “And no. It wasn’t much of an interview, honestly. He just confirmed my information and asked me about my availability and background.” Animatronics?? What did you get yourself into?
Michael blinked slowly at you, then raised a hand to his forehead. “Incredible. I’m actually impressed. I don’t know how you dodged this information.” He shook his head slowly and gestured to the cabins. “Those characters are the main summer counselors. They’re all robots with self-learning A.I. Your job is as a counselor, sure, but it’s mainly to support them and act as a handler of sorts for who you get paired with.”
Self-learning A.I.? You knew robots were a thing that was slowly becoming more integrated and accepted in society, but you didn’t expect a summer camp of all places to have them. “You’re joking,” you said flatly. Michael gave you a deadpanned look. “You’re not joking.”
“Nope. I told you Henry’s a genius.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned to look at the cabin with that familiar brown bear on it.
“How did parents even agree to this type of thing?” you wondered. You could see how sending kids to a three-month long camp where most of their supervision would come from robots would seem rather… extreme. Especially for those with less progressive perspectives.
“That’s the thing,” Michael replied, “not all of them were entirely comfortable with it. And the government got on our arses for all-robot counselors, so we had to hire human handlers. It’s worked so far.” He gave you a shrug.
“That’s fuckin’ crazy, dude,” you finally blurted out after you took a few moments to process everything. “Robot counselors. I feel like I’m in the future.”
Michael let out a deep laugh that made you perk up slightly. It sounded nice. “I’ve gotten used to it by now. They’re honestly no different than working with people—maybe even better.” He pointed to the cabin on the far left decorated in red, purple, and gray with a wolf painted on it. “That’s Roxanne, Roxy for short. The next one is Chica’s.” Oh that’s who the chicken was. Made sense. His finger moved along. “Then Montgomery, or Monty.” The alligator’s cabin was painted with greens and purples. “Freddy Fazbear himself.” At least now you had a name for the bear and his orange and blue cabin. “And finally Sundrop and Moondrop. Sun and Moon for short.”
That last cabin was half painted in yellows and oranges while the other half was in grays and dark blues. You raised an eyebrow at the two animatronics painted on their respective sides—they looked like polar opposites, though they both had a crescent moon across the same side of their face—and turned to give Michael a confused look. “Why does that cabin have two of them?” It was a sharp contrast from the others.
“Oh, Sun and Moon are one animatronic. Sun comes out during the day, and Moon comes out at night. It’s a cool light sensitivity mechanic,” Michael explained to you, causing an ooohhh to escape your lips. You had to agree; that was pretty cool.
“So where are they now?” you asked, your eyes looking about as though you could catch a glimpse of the animatronics, wherever they were. Now that you knew they were part of the camp, you were excited to meet them—if a bit nervous.
“They’re in rest mode, charging up for later.” Michael took that moment to glance at his watch. “Speaking of which, we should move on if we wanna hit everything before Henry radios.”
You nodded and followed alongside Michael as he guided you past the cabins to point out the bathhouses (“Your cabin room has your own bathroom attached to it, so you won’t have to share with the kids,” he told you amusedly after spotting the less-than-pleased look on your face) and additional storage buildings. He took you practically around the entire camp, leading you past the lake and its boathouse, the pool, a giant field for miscellaneous activities with a playground tucked in one corner, and the ziplining area. You were certain that you would get lost in the first few days—maybe even weeks—of being here, but at least you wouldn’t be completely alone.
As you were both slowly making your way back around to the main lodge, Michael told you about some of the security measures Camp Fazbear had. He pointed out a few of the hidden cameras in the forestline in addition to the more obvious ones perched at the top of the solar-powered lamp posts. There sure was a lot of security. You wondered why. “There’s a cutoff point in the woods where kids can’t go past. It’s obvious where it is, since there’s a bunch of signs and cameras around the perimeter, but we usually don’t have issues with kids wandering past it by accident.”
You hummed, eying the blinking red dot on one of the surveillance cameras as you both walked by it. Michael continued, “The animatronics are connected to the cameras anyways, so they’ll be instantly alerted just in case, but they can’t really cross the boundary line unless one of the exceptions in their protocols are reached.” He paused for a moment and scratched his head. “Henry’ll probably go over all this in the orientation. Sorry, I know it’s a lot of info.”
“That’s okay, it’s kinda interesting,” you admitted. “I didn’t expect Camp Fazbear to be so… high tech. I thought it was a regular old summer camp, y’know? Like, ‘no technology for three months’ type of thing.”
Michael chuckled. The two of you stepped off the pathway through the woods you were following and back onto the main pavilion. There were more uniformed people bustling around here, carrying boxes of this and that. “Well, with robot counselors it was kind of a given that the camp would be a bit atypical.” You gave him a look that practically screamed oh really? He snorted, then added, “Besides, we still confiscate phones, so it’s still kinda no tech for the summer.”
“Aw, really?” you complained lightheartedly, one of your hands covering the pocket your phone was in defensively. “Counselors too?”
“Yeah”—Michael tossed an apologetic look your way—“Have to set an example for the kids, after all.”
“Booo, hissss.”
“Yeah, yeah, complain all you want— Oh! I forgot to point this out earlier. That’s the maintenance building over there.” Michael pointed to a slightly smaller building hidden past the large mess hall. You hadn’t even noticed it. “At the end of every week the animatronics need to do a maintenance check. Just a scan to make sure all their systems are working properly. So it’ll be up to you to make sure they’re functioning as they should.” Oh man, this was a lot to keep track of.
“I should make a checklist or something,” you murmured, more to yourself than Michael, but he laughed anyway.
“Yeah, that’s what I did when I first started out.” There it was again, that same thoughtful expression on his face. It was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. You wondered what he was thinking about.
Just then, the walkie-talkie clipped to Michael’s waist—that you realized had been partially hidden under his shirt this whole time—gave a little bzzt before a familiar voice floated out of it. “Henry to Michael.”
Michael unclipped the walkie and held it up to his mouth. “Yo.”
“Everyone’s here, right on time. Head back to the lodge, over.”
“On our way, over.” Michael glanced at you as he reclipped the walkie to his jeans. “We timed this perfectly, it seems. C’mon, it’s orientation time.”
It was a short walk across the pavilion back to the lodge. Michael led the way up the small set of wooden stairs and through the doors, aiming for Henry’s office. He’d left the door open, and once you and Michael stepped through, you were able to see the three other people crammed into the space around Henry’s desk. They all turned around to look at you and Michael. The sudden attention made you plaster a polite smile onto your face. You held onto the shoulder of your tote bag and said a quiet “Hello.” You got a few nods in response.
“That was fast!” Henry said cheerfully from his desk chair. He gestured at the two of you to step in closer. “Come in, let’s get you all introduced. Close the door, Michael.” A quiet creak preceded the click of the door shutting. You shuffled as close as you dared to the backs of the chairs two people were sitting on and looked at Henry as he started speaking again. “Okay! We can start with a little icebreaker.” Aw man, you hated icebreakers. “Name and favorite summertime activity. I’ll go first! My name is Henry and I like to hike! Who’s next?”
The five of you remaining all glanced at each other before Michael decided to be the first victim and take one for the team. He cleared his throat. “Name’s Michael. I like drive-in movies.” He nudged you in the side and you took that as a sign that it was your turn. You introduced yourself and gave your favorite activity. Then you looked expectantly to the man standing to your left.
“Vincent,” he said in a drawling voice. He was a dark-skinned brunet with long hair that was pulled in a tiny ponytail at the back of his head. Black eyes swiveled around the room in disinterest, arms crossed over the purple shirt he was wearing. “I like… fuck if I know. Swimming, I guess.” He gave a half-hearted shrug and pointedly looked at the man sitting on the chair in front of you.
“M-My name’s Jeremy,” he introduced himself with the slightest of stutters, his fingers fidgeting with each other. Jeremy looked like a small thing, sitting in that office chair. He had wavy, blond hair messily scattered upon his head and hazel eyes that darted away quickly once they made eye contact with someone else’s. His skin was a light brown shade, and he was wearing a plaid shirt that matched his eyes along with some dark jeans. “I like… staying inside, mostly. Playing video games.” That was so valid of him, you thought to yourself.
The last person to go was a blonde woman with vibrant green eyes that looked sharper than a pro chef’s kitchen knife. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail underneath the cap she wore. Lightly tanned skin poked out from the long-sleeved shirt she had on; you wondered how she wasn’t absolutely sweltering in it. She sniffed slightly. “I’m Vanessa,” she said flatly. “I guess I like the beach.”
“Excellent! Wonderful to have you all here,” Henry said immediately after Vanessa got her last syllable out. “Vincent, Jeremy, and Michael are our three veteran counselors, so that makes you two our newbies for the summer!” He looked at you and Vanessa, then offered a wink. “Don’t worry, you won’t be known as the newbies for the entire summer!”
“Only most of it,” Vincent added with a smirk. Henry gave him a look that wasn’t all too serious, then continued on with his little spiel.
“Anyways,” he continued pointedly, “I’ll spend the next hour or so going over basic orientation things. I will supply you all with packets you can use that will contain the most important information. It’s a lot to take in, so it’ll be good for you to study it in the next coming days before the children start to arrive.” He said that last bit mostly to you and Vanessa. You both nodded to show you were listening and understood.
Henry passed out said packets from a pile in one of his desk drawers, then started off the orientation. He was right—it really was a lot of information to take in. What your days would look like, how you’d keep track of the children, what to do in the case of an emergency, who to contact if you needed help… just your general camp guidelines. You found yourself losing focus halfway through and had to pinch yourself to keep aware. A quick glance at the others showed that they were also either completely tuned out (Vincent) or raptly listening (Jeremy). Thank god all this information was in the packet. You’d definitely have to study it later.
Then, Henry started talking about the animatronic counselors. This—for obvious reasons—immediately piqued your interest.
“The main counselors are connected to a secure database with all the children’s information on it,” Henry explained, making small gestures here and there with his hands. “They have facial recognition software, so they can easily keep track of whoever they are assigned to. They have sensors built in the backs of their heads and are able to tune in to the right radio frequency to communicate via the walkie talkies. They can also access the security cameras. There are charging stations located in every building in the event that they must rest and recharge.”
He flipped through a few files on his desk and pulled out a picture. You and Vanessa leaned closer to peer at it. “This is what the stations look like.” It was a large, dark orange tube with a lightning bolt on it that looked like something straight out of a futuristic movie. Weird. You wondered how much electricity it required to power it.
He then went on to explain the maintenance checks and how they are carried out—just like Michael said he would. Apparently, you also had to help wipe them down at the end of every day to ensure none of the children would get sick from germs and to get rid of any dirt that may have accumulated from being outside all day.
“You will each get assigned to one of the animatronics for the summer. Your job will be to assist them and ensure things are going smoothly, though keep in mind that they are the main ones in charge,” Henry informed all of you, though honestly, this was all likely more for your and Vanessa’s benefit. “If you look at the bags I have given you, you will see a specific design on them. This design matches with the animatronic you will be paired with.” A quick glance at everyone else showed that they were indeed holding onto similar tote bags. But before you could see who had what robot, Henry started speaking again. “I already called them over a bit ago. They should be waiting for us outside my office.”
Your eyes snapped over to Henry as he stood up from his desk and started making his way over to his office door. “Wait— we’re meeting them now?” That bubble of nervous excitement was starting to rear its head again.
“Of course!” he replied cheerfully, pausing momentarily just before the door. “Nothing to be worried about! They’re rather nice!” With that, he threw open his door and bustled through, not waiting for the rest of you to gather your things so you could follow. Michael and Vincent were already long gone by the time you had stuffed your packet into your tote bag. Vanessa and Jeremy had already gotten up and moved around you to leave, seemingly not an ounce of nerves in their steps. You took in a deep breath and followed after them, immediately locating the animatronics hanging around the seating arrangements in the middle of the large room.
The first thing you noticed was their heights—even with some of them sitting around on the couches. They were fucking massive.
Vincent had strolled right up to Monty and was giving him a sharp grin that was mirrored right back at him as they grasped each other’s hands as though in an airborne arm wrestle. Vincent was a pretty tall guy, but standing next to Monty, he looked kind of short. “Looks like it’s me and you again this summer, huh big guy?” Vincent smiled in a mischievous way that just spelled out trouble. Uh oh. Before you could hear Monty’s reply, Chica sprang up from her seat and rushed over to Jeremy, calling his name out loudly.
“You’re here!” she squealed as she immediately latched onto him for a hug. Jeremy stumbled a bit; he was only able to stay upright due to Chica holding onto him. “Oh we’re gonna have sooo much fun!!”
You smiled at their interaction, then noticed Michael was talking to Freddy and Henry in a corner. The animatronic bear practically towered over them. At least Chica was shorter, you noted as you eyed her again. Not by much, but at least she didn’t loom over Jeremy.
Your eyes then found Vanessa as she trailed over to Roxy, who was still sitting on one of the couches, inspecting her nails. Vanessa stopped somewhere near Roxy and then they seemed to just look at each other. Awkward. You didn’t envy that interaction. You tore your eyes away so you could look around some more at the conversing pairs of counselors.
That just left you and—
“Helloooo!!! New friend!!”
You turned to your left and immediately had a mini heart attack as your gaze darted up, your head soon following until it was almost craned back.
Sun was fucking tall.
If you thought the other animatronics were big, that was nothing in the face of Sun. His gangly body and limbs seemed to make him appear even taller than he actually was. You were practically swamped in his shadow. He leaned down closer to you once he noticed you’d stepped back to increase the distance between the two of you—if only to ease the muscles of your neck. His face was just inches away from your own. Oof. You tried not to cringe back. His head spun slightly to the left in a way that was not natural for a human, and there was a moment where his wide, white optics briefly flickered blue pupils into view that traversed up and down your body. You blinked at him in confusion, but didn’t say anything.
“Scan complete!” he chirped after a moment in that peppy voice of his, eyes returning back into that bright white. Scan? What the hell? “Oh, new friend, we are so excited you’re finally here! We’re going to have so much fun this summer! We’ll be the best of friends by the end of it!”
“Y-Yeah,” you agreed—the right thing to say, if his excited wiggle was any indication. The large grin on his face seemed to stretch wider, blinding you with its brightness. He had ribbons with bells on them attached to his wrists, and they gave a little jingle as he moved to clasp his hands together. It was amazing how human-like he seemed. Henry really was a genius.
Speaking of Henry—the man clapped his hands together to gather everyone’s attention. You turned around to look at him, a silence befalling the room just before he began to speak.
“Okay guys, now that you’ve all been introduced to each other, you can head over to your cabins and settle in. Today’ll be a bit of a slow day, but tomorrow I’ll need all hands on deck for preparations. Just take it easy for now. You’ll get your radios and keycards tomorrow.” Henry turned to look at Roxy to address her, who raised an eyebrow in question. “Vanessa will need a tour after she’s unpacked, so you can give it to her. But other than that, you’re all free to go.”
“Finally,” Vincent groaned, his hands crossed behind his head as he turned around to make his way back to the reception area of the lodge. Monty trailed after him with a wicked smile and clapped the man so hard on the shoulder he nearly tipped over.
“Guess me ‘nd you got some catchin’ up to do, huh?” Monty laughed—a rough, mean-sounding thing—when Vincent shot him a halfhearted glare. They seemed pretty tight; it made something twinge in the pit of your stomach. The feeling would pass, though, you were certain. A quick glance around the room showed that Michael, Henry, and Freddy were discussing something together as they headed towards Henry’s office. Camp logistics, probably. Vanessa and Roxy had both disappeared in the direction of the main pavilion, likely to get that tour started. Meanwhile, Chica had grabbed Jeremy by the wrist and was dragging him after Vincent and Monty to join them in the reception room. Everyone just seemed to jump right into things—together.
Before you could ruminate on the relationships between the older counselors and their robotic partners, something stepped into your line of sight. You looked up from staring at Jeremy’s retreating back to see Sun, who gave you a bright grin as he leaned back down into your space. Again. This time, you shifted back slightly. He was awfully close. Did he have a concept of personal space? “New friend,” he started eagerly, “allow me to accompany you to our cabin to help you unpack!”
You blinked at him once in surprise, then gave him a smile. “Sure! Lemme just go grab my stuff real quick.”
“Right-o!” Sun straightened up and gave you a salute that was more endearing than you thought would be possible from a seven and a half foot robot. You stepped around him and started making your way over to the entrance of the lodge, where your car was still parked outside. Directly behind you was the sound of heavy footsteps. A quick glance over your shoulder showed that you’d gained a shadow: Sun happily followed you, practically bouncing with each step. Alright then.
As you passed through the reception area, you saw that Jeremy and Vincent had the foresight to leave their belongings by the desk so they wouldn’t have to go back outside to the little parking area. You guessed they were just used to it by now. You breezed by them as they hoisted bags over their shoulders and passed suitcases over to their robot partners. Stepping through the front door, you immediately noticed the addition of two new cars of varying sizes and colors crammed into the space in front of the lodge. You wondered if some of your coworkers had carpooled. Seemed like it.
The steps creaked under your shoes as you beelined for your car, taking your keys out in the process to unlock it with a beep beep. You pulled out your backpack from the backseat first and folded up your tote bag as much as you could so you could stuff it inside. It just barely fit. You slung the backpack over your shoulders, closed the door, then walked to the back of your car to pop open the trunk and heave out your suitcase.
It wasn’t until you’d slammed the trunk shut that you finally glanced to the side to see Sun patiently standing on the front porch of the lodge, hands clasped behind his back as he watched you with that wide grin. You thought he would have followed you all the way to your car, but you guessed not. Like this, you were able to properly take in the sheer height of his figure and what he was wearing. Puffy, sun-patterned pants covered his legs while his skinny torso was bare and on full display. His rays spun around slightly as you locked your car up once more and dragged your suitcase over the dirt to step back into the lodge.
Once you’d reached the bottom of the small set of stairs, though, Sun leaned forward without stepping away from his spot and reached out a hand to grab your suitcase from you. “Let me help you with that, new friend!” he said cheerfully and lifted it up towards him. He held your suitcase by the handle on its side, not bothered by the weight whatsoever. You marveled at the robotic strength in his lithe limbs. Fascinating.
“Oh! Thanks, Sun!” You beamed at him and hopped up the stairs so you could follow him back through the lodge. By now everyone had disappeared, likely to their own cabins. “You didn’t have to! I appreciate it.”
“Anything to make your transition into Camp Fazbear easier!” He turned his head down to look at you as you followed his strides at his side—to the best of your ability, anyways. Man, he had long legs. He slowed down slightly for you and you gave him a quick thankful grin. You both exited out onto the main pavilion and started making your way across it. “Have you received your tour of the facilities yet?”
You nodded, hoisting your backpack up so it sat better on your shoulders. “Yep! Michael gave it to me already. I got here a bit early.” You raised one of your hands up to shield your face from the sun. It was bright out.
Sun seemed to droop down in an almost dramatic manner—a motion that made you glance up at him curiously. “Aww, that’s a shame! I’d wanted to give it to you!” Was he disappointed? The robot was disappointed. You gave him a consoling pat on his arm.
“It’s okay, dude. You can give me a tour of the cabin.” At your words, he sprang back up easily—rejuvenated. It was kind of funny. You suppressed a smile.
“That’s right!” he beamed and bounded forward. His head did a complete 180 so that he was looking back at you as he skipped ahead—an action that took you by surprise, but well, he was a robot with a rather spindly neck. “Come, new friend! Race ya there!”
“Wha— Sun! Wait up!” you called out as you gripped your bag by its straps and jogged after him, careful not to jostle your belongings too much.
It was no doubt that Sun—with his long limbs unbothered by the weight of the suitcase he was carrying—beat you by a long shot to the cabins. You huffed out a breath of air as you skidded to a stop next to him and leaned down to brace yourself against your knees. “You’re— pretty fast,” you puffed out. Sun grinned down at you, patiently waiting for you to collect yourself. You straightened up and wiped some sweat from your brow. “That was hardly much of a competition!”
His sun rays spun around his head in a flair that made you suppress a little laugh. “I’m sure by the end of the summer you’ll have me beat!!”
“Doubt it,” you snorted and gestured at him to go up the stairs of the yellow and navy cabin you’d be staying in for the summer. He bounded up to the wooden door—it had a crescent moon inside a sun carved into it—and opened it with a dramatic flourish as you trudged heavily behind him.
“After you!” he chirped with a bow, his arm across his chest.
“Why thank you!” you replied with a grin, charmed by his politeness. You stepped past the open doorway and let out a small whistle once you swept your gaze around the interior of the cabin. “Wow! It’s big!”
It really was—the outside of it made it seem much smaller than it actually was, especially with how high the sloped ceiling was. The cabin, similar to its exterior decor, was painted gold with red stripes on the left and navy with yellow stars on the right. There were bunk beds lined along the walls with sheets that were a sky blue and had puffy clouds on them. A quick mental calculation lets you know that there were ten bunk beds total, each with their own little dressers next to them. That made it, what, twenty kids tops? The idea of being in charge of so many was a bit intimidating, but you supposed you could handle it with Sun’s help.
“Welcome to our humble abode!” Sun announced as he stepped inside after you and closed the door. He walked further in until he was in the center of the room and brandished his free hand about. The bell tied to his wrist let out a small jingle with the movement. “Here is the main room with all the kids’ beds! Shoes are allowed inside, but not on top of the beds and sheets. Every Sunday, we do a weekly cleaning of the cabin to get the children used to tidying up after themselves and to ensure the floors don’t get too dirty!”
You nodded along with the information and followed Sun as he made his way further into the cabin. There was a door tucked in a far corner along the left wall. He opened it and gestured for you to go inside. As you did so, you noticed it led to another, smaller room. There was a bed to your left that had a small nightstand next to it, along with a wooden armoire to your right. A window with its curtains drawn across from where you stood allowed warm sunlight to filter across the polished, wooden floor.
But what really caught your attention was the large, orange tube positioned in the far right corner, by the window.
“Uh,” you started eloquently as you pointed to the charging station that looked as though it was currently off. “What’s that doing in here?”
“Hm?” Sun ducked into the small room after you, walking over to set your suitcase down by your bed. The ceiling in here was much lower than the one in the main room, so he had to stoop down a bit. But even then, the tips of his sunrays brushed against it. He retracted them further into his faceplate, then looked to see what you were pointing at. “Ah! Yes. That’s our charging station!”
“I know that,” you said gently, wondering if your question hadn’t been clear enough for him to hear or something. “But what’s it doing in… my room??” It was a little… strange. You didn’t think you’d have a roommate, albeit a robotic one.
Sun fidgeted with his hands, swaying gently side to side in an animated motion that you wondered was programmed into him. “Oh! It used to be out in the main room. But! It was distracting for the children, especially when we recharged at night! No, no, it was better to put it in here! More privacy as well!” He gave you a smile that was thin at the edges. His fingers twitched slightly, then he was back to giving you a bright, beaming grin and that thinness was gone like it had never been there in the first place. “Think of it like a slumber party, new friend!”
You stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. How bad could rooming with him be? You doubted you’d spend much time in here anyways. “Alright then.” Your words seemed to ease some invisible tension in him, for he slumped down, then bounded right back up. He nearly hit his head on the ceiling, but managed to stop himself just in time.
“Great!” he exclaimed. You gave him a smile, then looked around the room once more. There was another closed door to the left of the one you’d just come through. You supposed that was the bathroom Michael had mentioned to you earlier. But before you could walk over to it to inspect the shower (hopefully it was clean), Sun started talking again. “Take all the time you need to unpack! I would advise against lying on your bed, though! We need to wash the sheets—as well as the ones in the main room. There’s a small laundry room over there!”
You followed his finger as he pointed out of the open doorway that led into the main room. Directly across from you, against the right wall of the main room, was another closed door. In-unit laundry machines were a blessing, though you supposed with twenty-something kids also using them, it would get messy pretty fast. You sighed.
“Well…” You walked over to your suitcase and set your bag down on your bed, resigning yourself to the arduous task of unpacking. Sun’s gaze followed you, his head spinning in an inhuman way to track your steps. You stretched out your arms and shoulders, then settled your hands on your hips. “Best to get started then.”
Later that evening—after you’d unpacked your bags and resheeted your bed once they’d been properly washed—there was the sound of your cabin’s front door banging open as someone loudly called out your name. Who the fuck could that be? You paused and lifted yourself from your bed, where you’d been aimlessly scrolling through your phone and internally bemoaning the fact that you’d have to part with it in a few days. After a few seconds of staring at your open bedroom door, you eventually jammed on some flip flops and shuffled to the door to check it out.
“Yo! Newbie!” Vincent grinned at you once you’d walked out of your room to see who it was. Well, that was a bit of a surprise. You raised an eyebrow at him as he lifted up a hand at you in greeting. “You busy?”
“Not really,” you responded after a moment of contemplating if you had anything major to do. Sun had left a bit ago before it got dark, chiming out something about having a few tasks to get done, so you’d been left alone for a while. Your head tilted to the side. “Why?”
Vincent pointed behind him at the open doorway that led outside. “Everyone’s hangin’ around the firepit if you wanna join. Kind of a tradition we have before all the kiddos roll in.”
Oh? You perked up. “Sure! Sounds fun.” You’d take any chance to get closer with everyone else.
“Awesome, c’mon then.” He waved his hand at you and turned on his heel to make his way back outside. You stuck your phone in your pocket and followed, pulling the door shut behind you before you walked down the cabin’s wooden stairs. By now the sky had taken on a midnight gradient, the last vestiges of burnt mandarin light peeking just above the woods’ canopies as deep navy and purple swept across everywhere else. You took a moment to appreciate the twinkles of white, red, and yellow that filled the sky—the nebular clouds that looked as though they’d been delicately painted there. Living in a city never allowed you the chance to see just how gorgeous the night sky was, and you knew you’d spend all the time you could while you were working here to look up at the stars.
You followed Vincent as he made his way over to the fire pit in front of the cabins. By “everyone” you soon realized he’d meant the rest of the human counselors, for you couldn’t see a gleam of metal anywhere. You wondered what the animatronics were doing—recharging, maybe.
You took a seat on one of the stone benches around the fire pit, next to Michael who greeted you with a small smile. On the bench directly across from you sat Jeremy and Vanessa. They’d already gotten a fire going, and you watched as hazy smoke curled up lazily towards the dark sky from the flickering flames.
“Right!” Vincent exclaimed as he sat down on the bench to your left and started rummaging around in a black bag that had previously been placed there. “We’re all college-aged here, yeah?”
You were sure he was asking just to confirm if you and Vanessa were. You both nodded and watched as Vincent pulled out a tall, glass bottle from the confines of his bag. Shades of orange and red from the fire gleamed across its surface, reflecting the dancing flames. Uh oh.
“Bro, Ciroc? Really?” Michael groaned as he reached out a hand and curled his fingers at Vincent so he could pass the bottle over. Once the container was in his hands, Michael turned it around so he could read the label. “And coconut-flavored too? You know this tastes like shite, man.”
“What? You prefer the Malibu from last time?” Vincent bit back at Michael, rummaging around in his bag once more so he could pull out some red solo cups and another bottle of juice. Michael made a face and that was all the response Vincent needed. “We gotta initiate the newbies somehow.” What.
“Huh?” you eloquently asked, eyes widening slightly when you noticed Vincent had taken back the bottle of Ciroc and was pouring a shot into two of the solo cups. No mixer either? Fuck.
“...Do we have to?” Vanessa asked in a surly voice. “Vodka’s nasty.”
“Yes,” Vincent said at the same time Michael said “No.” They both looked at each other.
“You don’t have to if you really don’t want to,” Michael said quickly—his gaze flicked between you and Vanessa—before Vincent could get a word in. The other man rolled his eyes, but nodded his head in agreement.
“But then you’d have to do something else,” Vincent added and extended both his arms towards you and Vanessa. He wiggled the solo cups within his hands at you. “C’mon, one shot’s not that bad. I’m going easy on ya.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Jeremy piped up, making your stare move from the cup to his face, “I refused to take a shot of Vincent’s Jungle Juice once and he made me do a polar plunge into the lake.” You gave him a sympathetic look as Vincent started to roar with laughter.
“Oh man! That was a good night! I still say you should’ve taken the shot!” he managed to get out through his laughs. Jeremy gave him an incredulous look.
“I-I’m pretty sure that would have killed me!”
After hearing that… you’d honestly rather just take the shot and get it over with. You didn’t even want to entertain the idea of what else Vincent would make you do as an ‘initiation’.
“Fine.” You sighed as you leaned over and grabbed the cup from Vincent’s hand. “At least it’s just one, I guess.”
Vincent grinned at you as you settled back down in your seat. “Yeah, see? You get it!”
Looking over at Vanessa, you saw that she too had decided to just take the shot and get it over with. You raised your cup into the air at her in a cheers, then tilted your head back so you could swallow the shot in one go. Immediately, you felt the vodka burn at your mouth and throat—all the way down to your stomach, where it settled in hotly like it was lava. God, that was foul.
You spluttered a bit and waved your empty cup at Vincent, trying not to breathe in too deeply just yet. “Juice! Juice!”
“Alright, alright!” he snickered and took your cup from you so he could fill it with a generous amount of juice. He handed it back to you. “Hey, good job, newbie!”
You gulped down half of your drink to chase away the lingering taste of alcohol and coconut. Something patted you on the back and you peeked to the side to see it was Michael. You gave him a grateful look and finally lowered your cup. “Thanks, I hated it.”
“Surprisingly, that was better than some of the other shit I had back in college,” Vanessa noted. You looked up to her to see her looking down into her empty solo cup, just as unbothered as before, if not a bit bored. Seemed like she had taken it better than you had. Vanessa, you decided at that moment, was cool.
Vincent gave her a smirk that was just lined with mischief. “Up for another one, then?”
“I’ll pass,” she immediately declined and set her empty cup down next to her.
Vincent only shrugged and started pouring some more of the Ciroc into three other cups along with some juice. “Suit yourself. Who knows when we’ll be able to have drinks again once the kids move in.”
“Knowing you? Sooner rather than later,” Michael scoffed as he rolled his eyes in good nature. Vincent gave him a sly smile, but didn’t say anything else.
As he passed out the drinks to Michael and Jeremy, you piped up again with a question that’d briefly been on your mind earlier. “So… what are you guys all majoring in, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Not at all! I’m studying robotics,” Michael said once he’d taken a small sip of his drink. He made a face and gestured at Vincent to pour him some more juice. “I already told you, but I’m a fourth year PhD student.”
“I’m in my third year studying game design,” Jeremy chimed in. He then shrunk into himself a little. “Which is, uh, sorta obvious since I like video games and all.” You gave him a small smile at that.
“I’m in my last year of getting my MechE PhD,” Vincent announced proudly, “and I’m fuckin’ dying.” He downed half of his drink right after. Your heart went out to him in sympathy.
“...Comp sci Master’s,” Vanessa spoke up after a short moment. You turned to look at her. “I’m planning to graduate in December.”
“A semester early?” you asked and she nodded. “Nice!” You then told them what you were getting your own degree in before settling them all with a thoughtful look. “I guess the robot counselors really called out to you guys then, huh?”
“You kidding?” Vincent blurted out, waving his cup in the air. The drink within it sloshed around a bit, so he reeled his arm back in. “Getting to work with Henry is a blessing! The man’s incredible at robotics and A.I. development! It’s every engineering student’s dream!”
“Does he give you guys more… technological responsibilities with the animatronics then?” you asked curiously. “Since you have the education?”
“Oh yeah,” Michael answered. “He’s surprisingly lenient with that sort of thing. Let us do what we see fit when it comes to maintenance or looking at his blueprints.”
“That’s pretty nice of him,” you commented, thinking about how much of a resume boost it would be for them. This would probably count as a project of sorts, right? That was cool.
Michael smiled warmly, lost somewhere else. “Yeah, he’s great.”
“How long have you all been working here, anyways?” Vanessa suddenly questioned, her gaze directed to the three veteran counselors. Vincent hummed.
“I’ve been here for about four years, I think,” he said thoughtfully, one of his fingers tapping lightly against his chin. “Michael’s been here longer than I have, though.”
The man in question nodded. “Yeah, it’s been a while for me. More than five years for sure.” He looked contemplative for a second, staring into the fire as it crackled and sparked before him. Then the look was gone, as though it had never even been there in the first place.
“I-I’ve only been here for two years,” Jeremy said, both his hands clutching at his cup. “So I’m uh, relatively newer in comparison.”
“I see. So you’ve all pretty much stuck around for a while,” Vanessa mused, more to herself than anything, but it made you tilt your head at her. She seemed to notice the unstated question that lingered in the air, for she added, “Oh, I just wanted to see how often people returned. I was only planning on staying for this summer.”
Michael nodded. “Understandable, yeah. People come and go all the time. Life just catches up to them.” He shrugged, then turned to look at you. “How ‘bout you?”
“Bit too early for me to say, honestly,” you responded after a moment of thought. You shuffled your feet a bit, feeling your flip flops slide against the compact dirt they were resting on. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Have to see if I like working here first. Actually— while we’re on it, what’s it like working with the kids anyways?”
“Fucking exhausting!” Vincent groaned, throwing his head back. “Especially once it gets hotter! The tykes have endless stores of energy, I swear.”
“That’s why we’re technically assistant counselors.” Michael snickered and leaned back slightly on the bench, propping his arm up behind him. “The animatronics are able to handle everything just fine.”
You hummed. “Yeah, I suppose they don’t really run out of energy, huh?”
“Other than when they need to recharge,” Jeremy added. He then scratched his head. “Well, I guess they all have solar technology, so that’s not much of an issue either…”
“Solar technology?!” you blurted out incredulously. “What the hell??”
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Vanessa remarked dryly.
“Oh yeah,��� Michael grinned, apparently delighted at how stupefied you and Vanessa were, “they got upgrades like you won’t believe.”
You raised your eyebrows as you turned your head to look at him. “How did Henry even get the money for that??”
“Actually it was—” Vincent started, then cut himself off with a quick glance at Michael, who was suddenly staring resolutely into the fire before him. It was so subtle you would have missed it if you hadn’t already been looking at him. But before you could question anything, Vincent continued as though nothing had happened at all. “—all the funds from the government and the parents, you know? This place isn’t exactly cheap.”
You exchanged quick looks with Vanessa. She had definitely noticed the slight hiccup as well. Part of you wanted to press, but well… A quick glance at the three veteran counselors showed that they likely didn’t want to discuss it further—they avoided both your and Vanessa's gazes, either by taking a sip of their drinks or staring into the tangerine flames. So you let it go for now.
“I bet it isn’t,” you said lightly and an invisible tension seemed to melt away from the group at your words. “That thirty-five dollars an hour deal was what really hooked me in.”
“Ayo, you too? Up top!” Vincent cackled and raised his hand up for a high-five. You leaned forward and slapped your palm against his with a grin.
It was fun, hanging out with the other counselors as you all slowly made your way through the bottle of Ciroc. The stars overhead rotated across the sky, the flames from the fire pit died down until they weakly licked at ashy logs. It was starting to get a bit chilly, but you were too busy enjoying yourself to notice the goosebumps that decorated your skin. You exchanged stories all evening and into the night—from your college days and from their adventures working as camp counselors. It made you excited, you had to admit, hearing about all the things they’d done. It sounded like this summer would be a fun one and there was a warmth in your chest that’d sparked to life upon getting to know your coworkers better.
“And then—” Vincent choked out, lifting a hand up to his face so he could wipe away a tear. His cup sat on the ground next to him, forgotten. “—And then this asshole dropped the fucking oar into the lake! We were stranded there for hours, man!”
“I-I’d told you guys it wouldn’t be a good idea to go rowboating that late!” Jeremy snorted, his cheeks a little rosy from the two drinks he’d consumed. You giggled into your hand when Michael let out a loud groan in response.
“We were drunk and on a mission,” he told you and Vanessa, his ears slightly tinged red.
“He was so shitfaced he couldn’t even hold the oar properly!” Vincent nearly yelled. He got punched in the arm by Michael and gave him an offended look. “Hey!”
“How did you guys not get caught?” you asked before they could start tussling again. Vanessa snickered when Vincent reached back over and punched Michael just as harshly on his shoulder.
“Oh no, we did. Moon got our asses once he noticed we weren’t in our rooms,” Michael said somberly, rubbing at his shoulder with his opposite hand. “He won’t let us live that shit down to this day.”
“What was he doing outside anyways?” you wondered aloud, rubbing at your chin. “Seems kinda hypocritical to me.”
Vincent turned to look at you. “Did no one tell you?” he asked, squinting at you slightly. Or well—not at you. Honestly, you couldn’t tell where he was looking at, just that it was in your general direction. “They free roam at night.”
“‘Free roam’?” Vanessa repeated, tilting her head to the side slightly. You turned to look at her and noticed she was staring at something over your head. But before you could turn around to see what it was, she continued speaking, her eyes darting back over to Vincent. “For why?”
Michael answered in his stead. “Security purposes.” You raised an eyebrow at that.
“And also so their servos don’t lock up or whatever,” Vincent added and you noticed he was staring at you, a wide grin on his face that revealed basically all of his pearly teeth. You gave him a confused look. Why was he looking at you like that? His grin only got wider.
“Why are you—” you started to ask, then immediately froze when something behind you gripped at your shoulders—tight and cool.
“Boo!” A voice rasped right into your ear. You yelped and jumped forward, your heart pounding in your ears as you abruptly spun around to see a tall, gangly animatronic hunched over where you’d been sitting. Spindly fingers wiggled in a wave at you, a grin with sharp teeth glinted in the dying flames of the fire pit.
“Whaddahell!!” you wheezed, hand clutching at your chest. You hadn’t heard him approaching at all! Everyone burst into laughter at your reaction, filling the quiet night air.
“Oh my god the look on your face!” Vincent practically shouted, slapping his hand down repeatedly on his knee.
Jeremy wiped a tear from his eye and gave you a sympathetic look—or as much as he could manage between his laughs. “He does that to everyone, don’t worry.”
Moon snickered when you turned back to him to give him a halfhearted glare. His red eyes were upturned into crescents, and he bounced from one foot to the other in delight. Like Sun, you noticed as you took the moment to observe him, Moon had nothing covering his chest while puffy, navy pants decorated his legs. They were adorned in golden stars and small specks—just like the fluffily-rimmed nightcap that sat on his head. The bells tied around his wrists let out an occasional jingle as he hopped about.
“You have just made yourself an enemy tonight,” you told Moon seriously, crossing your arms over your chest to make yourself appear as intimidating as possible. He seemed amused by your words, if anything, for he let out another sly giggle.
“Careful,” Vincent warned you suddenly, “you’re dealing with a real shithead over there.”
Moon’s head spun around to face Vincent at his words. You watched as he slouched over to the man so he could loom over his head with his terrifyingly sharp smile. Vincent just looked up at him, unamused.
“Drinking on the premises?” Moon tsked, the bell attached to his nightcap jingling lightly as his head rotated to the right in an unnatural way. His fingers wiggled again in a wavelike motion, his hands raised in the air by his shoulders. “Naughty, naughty.”
“Oh fuck off, guy!” Vincent batted at Moon’s nightcap and sent it swaying back and forth. “You know there aren’t any kids here.”
“Language!” Moon chided, then reached down to snatch up the bottle of Ciroc by Vincent’s foot. There was about a shot’s worth of liquid left in it. Vincent let out an indignant “hey!” and raised his hand to grab at it, only for Moon to pull his hand up and away—out of Vincent’s reach. “It’s bedtime. Go to sleep~”
“Moon— give that back!” Vincent jumped up to his feet and stretched his arm up further, but Moon unfortunately was much taller and simply dangled the bottle just over Vincent’s head.
“Beddy bed! Bedtime!”
Michael sighed and got up from where he’d been sitting to stretch out his arms. “He’s right. We should head to bed. Lotsa things to do tomorrow.” He bent down to grab his cup from the ground. You nodded and walked back over to your seat so you could grab your empty cup, the others standing and dusting themselves off to help clean up as well.
It was quick work to douse the fire pit and collect your few belongings. Vincent spent a few minutes grappling with Moon and spitting out expletives until eventually he managed to snag the Ciroc bottle and stuff it into his bag along with the bottle of juice. Under Moon’s watchful eye, you all tossed your cups into one of the garbage bins near the cabins and made your way to your respective rooms, calling out goodnights that echoed across the open space.
You trudged up the stairs of your cabin and looked behind you once you’d opened the front door. Moon watched you, standing stock-still by the darkened fire pit. The lights of his eyes shined brightly through the darkness. You shivered slightly—from the cool air or the creepiness of being watched by a robot, you would never know.You held up two fingers to your narrowed eyes, then turned your hand around to point them at him in an ‘I’m watching you’ motion. You were just able to see his eyes upturn once more before you finally receded back into your cabin, shutting the door behind you with a quiet click.
a/n: btw, vincent is not actually purple guy. i just took his character as an oc of sorts!! i thought it would be a fun throwback to 2015 fnaf days, where we didn't know shit abt the lore LMAO. i also took creative liberties with jeremy fitzgerald as well!
part two
#dca x reader#daycare attendant x reader#fnaf moon x reader#fnaf sun x reader#moon x reader#sun x reader#fnaf sb#dca#dca fanfic#dca fandom#sundrop x reader#moondrop x reader#fnaf sundrop#fnaf moondrop#the daycare attendant#god i rly am hitting myself on the head for how long ch1 is#and i have FIFTEEN MORE TO WRITE#AHHH#sundrop#moondrop#shay scribbles daydreams
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17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)
from the end-of-year book ask
17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?
I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.
SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.
But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.
This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.
When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.
None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.
So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.
What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.
The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.
Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.
Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.
What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.
ty for ask✨🐐
#ask answer#idk if that's what u were asking about but. well.#got some sleepy thoughts out#also this is not to say that there isn't tons of research in “soft” SF#it's just that it would be a different kind of research and a different library of knowledge
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Love Comes Quietly Ch 11
Alex Blake x reader
warnings: language, mentions of smut, chaos.
It's kind of a filler chapter, plenty of chaos (some of which worked better in my head/ spitballing with @prentiss-theorem but i included it anyways)
You stirred at the sound of a very loud magpie on the other side of the window, letting out a small groan as you rolled over, stretching out your body. You felt Alex’s arm that was draped over your waist tighten, pulling you closer to her and her lips brushed against your forehead.
“Mmm…” you nuzzled into the embrace, aching to stay in your little bubble for even a moment longer before the real world pricked it back open, “what time is it?”
Alex groaned softly, shifting so she could see the clock over your shoulder, “just passed ten thirty.” She settled back into the pillows, “what time did Prentiss want us in again?”
“Noon.” You grumbled back, “and I do not want to be subjected to the torture if we’re late, and I definitely need a shower.”
Very reluctantly you untangled your limbs from hers, slipping from under the sheets only pausing to scoop up your discarded swimsuit from the floor before you were opening the door.
“Hey, weren’t you doing laundry last night?”
“Fuck!” You groaned, “it didn’t make it out of the washer. I’ll throw it on a speed wash and hopefully it’s done in time.”
*
Thankfully there was enough time, and honestly it was good the two of you had woken up when you did. There was still a pretty big mess in the kitchen and a jug of sangria sitting out in the backyard. With the off chance that you’d be sent out on another case you didn’t want to leave any of that lying around for god knows how long. So you danced around each other while you made sure everything was in place, your go bags were adequately packed and managed to get some coffee and breakfast into your systems before it was time to go.
You were halfway to the BAU when your phone buzzed in the cupholder and Alex’s eyes darted from the road to it, letting out a small groan from the drivers seat.
“Please don’t let that be a case.”
You scooped it up, swiping open the message, “no. Em just wants me to grab her a coffee on the way in.”
“She can’t be bothered to go downstairs herself?” Alex chuckled and you huffed a laugh.
“Says she’s overrun with paperwork.”
“I seriously pray to whatever higher power is out there that paperwork is all today is.”
“Considering we haven’t even started ours from the D.C case and still need to wrap up the Phoenix closure files, if we do get something new she’ll probably split the team up depending on severity.”
“Okay, your brain is clearly caffeinated enough already. Give me that.” She swiped the coffee out of your hand with a grin and you scoffed.
“Rude Blake.”
“Just get yourself another one when you pick up Emily’s.”
“Ugh.” You rolled your eyes, but there was a ghost of a smile on your face as you sent of a couple more texts to Em. Your phone dropped back into the cupholder and you let out a small sigh, settling back into the seat, “are we gonna have to put the whole kiss thing into the report?”
Alex let out a hearty laugh, glancing over to you and you caught the pink tinge of her cheeks, “I’m not sure. Sounds like a Prentiss question.”
“True.” You laughed, managing to swipe the coffee back out of the holder when she put it down to make a left turn and she shot you a playful glare.
*
When you got to Quantico you split off, you beelining for the Starbucks on the main level while Alex headed for the elevator to get a head start on the day. Thankfully, the weather was warm and Emily had requested an iced latte so you were able to stop at your desk briefly, there were a couple of things that just needed a read over and a signature before they were done.
“Hey.” You knocked on her open office door in greeting, pausing to make sure she wasn’t on the phone.
“Hey.” She glanced up, tossing you a quick smile before she returned to whatever she was working on, the pile in her inbox way larger than the out, she really was drowning in paperwork.
“Hate to add to that monster of a pile.” You winced, dropping two folders down onto it, “but that’s the wrap up from Phoenix.”
“As long as it comes with coffee I won’t hate you.” She grumbled, scrawling her signature across the bottom of a page before flipping it shut and adding it to the outbox. Letting out a sigh of relief when you put the coffee down in the free space on her desk.
“Can’t have that now.”
“You’re a true hero.” She took a sip then her head tilted, eyes flitting between the bull pen and you, “Blake got here like twenty minutes ago, did you guys drive separately? Is there something up?”
“Didn’t realize we were playing twenty questions.” You laughed, tugging off your blazer to toss it over one of her spare chairs, “no we drove together, I just stopped for coffee, ran into Garcia and then quickly finished those.” You nodded toward the folders you’d dropped off, “sorry for withholding the caffeine.” You caught her eyeing you, her lips curving up in a teasing grin and your eyes narrowed, “what?”
“You put the bikini on, didn’t you?”
“What? Em...”
“I’m just assuming that’s how you got that hickey; I mean, Blake didn’t exactly go all Dracula in the bar.”
“What hickey?” You asked back in a very feeble attempt to steer her away from the topic.
“Oh, you’re telling me that’s dryer lint stuck to your shirt on the right side of your neck?”
Your hand raised as if you were trying to remove whatever definitely wasn’t a bruise on your skin and you couldn’t help the near wince when your fingers pressed into the mark. You were suddenly transported back to the previous night, Alex’s cock buried deep inside you as she’d made a very comfortable home in the crook of your neck and you knew there was no distracting Emily. You let out a huff, dropping back into the chair in defeat.
“Fine. It’s a hickey.”
“I fucking knew it!” Emily leant forward, suddenly very excited and invested, “so, just a steamy make out session in the hot tub? Please tell me that’s what it was, please tell me I made this happen because you two have been insufferable recently.”
“I.. well…”
“Wait…did you already—”
“Em!” You shot a glance to her open office door and she quickly shut up while you stood to cross the room and close it for some amount of privacy. “It turns out… your opinions on the red bikini may be shared by a certain linguist.”
“Oh my god! Yes!!”
The response was loud enough that it could only be muffled by the walls and Alex couldn’t help but chuckle to herself at her desk, feeling the heat creep up her cheeks as the memories of the night before came flooding back to her.
“Wait, did you guys fuck in the hot tub? Because now I’m never going to be able to use it again.” Emily nearly whined.
“Oh come on! No. That’s disgusting.” You huffed, dropping back into the chair, “there was just some making out in the hot tub. And…maybe a little more on one of the loungers… and then we went inside.”
“And?” She raised a brow, gleam prevalent in her eye.
“Well you were right on the nose about the mommy thing.”
“Blake you kinky motherfucker.” She chuckled, gaze drifting out to the bullpen briefly before she looked back at you. “Well, technically I think you’re the mother fucker here.”
“I take the time out of my day to bring you coffee and this is what I get, really?” You replied dryly, glaring in her direction.
“Okay, okay. I’m just happy you two finally hooked up. I take it, it was good?”
“Obviously.” You practically laughed, shaking your head at her before you settled back in your chair, your eyes glancing out toward Alex’s desk and you let out a sigh, tugging your lower lip into your teeth.
“Hey…” Emily’s voice was softer this time, watching the way you were watching the other woman.
“Hmm?” You didn’t glance back to her yet.
“Why’d you just shut down? I don’t need to know all the kinky details or anything, I know that might feel weird considering I know both of you.”
You let out a huff of a sigh, turning back to her with a shrug, “we…. didn’t exactly talk about things after. Like… maybe it was some one time thing fueled by booze and an undercover kiss…”
“And you don’t want it to be.” Emily replied and it wasn’t a question.
“No, of course not. I was fucking blind to what was going on until recently but like… I still haven’t found a house, what if it’s hella fucking awkward at home now? What if she was just pent up and wanted some sex post divorce? What if sex is all she wants?”
“Okay, okay.” She held up a hand, “I’m gonna stop you right there before you start to spiral. I wouldn’t worry about any of that Murphy.”
“You sure?” You raised a brow in her direction and she almost laughed.
“Absolutely. Alex likes you, she just needed to… un scramble some wires to figure out if it was a platonic thing or not and considering you’ve now fucked, I think platonic is off the table.”
“Wait.. have you talked to her about this?”
“A few times on and off, briefly, yeah.”
“So your whole little badgering chaotic thing was actually you legitimately trying to match make?”
“I have been waiting for the two of you to kiss since I met you and saw the way you acted together in that coffee shop in New York. Maybe the two of you took some time to realize it but you have some weirdly insane special connection. She likes you; she cares about you, she adores having you around, and now you’ve got orgasms added to the benefit list. Trust me. Because I’m the one who can see the way one of you is looking at the other when they’re not paying attention, and you’ve both had heart eyes for months.”
“When did your inner chaotic gremlin turn into Gandhi?” You half glared at her, but knew she was right. If things were going to be weird, they would’ve been awkward that morning, or on the thirty minute drive in, while there hadn’t been any conversation about the sex and you’d both been too distracted and busy to actually share a kiss, nothing felt different in that way.
“Hey!” She scoffed, “don’t hate me. I did this! You should be thanking me.”
“I’m standing up.” You warned with a point, “which means we’re back in work mode. Yes Chief Prentiss, I’m on it, paperwork is to be done. If you start talking about sex again HR is gonna have to hear about it.”
“Please, you would never.” She laughed and you rolled your eyes.
“But seriously, can you please keep this quiet? We really don’t need the entire team finding out, especially before we’ve even figured things out.”
“My lips are sealed.” She replied with a soft smile, “oh! Hold on.” She slid her chair over, digging through her go bag for a second before pulling out a couple of make up compacts, “cover up that hickey because someone else will call you out.”
Taking the items from her you flipped one of them around in your hands, noting that it was a colour correcting one, not just regular foundation, “you carry these with you?”
“Yeah, after this many years in the field you never know when you’re gonna take a punch and need to make a media appearance within twenty four hours.”
“Eck.” You winced, “thanks.”
*
Alex had disappeared into her home office shortly after the two of you got home, a soft instrumental playlist echoing down the hall through the open doorway. You knew she was lecturing at Georgetown in the coming week and there was no doubt she had some prep work to do for that. You took the solo time to head out on a run considering you hadn’t gotten the chance over the past couple of days and then jumped into the shower.
It was shortly after that that your stomach began to growl and you meandered out to the kitchen. A grocery trip was definitely in order, there really wasn’t much in the fridge, you stood staring into the pantry, eyes searching through the food to figure out what you could do for dinner. You registered the sound of Alex’s footsteps, followed by the soft thud of her phone being dropped onto the island and you figured she was grabbing a drink. What you didn’t expect was for her arm to wrap around your waist from behind, her body nestled into yours as her lips tenderly brushed against the bruise on your neck.
“Snack or meal?” She asked softly and you let out a little sigh, picking up a box of pasta.
“I know it’s not much but I’m thinking kraft dinner. You want some?” You half turned in her arm and she chuckled softly, her hand taking the box from you to put it back on the shelf.
“I was actually thinking that maybe tonight I could take you out?”
“Really?” You turned completely, your attention fully on Alex as her free hand came up to stroke at your cheek while she nodded.
“I know I should’ve bought you dinner before fucking you, but the thought still counts, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” You smiled softly at her, “yeah it does.”
Her fingers trailed down your jaw, soothing over the bruise in the crook of your neck and she frowned slightly, “that doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“Only when Emily’s prodding at it.” You grumbled, rolling your eyes.
“I figured it wouldn’t take her long to put things together.” She laughed softly.
“Yeah. So what’re you thinking for dinner?”
“Not sure, nothing too fancy, you’re already cozy I wouldn’t want to make you change again.”
“What about Mezcalero? You were talking about wanting to try it out last week.”
“I think…” She started, her hand shifting back up to cup your cheek again, “that sounds perfect.”
She leant in, closing the small gap between you to meet your lips with hers and you let out a happy sigh, relaxing into the kiss as your arms circled around her shoulders. Neither of you could help the way your lips were curving up into smiles as they moved against each other, warmth blooming in your chest and flowing through your entire body. It was just as Alex slid her tongue across your lower lip that her phone buzzed against the island and she let out a groan, not wanting to pull away from you. As she reluctantly pulled away from you, a hand lingering on your waist, you closed the pantry, moving towards your own phone, waiting for it to go off.
“Oh fucking hell…” She felt her stomach plunge and when you glanced up you noticed how her eyes had widened, her face somehow both going pale and blushing at the same time.
“What?” You asked, your brow furrowing as Alex’s phone went off again, “ugh, is Emily sending you wildly inappropriate things?! I told her to stay out of this, I’m sorry, I’ll tell her to fuck off.” You picked up your phone with the intention of doing that when Alex finally found her voice again.
“Not Emily.”
“Please don’t tell me she blabbed already and it’s someone else on the team.”
“Nope.” Alex groaned, swiftly typing out a message on her phone, grimacing when it buzzed again in her hands and she dropped it to the island, running a hand over her face, pinching at the bridge of her nose, “I am so sorry.”
“You’ve lost me.”
With a sigh she slid her phone across the island and you picked it up to read the conversation,
‘Looks like you and bookstore girl really are getting along. Have to say, I saw that coming.’
‘Excuse me?’
A photo attachment, camera clearly aimed at the backyard with both the pool and hot tub in its frame, the part that mortified Alex, however, was that clear as day were the two of you all over each other in the hot tub.
‘Are you stalking my security cameras!?’
‘Relax. You said you weren’t going to be home until Saturday, I noticed a notification and thought some kids must’ve hopped the fence again.’
‘Definitely not the case.’
‘Hey, good for you. I’m glad you’re getting back out there. At least the hot tub’s finally getting some good use’
‘James, I swear to god.’
‘Don’t worry. Once I realized it was you I very quickly turned it off. While I’m not above teasing I’m not about to spy on your personal life.’
You glanced up to Alex, your eyes wide as she surveyed you, “James? As in your ex-husband, James?”
“That would be the one.” She let out a huff, accepting the phone back from you, “when we first moved in here it became pretty common knowledge that we had a pool and were both out of town a lot. We were both working when we got a call from local pd that a party had been shutdown at our house and one of the kids admitted it wasn’t the first time. So we installed the extra camera, James still has access since he keeps an eye on things when I’m out of town, he’s always on his phone, it’s a quicker call, easier for him to step away from work than me.”
“At least we waited until we were inside for the clothes to come off.” You suggested with a laugh, one that infected Alex and she chuckled, shaking her head at you.
“I guess that’s the saving grace. And believe me, he means it when he said he turned it off.”
“Well, one less semi awkward conversation to have next time you’re in Boston?” You offered and this time she couldn’t help but laugh, the ridiculousness of the entire situation settling down over her and she tugged you to her, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as laughter filled the kitchen.
“I am mortified. I didn’t even know how to bring up dating to James…”
“And now you don’t have to.” You laughed, prodding at her ribs, “the better question is… can you turn just that camera off?” You glanced up at her with a gleam in your eye and she raised a brow.
“Sounds like you have an idea.”
“Oh I have plenty of ideas. But they all involve a lens cap.”
“It can definitely be turned off.” She smiled, leaning down to kiss you.
“Good.” You grinned, “now take me to dinner.”
“You’re not going to share your ideas with the class?”
“Dinner first.” You kissed her, “dessert when we get home.”
“Now that, I like the sound of.”
________________
@svulife-rl rl @clarawatson @hbkpop @momlifebehard @alexusonfire @itisdoctortoyousir @temilyrights @alexxavicry @evilregal2002 @alcabots @ladysc @dextur @disneyfan624 @augustvandyne @supercriminalbean @lex13cm @prentiss-theorem @happenstnces @whiteberryx @heidss @geekyandgay98 @onmykneesformarvel @inlovewithemilyprentiss @desperate-gay @amypoehlfey @overtrred28 @emobabeyy @1974-sp @theclassicgaycousin @kalixxa @leftoverenvy @bigolgay @daddy-heather-dunbar @regalmilfs4me @scorpsik @riveramorylunar @h-doodles @maybe-a-humanbean
#alex blake#alex blake x reader#criminal minds#love comes quietly#alex blake series#alex blake: criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic
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