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hoshinoyozora · 1 year

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The Red Darling

🖤 Pairing: Yandere! Vil Schoenheit x Female! Reader

💛 Word Count: 2,7k+

❤ Warnings: -

[Edited]

Do not re-upload my writing to another website or use it without my permission. Also, don’t ask for a sequel unless I like the story enough to write one. Please reblog so other people can see my stories!

***

I’ve been obsessed with Luz’s song called Darling Blue. The storyline is still confusing to me, but the old song vibes is just *chef’s kiss* I might just write the Neige version. Also, Epel here isn’t/wasn’t Vil’s junior.

“Honestly, how could she neglect her own health like this?”

Vil sighed as he exited the Magicam that once showed the video of you signing your albums to the fans. It wasn’t the first time he’d watched it, nor was it the first video he’d ever watched, but it wasn’t what he focused on the most. It was your sluggish movements, your droopy eyes, your stifled yawns, and your fatigued smiles. Your fans might not see those signs, or they might choose to ignore them, but he did see and he did pay attention.

After all, Vil Schoenheit was your biggest fan.

Despite your imperfect voice, he admired how you always strived to improve yourself. He, out of all people, knew perfection didn’t exist yet he chose to be the best version of himself anyway. Although, there was a lingering regret that Vil wasn’t able to find and support you from the beginning of your career. Regardless, he wasn’t too late. He was there when you performed in a small stage, and he was there when you performed in a bigger stage.

But it seemed that you tried too hard this time.

Pressing a certain number, Vil put the phone to his ear.

“Hello, Adella. When is [Name]’s next concert?”

“Huh? This is the first time you ask that kind of thing.”

“Just tell me already.”

“Wait, let me check.” There was a momentary pause, and Vil tapped his foot impatiently. “It’s on the second week next month. Why?”

“I need the VIP ticket.”

“What?!”

“Do not make me repeat myself, Adelle.”

“O-oh, of course. I’ll purchase the ticket and send it to you as soon as possible.”

“Good, thank you. I’ll be sure to repay the money.”

He turned off the call before she could utter another word and huffed. Honestly, why was she so surprised? It wasn’t as if he’d ever hidden his fondness for you, even if he didn’t particularly gush over you like many of your fans did.

Stroking the photo of you smiling to the camera with a microphone in hand, while the crowd was cheering on you from below the platform, Vil leaned forward and kissed your face. It was his favorite photo due to the perfect mixture of spotlight and sweat that illuminated your glowing features.

And very soon, he’d be able to see it from up close.

***

You sighed wistfully as you stared at the photos of you and your ex, Epel. Your relationship used to be a secret, as it should, due to his status as a mere apple juice merchant. But, suddenly, a news broke out that one of his products was apparently poisoned and it froze the victim until morning. They sued him, and although it was fortunate that he didn’t get imprisoned, Epel still lost a significant amount of money and fame. You tried to help him, because you knew he was planning to propose you, but Epel feared for your futures.

And, thus, he decided to break up with you.

You were devastated, although deep down, you were still in denial of his charges. Epel was the type to pick a fight with someone if they pissed him off rather than poisoning them. Not ‘manly’, he’d say. And yet, even that wasn’t enough to save your relationship. Wasn’t enough to make him believe in you the same way you did in him. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. Too much was at stake here, and no matter how much you tried to convince him that you could be the breadwinner later on, he still refused. For him, a job was another part of his pride.

And now, not even his apple cutting skills could save him from shame. Internally and externally.

So, you threw yourself to work. You practiced day and night, all to forget the depression that crept up on you when there was no music as a distraction and to avoid your manager’s scolding. There was only so much she could tolerate from you, and isolating yourself in your room might just be the end of her patience. The exhaustion shook your body, worsened by the starvation caused by your diet, but you forced yourself to smile. To your fans, and now…

“Vil Schoenheit will be attending your concert later as a VIP. Please show your best self.”

To him.

It wasn’t as if you hated him. Oh, no. If you looked at it from another angle, his perfectionism was admirable. He showed and deserved nothing less. In fact, you could even say you preferred him than Neige. But today was different. Today, you were at your worst self. You didn’t even know if you could survive five minutes on the stage. What would the Vil Schoenheit think of you, then? Being the second most famous actor in Twisted Wonderland was bound to sway some opinions easily, and after all the hard work you’d put in, you didn’t know how to handle the breakdown should you fail to impress him later on.

And you succeeded, even if it was just barely. Otherwise, your manager wouldn’t have told you that he was waiting for you at his private room. At the very least, you managed to stand and smile at the crowd and cameras earlier. It was still an achievement in itself, no matter how petty it seemed.

“Excuse me, Schoenheit? My manager said you want to talk to me.”

“Oh, yes. Come here, and don’t call me Schoenheit. It looks like you’re calling my father instead.”

You tittered and sat down beside him with enough distance to be appropriate.

“So, what do you want to talk about?”

“I’ll be honest, you didn’t reach the high note in your first song.”

You flinched, not expecting the abrupt comment. You knew you made a lot of mistakes, especially recently, but it still stung.

“I-I see. I was trying, though.”

“I know, but your exhaustion has hindered your performance. I expect you to take care of yourself the same way you do to your work.”

He was right, but it didn’t mean you could accept it easily. It wasn’t as if you overworked yourself because you wanted to, anyway.

“… Yes, thank you for your advice, Schoen– I mean, Vil.”

“Don’t just thank me. You should apply it from now on.”

“Of course.”

Somehow, he made you feel as if he was your manager. Or, worse, your mother.

“Therefore, I decided to bring you to dinner with me. Regardless of your mistakes, you still did your best for the sake of your fans. So you deserve a nice meal, at the very least.”

You wondered how many whiplash you’d get from him. First, he suddenly attended your concert as a VIP. Then, he judged your performance so harshly. And now, he invited you to dinner? No, you realized, it wasn’t an invitation. It was an order. And the restaurant wasn’t a typical five star one, either.

No, it was the kind that took months just for a reservation.

Luckily, Vil didn’t talk much during mealtime. He ate calmly and gracefully, savoring each bite. You felt even more conscious of your table manner, and you clumsily tried to follow everything he did. You weren’t sure if you should be flattered or embarrassed when he huffed in amusement.

“Let’s go to my house. I just bought [flavor] tea and I want you to taste them.”

You wondered where did he find out that you liked that particular flavor. Did you tell it to your fans and you happened to forget? If so, then did that mean he was your fan too? The thought flattered you. Of course, it was only logical considering he came to your concert. Still, all of his invitations had been startling despite being a fan. Maybe because he was also as popular as you, if not more.

“You have a lovely home.” you remarked, glancing around the spotless living room.

“Of course. A tidy house reflects a tidy mind.”

You smiled bemusedly, too accustomed by forced humility that his confident answer surprised you a bit. And yet, you found that it suited him very well. He wasn’t lying, anyway, so he deserved to feel proud of himself. You could learn a thing or two about not putting yourself down too much.

“Sit down. I’m going to prepare the tea for a moment.”

The couch was plush and comfy, and after all the whirlwind of activities and the fatigue that came with it, you might as well be falling asleep here.

Luckily, you had a stronger self-control than that.

Your back immediately straightened up when Vil returned with a tray of porcelain cups depicting the poisoned apples. Despite his conduct befitting that of a queen, his elegance when he poured the tea from the teapot was no less amazing.

You sipped the tea as silently and slowly as you could, savoring the flavor and warmth as if it was your last drink. You’d refused the wine from the restaurant earlier, fearing that you’d make a fool out of yourself by getting drunk. It didn’t matter if you could hold up your alcohol well; Vil’s presence demanded only perfection.

“How does it taste like?”

“Refreshing. The scent really calms down my nerves.”

It wasn’t a lie; it did recompose you, even slightly.

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve been wanting to taste this as well.”

You wondered why he didn’t do it himself, but you supposed that drink, just like food, was more delicious and memorable with company.

“Um, may I use the restroom?”

“It’s the third door on the right.”

You passed the kitchen, where the window displayed the darkening sky. Not from the moon, but from the upcoming rain. Hastily, you did your business in fear of being staying over for too long. It smelled vaguely of apple, and the yellow light illuminated the sparkling bathroom. Branded toiletries lined up neatly in the cabinet, and the towels were meticulously white.

It wasn’t until you spotted a slightly ajar door did you stop on your tracks.

Now, of course, you knew curiosity killed the cat. And, in this case, the cat was your job. But when your gut feeling compelled you to approach the room, and see your pictures pinned on the dressing mirrors, you knew it was simultaneously a good and bad thing to do. One of them was you smiling to the camera with a microphone in hand, while the crowd was cheering on you from below the platform. There seemed to be a few lipstick marks on it, cementing Vil’s position as your fan. While the other was a photo of you and Epel, with an X sign crudely slashed onto his face.

It was your anniversary photo, and you wore your best camouflage outfit at that time, so how did he have it? Did the paparazzi stalk you without your knowledge and send it to him somehow? It had to. You couldn’t think of any other possibility.

But the question was why? Why would he have that? You thought he’d at least understand how hard it was to date someone, being a celebrity himself. And yet, the sign on Epel’s face suggested that he didn’t understand, let alone accept it.

He couldn’t accept it.

“Don’t you know that it’s rude to peek into someone’s room?”

You froze, and for a split second, you were tempted to rush inside and slam the door on his face. But that would be a suicidal move, wouldn’t it? It was his room, after all, and he could easily find a key to unlock the door.

“V-Vil,” you tittered. “I’m sorry. Did you wait long?”

The said man squinted at you.

“Long enough to catch a mouse lingering near a place where it shouldn’t be.”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude, I swear! I was just–”

Curious? Nosy? There was no point in defending yourself, and he knew that. So, you sighed heavily as your shoulders sagged in resignation.

“Why… do you have my photo?” you asked, almost whispering. “The one with my… friend. It was supposed to be a private event. You–” you paused, already doubting your impromptu decision to confront him. Was it even worth digging your grave for the sake of your practically nonexistent privacy? “You shouldn’t have that.”

Vil was quiet for a moment, but you didn’t dare to look up. He didn’t criticize your composure, either, or your posture.

“… Sometimes, I wonder about that too.” he mused softly. “When I first saw that photo, I should’ve burned it to ashes and stomped on it with my heels. But, instead, I let my hands shake and ultimately hang it on the mirror, if not as a source of… motivation.”

Somehow, you had a feeling it wasn’t a good kind of motivation. Your stomach churned at the thought.

“I did a background check on him, and was thoroughly disappointed in your choice of men.”

You flinched instinctively and opened your mouth to defend Epel, but his withering glare silence you quickly.

“I mean, an apple merchant from a small village?” he scoffed. “It was all just too easy, honestly, to set him up. I just needed to have someone buy one of his products, used my unique magic on it, and ordered them to give it to someone so they could have a ‘taste’.”

Your stomach plummeted, and you wished you could run back to the bathroom and puke all of that fancy food earlier.

“I almost pity him, really. He went from poor to destitute, but I suppose it’s still a lot better than death.”

“Why…?” you asked breathlessly, eyes stinging at the upcoming tears. “Why did you do that to him?! What did he do to you until he deserved that kind of fate?! Answer me, Schoenheit!”

His eyes darkened at the name usage just as the thunder boomed outside.

“Because a queen deserves a king by her side.”

You gaped at him. A king? Who was the king? Was it you? If so, didn’t a king deserve a good, sane queen by his side too?

Why did you feel more like a girl under the queen’s unfair wrath instead?

“… It’s getting late.” you mumbled. “I have practice tomorrow. Excuse me.”

Vil grabbed your arm, and you wondered if he could crush an apple with his grip.

“Where do you think you’re going? Can’t you see that it’s pouring out there?” he scolded as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on you. “You’re going to get sick, especially in that kind of condition.”

“It’s fine. I always have a painkiller ready…”

Suddenly, everything started to blur and move upside down. You clasped a hand over your mouth and collapsed to your feet, resisting the urge to vomit all over the marble floor.

“See? I told you.” Vil’s voice sounded distant despite him crouching beside you. “You’re sick, because you’ve been avoiding your much-needed rest. Don’t worry, I’ve told your manager that you’ll be staying with me for a few days.”

You were too weak to fight him, let alone escape from him. So, you allowed him to carry your body inside and lay it on the bed. He pulled the blanket to your chin and stood there for a moment.

“I won’t let you neglect your health anymore, especially over that pauper.” he hissed. “Under my care, you shall return to your best version. And I’ll be there as your number one fan and man.”

Deep down, you knew that your predicament wasn’t just because of your fatigue. He did something to you, to the tea, and you’d been too naïve to believe that the queen couldn’t be evil as well.

And his crooked smirk proved your suspicion.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #disney twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #twst imagines #yandere vil schoenheit #yandere vil x reader #vil schoenheit #yandere twst #female reader #vil x you #vil x reader #twst vil #vil x y/n

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aellynera · 3 years

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Man of the House (Bud Cooper x F!Reader)

MAN OF THE HOUSE

a/n: this is an entirely ridiculous, self-indulgent fic, especially for @sergeantkane, with little plot, just some thots. 💜😘 comments, likes, and reblogs always appreciated!

Word Count: 1385(ish)

Summary: It’s been a very long day, and Bud has a surprise for you.

Warnings: Female reader (no y/n or descriptions.) A tiny bit of language. Questionable apparel choices. Strong sexual innuendo/very very light very very brief smut (not at all graphic but it’s there so please be 18+). The usual sketchy proofreading/editing.

You fumble with your key as you aim it toward your front door. It has been a very, very long day, and all you can picture in your mind right now is a long soak in a hot bubble bath and the soothing warmth of your soft bed.

You’d called your husband around 4 p.m., when you realized exactly how much work you had left, and with your boss breathing down your neck that it had to be done today. Bud had been very sweet and understanding, like he always was with you. He told you to try not to stress, to take your time and do what you had to do, and that he couldn’t wait until later tonight to kiss you senseless.

Your husband’s gentle words were the only thing that got you through the rest of the afternoon. Thinking about finally getting home and being wrapped up in his strong, warm arms was the only thing that got you past a screaming boss, endless phone calls, and immature, irresponsible coworkers. The glint he gets in his eyes whenever he looks at you stuck in your mind, you somehow managed to tune out most of the unending cacophony.

But even with the thoughts of your sweet husband, the day was exhausting.

And you know, since you were working late, Bud would also likely be working even later. He isn’t exactly addicted to his job, but he takes it very seriously. And if he knows you aren’t going to be home, he’ll probably put in a few more hours at his own office. He is prone to lose track of time, so you will likely have to call him later and see when he was coming home.

That’s fine. That’s what the bath and the bed are for.

You finally get the key into the doorknob and unlock it, sighing and letting yourself in. Every step, every motion, feels like you;re walking in wet cement. You’re glad you’d left a light on this morning because you aren’t sure you can navigate the dark house right now, and you certainly don’t have the energy to flip a light switch. Wait, you didn’t leave a light on when you left today, did you? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Dropping your bag unceremoniously by the door, you think maybe you’ll skip the bath after all.

That’s when your addled brain registers the smell. Garlic and onion and something rich and meaty wafts through the house. Exhaustion aside, you’re certain you hadn’t left anything cooking when you went out that morning.

You shuffle your way to the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the couch on the way, until the edge of the kitchen table stops you dead in your tracks. Well, not so much the table itself. You’re so surprised to see Bud standing in the kitchen that you forget you’re in motion and the crash of your body hitting the wood makes him turn around.

“Sweetheart, you’re home, I didn’t hear you come in,” he says with a wide grin. “Let me give this a quick stir, hang on a sec.” He gestures vaguely with the wooden spoon clutched in his hand and turns back to the pot on the stove.

Truly, the sight would have been less shocking to you, if Bud was wearing anything more than just an apron, and you weren’t staring dumbfounded at his ass.

Not that you’d never seen his ass. You’d seen his ass plenty of times; he was your husband, after all. But you were pretty sure you’d never seen his ass peeking out from beneath the yellow ruffles that edged your favorite blue apron. The one you wear all the time when you’re baking or cooking. The one with the little cats-and-flowers pattern splashed across it. His reading glasses were hooked over the pocket in the center of his chest.

You’re not sure what comes out of your mouth, but it isn’t words.

Bud puts a lid on the pot, peeks into the oven, and then walks over to you with a sweet smile on his face.

He wraps his arms around your waist and leans in to press a soft kiss on your mouth, and you vaguely note that your mouth is still hanging open. “How was the rest of your day?”

“I...it was…” you finally get something other than a strangled yelp out of your face. “Bud...what are you…”

Bud shrugs. “Making you dinner.”

“In my...apron,” you squeak.

Another shrug as Bud turns back to the stove. “I didn’t want to get stains on my shirt.”

Your mouth opens and closes a few more times. Are you dreaming? You could be dreaming. But then Bud moves to wipe his hand on the apron, and the apron shifts so you get a glimpse of what else is under it, and suddenly you desperately need a drink.

Bud turns back to you and hands you a glass of wine, which you didn’t even notice he’d poured. You down half of it in one go, and he clinks his glass to yours before taking his own sip. “Everything should be ready in a few minutes.”

“Bud Cooper,” you start, biting your lip for a moment. “What is going on?”

He puts his glass down and inches towards you again, wrapping his arms back around your waist. The smell of his cologne mixes with the garlic and the scent that is simply him and you sigh into his chest. He kisses the top of your head. “You sounded like you were having a really bad day when you called, so I got out of work a little early. Got stuff to make your favorite pasta, cleaned up a little around the house, started cooking. Thought I’d surprise you.”

“I’m sorry, but how exactly did cooking naked come into play?”

“I’m not naked,” his face is completely straight. “I’m wearing an apron.”

“Bud.”

“So did my surprise work?”

And before you can say another word, you’re being hoisted up onto the kitchen table and Bud is standing between your legs. The skirt of the apron lays across your lap and you can feel him against your thigh.

“Bud, people eat on this table.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The gleam in his eyes is undeniable, familiar, and oh so slightly dangerous. It’s probably a second too late when you realize what you said, and what he’s now doing.

Bud gazes up at you from his knees, leaving hot wet kisses on your own, trailing his lips down your calves and back up to your knees again. “Hmm, you don’t say.”

You’re pretty sure you black out at some point, it’s kind of hard to tell. All you know is Bud’s mouth is hot and wet on your equally hot and wet center, and he’s wearing that ridiculous fucking apron and you’d contemplate why you even bought the thing in the first place, if his mouth wasn’t currently doing what it was doing.

Dinner is forgotten and you have a vague recollection of Bud telling you it’s fine, because pasta is always better the next day anyway.

The sheets are soft against your skin as you roll over in the faint morning light, reaching for the spot next to you. Bud rolls over to face you and pulls you closer. How you got to bed, you have no idea, but Bud seems to sense your question and answers sleepily, his eyes not opening.

“You were pretty out of it last night,” he mumbles, snuggling closer to you. “Carried you back. Cleaned up the mess.”

You hum in a mix of appreciation and contentment, curling up into his side and opening one eye to glance at him. “What did you do with the apron?”

“Burned it in the backyard.”

Bud laughs as you lightly slap his chest. “No, seriously. That’s like...my favorite apron.”

“Washed it and stuck it back in the drawer,” he tells you softly, and you can feel the sly grin more than you can see it. “So next time you put it on…”

The images of what happened in your kitchen last night flash through your mind in an instant and you can feel your body heating at the mere thought.

Definitely your favorite apron.

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khoicesbyk · 3 years

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Dark Pleasure.

A/N: This AU is between my two all time favorite books Bloodbound and The Royal Romance! It is the crossover to end all crossovers.

A/N 2: This fanfic will be dark! And sexy! And violent! And delicious! And will quickly become your guilty pleasure.

Rated: Mature. | Contains sexual content and strong language. (You know? The usual from me. 😁) | Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters. | Main Characters: Tristan Rys (LI) and Latisha Tucker (MC) x Adrian Raines and Tiana Reynolds-Raines | All Characters and names: (except MC and original characters created by me) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 1,210 words. (more or less. I stop counting after editing and re-editing. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

Prompt Time! Today I’ll be using @wackydrabbles prompt #87 “No offense, but I'm not interested.”! It’ll be in bold in black.

If you’d like to be added to my tag list. Just reblog or dm me and I will gladly add you! 😁😘

Series TW: drug use, violence, murder, mentions of torture, prostitution.

This series is rated Mature. It is NOT reading material that is safe for those under 18. Reader discretion is STRONGLY advised!

(MAJOR SHOUTOUT TO @secretaryunpaid!!! SHE GAVE ME THE KICK IN THE ASS THAT I NEEDED TO START THIS SERIES! I DON’T THINK I WOULD’VE HAD THE BALLS TO WRITE THIS IF SHE HADN’T HAVE PUSHED ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!)

Chapter 1.) Into The Shadows.

Tristan Rys has everything any man could ever want. Money, power, cars, girls, homes you name it, he’s more than likely got it. As President and Chairman of Rys International Group, it’s his job to provide his clients with every luxury their hearts desire. After all he’s known all around the world as The King Of Cordonia.

His late father Constantine started the company with just one small hotel and when he turned the business over to his youngest son, Tristan turned it into a powerhouse that rivals Marriott and Hilton. He has his Le Roi de Cordonie hotel group, his Lotus spas and The Underground nightclubs all over the world.

And now he’s looking to expand to the US. After scouting possible headquarter locations in California, New York, Miami, Boston and Chicago, he settled on Washington D.C. He took a liking to the busy city vibe. With D.C. being the home and hub of American politics and the potential growth of his client list, he was sold on the location. Because what better way to grow his true business than to be in a city that thrives?

What is his true business you ask?

Tristan isn’t just the owner of Rys International Group, he’s also one of the biggest drug lords in the world. No one has ever been able to touch him.

And right now he’s about to have the biggest investment meeting of his life. If he’s able to make this deal it would mean he’d truly be unstoppable.

He’s about to meet with Senator Adrian Raines.

Adrian has known Tristan since he was a kid. He and Constantine were great friends and eventually Adrian became one of Rys International’s biggest clients. After all, they hosted Adrian and Tiana’s wedding. So when Adrian heard that Rys International was coming to D.C., he had to see what brought Tristan to town. Although Adrian doesn’t run the day to day of Raines Corporation he was still willing to meet.

Both arrived to an empty Ocean Prime Steakhouse for their meeting.

“Adrian! It’s good to see you!” Tristan said as he stood to greet Adrian with a handshake.

“It’s good to see you too Tristan. It’s been a long time. I haven’t seen you since you were a kid.” Adrian replied, returning his handshake.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Senator.”

“Please you know you can always call me Adrian.”

“I know but I want to respect you and your new position.”

“Thank you. What can I get you? Scotch?” Adrian asks.

“Whiskey if you don’t mind.” Tristan replies.

Adrian signals for the waiter to bring them a couple bottles and glasses.

“Now before we get down to business, I gotta ask…how’s that spitfire wife of yours?” Tristan asks.

Adrian snickered.

“You know how she is about you. She won’t shut up about the new spa you opened up in New York. I can’t keep her out of there.” He replies.

“Yes I know. Still the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“You’re a liar but I’ll take the backhanded compliment anyway.”

The two shared a laugh as the waiter brought them two bottles of whiskey.

“I don’t know about you but I’m starving! So shall we order?” Tristan asks him.

“Of course let’s order.”

They placed their orders and while they waited for their food to be delivered, they started to discuss business.

“So let’s get down to it. Why am I here Tristan?” Adrian asked.

“I have a business proposal for you Adrian.”

“Oh? And what is this business proposal as you put it?” Adrian asks.

“Consider it a bit of a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. I’m new to town and I know how cutthroat D.C. can be. And I’m a small fish in this very big pond.” Tristan replies.

“Meaning?” Adrian asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Meaning you give me protection here in D.C. and I fund your entire senatorial re-election and future presidential campaign.” Tristan replies.

Adrian scoffed.

“No offense, but I'm not interested.”

“Come on Adrian! You can’t seriously be passing this up!”

That’s when their food arrived.

“Need I remind you that you are one of the biggest drug dealers in the world? You’re a danger to my campaign!”

Tristan shrugged.

“Suit yourself Senator. I was actually looking forward to working with you but I’m sure your opponent in New York will be happy to take the deal.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh no? Why not? Because you’re an old friend of both me and my father?” Tristan asks.

Adrian smirked.

“You’re an asshole. You do know that right?” Adrian asks.

“High praise!” Tristan replies.

“If I agree to this, what do I really get out of this?” Adrian asks.

“Like I said, a fully funded re-election and future presidential campaigns. On top of the perks of being a valued member of Rys International’s platinum club and a few other personal perks and favors, of course.” Tristan replied.

“All while you get to set up shop here in D.C. and run your legal and illegal business, correct?” Adrian asks.

“A win-win situation if I do say so myself.” Tristan replies before pouring himself a drink.

“And how would we go about this…business?” Adrian asks.

“Very simple. Your head of security Jax will meet with my head of security Drake Walker and coordinate.” Tristan replies.

“Jax won’t agree to that.”

“Why not?” Tristan asks.

“Jax doesn’t like working with people.” Adrian replied.

“Neither does Drake. Unless it involves sex and liquor.”

“Oh well in that case, they’ll be great together. They’re both brooding, moody and love liquor and women.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“What about your brother Leo?” Adrian asks.

“Simple. While all that happens my brother will work with Raines Corporation on the business side of things.”

“And what about us?”

“Just two old friends working together to make sure that you are re-elected and my business flourishes here in America.”

“And no one will know about your cartel?” Adrian asks.

“Nope. Hell I’ll even throw you a cut of the profits…and a few of my finest girls.” Tristan replies.

Adrian sat back and thought about Tristan’s words.

“Come on Adrian. I know you’re considering it.”

“You’re an egomaniac!”

“And you’re the vampire who is married to the most powerful woman in the entire universe. And together you and I will become the two most unstoppable men on the planet!”

Adrian just shook his head then grinned.

“Damn you’re good…”

“That’s the nature of my business. So what do you say? Do we have a deal?” Tristan asks.

“This goes against everything I have believed in! I am better than this!” Adrian hissed. “And yet…this is too damn good for you to pass up.”

Adrian took a deep breath and Tristan rolled his eyes.

“Just say that you accept the damn deal old man!”

“Fine! You’ve got a deal! I can not believe I’ve been talked into this.”

“Wonderful! I’ll have my legal team contact yours and we’ll hammer out all the fine print.”

“You truly are ruthless, Tristan.”

“Jay-Z said it best. I’m not just a businessman, I’m a business…man.”

Adrian snickered.

“Here’s to a very lucrative partnership.”

“Finally!”

The two toasted to their new deal.

#choices #choices stories you play #pixelberry #khoicesbyk #choices fanfiction #fanfic #bloodbound #the royal romance #dark au

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littlemessyjessi · 3 years

Text

Torn: Remus Lupin Story: PS OC:Chapter Five: Fearless First Year

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Remus Lupin Imagine Turned Story

Re-Written and Edit of an old story of mine I had on Mibba that deserved some more love and attention, lol.

Remus Lupin x Vega Black (OC, OFC, PLUS SIZE OC, PLUS SIZE OFC)

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“You occasionally see one, and it’s the thrill of a lifetime. But mostly all you ever see is a cloud of dust after they are gone. It’s their stubborn ability to survive that makes them so remarkable.” — Velma “Wild Horse Annie” Johnston

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Chapter Song Inspiration:

“Fearless” - Olivia Holt

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Days turned to weeks and by now all of Hogwarts had come to know Rowan Black as the Feisty First Year. Much to her embarrassment. James wouldn't shut up. Sirius was no help. They'd made BUTTONS with her face on them surrounded charmed blue flames. "Here, get your Feisty First Year buttons! The Rebellious Ravenclaw!" Vega’s blood boiled as she watched the two of them walk around the courtyard passing out buttons like she was some kind of freak at the circus. "James!" she hissed at him and he whirled around to see the very angry little eleven year old. "Come here!" "Ah, here she is now, ladies and gents!" he grinned and nudged Sirius who winked at her mischievously. She deadpanned at the both of them before searching out the only person who she could reason with. A person who just so happen to be hiding his face in a book. "Remus." she said placing her hands down on the table in front of the shy Gryffindor. He cleared his throat and looked up at her sheepishly, "Vega..." She arched a brow at him. "I didn't have anything to do with it..." he lied. Those stormy grey orbs narrowed at him viciously, "I'm a fairly good lie detector, Remus John Lupin." His brows rose into his hair line, "How did you know my middle name?" "I'm also wildly observant." she seethed. "Now, make them stop." "I can't..." he mumbled not wanting to go against his only friends. Although, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little afraid of her. Eleven or not....Vega had the ability to be terrifying when she wanted to be. "Coward." she snapped and he sunk further down. She was angry now but maybe she'd forgive him when she saw what was coming. "Step right up! Take your chance! Who's brave enough to face off against the Feisty First Year?!" James boasted and she rounded on him. "James Potter!" she hissed. "I am NOT getting in a fight." "There she goes, boys! Wound up already! Who's brave enough to take her on?" Sirius added. "Sirius...Orion...Black..." she seethed at her older cousin. "Stop encouraging him!" "What's the matter bitty baby? Afraid of a rematch?" Vega knew that voice and she glowered over at her older cousin....who now had her wand back...and an entourage. "Bellatrix, dear cousin!" Sirius boasted with a grin and started towards her, "Have a button!" "Get that thing away from me!" Bella snapped and slapped his hand away from her. "Oh, come now!" Sirius smirked. "Say, you beat V in a rematch and we'll put YOUR face all over the buttons!" "Sirius!" Vega snapped at him in disbelief. "I will not-" "What's wrong?" Bella sneered. "Afraid of a little competition....frightful first year?" Vega glanced over at her older cousin, Andromeda with an arched brow. "You're encouraging this?" Vega pressed in irritation. "No." Andromeda said. "I'm not." "And if I were to accept?" Vega challenged....effectively causing a roar of applause at a possible dueling match making her sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Hypothetically speaking," Andromeda began. "If you were to accept in my presence I'd be obligated to stop you but since I've just remembered my potions homework....I'll be going over there." Andromeda said with a knowing smirk. For a prefect...she was oddly cool about a lot of things. Vega narrowed her eyes and ground her teeth together. They were idiots. All of them. Absolute idiots. "Let's do this." The students around her roared to life and Bella smirked. "One on one." Vega said. "Wand to wand." "Afraid cousin?" Bella taunted. "No, but I'm not stupid." Vega snapped. "You've always been a cheater. People who lack talent tend to go that route." A round of laughter coursed through the students at Bella's expense. "You little!" Bella snapped drawing her wand but Vega had already cast the disarming charm....landing Bella's wand in her hand. Again. "It's your temper than blocks your vision, Bella." Vega sighed with a shake of her head...though never taking her eyes off her opponent. Vega tossed it back to her. "Again." she said. The fire in Bellatrix' eyes told her that she aimed to hurt her this time but Vega was prepared. She never wanted to hurt others but Bella had a way of pressing her buttons. What happened next was fast and rapid fire. Hexes, curses, deflections and disarming charms flew between the two girls like lightning. Beams of light and gusts of power. What started as a simple duel had quickly turned into something else and Andromeda had already joined the group again. "You little blood traitor!" Bella roared at her younger cousin. "No one is here to protect you now! I can show you how our family treats traitors!" "Bellatrix!" Andromeda snapped but the grin on her younger sister's face told her she wouldn't be stopping. "Bella, no!" Andromeda lunged forward. She recognized the wand movement of the Cruciatis curse. Bellatrix turned on Sirius because she knew that was the way to get to Vega anyway. However, Vega had cast a protective shield in front of him throwing her back. "Get. away. from. him." Vega growled visciously. "Struck a nerve have I?" Bella smirked. “Ready to give up, Bitty Baby?”

“Not likely.” Vega said.

“Scared little baby!” Bella cackled. “Shaking with fear!”

Vega snapped her wand around her head like a whip and the students backed up as the protection shield in front of Sirius widened....and encased the two girls in a dome. Andromeda ran forward in a panic but smacked into a barrier between herself and the girls. Things had escalated far quicker than she had anticipated....and now she couldn't stop it. Her fist beat on the barrier and she was soon joined by Narcissa and Sirius. "Sirius, make her stop!" she pleaded. "I can't!" he said. "She's protecting me! You can't talk to her when she's like that!" "Vega!" Andromeda said. "Take it down! Bella, don't you dare!" But she was too late. Bellatrix had turned to her younger with a glare. She took in the younger girl's form. She was using magic that was a bit beyond her level...and it was taking a toll on her. Blood ran from her nose and her grey eyes took on a glossy appearance. "Look at you." Bella sneered. "You're not even worth the air. Perhaps, I should just rid us all of you now. You can join your dirty blood traitor parents! Dear old dead mummy and daddy!” "Sirius..." Andromeda whispered in horror. "Someone get the headmaster! Go! Somebody get some help!" Several beams of light and red sparks were shot into the air to alert the staff while other students ran for help. "Bellatrix! No!" Andromeda stared at her sister. She knew that look. Bella thrived on power. She thrived on having something's life in the palm of her hands. She was the child who set ant hills on fire. She was the child who choked frogs until they stopped moving. She was dark...and she loved seeing the light leave things. She could see now that she planned to do the same to Vega. Bella raised her wand, "Good bye, cousin." Vega struggled to her feet but she stood as tall as she could. She'd be damned if she let Bella take her on her knees. She'd give it all she had....even if it killed her. "Avada Kedavr-" "Expecto Patronum!" A beam of silver exploded from Vega’s wand.

“You got it, love.” she heard her father’s voice in her ear causing tears to well up.

“Show ‘em what we’re made of, babydoll.” her mother’s voice in her other ear.

Vega pushed the last bit of magic she had into the spell and an enormous horse erupted from the tip of Vega’s wand and charged forward.

It reared up over Bella's stunned form that had been blown backwards onto her back.

The magnificent creature let out a powerful sound as it stood over the shaking second year's form. "I'm sorry!" Bella cried. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't- please don't!" Vega struggled to stand as she concentrated on the magic she'd just performed. It was far too advanced for her to even attempt and yet somehow she'd managed to do it. But it had taken every last bit she had left. As she collapsed, the horse vanished, the barrier broke and a rush of feet surrounded both the girls. The last thing Vega heard before she lost consciousness was, "That's impossible. A first year has never been able to perform a barrier spell that solid." "Barrier? Are you blind? She just produced a full formed patronus! This is amazing! My sister is amazing!"

“Not your sister. Your cousin.”

“Oh fuck off! That’s my baby sister! My fucking amazing, badass, queen of a baby sister! This is fucking wicked!” "Mr. Potter take Mr. Black to the Gryffindor common room immediately!" It made her smile a bit Sirius’ ability to be an absolute dork at the worst possible moment. It was that thought that let her slip into the darkness peacefully while the whispers ignited around her.

Vega Black.

Not the Feisty First Year.

The Fearless First Year.

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Chapter Four

Chapter Six Coming Soon

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—–

Hello my lovelies!

Woooo child! We got some friction! How do we feel about Vega fiesty retaliation? I’d love to hear from you!

Here is another rewrite of a previous work of mine that I had on Mibba! I did a bit of reworking on the character, her name and her backstory because I just felt like she deserved more! I would love to know what you think of little Vega!

So please comment, reblog with thoughts and/or smash the ask box! I do so love hearing from you my loves!

Love,

Kenny

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@frankie2902

@pleasantdreamqueen @becrazy–beyou

@littledeadrottinghood @blackirisposts

@therealmrshale @woodworthti666@thegreatirene@fanfictionandjunk

@angelus320

@alanlizzingtonshore@buriednurbckyrd@disneymarina@tubbypeachwriting

@sullybot @georgiagrl1990 @whenallsaidanddone

@mischiefnevermanaged94 @inumorph

@congurl

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@bubblymusiclover13

@qtmeryr

@thisismysecrethappyplace

@tnupsweetpie

@alisoncdariel

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@blackirisposts

@maggyme13

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@fanfics1717 @mrscasnovak

@thickemadame @babygirl-barnes

@theladyofmasks @aengsty

@kalliravenne

@witchygagirl

@gruffle1

@writtenbywolfie

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@simplymagical@simplymagicalwritings

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@criminalyetminimal

@plus-size-reader

@owenniasstars

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@tuutifruuti

@ tb-ctn

Love, Kenny

#remus lupin #remus john lupin #remus lupin x vega black #remus x vega #vega equuleus black #marauder #marauders #marauders era #marauder era remus lupin #young remus lupin

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 15]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-7 and what I have of Chapter 8 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

This thing is going to be 1K words with the semester I’m having. :P The plan is to do a lot of work today. I even have my dinner in a crock-pot. I’m giving a presentation on October 13th and want to basically knock out the prep today so I don’t have to have it hanging over my head. Not sure if I will achieve that, but that’s the plan! I have big goals! Wish me luck! :D

Chapter 3

Janus and Remus both appeared at the same moment a couple of feet apart in what looked like the inside of a garden shed. There was already a man waiting for them a few feet away. “Sup babes,” Remy said, just like he always did. The T-Agent looked their costumes up and down and whistled. “Now that,” he said, “almost makes me want to be one of you time jockeys.”

“They wouldn’t let me have a gun or a canister of moonshine,” Remus pouted.

Remy snorted. “Sorry, babes, but that makes my job a lot easier. If I’ve gotta fish you outta the 1920s criminal justice system, I’d rather it not be because you shot someone on accident ‘cause you don’t know how to use the safety.”

Remus groaned dramatically. “Everyone is lame.”

Remy just shook his head. “Meet back here when you’ve got the necklace,” he said. “Don’t make a move until after 11:05pm and before 11:17. That’s your window.”

“We know,” Janus said. “See you then.”

“Have fun at the party boys,” Remy said and then lowered his shades to look at Remus, “but not too much fun.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Remus, already towing Janus out of the garden shed. The way had been specifically cleared for them, so they met no other people before they’d rounded the house the party was taking place and had gotten onto the driveway in front of the house.

Without missing a beat, they strolled up to the front of the house, just as a car pulled into the end of the driveway. Janus rang the doorbell, and a few moments later, a man who was clearly the butler answered the door. They handed over their invitation, and the man immediately let them in.

The party had already started when they slipped into the medium sized ballroom that had been decked out in streamers and other decorations. Janus’s nose immediately wanted to scrunch as the smell of sweat from all the dancing already going on as well as the too strong perfume meant to cover that stench wafted over him. It was by far not the worst smelling time period, but he was pretty sure some people still weren’t aware deodorant had been recently invented.

He checked his time piece which had been disguised as a fancy wristwatch for this trip. “Okay,” he said. “We have about two hours before we need to make our move. We should…”

Remus’s attention was already being dragged away by a young man who seemed to be providing guests with food. “I’m going to go ‘mingle’,” he said, winking.

“No!” Janus hissed. “Re- Richard! No!”

Yet, he was already disappearing into the horde of stinky bodies, likely to go scandalize a bunch of rich folks, and leaving Janus alone. Janus mumbled a curse under his breath that he was sure no one around him would understand even if they could make it out.

Unsure what to do with himself, he wandered over towards where the live musicians were playing jazz music, being sure to keep out of the way of the dancers. He was edging around the makeshift dancefloor, when one of said dancers must have misstepped and knocked into another one. The second man stumbled right towards Janus, arms pinwheeling. Janus reached out on instinct to catch the man as he fell.

There was a moment where the two of them just stared at each other, surprise evident on the other man’s face. He was wearing a mask that just covered the area around his eyes and the top of his nose, revealing a smattering of freckles across his cheeks that Janus imagined extended to his nose.

The mask was a light blue velvet with a flower stuck on the side near his right ear, and a trail of curled golden ribbon bobbed down around his chin. The party continued on around them, a blur of movement and sound.

“Are you alright?” Janus asked.

The man blinked up at him and then tilted his head slightly to the side as though confused, before a smile slowly grew on his face. “Oh, I’m fine Dove.”

“Dove?” Janus asked.

He giggled. “You have dove feathers on your mask,” he explained, reaching up a hand to touch one. His finger brushed the tip of Janus’s ear, “and I don’t know what else I am supposed to call you.”

“My name is Lee,” he automatically lied.

“Is it?” he asked, sounding amused. “Doesn’t seem to fit you well. I like Dove better.”

“Oh?” asked Janus. “And what’s your name so I can not call you that?”

The man chuckled. “Call me Pat.”

“Hello Pat,” Janus said.

“I thought you didn’t want to call me by my name.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Hmmm,” Pat said, finger tracing idly across Janus’s forearm which was when Janus realized with a start that he was still holding the man in his arms. He quickly went to release him, which Pat allowed with clear amusement.

Yet, instead of completely stepping away, Pat grabbed Janus’s arm. “What are you doing all the way over here by the way?” he asked. “Don’t you want to dance.”

“Oh,” Janus hesitated. “I don’t really dance.” Or at least not in the way the people around him were. He’d had basic training for this style, but it had been a while and he was a bit rusty.

“Everyone dances Dove,” Pat claimed. “At least if they know the steps and have the right partner.”

“But I don’t know the steps,” Janus said with an eyebrow raise.

He hummed. “Well, I know the dance pretty well by this point,” Pat said. “Why don’t I teach you how it goes.”

He was agreeing with the soft beseeching tone before he even realized it. Pat pulled him into the middle of the throng of people. He seemed to think, bopping his head to the music playing for a moment, before looking back at Janus. “Heard of James Johnson?”

Janus inclined his head.

“Well, have you heard his new song? Because there’s a dance that goes with it.”

He took a few steps away from Janus and started to dance. Despite his claim to know the steps, he wasn’t particularly good, but he made up for any loss of rhythm with pure enthusiasm.

Janus found himself smiling at the man, and after a few moments, joined in with the dance. Despite his lack of practice, he ended up having a better natural rhythm than Pat. Pat didn’t seem to mind that he was being outperformed, however. On the contrary, he giggled at himself the couple of times he stumbled.

When he fell into Janus’s arms for the second time that night, Janus decided he’d probably had enough dancing for the moment and pulled him off to the side to get something to drink and cool down a bit.

He watched the man take a snack and some punch from one of servers and thank him happily before turning back to Janus. Pat was easily able to keep Janus’s attention as they chatted. He was bubbly and soft, and Janus found himself enchanted as they talked.

He was explaining the steps of a different dance, a couples one. “Knowing how to perform the tango will entrance any girl you want,” Pat said, something mischievous sparkling in his eyes. “Assuming you’re that type of fella.”

“As opposed to what?” Janus asked.

Pat leaned in a bit closer. Not too much, but enough that he was definitely in Janus’s space. “A different type of fella,” he said simply, before smiling and leaning back.

Janus let out a shaky exhale and took a sip of punch. He glanced over at Pat. “Tell me about yourself, Pat,” he said.

Pat hummed in contemplation. “Well, I went to France recently.”

“You did?”

“Oui, c'était amusant, mais j'ai eu des ennuis”

“What kind of trouble?” Janus asked curiously.

“Oh, the kind with a pretty boy and crepes that were way too sweet. Anyway,” he continued. “Other than that, I mostly help out my friend. He’s an inventor.”

“And how do you help him.”

He shrugged, “Running errands mostly, and making sure he gets enough sleep, because otherwise he gets distracted and forgets. And you?”

“I’m a banker,” he said, remembering his cover, but felt compelled to add, “but I like to travel as well.”

“You do look the type?”

“And how is that?”

Pat shrugged. “I can always tell a wandering spirt from the masses, and you are easy to spot.” Pat looked at him then with a secret smile on his face, and Janus felt suddenly known, like the man in front of him had known him for years even though they’d only just met. Looking at him then, he wanted suddenly for that to be fact and not a flight of fancy.

He was brought firmly back to reality in the next moment. “Lee,” a pointed and familiar voice said. Janus’s head snapped up to see Remus, staring at him. He tapped his wrist. Janus glanced at his own wrist: 10:58pm. He just barely managed not to curse.

“I,” he said looking up at Pat. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“That’s okay,” Pat said easily. “It is getting rather late.”

“Yes,” Janus agreed. “Well… goodbye.”

Pat, titled his head, a half smile on his face. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

Janus nodded, and turned away from him towards Remus. He didn’t look back as they excited the ballroom. They snuck into a small side closet for coats that wasn’t being used as it was summer.

“So,” Remus said when the door closed behind them.

“Don’t,” warned Janus.

“I’m not one to judge,” Remus said.

“Shut up.” He glanced at his watch. It was 11:02. “We’ll go in 5.”

“I have to give it to you. He was very cute.”

“We’re not talking about it.”

Remus just laughed joyfully, and Janus did his best to halt the blood rushing to his cheeks.

At 11:07, well into their window, they slipped back out of the closet, and towards the stairs as the party raged on.

Despite how Remus usually never shut up, he was able to be quiet when it counted. They snuck to the master bedroom of the home’s owners in silence. The door was already wide open by the time they got there, and Janus didn’t think anything of it. At least, he didn’t until they entered the bedroom, and there was someone already there.

He turned from the dresser he’d been standing in front of to face them, sending Janus the same smile he had down in the ballroom. Janus and Remus both froze. “Sorry, sweetie,” Pat said. “Were you here for this too?” he held up the necklace they’d been sent for. He closed his fist around the charm made out of time travel tech.

“What?” Janus said.

Pat giggled and winked. “Unfortunately, I need it a bit more than you at the moment. So, I’m gonna have to go.” Janus stepped forward, not really sure what he was intending to do, but Pat just smiled. “See you some other time, my Turtle Dove.” With a snap of his fingers and loud crack, he disappeared. The mask he’d been wearing fluttered to the ground.

Arc I: Finding Cinderella

Chapter 4

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away, the mask.

Which was why he ended up getting arrested.

Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

“Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

“Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to cultural outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

“Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you and asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

“But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen he’d gestured to sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.”

Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

“I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet. I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

“It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

“My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

“Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

“I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

“I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

10264

“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

#study break stories #not writing

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Just Friends

Adrien and Marinette are just friends. Friends and classmates, and sometimes it seems like that's all they'll ever be. But when Adrien mentions his love for the friends-to-lovers trope, Marinette decides to try a new approach.

No more attempts to ask Adrien out. Instead, she'll focus on being the best friend she can be and hope that that's enough to catch Adrien's attention.

links in the reblog

Marinette had grown up with stories of different relationships and their oh-so-romantic starts. Her parents met in university, during one of their baking courses. Her father had asked her mom out after a couple classes because he had already been interested in her- it was pretty much love at first sight- and, well, it went from there. They had been classmates, then dating, then engaged and married and boom, she came along.

It was adorable and romantic and a fantastic example of what Marinette wanted to happen to her, too.

Her Cheng grandparents had a very similar story. They had met at a mutual friend's party, her grandpa asked the friend if her grandma was seeing anyone, and when the answer was no, he tagged along with the friend the next time that they were seeing her grandma and asked her out. She said yes, and they were still together.

The Dupain grandparents, well- like the others, they had met and almost immediately started dating. Even though they weren't still together, it had sounded cute at the time.

In short, all of Marinette's relationship examples hadn't included a purely friendship stage. Sure, they had been friends while dating (and Marinette's parents had referred to each other their best friend more than once), but that came after the dating started. She had heard about friends-to-lovers before, but she had never been particularly convinced by that trope. It just didn't seem realistic. Once people were friends- well, she had always heard older kids referring to their good friends as 'like a brother or sister', and, well, once somebody saw a friend as a sibling, then there wouldn't be any chance for romance there, right? And if people were really good friends, they wouldn't want to risk messing things up by confessing feelings.

And yet the movies made it look so easy, the protagonists moving past considering touches fully brother-sister platonic to romantic and flirty. They didn't seem overly concerned about confessions getting in the way and getting awkward. It just...it didn't ring true.

What if one person fell for the other and the other person didn't return their feelings? Things could get awkward then. What if they both had feelings but were too worried about risking the friendship to ever say anything and then they eventually ended up with other people and heartbroken? What if the other person didn't return the feelings and agreed to try dating anyway and it didn't end up working and everything was weird after that? What if-

Well, life wasn't a romantic comedy and everything working out perfectly didn't sound very realistic. So obviously the only real-life friends-to-lovers relationships that worked were just the rare exceptions.

More examples popped up as her classmates started dating. Ivan and Mylène had known each other before Ivan asked out Mylène, of course, but they hadn't been close friends or anything. They were just...friendly acquaintances. Classmates.

And then Marinette fell for Adrien. And obviously the path to getting a good relationship was asking him out first, then getting to know each other as they dated and became friends. So she tried to ask him out, she really did. But her tongue just kept on tying itself in knots, and she kept on embarrassing herself in front of him.

In short, it was far from the relationship starts that Marinette had heard about all of her life. Her parents had talked about nerves, sure, but not overwhelming, tongue-tying, trip-and-fall-on-your-face nerves. More just small butterflies before dates.

Marinette's nerves weren't small butterflies. No, they were giant, screeching eagles.

The months crept by and then turned into a full year, and Marinette was no closer to asking Adrien out than she had at the start. She could talk to him when she didn't have dates on the brain, sure, but when she was trying to ask him out? Forget about it.

And that meant that something had to change.

"Okay, are we actually going to get anything done today, or are you two just going to flirt the entire time?"

Nino and Alya broke apart with identical sheepish grins as Adrien gave them an unimpressed look. From her side of the table, Marinette watched Adrien's exasperated grumbles with amusement, trying and failing to not blush when Adrien proclaimed her his favorite out of everyone else at the table, because she was actually working on their assignment.

Even after a year of being sort-of friends with him (and a year of failed attempts to ask Adrien out), Marinette couldn't help but get flustered whenever Adrien paid her special attention. Alya always squealed over it with her after the fact, which- well, that probably wasn't helping Marinette's case of permanent blush, but it was still fun to get excited about it.

Well. Sometimes. Other times, it was just anxiety-inducing stress.

"Okay, so what was our topic again?" Nino asked, settling back into his seat and picking up his pencil again. "Have we decided yet?"

"You would know that if you were actually paying attention," Adrien grumbled, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat. "We were trying to pick a movie trope to do our report on, and we got about as far as having Marinette pull up a list of tropes to pick from before you two got distracted."

Nino laughed. "Do we even need a list? I already know what trope Adrien is going to vote for. He's a sucker for friends-to-lovers."

Adrien frowned at Nino, crossing his arms. "I am- I am not. I mean, I like it, yeah, but I'm not a sucker for-"

"He's pretending that I didn't see him browsing a Tumblr list of friends-to-lovers movies a week ago," Nino told the group. "And then checking out the summary for at least one of those movies."

Marinette blinked as she turned her attention back to Adrien. He liked friends-to-lovers? That was- well, she didn't think that it was realistic, but it was good to know that about Adrien. Maybe- maybe it would help. Somehow.

"I just think it's a good set-up for a healthy relationship," Adrien was saying when Marinette re-focused on what was going on around her. "I mean, they already know each other, and what the other person is like, and how to cheer the other person up when they're down, and their favorite kind of food, and their dreams, and-" He cut himself off mid-sentence, shrugging sheepishly. "They already know that they work together well. If you just jump into a relationship out of nowhere- I mean sure, it could work, but how likely is it? There's not that base already there. There has to be a much steeper learning curve, right?"

There was a pause.

"Okay, so one vote for friends to lovers trope from Adrien," Nino drawled, sitting back in his chair. "Uh, I don't really have any strong opinions about it, I guess. Alya?"

"I'm not anywhere near as passionate about any of those tropes as Adrien is, but you know me- anything with superheroes is great," Alya said with a grin, and Marinette jolted as she got kicked under the table. "But I think Marinette might be a little superhero-ed out after listening to me talk about the Ladyblog all of the time, so maybe we can listen to Adrien wax poetic about his favorite trope some more and just copy down what he says, write it up, and call it a day."

As Adrien started protesting the waxing poetic bit of Alya's statement, Marinette sat back in her seat. Adrien was clearly super-passionate about the friends-to-lovers thing and he listed off a lot of good points. It kind of sounded like he would want his own romantic relationships to develop out of a friendship, so he wouldn't be trying to- as he had put it- be trying to build a base together from scratch when starting a relationship. Given how reserved Adrien could be around people he didn't know, that- well, that kind of made sense.

Scratch that, it made a lot of sense.

Marinette leaned forward to watch Adrien banter with Nino, amusement glinting in his eyes and a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. His expression was warm and open and comfortable, a far cry from what he looked like whenever she made one of her confession attempts and ended up babbling nonsense instead.

She would have to change her approach, that much was clear. If Adrien wanted a friends-to-lovers relationship, well...

Then she would focus on being the best friend to Adrien that she could be and just hope against hope that eventually, he might return her feelings.

Adrien couldn't help but half-collapse against Marinette's side as he laughed, snickering more as she groaned at her accidental pun.

He wasn't sure what had changed exactly, but a few months ago Marinette had stopped sometimes getting awkward around him and her full teasing side came out around him. They had similar enough senses of humor that they got along like a house on fire, joking around and teasing each other all the time. Depending on the day, Marinette either punned just as much as he did or groaned at every increasingly bad pun that he threw her way.

It was fun.

It was actually really good timing, Adrien reflected as Marinette returned his lean. Nino and Alya had gotten increasingly more attached at the hip lately as they started getting more serious about their relationship, and Adrien missed the close friendship that he and Nino had had. He was sure that Nino didn't mean to ditch him- it didn't help that Alya was always rushing off to record for the Ladyblog or edit submitted videos or write up articles and organize superhero photos and Nino helped out a lot with that now, and Adrien couldn't come to all of the hangouts that he used to because his father had tightened the reins thanks to the increased fan attention after Adrien branched out from modeling- but it didn't change that Nino did run off with Alya more often than not.

But Marinette seemed less interested in the superheroes than her best friend did, so she wasn't dashing off all the time. It was natural for the two of them to gravitate towards each other.

"Always with the cat puns," Marinette complained, though Adrien couldn't help but notice the note of amusement in her voice. "Bread puns are a much higher art form."

"Meow-tch, Marinette, always so judging," Adrien teased, jostling her with his shoulder. "Though at yeast you can appreciate some puns."

Marinette laughed that time. "Some puns are bread-er than others. But purr-haps we should put aside the buns- er, puns- and actually get the homework done."

Adrien grinned. "That sounds like a good idea. I think our teachers have forgotten that they're all giving us homework, we're getting so much. There's not enough time in the day to get all of it and my activities done." He had finally had to ask Nathalie to start cutting back on obligations, starting with commercials and other extras on top of photoshoots. It had helped, but soon he was going to have to start looking at what else he could cut. If he didn't have being Chat Noir on the side he would be able to handle everything just fine, probably, but dropping that was definitely not an option, so his other activities were all up for potentially being sent to the chopping block instead. "I'm looking forward to the summer, though I wouldn't be surprised if Father hires a tutor again so that I can stay ahead of the curve."

Marinette made a face, then glanced over at him. "I would say that that stinks, but it makes classes during the school year easier, doesn't it?"

"It makes more of a difference in some classes than others, so maybe I'll be able to persuade Father to only have the tutor do those subjects. Math and science are good to had a head start in," Adrien clarified. "Literature, not so much. And with History... well, the curriculum varies so much, I could spend all summer working on memorizing dates and names, only to get to school and find out that we're focusing on something different."

"Ooh, that's gotta be frustrating."

Adrien shrugged. If it weren't for the fact that he had hoped that the head start would help him when it came to keeping up despite his superhero activities, he probably wouldn't have cared that much. His tutors for history had always been big on names and dates, whereas he saw the general events as more important. Either way, the memorization would have eventually become a waste of time.

The two of them fell into a companionable silence as they worked on their homework, only interrupted by the occasional question. They ended up working through a couple math problems together, puzzling through a strategy that they had apparently both missed hearing in class together. Marinette's brow furrowed and her tongue stuck out as she focused, and Adrien grinned at the image before returning his attention to his own paper.

Doing homework with other people hadn't been a perk that Adrien had thought of when he first started going to school, but he had to admit that it actually made homework somewhat enjoyable. Both he and Marinette were getting helped by it, and, well, Adrien had never liked doing homework alone in his large room.

He was so, so lucky to have Marinette as a friend, he really was.

"My father is going to kill me."

Nino winced as he looked in the tear in Adrien's jacket. The fabric had ripped when an overzealous fan had grabbed at Adrien's jacket when he was trying to head to class, and Adrien had reflexively jerked away. Chloe had chased the unfortunate girl off, but the damage was already done. "Can't your father just make another for you? Or buy another, I don't know how it works when he owns the company."

"I wish. But this is from a discontinued line." Adrien carefully pulled the jacket off, careful not to pull on the fabric further. "And he always wants me to treat my clothing carefully, anyway. It won't matter that a fan grabbed onto it."

"But it's not even your fault!" Nino exclaimed, clearly frustrated, and Adrien couldn't help but wince. He knew that, just as well as Nino did, but he knew what his father would tell him: even though the fan shouldn't have grabbed him, Adrien should have asked them politely to let go of his clothing before moving away. Jerking away not only endangered his clothes but also looked impolite. No matter how often Adrien tried to explain stuff like that to Nino, his friend seemed stuck on how unfair it was.

Adrien knew how unfair it was. He didn't need to be told. That was just how his life was, and he had to work with it.

"Yeah, but I could have avoided the tear still." Adrien looked at the jacket again, trying not to sigh. It was one of his very favorites, and now it was ruined. "What's worse is that it's a little chilly for just a t-shirt, but I can't be seen out and about with a torn jacket."

Nino made a face. "Yeah, that's tough."

As the two of them headed into the classroom, Adrien folded up his jacket, setting it down on the seat next to him. He would grab another one to wear for the afternoon when he went home for lunch, but he would just have to be a little chilly for the morning.

(His mom had loved the look of that jacket on him, saying that the collar was a good shape to compliment his face. He hadn't been looking forward to outgrowing it, but to have it ruined before that, even...)

"Morning, you two!" Alya greeted them cheerfully as she entered the classroom, Marinette not far behind her. Then she caught sight of Adrien's expression and frowned. "What's with the long face?"

"Some fangirl latched on to Adrien's jacket and tore it," Nino explained before Adrien could. "And he's worried about his father's reaction."

"What kind of tear?" Marinette asked at once, sliding into her seat and leaning forward over the desk. "Can I see? Maybe I can fix it."

Adrien lit up at once, picking up his jacket and shaking it open so that he could show Marinette. "Here, right along the buttons in front. It's in kind of a bad spot, though."

Marinette took it from him gently, eyes already inspecting the tear. "It isn't big, though, which is good. And your jacket is white, so I have thread in my bag that matches. Or at least I should." She set the jacket down and started digging in her bag, coming up with an aha and a sewing kit in her hand. "The fabric is a bit thin near the tear, though, so you might want to get it stabilized, too, so it doesn't tear in the future. I should have the materials for that at home, if you want me to do that after school."

Adrien slumped in relief. "Thank you so much. I didn't want to get rid of that jacket."

Marinette beamed at him as she pulled out a length of white thread and cut it. "It's no problem, really!"

Adrien watched as Marinette threaded her needle and then started inspecting the tear, pinning it in place so that she could start stitching. The bell rang before she could get in more than a stitch or two, though, forcing her to push it to the side for the time being.

Throughout the morning, Marinette worked on the jacket when she could, attaching the sides of the tear back together with tiny stitches. She had it back together by the time the bell rang to release them for lunch.

"Just be careful with that bit until we get it stabilized after school," Marinette warned him as she handed the jacket back. "That won't take long, it's just an iron-on piece to make up for the fact that that area is worn a bit thin."

Adrien nodded eagerly as he inspected the repair. The new seam was about as close to invisible as it could possibly be, which was a true testament to Marinette's skill. "Thank you so much, Mari. You're a lifesaver."

Marinette just ducked her head, suddenly shy. "It's really no problem. I'm glad to do it."

Later that day, once the thin spots had been expertly strengthened so that the jacket wasn't in any danger of ripping again and Marinette was blushing under his heaping praise, Adrien was glad that he had such a fantastic friend as Marinette.

"Wait, can you do that move again, but slower?"

Marinette laughed as she repeated the move, just as quickly as before. Onscreen, her bot smashed her opponent into the ground. "What, and give away my secrets? How am I supposed to win then?"

"We could team up and play partner mode," Adrien suggested as the computer screen flashed with Marinette's victory. "And how are you meant to get better if you keep all of your secret moves to yourself so that I can't win?"

Marinette just laughed, her nose scrunching up adorably as she did.

Adrien hung over her shoulder as she started up the next game. "You would leave your teammate in the dark and put yourself at a disadvantage by keeping moves to yourself?"

"You could always watch and learn," Marinette teased, only taking her eyes off of the screen for long enough to stick her tongue out at him. Adrien thought about catching her tongue with his fingers, just to tease her, but he thought better of it last minute. "That's how I started out."

"Okay, first of all, I'm hardly starting out, and second- have you ever watched your fingers? They're too fast to follow."

Marinette sniffed. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Are you sure? Would fluttering my eyelashes help?"

"That's not flattery, that's flirting," Marinette said with a laugh. "Not the same thing. And that won't get you far, either."

Adrien pumped one fist, undeterred. "Not far isn't the same as nowhere. It's progress!"

Marinette half-groaned, half-sighed. "You- you can't just flirt with people to get your way, Adrien."

"I wasn't going to go around flirting with everyone I meet, I was just going to flirt with you!" Adrien grinned over at her. "If I flutter my eyelashes enough, can I at least get a hint about the combo?"

Marinette's smile turned impish. "Sure. If you do enough fluttering, then you can get a hint."

Adrien didn't trust that smile, but he leaned over into Marinette's space and gave his eyelashes a good flutter, like he had seen Chloe do before. Marinette didn't look impressed, so he upped his game, fluttering his eyelashes until he could barely make out Marinette's face between the flutters. A snort of laughter told him that he had succeeded and Adrien sat back, triumphant.

"All right, one hint," Marinette announced, her voice quivering with barely-suppressed laughter. "And your hint..."

Adrien nodded eagerly.

"...is that making the combo requires hitting buttons on the controller."

"Marinette!" Adrien complained at once, lips falling into a pout. "I already knew that, that doesn't count!"

"If you want a proper hint, you'll have to up your flirting game to more than just eyelash fluttering," Marinette said primly. "That's beginner stuff. Everyone can do that."

Adrien smirked at her, crossing his arms. "Are you telling me to up my flirting game? 'Cause I can totally up my flirting game. You're playing with fire, Mari."

Marinette's scoff was enough to fire up Adrien's competitive streak. Pulling his feet up, he rolled over on the couch into his best flirty pose. Mentally thanking his exposure to modeling shoots- while he wasn't old enough yet to participate in the sexier shoots (a fact that he was endlessly thankful for), he had been in the area to get ready for his own shoots while the older models settled themselves into more alluring poses for more mature shots- Adrien lounged on the couch in his best seductive pose, finishing the pose with a quirked eyebrow at Marinette.

She did not look seduced. Instead, she burst into laughter.

"Oh come on," Adrien complained, lip sticking out in a pout. "That was flirty!"

"If you were wearing the right clothes, maybe," Marinette said with a laugh. "But Adrien, you're wearing a bread pun shirt and your hair is a mess. It's a funny contrast, that's all."

"Are you saying that a bread pun t-shirt can't be seductive?" Adrien demanded automatically before his brain caught up with his mouth. Once it did, he winced. "...uh, can you forget that I said that?"

The answer, he was guessing, was probably no. Marinette had fallen off of the couch laughing, her nose crinkled in clear delight. It was pretty adorable, actually, and Adrien couldn't even find it in himself to be embarrassed. Instead, he couldn't help but chuckle along as Marinette cackled on the floor.

"Oh my god, I can't believe I ever thought that you were cool," Marinette finally managed, flopped out bonelessly on the floor as giggles still occasionally shook her frame. "You're a dork. An adorable Grade- A dork."

"I can be cool," Adrien protested, but it felt more automatic than anything else. If Marinette thought that he was an adorable dork, then he was an adorable dork. "I can prove it!"

Marinette's giggles picked up again. "Is this gonna be like you 'proving' that you can flirt? Because I have some concerns."

Adrien could only smile at Marinette as she laughed, the beam on her face lighting up the room. She made everything she touched brighter, she really did.

He was so, so lucky to have her in his life.

Chat Noir hated romantic akumas. He hated them.

Part of it was that they had a tendency to have mind-control powers. That always stunk. He didn't mind getting knocked around- super-suits made getting thrown clear across Paris a minor inconvenience. But getting mind-controlled? Getting turned against his Lady? That stunk.

The other part of it was- well, he hated the reminder that Ladybug didn't see him in the same way that he saw her. And sometimes they had to act the part of a couple to fly under an akuma's notice, and that was always hard, too. He couldn't get distracted by cheek kisses or snuggles or- anything, really. Especially the way that Ladybug played an attentive girlfriend, acting as though she was in love with him.

Akuma battles were always at least a little physically exhausting, but those battles were pretty emotionally exhausting as well. And Chat Noir- well, he wished that it wasn't like that. He wished that it would just be like any other battle where he had to watch out for particularly destructive powers.

He had tried moving on from Ladybug before, when he had talked to Kagami and came away with the suggestion that he switch targets. But that was easier said than done, and that whole day ("date", technically) had just kind of been a mess. While Adrien liked Kagami well enough, his feelings for her were more friendship and admiration than love.

When Adrien had told Nino about it a while after the fact (in the vaguest of terms, because he didn't want his friend asking about who his mystery love was, because how was he supposed to explain that it was Ladybug? Nino would think that it was a celebrity crush, something simple and not deep at all), Nino had groaned, rolled his eyes, and told Adrien that of course Kagami had made that suggestion, because she had a crush on him and of course she wanted him to move on from the other person. It wasn't meant to be good advice, it was meant to get him to look her way.

It hadn't worked, at least not very well.

But Nino hadn't really given Adrien any other advice in place of Kagami's, but maybe that was because Nino didn't have any experience with moving on from a past crush. He had switched his attention from Marinette to Alya, sure, but that had happened pretty much instantaneously and had Adrien wondering how on earth that had happened and if Nino's crush had really been on Marinette at all.

(After all, Marinette was amazing. And Alya was pretty cool, too, but Adrien just couldn't understand how someone could fall out of love with Marinette, let alone that fast, and then fall for someone else entirely within the space of an hour or so. That was just- it was unthinkable, really.)

But that was all beside the point at the moment: once again, there was a romantic akuma, and once again, he and Ladybug had had to play the part of a romantic couple to defeat it, to avoid getting hit by its powers. Once again, he was more affected by it than he wanted to be, considering that Ladybug- well, Ladybug had made it pretty clear that she wasn't interested in him like that and he had to respect that and move on. Somehow.

So naturally, Adrien went to Marinette, telling her everything (well, aside from the whole "superhero" thing- that wouldn't be a good idea, even if she was probably one of the most trustworthy people in Paris. He just dubbed Ladybug as a colleague, which- well, he could do that. He had a job outside of superheroing, after all) and then finishing with Kagami and Nino's input.

"Okay, yeah, Nino was right about Kagami's advice," Marinette said with a wince. "That's- if you're in love with someone else, just jumping into another relationship is never going to go well, you're just going to be distracted. It's not going to magically get you to move on."

"Yeah, okay, it's good to hear that," Adrien said, his shoulders relaxing. "I was worried that I just didn't give it enough of a try. But I- I want to be able to move on. Not necessarily with Kagami, but I want to respect my colleague's feelings. She's already rejected me, and holding out hope- well, I realized that it was just resulting in me being pushy."

Marinette smiled at him. "That's good about you to recognize that! But, uh..." She worried her lips. "I don't know what to say. I mean, maybe just be open to moving on and developing feelings for other people? Like, be able to recognize those potential feelings instead of just shutting them down as not a possibility, which- I can't read minds, I don't know if that might have been something that you've been doing or not. Only you can do that."

Adrien thought about it. Plagg had teased him about having feelings for Kagami and- well, actually, Marinette as well. And Adrien had kind of shut down the idea. Whether it was because he didn't actually think of them like that or because of Ladybug...well, it could be either. It could be both.

Clearly he needed to do some self-reflection next time Plagg claimed that Adrien was crushing on his friends.

"And then I would just say to make sure that you can actually commit and aren't still hung up on this other girl," Marinette added. "No one likes playing second fiddle. If you aren't ready to fully move on, don't rush yourself." She grinned. "I know it can be hard, with so many of our classmates in relationships, but..."

"Solid advice," Adrien agreed. He had to admit that yeah, seeing more and more of his peers starting to date had made him long for the same sort of relationship and the same sort of closeness, but Marinette was right. If he started dating, he needed to actually be properly invested in the relationship, not just trying to use it to move on from Ladybug. He owed whoever his future girlfriend might be that much. "Thanks, Marinette."

She just beamed at him. "No problem."

Adrien smiled back, feeling better about the whole situation now. Marinette always knew what to say, it seemed. He would take her advice for sure, and Adrien was sure that it would serve him well.

Whoever ended up with such a fantastic girl in the future was a lucky, lucky person, and Adrien hoped that they would treat her right.

Stress hung over Marinette like a stormcloud. Adrien watched her with concern, his brow furrowing as he watched his friend start freaking out a bit, digging herself into a hole of anxiety as she tried to figure out how to tackle her pile of things to do.

Adrien couldn't let her do that to herself. Marinette helped out him- helped out all of her classmates- whenever she could. And now it was his turn to help her.

"Marinette, breathe," Adrien ordered, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Breathe. What are you panicking about?"

"I just- I have too much stuff to do!" Marinette exclaimed, hands knotting in her hair. "And then I get interrupted by other stuff, and I have less time, and exams are coming up, and- and-"

"Breathe," Adrien ordered, giving Marinette's shoulders another squeeze. "What all do you have to do?"

Marinette let out a huff. "Studying, of course. I told Alya that I would babysit for her tonight, before all this piled up- well, that was more of a regular thing, so it was assumed that I would do it this week, too, and I can't get anything done when I'm watching Ella and Etta, and then Jagged Stone wants me to design an outfit for him and I'm supposed to email him my concepts Saturday morning, and then I have some mending to do for Kitty Section's outfits, and then I'm supposed to be organizing something for this year's Heroes Day and I just- I don't know what I should be doing, if another picnic would work or if I should organize some volunteering thing, or- I don't know. If I do a volunteering thing, I have to get that figured out soon so that I can contact the appropriate people, and-"

"You're not breathing." Adrien's thumbs started to rub circles on Marinette's shoulders. "Slow down. We can work through this. First of all, drop the babysitting. Tell Alya that you can't do it this week. She's your best friend, she wouldn't want to be one of the reasons why you're stressed out." And if Alya had any problems with Marinette backing out, Adrien would have words with her. "Okay?"

Marinette's nod was jerky.

"I personally really love the volunteering idea for Heroes Day." Adrien glanced down at Marinette. She nodded, though there was a small bit of a wince there. "I know I've heard of organizations kind of taking advantage of the celebration to set up volunteering opportunities, so if we can find a collège-level one, it might just be a matter of clearing it with Ms. Bustier and signing the class up."

Marinette looked up at him. "W- we?"

"You didn't really think that I wouldn't offer to help out, did you? Not a single chance." Sure, maybe his schedule was pretty busy too, but Adrien could manage. Besides, he could probably do some research to find an opportunity when he was getting driven around to photoshoots and his assorted other activities.

The look of utter relief on Marinette's face- wow. She clearly had been stressed beyond belief.

"Kitty Section can make do without the repairs until you have time," Adrien continued after a second, remembering the pieces that Marinette was referring to. "And I don't think we have any performances for a while." He gave Marinette a fond look. "You were just trying to be ready for anything, weren't you?"

"Maybe just a little," Marinette admitted with a shaky giggle. "It's just one more pile in my room, always reminding me that I have to do it. And it wouldn't take long, necessarily- none of the repairs are that big- but I can't get other stuff done at the same time."

Adrien smiled, even as he pulled her into a hug. "That's very you. But just set them to the side and remember that they aren't a priority. It's not worth stressing yourself out over."

"Okay."

"And Jagged Stone is really understanding, you know he is," Adrien finished. "Email Penny and tell her that you've got a little too much going on at the moment to be inspired for something properly rock 'roll and you need a little more time. I'm sure he commissioned you with plenty of time in mind."

Marinette nodded into his shoulder.

"I can text Nathalie and ask permission to come study with you," Adrien added quietly, tucking Marinette deeper in his arms. "I know it can be easier to study together sometimes, so that you stay focused and we can quiz each other. If you want to study alone, just say the word, but if you want to..."

"I want to study together," Marinette said quietly, hugging him tighter. "I have some questions about our math unit, and I've really been struggling with studying for that test. And you seem to understand it."

"Of course." Adrien smiled into Marinette's head. "No problem." He paused. "D'you want to start studying right away, before class starts, or...?"

"Can we just stand here for a bit?" Marinette asked quietly. "I just need to breathe for a minute."

Adrien hugged her tighter, more than willing to prolong the hug. "Of course."

No matter what Marinette needed, Adrien would be there for her. She was amazing, but even the most amazing people needed support every now and then. They couldn't be expected to carry their load all on their own. They couldn't. They would eventually break under the pressure.

And Marinette was far too precious to let break.

Adrien had just realized that his heart had gotten tangled up. Again.

It hadn't- it hadn't exactly been a sudden realization, more just one that crept up on him over time. He hadn't realized it sooner, probably because with Ladybug, it had been immediate.

With Marinette, it had been gradual. They had gone from friends-of-friends to actual friends to best friends, pretty much, and now...

Yeah, he was in over his head, and he hadn't even realized it before.

Adrien smiled as he watched Marinette laughing with Rose. It was such a far cry from the strung-out anxious look that she had worn only weeks prior, and it was such a better look on her. She had passed her exams with flying colors, Alya had found a different babysitter to take over when she went out on dates with Nino (which was for the better, in Adrien's opinion; after all, Marinette wasn't getting paid for the extra work and she had a lot more than Alya did on her plate), their Heroes Day trash pick-up volunteering opportunity was lined up for right after school, Rose had helped finish up the mending, and Jagged Stone's outfit sketch had absolutely burst out of Marinette and onto paper as soon as all of her other worries had been sorted out, and the rock star had loved it. Marinette had started working on getting pattern pieces cut already, but Jagged Stone had assured her that really, there was no hurry, he just had wanted to get in line for a Marinette original before she hit it big and forgot about him.

Adrien's smile got bigger at that particular memory. Marinette had giggled at Jagged Stone's dramatic proclamation, turning pink. Her, getting so famous that she forgot about Jagged Stone? Unlikely. But he clearly had a lot of faith in her, and was more than willing to work with her schedule instead of her having to actually hit any deadline. And he was paying her well, too, which Adrien had (briefly) been concerned about.

He didn't want anyone taking advantage of Marinette's kindness and eagerness to help out, so he was glad that Jagged Stone at least understood the importance of actually compensating Marinette fairly for her time and talent.

Her extensive talent. Ever since they became close friends, Adrien had gotten to see more and more of Marinette's work and it was so creative and fun and bubbly and her. No matter what she decided to do in the future, be it being an independent designer or joining some lucky company, she would excel.

And Adrien wanted to be there to see it firsthand, from Marinette's side if possible.

Plagg sniggered from inside of Adrien's jacket, making Adrien startle and pull his gaze away from Marinette. He had been staring, and being far too obvious about it.

"Well, you've gotten your friends-to-lovers romance," Plagg sing-songed, smirk clear in his voice. "Like I've called all along."

"There's no to lovers yet," Adrien hissed back, trying not to move his lips. He was already weird because of the smell that came with Plagg's cheese obsession; he didn't need to be labeled as the boy who talked to himself, too. "I've fallen for her, sure, but there's no way to know if she feels the same way."

Which was the problem with the whole "friends to lovers" trope, he was now realizing. Sure, he fell for Marinette and absolutely everything about her, but what now? Did he flirt and see if she flirted back? Would that even mean anything if she did? They already had a pretty flirty dynamic, so how was he meant to up that without it going a little too far? He didn't want to make Marinette uncomfortable at all, and he didn't want to risk losing their close friendship.

Romantic comedies made it look so easy, transitioning from friends to something more. It was not easy.

"Yet," Plagg stressed. "You can't just sit back and magically be dating. You gotta ask her."

"That's the hard part!" Adrien complained. "I don't know if she feels the same!"

And there was no way to safely figure that out. If Adrien asked Alya she would probably know, but the likelihood that she would tell Marinette...no, he couldn't risk it. Alya might be too interested in the possibility of double dates to keep the secret. But Nino...

Well, Nino could maybe give him some advice. Nino was in a relationship, and he and Alya had kind of been friends before they started dating, though they hadn't been anywhere as close to each other then as Adrien and Marinette were now.

...and Nino had tried to confess to Marinette (Adrien was so, so glad now that that attempt had been thoroughly bungled), panicked and claimed that he was in love with Alya, who apparently had been close enough to overhear somehow (he had never quite understood that part of Nino's explanation), and then got locked in an empty panther cage for long enough for them to actually talk through the awkwardness and figure out that they might actually be interested in dating.

It was very possible that Nino was not a shining example of how to start a relationship. Still, there was a friends-to-lovers sort of dynamic there even if he and Alya pretty much powered accidentally into the awkward stage , and Nino knew Marinette and had Alya as a girlfriend, so maybe he would have some insights there.

Adrien dithered about it for several days, trying to decide if it was really a good idea. Best-case scenario, Nino didn't tell anyone and dished out some good advice. Worst-case scenario- well, worst-case scenario either had Nino telling Adrien that he knew that Marinette wasn't interested, or had Nino telling Alya and Alya telling Marinette and everything going completely weird. But he didn't- he couldn't sit in limbo for forever. It just wasn't in his nature.

So Adrien told Nino.

"-and normally I would just flirt and test the waters that way but we flirt for fun anyway, we have for ages, so I can't do that. And I've watched a bunch of my favorite movies to try to get ideas, but romantic comedies made the whole confession thing look so easy but what if I confess and she doesn't feel that way? What if I make things weird? Nino, help," Adrien all but begged, eyes widening hopefully at his friend.

His friend, who was laughing at him.

"The two of you are ridiculous, you really are," Nino said with another chuckle. "Especially you, watching movies to get ideas. Obviously they aren't going to be particularly realistic, they're fantasies."

"I was desperate!"

"Yeah, I can tell," Nino muttered. Then he sighed. "Hopeless."

"Do you have any suggestions, though?" Adrien asked, feeling a little less hopeful now. "I just don't want to ask and make things weird if she's not interested in me like that, so I need to figure it out on my own first, and-" He groaned, running his hands through his hair. "I just don't know how to do that. And if I misread her and ask her out when she's not interested...I just don't see how that wouldn't mess stuff up between us."

Nino ran his own hand through his hair with a mutter and a groan, then dropped his hands back down with a sigh. He fixed Adrien with a look. "Okay, I'm not supposed to say anything under threat of disembowelment, but trust me- you will not be disappointed if you ask. Seriously."

Adrien stared at Nino. "Have- have you heard something? How do you know that?"

"I've got my connections, all right? That's all I can say." Nino glanced over his shoulder towards where Adrien and Marinette were talking across the courtyard. "Trust me, and ask her out. Just make sure that you don't overschedule yourself and end up with a photoshoot or something when you promised to take Marinette out on a date, okay?"

With that, Nino nodded to Adrien and headed towards Alya, a spring in his step. Adrien watched him go, stuck between elation and worry.

He trusted Nino. If Nino promised that Marinette liked Adrien like that, then Adrien wouldn't question him. But Nino had brought up another concern- Adrien had to cancel things all the time thanks to 'last-minute photoshoots' or 'extra piano lessons' or- he couldn't remember all of his excuses, even. They were pretty much all actually akuma attacks that he had to go deal with, but it wasn't like he could actually say that. And Nino was right- it wasn't as though Adrien could just go around canceling dates all the time without it having some impact on his relationship with Marinette.

If they started dating and he was canceling all the time, they would probably end up breaking up, and that would be even worse for their relationship. No, he couldn't do that. He would have to wait until Hawkmoth was defeated- but he didn't know how long that would take. Marinette might move on to someone else in the meantime, thinking that he wasn't interested, and Adrien would find himself with a one-sided crush again.

But at least he would still be friends with Marinette then.

"Kid, I know what you're thinking, and it's not going to work like that," Plagg told him, popping out of Adrien's jacket. "You're forgetting that Nino knows that you're interested in Marinette now, and he's probably going to tell Alya pretty much right away. They're both going to be waiting for you to ask Marinette out."

Adrien groaned. He had pretty much backed himself into a corner now, hadn't he? That was frustrating. He just- he didn't want to ruin things. "Plagg, I need your ancient wisdom. I'll get you a round of really fancy cheese if you help."

Plagg snorted. "I'll help just to get you to stop moping around, but the cheese is a nice touch." He shifted, settling down more comfortably in Adrien's pocket. "I'd say be honest with Marinette. Like, she knows that you have to dash off sometimes. You've been friends long enough for her to know that. She might be able to come up with a solution to work around your need to run off. That, or at least acknowledge that she's willing to go into a relationship with the understanding that you might have to cancel and reschedule stuff."

...okay, Plagg could give out good advice when he wanted to. Adrien let out a breath, considering Plagg's words. He made a good point; Marinette knew him already, and put up with him dashing off for akuma attacks (or 'last-minute photoshoots') without complaint. Communication was important, Adrien had heard Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng say that before. Even though it was intimidating, Adrien needed to include Marinette in the conversation. He couldn't take her decision away from her.

If she wanted to try dating with the understanding that he might have to cancel last-minute, then they would. If she wanted to wait until his schedule settled down, then they could do that and Adrien would seriously step up his game as Chat Noir and try to brainstorm ideas (potentially with Ladybug's assistance; after all, she was the creative powerhouse of their team) to track down and defeat Hawkmoth for once and for all.

It took a couple days for Adrien to build up the courage to bring up the topic with Marinette. He was worried about how to approach the whole thing- he didn't want to get her hopes up about potentially dating him, only to be let down when he made it clear that last-minute cancellations would be unavoidable. Adrien had decided that if she gave him a chance, he would do his best to let Marinette know before transforming and heading into battle, instead of ghosting and then letting her know later.

Despite having practiced (and refined, and practiced and refined some more) what he was going to say, Adrien muddled his entire prepared speech in front of Marinette, words and points out of order to the point where he wondered if anything was comprehensible. Marinette sat patiently, listening until Adrien's words until they tumbled to an uncoordinated stop. Adrien had turned steadily redder as he talked, and now his cheeks were flaming.

He was sure that the Dupain-Chengs were right and communication was important, but right now, communication was feeling a lot like spilling his guts on the ground in an ungainly heap and then cringing in mortification.

Thankfully, Marinette was ever-understanding and fantastic. She took a minute to parse through all of Adrien's words, then nodded and sat back, her own cheeks pink.

"Okay, if I'm understanding correctly- you're interested in dating me, but you're worried about having to miss dates because of things scheduled for you last-minute," Marinette started, watching Adrien's expression. "And you don't want us to start dating and then break up because of that."

Adrien nodded, swallowing. "Right."

"And Nino gave away that I would be interested."

Adrien gulped. He hadn't realized that he had given that away in the rush of word vomit. "Uh."

"If you hadn't told him that you were interested first, he would be dead," Marinette muttered, then she smiled and scooted closer to Adrien. "I understand that you have a lot more stuff going on in your life than a lot of other kids our age, Adrien. And I know that you sometimes get called away for stuff unexpectedly. I do too, sometimes." She reached out, squeezing his hand. "We can work around that."

Adrien looked into Marinette's eyes, swallowing hard as he searched for any hesitation. There wasn't any, just her normal lovely determination. "It might get frustrating after a while. I know Nino didn't mind at first, but it got really old, really fast. And that was just with, like, study sessions. Not dates."

"We can make it work." Marinette's smile was small, but determined. "We can be flexible with our planning. Maybe we can set stuff up last-minute, once we know that you don't have an activity shoehorned in. And we can keep our dating pretty laid-back, too. Like, one date per week instead of two or more like Nino and Alya are doing. And we don't have to if we're really busy. Like, dating isn't just about going out."

"We can keep doing our study sessions, like normal," Adrien chimed in, picking up where Marinette was going. The knots in his stomach were slowly unraveling. The way that Marinette was describing their potential relationship was a lot less intimidating than what Nino always talked about, with multiple dates per week and dinners with the parents and literally always cuddling and being together. What Marinette was talking about was them, just with some relationship stuff mixed in.

Marinette giggled. "Though we could start throwing in kisses as celebration for finishing a section."

Adrien officially approved.

"There's no one-size-fits-all relationship, my parents have told me," Marinette finished once the two of them were done nervously giggling at the concept of kisses. "And no single right way to do a relationship. We just have to find what works for us and not be concerned about other people's expectations for us."

"You are officially too smart for me," Adrien said with a laugh, but he scooted closer anyway, gaze dropping to Marinette's lips. "Too much wisdom."

Marinette giggled, and he didn't miss the way that she shifted closer to him, too. "It all comes from my parents, honestly. If you hang around them enough, it wears off on you."

"Well, I think they're usually working when I can come over, but maybe if I spend enough time with you, I'll learn their wisdom by proximity," Adrien suggested, leaning closer. Their noses were practically brushing now. "What do you think?"

"I think that you should stop teasing and kiss me," Marinette breathed, tipping her chin up. "It would be nicer- mmm."

Adrien smiled into the kiss, pulling Marinette closer as they pressed their lips together. His heart was racing, but kissing Marinette just felt right. It felt perfect, and it just got better as Marinette let out a content little sigh and shifted to a better angle.

She was right again, of course. Kissing was much better than teasing.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrinette #finish the alphabet challenge

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Vigilantes Chapters 59 - 65: Emergency Catch-Up Blog

before I start, please be advised that the following post will contain a potential MAJOR SPOILER FOR CHAPTER 253, which has not yet been released! please don’t be an idiot like me and spoil yourselves, guys. stay safe.

but anyways yes, this is my recap post for Those Chapters of Vigilantes. at long last. hooray! by the way this is barely edited at all, on account of it being a rush job (see re: the “Emergency” bit in the header). just some raw, unfiltered, [CENSORED SPOILER THING] thoughts and feelings! hopefully it’s readable; when I have more time I’ll try and clean it up a bit more.

so now, first off, credit where credit is due because omg

bless you anon, you saved my life

but let me backtrack! looool so guys, I did a dumb thing and peeked at a spoiler, and read the name “Shirakumo”, and was like FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK and noped out, but it was too late lol. so then I was like “HOW DO I CATCH UP ON THE ENTIRETY OF VIGILANTES IN LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS”, fully aware that I probably wasn’t going to do shit and would most likely just spend tomorrow apologizing and shrugging my way through the new chapter. and by the way guys, I’ll go ahead and throw in one of those apologies now, because I’ve had at least a dozen anons implore me to pick up Vigilantes, and I’m fully aware that Aizawa’s past has been covered (including one (1) cloudy boi), and that it’s really good. I just haven’t had the energy to do it! because reading and liveblogging are two very different things, and the latter just takes so much more time and energy honestly. so I kept putting it off and off and off, and now here I am

but then this ask came along telling me exactly which chapters to read in order to get the context I need! so seriously anon, you are the MVP of my week, and I appreciate this so, so much. I am now off to read those chapters, and I apologize to everyone again, but while I will liveblog them, it’ll probably be kind of a rush job due to the circumstances. like I won’t get into every single detail here, because it’s six whole chapters. but I’ll do my best

hmm I don’t know what constitutes the second half of chapter 59 lol so here I am reading the whole damn thing

AIZAWA BEING FRIENDS WITH MIDNIGHT, AND MIDNIGHT HAS A CAT OH GOSH

looool

personally, Aizawa hated school. he would never ever dream of becoming a teacher. how ridiculous. irrational af

“we’ll have you teaching at U.A. soon enough” psssh. not this man, sister

he’s hanging up on her now. honestly I am glad I did not skip the first part of this chapter lol

some wolfman is chasing the protag of this series whose name I forgot, as well as a little girl and ANOTHER CAT. this series has so many cats?! apparently!?

Aizawa is saving the cat. the hero we deserve

the protag whose name I am about to look up wants to adopt the cat, which prompts Aizawa to launch into a 2500-word essay on why he should not adopt the cat

okay the kid’s name is Koichi. he’s apparently 19 in the series, but I don’t know how old he is in this particular scene though because I have the vague impression that the series at large takes place in present-day BnHA time, which would mean this is definitely a flashback. so. ??

OHO, NOW IT’S A FLASHBACK WITHIN A FLASHBACK!!? so this is the Aizawa past thing everyone’s been all “!!!!” about. well here you go guys

young Shouta is staring at an abandoned kitty in a box in the rain

he left the cat, but also left his umbrella over it, awww

and he arrived at class all wet. and his teacher says he can go change his clothes, but he’s all “NAH I’M EMO SO I’LL JUST STAY LIKE THIS”, wow

“I’m powerless” jesus christ Shou get a grip

here comes Present Mic to forcibly lift his best bud’s spirits. they’re in second year apparently

Present Mic, and I mean this in the most loving and affectionate way possible, is the most annoying man on the planet

how was he not just constantly punched in the face at all times. like constantly walking around being punched by people

well well well

something horrible is sure going to happen to you, isn’t it? here I thought you were probably dead, but I’m kinda getting the inkling [SPOILERS, FOLKS, I’M SERIOUS] you’re gonna maybe show up in the latest chapter of the main series, so I guess not! congratulations I guess?? OR MAYBE NOT

“dammit Shirakumo” oh so it’s like that

their teacher deserves a raise. never thought we’d see another U.A. faculty member more done with life than Aizawa himself

hey Shirakumo is giving Shouta his umbrella back, but what about the cat?! SHIRAKUMO ARE YOU REALLY A NICE GUY, I’M NOT SURE YET

meanwhile he’s stripping naked in the middle of class. oh yes. I forgot Vigilantes was like this

he’s using his cloud quirk to censor himself where it counts

“and inside this cloud... is this charming little creature” lol we think he’s talking about his penis but then he pulls out the cat! WELL NEVER MIND THEN SHIRAKUMO

so Shouta is sitting around thinking emo thoughts that are gradually giving way to some decidedly un-hetero thoughts about Shirakumo, who’s doing that shounen thing where he smiles with his eyes closed while being silhouetted against the bright sun. maaaaan. Aizawa you are hella gay my dude

okay next chapter and they’re being assigned internships

Shirakumo’s hero costume is... well let’s just say it’s a good thing he’s got such a badass quirk

he’s riding around on that cloud like Goku. like a fucking Lakitu from Super Mario

now the teachers are talking about the three boys and whether they’ll be able to land internships

“Yamada shouldn’t have a problem. his voice quirk has applications in battle, rescue, and entertainment. but the boy’s a bit distractible.” okay first of all how the hell would Mic ever rescue a person with his quirk. fucking scream them to safety or what. and second, by distractible you mean punchable right. again, all the love

oh my god he’s so cute

lmao this is seriously my favorite picture of Aizawa ever. GO GETTEM SLUGGER

so Shouta is getting bullied by some guy with a decidedly Katsuki-ish quirk, except he shoots jets of fire out of his hands. but anyway he says that fighting Shouta is boring. SHUT UP, YOU. YOU’RE BORING

Shouta is so emo. but he really does want to be a good hero, he just doesn’t know how. he seems very frustrated

he’s lecturing Kumo on not giving people-food to the cat. and now he has picked up the cat and is cradling and bottle-feeding it like an infant. bless

this manga really has a gag panel of the cat pissing on Shirakumo afterwards, like. see this is another reason why I haven’t exactly been in a rush to read it sob. my sense of humor doesn’t really seem to align with Furuhashi’s

oH MY GOD

high school Midnight is the coolest person I have ever seen and I want to be just like her when I grow up

aaaaand she is literally not wearing any clothes except that belt and those boob-holsters. which, I mean, it’s not like she really dresses any differently in the main series, but this being Vigilantes, I’m sure we’ll get another half a dozen pages showing extreme close-ups of her costume from various angles. again, another area where this series and I don’t quite see eye to eye, but it’s all right since we’re just passing through here

and one year later they wrote a literal law limiting how much exposed skin a hero costume can show. oh Midnight. meanwhile I forgot how much this series makes me appreciate Horikoshi, flaws and all. I’ll take a thousand Minetas over this shit honestly. at least Mineta always gets his comeuppance. but anyway

they have named the cat “Sushi”

Midnight is straight up taking the cat lmao

Yamada got an internship. one down, two to go

Midnight’s back and showing them a video of the cat pooping. one joke about the cat’s bathroom habits in a single chapter was not enough, we’re going for two. not like we have anything more important to cover, like Aizawa getting an internship and something terrible and tragic happening to his boyfriend. let’s just keep talking about cat poop

okay here we go, Midnight says her boss will take them as interns

“Loud Cloud” lmao. home run hero name. GOAT

so Shouta’s chasing a villain and nearly got crushed by a safe that he threw at him, but he’s being saved by some guy who I’m guessing is his boss

oh my

this is the kind of weirdness that only a manga can get away with. I wonder how this idea came into being and whose idea it was, Horikoshi’s or Furuhashi’s. maybe the two of them hitting each other up back and forth in a text chain. “so I’m doing Aizawa’s flashback now, who do you want to have him to intern under?” “hmm I don’t know but I was thinking literally Prince”

Prince is chewing Shouta out something fierce

I thought I was prepared for these Aizawa flashbacks, but some things you can never be prepared for

lol he asked Shouta how he fucked up, and Shouta started listing all of his tactical errors, and Prince interrupted him and is all “I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT THAT GLOOMY FACE” listen son just who do you think your intern is. THAT’S JUST HIS FACE LEAVE HIM ALONE

he says Aizawa wears his stress all over his sleeve and bums people out

he’s telling him to smile! now where have we heard that philosophy before

hello

I’m just reblogging this panel because of reasons

so Shouta is sulking in the locker room, and Shirakumo is showering off and says his MO is to keep smiling even when he screws up

now Midnight is texting Shouta 500 cat pictures

lmao we can’t see Shouta’s face, but Kumo is streaking in and is all “THERE’S THAT SMILE, SUNSHINE!!!!”

OH SHIT NOW IT’S A FEW DAYS LATER AND THE VILLAIN IS BACK BUT THIS TIME SHOUTA DONE GOT HIM SOME GOGGLES!! the path from adorable to sexy begins. the Longbottoming

oh shit the goggles belong to Shirakumo. the gayening. and they were roommates

Shouta’s using his quirk!

and the bad guy is all “I don’t need my quirk to crush you” and straight up demolishing the fucking pavement yikes

and Kumo is leaping at him from above and whomping him on the head

yay they caught him. and Shouta is...

he’s trying. they’ll coax a real smile out of him yet! just show him a Youtube compilation of Logical Ruses

now he and Shirakumo have matching pairs of goggles. I’m just gonna assume this means they are married

the fire hands bully guy from earlier is coming over to start some shit again

he says he also realized the importance of eye protection through his internship. and Mic says he stole the idea from him

now the class is partnering off for two-on-two battle training, and Kumo is partnering with Shouta

they’re going up against Mic and Fire Hands, and for some reason they’re making a wager of it. whoever loses has to stop wearing glasses. this is easily the stupidest thing I have seen in this series yet, not to mention the most accurate

Kumo’s grinning at Shouta and saying the goggles symbolize their friendship and they have to defend them. you know, lovable scamp stuff

now Shirakumo and Shouta are double teaming the Fire Hands guy and taking him out in seconds because OF COURSE THEY DID. lol he never fucking stood a chance

but Shouta’s handing the glasses back and says that two-on-one isn’t fair so he’s calling the wager off

aaaand Fire Hands is snatching them back and stomping on them. and says he doesn’t need them

listen you dingus, yes you do fucking need them. and also he says he didn’t lose! wow this guy really has his head up his ass. I’d say he reminds me of a CERTAIN SOMEONE, but you know what, I’ll give Mr. Certain Someone his fair credit though, because he managed to get his shit together long before his second year. Fire Hands still needs to grow up

the teacher is telling him he missed the point of the exercise, and FH is literally ignoring him and running off wow

apparently Mic also gave up his sunglasses and got himself a pair of goggles. well we know that’s not gonna last. and for that matter, Shouta’s gonna change out his goggles for a different model as well. ohhhhh some tragedy is on the horizon I just know it, this is gonna hurt

Shirakumo says the three of them should start their own agency. ahhh. buddy I’m here reading this from the future, and I gotta tell you, son... shit’s awkward as fuck

and he’s pointing out all the different ways they complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses

Shouta says he can’t do anything on his own, but Kumo says that just means he’s suited to teamwork

Kumo’s inviting Midnight to join them, but she’s declining lol

Shouta’s looking at the sky all dramatically. oh baby this is it isn’t it. things are about to get rough

“one week later”

NOO THEY HURT MY PRECIOUS PRINCE

SOMEONE IS CALLING FOR BACKUP AND THE CAMERA IS ZOOMING IN ON A BUSTED UP PAIR OF GOGGLES, FUCK EVERYTHING

now we’re cutting to Mic and Fire Hands and FH replaced his sunglasses with a pair of goggles. goggles are just the in thing now

Fire Hands talks about Aizawa so much I’m starting to ship the two of them now as well. damn Shouta how many high school boyfriends did you have??

so they’re fighting off some toad monster and it’s absorbing all their attacks

meanwhile Shouta and Kumo are literally helping kindergartners to cross the street

look at this

it’s beyond my comprehension how anyone could possibly mistake this man for anything but a future teacher

even Kumo is commenting on how natural he is at working with kids

oH MY GOD the kids waved goodbye and said “bye Eraserhead” and it prompted a little smile

Kumo says Shouta psychs himself out and convinces himself he can’t do stuff, but really he can do just about anything if he puts his mind to it. aww. and he’s right!!

oh shit here comes the toad

so this toad’s name is Garvey, and he’s literally wanted for murder oh shit. and he has a Fatgum-like quirk that can absorb attacks and store them up to release them

and some idiots hit him with a combined attack that ended up powering him the fuck up. well shit

so Prince is placing a rose in between his teeth and getting ready to fight this toad off. do it I believe in you

now a lot is happening all at once, jesus. Shouta and Kumo were trying to evacuate the kids but then the toad just appeared right there like wtf, and then Prince also showed up out of nowhere and went to hit the thing with a flying jump kick

aaaand he’s getting blasted into a building

oof. and getting even further blasted now. welp

Kumo’s protecting the kiddos with his Nimbus quirk!

OH FUCKING SHIT AND THEN HE GOT CRACKED IN THE HEAD BY A GIANT FALLING ROCK

is this bitch fucking dead now. I can’t believe they fucking Obitoed my bro Shirakumo

so now the toad is looming over them, and Shouta realizes he’s the only one left standing, and all his doubts are filtering into his mind as he desperately tries to think of how to stop him

and Shirakumo’s... gourd... thing... is klunking in out of nowhere, and it has a little speaker on it, and it’s all “YOU GOT THIS AIZAWA” and wtf. this is like something out of a weird fever dream

OH SHIT BOYS AIZAWA SHOUTA DONE GOT HIS GAME FACE ON NOW

THE LONGBOTTOMING CONTINUES

so now he’s leaping fifty feet into the air, somehow, and thinking that his Erasure quirk will at least level the playing field. well all right then! you go boy

now it’s raining and of course bolts of lightning are dramatically hitting the ground all around them

Shouta’s kicking off the lil power toad lumps one by one lol

literally just jumping all around and kickin’ stuff

oof he took a bad hit. but he’s sitting back up!

Kumo’s disembodied gourd voice keeps shouting encouragement at him though, idk. so there’s that

he says Shouta’s strong and he won’t lose, and Shouta is all “RAHHHHHHH.” you guys, if 1-A ever found out about this flashback they would never let the man live it down. hell I’m not gonna let him live it down. okay then. Mr. RAHHHHHH

he’s doing some weird stuff with his capture weapon now. I think maybe he grabbed a rock with it and chucked it at the guy

and now the guy is shooting all his toad lumps at Shouta all at once! WELL ALL RIGHT THEN

yooooo Shouta literally grabbed them all with the capture weapon and he’s CHUCKIN’ EM ALL INTO THE DUDE’S MOUTH Y’ALL THIS IS SOME REAL FUCKING SHIT LMAO GET WRECKED

so the guy is blowing up from the inside out. yeah that’s what you get for murdering Shouta’s childhood friend you piece of shit

and Shouta’s collapsing in exhaustion but happily shouting “SHIRAKUMO I DID IT” before he passes out. oh my god don’t tell me Kumo is already dead and Shouta just hallucinated his voice or some shit. THEN WHO WAS GOURD omg

oooooof here we go

[places both hands on Shouta’s shoulders and looks him dead in the eye] son I don’t know how to tell you this, but Shirakumo has been dead for twenty years

wow can someone just fucking tell Shouta already so he stops depressing everyone and making an idiot out of himself. geez how long are you all gonna stand around despondently shooting knowing looks at each other in the rain

so they’re picking up the gourd speaker thing and OF COURSE it’s visibly broken and there’s no possible way Kumo’s voice could have been coming out of it. especially since he has been dead for twenty years. here’s a picture of his grave. oh shit what’s that little grave right next to his?? OH MY GOD IT’S THE CAT. OH MY GOD

oh fuck me

Y’ALL REALLY DID THESE BABIES LIKE THAT. HORIKOSHI!! FURUHASHI!! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW I WANT A WORD!!

so now Fire Hands, who is trying his best to be comforting but is just SO BAD AT IT, is all “Aizawa you went toe to toe with this thing and beat it YOURSELF!! ALL ALONE!!!” jesus christ I need a minute

OH DAMN A CALLBACK TO THE RAIN “THIS KINDA FITS OUR VIBE RIGHT NOW” LINE but now it’s saaaaaaaad oh no

I mean. I knew going in that this was going to be Aizawa’s sad childhood flashback about his friend Shirakumo whom something very terrible happened to. it’s not like I’m even surprised. I knew what I was getting myself into here. but damn that still hurts

do you guys think that having a permanent image of his best friend forever immortalized as a cheerful seventeen-year-old, and being forever haunted by the memory of that seventeen-year-old being cut down in the prime of his life, might have given Aizawa Shouta lasting trauma which carried over into his adulthood and makes him do desperately reckless things when children are at risk, such as leaping into battle against an army of villains all alone. dammit now I want to grab every single problem child of 1-A and shake them roughly and scream at them for all the sleepless nights they have doubtless caused this man

so now here he and Mic are both being sad

aww Mic. I’m sorry I keep wanting to punch you in the face. it’s just reflex

and now it’s one year later and the class is gearing up for the sports festival

well look who is almost fully done with his metamorphosis

you will soon be a beautiful butterfly

he is literally going to sleep in the middle of class. well depression makes people tired. sigh

he’s got his familiar goggles now! and he’s kicking FH’s ass and lecturing him on how to fight better. damn his character development is complete

and he’s helping FH to his feet aww. definitely boyfriends. this man gets around

his teachers now say that Shouta has gotten too complacent, if anything, and phones everything in once he knows he’s got a passing grade, and only gets passionate when it comes to practical exercises

and now we’re cutting to the gym and Shouta is indeed training passionately while Mic sits in the corner looking bummed. all these kids have been through far too much in their young lives

Shouta’s handing in his career aspiration form, and he wrote that he wants to start his own agency and focus on “fighting, and nothing else”

his scruffy facial hair is already starting to come in now. it’s true what they say, having a tragic past does indeed make you hotter

anyways but can we get this boy a hug!? anybody?? hello??!?

now they’re graduating and Shouta is disappearing in a poof of smoke and now there’s this big panel with flashbacks to his career up to the current point in Vigilantes!

and we’re back in the ~present~ and he’s telling Koichi to take good care of that cat. aaaand, I guess that’s that. geez. that was a lot

so there you go! the Aizawa flashbacks! they were very sad! all in all I really enjoyed them! so now, if Shirakumo isn’t actually dead (seeing as it’s a shounen manga that pays homage to comic books, so safe to say that People Not Actually Being Dead is a Certified Phenomenon, like it’s definitely a THING THAT CAN SOMETIMES HAPPEN), well then. tomorrow’s chapter is sure going to be interesting to say the least. lulz but maybe I’ve got it all wrong though. guess I’ll find out!

#bnha 253 #bnha vigilantes #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #shirakumo oboro #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha vigilantes spoilers #makeste reads bnha #makeste reads vigilantes #the real question is what the hell ever happened to this prince guy #I refuse to believe he just disappeared off the face of the earth #how is he not a top ten hero #probably because he got knocked out by the toad villain in like two seconds #and his sixteen-year-old intern had to save his fabulous behind #well hats off to a legend #wherever he is now

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monstersandmaw · 5 years

Text

Female orc (Rakasha) x male character (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Yes, her name is Rakasha, not rakshasa. Sorry if that’s confusing for those like me with some form of dyslexia! Why do I do this to myself. Anyway, folks, this is a story reward for one of my higher tiers, featuring a snarky orc, a Tired(tm) healer, and a pair of cursed rings...

I really hope you enjoy it!! Don't forget to let me know if you did by reblogging it! It means the world, but if you're shy, a click on the heart button is also great :)

Content: past family deaths, nsfw, and fluff. :) Word count: 9206

---

Virion stepped through the bazaar, trying not to gaze around him and gawk at everything as if he’d never been in a town before. That was a sure-fire way to stand out and attract a cut-purse, or perhaps worse. Trinkets here and there caught his eye, but he never lingered long, slouching along with his hands in his pockets.

Taller than many of the humans, he nearly tripped over a tiny fae creature as they scuttled along after a what he had thought was a puppy at first, but when he saw it had six legs, and scales mixed in with the fur, he blinked, shook his head a little, and moved on. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and just let the current of people pull him along through the bustling, tightly-packed stalls until he came to a tiny, extremely narrow shop crammed into the space between two larger facades, almost as though it had been deliberately stuffed into the gap between two buildings. On closer inspection of the roof line, he saw that that was exactly what had happened.

Equal parts amused and intrigued at the odd little place, he pushed the door open, his palm pressed flat to the cool, warped glass panels, and stepped into the fusty old shop. A smell of damp paper and slightly mildewed leather filled the air, and despite the apparent narrowness of the space from the outside, a huge amount of ‘stuff’ was crammed into the shop. Cabinets of curiosities lined the right hand wall, while various trinkets and pieces of mismatching armour were aligned along the left. A helmet with a completely bashed in faceplate stood proudly on a small wooden pedestal on the table, and around it were an arrangement of bronze arrowheads etched with runes. Down the centre of the room were piled trunks and boxes and crates, right up to the spider-webbed rafters.

It was only as a shadow moved further down the shop that he realised he was not the only customer.

A tall, well-built, female orc wearing a studded, leather travelling jerkin moved idly to examine some daggers arranged in a stand, and Virion found himself drawn down the narrow corridor of space between the wooden crates and the left hand wall. He’d always found orcs a strange people, and one he knew very little about despite having travelled a fair bit. She had a lethal looking re-curve bow strapped to her back, and a number of other weapons glinted and caught his eye the longer he looked.

From behind a nearby box, a tiny, stoop-spined old man suddenly and rather gleefully croaked, “Visitors!” and both the orc and Virion startled, whipping round to face the source of the exclamation.

The orc growled softly to herself, fingers gripped around a knife at her hip and muttering under her breath in a language Virion didn’t recognise, but he knew softly-hissed curses when he heard them.

“Peace, peace,” the ancient little man laughed - a sound like a piece of dry, crumpled parchment. He poked his half-moon glasses back up his bulbous nose with an arthritic finger and grinned toothlessly up at the orc. “Ah,” he said. “I see you have found my collection of daggers. I would direct your attention to this one, with the hilt made of-.”

“I’m not interested in those,” she said, bluntly cutting him off. “I need some more arrowheads. You got any?”

“Hmm,” the shopkeeper said, bobbing his head repeatedly like a child’s toy and seemingly unperturbed by her rudeness. “Yes, yes. Finest goblin forged steel? Or perhaps you’re looking for something a little closer to home? We have orcish wares too…”

“I don’t care. It just needs to be about this big -” she held up her finger and thumb and Virion glimpsed scars and some dotted tattoos across her knuckles before she lowered her hand and shot him a nasty look. “And I need them sharp. I can’t be bothered pissing about sharpening them. I’ll take about twenty.”

“I’ve only got ten goblin forged -”

“Whatever. I’ll take what you have then.”

Virion’s brows knitted but he decided to keep back and mind his own business. Traditionally, as far as he knew anyway, orcs were quick to anger, and not the kind of creature you wanted to piss off.

Turning his attention back to the plethora of things arrayed along the wall, he found his eyes resting on a pair of rings in a simple wooden box. He’d always been curious as a child, and suddenly a very child-like urge to pick one up and try it on overwhelmed him. Unable to stop himself - after all, what was the harm in trying on a simple band of tarnished silver? - he reached for it and slid it onto his right index finger.

Holding it up in the dim light, he saw that it wasn’t a plain ring after all. Engraved into the band was the design of two dragons, their snouts almost touching, their wings outstretched along the middle of the band, while along the upper and lower extremities seemed to be some kind of text, ancient and unreadable to him at least. It caught the light in a pleasant way and he smiled, considering asking the shopkeeper how much he wanted for it.

The wizened old man, however, had disappeared to fetch the small batch of arrowheads, the orc wandered over and picked up the other one, turning it over in her jade green fingers. Her expression softened somehow, the tension melting from her brows, and she reminded Virion of his late sister trying on their mother’s jewellery. Not that she’d had much, but Clara had always held it with a wondrous kind of reverence. It brought a smile to Virion’s face to see the tough woman enjoy something so frivolous and harmless as trying on a ring.

The shopkeeper returned and handed her the arrowheads, and when he saw what she was doing, his blue eyes lit up with joy and he clapped his hands together.

The orc didn’t seem put off by his odd reaction, but then she actually slid it onto her finger and everything happened at once.

A light flashed between Virion and the orc, bleaching his vision blank, and a burst of energy exploded from its epicentre. Objects went flying from the shelves and rained down onto the flagstone floor around them. Virion was knocked back, landing heavily on his backside, while the orc reeled and staggered into what sounded like a tower of wooden crates.

Virion rubbed at his eyes, blinking furiously, and gradually his sight began to return to him. From the way the orc was mashing the heel of her palm into her own eye sockets, he assumed things were going as slowly for her as they were for him.

“What the fuck?” she rasped a moment later. “I… I can’t…”

Still blinking, his ears ringing a bit from the release of whatever force had been cooped up in the two rings, he tottered to his feet and looked down at his hand. The band, which had been darkened with age was now bright as a newly struck coin, but what sent a jolt of real, ice-cold terror through him, was the fact that it wouldn’t come off. It wouldn’t even budge. Somehow, a ring that had been a little bit too big for his finger when he’d first slipped it on, was now nestled snugly around it, and was refusing to come off.

The orc, he saw when he glanced over at where she still sat on the floor, was in the same situation.

“Where’s that little fucker?” she snarled, pushing herself up with the lithe speed of a panther and looking around for the shopkeeper. “He’d better not have been a fucking fae… I’ll rip his head off his scrawny neck if he can’t fix this…”

“Easy,” Virion murmured levering himself more carefully to his feet. “There has to be an explanation. He must be here somewhere. Perhaps he was knocked over by the explosion as well?”

The orc fixed him with such a derisive look that he actually took a step back, her amber eyes glowing in the dim light of the shop.

But the little man was nowhere to be found. They searched the entirety of the shop, finding nothing in the back but spiderwebs and the dry skeleton of what might have been a rat. When they emerged from the storeroom at the back, they passed through the shop - careful to touch nothing this time - and the orc growled, “Listen, there’s a goblin who runs a jewellery shop back up towards the town square. He might be able to get this off.”

Virion nodded, still shaken and feeling a little wobbly in the knees. Magic wasn’t something he wanted anything to do with, and yet here he was, with some ancient ring stuck on his hand. Just like him to barrel headlong into trouble without a care in the world.

“Since we’re in this predicament together,” he ventured amicably as the orc led the way through the street without looking back at the shop, “I’m Virion.”

With little more than a fleeting, sidelong look down at him from her impressive height, she grunted, “Rakasha.”

She seemed to have little interest in further conversation, so he simply strode along beside her, keeping pace easily enough, and occasionally bringing his hand up to stare at the ring in the sunlight.

The goblin, however, had no good news for them. He tried to cut the rings off using some beefy looking wire cutters, but they glanced off the surface without leaving so much as a scratch. “I suspect a saw wouldn’t do any better either. Might lop your finger off, and who knows what that would do to you…” He rubbed his long ear thoughtfully with gnarled fingers and said, “Mmm… these are magic, for sure. You’d be better off going to somewhere like the University up at Grantbridge. They’ll have mages there who’ll be able to help you. I’m sorry.”

Rakasha snarled and stormed out without so much as a thank you to the goblin, and Virion turned back to the tiny creature with a sigh. Before he was able to articulate even the first syllable of his thank you, blinding pain erupted in his stomach again and his knees buckled. Clutching his middle, he went down like a felled tree as white heat burst through his skull and he could barely think through the sudden shock of agony.

The goblin scuttled around the counter and crouched beside him, just as Rakasha lurched back in through the door. As she did, the pain eased, and Virion opened his eyes, panting. “What the…?” he wheezed.

The jeweller looked from one to the other of them and his black eyes widened. “I’ve heard of enchanted objects like this,” he said, his reedy voice grim and hushed. “You can’t go further than a short distance from one another…”

Virion chuckled mirthlessly. “You might have mentioned that sooner, friend,” he said, and the goblin shot him a sheepish look of apology.

“Oh fuck this,” Rakasha rumbled, still holding onto the open door for support and looking a little paler than she had done a minute ago. “As if having a cursed ring stuck to my hand wasn’t enough, I end up tied to a pathetic little human? How far is it to Grantbridge from here?”

Virion wasn’t exactly a hulking tower of warrior muscle, but neither was he small or weedy, and he scowled openly at the orc.

“Three weeks on foot?” the goblin hedged, steadying Virion as he clambered to his feet for a second time since putting on the ring. “Maybe a bit less for you two,” he added with a wry grin down at his own small boots.

“What if I just kill him and cut the ring off his finger?” she growled.

The goblin’s mottled grey-green skin blanched a little at that, and he held up his hands in a pacifying gesture, as if he thought she might just gut Virion then and there in his shop. Virion too took a step back, eyes fearful. The jeweller stammered, “M-Most of the time, or so I’ve heard, with such objects… if you were to do that, you’d only kill yourself as well… Your… Your life forces are linked, somehow… I’m not a mage though, so I… I don’t know the consequences of such extreme action…”

Rakasha looked at Virion with her amber eyes blazing like the setting sun, and said, “Tell me you don’t have some pressing business you need to get done first, right? Some wife and a brood of whelps you need to tend to…”

He shook his head sadly. “Just me,” he said. She seemed so full of anger, so defensive, so short-tempered and quick to dismiss others. This was going to be a long few weeks, he was sure of that.

After a brief stop at the tavern where he’d been staying, to collect his belongings and settle up, the two headed to the western corner of the small trading town, and began their journey up to Grantbridge. They would have to cross the Whispering Plains, a vast tract of grassland inhabited by centaurs, minotaurs, a few cervitaurs, and the bison folk, before hitting the Granta river, where they hoped to take passage on a barge, at the suggestion of the innkeeper at Virion’s former lodging. It should shave a few days off their journey time.

That first day as they trudged in almost complete silence along the Queen’s Road, through lush copses and gentle rolling hills, Virion thought Rakasha might still risk lopping his head off with the axe at her belt. She spoke no more than a few words to him, and by the time the sun was tipping towards the horizon, he had given up trying to make conversation with her. She just ignored him, as though he were some kind of yapping stray puppy who had decided to trot along at her heels for a while, and who would soon grow bored and go away.

Rakasha was tense, her shoulders set, her pace relentless as she marched along, and every now and again she would cock her head to one side, as though listening to the woods on their left for trouble. The sun grew warm in the late afternoon, and she shucked her long sleeved leather jerkin off to reveal her impressive torso, wrapped only in the bindings around her muscular breasts and leaving her smooth stomach and muscled arms bare. Virion, despite being more than wary of the orc and having only encountered her kind as vicious raiders in the past, couldn’t help but admire a being in the peak of fitness and conditioning. She was gorgeous too, he supposed in her powerful way.

Some time later, taking his eyes off the dirt track immediately in front of his boots, Virion glanced up and scowled. Up ahead there seemed to be a young looking cervitaur, lying limply on the side of the road. The two of them spotted him at the same time. Rakasha’s hand eased her axe in its holster while Virion immediately darted forwards, his mind already trying to evaluate his condition, even from that distance. The creature looked half-starved for a start, his hips standing out and his cervine and human ribs obvious as his chest heaved weakly.

Before he’d made it two paces down the road, Rakasha grabbed him by the top of his travel pack and hoiked him back as if it were the scruff of his neck, and growled at him to be careful. Biting back a hot flare of irritation, he batted her off with a carefully aimed swipe of his forearm. She released him more from surprise than his own martial arts skills - which were admittedly very limited. He’d just gone for the vulnerable bit where the muscle was thinnest and the bone unprotected. Who needed martial arts skills when your grasp of anatomy was as good as his…?

Kneeling at the dirty looking cervitaur’s side a moment or two later, he saw how thin and weak he looked.

“Help me?” he rasped.

“What happened?” Virion asked, wanting to run his hands over the cervitaur to check for injuries, but restraining himself to get permission first. “What hurts?”

Before he had the chance to hear any more, the cervitaur’s hazel eyes darted to a point just behind Virion’s head, and the man frowned, ducking sideways instinctively.

A gnoll had sprung silently out from the rocks above where the scrawny cervitaur lay, and launched himself at Virion. With a roar, Rakasha launched herself at a second bandit and at the same time, ripped the attacker back from Virion with her free hand. She cracked their skulls together, leaving them staggering and concussed, before knocking them out with the back of her single-bladed axe and turning to face the last bandit who had rounded a huge boulder just down the road.

Her hair fell down her back in its loose ponytail, and as she squared off, Virion’s eyes widened. The cervitaur she was facing now was huge, almost as powerful and muscular as a bison taur. With his stag’s antlers held high, he pawed the ground, and then lowered his torso a little and charged her.

Virion crouched beside the younger cervitaur, frozen with a kind of fascinated horror as the two fought. She was a complete force of nature. The cervitaur’s hooves lashed out but she ducked and dodged them, his antlers swept from side to side, but eventually she locked him in a wrestling move and tipped him onto his side, slamming him into the dirt of the road so hard he was left stunned and winded. Her axe blade hovered mere inches from his throat and he fell still.

From beside him, the younger cervitaur gasped, “Uncle…”

“That’s your uncle?” Virion blurted, horrified that the kid was so young and malnourished compared to his relative.

Rakasha still had her axe blade to his throat and was snarling something in his ear. The cervitaur nodded in response, and suddenly she’d bashed him on the side of the head too, leaving him unconscious as well.

“He’ll be fine,” she growled as she prowled over to the pair of them. Virion suspected that all three of them would need to see a healer though; concussions like that didn’t just go away. “I take it you were bait, kid?” she said and the cervitaur nodded. She shot Virion a look that told him quite plainly what she thought of him for falling for the ruse so quickly. “Can you stand?”

Shakily, he staggered to his feet and accepted the water skin that Virion handed him. “Thank you,” he said.

“You should run while you can,” Virion said. “Get to the town… This is no life for you, kid…”

“I’m not a kid,” he said with a watery smile. “I’m nineteen.”

“You need to get some meat on your bones,” Virion murmured. “There’s lots of work in the town, and it’s only eight miles or so that way. You’ll have to be careful.”

“I’ll be alright,” he shrugged.

Virion grinned at him, though it was hard not to feel deep concern for the underfed and malnourished young cervitaur. Virion had been there himself: alone, aimless, adrift from his family. He offered him the knife on his belt, but the cervitaur refused him gently. “Alright, well… take care,” Virion said, scratching the back of his head.

The two of them watched him trot off down the road, and Virion shot a glance over the three unconscious bandits. The male gnoll who had attacked him was still out cold, but the female flicked an ear groggily.

“Come on,” Rakasha snarled, and he turned to face her.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, only just noticing a bruised-looking gash on her upper arm, presumably where the stag’s antlers had got her.

She shook her head. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” he said, picking up his pack from where he’d slithered out of it during the scuffle. Rakasha continued down the road, and when she hit about twenty five feet from him, she grunted, staggering. Virion, however, experienced blinding pain in his gut and head and was not ashamed to howl in protest. “Fucking shit, Rakasha, at least let me grab my stuff will you?”

The orc grudgingly let him catch up and then grunted, “We should make camp for the night soon… while there’s still enough daylight.”

With a glance over his shoulder at the still-prone bandits, Virion added, “Let’s get another few miles first, eh?”

He couldn’t stop fussing - silently and only to himself, however - about the cut in her arm, and when they finally turned off the road perhaps only twenty minutes before sunset, she surprised him by allowing him to tend the wound. It wasn’t deep, and hadn’t needed stitches, but he fished out some alcohol and a clean cloth from his bag and wiped it down, eliciting a hiss from her, and a softly spoken curse in her own language.

“You know,” he said, “I… I feel like I have an apology to make to you…”

“For that?” she snorted, jutting her chin towards the freshly-tied bandage around her arm. “Please. That didn’t hurt.”

“No,” he laughed softly. “No, for assuming you were just a brutish thug, I guess.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and he flushed hot. “Care to elaborate?” she laughed.

He swallowed thickly. “You could have killed those guys today…” he said. “But you didn’t.”

Rakasha shrugged and stood, moving over to a log and rolling it a bit closer to the fire pit before plonking down on top of it and inspecting the bandage curiously. “I was going to, but I don’t want the law on my hands for murder. I’ve already got enough shit to deal with, being tied to you and cursed with this ring…”

Virion’s shoulders dropped a little bit and he caught Rakasha’s amber eyes watching him over the flames, glowing in the dim light.

“I’d be halfway across the plains by now if it weren’t for you,” she added, her voice gritty and harsh.

“What? How?”

She laughed, and while wasn’t exactly cruel, it was gruff and spoke of a tougher race than his own, for sure. “You can’t run beside an orc all day, human. Get some rest. We’ll start before dawn.”

He shook his head, fighting the disappointment that had bloomed in his chest. After so long on the road alone, he’d half hoped that this might turn into a tentative friendship, but the orc clearly regarded him as little more than a bothersome parasite. Honestly, he was tired, and although he was fairly fit and lean, his muscles ached from the pace she’d set that day. The orc was right - there was no way he could have run all the way to the ferry crossing on the Granta. Self-doubt and misery began to crowd into his mind, bringing with it memories of the most painful night of his life; the night he’d ended up alone and wandering the roads of this corner of the kingdom.

Needless to say, what with the creaking of the woods and the roots digging him in the back, and the nebulous unease that clawed at the inside of his mind, he didn’t sleep well. When he had sat up and scrubbed at his eyes with his hands, he found Rakasha staring at him.

“What?” he grumbled.

“You look like shit.”

“You’ve got leaves in your hair,” he retorted immediately, oddly reminded of the repartee he’d had with his sister for a moment. The sudden reminder and pain of Clara’s loss lanced through him and almost brought tears to his hazel eyes.

Rakasha, perhaps more curious than concerned, grunted, “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, though it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat. “You ready to make a move?”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“How’s your arm?” he asked, standing and feeling the need to answer nature’s call.

She shrugged her beautiful, bare shoulder experimentally and pursed her lips. Her tusks were thick and short, her jaw heavy, but there was something monumental about her that he found strangely beautiful, especially in the dim pre-dawn light between the birch trees. “It’s good,” was all she said.

As he’d returned - not going all that far because he didn’t want to risk the flaring hot agony of getting beyond the permitted range of the rings - drawing closer to the campsite, he felt something odd tugging at him on the inside with each step. It reminded him of the intense pain he’d felt in his gut the day before when she’d gone on ahead of him. If he concentrated on it hard enough, he realised that it was drawing him towards her.

“You felt that too, I take it,” he said when he returned and saw that she had paused, halfway through scuffing out the embers of the fire. In answer, she simply shouldered her bow, axe glinting softly in the loop at her belt.

Stepping out onto the road, Rakasha rolled her shoulder again and said, “Where’d you learn medicine like that?” she asked. “You’re not a mage, are you?”

He shook his head, secretly pleased that he’d helped with the already-advanced healing process orcs possessed. “Nope,” he said, letting the consonant pop. His chest fizzled as he felt the conversation steering around towards his past, but he didn’t shy away from it. If they were going to be travelling together, he didn’t mind trying to forge some kind of relationship with her this way. And besides, her curiosity was better than her contempt from the previous day.

“My father was a physician,” he said, voice catching on the tense of the verb. “My older sister too.”

“Was?”

“They’re both dead.”

“Spirits shelter their souls,” she murmured reflexively, and he smiled at the unexpected sentiment. “What happened?”

Virion swallowed thickly and ran his hand through his scruffy brown hair. “I used to travel all over with them… helping people here and there, you know. Setting broken bones, stitching up cuts, that kind of thing. But I didn’t take it all that seriously. Not like they did.”

A stone scuffed beneath his boot and he kicked it along the path, watching it bounce off the ruts in the road.

“I… I was much younger than my sister, so their work always seemed like ‘grown-up stuff’, you know? I felt like an outsider a lot of the time, and even when I was seventeen or eighteen, I would usually go off and drink or show off for the girls or whatever instead.”

As lighting runs ahead of thunder, amusement flared in her golden eyes and Rakasha tipped her head back and laughed heartily this time, and Virion caught sight of a bead in her ponytail that was quite obviously made from an orc’s tusk. He immediately burned to ask her about it, but it felt like an extremely personal question, so he refrained from voicing it.

Instead, he asked, “What’s so funny about that?”

“Did it work?” she said, still chuckling. “Did you impress any of these soft human women into bed?”

“What do you think?” he grinned, encouraged by this more playful side of her.

She shook her head. “I can’t see anyone swooning into your lap, human,” she said, punching him on the arm. “But I’m an orc, so…”

“What’s impressive to an orc then?” he asked, trying not to show that her words had stung more than the punch had. “Rippling muscles and a bellowing war-cry?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “But I bet a mouse could fart louder than your war-cry.”

“I don’t even have a war-cry,” he said. “I’m a healer, remember?”

“True,” she hedged. “Maybe you don’t need one.”

They lapsed into silence after that for a bit before he continued his story. The sky above was cloudless and the pale blue of courtly silk, much like it had been that day when he’d walked into the village, heart heavy with dread and found them. The trees became sparser as they walked, and up ahead he could glimpse the sea of shifting grass that was the Whispering Plains and the start of the White Road.

“There… There was a report of plague and they… uh…” he cleared his throat, ignoring the prickling in his eyes. “They went to see what they could do for them.” He didn’t need to articulate what had happened next. “I didn’t hear from them in weeks, and eventually I went to look for them.”

Bodies bloated in the sun, the stench of death that the cloth around his mouth couldn’t mask, the withered remnants of his only family… He closed his eyes briefly, stilling his churning stomach, and then said, “I burned them and promised them I’d do better, that I’d be better.”

Rakasha blinked as he finished his story, looking down at him from her height, and tilted her head slightly. “That’s a terrible fate for anyone to meet,” she said respectfully. “And you risked bringing it on yourself as well to honour them…”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t leave them like that. They were all I had left.”

She nodded and returned her eyes to the road ahead. Something seemed to have shifted between them, like the stirring of a breeze after a week of stagnant calm.

In the two days it took them to cross most of the plains, using the White Road, so called because it had been cut into the chalk downland of the plains to leave a gleaming white ribbon across them. Virion learned something about Rakasha in return. She was the daughter of the chief of a big clan, came somewhere in the middle of eight siblings, and had set off on her own with her clan’s blessing to see a bit more of the world.

“It’s becoming more common,” she said, swatting a fly out of her face as they traipsed along. In the distance, a herd of centaurs looked up, sounding a short blast on a horn at their presence. Rakasha didn’t seem bothered, and the centaurs in these parts were not known for attacking travellers. “Younger orcs are almost taking it as a rite of passage. We’ve come to call it the Wandering.” She scratched at her tapered, pierced ear and shot him a look that was surprisingly self-conscious.

“What have you learned so far then?” he asked. He inferred from something about her manner that she’d found it a bit of a culture shock, but he was curious to see what she’d say.

The centaurs made no move to come any closer, but they were now all watching them now, perhaps half a mile away.

She shrugged. “Not to pick up shiny bits of jewellery in back-ally shops for a start…”

Virion chuckled and said, “Well, it’ll be a tale to tell when you get back to the hold.”

Her face darkened. “I hope this mage can help us,” she said, twisting the band of the ring on her finger.

“Tired of me already?” he quipped. He found he liked the challenge of trying to make her laugh, but the look she gave him this time took him by surprise; it was almost fond, behind the scowl.

“You’re like a stray dog that’s growing on me,” she said.

With an easygoing shrug, he laughed, “I’ll take what I can get.”

The centaurs turned out to be traders, and they exchanged a few objects and coppers for some roasted seeds and nuts, way-bread, and dried fruits to sustain them on the final stretch of the plains. It took a week to cross the plains, and in that time Rakasha opened up to him a bit more. She explained the meaning behind the dotted tattoos on her knuckles and when he dared to ask about the tusk bead in her hair she smiled and said it was in remembrance for a dear friend she’d lost in one of the raids.

Finally, on a swelteringly hot afternoon, they made their way down through the sun-bleached and -blasted grasses towards the Granta river. A modest, wooden jetty stuck out a few yards into the slow-moving water, half hidden by tall, rustling reeds.

They only had to wait overnight for a river barge going downriver to come by the empty dock, and after bartering with the harpy captain for passage, the two were welcomed aboard. At the stern of the wide, flat river barge was a structure a bit like a shed, built to shelter the travellers and crew from inclement weather, but the rest of the deck was full of cargo boxes, crates, and barrels.

“There’s not much room for you to lodge,” the harpy said, as they stepped aboard, “But we’ll be there in three days and the weather’s set to stay fair.”

“Thank you,” Virion said with a deliberate smile that ruffled her feathers a little.

She scowled at Rakasha though and croaked, “You keep your weapons sheathed and cause no trouble, orc.”

To Virion’s surprise, his companion only bowed her head and strode to the other side of the barge to stare off into the water as it sloshed past.

He joined her briefly and she turned her head a little as she admitted, “I’ve never been on a boat before.”

“Hope you don’t feel sick,” he grinned. “If you do, I think I have some ginger somewhere in my pack.”

“I’d rather not chew on a tuber that’s been rolling around the bottom of your bag for spirits-only-know-how-long,” she snarled, but there was no venom in her tone now. “It’d probably make me sicker than the water.”

Their fellow travellers were not numerous, it being a cargo barge after all, but a small group of musicians was headed to the university town as well. Virion immediately settled down in their midst that evening after a day of reading one of the books he’d picked up in Sycamore Gap - the town where he’d first met Rakasha. He found himself welcomed by three tieflings, all with different skin colours and horns, and an enormous and extremely friendly firbolg. Rakasha kept very much to herself, but on their first night, when the group pulled out a bodhrán, violin, a small harp, and a flute, and started to sing, she looked up from the crate where she’d been seated for most of the day.

On the second night, the firbolg, named Aeqen, asked her if she’d like to come and have a drink with them, and she nodded gruffly, sitting cross legged on the deck beside the small barrel where Virion been perched.

Glancing down at her, he saw the way the fae-light in the lamps highlighted her cheekbones and glinted on her unadorned tusks. As if feeling the weight of his gaze, she looked up at him, and scowled. He laughed and handed her a beer from one of the tieflings, and she downed half of it in one go.

“Ready to make port tomorrow?” Aeqen asked conversationally, and began to beat a rhythm on the bodhrán in his lap. Liliana, one of the tieflings with freckled blue skin began to trill out a quick tune on her flute and in no time the other two tieflings were dancing.

He nodded. “It’s been a nice change of pace on the water though,” Virion said.

They sat finishing up their beers for a while, but every time Virion looked over at the firbolg, he saw the way the creature’s large eyes lingered on Rakasha as she sat there thoughtfully, her eyes on the dancing tieflings as if she’d never seen anyone dancing before. Assuming it was interest on the firbolg’s part, and that if anyone might have the physique to impress the orc, it would be him, Virion found that the dregs of his bottle tasted bitter, and he set it aside and stood, silently excusing himself and stalking to the back of the barge.

He was still sifting through the roiling emotions when someone cleared their throat behind him and he turned around to see Rakasha standing in the shadows, back lit by the fae-lamps further along the deck. “You alright?” she asked, her already husky voice gruff and quiet.

“Yeah,” he said, turning his back on her. “Just… wanted some air.”

“You want me to go?”

When he didn’t respond, she stepped closer to him, and they both felt the draw of their cursed rings. She put a hand on his lower back and tension ratcheted up his spine, one vertebra at a time.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, her touch fluttering slightly.

Virion shook his head and the pressure of her warm palm returned for a moment before disappearing completely.

“I wish I understood you humans,” she said, chuffing a soft laugh and leaning her forearms on the railings, mirroring his posture.

“Let me know if I can help,” he said. “After all, you are leashed to one…”

She nodded but didn’t go any further.

The water slid by in a river of inky blackness, the reeds whispering at the edges.

Rakasha broke the silence again a few moments later and said, “I wonder if there are merfolk in these parts…”

“Probably,” he said. “They’ll be upstream of a city, for sure. I think I saw one of the alligator folk earlier. Their eyes reflect in the dark a bit like orcs’ do…”

He shot her a sidelong look and found that her golden eyes were indeed flashing in the dark like a predator’s as she stared at him.

“I was wrong about you,” she said quietly.

“Oh?”

“Mmm. Remember when I told you that I was doing my Wandering when I first met you?”

Virion nodded, but didn’t dare move a muscle in case he spooked this new, gentler side of her.

“I’ve not mixed with other species much,” she said.

That much was obvious, but he kept that to himself.

“I… I guess you could say I was - am - pretty naive…”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” he said with false politeness and they both laughed.

After a moment she continued. “I thought humans were… honestly pathetic. Most of you have so little muscle and you’re so damned fragile… but… you’re not, are you?”

“There’s more than one way to be strong,” he murmured, watching the reeds slip by in the dim glow cast by the barge’s lamps. “You want to go and dance?”

She laughed, and perhaps her cheeks darkened a bit, but it was hard to tell in that light. “I think I’ll just watch for now, if that’s alright.”

They returned to the small party, and while Virion sat on his usual barrel, Rakasha decided to lean her body up against it so that her head was almost touching his thigh. He found it hard to get to sleep that night, with thoughts of what her long, dark hair might feel like and what her skin might feel like against his. He thought that he should have been surprised to be thinking like that, to be seeing the orc in a new light, but if he were honest with himself, he’d admired her physically from the beginning. It was only now that he was starting to get to know Rakasha that he found himself fantasising about her a little though.

Grantbridge, the city that cradled the university in its midst, was vast. Rakasha was obviously completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people, the chaos and noise, the bustle, the clatter, the shouting and the smell of it all, but she never flinched or backed down. Perhaps surprisingly, however, she did follow Virion’s lead as they found their way - eventually - to the university, and at last were admitted to the professor’s study.

“Thank you for seeing us at such short notice,” Virion smiled, and the tall woman in a long, white robe grinned at him. Her skin was dark and flawless, and her black eyes glittered with warm intrigue. “I thought we might have to make an appointment and come back another day.”

“When the clerk informed me that we had a case of cursed rings on our hands - oh, please excuse the pun - I couldn’t refuse you, my dears,” she said. “Now, if you’ll let me examine them?” she asked, stretching out her hand, palm up.

Virion cautiously obliged first, and she turned his finger over, examining the markings on the band.

“Oh, yes,” she crooned delightedly. “I’ve heard of such rings! These are incredibly rare. See this inscription?” she said, pointing at the writing that neither of them had been able to read. They both leaned in and then nodded. “It’s in Ancient Telvhen - a precursor to modern High Elvish, which in itself is a very old language. Fascinating. And the dragons - I believe this alludes to a very old story from the Telvheni empire about a prince and a beautiful dragon shifter… Oh, I’d love to hear where you got them from, but that’s a story for afterwards perhaps. Let me translate the inscription for you.”

She slid a pair of half-moon spectacles onto her nose and cleared her throat.

“It is more or less as follows: ‘Each with different heart, together shall they part.’”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Rakasha asked, a heavy scowl weighing down her dark brows.

“Let me see yours, my dear,” the mage asked, not even batting an eyelid at her coarse language, and Rakasha obliged with a wary glance at Virion. He nodded and she gave him the ghost of a reassured smile. “Ah yes, look, the same inscription. And you’ve travelled together from Sycamore Gap to get here? Impressive.”

“Fuck how far we’ve come,” Rakasha snarled. “How can we get them off?”

Bile rose in Virion’s throat, fearing that if the orc continued to insult the mage she would refuse to help them, but the woman only laughed brightly and said, “Have you tried just taking them off?”

“Of course we did, you -” she began, but Virion cut her off with a thwack across her stomach. She turned to look at him, about to snarl something at him for hitting her, but when she saw the look on his face, she cursed in orcish.

“That, my dear,” the mage chuckled, “Is a phrase I will have to remember for the next time I’m in the company of the necromancers from the Chapter at Arlesford…”

Rakasha didn’t even respond as she watched Virion slide the ring easily off his index finger. “How?” he breathed, staring at her with his hazel eyes wide. “We couldn’t… We… They were…” Astounded - and a bit embarrassed - he couldn’t fathom it.

The mage smiled. “‘Each with different heart, together shall they part’” she quoted. “Might I be wrong in suggesting that the two of you have come to see things differently during the course of your journey here?”

At that, Virion and Rakasha exchanged a look. “Well… yeah,” he said, “But…”

“You mean we didn’t have to come all this way here?” she said. “That we could have just taken them off before now?”

“It’s hard to know when the magic left the rings,” the mage replied, turning back to her desk with a twinkle in her eye. “But I believe they have done their purpose…”

“And what purpose is that?” Rakasha asked. Virion noted that she had made no move to take her own ring off, but he thought that perhaps she was still too stunned.

It was Virion who answered. “To bring two people with different views together.”

“It’s a famous past-time amongst the meddling fae,” the mage said as she sat back down at her desk. “I might suggest that if you were to go back to wherever you came across these, you would not find things quite as you left them.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough gold to go back to that place,” Rakasha laughed. “So we’re free of the magic completely now?”

“As far as my not-inconsiderable abilities can tell, there is nothing left in those rings. They are but ordinary bands of silver. Do with them as you please, and go where you will. Though I suspect that if you take them off, you will not find them in your possession for long. These things have a way of finding new owners and new people to help…”

“Interesting way of helping,” Rakasha grumbled.

“Thank you for your time,” Virion said, his voice a little shaky.

“Pleasure,” the mage said. “Though I suppose I should be thanking you for helping delay the inevitable…” she eyed a stack of papers at the corner of her expansive desk and groaned, “First year exam papers…”

“Good luck!” Virion laughed, and they left her to her marking.

Outside the university, in the wide square directly opposite the main building, they stood and watched the stalls and stages going up for the festival which began that very night. Too stunned for conversation, they just stood there like additions to the statuary that lined the walls of the old university. A short while later, in a far corner of the square, they glimpsed the musicians with whom they had travelled downriver, and the giant firbolg even waved at them across the open space.

Rakasha waved back and Virion nodded.

“What now?” the orc asked as the musicians returned their attention to their preparations for the evening. It was the first time either of them had dared address the issue.

Virion shrugged. “I guess we could go our separate ways… no need for you to delay your Wandering by - what did you call it? - ‘babysitting a stray puppy’?”

Rakasha’s cheeks did darken to a beautiful olive green at that, and she kicked at a pebble beneath her feet, sending it skittering under the iron rimmed wheels of a passing waggon. Her fingers twisted the band on her finger as she said, “I think you know I don’t see you that way anymore…”

With a grin, he said, “We could stay here for a bit then?”

She nodded.

The first inn they found charged outrageous prices, so they went a little further back from the market square and found a boarding house run by a drider who was friendlier to non-humans and offered them surprisingly reasonable rates for her one remaining room. A double, as it happened.

“You mind sharing?” Virion asked and she grinned.

“Do you?” she fired back.

The festival was beautiful. Mage-crafted fireworks soared into the sky from the crenellations of the university building, and music played and people danced. There was a play that utterly entranced Rakasha, and after they had sampled from a number of stalls selling food from all over the continent, Virion even managed to coerce Rakasha into dancing with him, the two of them slotting into line at the end of a simple partner dance before it started.

It wasn’t complicated, and he found himself entranced at the way her eyes glittered in the low light and how her tusks glinted as she laughed.

They caught up with the troupe from the barge some while later, but Virion could hardly take his eyes from Rakasha. Her skin gleamed with a slight sheen of sweat from dancing, and she seemed almost a different creature now.

“Here,” Aeqen laughed, putting a flower crown around her head. “Perfect.”

She blushed like a temple virgin and tried not to look at Virion, which only made them all laugh.

Eventually, when they’d had their fill of festival sweets and vigorous dancing, they shared a look that said the same thing, and they left the square, heading through the streets to their little boarding house room. Rakasha took his hand in hers and squeezed it.

“You enjoy tonight?” she asked, and he nodded. The rings clicked softly together as the bands connected briefly in their intertwined hands.

“Yeah. You… uh…” he said awkwardly. “You looked…”

“What?” she laughed, her long hair loose and flowing down her back. She was still wearing the flower crown.

“Honestly… gorgeous…” he finished rather lamely, and she grinned, halting.

They’d paused in a tiny little square with barely enough room for a stone fountain in the space between the houses, but she drew him close and leaned down, tilting his chin up. His jaw bore the scruff of more than a few days without shaving, but she didn't seem to object as she tilted his face up and lowered her own towards him. Her eyes were incredible and he forgot how to breathe as she began to kiss him.

He reached his hands up into her thick, dark hair and gripped her so tightly she growled and drew back.

She quirked a questioning eyebrow and he nodded.

The two of them made their way back to the boarding house without stopping again, though Virion’s dark leggings definitely seemed a size too small.

Inside their room, Rakasha backed him into the door by way of closing it, and ground herself against him. He wasn’t short, but he felt more than a little dwarfed by her size and strength. Exhilarated by that, breathless, dizzy, and thrumming all over, he kissed her back, his hands wandering over her body, desperate for a touch of her skin.

He pushed her back, and she obliged curiously. Virion’s fingers slid under her loose tunic and she shrugged it off, bearing her muscular torso for him. He jutted his chin towards the bed and she backed slowly towards it, coyly undoing the laces at the top of her loose trousers. He sank his teeth into his lower lip and watched her slide the fabric - trousers and undergarments as one - free of her wide hips. Next came the fabric binding around her breasts. The muscles of her abs clenched as he reached for them and with a feather-light touch, he pushed her back onto the bed.

She parted her legs invitingly and he struggled out of his own clothing, abandoning it all on the floor beside the bed.

When he returned his attention to her, her fingers had slid between her legs and she was slowly circling her swollen clit, her golden eyes locked on him. Her other hand had cupped her breast and she pinched her hardening nipple between finger and thumb and he felt his cock twitch and swell.

Her eyes tracked the movement and she jutted her chin, trying to get him to come closer. He obeyed and ran his hand over the clearly-defined muscles of her thighs, watching the way her breath hitched visibly, her back arching at the drag of his fingertips over her dark green skin.

“Rakasha,” he said, voice husky and a little deeper. “Tell me what you want?”

“You,” she snarled. “I want you.”

His hand closed around his cock and he worked himself to full hardness while he watched her teasing herself. She was slick and wet and so inviting that it didn’t take long for him to kneel between her legs and line himself up with her entrance. Her lips parted and her jaw went slack, and he watched her throat work as she swallowed. He wondered what it’d feel like if she did that with his cock in her mouth, and it responded accordingly, twitching and leaking pre-come down onto her clit.

“Hurry up,” she snarled, bending one leg at the knee and shifting her hips invitingly. He didn't need telling twice.

As he slid slowly inside her tight heat, he rested his left hand on her bent leg, stretching her as he entered her, and she let out a deep, guttural moan. Her muscles clenched around him and he fought the urge to come like a virgin inside her already. Breathing deeply, he sank hilt-deep into her and paused.

“You’re so tight,” he gasped, leaning forwards head bowing.

Reaching for him, she grabbed his hair and snarled, “Move…”

Unable to deny her request, he rolled his hips back and forth, breathless at the sensations of her body around his, the slick heat of her. Sounds began to roll out of her as her chest heaved and she played with her breasts. She never took her eyes off his face though. He moved his thumb to her clit and circled in time with each thrust, and he felt her react to his touch immediately.

Her breathing quickened, chest heaving, and she arched and thrashed as he took her closer. White hot pleasure coiled in him and he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. Picking up his speed, he altered his angle a little and caught that place inside her that made her cry out. Her tusks jutted upwards, her hands abandoned her chest and grabbed the sheets as she arched and writhed beneath him.

“Come for me,” she demanded, opening her eyes again, and as her gaze met his, his release ripped through him like a landslide. A second later, she followed him, and the clenching of her muscles around his cock drew out his own pleasure until he was shaky and weak all over. He fell forwards onto his elbows, breathing hard, barely missing her face as he collapsed on top of her.

Her hands found his back and began to trace idle lines over his skin while he panted, heartbeat thudding in his ears.

Playfully, she squeezed her inner muscles around him and he grunted a half-hearted complaint, which only made her laugh.

Eventually he rolled onto his side, grunting softly as he slid free of her, and she followed and tucked his body gently against her side. Her lips landed softly on his sweaty temple and she whispered, “Little human, did I break you?”

He shook his head, unable to form words just yet.

“You sure?”

“Shut up,” he grinned, considering elbowing her in the ribs, and she laughed.

“If someone had told me back at that bazaar that I’d be lying in bed with a human who had just made me come like that,” she said, “I’d have sunk my axe into them… probably…”

“Funny how the world works,” Virion said, his words slurring a little as an immense exhaustion washed through him.

He barely noticed Rakasha slipping free of him and cleaning herself up, only to return and draw the sheets up over them both. She curled up on her side, facing away from him, and he rolled over and nuzzled up against the bulwark of her back, inhaling the scent of her thick hair and the expanse of her soft green skin.

He let his hand play over the dip in her waist for just a moment longer, and then hugged himself a little closer before sleep claimed him and he sank willingly down into it.

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon!

You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier or higher!

#female orc #orc #exophilia #monster girlfriend #orc x human

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thevortexofourminds · 6 years

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On leaving Tumblr

I’ve been on Tumblr for about six years with this blog. It’s a niche blog with a small number of followers (but WHAT amazing ones. I love you guys and girls) - at least when we look at the numbers that some of the bigger blogs have. Numbers are not important to me. And the number of followers doesn’t say anything anyway. I love this blog, and my only interest always was to create a blog that I would want to follow. And apparently, there are a handful of people who have the same kind of interests as I have. My photography-blog @tvoom is bigger. The number of people following this blog and the number of notes on some of my photos - to me personally - are mindblowing. Even though this blog probably still doesn’t count as a big blog, I would have never expected that my photos will ever attract this attention. My more experimental photo-blog @tvoom365 is very small. One reason certainly is that I rarely post anything and hardly ever “promote” it. Or maybe the photos are not as good ;) But the feedback was always astoundingly positive.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my time on Tumblr was to delete my writing-blog. Two years of writings and recordings were gone. I deleted the blog because I realized that the reason I made that blog in the first place was not a “reason” for me anymore. I was stupid enough to think that just because that one thing in my life which made me start writing (again) changed, I will have no reason to write anymore. HA! Well... at least I still learn. I might be stubborn but not THAT stubborn.

I learned two things through that:

a) Stories don’t have a meaning beyond the meaning that we assign to them. And we can assign any meaning we want to. So a story changes by how we read a story. You as the reader and I as the author are equal parts in the creation process. And neither your opinion nor my opinon is the “right” opinion or the “correct” way to understand or interpret a story. Because what’s in your head is nothing I can change anyway. So... I will not apologize for what’s in your mind. Because I didn’t put it in there. It’s the old “When a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it - does it make a sound?” thing. No, it doesn’t. The falling of the tree creates changes in air pressure. But "sound” is only created by the listener. And what that specific sound means to the listener... that’s dependent on the listener and highly personal. So much for “objectivity” ;P After this face-palm moment, I started to write and record again and gathered a tiny but wonderful audience.

b) Tumblr is not @staff or @support or a CEO or any person who “pulls the strings”. Tumblr is you, and me, and everyone who has a blog. A community only exists because of the people who take part in it. Agreed, the boundaries changed, but what we put within these boundaries... that is upon us. In the last five years or so, I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into doing my part in creating an environment in which a community can grow. I met dozens of wonderful, creative and amazing people, I was fortunate of having the privilege of being part of some of the coolest projects that I can imagine. And all of these things are and were only possible because of the people involved. People who do and did what they do and did DESPITE all the hardships. DESPITE all the problems. Who just did what they love doing and not to gain anything from it. I have the deepest respect for all the creators and curators of all sorts of genres on Tumblr. Because I KNOW how hard it is to keep something going for years and years and years. Thank YOU for doing what you do. And to those of you, that I have the privilege of working with directly (too many to mention): I love you all. And I am grateful for you. All I did and all I do was only possible because of you and the thousands and thousands of supporters, artists or no. Leaving Tumblr would mean that I’d not only give up on what I’ve achieved and what I’ve been doing for years, what I was part of building up, but it would also mean that I’d be giving up on myself. Heck... it took me decades to find out who I am. I will not give up on this crazy dumbfuck that I am ;P Because that is what I am. I am a person who creates, I am a person who loves to share knowledge, beauty, art, and sometimes (well... quite often) a stupid joke. I love to share my experiences and art in all sorts of ways. And since Tumblr never was a platform that allowed me to do this in exactly the way I wanted to, I always used other platforms as well. Tumblr’s video-player is probably the worst in the history of the internet, so I’ve been posting my videos to YouTube. Tumblr’s audio-player is a bad joke, so I post my audios to Soundcloud. And I embed that all in my Tumblrs.

Tumblr’s “adult content ban” will most certainly go down in internet-history as one of the most hypocritical “internet moves” ever. The interesting bit is that it probably will be known as “the porn ban”. Which is not even true. I’ve seen people post claims like that “Tumblr now defines nude-photography (or anything that the dysfunctional algorithms flagged) as porn and therefore bans it”. That’s not true. The truth is worse. The truth is not even that Tumblr bans genitals and therefore also porn. Yes, nudity and genitals are banned. And porn is banned. Smarter people than I wrote in much more intelligent ways than I ever could what’s bad about this. But rarely have I seen anyone write about the real big problem. The big problem is that the new community guidelines of Tumblr are sexualizing women by banning female nipples except for photography of breastfeeding and medical reasons. So, the legality of showing parts of the female body is based on the function. If the photo does not depict this function, the photo is deemed sexual. And sex is forbidden. While male nipples don’t have any other function (at least not that I’m aware of, please educate me) other than being an erogenous zone. Just think about this for a moment. Male nipples are allowed. Because banning male nipples... that is prudish, isn’t it? But looking at how incredibly hypocritical and bigoted the western world (and especially the US) is at the moment, this just fits, doesn’t it?

The question is: Should we let the idiots win? Only the unorthodox, the ones that pushed boundaries, the non-streamlined, the experimentalists - in short - the “un-normal ones” make the world evolve. “Conservatism” derives from “to conserve”. And we only conserve what is already dead so that it doesn’t start to smell. It’s too late Tumblr. This doesn’t smell. It already stinks.

Some people will HAVE to go to other places to not compromise on their art or self-expression, leaving Tumblr only a stump of what it once was and maybe will never recover from. Unless we creators find a way to stay true to ourselves and use the base of what is still here to create something new and amazing. As a curator of (also) artistic nude-photography, an occasional artistic nude-photographer myself, and an artist who also makes “adult-themed” art, Tumblr is dead for me in this specific area. Will I use a different platform for these things? Since “adult writing” is not banned (yet) I can continue here. For the rest: Maybe. I might re-open my Flickr (Flickr belongs to the same company btw... and allows artistic nudes... hypocrisy much? Edit: I learned that Flickr was sold to SmugMug) or I might start a DeviantArt account. I don’t know yet. I will certainly reference these new places in case I’ll decide to give it a go. Fact is that I will expand. Creativity is change. And no, we will not like each and every change. But hey... that’s life. As long as we change, we live. Also, I will certainly not let stupid, bigoted, greedy, hypocritical liars limit me. And the big lie is that it was never about “making Tumblr a better, more positive place”. It very much sounds like “Make Tumblr great again”, doesn’t it? It’s the same set of mind. The same priority: Greed. It was always only and exclusively about money. And apparently, Tumblr can make more money with actual Nazis still around and with nudity banned. I am German, my great-grandparents lived through a time in which real artists had to flee a place and the Nazis stayed...

Another thing: How is Tumblr a better, more positive place with the porn-bot problem still not being solved? Granted, we will not see any visual porn anymore, but the bots are still there. And they still follow and reblog posts, they add or even replace the original content (”thanks” to the prior Tumblr “improvement”) with links to shabby sex-sites and “sex offers”. That is your more positive Tumblr, @staff . Congrats! You fucked up royally. Because now it’s even evident that this was never your concern anyway.

Since @pwsfineartnudes cannot continue after December 17th, 2018, and I was asked to join @abstract-challenge (after Amy sadly left Tumblr for personal reasons), maybe that is one way to expand. So I will happily and gladly try to find ways to contribute to this - for me - very new and very different fascinating photographic adventure. Thank you for the challenge and the trust you put into me.

Rock on, my friends! You are Tumblr! You will only get out of it what you put in. You are amazing! Always have that in mind.

- Pete

#artists on tumblr #staff #tumblr #fuck censorship #tumblrisover

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kayleigh-83 · 5 years

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replies re: leaving tumblr and dreamwidth

nerianasims replied to your post “possibly leaving Tumblr...”

I'm posting my Sims content -- and any other creative content -- on DW. They have dedicated picture hosting (though not much yet), and you can substitute a heart emoji or something for likes. It suits my style of writing and reading so much better too. Tumblr's basic design has always given me a certain level of anxiety anyway.

I would miss the short burst format, but I think I can adapt since I already have been consolidating all my short posts into longer round format anyways. But I do miss the quick and easy engagement of likes on Tumblr, although the heart emoji is a nice substitute. It definitely has its pros and cons!

mortia replied to your post “possibly leaving Tumblr...”

tumblr is definitely pissing me off but i don't think i can do DW ever again. it's just too slow for me and the need for third-party hosting and not being able to just post in quick bursts is a killer. plus no phone app is a dealbreaker.

I haven’t had any issues with Dreamwidth as far as slowness, and I could live with third party hosting since I’ve been using it for Dreamwidth thus far anyways. But yeah, I would miss the ease of the Tumblr platform and the being able to post in short bursts! I like being able to be engaged in the community on such an active level, rather than having to wait to finish a round and edit all the photos and only being able to post every so often - it feels less active to me, now.

emoslasher replied to your post “possibly leaving Tumblr...”

Im also reaally giving up on this site. They flag all of my LGBT content and pictures of clouds??? Ugh.

Ugh yes! Like most of the things I get tagged are just completely inexplicable - pixel semi nudity is the closest thing to understandable I can see. But the fact that it is so clearly NOT reviewed by a real human ever, but they make you jump through hoops just to find it and appeal it, and then the algorithm just decides “NOPE” and you can no longer appeal it is just inexcusable.

fuzzyspork replied to your post “possibly leaving Tumblr...”

I hope that people who are switching to other sites at least come here to link to the new stuff. Maybe with a preview pic (sfw obviously. *shakes head*). I think this site works better as a broadcast medium. DW and sites like that are better for in-depth content. Tumblr as a "quick look" of what other simmers are posting on their websites is probably what we should have been using it for all along.

Oh I definitely would! I’m not 100% decided, but if I did go that route I definitely wouldn’t pack up my toys and leave or delete the blog or anything like that. The biggest thing I value about the Simblr community is the connectivity and communication that this platform had been able to afford us. It’s losing that with all of this crap they’re pulling by pushing people away, and it makes me really sad! But I would always do whatever I could to keep people in the loop with what I was doing and where I was going, because keeping the community alive (wherever) is what it’s all about to me!

necile replied to your post “possibly leaving Tumblr...”

The more I use DW, the more I prefer it. There's more work involved (at least for me, since the rich text editor is broken, so I'm forced to use HTML. No one else I follow seems to have that issue though), but DW's content ToS is really open. It feels less connected than Tumblr, since you can't like or reblog posts, but sometimes that's nice. It's more intimate, I guess?

I wish I could figure out for you about the RTE! The only thing that seems to be broken for me on it is using the cut feature. I write my whole post with RTE but at the end I switch to HTML to put in the cut tags because it never works otherwise. So strange! I’m hoping though that with an infusion of new users lately, perhaps DW will have more resources to work on some of the programming bugs or features that need streamlining. It would be great to have a substitute that works just like Tumblr (or for Tumblr to have not bumblefucked around like this in the first place) but in lieu of that I am ok with adapting to another format that doesn’t constantly mis-flag my content and leave me with no way to fix it. And yeah, about reblogging I feel that! I don’t reblog on my main but I have a side blog I use exclusively for reblogging, just for CC I want to download later usually. It’s nice to know I’m not only indexing something for my own reference later, but helping add notes to someone’s post at the same time!

#nerianasims #mortia #emoslasher #fuzzyspork #necile #replies

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misformarvel · 6 years

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Not too late

June 18th part 2

Summary: after five years without seeing each other, unsolved feelings between Tom and y/n still being there.

A/N: first of all, massive thanks to every one of you that read, liked, reblogged June 18th and ask me for a part 2. My life pretty much sucks at the moment and writing keeps me afloat. Your support is 100% appreciated and makes my day to day more bearable. I didn’t mean to make a part 2 of June 18th when I conceived it in my mind, but some complications in my routine made me cut it in a very frustrating way. I re-evaluate the end I wanted for the story, I hope you all like it, you’re 70% creators of this, I’m just putting it in words.

Warnings:

shitty use of the english language (probably more than ever bc I’m really lazy to edit this, if a mistake it’s tooo gruesome please correct me in the comments so I could change it).

Fluff, angst (as always bc i’ve only two moods), probably mentions of sex.

The stellar appearance of the one and only Jacob Batalon.

W.A approx 1900 words -my longest yet-

If you’re reading this, I love you.

xx. Mel.

- “Happy New Year!”.

Everybody screamed and laughed. They turned to kiss the person they wanted to spent the year with. Everyone, except you, along with your champagne glass contemplating the city that delivered the person you’ve become. You don’t have someone to kiss, he wasn’t there. To be honest, if he’d be there you probably slap him instead of kissing.

You’ve spent five years away from London and you made a new life. New friends, new job, new hobbies and habits. Tom was replaced as your best friend and as your love interest. Your love life was cancelled and is not like you haven’t slept with anyone in five years but they were just hookups. Dating doesn’t fit you, Jacob always says. Jacob. Your roommate and new best friend in the world. You couldn’t make it in this city without him, you just couldn’t. He’s so far the smartest, sassiest and most kind-hearted person you’ve ever met. Dating does fit him, except for his relative commitment issues. He and Lea have made it now for three years.

- Y/N is watching the fireworks, let’s join her! -. Lea had a champagne bottle in one of her hands and two cups in the other, her bright black eyes smiled at you with complicity. You guys met at the metro, while she was performing cello. You were the only person that stopped to hear her play and cheer her at the end of her performance. She started to cry because she had a dreadful day and you invite her to your flat, the building was right above the station. You didn’t know she was the mysterious girl your roommate has had a crush over for months. You became friends with Lea, and one thing leads to another, you set them together and were so proud of playing cupid with two of the most fantastic people you’ve ever met.

You receive the text you were waiting for: “take it away baby” Jacob said and you instantly did your job. Suddenly, your best mate appeared with his ukelele, singing a beautiful traditional Hawaiian song, his voice shaking and tears filling his eyes. Tears of happiness. You smiled at the scene. Lea was standing there, looking at his boo with heart-eyes, leaving the bottle and cups over the little table you have on your balcony.

- Turn around baby, our neighbours got something to tell you.

Your job was send a text to the neighbours from the building across the street. You and Jacob planned this for months, actually, it was his idea but you were in charge of the “logistics”. So you knock at every door with a fruit basket trying to bribe you neighbours and get them to participate in Jacob’s proposal. There was no need, as soon as they’ve heard it was all about the “cello girl” and that nice guy from the flowers shop.

“Marry me Lea, J”- The building across the street enlighted with the message of love. Lea fall in her knees, crying and laughing. Jacob sat beside her and gave her the ring. You were crying as a baby at this point, you even had snots and gave a gruesome spectacle. Your job was done, you leave the lovebirds alone and came back to the party, utterly happy for the future, optimistic as you’ve never been.

Hey, hi. I’m Tom. y/n’s mum gave me your number. I’m an old friend from school and I’m in the city, so I was thinking of surprising her. HMU if you’re down to help me.

Jacob knew the whole story about you and Tom. It was hard to understand but he did, and always had your back when you went backwards in your attempt at getting over Tom. It was hard for you but you seemed to be ok now, you didn’t need all that drama. And there it was a nice guy working in the store beside his flowers shop who he really liked and was into you. This text he received from Tom could fuck up so many things, but Jacob couldn’t lie to you. You needed to know.

- “Boo, there’s something you need to know about y/n and her trip to London for her sister’s wedding”. Lea agreed with Jacob that you needed to know about Tom being in your city and wanting to meet you. The night of your sister and Sam’s wedding you and Tom kissed, and he “kinda” revealed his feelings for you, in a very poor way, according to Lea’s point of view. But when you came back to your city, running away from your feelings once more, you couldn’t just show up in your apartment, you couldn’t tell Jacob what happened. You went to Lea’s and spent two or three days until it was normal to you to come back after your family event.

- “Why’d you hide me this y/n? We’re besties, we’re supposed to trust in each other. And not to mention you (Lea) knew it and shut about it till now. Perfect. Betrayed by my best friend and my future wife. This is too much”.

-” Jacob don’t be mad at me. I didn’t know how to handle it. After all I did to stop having feelings for him”.

-”Poor Nick, he was so enthusiast about your date,” Jacob said about the guy from the store beside his. Yeah, homeboy already set you a blind date with him.

-”Who’s Nick!?” You replied, even tho Jacob talked about this fella a thousand times since they met. “Listen, Jake, I’m not gonna see him anyways, I told him I can’t do this”.

- “Shut your face, is so obvious you’re still in love with him. But of course you’re not gonna see him, not until I meet him and say a couple of things” Jacob said, his index pointing at you, overprotective brother mode on.

- “Guys there’s still a party out there in your living room, dontcha want to wait for them to go to have this screamy fight?” Lea said softly, lookin’ even smaller than she already was.

- “She’s right. We’re gonna have a proper talk tomorrow”. You left the room, rolling eyes at Jacob that looked at you with disappointment. In four years living together, you’ve never fought over anything.

You lit your cigarette. The night was cold and it puts you in the mood. You promised your mum you were going to quit it, but you couldn’t help yourself on nights like this. There was a park a couple of blocks apart from your building, it reminded you of Richmond Park in Kingston, near your home. Every time you went for a walk you remembered your mornings and afternoons with the Hollands at the park, walking your dog and their staffy Tessa. God, you missed it. And you hated you didn’t have time and a proper place to have a dog of your own. Anyways, the park is a great place to think and lit your occasional cigarettes in the cold nights of your city.

You were walking by, thinking about how much you’ve fucked it up with Jacob and Lea on their engagement night (and New Year’s Eve). You remembered you haven’t called your sister or Sam to explain them why’d you left their party without saying goodbye. You only received a text from Harry calling you a coward, and other from Harrison, saying he was upset you haven’t met on your time in London. Nothing from Tom. Not a single word. And now he was asking Jacob to participate in “a surprise” he wanted to give you. Your blood boiled, contrasting with the snowy weather.

-“He does know you, he’s indeed your best mate now”. That voice you’d recognize anywhere, anytime. It gave you goosebumps.

- “What are you doing here?”, you told him without looking at him and dragging the rest of your cigarette furiously.

- “I should’ve taken a cab that night and follow your car to the airport. I should’ve stopped you there, kissed you again, hold you in my arms and never let you escape from me again. But I didn’t, because I’m a pussy y/n, I don’t have the guts”. Tom came closer, his face centimetres apart from yours. “I want you y/n, so bad”.

Everything was shaking inside you. He’s nothing but what you’ve always wanted. You’ve never loved someone because you were so busy being his. He mumbled something in your ear, your bodies real close, fingers intertwined, synchronized heartbeats.

“I’m freezing Tom,” you interrupted the kiss that was imminent. “Let’s go to my hotel” he replied, and a few minutes later you were making out inside the elevator on your way to his hotel room. Your mind was occupied with so many things you couldn’t enjoy the moment you’ve been waiting since you were, like, fourteen years old. He leads you across the hall, never breaking the kiss, his hands everywhere, his lips always pressed to yours.

- “are you sure?” he asked when it was pretty obvious you were more than down to do it. You didn’t reply, just kissed and wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, where you needed him the most.

“Seven years ago, I was looking for a new place, and you know how hard it is in this goddamn city. -People laughed at Jacob first words- I found the perfect place, but there was a problem, this cute babe from London was interested in it too. She was way more practical than me so she proposed to share the apartment. And that’s the story of how I met the bride. Now, I’ll talk about the groom. Ah that motherfucker… Two years ago, the cute babe from London who became my best friend leave me for a couple of days, she was attending to her sister’s wedding. Before she left, she helped me to plan the way I’d propose to my lovely wife here present -Jacob turned to see Lea at his side, with a heavy baby bump and a big shiny smile on her lips-. My poor best friend spent five years away from her family in England because she was heartbroken. What she didn’t know was the cause of the deplorable state of her sentimental life was as miserable as she was. This, my fellow guests, is what I call a story of misunderstood. How people can get hurt because they can’t express their feelings. How much we could hurt others because we don’t understand our own feelings. That’s how I met the groom, helping him to express he understood, finally, that he couldn’t live without her by his side. This is how I helped him to demonstrate is never too late. Is not too late for love, never. So, my speech may have been long and incoherent, but I’m at my best friends wedding, I’m about to become a dad and I’m a little bit tipsy. Here's to y/n and Tom, the bride and the groom”.

Tom took your hand and kissed your knuckles while you gave him a heart-eyes look. Then he placed his hand on your incipient baby bump and looking straight at your eyes repeat Jacob’s words: “Is not too late for love, never”.

I’ll tag the ones asking for a part 2, thank you guys, I hope you like this! @clairesrainbow @littlemisscaligirl @johnmurphys-sass

#tom holland #tom holland fic #tom holland smut #tom holland imagine #jacob batalon #harrison osterfield #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst

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noona-la-la-la · 7 years

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Hi Noona, slow-burn anon here. I wrote the first chapter, but I read and re-read it so much I wasn't sure if what I'd written so far was actually any good..! And then I gave up, but your reblogging this ask is really touching! I was confident with my outline, but it's that old 'is this good enough' back and forth that gradually ate away at my confidence... I'm always like this with my projects. I might go back to it now that you brought it up again... and I have a day off tomorrow. :o

~Slow-burn anon pt. 2~ The other thing that kind of discouraged me from continuing was the amount of hate mail I was reading on some of my favourite authors' blogs about how gross it is for an older fan to write Jungkook smut. I don't take that kind of toxicity well, so I got a little scared. But goddamn I just wanted to write a fic w/ the reader being helplessly in love w/ her childhood friend Tae, but is unsuspectingly swept off her feet by a shy, awkward, 5-years-younger Jungkook. :(((

I like the premise. I think others would be interested in it as well.

You have to be careful about becoming overly critical of your own work. My approach has been to edit little by little as I go and then at the end, I do one full read through. I usually read it out loud to myself to make sure the dialogue sounds natural. My final edit is not to change the plot, it’s only to change a word hear or there, make sure I’m not repeating myself, look for typos, make sure it’s clear who is speaking and when, things like that. And then I try to post that sucker as fast as possible. I know some people like to sit on their finished fics for a few days and make sure they are happy with them before posting, but I don’t want to let it linger at all. If I wait, I’ll start to find flaws and then I’ll start to doubt myself and then I might not post it. I almost always find things wrong with it after posting, but it’s too late then and I’ll just learn to live with things the way they are. If you aim for perfection before posting, you will never get anything out.

About the toxic comments on tumblr... I don’t think it’s something you need to be overly fearful of.

I might be jinxing myself by saying this -- but I don’t really get many hate comments. Maybe I’m just not popular enough to attract that kind of attention, which is fine by me. But blogs that I know are of similar readership size or even smaller than my own have reported getting all kinds of hate. I’m not sure what the difference is between them and me. Maybe saying this will invite all kinds of crazy into my inbox-- I don’t know. I have had some people who were critical of something I posted on my “advice and opinions” tag -- and I knew the things I was saying were controversial at the time. I welcome difference of opinion and debate on issues, but there have been a couple times it went too far. Even then, I wouldn’t classify any of it as toxic or hate comments. Just intense disagreement. There was one person, one time, who got a little snarky in a drive-by anon comment. It was fairly mundane as far as those things go. Maybe I just have thicker skin than the average person. The point is, I don’t think hate comments are inevitable and I think if you do get them, just block and erase. That way you don’t have to look at it, you don’t have to give the hater the attention they crave, and most of the hate comes from very few people. Block a couple and then all of a sudden it stops.

Anyway -- just write it and post it and see what happens.

#slow burn anon #Anonymous

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snowdice · 4 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 14]

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

I have like 4-5 hours of busy work to do today. So, pls keep me entertained.