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makeste · 3 years

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literally just another giant post of Bakugou faces.

so I did this last year, but I only got up to chapter 120 before I ran out of steam. happily, though, this left me with an additional 190 chapters’ worth of glorious gremlin faces to choose from for this year’s edition! which I figure I had better do, before tumblr finally pulls the plug on my poor sweet image limit.

so without further ado, happy birthday to Kacchan, and happy birthday to Kacchan’s asymmetrical HAH face where his eyes do the thing like ( ◣益◢).

why I like it: so this is from Kirishima’s flashback in chapter 133, where Kirishima was getting all down on himself because his quirk Only Does One Thing, and Kacchan was all “nah bro don’t worry about it because your One Thing is totally fucking rad, and you’re strong enough to withstand anything.” so that of course was incredibly sweet, and one of the few times we’ve seen him give an actual heartfelt pep talk without so much as a single insult thrown into the mix. but what really puts this scene over the top for me is the fact that you can see the ever-so-subtle hints of guilt and regret when he talks about All Might and Kamino. for just a moment, he gets this distant look in his eyes, and his expression turns soft and contemplative. basically this is a rare collector’s edition Kacchan face you will not find in many other places.

why I like it: because this frankly needs to happen in every damn fight until this kid finally gets it through his thick skull to ditch the mask so we can see every fantastic facial expression in full 4k glory. work with me here please Kacchan.

why I like it: because character growth!! this was our first big moment of post-DvK2 Kacchan development, and the payoff was well worth the wait. it only took him 166 chapters to realize that it’s hard to grow as a person if you’re determined to be a humongous dick to every single person you meet!! lmao, but it’s progress though.

why I like it: these two panels are criminally underrated. the way his face transforms when Deku gets the answer wrong dlkjfldk. this is easily one of the funniest subtle gags in the entire series.

why I like it: “hey Bakugou do you want to play in our band?” “fuck you, no.” “pretty please.” “fine, but I refuse to call it a band.” “well then what do you want to call it -- ” “MURDER.”

why I like it: GONNA MURDER EVERYONE BY PLAYING THE DRUMS!!!! SOMEHOW WE’VE SUCCESSFULLY COMPARTMENTALIZED THIS SCHOOL-SANCTIONED DISPLAY OF PERFORMING ARTS AS A DEATH MATCH. OH TO UNDERSTAND THE INNER WORKINGS OF THIS YOUNG MAN’S MIND.

why I like it: hah?! I love how he has to tilt his neck all the way back every single time he does this. he’s so cute I love him so much.

why I like it: somewhere around this point in the manga Kacchan decided to do away with being handsome and decided to just be a full-time gremlin in every single panel. this persisted for the next 90 chapters or so and he was very dedicated. I’m pretty sure he was going for vulgar and intimidating, but unfortunately for him he’s too inherently adorable and so the end result is just endearing and almost charming in its own way.

why I like it: this was from chapter 194 when Aizawa was announcing that they’d have a special guest for the Joint Training arc, and so Kacchan was all “BOY OH BOY A NEW ASS TO KICK.”

why I like it: more character development! and just look at that confidence! he’s fully recovered from his low point after Kamino and the provisional exam. he knows what he’s about now, and he is THRIVING. and once again you can see how his conviction inspires the people around him and makes them more determined. just, he is going to be such a good number one hero you guys.

why I like it: it’s the three little “!!!” lines hovering in the corner next to his head for me. “oh my god it’s All Might, All Might saw me being cool and Saving To Win and stuff, what’s he gonna say what do I do omg quick act natural.”

why I like it: QUICK HIDE YOUR FEELINGS!! WE CAN’T LET THE NEIGHBORS KNOW WE CARE. fjkdlsjklk

why I like it: this is his expression when he first sees Deku activate Blackwhip for the first time. it’s one of the few unguarded expressions of complete surprise that we’ve gotten from him and I love it thank you.

why I like it: classic asymmetrical HAH face. he truly has perfected this look. look at him, casually clinging to a pole for no reason other than to look dynamic. this boy truly cannot sit or stand or walk or do anything normally. he spent three months working his ass off to catch up to Deku and the others, and now that he finally has he’s filled with so much pent-up energy that he simply cannot hold it back anymore and he’s gotta climb a pole. he’s just gotta.

why I like it: because he is so fucking good at saving people now you guys, he’s like a whole-ass professional and shit, and yet it hasn’t changed who he is one single iota. he will save your life and he will SCREAM AT YOU WHILE DOING IT and you’ll sit there and be grateful goddammit.

why I like it: o noo he was caught unawares. All Might was all “I’m gonna have a dad moment and nobody can stop me” and he walked right up to him and put his hand on his head because he’s All Might and so what is he even gonna do about it. nothing, that’s what. you got played, Kacchan. outmaneuvered and outfoxed. all he can do is stand there and make that grumpy face he makes when he’s receiving unwanted affection (҂⌣̀_⌣́).

why I like it: more unwanted affection. now they’re even feeding him ffs. how could he let this happen. mm chicken.

why I like it: GREATEST ASYMETRICAL HAH?! FACE OF ALL TIME. out of all the people to befriend him against his will, Todoroki is by far the most confusing to him and it’s just so great.

why I like it: this is when Hawks is staring at him in chapter 244 because he fake-killed his mentor and stuff and he feels sorta guilty about it. but meanwhile Kacchan just thinks he’s trying to start some shit, and so he’s all “I WAS FASTER THAN YOU BACK THERE YOU KNOW” and Hawks is all “hahaha okay little buddy you just keep telling yourself that”, because as previously discussed Kacchan is too adorable to ever be intimidating.

why I like it: this is from 246 when he’s in the middle of arguing with Burnin’ and all of a sudden Endeavor calls to him and he’s just like o shit what’d I do.

why I like it: because Endeavor’s mentoring them and shit and he’s just casually sitting there eating his lunch like yeah. with his lil hamster cheeks lulz.

why I like it: the look that instantly became iconic. this panel cured me of the misconception that Bakugou “goes to bed at 8:30pm” Katsuki was a morning person. the truth is he loathes all times of the day equally.

why I like it: this one is a team effort because Deku’s faces are equally as good. I’m genuinely shocked that this family dinner with the Todorokis didn’t prematurely unlock Danger Sense. you can tell that he and Deku have a silent agreement to call a temporary truce on their rivalry for as long as they sit at this table as outsiders in this strange land. this is by far the most hazardous meal Bakugou has ever experienced, and yet the mapo tofu is too good to go to waste, so he’s just shoveling it down his throat trying to finish as much as possible before shit inevitably hits the fan.

why I like it: Kacchan is New Here so he doesn’t yet realize that if the Todorokis are spilling family secrets, there is always inevitably going to be someone listening in the shadows just outside the door.

why I like it: the battle with Ending was probably peak gremlin!Kacchan. like, we’ve had gremlin before and afterwards, but never quite to this same degree. Horikoshi really decided to push the limits of contorting this child’s face in the strangest ways.

why I like it: peak. gremlin.

why I like it: nothing to see here, just Kacchan quietly realizing after 252 chapters that he MIGHT have been just a BIT of a cartoonishly villainous asshole to Deku back at the beginning there ha ha ha oh god oh fuck.

why I like it: because he found the answer to What It Is That He Lacks, and he’s all cool and calm and infuriatingly secretive about it. it’s such a sudden and stark contrast to the gremlin faces he was making only moments earlier, and it makes this moment hit home that much more.

why I like it: because this is him being friends with Deku!! like for real though!! because he’s fucking around and insulting him and making weird faces and stuff, but it’s because in his mind That’s What Friends Do. they clown on each other and help each other train and shit. half an hour after this they’ll go down to the training gym and play Catch-A-Kacchan, and then he’ll quietly confess to All Might that he wants to atone. he may be a gremlin, but he’s a gremlin with layers goddammit.

why I like it: because this is right after TomurAFO shows up out of nowhere and scares the shit out of him and Deku and makes them see a terrifying death vision and stuff, and you can see how shaken up he is by it. he definitely understands how close they came to dying just then and he’s sobered the fuck up. this is the moment when it really sinks in that shit has gotten real. eight minutes from now he’ll move without thinking and save Deku’s life.

why I like it: hydro homies. nothing restores those electrolytes like good old Raquaius Sports Drink.

why I like it: because this panel was when it started to become clear that the real reason he grabbed this sports drink was to pretend like he was busy so he could act like he wasn’t interested in Deku’s training because god forbid the neighbors know that he actually cares.

why I like it: because the sideways glance!! and the fact that he doesn’t deny it!! in fact he does the opposite of denying it, and he basically starts pouring his heart out about how goddamn worried he actually is. he’s guilty and anxious and restless and this entire conversation is amazing.

why I like it: he looks so goddamn young here. when he finally stops scrunching up his face and putting on his usual tough guy act and for once allows his actual emotions to show on his face instead, the result is so damn striking. for once we got an entire conversation with no gremlin faces, because Horikoshi had to drop them completely in order to show just how serious he is here. which was incredibly effective btw.

why I like it: because he’s basically just fidgeting with the bottle now to avoid making eye contact with All Might because he just revealed a deep dark secret to him and he’s precariously vulnerable right now. that’s the body language of a kid who knows how badly he fucked up, and just wants to hear from someone else if it’s going to be okay, if he can still make it okay. he looks so small here.

why I like it: the worry lines under his eyes. the look of uncertainty and wanting to believe that what All Might says is true (“you’ll get a chance to talk eventually”). the hesitance to turn back and look at him, and the way he doesn’t dare until he finally gets that small bit of reassurance. All Might isn’t judging him. All Might understands him and understands where he’s coming from, and he’s giving him his blessing. he’s giving him a thumbs up and reassuring him that he sees the change in him and sees that he’s sincerely trying, and basically saying that he has faith that he and Deku will be able to work it out. and you can see that it means a lot.

why I like it: because this kid spent his entire internship with Jeanist doing nothing but bitching nonstop, and then later on when Jeanist went missing he was all tight-lipped about it because once again NOBODY CAN KNOW THAT WE CARE GODDAMMIT, and it was all very Classic Bakugou. but then Jeanist finally shows up again at Jakku, and we get this little moment of happy, smirky FUCK YEAH, I KNEW YOU WEREN’T DEAD YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, and it’s just the best.

why I like it: HE’S SO UNABASHEDLY PROUD GOD BLESS HIM.

why I like it: because he nearly died and then he woke up here in the hospital two days later not knowing where anybody else is or whether they’re even still alive, and this, my friends. this is finally the moment. the moment where he was all FUCK IT, MAYBE WE CAN LET THE NEIGHBORS KNOW WE CARE AFTER ALL. character fucking development. you love to see it.

BONUS:

WHAT HAVE I BECOME, MY SWEETEST FRIEND. EVERYONE I KNOW GOES AWAY IN THE END.

happy birthday Katsuki. feel better sweetie. HORIKOSHI YOU BETTER TREAT HIM RIGHT I AM COUNTING ON YOU.

#bakugou katsuki #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha meta #bakugou meta #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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babypandawrites · 3 years

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Allies, Pt. 9

The Northern Air Temple

Pairing: Sokka x F Reader Warnings: None Word Count: 3,813 Summary: You thought that the chance of there being Airbenders other than Aang was too good to be true, sadly you were right.

Note: How I completely forgot about this until now I'm not sure but! Another piece of this series I’ve done for the fun of it is outfit designs- If that kind of things in fics isn’t your cup of tea then feel free to act like these don't exist! But for those who are interested or who might just wanna see; here you go. This is just what I personally envisioned while writing, again feel free to ignore it if you want, but I figured I might as well share :) I was also going to wait until tomorrow to post this bc Wednesdays is my upload day for it on Ao3 but I’m also a chapter ahead there and wanted to get my tumblr uploads caught up- so back to back post today and tomorrow :) Yay

-Navigation- | -Atla Masterlist- -Last Part- | -Allies Masterlist- | -Next Part-

Taglist: @boomeraangin | @brokennerdalert

“So, travelers, the next time you think you hear a strange large bird talking, take a closer look, it might not be a giant parrot, but a flying man! A member of a secret group of air walkers who laugh at gravity and laugh at those bound to the earth by it!” Aang smiled. “Aren’t airbender stories the best?” “Was it realistic? Was that how it was back then?” Katara questioned. “I laugh at gravity all the time. Haha! Gravity.” A pair of hands holding a hat suddenly appeared in the space inbetween Sokka and Y/n. The storyteller shook the hat, the jingling of coins being heard. “Jingle, jingle.” The two searched their pockets for any money. Y/n didn’t have anything, and the only thing Sokka pulled from his coat pocket was a small ball of lint and a bug. Y/n offered the storyteller a sheepish smile. “Sorry.” “Aww. Cheapskates!” The man left them, going to ask other audience members for donations. She turned to look at Sokka, a disgusted expression apparent on her face at the bug that wiggled around in his hand. “Why… was there a bug in your coat?” “Hey! Don’t question a man and his bug.” The bug rolled over, and started to crawl up his hand. Sokka yelped and shook it off. Her expression twisted into amusement. “A man and his bug, huh?” “It’s not my fault we can’t afford to keep him fed.”

The next morning, the group found themselves on the way to the Northern Air Temple. Apparently, the airbenders in the story they heard were seen the previous week. It seemed a little too good to be true, that there might be airbenders other than Aang still out there, but Y/n wasn’t going to be the one to crush the kids' hope. That was Sokka’s job, not hers. “Hey, we’re almost at the Northern Air Temple! This is where they had the championships for sky bison polo.” Y/n looked at Aang with a smile. “Sky bison polo? That sounds fun.” “It is fun! So much fun!” Katara moved to sit next to her brother. “Do you think we’ll really find airbenders?” “You want me to be like you, or totally honest?” Sokka asked, focusing on whittling a piece of wood. “Are you saying I’m a liar?” Katara crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m saying you’re an optimist. Same thing basically.” “They’re not the same thing at all.” Y/n commented. The boy just shrugged his shoulders. “Hey guys, look at this!” Appa was starting to approach the Northern Air Temple. It sat up on a sheer peak, several people flew around it, and smoke rose from a few pillars. “Huh! They really are airbenders!” Aang leaned, crossing his arms unhappily. “No, they’re not.” Sokka pointed up at the people flying around. “What do you mean they’re not? Those guys are flying!” “Gliding maybe, but not flying. You can tell by the way they move. They’re not airbending. Those people have no spirit.” Y/n tipped her head to the side, watching the gliders. “I mean, they look like they're flying to me, but you would know best.” As she finished speaking, a glider passed over the group's heads, nearly taking them off. The glider’s pilot laughed, turning to pass by Appa again. Getting a closer look at the kid, it could be noted that his glider was built out of the wheelchair he sat in. Katara pointed in the glider’s direction. “I don’t know, Aang. That kid seems pretty spirited!” The glider made another pass, and soon Aang was standing up glider in hand, before taking off. Another glider flew in front of Appa, startling him and causing Katara and Y/n to fall backwards into Sokka. The three grunted at the impact. “We better find some solid ground before it finds us!” Appa made a landing on one of the temple’s outer terraces, the trio getting off him and watching as Aang and the boy in the wheelchair glided through the sky. Aang eventually came down and landed next to them, the other boy also coming to a landing. A few kids came other and detached the glider from his wheelchair, before he wheeled over to the group. “Hey! You’re a real airbender! You must be the Avatar! That’s amazing! I- I- I’ve heard stories about you.” Aang rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Thanks.” “Wow! This glider chair is incredible!” Sokka rushed over to the kids who had the glider setup, inspecting it. “If you think this is good, wait until you see the other stuff my Dad designed.” He began to wheel away, the group following. They were led through the huge main gate of the temple, into the main chamber. The room was dominated by steam-powered machinery with many wheels, gears and pipes. “Wow!” Sokka ran forward, looking around the room excitedly. “Yeah, my dad is the mastermind behind this whole place! Everything’s powered by hot air. It even pumps hot air currents outside to give us a lift when we’re gliding.” Aang took a look around. “This place is unbelievable.” The boy in the wheelchair smiled. “Yeah, it’s great isn’t it?” “No, just unbelievable.” Y/n tried to hold back a laugh, clearing her throat to force down her laughter. “Aang used to come here a long time ago. I think he’s a little shocked it’s so… different.” Katara said, before following after Aang when he walked off. “So better!” Rolling her eyes, Y/n elbowed Sokka in the shoulder. He gave her a look. “Come on, you don’t think this is cool at all?” “Not really.”

Soon they followed the boy, Teo, to another part of the temple. This time it was a courtyard of sorts, it was untouched, and there were statues of airbenders. Aang was much happier about this, than he had been about the other room. “It’s nice to see even one part of the temple that isn’t ruined.” He spoke, as him, Y/n and Katara looked at a huge statue of an airbender monk. “Look out!” A voice shouted out, shortly before a wrecking ball crashed through the statue. The three flew backwards with the debris, and everyone started to cough from the dust. As the dust settled, several people could be seen through the hole that’d been created. One of the people walked forward, a middle aged man with a mostly bald head who wore a monocle, a green tunic and an apron. “What the doodle! Don’t you know enough to stay away from construction sites? We have to make room for the bathhouse!” “Do you know what you just did? You just destroyed something sacred! For a stupid bathhouse!” Aang, clearly upset with the man, took on an airbending stance. The man waved a hand in front of his nose. “Well, people around here are starting to stink.” Aang pointed at him. “This whole place stinks!” He slammed his staff against the ground, sending a strong gust of wind through the hole in the wall, knocking the wrecking ball and it’s rig off the building's foundation. “This is a sacred temple! You can’t treat it this way. I’ve seen it when the monks were here. I know what it’s supposed to be like.” “The monks? But you’re twelve!” Teo wheeled over. “Dad, he’s the Avatar. He used to come here a hundred years ago.” Aang walked closer to the man. “What are you doing? Who said you could be here?” “Hmmm… doing here… A long time ago, but not a hundred years, my people became refugees after a terrible flood.” He gestured his arms for effect, before moving to stand behind his son. “My infant son, Teo, was badly hurt and lost his mother.” Sniffling, he held back tears. “I needed somewhere to rebuild and I stumbled across this place. Couldn’t believe it! Everywhere pictures of flying people. But empty! Nobody home! Then I came across these fan like contraptions!” He held his arms out as if they were wings, making flying motions with them as he walked about the courtyard for a short moment. He stopped in front of Aang, who was clearly still upset. “Our gliders.” “Yes, little light flying machines. They gave me an idea. Build a new life for my son, in the air! Then everyone would be on equal ground, so to speak! We’re just in the process of improving upon what’s already here and after all, isn’t that what nature does?” Aang was still upset, while Sokka and Katara stood behind him, teary eyed from the story. Y/n rolled her eyes at the siblings, before moving to stand next to Aang, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Sure, the story was sad, but to her the boy’s feelings were more important. The Mechanist turned to look through the hole in the wall he’d created. “I suppose that’s true. Unfortunately, progress has a way of getting away from us.” He looked down in a bout of sadness, before his head snapped up to look at an odd candle device..? A bit aways from them. “Look at the time!” Three candles burned brightly on a stone pedestal, each separated into their own sections. Next to the pedestal, a large mallet rests, sitting head down. The Mechanist turned to one of the scribes behind him. “Come the pulley system must be oiled before dark.” Sokka approached the candles, observing them. “Wait, how can you tell the time from that thing? The notches all look the same.” “The candle will tell us. Watch.” The candle’s flame snapped four times in a row. “You put spark powder in the candle!” “Four flashes, so it’s exactly four hours past midday, or, as I call it, four o’candle!” Sokka let out a laugh, as The Mechanist looked at him, seemingly pleased he was interested. “If you like that, wait till you see my finger safe knife sharpener!” Y/n’s attention moved to the man at the mention of that, watching as he held up his left hand, where three of his fingers were made of wood. He detached them from his hand, before tossing them to Sokka. “Only took me three tries to get it right!” Sokka let out a scream, as he caught the wooden fingers. “Follow me!” The Mechanist turned to leave, the men who were with him and Sokka quickly followed. As the boy passed by Y/n, he grabbed onto her wrist and dragged her along with him. She offered a quick goodbye wave to Aang, Katara and Teo as she was dragged away.

Quiet steps echoed through the narrow hallway, as Y/n, Sokka and The Mechanist descending a narrow staircase. Each of them held a lantern, glowing with sparse blue light. “These lanterns are terrible! I can’t see.” Y/n ran into Sokka’s back, as he abruptly stopped to open the jar to his lantern. She flicked the back of his head, as he continued to speak. “Why would you want to use fireflies for light- Hey!” She snickered, watching the firefly that escaped from his lantern. The Mechanist turned to look at them. “Hey, close that up! They’ll get loose. Fireflies are a non-flammable light source.” “Are you meaning to say that something down here is flammable?” Y/n asked, as they all continued walking. “Well, why else would I need a non-flammable light source?” The Mechanist offered a chuckle, as they approached a door. The edges of it were blocked by some sort of sealant, which he felt around, probably to check for leaks. After checking he turned back to them. “Cover your nose and hold your breath.” Once they’d done so, The Mechanist slid open a panel in the door, which they all looked through. It just showed a dark and empty room. “Okay, so you brought us all the way down here to see an empty room.” Sokka spoke with a somewhat confused tone. “Wrong.” Eyebrows furrowing together, Y/n watched as the panel was slid shut again. “You brought us all the way down here to see a room full of flammable explosive gas?” “Correct! It’s filled to the brim with natural gas. Came across it my first time here. Unfortunately, I was carrying a torch at the time. Nearly blew myself and the whole place even more sky high. Thought my eyebrows would never grow back! Anyway, there’s a vital problem that needs solving. From time to time we have gas leaks and they’re nearly impossible to find.” Y/n took a few steps back, as Sokka helped check the door for leaks. “So this place is an explosion waiting to happen?” “Yes, until I figure out how to locate something I can’t see, hear, smell or touch.” “Right, is it safe for us to be around this gas? Should we be wearing masks or something, in case we come across a leak so we don’t, you know, inhale it?” “Oh don’t worry, we should be fine.” The Mechanist paused for a moment, straightening up after finishing checking for leaks. “Well, as long as you aren’t a firebender or something- hah!” He let out a laugh, which Sokka quickly shared. Sokka nudged her in the arm, as they started walking back. “Oh come on, that was funny. You know that was funny.” “Yeah, hilarious.” He threw an arm over her shoulders. “Come on, loosen up. We’re gonna be fine, even if we do come across a leak.” She put her hands up in defense. “Okay, okay.”

The Mechanist led the pair to his workshop, and very clearly told them not to touch anything, before going to look over some papers on his desk. Sokka, of course, did not listen to that and started poking through things the moment the man's attention wasn’t on them. “Sokka, he said not to touch anything.” Y/n whispered, smacking his hand away from something he was about to mess with. He gently pushed her away a bit, before going right back to poking around. “Calm down, it’s fine. It’s not like I’m going to break an-” Sokka cut himself off, as he knocked some stuff over. Grimacing, he tried to keep it from falling to the ground. “I said don’t touch anything!” When The Mechanist spoke up, Sokka dropped the things to the ground. Y/n crossed her arms over her chest. “Not gonna break anything, huh?” The Mechanist came over, to help Sokka pick the things up. “Oh, don’t worry, that experiment is old and that egg was just part of last week’s lunch.” Y/n kneeled down to help them too, as Sokka sniffed the air. “Ugh! Week old egg smell!” “Quick! Find that egg!” The three started to crawl around, looking for the egg, but none of them were having much luck. “How could something that’s so small you can’t even see it make such a big stink!?” Sokka complained as they looked. The Mechanist perked up at the comment. “That’s the solution to our problem!” “Yeah!” Y/n looked at the two, confused, as they faced each other with excitement. “What?” “If we put a whole mess of rotten eggs in the cellar where the gas seeps up..” Sokka started the thought, which The Mechanist continued. “The gas will mix with the smell of rotten eggs…” “Then, if there’s a leak…” “You smell rotten eggs! Then you just follow your nose to the place where the smell is coming from..” “And plug up the hole where the gas is escaping!” “You’re a genius!” The two spoke in unison. Still, Y/n looked between the two with a confused expression. “ What? ” Suddenly, a large bell started to ring, and The Mechanist was quick to get up and rush from the room. “Something’s wrong I’ve got to go.” “Wonder what that’s about.” Sokka said, getting up himself. He helped Y/n up, grinning. “We should follow him.” “Always a snoop, huh?” Laughing softly, she shook her head. “Alright.” Grasping onto her wrist, he dragged her out of the room to follow after The Mechanist. They’d followed him to another room, one that was filled to the brim with different war machines branded with the Fire Nation’s insignia.

“You make weapons for the Fire Nation!?” Sokka was clearly angry with his words, rightfully so. Y/n was pretty mad about this development as well. She pointed a finger at The Mechanist. “You! You're terrible. Horrible terrible!” The Mechanist looked at the ground in humiliation and shame. Teo looked at his father angrily. “Explain all this! Now!” “It was about a year after we moved here. Fire Nation soldiers found our settlement. You were too young to remember this tale. They were going to destroy everything, burn it to the ground. I pleaded with them, begged them to spare us. They asked what I had to offer. I offered… my services. You must understand, I did this for you!” Teo turned his wheelchair away, clearly upset. The Mechanist turned on his heel, and walked back down the hall, leaving the five kids in the room. Teo shook his head. “I can’t believe this…. This is terrible.” “I know..” Aang looked at the weapons with disdain. “There’s so much here.” Y/n crossed her arms over her chest. “The Fire Nation could be coming for this soon…” Aang breathed out a sigh. “Your right… I’m going to go figure it out.” “I’ll come with.” Teo said, as Aang started to leave the room, before following the boy. With Aang and Teo’s return, they found out that the Fire Nation was coming soon. And they were intending to burn this place to the ground. They were all outside on one of the walkways, trying to figure out a plan. “This is bad! Very bad!” Katara looked over to Aang. “Aang, what are we gonna do? How can we possibly keep them all away?” “I’ll tell you how.” He pointed to the sky. “We have something they don’t. Air power! We control the sky. That’s something the Fire Nation can’t do. We can win!” “I want to help.” The Mechanist approached the group, as he spoke up. Aang offered the man a smile. “Good, we’ll need it.”

“We finally got the war balloon working, thanks to Sokka. This boy’s a genius!” “Thank you. You’re a genius!” “Thank you!” Y/n rolled her eyes at the exchange. “Can we get on with this?” Sokka cleared his throat. “Right. See, the problem with the old war balloon was you could get it airborne, but once you did, it just kept going.” He demonstrated with a model that flew up and hit the ceiling. “You could put a hole in the top, but then all the hot air would escape. So the question became, how do you keep a lid on hot air?” “Ugh, if only we knew.” Katara commented. Y/n, Aang, Teo and Katara herself all laughed at the remark. Ignoring them, Sokka pulled the model down from the ceiling, now showing off the mechanism to open and close a lid on the top. “A lid is actually the answer. If you control the hot air, you control the war balloon.” He demonstrated again, but this time the model didn’t fly up to the ceiling, thanks to the lid that could be pulled open with a string. Katara crossed her arms. “Hmm. That’s actually pretty smart.” “Okay, we’ve got four kinds of bombs. Smoke, smile, fire and-” The Mechanist cut Sokka off. “Stink. Never underestimate the power of stink!”

“We’re going to have to modify this to the new design, and fast.” The Mechanist said, as him, Sokka and Y/n worked on bringing the War Balloon he’d already constructed outside. “With both of you helping we should be able to get it up and running pretty quickly though!” “Yeah! And I’m pretty sure Aang and Katara will be able to hold off the Fire Nation with everyone’s help.” Y/n furrowed her eyebrows. “They’ll be able to hold them off, but we can’t count on them too for too long, even if we have the skies. The Fire Nation’s army is huge, who knows how many soldiers will show up.” They got the balloon set up to do the necessary modifications. “Oh she’s right, time is not something we have on our side right now.” Sokka nodded in understanding. “Right. It’s only one modification though, so it can’t take terribly long, right?” “Let’s hope not.” Getting to work on the War Balloon, they probably could have gotten things done a little faster. But nonetheless, they got it done, and just in time too apparently. While Sokka and The Mechanist got ready to take off in the war balloon, Y/n went to find the others to see how they were holding up. “How are things going out here?” She asked, once she found Katara, Aang and Teo. The three looked at her with slight concern. “Not well.” Katara started. “Please tell us Sokka is coming with that war balloon soon.” Before she could give an answer, the war balloon rose up from behind them all, and started moving towards the battle field. From where they all stood, they could see Sokka and The Mechanist dropping giant slime bombs onto the Fire Nation soldiers. The bombs that they had didn’t stop the soldiers, however, and they were starting to advance closer to the Temple. Katara put a hand on Y/n’s shoulder, to get her attention. “What are they doing..?” She squinted in the direction of the war balloon, trying to see what was going on. “I’m not sur-” She cut herself off, watching as something fell from the basket of the war balloon. Was that the balloons fuel source? “Did they just push out their fuel source..?!” “What?!” A sudden explosion set off, a really really big one. The entire Temple got clouded in a ginormous wall of grey smoke. When the smoke dissipated, it was revealed that the Fire Nation was retreating. Aang pointed to where the army was leaving. “Look! They’re retreating!” Everyone started to cheer at the success, but the joy was cut short, as the war balloon started heading downwards quickly. Thankfully though, Aang was able to get Sokka and The Mechanist before the balloon crashed below. Currently, they all stood outside on the main terrace of the Air Temple. “You know what? I’m really glad you guys all live here now. It’s like the hermit crab.” Aang spoke, as he carefully picked up one of the hermit crabs near them all. “Maybe you weren’t born here, but you found this empty shell and made it your home. And now you protect each other.” Teo offered a smile to the boy. “That means a lot coming from you.” “Aang you were right about air power.” Sokka pointed to the sky. “As long as we’ve got the skies we’ll have the Fire Nation on the run!”

#avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar the last airbender x reader #atla x reader #reader insert #sokka x reader #sokka x y/n #sokka x you #team avatar #slowburn #book one allies

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holidaywishes · 3 years

Text

i wanna play, too

Requested: 👍

Summary/Request: Could you maybe make a fic where Freddie catches/watches the reader pleasure herself 👀 idk I’m kinda in the mood for a kinky Freddie

Warning: smut, language

Author’s Note: This was was written quickly so it might be a bit messy but let’s get a little kinky on Tumblr this Friday night. It’s nothing groundbreaking or new but it was fun to write so I hope you enjoy!

PS: If I were to ever do a thirst night, which I might have to, I can guarantee I will use up my Prosecco to do so. Keep that in mind for maybe next month?

masterlist

the other masterlist

The Leafs were on the end of a two week road trip and you were getting increasingly agitated; effectively using up your Rabbit until the batteries gave out.

“When are you coming home?” you whined over the phone to your boyfriend of 2 years

“We’re just boarding the plane now. Should be home in about an hour or 2” he replied

“Can you do me a favour?” you asked, petting the soft fur of the mink throw blanket at the end of your couch

“Anything, babe. What’s up?” he said, his voice perking up at your request

“Send me something.”

"Of what?”

“You.” You said simply, smiling to yourself

“Like... a selfie?” he asked and you could only roll your eyes at his remark

“No, baby...” you scoffed, still fidgeting with the blanket before deciding to tease him a little bit, “I’ve watched all the usual things, listened to all the usual audios, but it’s not doing anything for me anymore. I miss you and I want you to help me.. play”

“Play?” he whispered

“Yeah”

“You don’t want to just.. wait. So you can play with me?” he whispered

“I can’t wait that long...” you smirked to yourself, “I need it now”

“I don’t have anything right now, babe...” he replied quietly and you could tell he had found a corner to curl himself in, “can I just send something old?”

“No!” you pouted, “I want a video. I want to hear you saying you want to fuck me and see your hands stroking your hard cock while I slowly touch myself so I’m ready for you when you get home”

“I would love to, baby,” he sighed, “but I can’t... there’s no privacy here...”

“Please?” you teased and he growled for a minute before finally agreeing. You waited patiently for his video to come through, lighting a candle in your bedroom as you propped yourself up on some soft, feather throw pillows. You set up a playlist on your computer of your favourite Freddie moments, just in case the video he sent you wasn’t enough.

Freddie ❤️: new message

Your screen lit up with Freddie’s name as his video attachment came through and you grabbed your favourite, non-battery powered dildo and got comfortable. You were in for a wild ride.

Freddie’s P.O.V

You couldn’t believe she was making you do this. Here. Now. You can’t believe you agreed to do it for her, knowing your entire team was only mere feet away. But her teasing little phone voice was impossible to say no to. So there you were, in the tiny airplane bathroom, trying to film a naughty video for your girlfriend. You weren’t sure where to start, so you just... started

“Baby, you look so good,” you whispered, hoping that no one would hear you, “fuck, Elske.” You took yourself in your hand and quietly began stroking your shaft, “I want to fuck you so hard, (Y/N), I want you to ride my cock until you cum.” Knowing that you could be caught made you reach your release much sooner than you typically would and now you were left with sending the video to your girlfriend for her to enjoy. You toyed with the idea of sending her a message along with the video, your fingers hovering over the keyboard but you just decided that sending the video was enough. So, you took a breath and hit send, cleaning up any mess you left behind

“Thanks, babe.” She sent back and you shook your head with a smile

“Enjoy.” Was all you could send back before you opened the door where you were met face-to-face with Spez.

“Hey, Fred.” He smiled and your heart began to race thinking he might now what just went on, “you good?”

“Yep,” you replied, “all good.” You snuck past him and found your seat, sighing deeply as the plane continued on its journey.

When you got Freddie’s video, you giddily pressed play and shifted down onto the mattress as the first whispers made their way to your ear

“Baby, you look so good” his voice was low and you could tell he was trying his best not to get caught. You let your hand wander down your body, caressing your breasts gently to peak your nipples before you rubbed the glass dildo across your clit and down your folds as you listened to the slight moaning coming from the video, “fuck, Elske,” he whispered, finally taking himself in his hand and pumping his shaft slowly, your hand mimicking his action by pushing the toy inside you, moaning at the sensation. “I want to fuck you so hard, (Y/N),” Freddie continued in a low growl, “I want you to ride my cock until you cum.” You pushed your dildo further inside you as you listened to Freddie’s moaning, waiting for more words to break through, “fuck baby. Fuck me” he growled once more before you heard him reach his climax and you had to sigh

“Well shit, Freddie...” you said to yourself, turning to the playlist you’d created, starting first with the Leaf to Leaf he did with Connor nearly two years again, watching as his big hands touch different foods, craving his fingers inside you, “mmm” you moaned as you pumped your dildo deeper inside you, imagining it as Freddie’s finger. The playlist went on, playing different interviews ranging from events to post-games until the very last in the list played: a Morning Skate from March 11, 2019. It truly was the perfect video. He showed his hands often enough for you to imagine how they’d feel across your skin and the messiness of his hair caused you to delight in the memories of the many times he’d ended up that way when the two of you were in bed and the sweat that cascaded from his neck had you picturing his chest in all it’s glistening glory. You continued to pump the toy in and out of you, Freddie’s voice vibrating through the screen as moans continued to escape your throat as your entire body began to heat up. You were so invested in making yourself cum that you didn’t even hear the door open but when you heard the floor creak in the hallway, you knew Fred must be home.

Freddie’s P.O.V

You had been trying to get a hold of (Y/N) since the plane landed but she wasn’t answering so you just made your way home. When you got there, you called out to her but there was no answer but you did hear a small noise coming from the bedroom; you made your way up the stairs and finally heard the familiar sounds of your girlfriends moans. You wondered if you should just let her finish and pretend to walk back in or if you should peer in and catch her in the act, deciding, naturally, to carefully make your way toward the bedroom door. You opened the door slowly, finding her on the bed with her laptop by her side as she fucked herself with a clear toy you’d never seen before

“Fuck” she whimpered, her back arching as she seemed to push the dildo deeper inside her. You felt your mouth fill with saliva and the blood rush to down while you continued to watch (Y/N) pleasure herself, “Fuck. Oh yeah, oh god, fuck” she moaned loudly and your hand instinctively went down to your dick, feeling it already hardened, before you swallowed the saliva that had collected in your mouth. “Fuck Freddie,” she yelled breathlessly and you wondered if she knew you were there, ‘she couldn’t know could she? she would’ve said something...’, “oh god, Freddie, fuck me...”

“Fuck” you whispered as quietly as you could, unable to stop yourself from reaching your hand into your briefs to stroke your member as you watched her writhe in pleasure

“Fuck, that feels so good,” her breathing was becoming more shallow, the telltale sharp inhale appearing and you knew she wouldn’t be long. “Oh shit,” she squealed, “fu-uh-ck.” When she finally came, you realized that you had, at some point, swung the door completely open and you were left exposed with your hand down your pants, “well?” she laughed breathlessly, “you like what you saw?” You nodded before you could muster any words, your feet dragging your across the floor toward (Y/N) as she gave you a smirk

“Yeah,” you finally said, shutting her computer while you crawled over her to whisper in her ear, “I wanna play, too...”

“You do?” she laughed

“I do,” you smirked, taking the dildo away and moving it to the nightstand, only to hear it fall to the floor, “oops”

“Leave it,” she smiled, pulling your shirt quickly over your head, “I want the real thing.”

#Freddie Andersen #Frederik Andersen #TML #NHL #Hockey #Freddie Andersen smut #Frederik Andersen smut #Frederik Andersen fic #Freddie Andersen fluff #Freddie Andersen imagine #Frederik Andersen imagine #masterlist #the other masterlist

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fangirl-everythang · 3 years

Text

Happy Father's Day

Summary: (1/3) Y/n hasn't told Harry that she is pregnant yet, however, when the day comes around she finds out he's cheating.

Warning: Swearing, Taylor Swift Bashing (I love Taylor don't get me wrong, it's just for the story's sake.)

Word Count: 1492

It's been 5 weeks since I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to tell Harry the moment I found out. I scheduled a doctor's appointment to confirm it because you can't really trust generic pregnancy. But when the doctor confirmed it, I had no idea how to respond.

Hiding this from him has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Harry and I have been together for almost five years now. We met at his twenty-second birthday party in New York, I was twenty. He was pretty upset that he still had to tour for his birthday, but he said it was great making a new friend. Next thing you know we went public after two and moved in together for our third year. I'm so in love with him, but our careers are taking off, a baby would just interfere with all of it however Harry has always wanted children. He'd make such a great dad too, I can only imagine what our family will look like. But these thoughts often consume me, what if he doesn't want this?

I thought Father's Day would be the best day to tell him, you know like a surprise, and what a better time unless of course, he doesn't want our child. Our parents are coming over because of course, we have gifts and brunch so it's like three for one.

I've been distant from him recently, he's so concerned about me he thinks something is terribly wrong with my morning sickness and all. I figured I'd tell him with a gift which is a wooden base with yarn woven letters made of nails that spells 'dad' with the first ultrasound underneath, there's a card too! I'm so excited to finally start a family with Harry, I just hope he feels the same way. I have mugs for each of our dads that say, 'soon to be grandfather'. Honestly, I couldn't be happier. Opening the front door, I place the keys on the table next to me and walk the bags to the living room. That's funny Harry would've greeted me by now? He's probably asleep.

Setting up for later, I bring the balloons over realizing the tablecloths are upstairs. I work my way up the steps. These are gonna be a hassle with an extra 30-40 pounds on me. The closer I get to the top, I hear a light moan.

"I love y/n, she can't know about this" Harry's voice spoke.

Tiptoeing to peak into our bedroom I see my beloved boyfriend, father of my child shirtless kissing a pant-less Taylor Swift. Wow. Just my, fucking luck. Of course, he would! I mean what was I thinking.

"Of course not, my reputation is already bad" she breathes, cupping the side of his face.

I just watch him continue to kiss her after leaning into her touch. Debating whether to go in there, I feel frozen in my steps.

"This doesn't feel right" his deep voice sighs. No shit.

"She doesn't even care about you Harry, isn't that what you told me?" She says sweetly, such a snake.

He sighs and flips them, the scene before me, causes tears to come to my eyes. Opening the door making my presence known Harry turns to me with wide eyes while Taylor scrambles to find her pants and shirt.

"Y/n it's not-"

"I don't want to hear it" I say to him. Irritation and disgust line my voice. Grabbing the table covers I go back downstairs. I have what I need. After looking at my presentation admiring the work I've done. Harry and Taylor both come downstairs. His eyes red and puffy. I swear the tears make his eyes appear more beautiful, I hope my child has his eyes at least.

Astounded by my quiet stature he sits next to me and I stiffen. I'm just quiet because it's keeping me from crying. Taylor stares blankly at the floor.

"Why the fuck are you still here? Leave." I spit at her.

Oh, how I wish I could drink.

The doorbell rings alarming Taylor. I just walk her to the door and invite our parents in "Thank you Taylor" I say sincerely seeing her nod and pull off fast in her car. Tramp.

"What's that about?" Anne ask,

" New music" she smiles and comes in with everyone trailing her steps.

"Harry what's wrong love?" she asks wiping his tears.

"Nothing just allergies mum" she pats his back and sits at the table.

"Five years, I cannot believe it, Harry it's the longest you've had!" Rob states. "And the fans love you Y/n" Anne adds lightly patting my shoulder. "Our little girls all grown up" y/m/n wipes a fake tear from her eye. Everyone laughs. Thank god Harry is next to me so I don't have to look at him. He places his hand in my lap, but I push it off, going unnoticed by the crowd around us.

"Gift time!" I exclaim as he tries again. Placing each one down in-front of them, they all look up slightly confused.

"What's this?" Y/d/n ask.

"Open them, Haz just wait a few seconds after" they all agree. Rob opening his first then y/d/n they look at me then Harry, our moms looks match Harry's as he unwraps his gift. Stunned he looks at me with tears in his eyes. "Y-you're pregnant?"

"Yeah, surprise." Our parents run up to hug us.

"It's about time, I'm getting old over here!" Y/m/n shouts. Once they leave excitedly picking out baby names. I refuse to look at Harry. I make my way upstairs and begin packing some clothing.

"W-what are you doing?" Harry ask quietly.

"What does it look like Harry?" I say pushing past him going to the bathroom and grabbing some necessities. He just leans on the door frame watching me, still refusing to look at him. At first, I cared but I've made up my mind.

"How far along are we?"

"I'm almost 6 weeks but that doesn't matter" trying to walk past him he just grabs my arm and pulls me into him.

"I love you so much," he cries into my neck. I just stand there, motionless "I'm such a fuck up. Please don't leave me. I want to be here for you, for our baby. Y/n please." His hot tears continue to stream onto my shirt leaving a wet patch.

I soon give in rubbing his back gently. "Calm down Harry," I whisper into his ear as his sobs get louder "Breathe, okay."

Sitting on the closest surface near me, today has been long; I'm tired and pregnant give me a break. He stands between my legs looking down at me. I love him I do, and I want the best for our child, but this hurt. The one request I've had is he doesn't cheat, and he did. I stare at my feet avoiding him at all cost until his hand lifts my chin, forcing me to look at him. "I'm not asking you to forgive me, but I am asking you to stay." He states softly placing a random string of hair behind my ear. He slowly starts leaning in I don't stop him. Suddenly feeling nauseous at the thought of him kissing Taylor, I shove him away from me crying.

He tries to hold me, but I just shake my head frantically, "Harry No," I cry. "How could you!? In our house Harry!" I shout. Continuing to pack my things making myself mad at the thought of his hands all over his ex.

"Y/n I'm so sorry please just stop," clothes I need clothes, just for a few days I'll buy more later. Walking into the bedroom opening my laptop ignoring his pleads. I book a hotel for two weeks, until I situate what is happening. He just sits on the bed trying to see what I'm doing but I soon erased my browser history and factory restarted the device so he can't track anything. Let's combine our accounts so our calendars sync. A swell idea. Wiping my tears, I pack outfits for each day that wouldn't show anything to the paparazzi. He sits there with his head in his hand's sharp intakes of breath audible.

As I approach him, he assumes I'm going to touch him, but I simply go into the drawer next to him. Cringing at the thought of him and Taylor who were here not over 6 hours ago, Grasping the more recent black and white photos gently until I get a photo album for them. Contemplating for a minute looking at the small framed version of my uterus I carefully tear one off handing to him before I seal my bag and walk away, taking my keys and loading my stuff in the backseat.

Looking through the rearview mirror, saying a silent goodbye to the home I hoped to raise my child. It'll get better- I hope.

A/n: Hello Loves! This is also a piece I had on wattpad. Most of these posts today will be Wattpad uploads. I'm trying to see which platform suits my work best. Bear with me while I figure Tumblr out. Masterlist coming soon!

xoxo Janelle

#harry #harry styles #harryx reader #y/n #harry styles and y/n #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #writing #imagine #oneshot #smut #fanfiction #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurb

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missroserose · 3 years

Text

Summertime Thing

Okay, so really I should be working on the first chapter of this (which I actually have a hard deadline for on the 18th, sorta—more on that later), but I promised @laveracevia and @redmyeyes and @notwhatiam (and also an anonymous Tumblr person) that I'd post the bullet point outline for my angsty wincesty teen Sam novel so here it is, all three-thousand-plus words of it. Still tentative and with a fair amount to fill in, but that's what makes it an outline. (Has anyone yet beatified the SPN showrunners for setting the bar for research so ridiculously low? Praise be unto them! 😂) So, without further ado:

• It’s the summer of 1999 and Sam is sixteen.

• They’re living in rural Arizona for the summer, in a little town in the Chiricahua Mountains called Bisbee that I definitely didn’t live in for three years.

• Bisbee’s a weird place. It used to be a wealthy mining town, but in the ‘70s the company pulled out and the economy crashed. Some of the residents are old mining families, some are old hippies and artists who moved there due to the picturesque scenery and bargain-basement real estate, some are early baby boomers looking for an inexpensive place to retire. There's a surprising amount of live music, an absolutely thriving conspiracy scene, and the local police blotter is a smorgasbord of weirdness.

⁃ John picked it because it’s the county seat (which means lots of local records) with cheap housing and residents who don’t ask too many questions. Dean loves it because it’s straight out of the a Western—several famous movies filmed on Main Street, and the theme-park-town of Tombstone is half an hour’s drive away. Sam hates it, but in fairness, Sam kind of hates everything right now.

• Sam’s getting regular beatdowns with the puberty bat—he’s growing what feels like an inch a week, his voice is randomly cracking, he’s ravenously hungry all the time, and his moods go from happy-go-lucky kid to moody teen to full-on young-adult angst on the turn of a dime.

• Most terrifying of all, his relationship with Dean is fracturing. Dean can tell he’s having a hard time of things, of course, and tries his best to cheer Sam up. Sometimes they get on great; other times, even being in the same room as Dean makes Sam feel like his skin is three sizes too small.

• The frustrating part is, no matter how much of a shit Sam is, Dean won't give up on him entirely, just gives him space for a day or two and then reaches out, like—“hey, come keep me company while I give the car an oil change,” or “hey, sounds like there’s a hell of a party going on up the gulch—let’s go sneak in, I bet they have booze, maybe we can get you laid,” or “hey, Dad said we can take the car, let’s drive to the new mall in the next town and go see a movie. Anything you want.”

⁃ Sam definitely picks Cruel Intentions, intending to make Dean sit through something he’d find boring, but it backfires—the incest subplot ends up making him even more uncomfortable and Dean, predictably, digs watching Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair make out onscreen.

• Dean is having the time of his life this summer. The town is picturesque, the bars don’t look too closely at his fake ID, Sam’s old enough to fend for himself mostly, and he even gets an evening gig as a bar back a few nights a week, which means he has a little cash. Sure, Sam’s been weirdly moodly lately, but it’s just puberty, it’ll pass.

• Sam, meanwhile, is on his own a lot, with John either out working, out drinking, or buried in his notes; he spends a lot of time walking down to the library over the post office, which is surprisingly extensive, but more importantly, air-conditioned. If he has a couple bucks he might go to the new coffee shop by the library and buy an iced tea for lunch.

• At some point when John’s gone, Dean brings home Tina, a local bartender. Weirdly, they don’t seem to be sleeping together, at least initially; mostly they just hang out, easy with each other in a way that makes Sam jealous.

⁃ Sam hates it when Dean brings home girls (for the obvious reason that he gets kicked out of the house, of course), but he actually hates it more when Tina starts hanging around regularly, all the more so because she’s always very sweet to him—but Dean’s into her and that means Dean’s attention is on someone other than him.

⁃ Tina keeps working on Sam, and eventually he confides in her—he hates their life, hates lying to people, hates the ceaseless travel and string of anonymous motel rooms and constant scrambling for cash, but Dean loves it and he loves Dean. She mentions having a sister that she has a complicated relationship with, too.

• One day John announces that they’re taking a day trip as a family together, and they drive up to the Portal-Paradise area, which is a sky island—a mountain forest surrounded by desert, surprisingly lush and peaceful, with stunning views from the peaks.

⁃ It’s also a fairly cursed place, with bullet-riddled “KNOWN HUMAN TRAFFICKING AREA” signs and a cluster of boarded-up hovels from the ghost town of Paradise that definitely don't look like a Bender compound waiting to happen

⁃ After they've wandered around a bit, taking in the gorgeous landscape and sheer relief of being amongst so much green after months in the desert, John has them all pile back into the car and takes them up to Sugarloaf Peak. As they're climbing the mountain, he mentions that the fire watch station at the peak is a great place to watch for {insert signs of supernatural phenomenon here}. Sam gets upset at that, accuses John of using their family time for hunting. Dean points out (quite reasonably) that their family time has always been hunting together. John goes into Marine mode and shuts down the conversation, Sam grumbles something about "just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right," and goes into a sulk.

⁃ As he's sulk-climbing up the peak, Sam becomes convinced at one point that he hears running water. John tells him that’s unlikely before monsoons start, and to keep climbing. Sam keeps hearing it, though, and asks Dean whether he hears it; Dean listens, but doesn't hear anything. Sam falls further behind, trying to see the source—he catches a glimpse of something shimmering amidst the few trees and strikes off looking for it—but there’s nothing there, only a cliff that he nearly goes over. Dean comes up behind him a minute later, urges Sam back up the trail.

• The next day at the library, perhaps driven by Dean giving him shit about hallucinations, Sam starts looking into the history of water in the area—they’ve driven over the San Pedro River but it always just looked to him like a muddy creek. He learns about the 1877 earthquake that broke the water table and reshaped the water in the area, lowering the San Pedro's level and transforming St. David from a malaria-ridden swamp into a town of artesian springs.

• Later that week, Sam’s sitting outside the coffeeshop possibly reading Flowers in the Attic when he hears the older woman at the table next to him insisting that mutants are living in Paradise, only coming out at night, kidnapping people and murdering them, mutilating their bodies and leaving them for the sheriffs to find (and cover up, naturally). Sam is only half-listening—conspiracy nuts are a dime a dozen in this town—until the woman's friend asks patiently where they're getting water from, and the woman says something about haunted springs in the forest. He pretends he’s Dean for a moment, cuts in on the conversation, says he’s doing an independent study project over the summer. The woman fills him in on not just the one disappearance, but several over the past decade, mostly border-jumpers and itinerants.

• Reading between the lines, Sam starts to wonder if there’s a vampire nest in Paradise; he takes down some names, starts putting the research skills he's been learning to good use. He looks up some of the newspaper records on microfilm, finding records—occasional mentions in the Bisbee Observer (and before that, the more legitimate and much less typo-filled Bisbee Daily Review) of people missing, reading up on the history of Paradise.

• He comes back from the library, excited to tell Dean and John what he’s found, only to find John gone and Dean and Tina halfway through a case of beer she brought; they invite Sam to join them, and Sam does. Drunk!Sam ends up talking a lot about how cool the sky island forest is and trying to convince Tina to come with them to see it, but Tina seems oddly resistant. She changes the subject, tells them about her sister, how she was so dominant that she couldn’t tell where her sister ended and she began. Sam starts to feel a sort of kinship with her.

• The next morning he wakes up, discovers that Tina and Dean are gone. He wanders out to where John’s working in the living room, tells him what he’s found. John, who got in late the previous night and is singularly focused on demon activity, is a little condescending towards Sam—there’s dozens of conspiracy theories circulating through town, and besides, if there were actual vampires in Paradise he'd have found some direct evidence by now, they’ve been here more than a month.

• Sam is adamant about going anyway—"you always say it's our job to look into things nobody else will"—and maybe John's a little swayed by Sam's passion (or maybe Sam threatens to steal a car if John doesn't take him). As a sop, John gives Sam the keys to the Impala and tells him to come back if he needs help; as he's about to leave, John calls Sam back, gives him a tenner and reminds him not to head out to the middle of nowhere without supplies. Sam stops at the Circle K, packs a couple jugs of water and some nuts and jerky, and takes off; he’s a little pissed at Dean for ditching him the previous night (and also for, he assumes, sleeping with Tina) so he doesn’t bring him along.

• A couple of hours later, he’s jouncing up the road. The road is empty, as usual, the sun is hot, as usual. Sam gets to the border of the sky island, where the sun is less ferocious, and pulls off at the first group of abandoned houses. He goes to investigate; the first two are empty, barely more than hovels. The third looks empty, but he spots a table with no dust on it; looking closer, he finds a trap door down to a cellar.

⁃ Sam knows he should go get Dean, but he’s still feeling jilted, so he goes and grabs a machete from the Impala’s trunk

⁃ Carefully, he makes his way down the rickety staircase into the basement, shining the flashlight around—and is nearly jumped by a middle-aged woman, yelling at him in Spanish. He has some high-school Spanish but not much; he manages to ward her off, convince her he’s not ICE or Border Patrol. She still doesn’t trust him, but he notices the two children in the corner, the chains holding them there. In Spanish: “Why are they held?” “Coyote,” the woman spits. “Went to demand more money from my family. Should have been back three days ago. Probably drowned in a bar.” Sam doesn't 100% understand but gets the gist—the empty water jug in one corner and stinking bucket in another tell most of the story. The disappearances, the mutilated bodies—it's nothing supernatural, just people doing awful things to each other.

⁃ Sam picks the locks on the chains, tells the woman to wait a moment; he goes out to the Impala, gets the food and a jug of water, gives them to the woman. She’s still wary, but accepts the gifts. She tries to give him a warning, something about water, though his Spanish isn’t quite good enough to make it out; she also presses on him a small figurine, clearly very old, something that looks like a mermaid.

• He gets back around twilight, finds Dean and John bent over photocopies of local records. John sees him come in, asks him if he found anything. Sam opens his mouth, intending to tell him about his day…then decides against it. Just says there’s no vampires. John grunts in acknowledgement, mind already elsewhere.

• The next morning, Dean's missing again, so Sam stalks off to go swimming at the community pool. He’s doing laps, trying not to think about anything, but Dean keeps coming to mind, the way his eyes met Sam’s when Tina was talking about her sister, the way they felt almost hungry. It keeps haunting him, something about that hunger—he's walking back down Main Street, past some of the shops and galleries that sell local art to tourists, when he sees a large painting of La Tlanchana that bears some resemblance to the mermaid figurine—the woman’s warning comes to him again, and two pieces click together in his mind.

• He starts researching La Tlanchana and her various legends and beliefs about her over the years, particularly drawn by the darker and more vengeful incarnations that the Aztecs worshipped. He starts formulating a theory about the disappearances, that they’re linked to…what? A haunted spring? A mermaid? He’s so tantalizingly close…

• He comes home when the library closes, all excited to tell Dean what he’s found and get his input, but John and Dean are both gone; Dean’s bed is rumpled, and the sheets smell like…well, they smell like Dean and Tina, in a way that makes Sam’s stomach flip with jealousy. It's not that he hadn't guessed that they were sleeping together, but...he’d thought Tina liked him. He’d thought…Dean belonged to him. Little things like the hollow of his hip when his jeans rode low, or the way his knees bowed out when he walked, or the tightness around his eyes when he was trying to hide something—

⁃ —does horny uncomfortable 16-year-old Sam sit on the bed and envision his brother and Tina together and end up desperately rubbing one out right there on the bed? Oh yes he does. Afterward, roiling with several emotions (of which only some are shame), he half-considers going to the bar to look for Dean—but he has more trouble passing for twenty-one, and besides, what is there even to say?

• The next day, Sam intends to sleep late to avoid Dean, but his brother comes in at ten or so, in a disgustingly good mood. “Come on, Sammy, you’ve been cooped up in that library too long. Tina was telling me about a cave up on Mule Mountain, supposed to be a great place for a picnic.” John is still gone, and Sam’s in no mood, but can’t really say no to Dean.

• The brothers strike out over Mule Mountain, watching out for snakes and wildlife, looking for deer. Sam tries to explain to Dean his half-formed La Tlanchana theory, but Dean just humors him. Sam, nettled, starts griping about Dean’s navigation skills, about the way he sounds like their father, about all the time he’s spending with Tina, etc.

⁃ Dean deflects, but Sam’s upset about a lot of things he can’t acknowledge, so he starts in on the major sore point in their relationship—ripping on John for trapping them here, for never letting Dean be a kid, for always demanding their unquestioning obedience and loyalty, etc. Dean tolerates Sam’s griping to a point but once he starts in on their father it’s only a matter of time before he’s threatening to kick Sam’s ass; when Sam gets to the “he’s never let you be independent” part, Dean informs him with no small amount of anger that John has offered to give him the Impala, let him take jobs on his own—but he refused, because he’s been taking care of Sam—

⁃ They’re so caught up in arguing that they miss the way the sky’s going dark—it’s not until the first crack of thunder splits the sky overhead that they shut up and look at the sky, which is incredibly threatening

⁃ Sure enough, a moment later it starts pouring, with all the ferocity of a full-on faucet. Dean whoops, shedding his shirt like it’s an old skin, and dashes for an overhang that might shield them from the worst of it

⁃ Sam swallows and follows, soaked to the skin and shivering as much from fear as from cold. Cue the most miserably sexually-charged moment possible—Sam tryiing desperately not to notice all those little intimate physical things about Dean that he loves, Dean oblivious and in his element watching the storm transform the landscape

⁃ There’s a moment—maybe Dean says something like “Whatever it is that’s been eating at you, spit it out, Sammy—“ where Sam almost confesses. But cowardice, or perhaps intuition, hold his tongue—some secrets don’t need to be told. So instead, he passes it off as moodiness, apologizes. Dean confesses that he’s not actually all that into Tina—she’s fun, and all, but he knows they’ll be moving on soon enough. He lets slip that John’s halfway convinced that there’s no case here, anyway; they’ll probably be moving on in a week or two. Reluctantly, they allows things to revert to the status quo; as a consolation, they find a waterfall and eat slightly soggy sandwiches alongside it.

• The next morning, Sam wakes up to an entirely different town—the hills are starting to turn green, people in town are making plans to picnic by the waterfalls, everyone’s mood is lighter. Sam realizes he’s already looking at the town differently—as yet another place that’ll be in the rear view mirror soon, not as a place he inhabits. He’s coming to terms with that—glad for it, in some ways—when something tips him off that things aren’t right. Maybe the crackpot dude tells him the cycle is beginning again, or he overhears some gossip about how Tina didn’t show up for her shift last night, or sees something in the police blotter. Regardless, he ends up convinced that Dean and Tina have run off to the sky island and that Dean is in danger. Sam once again channels Dean, steals a county truck and floors it out to the sky island, this time forgetting to bring any supplies.

• Sam arrives in Paradise but sees no sign of Dean or Tina. He realizes he's parched (even flooring it out to the sky island, it's a good hour's drive); he listens for the water sounds. Instead, he hears Dean’s laughter, low and beckoning. He follows it, finds Dean standing shirtless in a spring, the version of Dean that terrifies him, untouchable and threatening and irresistible. For a moment he's almost taken in—but he knows Dean like nobody in the world, and thus knows a copy when he sees one. Not-Dean smiles, shimmers, reforms into the more familiar mermaid form.

• La Tlanchana (or this version of her) tells Sam how he puzzles her. She usually kills violent men, and Sam has a lot of violence in his past, and a destiny of violence in his future—but he was kind to the migrant mother, and undid some of the horror she’s seen done in her land. She sings for him, a lullaby of sorts, luring him away from his life of violence and yearning—

• Sam’s about to submit to her song when Tina appears, tells her to stop, that Sam’s destiny is his own to choose. La Tlanchana sneers at her, the same way you did? and Tina says yes—I’ve chosen you. It’s been more than a hundred years, and you’ve seen so much horror, grown vengeful—but I still love you, your kindness, the way you give life in the desert. They sing together, their voices intertwining, until they turn to water, melding together.

• Sam shakes off the daze, goes back to the truck; a few minutes later, he finds the Impala, bogged down in the rutted post-monsoon roads. He shakes him awake, questions him to see what he remembers—Dean appears to have been hypnotized, or something similar. He uses the truck to pull Dean out of the rut, tells him to return to the town, everything's over. Dean will have questions later, but for now he goes.

• Once Dean is gone, Sam goes back to the pool, now a perfectly mundane little monsoon-fed spring. He takes out the little figurine of La Tlanchana, sets it on a rock nearby, tells both Tina and her sister goodbye, and thanks them for their help.

• Epilogue: Sam is beginning his junior year in yet another new school. The smell of the school is the same, as are the lights (flourescent) and the lockers (stamped metal that echoes when it slams); he finds the guidance counselor’s office, lets himself in. The counselor looks up at Sam, comments on both his excellent grades and his peripatetic record. Sam: “So, if I wanted to go to college…”

#supernatural #sam and dean #wincest #summertime thing #my writing

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candy-and-writing · 4 years

Text

But With Three Of Us, Honey, It’s A Side Show

Summary: You and Bucky have a unique. . . friends with benefits relationship. He told you when you started that he didn’t date, that he didn’t do relationships. But you start to fall for him, anyway.

Warnings: 18+, smut, explicit smut, angst, oral sex (f), fingering, slight Steve x reader, mention of oral sex (m), soft! Bucky, dom! Bucky, mention of alcohol use and abuse, mention of substance abuse, Steve is a sweetheart

A/n: so this is for @p8tn0lish ‘s Sweet 200 Challenge.It was due like two weeks ago, but I suck, so :P

The one sex scene is loosely based off that one Endings, Beginnings scene with Seb in the kitchen (you know the one I’m talking about)

Feel free to leave comments and likes to let me know how you liked it! Enjoy!

I am NOT responsible for your media content consumption. This work is not intended for those under the age of 18 due to explicit sexual content and/or dark themes. By reading this work you agree that you are at least 18 years of age. I do not consent to have my work posted on any third party app or website; if you are seeing this work anywhere other than tumblr and archiveofourown, it has been reposted without my permission.

You still weren't quite sure how you ended up in this predicament, laying on your stomach with your ass up in the air as Bucky pounded into you ruthlessly, fucking away the stress of the latest mission.

He palmed your ass with his hand, squeezing your flesh before giving it a quick slap, causing you to yelp into the mattress. It amazed you how much you both needed this—how much you needed Bucky to be in control just as much as he needed it, how much you needed to relinquish power over your choices, to just let someone choose for you.

Bucky was the one who came to you with the proposal, after a drunken night of fucking until you were both sweating vodka. You thought it would be a good idea—no strings attached. Just a friend to come to when one of you needed to forget.

Now, though, as he pounds into you with his fingers locked against your throat, growling filthy things and calling you a good girl, you think you would've been better off taking a Xanax and drinking some of Tony's expensive whiskey until the combination knocked you out cold.

With a feral growl, Bucky came, tightening his grip on your throat until the edges of your vision turned black. He pulled out of you, the slightest whimper escaping your lips as he stood from the bed, taking off the condom and marching into the bathroom. You rolled over onto your side, catching your breath.

Bucky came back into your room, his boxers on, and handed you a damp rag.

"Here." You pushed his hand away with a grunt, Bucky chuckling as you closed your eyes. "That good, huh?"

You hummed in response. Sleep shrouded you, calling your name and you just wanted Bucky to lay down next to you. Cracking your eyes open, you saw Bucky pull his shirt down his torso. He brushed a strand of hair away from your face, whispering goodnight to you.

"Stay," you muttered, keeping his hand in place on your head.

Bucky huffed out a laugh. "I don't do cuddling, doll."

"It's only cuddling if you make it cuddling," you retorted, a snarky smile spreading your lips. "C'mon, you can sneak out in the morning. Please?"

He seemed to be considering your proposal, deep in thought as he sighed, pulling his wrist out of your grasp. "Another time. Get some sleep, doll."

You tried to hide your disappointment as Bucky walked out of your room. You ran your hand through your sweat-soaked hair, turning on your back as you stared at the ceiling until sleep took over.

Bucky came to you again the next night.

You had barely cracked your door open before he barreled in, slamming it shut behind him and pulling you into a bruising kiss. You let him, melting into him almost too easily. He pushed you back until your legs hit the bed, forcing you down.

"Bucky," you breathed, grabbing at his hands as he tugged at your nightshirt. He ignored you, nibbling at your neck. "Buck. Bucky, wait. Stop."

Bucky pulled away reluctantly, his eyes dark as he scowled at you. "What?" he growled.

"Talk to me," you said quietly. You could read him like a book—the way his shoulders tensed, the crease of his eyebrows, the way his jaw ticked when the words left your mouth.

Bucky sighed. "It's nothing, doll, really. It just. . . it hasn't been a good day."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He chuckled humorlessly. "If I wanted to talk, I'd go to Steve. I don't want to talk—I want to forget."

"Whatever you need." Because that was the truth. You'd give him whatever he needed, and if that meant he needed you to lay down so he could pound into you until you lost consciousness, then that was exactly what you'd do.

Bucky kissed you then, hot and heavy and desperate. He shoved you down onto your back, his knees on either side of your waist.

"Safeword?" he asked you.

You swallowed, the breath leaving your lungs. "Brooklyn."

He smirked. "Good girl."

Things between you and Bucky only escalated. He came to your door almost nightly—sometimes after a nightmare, other times it was just after the last waking Avenger went to bed.

You hated it. You hated the way he worshipped your body, how he whispered filthy promises into your ear, how he called you 'doll' in that husky tone that sent shivers down your spine. You hated the power he had over you.

You just finished a mission in Prague with Steve and Bucky, some HYDRA lackies dealing illegal weapons across the borders. You were hot, sweaty, and you hadn't taken a shower in over four days. What seemed to bother you most is that Bucky hasn't touched you in those four days. You couldn't, not with Steve there. It was too risky.

Bucky was ready to jump you by the time the quinjet landed, speeding past you with a knowing look. Bedroom. Now.

Debrief was in an hour, which gave you and Bucky plenty of time to. . . wind down. You scurried to your room, finding Bucking already standing by your bed.

"Took you long enough," he huffed, his brow creased. "What'd you do, stop for ice cream?"

"Ha, ha," you snorted, smiling as you dropped your duffle bag onto your desk. You jumped when you felt Bucky's hand brush your hair over your shoulder, the tips of his fingers skimming against the nape of your neck. Shivers danced down your spine, his lips caressing your neck as you inhaled a shaky breath.

"M'gonna take you right here," he whispered hotly in your ear. "Then we're gonna take a shower."

You nodded eagerly, eyes closed as you relished in his heat. You gasped as he tugged at your tac suit.

"God, I missed you."

You melted into his touch, leaning against his chest as he nibbled at your exposed shoulder. He pulled the zipper down to your naval, yanking the fabric down your torso and leaving your top half bare.

"Missed ya so much," he muttered huskily in your ear, more to himself than to you. But you heard it. It sent a shudder down your spine and made your knees weak.

You spun on your toes and kissed him, your hands reaching up to cup his face. His fingers dug into your ass and pulled you up, your legs wrapping around his slim waist. He took a step forward and swept an arm over your desk, knocking your duffel bag and several stacks of papers off the surface before he set you down.

He kissed his way down your neck, his hands working on shedding you of your uniform. As he pulled the fabric down your legs, he dropped to his knees. He tore your underwear down quickly before he looked up at you, his eyelashes fluttering. You sucked in a shaky breath, watching him as he dived in.

Your head fell back against the wall as Bucky devoured you with his mouth, his tongue zeroing in on your clit until you were squirming, your body tensing as your legs wrapped his head.

Bucky hummed against your flesh, sending vibrations up through your clit before continuing his ministrations until you thought you would explode. His tongue stayed focused on your folds, working you with his mouth until you were burning, hotter and hotter with each passing second.

You moaned as he inserted two fingers into you, pushing closer to the precipice. The pads of his fingers pushed up against your soft spot, causing you to preen. He continued to press against that trigger inside you, kept you balanced on the peak between his fingers and his tongue until you couldn't breathe; until you thought you would pass out.

He drew his fingers back then, fucking you with his tongue and you cried out, the pressure shattering in your gut and you came, fingers clutched in his hair as he lapped up your juices. You whined as you slumped back against the wall, weakly pushing his head away from your center, oversensitive.

Bucky pulled back, a sly smirk on his face as your juices soaked his beard. He stood, bringing you in for a sloppy kiss, all tongue and teeth and you could taste yourself on his lips. It was intoxicating.

"Let's take a shower," he whispered.

You both were late for the debriefing. Steve had given you both a disappointed look but didn't ask why. Throughout the entire meeting, Bucky kept stealing glances at you when Steve wasn't looking, distracting you when you were trying to present your part of the review.

Suffice to say, the debrief was messy. But Steve had gotten what he needed to write the report, so he let the two of you go. Bucky left with a short nod to his friend, not even sparing you a glance. You followed him out, your shoulders dropping when he continued to ignore you.

You stopped when you heard Steve call your name. You turned, watching as Steve jogged to catch up with you.

"What's up, Cap?"

"Uh, nothing, I—" He suddenly looked very uncomfortable. He scratched the back of his neck as you watched him. "I was just wondering if you were free tomorrow night?"

You let out a small chuckle. "I am. Why?"

Steve felt his cheeks heat up. "Would you wanna get dinner? With me?"

You raised your eyebrows in shock. "Oh."

"It's fine if you don't," Steve said. "Just forget I said anything—"

"No!" you interjected quickly. "No, I mean, I. . . ." You thought about Bucky for a second, your relationship and your feelings towards him. It was stupid to think he would ever feel the same, but going out with his best friend? "I'd love to, Steve."

Steve felt a weight lift off his chest. "Good. Great! You been to that new Italian place in the city yet?"

You shook your head.

"Good, I'll pick you up at eight?"

You smiled. "It's a date."

Steve smiled down at you. His phone buzzed. "I've gotta take this, I'll see you around."

"Bye." You watched him walk away, beaming to yourself like you were a girl with a highschool crush. You smiled the rest of the way to your room. The smile went away, however, when you found Bucky sitting on your bed.

"What'd Steve wanna talk to you about?" he asked, not looking up from the book he was reading.

"Nothing," you lied. You kicked your shoes off and looked at him. "Uh—I need to talk to you."

Bucky looked at you. "What's up?"

You swallowed thickly, your nerves jumping in your throat. "I think we need to end this—us." You motioned between you and him. Bucky frowned at you.

"What're you talking about, doll?"

"Don't—" you took a breath, "don't call me that—you know what I'm talking about."

Bucky stood, walking up to you. "What did Steve talk to you about?"

"It doesn't matter," you said. "Just. . . just listen to me—"

He had you pinned against the wall. "So let me get this straight: not two hours ago you had my dick in your mouth and now you want to end things? I think I at least deserve an explanation, doll."

"Because this isn't healthy," you spat. "What we're doing isn't healthy. We fuck each other silly instead of talking about our problems and you barely even look at me during the day. I mean, do you even like me?"

"Of course I like you. We're friends."

"We're not just friends and you fucking know it!" You shoved him off of you. "You want to know why I want to end things? Because Steve asked me out. And I think he might actually like me. I can't go out with him if I'm fucking his best friend, and I couldn't tell him 'no' because then I'd have to explain why!"

Bucky stared at you, perplexed. "Steve asked you out?"

You scoffed. "Don't act like you care. I don't even know why you wanted to do this with me in the first place, I mean, it's not like you—"

His lips were on yours, then, swiftly silencing you. The desperation rolled off of him in waves as he kissed you, his hands cupping your cheeks. It took you a moment to gain your senses, to push him off in mere confusion. You stared at him, dumbfounded. He was breathless, eyelids hooded as he stared at your lips.

"If you really want to end things," Bucky muttered, "if that's what you really want, then I won't stop you."

You swallowed thickly, nodding. "It is."

His shoulders slumped and you swore you saw Bucky's face fall. "Okay."

And just like that, he was gone.

#buck barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes smut #sebastian stan #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers

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americasmarauders · 4 years

Text

Wasteland, baby!--Ben Hargreeves (part 3).

author’s note: hey again. i’m reposting this cause tumblr sucks and the first post wasn’t showing on ANY of the tags. like any. so please, i beg of you, reblog so this doesn’t happen again and the post stays relevant enough for at least a couple of days and not a couple of hours. Now onto the actual post. Once again, I wanna thank @cutekittylexie for being an awesome human being and making me go through this. and calming me when I thought this was going to flop (and it kinda did so i’m trying again).

Beware:it’s an emotional one. mentions of injuries and blood (canon typical).

words: 4310

masterlist

part 1

part 2

part 4

Ben.

It was all that Y/N could think about. He consumed her thoughts. Every waking moment she spent, he was on her mind. If he wasn’t her main thought, Ben would most definitely be on the back of her mind. His smile intoxicated her, to the point the air would be knocked out of her. She would look at every corner for him, even though she knew he wouldn’t be there.

It wasn’t healthy to be obsessed with someone. And she would argue she wasn’t obsessed. More like addicted. Even if that didn’t better her case, it was the truth.

There she stood, in the alley next to Ben’s house, staring at his window for the sign that she could go up and see him. After her classes ended it seemed suspicious for them to keep meeting in the morning so they came with a more logical solution: afternoons.

Ben would say what his schedule for the next day would be. They would set up a time for Y/N to be at the alley. He would open his window for her and she would climb the fire escape up to his room.

It was nicer than the minute long dates they had in the morning. They would spend hours just talking in hushed tones, he would show her his studies and the photos he had taken of his siblings. They would talk about dreams, memories they had and about making new ones.

The window opened and Ben peaked through it. He look down at her and smiled brightly, nodding so she could go up. She smiled back and started to climb the fire escape quickly. Thank God she had chosen to wear shorts instead of the dress she had just bought. She had loved it and she was sure Ben would like it too. Not that she cared if he liked it or not. But she did.

She got in the room with his help, his hands calloused in comparison to hers. She flung herself on top of him, hugging him tightly. She heard him release a breathy chuckle then he nuzzled his head on the crook of her neck. He was still wearing that stiff uniform their Father made them wear. She could smell the scent of the soap.

“Hi, Ben,” she said airily, clutching his shoulders as if it was her lifeline.

“Hey,” he broke the hug and rested his hands on her cheeks. “How you’ve been?”

She smiled smally. “I’m good,” his thumbs rubbed her cheeks delicately and gently. “How are you?”

The smile he adorned faltered and his face became somber. His hands dropped from her face and he sat on his bed defeated. He rested his hands on his face, his hair falling delicately on his forehead. Y/N sat beside him and put a hand on his leg, just above his knee. ‘I’m here,’ the gesture whispered.

“Dad’s been especially cruel today in training,” he said, his voice quivering. “I’m so tired, Y/N, I don’t know how much longer I can take it,” his hands dropped from his face, revealing his deep eyes bathed in unshed tears.

“Oh, Ben,” she said sadly. “I’m so sorry, love.”

He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you can do, he’s like this sometimes.”

She looked at him sadly and clasped his hands between her own. “I’m here for you, Ben. Whatever you need.”

He looked at her, his eyes twinkling in the warm afternoon light. “Please, stay,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” she said as if it was absurd to imply she wouldn’t. She cozied herself next to the bedrest, her back leaning on the wall behind her. Her hands still clutching his tightly, rubbing small circles in the back of it.

They stayed like that for a couple of hours. They talked a little but she could feel he didn’t want to, so the majority of the time they stayed quiet, just listening to the noises his siblings made in their rooms. It was pleasant, she could feel the life of the house, even if there was a tyrant trying to squash it out of them.

The sun was setting when she felt her phone vibrating on the back pocket of her shorts. “Shit!” she disentangled herself from Ben’s warm embrace. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“What is it? Is everything okay?” Ben asked worriedly, as she looked at the tiny screen of her phone exasperated.

“I have to head home. I’m late, I promised my mom I would help her with a new recipe,” Y/N said, putting her shoes on. She got up and looked at Ben, a sad expression replacing the peaceful one he had moments ago.

“Oh,” he muttered.

“Ben, it’s okay,” she sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

Y/N smiled gently. “I’ll bring you a piece of the cake,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said avoiding her eye sight.

She got up and headed to the window. She opened it enough so she could pass it through. She looked back at Ben, his face sad and defeated as if she was taking all of his peace with her.

She didn’t know what possessed her, but suddenly she turned her back to the window and sat down next to Ben. He looked at her shocked as she leaned in towards him. Their lips brushed, for a mere second, before Y/N closed the gap and pressed a gentle, almost ghostly kiss on his pretty lips. He was taken by absolute surprise, and before he had time to react she broke the kiss, a smile on her face.

Ben was quicker than her, however. Before she could get up and leave, he put his hand on her cheek and brought her lips to his on more time. The kiss, albeit still gentle, was considerably more intense. Y/N thanked the stars she was sitting, because she was sure she couldn’t stand up straight as she melted into the kiss.

Ben broke the kiss a moment too soon, in Y/N’s opinion. His thumb caressed her cheek, his touch ghostly. “I have to go,” she said sadly.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. He smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she replied.

Against her heart and her brain, she got up and headed to the window. She put her leg out of it. She gave Ben one last look and one last smile before she bolted out of the room, running home. She had a lovesick smile on her face that she didn’t even realize until her mom gave her an odd look before scolding her for being late.

Ben was shocked. There was no other way to describe it.

His heart beating wildly in his chest, he got up from his bed. His hands hovering over the doorknob, he tried to wrap his head on what just had happened. He unlocked the door and got through it. Closing it behind him, he headed to Diego’s room.

The door was closed, and Ben didn’t bother knocking. He opened it and closed it behind him. He heard a whoosh sound next to him, a knife lodged on the wall next to him. He sighed, unfazed, as he saw Diego

“Get out,” Diego said grumpily. “Not in the mood, Ben.”

“I need to talk to you,” Ben replied.

Diego got up, another knife in his hand. He unlodged the knife from the wall, looking Ben dead in the eye. “I don’t care. Get out,” he muttered turning on his back. He laid on his bed, staring at the selling, play with his knives once again.

“I kissed her,” Ben blurted out.

Diego stopped fiddling and sat up right. “What?” he whispered, shocked.

“I kissed her,” Ben said calmly.

“Yeah, yeah, I got that, Ben,” Diego dismissed. “When?” he narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“Um,” Ben looked down at his feet, “just now.”

“You snuck out?” Diego asked.

“More like I snuck her in.”

Diego laughed at the situation. “This is hilarious. How long you’ve been sneaking her in?”

“A month,” he answered honestly. “I don’t see how that’s relevant to what I just told you,” Ben completed, indignantly.

“It’s so relevant, Ben. Out of all of us, you’re the one breaking the most sacred rule,” he shook his head, laughing.

“Diego!” Ben screamed, sobering his brother up. “I kissed Y/N,” Ben said somberly.

“Here,” Diego patted on the bed beside him, and Ben sat. Diego gave him a side hug. “It’s fine, Ben. Dad won’t find out, chill,” Diego calmed him. “No one knows you’ve been ruining your good boy reputation by sneaking people in. I won’t tell the old man. Klaus won’t tell him.”

“I know,” Ben muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Benny,” Diego said, messing with Ben’s hair. “So, how was it?”

Ben let out a chuckle. “It was…” how does he make it sound cool? How does he make seem like it was no big deal, when it was the biggest deal in the world? “It was nice.”

“Yeah, right,” Diego said, smirking. “Only nice?”

“Stop it,” Ben said.

“Hey,” Diego lifted his hands in surrender, “I’m just looking for the truth.”

“Ha-ha,” Ben fake laughed. “You’re really funny, you know that?”

“I pride myself in that, actually,” Diego replied smugly. “But, hey, seriously, I’m happy for you,”

“Thanks, Diego,” Ben shrugged.

“You’re taking your steps to get out of this godforsaken place,” Diego said bitterly.

“I can’t wait,” Ben shot back, just as bitterly. There was a moment of silence between them before Ben said something again. “Can I ask something of you?”

“It depends where’s the body,” Diego said kiddingly.

“If something happens to me,” Ben started quietly, “would you tell Y/N?”

“Why are you asking me this?” Diego was taken back by the bluntness of his question.

“Please, Diego,” Ben begged. “If something happens and no one tells her, she’ll find out by the papers and I can’t do that to her.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell her,” Diego reassured him, in a dismissive way that didn’t go unnoticed by Ben. Nevertheless, he held Diego to his word and if something were to happen, he knew Diego would do what he promised.

True to her word, Y/N did in fact bring him cake the next day. Chocolate cake.

Truly, Ben didn’t really care if she brought an entire bakery with her, as long as she was there with him. It was her that made it all worth it, the sneaking out—or sneaking in—the furtiveness, the secrets, the fear. She was worth all of it.

She got in his room, a blue Tupperware on her hand. “You know, my mom wants to meet you she’s been oof—”

Ben interrupted her once she was fully in his room. He grabbed her waist and brought her closer to him, clashing his lips to hers. She was shocked for a second, and his heart started to race uncomfortably as thoughts of ‘I fucked up’ passed through his mind. But soon enough, she dropped the Tupperware on his bed, her arms finding its way to his neck, pressing closer to him than Ben ever thought possible.

It was something entirely new for Ben. This fuzzy feeling embracing his entire being, making his cheeks heat up with something so unknown and yet so familiar. Her hands found his hair, her finger running through it. It was like he was on fire, his tummy coiling delightfully, unlike when the Horror got out.

He broke the kiss yet again, resting his forehead on hers. “I just had to test something,” he explained, a bit out of breath.

“It’s fine,” she smiled at him, her eyes gazing at him lovingly. “I brought you cake,” she mentioned coyly.

“I know,” he nodded, his hands on her cheeks. He smiled back at her.

“My mom insisted on this,” she explained. “She’s been hearing so much about you, she wants to meet you, you know?” she finished out breath. “I’m sorry if this—”

“Hey, hey,” he said gently. “I’d love to meet her.”

“Really?” she said happily. “Isn’t it too much? It’s just this is so new, literally a day old, I don’t want to scare you away, you—”

“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “I’ve been your friend for longer than this. I’ll be fine meeting your mom.”

She smiled brightly at him. “Okay,” she nodded shyly.

They eventually sat on Ben’s bed and ate the chocolate cake Y/N had brought—if Ben’s Dad saw him now, he would receive a scolding. They may or may not have made out too, and Ben may or may not have the taste of her lips lingering on his mouth for a while after she left.

They continued with that routine right up until the last day of her summer vacation.

The amount of time spent varied. Mostly because sometimes they would be interrupted by that dreaded alarm. Y/N would always jump at the sound, and Ben would find it cute if it wasn’t so goddamn terrible. It would always break his heart to leave her like that, in a rush and without a proper goodbye.

Ben remembered when he was younger: he wasn’t afraid of the thought of something happening on a mission. It just was a perk, something that could happen but it most likely wouldn’t. Now? It brought chills down his spine.

The mere thought of him dying, or worse dying without getting to say goodbye, made bile rise to his mouth and his head to feel light. The air would be stolen from his lungs and only Y/N could calm him.

He had written a series of letters to her in case something were to happen. He instructed Diego on where to find them, his brother finding it silly Ben was being so fatalistic. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. It probably wouldn’t. But just in case, he thought.

And there they were, last day of summer, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed, as he recited some poems from his favorite book to her. He never really appreciated the love poems until he felt what was like to be in love. Now, they were his favorite, especially to recite, because he got to see Y/N’s reaction to it. Some she would tear up, others well… let’s just say some Ben didn’t even get to finish.

“They asked: ‘do you love her to death?’. I said: ‘Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life’,” Ben recited.

He felt her head leave his shoulders. He looked at her, and in that split second, she closed the gap between them and kissed him tenderly. He hadn’t realized what he had just confessed to her, and she didn’t give him time to, because one moment they were tenderly kissing, the other she was completely entangled in his embrace, her hands running on his hair the way that made Ben crazy.

The book completely abandoned next to Ben, his hands on her cheeks the way he knew she liked it. Ben’s lips moved to her jaw, kissing his way down to her neck. She muttered a small Ben in his ears, and he sucked a spot on her neck a little bit too harshly in the heat of the moment. His lips magnetically went back to hers, and they stayed there, entwined for a while.

That is, until Klaus came barging in Ben’s room.

“Benny, I need your notes for—oh,” Klaus began. Ben could feel the smirk creeping on his brother’s face. “Ben, you dawg!”

It usually was Ben the one to break the kiss, but this time it was Y/N. She complete left his arms, a cold feeling settling in him, not only for the fact she wasn’t embracing him, but because he had realized he had forgotten to lock his bedroom’s door.

Ben took long enough to react because a second later, Diego appeared in the door frame too, the same smug face. Ben dragged them both inside his room, locking the door behind him. He could see Y/N averting her eyes to her feet, embarrassed at the situation.

“Goddammit, Klaus!” Ben gritted through his teeth. “Couldn’t you be quieter?”

“Hey, I only wanted your notes for today’s class, you were the one who was eating that poor girls face,” Klaus defended himself.

“Klaus,” Ben gritted and jumped on his brother, his hands balled in fists. Diego got in the middle of them both, separating them with his body, his hands on their chests.

“Stop it!” Diego said loudly. Ben calmed down, his eyes full of anger. Klaus still adorned a mischievous expression, completely amused by his brother’s embarrassment and anger.

The atmosphere tense, Y/N got up from the bed and walked next to Ben. She extended her hand to Klaus. “I’m Y/N,” she said quietly, with a smiled. Klaus eyes calmed and softened. He took her hand and shook it.

“Nice to meet you. You know, I’ve heard so much about you,” he said charmingly. Ben could see she hadn’t even flinched at that pathetic attempt.

“No, you haven’t,” Ben scoffed, and Klaus glared at him angrily.

“Shush, Ben,” Klaus said. Diego dropped his hands to his side.

Y/N turned to Diego then and extended her hand to him. “You must be Diego, right?”

He shook it. “Right,” he said dryly. “And you’re the Y/N.”

“The one and only,” she said quietly, as a joke. Ben cracked a smile at her charm, and it didn’t go unnoticed by his brothers. “Well, I think it’s time I leave, it’s getting late and I promised my parents I’d be home early.”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Ben said, shaking his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded as she left through his window. “Hey Ben!”

“Hum?” he hummed, looking at her, he got closer to her leaning down to see her properly.

She kissed him gently on his lips. “I love you too,” she whispered and left, climbing down the fire escape.

Ben turned to his brothers, after he closed the window, theirs faces so smug and insufferable. Ben sighed defeated, opening his drawer on his tiny table, for his notes. He shoved it to Klaus and said: “Here it is, the fucking notes. Now out.”

He unlocked the door and opened it for them to leave.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Klaus said, “you promised you would be careful with this endeavor.”

“I was careful, okay?” Ben defended himself. “You didn’t knock.”

“You don’t knock either,” Diego said, siding with Klaus.

“That was different,” Ben said. “It was urgent.”

“The notes are also urgent,” Klaus chimed in.

Ben groaned frustrated. “It could have waited!”

“No, it couldn’t. Do you want Dad to eat me alive, Benjamin?” Klaus said.

Ben froze. “Of course not,” he said.

“Well, then. Be more careful, Benny,” Diego put his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“This is not fair, you know,” Ben stated. “You’re holding this information hostage and this is a completely dickish thing to do!” he shouted after them, both on their backs on their way down the hall.

He only received a middle finger in return.

Girlfriend. Such a peculiar word.

Y/N never thought she would call herself that. It never actually crossed her mind. But after Ben…It was hard to imagine how she had lived so much time without him. She couldn’t fathom a life without him. It was almost logical that there was no other word she could call herself after Ben. Maybe a few other words, but those were reserved for the future. And what a bright future that was.

It was his birthday today. It was a happy day, to Y/N at least. She had aced her math test—thank God—and most of all, she would spend the entire afternoon with Ben. That was special, extra special: it was getting harder and harder for them to meet. Ben’s dad was loading them with unhealthy hours of training. One day, Ben had come to her house late at night, on the verge of tears, unable to sleep because of the nightmares. Even though confused, she let him in. That night she slept on the couch—she didn’t have the heart to make him sleep uncomfortably.

On top of unfair parental expectations, Y/N had tons of homework to go through. She had to get into college and slacking wasn’t an option. Thankfully, sometimes, Ben could help her—and she was thankful (only for a moment, though) for their father for making them take so many advanced classes—but she couldn’t rely on his help all the time, otherwise she wouldn’t actually learn.

She raced from her school to his house. She had bought cupcakes for him, and his present was neatly wrapped inside her bag, secured between her pencil case and endless amounts of school work (no wonder her back was always hurting).

She turned a corner, entering the alley next to his house. A bit out of breath, she looked up to his window. It was already open. She smiled and started climbing the stairs.

He was taking a nap. Careful not to startle him, she got into the room quietly. She took of her sneakers and laid her backpack on the floor. She went to the door, checking to see if it was really locked. It was, she doubted he would really nap if it wasn’t. She rested the box of cupcakes on top of his desk and turned to look at him.

He looked so peaceful when he was sleeping. It warmed her heart to know that there was a moment in the day where he wasn’t tormented by anything. She sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. Ben moaned in complaint, shifting slightly in his sleep. She brushed his hair out his forehead delicately, her tough ghosting over his skin.

“Ben,” she said calmly. “Darling, wake up.”

Ben shifted once again, his eyes fluttering open. He opened a smile when he saw her. He stretched his arms and yawned, his hands falling on top of hers once he did it. “Hey,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she replied, adverting her eyes to the window.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I can sleep when it’s actually time to sleep.”

He squeezed her hands tightly. “Happy birthday, Ben,” she said lovingly.

“Thanks,” he answered, smiling. He sat up right, supporting his weight on one arm. He leaned over her, their lips meeting shortly.

“I brought you something,” she whispered, her forehead resting on his.

“You didn’t have to, you being here is enough,” he said.

She leaned back, looking at him with a funny look. “You’re too sweet sometimes,” Y/N said. She got up and knelt beside her backpack. “I hope you make good use of this, okay?” she told him, as she handed him a small box with a bow on top of it.

He took the package from her hands and opened it. Inside there was a small phone and a cable. He took the phone out and flipped it open, a picture of Y/N flashing on the back of the screen. “My dad upgraded his phone, so I thought I would give this one to you. You know so we can talk, even if we can’t see each other.”

Ben looked up at her, his eyes full of emotions she couldn’t quite place. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”

She smiled at him. “How about we eat those cupcakes,” she pointed to the box on the table, “and read some poems?”

“That’d be perfect.”

Something was wrong. She could feel it in her bones.

Ben would never take this long to call her after a mission. Not after he got the cell phone. Something was incredibly wrong.

Y/N paced in her room, anxious at a phone call. Snow fell outside her window, white painting the landscape outside. She couldn’t see the Umbrella Academy from where she was, which didn’t ease her anxiety one bit. She could hear ambulances and police cars passing through the street: it must have been ugly if they needed that many cops and medics at the scene.

“Honey, there’s someone at the door for you!” she heard her mom scream downstairs. Y/N put her slippers and went downstairs. She quietly approached the door, trying to ease her beating heart, hoping it would be Ben waiting for her at the other side. It wasn’t.

Instead, there stood Diego, bloodied and beaten, a huge and deep scratch coming from his top right ear stopping just above his right cheek freshly sewn shut. He was wearing that stupid uniform, no coat, and she could see he was shaking from the cold. His eyes were hollow and watery, she could see dried trails of tears on his cheeks. She faltered at the sight, hand resting at the wall to prevent her from falling.

“No,” she whispered. “Diego, no,” she said louder. “Please tell me, he—” she couldn’t stop the tears from running down anymore.

He looked down at his hands, a bunch of letters on his hands. “I—I—I’m s—s—sorry,” he stuttered out. “H—h—he didn’t mmm—make it.”

“Oh my,” her mom said. She ushered the boy into the house, as her daughter fell to her knees in the main foyer letting out a painful scream, tears roaming free.

She felt Diego’s hands on her arms, calloused, getting her up. She clutched her t-shirt where her heart was supposed to be. She didn’t have one anymore. It died with Ben.

112 notes · View notes

fanfictionaries · 3 years

Text

The Seduction of Sirius Black - Part 1

Pairing: Hermione Granger x Sirius Black

Summary:

Hermione loves her boyfriend, but there’s just one little problem -- she’s hopelessly attracted to Sirius Black.

Warnings: Swearing, Smut/18+ NSFW, Angst, Ron bashing (sorry)

Author’s Note: Posting some old stuff! Honestly, editing it has been a nice lead back into really writing. Very cathartic!

Also, apologies for the Ron bashing in this story. I know it’s a stupid trope and to a certain extent I really enjoy Ron as a character, buuuuut I’m using it as a cheap way to move plot.

ALSO, this is obviously a AU where Sirius didn’t die in the Department of Mysteries.

ALSO (and this is the last one I swear), I AM a big fan of Wolfstar but I also have daddy issues and find Sirius Black extremely attractive and this is my tumblr so I can write the stories I want I guess. Haha Not to mention, Sirius Black gives BIG bisexual energy.

MASTERLIST

***

Hermione didn’t really know when it had happened – this attraction to Sirius Black. It wasn’t as if she had woken up one day with the sudden urge to jump across the table and shag the older wizard into the next life. The whole thing had occurred much more gradually than that, she supposed. However, despite all of the trivial aspects of her…situation, Hermione chose instead to focus purely on the fact that he was entirely off limits. For many reasons. There was no way anyone in her close-knit circle of friends would be okay with her becoming entangled with a man more than twice her age and who also happened to be her best friend’s god father. It would be unacceptable. It would be impractical. Most of all it would be highly inappropriate as she was currently dating her other best friend, Ronald Weasley.

She supposed the attraction was inevitable to a certain degree. At the beginning, nearly a year and half ago, things like physical attraction were far from her mind. She’d just started her new position at the Ministry, Harry and Ron were training to be Aurors, the war had just come to an end and thus her life was a whirlwind of people and places. But over time things slowed down. Ronald was stationed away on official Auror business more and more often, leaving very little time for him to visit her and when he did come back, he had to split his time between her and his large family. Harry, having waited for Ginny to finish her final year at Hogwarts, had gone and married her the summer after and for all intents and purposes abandoned her. Harry…

It was really all Harry’s fault. Or at least that’s what Hermione liked to think whenever she felt her heart skip and her pulse slip between her thighs in Sirius Black’s presence. It had been Harry’s idea for Hermione to move into Grimmauld Place with him and Sirius after the war. Family, it seemed, had taken an important role in everyone’s lives when Lord Voldemort fell for the final time. All of the Weasley children had moved back to their childhood home of the Burrow – even Charlie much to everyone’s great surprise and delight. Tonks and Remus moved in with her mother and father, Andromeda and Theodore, to bask in the cheer of their newborn baby Teddy. And Harry had moved in with Sirius. Everyone had felt the need to be closer than ever to the ones that they loved, and Hermione completely understood that need. In fact, if she had had a family to go to, she would have moved in with them as well. But her parents were still in Australia somewhere, the location even unknown to herself as she’d designed it that way. Harry, being fully aware of this fact, insisted that she move in with him and Sirius. Hermione had been fully prepared to get her own flat in London. But after a bit of prodding she’d accepted Harry’s offer, secretly grateful that her best friend was so kind and thoughtful. Now, she probably cursed him name at least five times a day.

Hermione had been happy for him and Ginny when they announced their engagement. She’d cried not only when Ginny asked her to be her maid of honor, but also when the two had said their ‘I do’s. However, Harry moved out of Grimmauld Place following their marriage and subsequently left her to live with Sirius Black all by herself. So now she sat in the quaint little kitchen of the Black home, sipping her morning tea, and trying incredibly hard to keep her attention on her book rather than glance up at the rugged wizard sitting across from her.

“Hmpf” Sirius let out the little sound of surprise before continuing, “Would you look at that. Sources say that while Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, announces no final decisions have been made in regard to the recent Magical Creature Equality Act proposed last month, there are certain voices in the Ministry that are persuading not only the members of the Wizengamot, but the Minister himself to vote yes for magical creature equality.” He read the words aloud, peaking over his paper at her and raising his eyebrows. “I wonder who those certain voices or voice is…” he mused humorously.

It was no secret that shortly after being appointed a position in the Ministry department of Magical Creatures, Hermione had gone about being a personal activist for Magical Creature rights. Merlin, she had written almost the entire Act herself. Her hand still cramped at the thought of the hours she spent in her office and the library at Grimmauld Place scribbling away with her quill.

“No idea,” Hermione responded, feigning ignorance but blushing all the same in embarrassment. She kept her eyes on the pages of her book but found no matter how many times she read and reread the same paragraph she couldn’t retain it. Slowly her eyes shifted to the man in front of her. His gaze was fixed on the paper and so she was free to take him in. He had just showered, his wavy brown hair hanging damp to his shoulders. It made him look, in her opinion, especially delectable that morning. Hermione felt herself blush even deeper at the lewd thoughts threatening to enter her mind before looking back down at her book and scolding herself.

“So, when is Ronald coming for a visit again? Need me to clear off any time soon?” Sirius asked, sparking up conversation after the long bout of silence.

“Unfortunately, he won’t be back till next month,” she sighed, ignoring the second half of Sirius’s question.

“Well that’s not too bad I suppose—” Sirius smiled warmly and set down his paper as he stood up “—It gives you plenty of time to focus on getting the Ministry on board with your Act before you’re…distracted.” Sirius added the last part with a teasing implication not lost on Hermione.

“My Act?” Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow jokingly as she stood up as well and took her teacup to the sink. She grabbed the sponge to begin washing up when Sirius took it from her hand.

“I can do the washing up. You’re going to be late for work. Besides, it’s not like I work or anything. Might as well do something productive today,” he stated dryly, turning on the tap.

“Hmm, yes. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You’ve become quite the lay-about. When are you going to get a job and start contributing to the household?” Hermione asked cheekily.

“Lay-about? Need I remind you that this is my house that you live in, rent free. You’re lucky a kind old man like me has taken a liking to you, or you’d be on the streets, kitten,” Sirius said, flicking some water off his fingertips in her direction.

“More like taken pity on me—” Hermione shook her head “—and you’re far from an old man, Sirius. I swear, you’d like people to think you’re closer to eighty than twenty!” She exited the kitchen and slipped into her heels next to the front door.

“Mind picking up some milk on your way home, kitten? We’re almost out!” Sirius called out to her, ignoring her statement on his age. Hermione tried not to focus on the way her stomach flipped in response to Sirius using his nickname for her for a second time that morning.

“Sure thing!” she called back before exiting the front door and apparating the moment she hit the sidewalk.

Hermione found it very difficult to work that day. The summer heat had become abysmal, proving to be quite the sticky, humid season, and of course that meant the Ministry’s cooling charms were on the fritz. By the time the day was over, Hermione’s hair had grown three times its size. Catching her reflection in a Ministry window, Hermione had gasped at its state. Even she hadn’t known it could get that big. In addition, her silk blouse that she had tucked into a polyester pencil skirt had become damp and uncomfortable from the sweat that accumulated on her body throughout the day. And even after casting multiple drying spells to herself and her clothes, there was still nothing she could do about her hair. To add to her physical discomfort, she also struggled with a mental discomfort as well. Ron had been plaguing her mind all day long.

Ronald Weasley. Her oldest friend, now boyfriend. It hadn’t been a shock to anyone when they had gotten together after the war had ended. It had almost been expected in fact. She’d liked him since third year and aside from his short tryst with Lavender Brown, it had been obvious they would be together. Hermione loved Ron, she really did, but he was gone so often. Gone often and when he was home things felt…off. His affection seemed to have waned and Hermione was left thinking that perhaps it had something to do with her. Every time he chose to kiss her cheek as opposed to her lips or pat her leg friendly instead of holding her hand Hermione felt a little blow to her confidence. Bitterly she thought of how he and Lavender had been all over each other sixth year. She certainly wouldn’t enjoy having Ron’s tongue shoved down her throat in broad daylight, but surely, it’d be nice to have him show a bit of affection. In the beginning he’d been much more enthusiastic. They would often sneak off for a cheeky snog and hands often lingered under tables. They’d even gone all the way. It had been romantic and sweet, and Ron had certainly enjoyed himself. Or at least she thought he had. But now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she’d been rubbish at it and he didn’t know how to tell her. Maybe he just didn’t find her attractive anymore. She had put on a bit of weight in the past year and a half. Hermione figured it was for the best as she was no longer starving to death on the run from Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But now when she looked in the mirror her eyes focused for too long on the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the thickness of her thighs, and the softness of her stomach.

Despite this possibility, Hermione couldn’t help but feel guilty about her lustful thoughts involving Sirius. She often tried to reason with herself that it was perfectly normal to feel such base emotions. Everyone had them and as long as she didn’t act on them, she was fine. She was just lonely, and Sirius was there.

Resolving to speak with Ron about her concerns when he returned in a week, Hermione shook the troubling thoughts from her head and continued down Diagon Alley, intending to just pop by the small corner store at the end for some milk and maybe some ice-cream for later. She needed a small pick-me-up after the day she’d had. Jogging the last few steps to the corner store, Hermione pulled open the heavy door and sighed happily as the cooling charms inside enveloped her. She wiped her forehead with her arm and headed to the back of the store where the freezer section was. The store was practically deserted aside from a single witch staring at the ice pops with a heavy look of concentration. Hermione walked up next to her to stare at the ice-cream choices and smiled when she spotted the Rocky Road. It was Ron’s favorite.

“It’s a scorcher out there, innit?” commented the witch, her thick London accent coming through endearingly sweet. Hermione looked to her left and took in the girl. She was thin and tan with beautiful golden hair tied up into a long ponytail. She had a friendly, heart-shaped face and sparkly green eyes. Something about her seemed familiar – Hermione must have seen her somewhere before.

“I’m practically melting,” agreed Hermione, shaking her head, and grabbing the Rocky Road, thinking she would have that tonight rather than her usual Mint Chocolate-Chip.

“Any fun plans for the heat?” the pretty blonde asked casually, grabbing a box of grape ice pops and a carton of Rocky Road ice-cream as well.

“Not really. Probably just go home and cast as many cooling charms as possible—” Hermione crinkled her nose and quirked the corner of her mouth in a wry grin “—Yourself?”

“Me and my boyfriend are planning a nice night in. He’s just got back from assignment with the Ministry. He’s an Auror, so we’re doing a bit of celebrating before he has to go back.” The girl smiled, her voice heavy with adoration.

“How nice! My boyfriend’s an Auror as well.”

“Really?” the girl asked, eyes lighting up.

“Yes, he’s actually away on assignment right now. I wonder if they know—” Hermione had been about to ask if perhaps their respective partners were familiar with each other when a voice called out from the end of the aisle.

“Babe, they didn’t have the crisps you like, but—” Basket hanging from one hand and a bag of Salt and Vinegar crisps in the other, Ron stopped dead in his tracts at the sight of Hermione. His eyes grew wide, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “’Mione?”

Hermione stared back too, but unlike Ron she was unable to find her voice. Instead she just stared. Ron was back from assignment? Why hadn’t he told her? What was he doing there? Why was he calling this girl babe when—

“Wait—‘Mione? As in Hermione Granger?” the witch asked, taking a step back from Hermione and towards Ron. She looked at Hermione with wide, incredulous eyes. “Oh my gosh, I feel so foolish. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”

Hermione looked on in confusion as she watched the witch hook her arm in Ron’s and smile politely back at her.

“Hermione,” Ron said her name again, but Hermione was too busy taking the two of them in. She felt like an absolute fool. The carton of Rocky Road slipped from her fingers and landed on the linoleum floor of the shop with a dull thud. Then, in a panic, Hermione turned on the spot and fled, hearing Ron’s call after her mix with a small ‘Oh my’ from the pretty blonde witch.

There were a million places Hermione could have gone. There were a million places Hermione should have gone. All of them much better choices than the seedy little muggle bar she found just outside of Diagon Alley. She should have gone home. Or to Harry. Or to Ginny. The smart choice was to tell someone what had happened and to talk it out. But instead, she spent the next four hours doing her best to get well and truly pissed. Drinking wasn’t like Hermione and certainly the first glass of whiskey had been hard to get down. But she found after the first two, she hardly tasted the biting liquid anymore and the dulling effect of the alcohol was just so nice.

It was just past ten in the evening when Hermione left the bar, tipping this way and that way in her heels and feeling exceptionally light-headed. The night had cooled down and the sun had just set, allowing Hermione to feel some semblance of relief as she walked down the street to a nearby alleyway. It probably wasn’t the best idea to apparate when she was so inebriated, but Hermione wasn’t really thinking in that moment. She just knew she didn’t want to walk. Thankfully, she managed to land, although very ungracefully, in front of Grimmauld Place without splinching herself.

“Shit,” Hermione whispered followed by a snort of laughter when she tripped over the threshold after finally getting her key in the keyhole. The world had gone all wobbly it had taken her ages to find the right key and get it in the lock. Closing the front door as quietly behind her as possible Hermione found herself overtaken by the strong urge to laugh again. Hermione Granger was well and truly sloshed and for some reason she found that to be very funny.

“Hermione?”

Hermione jumped at her name, letting out a little shriek as she turned around and found Sirius standing in the hall. The hall was dark, but light streamed out through the doorway to the kitchen illuminating him in long shadows where he stood, arms crossed.

“Sirius—” Hermione held a hand to her heart, feeling it beat wildly in her chest. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

“It’s past eleven, where have you been?” There was a strange tone to his voice, like he was angry with her but also like he was speaking to a small, frightened animal.

Past eleven? How long had it taken her to unlock the front door?

“I was—” Hermione tripped on the rug, catching herself on the wall and letting out another little laugh “—I stopped and had a little post-work drink.” Her words were slurred, even to her own ears and she laughed again, holding a hand over mouth in embarrassment. “Well, maybe one or two post-work drinks.”

“Are you drunk, kitten?” Sirius asked, sounding amused now.

Hermione continued down the hall, getting closer and closer to Sirius. Each step was a new struggle. A trip here, a wobble there. But Hermione didn’t care. In fact, she felt…good. Free almost. “Maaaaybe,” she drawled, giggling like a small child as she closed the last bit of distance and swayed before Sirius.

He stared down at her, arms now uncrossed as he seemed to be trying to figure out whether he should be amused or concerned. Hermione’s mouth went dry. Now that she was closer, she could see him more clearly and Merlin did she see him. There was a shadow of facial hair across his square jaw, and down his neck. Hermione found herself wondering what it felt like – whether it was soft or rough. Gaze traveling down the thickness of his neck she found his upperhalf bare, the only thing covering his torso, an open robe revealing the inky black of his tattoos. She loved his tattoos. They made him look dangerous. Mysterious. Hot. His chest was free of hair, the lean muscles dipping low and high like delicious hills and valleys she’d so like to explore. In fact…she reached out a hand, her body working opposite of a clear head as her fingertips tentatively touched the smooth planes of Sirius’ chest. He was warm.

He went sort of rigid under her touch, but Hermione barely noticed. Instead she was too entranced by the feel of him. Had she ever touched him before? She didn’t think she had. Her gazed traveled further south and with it, so did her fingertips. Ghosting down the center of his chest from sternum to bellybutton, she blushed furiously at the sight of thick dark hair starting at his navel and disappearing below a pair of pajama pants that sat dangerously low on his hips. She swallowed thickly, her breath coming in thick hot puffs as her hand traveled further, barely brushing the thick hair before a hand shot out and grasped her wrist.

Hermione gasped, looking up suddenly into the stormy eyes of Sirius Black before her. He lifted her wrist to shoulder height, pulling her forward slightly as he did it. The distance between them closed even more.

“Kitten.” It was a warning. Hermione knew it. But for some reason her whiskey-idled brain didn’t care. She liked the risk behind his tone. Her body practically purred at the sound of his special nickname just for her – the irony of that sentiment lost on her in the moment.

“Yes, Sirius?” she responded, her voice coming out deep and breathy and dare she say seductive? Hermione had never sounded like that before. She kind of liked it. Looking up at him with her best attempt at innocent eyes, she waited for him to say something.

Sirius stared down at her, his face a stony mask, but a war was raging behind his eyes. Hermione’s gaze flickered from the stormy grey of his eyes to the fullness of his lips and back up. With a deep breath and a long swallow that made his Adam’s apple bob in a mouth-watering way, Sirius finally spoke.

“You should go to bed.”

Hermione huffed, a bit like a petulant child but not quite as bratty. “What if I don’t want to?”

“It wasn’t really a suggestion.” His tone was dark, and it sent a surprising thrill through Hermione’s body. Her center throbbed. Her breath hitched. Maybe it was all in her head – this thick tension between them. Or maybe it wasn’t. It was certainly taboo, this…energy radiating between them. But Hermione didn’t really care because in that moment she made the sudden realization that she could have this. She could have this and not be the bad guy. Ron was the bad guy. All those months of guilt for feeling basic human attraction and he was off shagging some beautiful, leggy blonde. But now…she didn’t have to feel guilty anymore.

Before she could stop herself, Hermione lifted up onto her toes and closed the distance between them. Their lips pressed together for a moment, firm and warm. When Sirius failed to respond, Hermione’s stomach dropped, and she made the mortifying realization that he didn’t want to kiss her. She was just beginning to pull away, an apology poised on her lips when the grip on her wrist vanished and reappeared around her waist, pulling her in tightly as Sirius’s lips claimed her own.

It all happened very quickly. A meshing of lips and teeth and tongue that left her hot, sticky, and out of breath. Before she knew it, she was being pushed up against the wall of the hallway, her back and head hitting the plaster hard, but she did not care. The only thing she could focus on was the feeling of Sirius’s lips on her own and the hot cloud of their shared breath.

His hands remained wrapped tightly around her torso, gripping the material of her blouse in his fists, but Hermione’s hands were everywhere. She wanted to touch all of him, and she was determined to do so. It wasn’t until her hands wound themselves around his neck and threaded up into his hair, gripping the strands vice-like, that Sirius broke. He let out a ragged groan before moving his hands from around her waist to her front. Grabbing the material of her blouse in each hand, he gave a great tug, not even bothering to try and unbutton it. Hermione gasped at the sound of ripping fabric and the pop of her blouse buttons. Cool air brushing her sensitive skin and the hitch in his breath made Hermione acutely aware that she was now bare to him from the waist up. She remembered the bra she’d chosen to wear that day – a thin and see-through number that cupped her breasts perfectly but left little to the imagination. He was kissing her neck then, sucking and biting in ways that left her breathless and needy. His hands covered her breasts, kneading and stroking in a gentle way that contrasted so strikingly with how he was attacking her neck.

The only thing Hermione could do in that moment was hold on for dear life. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest and when Sirius’s mouth traveled south to envelope of her nipples, she thought that actually had. She let out a low, needy moan and arched into him. Feeling bold, she slid a hand from his hair, down the firm planes of his chest and to the front of his pajama bottoms. At the feel of his hard length she whined, high and breathy. Her hand had been there for barely a moment before Sirius tore away from her, distancing himself the width of the hallway. Hermione leaned against the wall behind her, needing the stability of it to stay upright due to her still drunk nature and the shaky state of her legs.

“What?” she asked, looking at the panting man across from her with confusion.

Sirius stared at her for a moment, chest falling up and down as pieces of his thick dark hair hung in his face. Hermione tried to focus but the only thing she could think of was how much she wanted to brush that hair from his gorgeous features so she could see him more clearly.

“You’re drunk. You should go to bed,” said Sirius, his voice low and gravely and filled with an edge of regret.

“But—” Hermione hesitated, confused at his response “—I don’t understand.” She crossed the distance between them, kissing up the older wizard’s neck. Did he think she didn’t want this?

“Kitten.” Sirius’s voice was strained, but he still managed to grab Hermione’s wandering hands and push her away again. Hermione gasped at his rough touch as he pulled her off of him. “I said you should go to bed.”

Hermione stared up at him in shock for a moment before a surprising rage filled her. Was she not good enough for him? Was she not pretty enough? Did he not enjoy what they’d been doing? The hot sting of angry tears reached the inner corners of her eyes and she tore out of Sirius’s grip before stomping up the stairs towards her room with a huff.

Part 2

#harry potter #fanfic #fanfiction #sirius black #hermione granger #sirius x hermione #sirius black x hermione granger #smut

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aye-write · 3 years

Text

Summary: Research student Isla Reid has been fascinated with the legend of the Kildonian Chessmen - a trio of mythical Pokemon rumoured to have lived centuries ago on the remote region of Kildo - for as long as she can remember. So, when a museum exhibit on the Chessmen is set to open in Kildo’s Hydrogate City, coinciding with her independent research project, she packs herself and her trusty partner Furret onto the long ferry journey bound for this new region.

However, when she arrives in Kildo, thoughts of her research, new friends, and an entire Pokedex’s worth of new Pokemon, are quickly dashed. Kildo is a troubled place, beset by natural disasters and fierce rivalries among its people. Isla suddenly finds herself at the centre of a centuries-old plot to invoke the wrath of the Chessmen, and is set on a race against time to stop them, before it spells destruction for the entire region.

Other Links: Read it on Ao3!

Tags: OC Pokemon journey, OC region, Fakemon region, bisexual main character, found family, ace main character.

If you are not interested in these posts, especially as I know Pokemon journeyfic is fairly niche, please blacklist the tag #Checkmate. Most of the story will be put under a Readmore anyway!

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! This is just a quick author's note today! Thanks to everyone who has read and commented! I hope you enjoy another chonk of a chapter and that the starters' introduction went okay! There were a LOT of Pokedex entries this week, so I won't be including them all in the author's note this time, but you can head over to our tumblr @kildo-pokedex to see them in full! See you in two weeks, everyone!

*****

Chapter Four

Things moved fast that night. Too fast. Morning dawned, dappling the sky with tangerine oranges and cotton candy pinks, and Isla soon found herself packed and standing on the doorstep of the cottage she’d almost come to think of as home.

Rhona fussed over Skye’s layers and blankets for so long that Isla thought they’d never get away. Even Blair started to look nervous, casting pointed glances first at his watch and then at his mother. It would be a long walk, he said loudly, at least five hours of walking, and they needed to get on. Finally Rhona got the hint and passed over a mammoth bag of sandwiches, juice, and crisps – enough to sustain an army for about a week – and both parents said their goodbyes. Rhona’s eyes were wet with tears when she broke her hug with her daughter.

Isla moved forward, meaning just to offer thanks, but before she could open her mouth, Rhona swept her into a rib-crunching hug.

“Now you be careful out there, chick,” Rhona said, her breath tickling the whorls of Isla’s ear. “You always have a home here with us, alright? Don’t you dare be a stranger. I expect to see you again here before you go back to Johto, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Isla said, her voice thick.

Kenneth shook her hand next, his huge fingers easily engulfing hers. He had a firm grip, yet surprisingly soft hands, and when Isla drew back, she found he’d slipped her two crisp twenty pokedollar notes.

“Kenneth, thank you, but I can’t take—”

“You take care of yourself,” he said firmly.

Isla decided not to argue. Especially when it was the most the giant man had ever said to her in one go before.

Blair took his mother’s hug with an embarrassed grimace, nodding along to a laundry list of instructions she hurled his way. Make sure you take frequent breaks. Don’t let Skye go wandering on her own. Make sure you feed a Clatty if you see one, it’s good luck. Don’t dare go any further than Aberdrip. Eventually, Kenneth clamped his hand on Rhona’s shoulder, and she stopped.

“I suppose you best be going, eh?” she said, forcing a quivering smile. “Before it gets too late on. Have fun, darlings. Call me when you get there. Be safe.”

“Thanks for everything, Rhona,” Isla said, her voice catching. She had to turn around to shield her face from view.

Blair, who had been battling to fit Rhona’s supplies into their travelling bag, grunted with satisfaction as he finally got the zip up, leaving the bag bulging like an overripe balloon. He felt around at his waist, unhooked a Pokeball, and tossed it over the gate.

“Coastrot, come out!”

Isla let out a breath as the ball burst open and she came face to face with Blair’s Pokemon. Easily reaching Blair’s shoulders, it had a long, lithe body with a clipped coat the colour of the ocean under the morning sky. Even when it stayed still, its mane and tail rippled like plumes of gentle flowing water. It was a stunning Pokemon – right down to its dark, inquisitive eyes and glistening hooves – but there was something unusual about it that Isla couldn’t quite put her finger on. As she stared, Coastrot’s body seemed to blur, wavering in front of her like a picture on a TV with a dodgy signal.

Blair saw her staring. “Touch him,” he suggested.

Isla frowned, uncertain. Under Blair’s watchful eye, she reached out to touch this new Pokemon, only for her hand to slip straight through its body, as easily as if she had just put her hand through a hologram. She whipped her hand away like she’d just been shocked. The Pokemon’s body turned solid again the moment Blair touched it to string up one of the bags.

Isla consulted her Pokedex. “Coastrot, the Mirage Pokemon. Its translucent body refracts light, and it will often appear as though it is surrounded by rainbows. If it doesn’t trust someone, they will not be able to touch it. This is seen as an unlucky omen by some.”

“Amazing,” she said. “So it only lets people it trusts touch it?”

“That’s right,” Blair nodded. “Coastrot is actually the evolved form of one of the Kildo starters. He was my starter, so he’s been in the family a long time, but it still wasn’t easy for him to trust all of us. He lets me touch him, of course, and Skye, and sometimes Dad, but Mum is still a tricky case. Since he’s only just met you, it may take him a while to warm up.”

“That’s okay,” Isla held her hand out for the Pokemon to sniff. Its nose passed straight through her hand, a sensation rather like she’d plunged her hand into a bucket of ice-cold water. “I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

Blair clapped on Coastrot’s haunches, signalling everything was secured. He called for Skye and helped boost her up, Isla holding her breath as she entertained a vision of Skye sinking right through the Pokemon’s ethereal back. Luckily, Coastrot remained solid and strong, allowing Skye to settle herself.

“Hold onto his mane, there,” Blair fussed. “No, not there. That’s too tight. Just there, look.”

Skye made several wide-eyed glances over the Pokémon’s massive haunches as Blair made the final checks. Isla offered her a smile.

“I take it that you won’t be going for Coastrot’s evolution for your first Pokemon, then?” she whispered.

Skye shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “Definitely not.”

As she waited, a breath of wind lifted the hair from Isla’s forehead, already moist with sweat from the heat of the beating sun. She’d dressed light, in a loose, billowing top two sizes up from her normal, and a pair of comfortable jogging trousers, but she still worried about the journey. The bag slung on her shoulders didn’t feel heavy now, but walking would leaden it. She’d sprayed most of a bottle of antiperspirant on herself before setting out, but she still had doubts about its efficiency. She could only hope they would take it slow and she wouldn’t embarrass herself.

“That’s us,” Blair announced. “We’re ready to go.”

And with one final look back at the Whispering Pines Croft, they set off.

Having left the confines of the family croft, Blair switched into serious mode. He had done some travelling when he was younger, he explained as they walked, enough to know the basics, and he’d made the journey between Aberdrip and Port Glen enough times to pick out the best route to accommodate Coastrot. Their chosen path along Route 1 started out as a stretch of delightfully flat ground, buffeted by a strong, salt-smelling, easterly wind. After an hour, the flat paths became bumpy and wild, grass rising as high as their knees, the tips of trees bordering the horizon.

Blair told them stories as they walked, a welcome distraction for the pain needling through Isla’s legs. He brought them to a stop at the peak of a hill to point out Loch Culla in the distance, a shimmering body of water neatly fringed with trees. A place claimed to be the home of an entire family of shiny Kildonian Lapras.

Skye’s shriek of excitement at this news startled Coastrot, and Blair had to dart to her rescue in case she was catapulted off. She wasn’t fazed. She still insisted on making the detour so they could go hunting for one. Blair laughed. The loch was a protected area for that exact purpose, he explained, and catching Pokemon wasn’t allowed there.

“But we can manage a picnic nearby,” Blair added when Skye’s face fell. “Come on, let’s go.”

Back to walking it was. Isla forced herself back to her feet. To give Blair his dues, he factored in plenty of breaks, at every rest stop or every half an hour, whichever came first. He said he wanted Coastrot to get plenty of rest, as he wasn’t used to carrying weight over long distances. Isla wasn’t sure how true that was, but she was grateful all the same. If Blair and Skye saw her flushed face, sweat patches, and occasional gasps for breath, they were very kind and didn’t draw attention to it.

As promised, they unpacked a picnic at the bank of Loch Culla and shared out sandwiches, fruit, and flavoured waters. Sitting in the shade, listening to the water lapping against the bank, and sipping their drinks fresh from the cool bag, Isla felt totally at peace, despite the numbing aches sprouting in the back of her calves. Blair recalled Coastrot for a proper rest, but Isla released Soba and Wingull to stretch their legs and wings. To keep Wingull amused, but more to stop him stealing, she lobbed his food into the air, sending him swooping and diving over the loch and into the deep grass in pursuit.

Skye didn’t eat much, her eyes trained on the still loch water. When Blair nudged her back to reality, she folded her arms and said, “Blair, I’m looking for Lapras. Leave me alone.”

Isla saw him roll his eyes, but when he spoke to his sister, his tone was nothing but gentle and respectful. “You won’t see them, Skye. It’s massively rare to see a Kildonian Lapras out in the open. They live pretty much entirely underwater. Proper deep down.”

Isla looked up from her sandwich. “Do they? They don’t in Johto.”

“Yep. Kildonian ones are different types too. Ours are Ghost and Dragon.”

“Water and Ice for us.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty different, isn’t it? I think the mainland variant travel a lot, but you can pretty much trace all Kildonian Lapras to just one or two lochs here. They don’t move around a lot. Hence why the area is protected.”

“It doesn’t look protected?” Isla said, looking around. There wasn’t a stitch of modern technology to be seen. No buildings. No cameras. Heck, there didn’t even seem to be any other people around other than just them. “There’s nothing here.”

“Doesn’t need to be. See that sign?” Blair pointed out a sign nailed to a nearby tree. A bold, crimson X was splayed across a black and white image of a Pokeball. “That sign lets us know that there’s Anti-Pokeball Interference here. API for short.” When he saw Isla’s blank face, he frowned. “I don’t know exactly how it works, but basically, Dad said that it transmits some sort of signal that humans and Pokemon can’t hear, but it scrambles the capture mechanism on all Pokeballs. Makes them nothing more than fancy paperweights.”

“We certainly don’t have that in Johto.”

“It’s pretty new. Just come into fashion over the last year. Lot of folks don’t like it, though. I think they had protests out in Tideburgh. They say it violates our rights to catch Pokemon and that it’s going to lead to overpopulation. If you ask me, it’s a load of Tauros shi— uh, nonsense,” he corrected himself when Skye turned her head.

They lapsed into silence, Isla pretending to be fascinated with her sandwich crusts. They’d gone dry and hard in the sun, and she nibbled at them ineffectively. Wingull, amazingly, had eaten its fill and had nestled with his head (mostly) under one stubby wing. Soba, who had been luxuriating in the sun, had fallen asleep curled around a bottle of lemonade. Blair lay back in the grass, his eyes shut, making occasional contented noises. Skye was scribbling something in a notebook patterned with Slugma.

“We’ll head off soon,” Blair yawned. “I just want to rest my eyes for a few minutes.”

The soft noise of snoring drifted over the wind moments later. Isla had to resist the urge to join him. Sitting down had been fatal. Now her eyes felt as heavy as her legs and the thought of getting up again made tiredness sink into the very pit of her. She could shut her eyes for a few minutes, she reasoned. Just a few minutes. Just a few—

“Isla!” a voice cut through her thoughts. “Isla! Isla, look!”

Isla had to force open her eyes, gummed together like chewy toffee. Skye was on her feet, pointing at the nearby undergrowth.

“What’s goin—”

“Shush!” Skye hissed. “Just look!”

In amongst the green, leafy fronds was a flash of something dull and brown. It emerged from the grass like a Furret in miniature. It had a long, snake-like body, the colour of dark chocolate, and a cream underbelly. Its sharp, inquisitive nose twitched, and its tail swished like an over-eager feather duster.

“What is that?” Isla gasped, pulling her Pokedex out.

“It’s a Mudstel!” Skye said, just as Isla’s Pokedex chirped “Mudstel, the Mud Ferret Pokemon. Curious, but shy, Mudstel rely on their stealth and environment when hunting. They blend in well among trees and bushes, but if spotted, will quickly burrow underground to escape.”

“Gosh, it must be hungry if it’s come right out in the open!” Skye breathed out. “Can we try feeding it?”

“Yeah, if you like. Try it with the crusts there.”

Skye offered the Mudstel some of the uneaten crusts. The Pokemon held back, its nose twitching, eyes unblinking. Skye stretched her hand out further.

“Wait, Skye. Stay as still as you can,” Isla advised, not even daring to breathe too loudly in case she startled it. Skye’s wavering arm came to a stop. “That’s it. Let it come to you.”

After a few moments, the Mudstel stretched out its long, ribbon-like body. Skye looked like she was about to burst from excitement, but somehow, managed to stay still. Isla caught a glimpse of sharp white teeth as Mudstel opened its mouth and snatched the crusts from Skye’s hand. It didn’t pause to eat them, just turned on its heels, and dove back into the undergrowth.

They waited, but Mudstel didn’t come back out.

Skye looked crestfallen as the grass went still. “Bread crusts aren’t all that nutritious,” she said mournfully. “I wish it had stayed and I could have given it some Pokemon food. I think we even have some Pokemon Rock. That would have been even better for it.”

Isla made a sympathetic noise. “Maybe we can leave some pellets for it when we pack up and leave?”

“Maybe. But I wish I could have caught it. I don’t want it to end up starving. Mudstel wouldn’t come out and take food from humans if it could help it.”

“Some Pokemon are just opportunistic, Skye. He probably has plenty of chances to get food and then saw us and thought “Oh yes, a free lunch!” Pokemon are clever. They can take care of themselves.”

“I suppose.”

Isla slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Try not to worry,” she said. “We’ll be in Aberdrip soon and you’ll have your very own Pokemon before you know it.”

“I know,” Skye said. “I just… wish I could make friends with all of them. I don’t want any of them to suffer.”

“Then I think that means you’ll be a good trainer.”

Skye smiled. Isla’s heart skipped a little. Could this really be the first time that she had ever seen the younger girl smile?

A sudden kerfuffle sent them both looking over Blair, who snorted and pushed himself upright, making a strange gulping noise. “I wasn’t asleep! I wasn’t… sleeping?” He looked blearily across at Skye and Isla. “Was I sleeping?”

They didn’t answer. Instead, the noise of their laughter echoed across the loch like water tinkling from a waterfall.

They had stopped for another break on Route 3, a densely wooded path littered with fallen leaves and fresh with the smell of moss, when Blair got a text through on his phone.

Immediately, he was dialling a number, face twisted, and one hand covering his ear to block out the shrill shriek of the local Caperchick. A Caperchick, as Isla had found out was another of Kildo’s resident bird Pokemon. Pretty much helpless as babies, they were only able to eat, sleep, and call for help from others in their family group. Isla had hoped to see one, but Blair dissuaded her, explaining their later evolutions were territorial and aggressive. Most wouldn’t take kindly to humans on their turf.

It still didn’t stop her, or Skye, from hoping. Skye got up to wander four times while Blair stepped away to speak on the phone, poking at the bases of trees and among tall grasses. Or maybe she was just doing it to fill the time. Whatever conversation Blair was having, it was taking a lot of it.

When Blair did eventually return, his face was pale. “That was Mum on the phone.”

Isla’s instant thought was Nana Morag. “Is everything okay?”

“Kind of. She’s just back from the hospital. Nana Morag is doing better, they think she’ll be alright to come home soon as long as she gets plenty of bed rest.”

“Did they find out what it was that made her ill?”

“They’re still waiting on some test results,” Blair said, worry creasing his eyebrows into one long caterpillar. “She said she’ll phone me as soon as they hear. Now, the other thing. Mum said she had a voicemail waiting for her when she got out of the hospital. It was one of Professor Spruce’s aides.”

Skye stopped what she was doing, pricking her head up.

“There was some problem with the breeders they use to supply the new trainers and they don’t have enough to supply everyone who wanted one.”

Skye looked ready to burst into tears. Blair saw this and quickly assured, “Don’t panic, Skye. They’ve just moved it to a booking system instead to try and get as many folks sorted as possible today. Mum gave me the number and I called the aide. You’re still getting your Pokemon – as long as we get there in time.”

Skye visibly relaxed but Isla felt like something had severed her at the chest. “When’s Skye’s slot?”

“2pm. It was the only one I could get. All the others were filled.

Isla looked at the time on her phone. It was already ten to one.

“Yeah,” Blair said, as Isla caught his eye. “We need to hurry.”

Isla hoped that adrenaline would see them through. That they could power on the remaining couple of miles without feeling the pain or the tiredness, subsisting only on the rush of purpose to get there. But it was hell. Pure hell. As they half walked, half jogged along unsteady ground, the air dense and muggy, the heat of the sun dripped down their backs.

I can’t let Skye down, Isla told herself as she dragged her aching limbs over the nobbled hump of yet another hillock. I’ll never forgive myself if I let her down.

Once, when the shooting pain of a stitch left her doubled over, she told Blair and Skye to go on without her. But she didn’t even get to finish her sentence before Blair cut in with “Absolutely not. We’re going together,” and that was the end of it.

As it ticked closer and closer, the clouds receded, and the sun intensified. The air remained stubbornly heavy and humid. Finally, they were over another hill and Aberdrip loomed in the distance, a monochrome city with silver buildings reaching up like metallic petals. They didn’t stop to take in much else. Feet pounding the concrete, each step sending pinpricks of pain up Isla’s legs, Blair hailed a taxi. In one confusing bundle of recalled Pokemon, sorting of bags, and too many legs in one small space, they clambered in. Within minutes, they were speeding along the blurred roads, the streets like smears of running ink.

Professor Spruce’s lab sat right at the western outskirts of Aberdrip in a plot of land closed off by wrought iron gates. The taxi driver dropped them off at the bottom, and after buzzing through to the office, they were on their way up the vicious uphill path to Professor Spruce’s lab.

Stumbling through the front door, trembling with exertion, Isla checked her phone. Three minutes to two. They’d made it.

A concerned looking aide lead them through a maze of breezeblocked hallways. Skye stuck so close to Blair that they practically became one person. The aide opened a door at the end of a particularly long corridor, and they emerged into a room groaning with workbenches and strange equipment that wouldn’t have looked amiss in an old sci-fi film. The room was wonderfully chilled, the overhead fans pumping in swathes of cool air.

Blair and Skye gave the aide their names, Blair signed a proffered sheet, and then they were shepherded through into an adjoining room. As they stepped through, Isla felt the eyes of a dozen people land on her.

“Ah, Skye McLeod, is it?” came a voice from ahead of them. “Excellent. I was starting to worry you weren’t coming.”

Skye tensed next to Isla as the woman who had spoken – Isla assumed this was Professor Spruce – beckoned them forward. She was small, rounded, with greying hair slung into a messy bun. Her eyes were sharp, glinting like the sheen of ice over a frozen puddle. Easily a foot shorter than everyone else in the room, she still commanded everyone’s attention.

With a wave of her hand, Professor Spruce separated Skye and the two other young trainers – one girl and one boy – from their respective guardians. Isla collapsed gratefully into a nearby chair. Blair was rigid in his own seat as Professor Spruce took the new trainers through the standard “First Pokemon” spiel. It was a comforting lecture, so much so that mixed with the relief they had made it in time, Isla soon felt her eyelids drooping.

Then, voices surged.

“I want to go first!”

“No, I’m going first!”

“Enough!” Professor Spruce barked, her voice tight. “Being a Pokemon trainer isn’t about who goes first. It’s not even about getting exactly what you want. If you go into this life expecting to get what you want all the time, you are setting yourself up for failure Pokemon are as unique and individual as each one of you. A “weak” Pokemon can become strong from the right training and support. On your journey as trainers, I encourage you to open your hearts and minds. Embrace all that this region has to offer you. Take a chance on people – and Pokemon – you might not expect to. They might just surprise you. Now, young lady…” Professor Spruce’s eyes fixed on Skye, who had been sitting quietly the whole way through. “Why don’t you come up and pick your partner?”

Frozen under the expectant gaze, Skye didn’t move. The other two new trainers muttered as the silence grew. The faces of the parents clouded. Still Skye didn’t move. Or perhaps she couldn’t.

Isla pushed herself out of her chair. Despite the angry murmurings from the other guardians, she threaded herself in next to her. “Skye, do you want to go up first?” she asked.

Skye nodded.

“Would you like me to go up with you? Or maybe Blair?”

She shook her head, but no words came out.

“Just take your time. I know it’s a bit scary, but you can do it.”

With the encouragement, Skye faced the three Pokeballs next to Professor Spruce. Each one was furnished with a plaque listing information about the Pokemon inside. Isla read them over, trying to absorb the information quickly, in case she was asked to sit back down. One Grass starter, one Fire, one Water. Exactly the same as Johto.

Coozy, Lv 5

Gender: Male

The Little Cow Pokemon

Good natured and docile, this Coozy is an excellent choice for those who enjoy a slow and steady pace in life. Be careful not to let him get lazy and complacent!

Bleater, Lv 5

Gender: Male

The Nightlight Pokemon

Aloof yet curious, this Bleater will be a loyal companion to any trainer willing to take the time to get to know him. Be warned, Bleater are prone to dependency on their trainers later in life.

Coltide, Lv5

Gender: Male

The Water Horse Pokemon

Spirited and independent, this Coltide can be a handful without firm guidance in the beginning. However, you will rarely find a more dedicated Pokemon out there!

Curiosity burned at the back of Isla’s head, but now wouldn’t be the right time to interrupt everything by checking. For now, she turned back to the chairs and waited as Skye made her final decision.

“This one.” Skye eventually said. “I would like this one, please.”

“Excellent choice,” Professor Spruce said kindly. “Why don’t you take your, uh… guardians towards the back and fill out the paperwork? The aide will have your license waiting for you.”

“You go,” Isla motioned to Blair. “I’ll wait here.”

While Skye was away dealing with her paperwork, Isla watched the two remaining trainers making their picks. Compared to Skye, there was no hesitation. The boy beelined immediately for Coltide, but the other girl seemed perfectly happy to be left with Coozy. Which, of course, meant that Skye had chosen Bleater.

One by one, the families left for the other room, and Isla had the chance to look closer at the three Kildo starters. She painstakingly punched the names – or her best memory of them – into the Pokedex and clicked Image Search.

Coozy, she decided, would have been her choice. It was almost painfully cute; small, and quadrupedal, covered in a thick coat of moss green fur, a pale pink nose, and dark inquisitive eyes. Her arms ached to hug it.

Now, Bleater was cute too, she thought. It reminded her of a favourite Johto Pokemon – a Mareep – just smaller. Its wool was coarse and tightly packed against the body, in a vivid orange, the colour of flame. Its short, stubby legs and the small nubs of horns were a much darker orange, a striking contrast to the rest of its body.

The final one, Isla could figure out on her own. An aqua blue body, a mane and tale reminiscent of flowing water, black hooves polished like obsidian, and dark, beguiling eyes. Coltide, the previous evolution of Blair’s Coastrot.

“You seem very interested in the starters, young lady,” Professor Spruce’s voice cut through Isla’s thoughts, making her jump. “Not local?”

“How could you tell?” Isla laughed nervously.

“I’ve been around the block too many times,” Professor Spruce said. “Kanto?”

“No, Johto. My accent is a bit softer though, so I get why people mix them up.”

“Johto, eh? That’s a long trip. What brings you here?”

“Visiting family. And some research into the Kildonian Chessmen.”

Professor Spruce’s eyes widened. “How interesting.”

A perfect opportunity had fallen right into her lap. She would be stupid not to take advantage of it now. “Professor, do you know anything about them?” she asked. “Or the Vitalities? Anything you could tell me?”

“Like what?”

“Like where they could be found?”

Professor Spruce’s eyebrow arched. “Well, no-one really knows where the Chessmen are now. Recent reports claim they settled in remote places – like islands far away from the mainland or underground. But that’s all just theories. There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting in over a century. But the Vitalities, on the other hand…”

Isla leant forward, closing the space between them.

Professor Spruce seemed to think better of what she was about to say and let out a sigh. “You have to understand something first. The Vitalities are a polarising bunch. Much of my generation, us old folks, even some of the more… naïve younger people believe the Vitalities are responsible for the natural disasters around Kildo.”

This wasn’t news to Isla, but still she pressed “Why?”

“The Vitalities brought many gifts to humans. Some were used wisely. Others weren’t. One of the most enduring theories is that the Chessmen banished and trapped the Vitalities to four remote corners of Kildo to prevent them intervening in humans’ natural progress. There’s an argument to be made that the natural disasters are the Vitalities fighting back, I suppose rebelling against their banishment.”

“So, no-one knows where they are? Or the Chessmen?”

Professor Spruce shook her head. “You may have noticed that Kildo is a region on a precipice. Pokemon journeys, gym circuits, the battling leagues, these are all very new to us. And they’ve become very popular very quickly. Up until about twenty years ago, most people in Kildo only used Pokemon to help them work the land, to till crops, things like that. It was like the whole region carried this collective memory, a shared fear of what happened when technology became too great a force.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“Yes. But that fear has diluted. It’s been lost among much of the new generation. Things have changed. We’ve made amazing technological advances since then, eclipsed even some of the other regions that have been doing this for much longer. I’m sure you’ve heard about our API technology and Ability Suppressors and Experience Boosters, all that sort of thing.” Isla hadn’t, but she didn’t want to stop her and ask. Lots of people think it’s amazing. Lots more people are scared. Scared that if the Chessmen were to wake again, and were to see the way we have advanced, they would do exactly what they did the last time they awoke.”

The phrase festering in Isla’s mouth felt ridiculous. Laughable. But something compelled her to say it anyway.

“That they would destroy the whole region?”

Professor Spruce’s piercing grey eyes met Isla’s.

“Exactly.”

#checkmate #checkmate fanfiction #pokemon fanfiction #fakemon #fakemon fanfiction #fakemon region

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pixelfun20 · 4 years

Text

Flower Fields: Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Notes: Again, all credit to @give-grian-rights (hope you don’t mind the tag!) for the concept! Thank you so much! Also almost forgot to post this on Tumblr rip.

No fighting wars, no ringing chimes

We're just feeling fine

Tubbo started out by building his starter base.

It was a concept he’d learned about while living with Xisuma, and it was quite a good one, too. After all, megabases worthy of Hermitcraft’s admittedly lofty standards often took months to build, and he’d need somewhere to live in the meantime. In Season 6, he’d neglected that fact, and had suffered his fair share of mob deaths before he put up four walls and a ceiling to protect himself, back when he’d left to live on his own. And that was with a small, quickly-thrown together base, not the project he was currently planning.

Still, even setting up the basics of his starter base took a few nearly sleepless days. Finally, the framework for the build, a treehouse spanning more than a few trees at the edge of the forest, was up, and Tubbo was finally able to place a bed down in safety and sleep for a solid fourteen hours straight.

Xisuma dropped by, quite literally, a day or so later.

Tubbo had been sitting in his quickly-expanding living room, sorting through the loot he’d gotten from yesterday’s day-long mining session when he swooped down through the half-finished roof. While he was still wearing his bee-themed armor, now there were two glider-like wings, shimmering purple, strapped to his back.

“Heya, X,” Tubbo greeted the admin with a wave, closing one of his chests. “You got elytra already?”

“Tango and I defeated the Ender Dragon yesterday,” Xisuma replied, touching down softly. Tubbo made an ‘ah’ sound, recalling the achievement he’d seen out of the corner of his eye the other day. Right; he’d forgotten about that. Trust X to be as efficient as possible and defeat one of the toughest monsters in the world just for the ease of travel.

“I’ll have to go endbusting soon, then,” he said, more to himself than X. Before the elder man could protest (ah, he was getting good at noticing when he was going to), he added: “Stress and xB have already asked me to go with them, so don’t worry , alright?”

“Good,” Xisuma sighed. “It’s never a good idea to go out on your own, especially since this’ll be your first time seriously exploring the End.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes good naturedly. To be fair, he hadn’t gone out to the End before it had been conquered before. He’d had a fair few trips last Season, mostly with X, but it was generally for the XP farm once it’d been set up. He’d never left the main island before. Now that he had considerably more freedom at the beginning of the Season, he was excited to go exploring.

“Anything bring you over?” He asked, changing the subject.

Xisuma nodded. “Yeah. A bunch of the others are getting together for some sort of wrestling tournament this weekend.”

“And I’ve been invited?!” He grinned, clapping his hands together.

“As the referee.”

“Ah,” he pouted. “Darn.”

“Don’t worry,” Xisuma chuckled, setting down a shulker box. “It can be a lot funner to watch sometimes; I’m just going to be part of the audience, too. I think Doc wanted you because he thinks he can bribe you.”

“He can not !”

Xisuma raised an eyebrow. “Area 77.”

“Oh, that’s not fair. I am completely unbiased!”

“And that was why you became their lawyer and not for all the cool experiments they had. I don’t think Cleo has forgiven you for defeating her in court.”

“No one can defeat Big Law,” Tubbo sniffed, faux-offended, and Xisuma laughed. “Well, I’ll show him!” He declared, crossing his arms. “I’ll just have to make sure he loses, then!” Xisuma blinked, and he laughed. “Kidding! Kidding!” Mostly .

“So you’re going?”

“Sure! It’s nice to see the Hermits all in one place, anyways. What’s in the shulker?”

Xisuma tilted his head teasingly. “What do you think? Someone had to get the supplies for our honey farm.”

Tubbo gaped. “You’re ready to build farms already?! Man, and I thought I was ahead of the game with just having my base halfway done.”

The armored man shrugged, looking about the partially completed build. “Well, you’ve certainly put more effort into this than me. Truly, your building skills are already improving. I love how you’re styling the roof with peaks like you are; it looks like it took a while.”

“My last house had a roof like that, too,” Tubbo reminded him, glancing up as well. It had become a tradition, of sorts, to build curved, peaked roofs onto his builds. Last season it had been one of the few things he’d built slowly to make look as good as possible. In all honesty, it was his own way of honoring the person who’d made it possible for him to come here, to have a life worth living once again. Rushing through the technique just felt disrespectful.

“Yes, but you’ve definitely gotten better.” Xisuma bent down over the shulker box, checking its contents. “Do you have any good ideas for where to make the bee farm? I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit too busy to scout out a good area.”

“Really? Then where’d you get these guys?”

“Tree farming in the desert.”

Tubbo snorted into his hand, and he could practically feel Xisuma’s embarrassment. “Well, you did say you hadn’t scouted out a good spot.”

“Indeed I did.”

“I can take a look around here and see what I can find. Meadows are supposed to be excellent places for farming bees, right?”

“Indeed it is,” Xisuma agreed. “Do you have plans for your megabase, yet?”

Tubbo nodded, grinning. “And trust me, it’s going to be awesome .”

............

Two days later, a chicken appeared in his base. Tubbo found it laying an egg in what was starting to become the base’s storage area, with one of his shirts nearly ripped to shreds in what appeared to be a makeshift nest.

There was a nametag wrapped around its leg. After some chicken wrangling and a few feathers to the face, he got a good look at it and realized there wasn’t a name written there, but a set of coordinates.

A set of coordinates rather far away, but who was he to turn down such an intriguing mystery?

With the chicken now renamed Wilbur and placed in a pen (he’d needed a chicken farm anyways), Tubbo set out that morning with a few supplies to find the spot he was looking for. After crossing a fair bit of forest and ocean, by the next day he’d found himself cutting his way through the underbrush of an overgrown jungle and wondering why in the world Stress had wanted to wait a week before going to get their elytra.

He pushed a few low-hanging vines out of the way, checking his communicator for the upteenth time. He was getting closer, now. This better be worth going out a few hundred chunks in the middle of nowhere—hey, wait a minute!

There was smoke in the distance. He could just make it out through the leaves, and now that he concentrated, he could smell it, too. Tubbo rushed forwards, pushing through the brush to see several man-made wooden pillars sticking out. As he pressed forwards, he made out a semi-stone floor, several chests, and a small fire in the middle, explaining the smoke.

“What is this?” He asked himself, looking around the place. The coordinates were right, and yet no one was here. Just this outpost in the middle of the jungle.

Tubbo walked around. There were some papers pinned to the wall, and a few dispensers lying around. Idly he pressed the buttons on them, already starting to form a plan to enact revenge on whoever made him travel over a day to get this place.

He pressed the button on the dispenser in the middle of the build and nearly got an arrow to the face.

Tubbo yelped, his reflexes, honed from a half year of training, the only thing saving him from a sudden death. A bell rang behind him, but it took him a few more moments to calm his racing heart.

“Not funny! You nearly took my head off!” He shouted to the jungle. Still, he didn’t leave, instead turning to the bell the arrow had his, examining it. Huh.

There were some cookies in one of the chests, probably left behind by whoever had actually built the place. He nibbled on it, only half hungry, as he tried to examine the place better.

“HERMIT CHALLENGES!”

Tubbo shrieked , dropping the remains of his cookie as the voice rang through the forest air. He looked around, trying to find the source, but found that he couldn’t.

“INITIATION!”

A diamond-clad figure dropped out of the vines above, landing with a firm thud on one of the ground dispensers. He nearly lost his balance before righting himself with a huff.

“Mumbo!” Tubbo exclaimed, a little annoyed but mostly impressed.

“INITIATION!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “HERMIT CHALLENGES! YOU ARE BEING INDUCTED.”

“How long have you been up there?! It took me over a day to get here.”

“No matter, Mr. Tubbo! Congratulations! You’re in!”

“...Thanks?”

“Of course, my friend! You have been inducted into Hermit Challenges! Of course, you could have eaten the entire cookie—” he glanced down at the crumbs at Tubbo’s feet. “But besides that you have acted perfectly.”

“Wait, what is Hermit Challenges?” Tubbo asked, blinking. What? This version of Mumbo was almost nothing like the Mumbo he’d seen at Spawn a mere week and a half ago. Who used chickens to deliver messages? Or perch in a tree for supposed hours on end?

Okay, he had to admit, that last one was pretty funny.

“Oh, it’s a game I’ve made up,” Mumbo continued. “Iskall and I have already had a go at it, and I figured I’d invite you next.”

“...Alright, then. How do I play?”

“It’s simple! Write down three challenges and put them in the dispenser. Then we’ll pick one at random from each other.”

Mumbo reached into one of the chests on the ground, taking out a sheath of paper and passing three to him with a pen. Tubbo looked at him, and Mumbo grinned.

“Go on! I’m sure you’ll have something fun in that head of yours.”

Ah, he was right. Tubbo gave in with a smile, leaning back and thinking briefly about what he wanted to challenge Mumbo. A few ideas came to mind, and he quickly scribbled them down, pushing them into one of the two dispensers on the side of the small build, Mumbo doing the same.

“Alright, then!” Mumbo announced with a smile. “You go first.”

Tubbo stepped towards Mumbo’s dispenser and clicked the button, causing a slip of paper to slide out. He unrolled it, then read it out loud.

“‘Steal everyone’s front doors for the rest of the season.’ What? The whole season?!”

Mumbo laughed. “Oh, that one! Man, you got the hardest one from me!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ll get from me.”

“We’ll see,” Mumbo said with a chuckle. He moved across the platform, and pressed the button the dispenser Tubbo had put his challenges in. The dispenser whirred, and then another slip of paper popped out. Mambo picked it up and read off of it, face contorting as he did so. “...‘Act like you don’t believe in the moon for the next two weeks, and claim the sky is a hologram put up by the SCA (Secret Chickens Agency) to keep us from seeing the real overlords- the sky chickens.’ What?”

Tubbo snickered at that, covering his mouth with one hand. Oh, he was proud of that one.

“No, seriously, this is awfully specific.”

“What? It’s funny!”

“Funny for you!” But Mumbo was smiling, and Tubbo grinned back at him.

“I’m going to be having a fun few weeks,” he giggled.

“So am I,” Mumbo agreed with a raised eyebrow, tucking the slip of paper away. He clapped Tubbo’s shoulder. “I suppose I’ll have to make up a good story to go with this prompt.”

“And I have some doors to steal!” Tubbo laughed.

“Whoever gets the first complaint in chat wins?”

“You’re on!”

#tubbo #tubbolive #hermitcraft #mcyt #xisumavoid #mumbo jumbo #hermit challenges #fluff #Hermit!Tubbo AU #watcher!tubbo #it took me like a month but hey I updated

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spectraspecs-writes · 3 years

Text

Black Mirror: tumblr in the world of Nosedive

Yeah, here I go again with my thoughts on a Black Mirror episode. This morning’s TV fare was the episode “Nosedive.” To those who haven’t seen the episode, the premise is social media. Each person has the same type of phone coupled with ocular implants that allow you to identify a person on site, connect with their social media, and rank them, one star to five stars. Based on your ranking, you are either denied services or jobs, or get extra benefits. We follow Lacie Pound, a 4.2 desperate to get higher, to be a prime influencer. This gets her more money, a better apartment, better job, all that stuff. The plot follows her as she sinks lower into infamy. Not like villain stuff, but pretty much everyone hates her by the end and she revels in it, being free of the quest for a higher ranking because she’ll never get it.

What I was thinking about earlier is the fact that everyone uses the same nondescript social media. It looked to be picture-oriented like Instagram, and certain pictures for higher rankings than others. And since you could be ranked by your real-world actions, your public life was basically your Instagram life. I personally don’t have an Instagram, so I don’t know much about it.

Point being, though, that was the only social media in the episode. I doubt that it was the only social media in the world. Meaning, if your life is so public that strangers can affect your social standing, I think a lot of people would crave some anonymity. Which is where tumblr would come in.

Tumblr is the antithesis of “Nosedive.” Because each blog is not directly connected to the person. Take my brother’s blog. My brother is just on here to follow some artists. He doesn’t reblog hardly anything. His blog only has two posts on it. If it were so connected to his person, so integral to his progression in society, his feed would be loaded with military history, pictures of trains, and the occasional Zoey picture because you can’t go wrong with cute dogs. If social media was his life there would be more of his life on there. And performative socializing can be exhausting, so logically he would seek a place to stop performing.

Or take me. I’m not a big picture taker. Most of the stuff on my phone is stuff I might need later, or pictures of Zoey. It’s pretty much the same on my iPad, with the addition of art and art references. If my social standing depended on taking pictures, then you would see a lot of activity between 7 am and noon, which are my peak productive hours anyway, and things would drop off in the afternoon. Or I’d keep up that level of activity all day and crash at home like I normally do. I, too, would seek a place to be myself. Where I don’t have to perform.

Enter tumblr. With a few exceptions, none of you would recognize me if you saw me in person. There are two pictures of me on this blog, and you would have to dig deep for them. I’ve shared selfies with a few friends, and a similar subset know my actual name. This is on purpose. This was the plan in the first place. I don’t want people connecting me with this blog. I’m different in person than I am here - more on that in my other Black Mirror analysis, “Be Right Back.” And so is my brother.

Personally, I like the weirdness here. None of us care about the approval of strangers on the internet, not so directly that we cater to them if they ask. I would not stop posting about kotor if someone asked me to. I know none of y’all would stop posting about any of your particular topics if I asked. And there is no social incentive for me to keep posting about kotor. Even the existing kotor fandom on tumblr has no idea I exist, or if they do they’re being awful quiet about it (and frankly I would appreciate more noise. After all I reblog their art. Doesn’t anybody love me? Doesn’t anyone care about Sid the Sloth?) In fact, most of the time, if someone says “stop posting X,” the response is just to double the output of X out of pure spite. And why? What’s the social incentive? What does this get us in the broader tumblr society?

Nothing. There is no tangible reward. Notes are fleeting. The joy of being liked sticks with you, but fame too is fleeting, with a few notable exceptions. And even in those few exceptions, I just assume they have large follower counts because they blog like there’s an audience. But so do I. I guarantee you, my follower count is smaller than you think. My sustainability blog is higher, but the fact that the blog has a focus combined with the fact that my voice is rarely there may have something to do with that. Tumblr-focused accounts on other websites like reddit and iFunny could steal from any blog. There isn’t really an algorithm pushing the big posts to get bigger, like there is on other social media. So influencers aren’t so much of a thing here.

I am... not popular in real life. I’m a pleasant enough person, but I’m not constantly socializing because I have to budget my energy. If I spend it all chatting, then when I come home there’s nothing. I also tend to be quiet because I’ve learned that access to my constant internal bogus monologue is off-putting to most. If I come off as callous or brusque it’s only because I don’t want to come off as annoying. So my ranking in “Nosedive” would be mid level and probably stay there. I’m friendly. But I’m not going to ask questions about your life. There’s too much going on *up here* to focus on asking questions to which the answers are irrelevant. I do a lot of polite listening but if you look deeper there’s nothing there. I’m waiting for a question or something that catches my interest. And I’m used to being ignored. So rather than waste your time with babbling, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Do people miss out? Probably. But as I said there’s a lot going on *up here* and I don’t want to subject you to that if you’re not interested.

My dad would have a high ranking. That’s just the life he lives. He is always trading polite pleasantries with people, to the point where us three autistic people in the house can get a little annoyed. “Stop talking to strangers, we have things to do!” Mom’s ranking would also be mid level and stay there, for the same reasons as me, but she does have a tendency to talk a lot. My brother’s would be a high 3. He’s very pleasant, but he’s been dinged a couple times by people who were wrong, so that would hurt his ranking. But Mom and Dad are already themselves. I on the other hand have come to learn that Specs is a person that does not put a good foot forward. Specs does not make good first impressions. It is best to hold them back until my irl has made their impression and been received well. But Specs is a personality that needs to come out. And they are best expressed here, and will be for the foreseeable future. No matter how dystopian it gets.

#black mirror #nosedive #specs writes stuff #media analysis

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lichlover · 4 years

Note

Okay so this a balance headcanon, and it is technically one I saw in a text post somewhere on tumblr that has been lost to the scroll of my dashboard months and months ago, but. The concept that the reason Barry was on the starblaster in the first place... was because he was some kinda undercover death cultist trying to kickstart the apocalypse... but then it happened and he was like "wait shit this actually sucks" and then has to figure out what to do

please consider donating to my ko-fi!

This was how it was written: Sildar Hallwinter would end the world.

Before his departure, they’d etched his name into the first of the sacred texts; his true name, five syllables destined to strike terror into the hearts of all living beings and their menial existences. It would all perish in the Apocalypse, of course. Everything would. But he and his fellows would ascend in death, as would every record that burned in the Great Blaze of the end times, and the universe would know their history. The true history. The history he would go down in as the Catalyst for the End of All Things, the Second Revelation, the Midnight Prophet for the Last Downfall of Mankind.

The gnome in front of him peered over the angular frames of his spectacles and said, “Barry Bluejeans?”

Sildar Hallwinter had also lost a bet.

But it was no matter, for there was no meager chronicle that would remember him as Barold J. Bluejeans, chief science officer of the IPRE Starblaster. He would be survived only by the destruction set to ravage their world in a matter of months, a Dawning so terrible that it would leave nothing of civilization in its wake. No one would know the name Barry Bluejeans. Everyone would know the name Sildar Hallwinter, and the thought made his stomach knot with such anticipation that he had to collect himself before he could respond.

“That’s me,” he said, and grinned a different man’s grin at the gnome—Captain Davenport of the IPRE, unknowing Chariot to the Catalyst for the End of All Things, the Second Revelation, the Midnight Prophet for the Last Downfall of Mankind. “Reporting for duty.”

Sildar was well accustomed to the dank, ash-streaked tunnels of the Fellowship’s headquarters beneath Ascendant’s Peak, but the IPRE headquarters were sleek and warm, drawing him in with rounded walls and high, arching ceilings. Everywhere he looked, another enormous set of windows opened to the landscape below, as of yet untouched by the Cataclysm Foretold. He wasn’t used to this much natural light, and he certainly wasn’t used to people smiling and waving as they passed. “Another poor soul for the Big One, Dav?” someone called, and the captain waved them off affably.

For an organization completely aware of the end times, and completely unaware of the fact that he, Sildar, would be responsible for their failure, they were all terribly… cheery.

“We’ve already gathered the other crew members,” said the captain, when they came to a halt in front of a nondescript door. “They’re just, uh, through here. We’ll start our first briefing in the next—next half hour, but for now, feel free to socialize. G-Get to know them. We’ll call you when we’re ready.”

“Thanks,” said Sildar, and the captain mumbled something under his breath. “Uh, what was that?”

“Oh,” said the captain. “Nothing.” He turned, and it was only then that Sildar’s brain registered the words; it had sounded almost like good luck.

No matter. Sildar opened the door.

“Incoming!”

Sildar yelped—actually yelped—and ducked aside just as a chair flew over his head and exploded against the wall. A shower of wooden fragments and very magical sparks hit the ground in front of him, and he sputtered, wordless, on the precipice of reaching for his own wand—was this an ambush? Had they discovered the truth of his presence already?

“Oh, shit,” somebody said, and a silhouette appeared through the smoke and magical residue. Sildar caught his breath. Perhaps he was dead, then; perhaps one of the wooden shards had caught him through the heart, and the Avatar of Renewal through Annihilation had come to meet him on the threshold of the afterlife. She looked like divinity, at any rate: tall and elegant, with waves of hair that glittered like finely spun gold and eyes that blazed with the last vestiges of power. Eyes that settled on him, and softened instantly. No, Sildar thought. She couldn’t possibly be the Avatar of Renewal, because she looked kind.

“Shit,” said the divine being again. Her ears twitched downward with concern—an elf, then. “Lucky break, babe. You okay?”

Sildar blinked, and found himself at a loss for words.

“Leave it to you to fuckin’ scare the shit outta the newcomer!” A voice like hers rose through the smoke, and as it cleared, Sildar made out four other bodies, all draped in the ostentatious red of the IPRE and squinting into the gloom. The one who had spoken, another willowy elf with even longer golden locks, lifted a hand in the air and snapped his fingers, and all the smoke dissipated at once. “You had to launch it at the fuckin’ wall, Mags!”

His companion, a human who stood taller than everyone else in the room and looked battle-scarred to the bone despite his youth, gestured indignantly at the aftermath. “But did you see how fucking awesome that was? And that was a whole science experiment! Setup—uh, hypothesis, trials, conclusion?”

“Which is?” The elf unspooled two letters into a long, drawn-out drawl.

“That this room was totally used for magic shit! And now we can do whatever we want in here!”

“Um,” came another voice from the window, and Sildar looked over to see a dark young woman with a head of platinum-bright hair, gazing nervously at the set of admittedly impressive scorch marks over his head. “I think if anything, that proves we shouldn’t do what we want in here.”

“Agree to disagree,” said “Mags,” with undue confidence.

“That’s—but that’s not what science is—”

The final figure in the room, a portly dwarf with flowers woven into his beard, shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Look at the impression you just made,” he said. “Going around, trying to kill people you just met—what kind of monsters do something like that?”

The divine being made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh and pushed a few loose strands of hair off her face. “You must be the chief science officer,” she said, and stuck out a hand. “Sorry for the accidental attempted murder. I’m Lup.”

Lup.

“I’m,” said Sildar. “Uh.”

This time she really did laugh—a lyrical, full-bodied sound that he felt deep in his chest. “Tell me we didn’t just knock your name outta your head.”

“Oh, no, it’s, uh—” Lup. She looked at him with a smile so resplendent he had to catch his breath all over again. What did she know of Sildar Hallwinter, the Catalyst for the End of All Things, the Second Revelation, the Midnight Prophet for the Last Downfall of Mankind? What did she know of anything beyond all the light she cast in every direction?

“I’m, uh, Barry,” he said. “Barry J. Bluejeans.”

Here are some things Sildar Hallwinter learns about Barry J. Bluejeans:

He has a penchant for getting into character. Maybe that’s more Sildar than Barry, but there’s something so intoxicating about the drama of it all, especially when no one else knows he’s playing a role. Barry is a bit of a thespian, if he does say so himself.

That said, he’s sort of awkward. More of Sildar’s influence. When you’ve spent your whole life preparing to fulfill your divine purpose in the End of All Things, it’s a little hard to adjust to things like game night and brunch.

He’s smart. Really smart. The Fellowship hadn’t really encouraged science—everything else came second to the teachings of the Apocalypse—but not only is Barry-slash-Sildar naturally inclined for it, he actually enjoys it.

He can’t swim. Sildar can, and rather enjoys it, but it’s a little bit of flavor text he can’t resist.

He’s not half bad at making friends.

The crew of the Starblaster were, of course, a means to an end, and he would develop no meaningful relationship with any of them beyond what was necessary to keep up appearances. That was his mandate, at least. But it was hard. Much harder than he’d expected, really. And despite himself, he—Barry—found it all to easy to laugh at the dwarf Merle’s gods-awful jokes and stay up late to hear Captain Davenport recount tales of grandeur. He let himself be roped into more magic-powered “experiments” (in the loosest sense of the word) with the human fighter, Magnus, who actually seemed to enjoy death-defying stunts with the zeal of someone from the Fellowship. He got to know the soft-spoken but brilliant archivist, Lucretia, and her remarkably meticulous transcriptions. On one particularly reckless night, he joined the long-haired elf Taako on a quest to fill a particularly uppity supervisor’s pockets full of pudding.

And as the Appointed Hour approached, Barry found himself spending late nights in the IPRE labs with Lup, testing and recording speculations on arcane theory and downing enough coffee to drive them to hysterics by dawn. They were all a little nervous, a little sad, a little desperate to sort their affairs before takeoff, but Lup tackled new problems with the kind of determination that demanded solutions. She was the most ingenious person Barry had ever met. And when she sat back from an arcane reaction gone wrong, her hairline blackened with soot and grinning like a caffeine-tripped maniac, he thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

This was how it was until the Apocalypse arrived.

Barry woke the morning of with a planet-shattering hangover.

He crawled to the mirror and squinted blearily into the glass; thanks to the IPRE’s constant offerings of complimentary coffee and cake and Taako’s singlehanded banquets, he’d put on weight over the last several months, and he’d started to love the gentle resilience his body had gained. Sildar was clean-shaven and angular, but Barry was soft and stubbly. A few nights before, Lup’s gaze had caught on his chin, and she’d told him how nice he looked with a five o’clock shadow.

He’d thought she was joking, but that was just how she was—kind.

He went to his closet and started to mull over which shirt to wear.

The day was dark and still, the sky an unbroken slate grey, and it was just what the sacred texts had imagined: not a living thing stirred for miles beyond the horizon. Even the grass beneath Barry’s feet, as he followed Davenport to the Starblaster’s gangway, had turned an off-color, metallic shade. They said their goodbyes to the Institute, and to the enormous crowd at starboard, and in the eerie light they all looked like corpses risen from the grave. There was something hanging over their heads that felt nothing like the terrible glory the Fellowship had promised; instead it was unsettled, and sickly, and wrong.

Barry swallowed the knot gathering rapidly in his throat and followed his crew up the gangway. There was but one thing left for him to do now—him, Sildar Hallwinter, the Catalyst for the End of All Things, the Second Revelation, the Midnight Prophet for the Last Downfall of Mankind. And then the Hour would be upon them at last.

He left the others on the bridge and walked to the Bond Engine.

The explosives tucked inside his robe were light, and branded with the sigil of the Fellowship, although no one would be able to tell in the ensuing destruction. It was certain to be localized, of course; they were meant to damage the engine and nothing more. He could never deprive himself—or anyone else, for that matter—the opportunity to witness the Terror as it began its First Assault on the world of the living. No one knew quite what it would look like, or how it would feel, but the Fellowship had promised a beautiful ascendancy for all its members. And now Sildar would seal his fate. He would seal everyone’s fate.

“Barold!”

Sildar fumbled an explosive, and it was almost the last thing he ever did. He whirled around, and there was Taako, waving him over from the bottom of the staircase. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” said Barry, faintly. “Why?”

“Cap’n’port wants everybody on the bridge for the launch.” He flapped his arm at the bridge, looming above them against a wall of indiscernible storm clouds. “C’mon!”

“Uh,” Barry said. Suddenly the explosives weighed too heavily in his robe. “In a sec!”

“He means now, Barry! This storm ain’t lookin’ too good!”

No, no, no. Not yet.

But I don’t want—

What does it matter what you want?

Sildar Hallwinter gripped the hem of his pocket.

And Barry Bluejeans whispered a disarming spell, followed by a shrinking charm. Three marbles branded with the sigil of the High Fellowship of the Great Prophecy for the First Revelation rattled in his pocket as he jogged toward Taako and the bridge.

They escaped by the skin of their teeth. Sildar Hallwinter watched his world consumed by a force so uncaring, so unfeeling, that it couldn’t possibly be the Herald of Rebirth for All Things. He watched it rip everything apart—the IPRE headquarters where he’d met his crew, the ice cream parlor he’d braved with Magnus and Lucretia, the farmer’s market where Taako had taught him the difference between parsley and basil, the enormous lake Davenport had taken them sailing on for a weekend, the small garden Merle had kept just outside their dorms.

The horizon, where he’d watched the sun set with Lup.

In the space between planes, Sildar Hallwinter was unmade. And when the threads of his body settled back into place, he caught his breath and thought, Never again.

This was how it was written: Barry J. Bluejeans would save the world.

#mirandatam #ask #the adventure zone #taz balance #ipre #barry bluejeans #fic #mine #GUESS WHO TRIPPED AND WROTE 2.2K #THANKS FOR THIS TRULY INCREDIBLE PROMPT

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