#drew this for myself but hey might as well post it for anyone else who wants to use em | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

babyjamiebarnes · 3 years

Text

Build-A-Bear

Part One

Featuring: Bucky x Stark!reader, dad!Tony, Peter Parker (platonic), background MCU characters

Warnings: [chapter] language; [series] language, smut, violence

Summary: The only people who knew she was actually a Stark were her dad, her step-mom Pepper, and her “uncles” Happy and Rhodey. A promotion within Stark Industries takes her from an already-sought after position in the Weapons Anaylsis Unit straight to the Avengers as a Weapons Enhancement Specialist... which means her dad is her new boss. There’s only one rule at work: no fraternizing with coworkers. There’s one more rule at home: no dating any Avengers. So what is she supposed to do when a grumpy super soldier becomes not-so-grumpy around her? At 25, do her dad’s rules still apply? Or is her entire livelihood at risk?

Author’s Note: I’ve written a decent portion of this but know I won’t keep writing it or post it unless I hold myself accountable and get it out there in the first place 🙈 I haven’t written much for Marvel yet but I’ve read plenty and have written for other fandoms in the past (not to mention the writing degree on my wall lol). I’ll try to post every 2-3 days to keep this moving! And if you like it and want to, buy me a coffee!

No one knew Tony Stark had a daughter. No one but Tony Stark and his daughter. Well, and her step-mom Pepper. And her godfather Rhodey. And her uncle-not-uncle Happy. But no one in their everyday lives knew. She was given her mother’s maiden name and kept a secret, even when she turned 17 and moved to a small apartment near NYU’s campus (with Happy stationed right next door, of course) to start life as a truly normal adult, or as close to normal as an undercover Stark could be. When she graduated with her PhDs in robotics and electrical engineering at 25 — proving brains really do run in the family — she moved into her own apartment in Manhattan, funded by her father under the pseudonym “Michael Myers.” Subtlety was never his strong suit.

Fortunately for you, growing up without the Stark name let you live a relatively normal life. It also allowed you to apply for a position within Stark Industries without being ushered past any red tape because of who your father is. Outside of the financial advantage you had, you worked for your spot in a STEM career. You suffered through every man in your field belittling your work despite knowing less than you. You dealt with the constant interruptions and “well, actually” because of your gender. You powered through late nights and early mornings when your mind was flowing too smoothly to quit.

The last thing you wanted to do was have all that work disregarded because you shared a name with genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark. So you filled out the application, sent in your resume and cover letter, and attached three letters of recommendation from your professors. You went through hours of interviews, background checks (conveniently redacting your father’s name), and polygraph tests until that offer letter showed up in your email. You even had to sign the Non-Disclosure Agreements that would bar you from discussing *anything* work-related with anyone outside of your department.

You spent your first year in the weapons analysis department, evaluating alien weaponry and determining how it worked and how to disable it. You had your fair share of mishaps, of course. Holes blasted into walls, fried robot dummies, even burnt animal carcasses. By the end of your first year, your supervisor sent a commendation and proposal for you for an undisclosed promotion. After Pepper Potts “thoroughly examined your resume, cover letter, and accomplishments during your tenure with Stark Industries,” as the letter read, you were awarded a position working on the Avengers’ weapons as a Weapons Enhancement Specialist. You’d never see a fight in-person, but you were assigned to work on advancements and post-battle repairs for everyone, from the Winter Soldier’s arm to the Falcon’s wings to Vision’s... everything. The only heroes you wouldn’t work on were Iron Man and War Machine (those were your dad’s territory) and Spider-Man.

On your first day in your new position, the one and only Pepper Potts showed you to your new lab on the 47th floor. It took all your willpower to look your step-mother in the eye and say, “Wow, Miss Potts. This is amazing. It’s such an honor to meet you,” with a straight face to convince any passerby that you had no outside affiliation with her. Even if her eyes stayed steady on you, you could see her mentally rolling them.

Once you were alone behind the doors of the elevator, conversation changed course.

“You’re going to be sharing a lab with someone else,” Pepper said.

“Sweet. As long as they’re competent, that’s fine by me,” you shrugged. Part of earning your degrees was learning to share a workspace with others, even those who bumbled and fumbled with no idea what they were doing. You’d had more hair singed by nearby explosions than you’d like to admit.

“He’s still in college so he’s not here as often as the others. Most of his work will be on Spider-Man’s gadgets and suit, but you can use him for any help you need.”

Walking past the familiar faces of Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho in their respective labs, Pepper ushered you into your lab, where you were met by your father and put on the same excited facade you did with Pepper.

“Oh my god, you’re Tony Stark! This is incredible! It’s such an honor to meet you, sir!”

He shook his head at you and reluctantly accepted your outstretched hand. Oh, the jokes you’d be making at family dinners.

“Yeah, anyway, this is your new lab, Miss [Y/L/N]. Make yourself at home. This lab rat over here is mister Parker. If you have any questions, he can at least bullshit an answer for you.”

The young man on the other side of the lab perked up at the sound of his name. He tugged the goggles off his face and set down his soldering rod to rush over to you.

“Hi. Hi, I’m Peter,” he said, reaching his hand out to you.

“I’m [Y/N]. It’s nice to meet you, lab partner.”

He looked to be a bit younger than you and at least relatively smart, if the MIT sweatshirt peeking out from under his lab coat said anything. If your dad gave him an internship like this, you knew you shouldn’t question it. He had to be a genius.

The kid just smiled at you, continuing to shake your hand past what most would deem socially acceptable.

“Okay, enough of that,” Tony said, pushing on your joined hands to separate you two. “Mister Parker might be in and out of the lab from time to time. He joins the Avengers on the occasional recon mission for immediate repairs but since he’s on break from classes, you’ll see him more often than not. Play nice.”

When he noticed you surreptitiously looking Peter up and down, he added, “Remember, no fraternizing with coworkers.” He pointed a finger directly at you before he spun and pointed to your fellow lab mate, realizing he should warn Peter too to save face.

“All the blueprints you need for the Tin Man’s arm are in the system. We’ll have you start on that and see what you can do about minimizing the sound that thing makes. Any other questions, give Pep a call.”

“Thank you, mister Stark. I really do appreciate everything,” you said genuinely.

“Yeah, well… don’t let me down,” he replied, patting you on the shoulder on his way out. Pepper followed close behind, leaving you alone with Peter Parker.

“So Peter,” you started, sliding onto the lab chair next to where he remained standing, “tell me about yourself.”

“Uh… what do you want to know?” he asked as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

“How old are you?” you asked immediately.

“I’m 21.”

Only four years younger than you. So you’d probably get along just fine.

“I assume you’re at MIT?” He nodded. “What are you studying?”

“Biomolecular and mechanical engineering.” He said it so casually, you’d think he was talking about the last song he heard on the radio.

“Damn,” you responded, eyes wide. “I thought robotics and electrical engineering was wild but fuck, that sounds like hell.”

He laughed and nodded, letting a bit of the tension in his shoulders fall. “Yeah, it’s not easy. But it’s worth it.”

He shot you a small smile before gesturing back at his project. “I should probably get back to work and let you get started.”

For the rest of the day, you familiarized yourself with the Winter Soldier’s arm to figure out how to… turn the volume down? You assumed it was the gears inside causing the noise, but part of you wanted to outfit an audio jack and speaker just to fuck with your dad.

You and Peter worked in relative silence, aside from the playlist he had quietly playing through the lab sound system. When lunch rolled around, however, you finally spoke up.

“Hey Peter,” you called, his eyes flicking from the chemical beakers in front of him up to you. “First of all, what are you doing?”

“Um, it’s Spider-Man’s web fluid. Just trying to find more durable combinations.”

“Interesting.” As much as you wanted to touch the stringy substance, you knew better than to fiddle with someone else’s lab work. “Okay so second thing, in my last position, I’d just order food and have it brought to my floor but now that I’m on an exclusive floor, what do you do for lunch?”

“Oh, there are a couple security guys who have clearance to come into this floor. They just can’t get into any rooms so you’d have to meet them at the elevator. But I usually find something in the kitchen down the hall.”

“Oh, sweet. Thanks!” you said as you made your way out the door. Before you could fully exit, you turned back to see if Peter wanted you to grab anything. Once he promised he’d take his own break ‘once I get this one thing figured out,’ you continued to make your way to the kitchen.

As you drew closer to the doorway, you could hear three voices speaking over each other. They didn’t sound angry, but they were definitely arguing. You opened the door anyway and almost immediately froze in your tracks. The Falcon stood with one hand on his own head and one on the Winter Soldier’s head while Captain America rolled his eyes before those same eyes landed on you, along with the rest of the room.

“Perfect,” Sam started. “Hey new girl, between the three of us,” he said, pointing to himself, the Soldier, and the Captain, “who has the best hair?”

“First of all, my name is [Y/N]. Second,” you continued, making your way past them to the fridge you hoped your dad kept stocked with goodies, “that’s an unfair question.”

You grabbed a soda and popped it open before turning back to the three men. “Your hair suits each of you. Cap wouldn’t look good with Winter Soldier hair and Falcon wouldn’t look good with Cap’s hair.” You took a few steps closer, leaning against the island counter between you and eyeing each of them. Your eyes settled on the Winter Soldier, unashamedly flitting across his face and admiring the sharpness of his features. “You,” pointing at him, “could probably pull off either of their looks, though.”

Bucky smirked at you, but his rosy cheeks gave away a hint of embarrassment at your compliment. Steve and Sam, on the other hand, weren’t taking it quite as gracefully.

“What?!” Sam shouted. “Okay, now I know you’re lying. I could pull off Cap’s hair for sure.”

“You know, I think shaggy hair would really suit me,” Cap said, only half sarcastically.

You giggled to yourself as the three of them started talking over each other again, all dead set on their own hair being the best of them and positive they could pull off the others’ looks. While they bickered, you searched the pantry until you found a snack to at least get you through the remainder of the day.

“Alright boys, it’s been fun but I have work to do,” you said as you walked past them again. “Actually, wait. Bucky — can I call you Bucky?” He nodded even though you continued anyway. “If you could stop by lab six today, I’d love to check out your arm in person. The digital renderings aren’t quite the same.”

“Uh, okay. Sure. I’ll find you,” he said quietly.

“Sweet, thanks!” And with that, you skedaddled back to your lab.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x Stark!reader #Stark!reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes series #bucky x Stark!reader

448 notes · View notes

agathasangel · 3 years

Text

written in the stars (wilhemina venable x fem!reader)

Warnings: None really? This is like a short lil fluff/soulmate/love at “first sight” kind of fic.

Summary: (This is kind of a post-time reset part 2 of “her favorite”?) Years ago, the apocalypse happened and you fell in love in an underground outpost, but the timeline reset so you remember nothing. Years later, you went to party because you were bored. And she only went because she needed to work on her personal life after quitting her job. But you were just so familiar to each other.

You were at the birthday party of a girl you went the college with, Mattie Venable. It was the year after you graduated, but even after a year you forgot how overwhelmed you got at large house parties like this. You looked for a quiet room to sit in and calm down, and there was one that was occupied by someone you could never have missed. A woman a bit older than you with flaming red hair dressed head-to-toe in lilac, with a cane in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. She was absolutely stunning, and you could have sworn you had seen her before, but you couldn’t possibly put your finger on where.

“My sister is a little too old to be throwing this kind of a party for herself, don’t you think?” the woman asked you.

“You’re Mattie’s sister?”

“I am. Wilhemina Venable.”

You’ve never heard of a Wilhemina Venable. So why did that name sound so familiar?

“I’m (y/n).”

“Were you particularly close friends with Mathilda, (y/n)? Forgive me, but I swear I’ve heard of you before.”

“Mathilda?”

“That’s Mattie’s real name. Our parents liked the idea of giving us unusual old-fashioned names and then more “normal” nicknames. Mine is Mina. But were you close to her?”

“Not really.”

“That’s for the better. She is a drunken spoiled brat who only cares about herself.”

“Why are you here then?”

“I recently quit my job. I don’t have friends so I thought that coming here might be a good idea.”

“What was your job? Can I ask why you quit?”

“Have you heard of Kineros Robotics? I was the secretary there. But in reality, I ran the whole place. I did almost everything but building the robots. I don’t know what those two imbeciles are going to do without me if I’m honest, but I suppose it’s not my problem. I quit because I was not able to have a life outside of work. Which would have been fine if those two idiots had given me more agency, treated me with more respect.... I’m rambling, I apologize...”

“No, go on...”

“And I suppose that I wanted some kind of life outside of work. So here I am. But I can’t say I’ve liked any of the people my sister keeps around. Except you, (y/n). I can’t put my finger on why, but you seem... different. Tolerable, at the very least.”

“Thank you?”

“What are you doing here if you aren’t close with Mattie and obviously don’t like big crowds and hard alcohol?”

“I was just bored. I graduated last year with Mattie and I don’t really have anything to do or anyone to visit. And then she invited me to her party and I thought, hey, why not?”

“Do you have no friends?”

“I have a couple but they never seem to be available.”

“Boyfriend or, um, girlfriend?”

“No. I dated a girl for a while junior year though. But it didn’t work out.” you hoped the woman would pick up on the hint that not only were you into girls (if she was, you weren’t sure but you definitely got a vibe) but that you were available.

“What about you, Wilhemina Venable?”

“You may call me Mina. And no, I barely even have friends.”

“I’m your friend now, Mina. Unless of course you want me to be something else...”

“Maybe I do. Would you like to- how do I put this... get out of here?”

“I think I would.”

You left the party, and Mina drove you to a wine bar.

“This can be our first date,” she told you, “Although I swear I know you. You seem incredibly... familiar.”

“You do too. It’s almost as if in another life we had a whole relationship already.”

When you were sat down at the bar, she attempted to start another conversation with you.

“I’m not sure what I should ask you.”

“Anything!”

“Um...what do you do for work?”

“Well I work as a waitress now but I’m looking to get jobs as a writer or illustrator.”

“So you write? And draw?”

“I do. Can I draw you?”

“Yes, I would love that (y/n).”

She asked you to spend the night with her, and you agreed. You drew her in a fancy Victorian-style purple gown, still holding her cane, without her glasses and with her bright red hair pinned pack out of her beautiful face.

“(Y/n), I- I love it. It’s... exactly how I wish I saw myself.”

So you took the drawing out of your sketchbook and gave it to her to keep.

“I have such a clear vision in my head of you exactly like this. I don’t know why.”

“I see you in a similar purple gown and a corset. Almost like a memory. I actually... have several, maybe I have one that would fit.”

So you went into her closet, which had several lovely period-style dresses in all different shades of purple. She found a corset that she thought would fit you and the two of you played dress-up in her closet for a bit.

“I got into this type of fashion when I was quite young. My parents liked it, but what made me really interested was the fact that I had to wear a back brace that was very close to a real corset to improve my posture.”

“Why?”

“I- I have scoliosis, a very bad case. It’s the same reason I walk with a cane now. I would prefer not to let you see my back. For a while, at least.”

“That’s fine. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

When you found a dress that, according to Mina, suited you perfectly, she asked if she could take a photo of you. She darkened the room and lit candles, and then took several pictures.

“Lovely. You are so beautiful, (y/n). I’ve had this image in my head for a long time, of a girl who looks like you in a dress like that. Of kissing her in low candlelight. May I please kiss you, little one?”

“Please.” you said.

You were often quite tense and stiff in your kisses, but with Mina it was easy. She knew exactly how to kiss you. Take control, gently bite your lip, and softly cup your face before moving her hands down to your waist and then wrapping her arms around you.

You both changed into pajamas after that, both of you wearing nightgowns owned by Mina.

“I’ve been racking my brain all night wondering how I know you, little one, but I know we’ve never met.”

“Me too.”

After months of dating, you and Mina came to the conclusion that you were in fact, soulmates.

“I know it seems ridiculous. I never even believed in love before all of this and now I’m here talking about “love at first sight” and “soulmates” and “destiny”.” said Mina

“You and I were meant to be, Mina. I love you.”

#wilhemina venable x reader #wilhemina venable #sarah paulson fics #sarah paulson imagine #sarah paulson x reader #ahs fanfiction #ahs apocalypse #ahs fic #ahs apocalypse fanfic #american horror story #ahs imagine #my fics

111 notes · View notes

missdawnandherdusk · 4 years

Text

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Hufflepuff!Reader X Draco

The tricky thing is yesterday we were just children

But now we've stepped into a cruel world

Where everybody stands and keeps score

So here you are, two steps ahead and staying on guard

Every lesson forms a new scar

They never thought you'd make it this far

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Summary: Planning for something in theory is easy... putting it into practice? That’s where the weak are separated from the strong.

A/n: Hello my lovelies! So here is the second part to the last chapter!! If I had posted it all at once it would have been over 20k words so... yeah. I split them up. Also, this gets pretty dark and well, we all know how HBP ends... so I guess that’s a warning. And to add, this went in a completely different direction than I planned, but now it’s closer to my original idea so... Let me know what you guys think! Seriously, I thrive on your approval. (Also, I’d like to see if someone notices a MAJOR problem for these two kids... because I barely caught it myself)

“Oh, my darling boy,” Narcissa crooned, nearing Draco’s bedside. She took his hand though he was in a spell induced coma and could not hear her.

“I’m so sorry Narcissa,” I teared up. “I...”

“Snape explained it all my dear,” She consoled, reaching out for me. “You have nothing to apologize for,”

I all but collapsed in her arms, breaking down into tears as she held me. Though Abby and Pansy—as well as many others including Ernie, Blaise, Greg, Vincent, and Hannah—had comforted me and offered me a solace, it was different having a mother there to hold me and tell me it was going to be alright.

“It was awful,” I sniveled. “I thought... I thought...” I began to hiccup with the lack of oxygen due to my tears.

Narcissa shushed me softly and rubbed my back in a soothing rhythm.

“You’re alright darling,” Her voice was gentle. “Everything’s going to be alright,”

She stayed for the remainder of the night and came back the next day. I was only allowed a day off from classes before I had to return though Draco had still not woken. Though I knew there would be rumors and whispers, and though I expected to have to retell the harrowing story again and again, everyone already seemed to know. And more surprisingly, each student I came across was sympathetic and kind to me and even towards Draco, wanting to know how he was faring. Yet the thing that took me back the most was the amount of Gryffindors who offered their sympathies to Draco, rather than siding with their own Golden Boy. Even McGonagall offered her sympathies.

And for the most part, I completely ignored Harry. The best I could. Which... well. I’d like to say that I did, but I can’t. To be fair, he did try to talk to me on my first day back, two days after his attempted murder.

“Y/n,” He rushed out in the Great Hall as I sat down with Pansy and Abby.

“You need to stay away from me,” I gritted out, glowering at him. “You’re a coward!”

“Look, I didn’t know what the spell would do, okay?”

“No! That’s not okay!” I stood. “You almost killed him! And you would have! Why in Merlin’s name would you use a spell if you didn’t know what it did!?” Bristling, Abby had to place her hand on my arm before I drew my own wand. Her gentle hand allowed me a moment to take a deep breath and cam myself, ever so slightly. “Just get out of here Harry. Don’t... don’t talk to me,”

“Come on, mate, let’s go,” Ron pulled Harry’s arm back, sensing the rising tension in his best friend.

“You’re... you’re not really going to...” Abby asked softly as we sat back down. “About being the bad guy?” She was almost timid to ask.

I sighed and shook my head.

“No,” I admitted. “I just said it because I was mad and scared. I’m not gonna go off and join the Dark Lord,” a sad smile played at my lips. “I... I feel like I have no choice... This path was forced into me because of Precious Potter and I... I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to be broken... but I don’t want to be walked on,”

“And you don’t have to be,” Pansy encouraged. “We all have your back,” Pansy nodded to the Hall. “We’re on your side,”

“I don’t want there to be sides!” I dismayed, scrubbing my face. “I don’t want to be divided because we still do have the same enemy and...” I let out a sharp breath in defeat. “When did it all become so complicated?”

Abby said nothing but wrapped an arm around me, soothingly rubbing my shoulder.

“It’ll all work out, you’ll see,” She encouraged, sharing a look with Pansy. “For all of us.”

After dinner, as I always did, I went and saw Draco. His steady grey eyes trailed me as I rounded his cot.

“Hey,” He offered softly as I slipped my hand into his. Despite his many blankets and long sleeves, his hands were still ice cold.

“Hey,” I echoed sadly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” There was little confidence in his voice. “How’s class without me?” I scoffed and stared at the intricate carvings on the pillars of the infirmary.

“It’s not the same... nothing is the same...” The depressing thought left my lips before I could stop it. “I do miss walking to class with you though,” A small smile played at my lips at my gaze returned to him.

Wordlessly I reached out and brushed a few stray hairs from his face, my fingers ghosting over the pale pink scar that ran along the side of his face. Maybe fortune was on our side because though his skin was marred with scars, the spell hadn’t left permanent damage to his senses. His skin was still chilled under my touch.

“You’re still cold,” I murmured. “Do you want tea? Another blanket? I’m sure there’s a warming potion around here somewhere,”

“I’m alright,” His lips tugged upward. “Pomfrey and Snape said that it might happen, because of the Dark Magic...”

Worrying my lip, I nodded and intertwined my fingers with his pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles.

“What’s on your mind?” His question was soft.

“Nothing and everything,” I smiled. “Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing... but loved most of all, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music...”

“Haven’t read that one in a while,” Draco mused softly. “I think they’re having a show in London over the summer holiday...”

I wanted to snap at him. I wanted to say that it was stupid to think about the summer. It was foolish to think we’d survive the semester. That going to the opera shouldn’t be a plan we made on some false hope that we’d actually make it.

But I didn’t.

Instead I entertained the idea. Just for a while. Even if it would hurt later.

“You’d take me then?” I mused.

“Well, of course,” Draco smiled, enjoying that I was playing along. “Of course, Pansy and Abby would come with us,”

I laughed softly at the thought. The false memory of the four of us in some opera house amidst twinkling lights, dressed lavishly, laughing and having fun. I could see myself on Draco’s arm as he held his head high, smiling soft at my antics. I could almost hear Pansy scolding Abby for her poor etiquette. I could almost feel the thrum of the music in my soul and the magic of the performance before me as I was enraptured again by another story.

“I’d like that,” I whispered softly, tears stinging my eyes.

“Then think of it done,”

A silence fell between us.

“Can I stay here tonight?” I asked softly.

“Would you expect me to say anything but yes?” He quirked an eyebrow.

Curled up in his arms, again I thought of everything and nothing, utterly exhausted—mentally, emotionally, physically. Draco still offered a sweet comfort that I had never found in anyone else. A comfort that quelled my anxieties and allowed me to sleep soundly.

“Told you she would be here,” I heard Pansy whisper harshly. “It’s not like it’s the first time they’ve done it,”

“Yes, yes, you’re so smart,” Abby said flatly. “They’re still precious, aren’t they? Even now,”

There wasn’t a response. I shifted through my sleep logged thoughts and blinked my eyes open. Draco was still fast asleep beside me, his mouth hanging slightly open as gentle breaths passed through his lips. Abby and Pansy were forgotten as I watched Draco bathed I the soft morning light.

“Hey Feathers, Dumbledore wants to see you,” Abby nudged my arm. “I don’t think it’s good either.”

Fear and dread struck my heart as I froze.

“Did he say why?” I squeaked out, carefully slipping out of the bed, not to rouse Draco.

“No, just that it was a serious matter,” Abby frowned at me. “Are you okay?”

“Do you really want the answer to that?” I mumbled. “Please stay with him, tell him where I am when he wakes up. And if he tries to come and find me, make sure he doesn’t. He’s still healing,”

Timidly I made my way up to Dumbledore’s office, a list of a thousand things that could go wrong sprinting through my mind, willing them all true. Those thoughts however, changed and funneled when I saw that I wasn’t alone in his office with him. No, Harry, Snape, and McGonagall were all present along with the old headmaster.

“Miss Y/l/n, thank you for joining us,” Dumbledore smiled kindly.

“Yeah... okay,” I closed the door behind me. “What’s this about?”

“What happened in Myrtle’s bathroom,” Snape informed with a monotone voice. “Though I have thoroughly explained that what Harry did to Mr. Malfoy was much worse and you acted in self- defense,”

“Uh... okay...” My eyebrows furrowed. “What exactly did I do?”

“What did you do? You used an Unforgivable!” McGonagall dismayed.

“You tortured me!” Harry exclaimed.

“You attempted to murdered Draco!” I shot back. “What was I supposed to do!?”

“As I said, she acted in self-defense.” Snape cut the tension with his calmed voice.

“That wasn’t self-defense, that was malicious intent,” Harry growled. “You have to mean the curse for it to do any damage,”

“Oh yes, and I’m sure your use of Dark Magic is completely justified,” I snapped, crossing my arms. “And are you really going to play the victim when I have every right to loathe you?”

“Miss Y/l/n,” Dumbledore interjected. “We are not here to point fingers, but rather here the entire story. Both sides.”

“Why isn’t Sprout here?” I looked around. “She’s my Head of House... shouldn’t she be here?”

“This isn’t a House matter,” Snape clarified. “This is a matter of the Order,”

“Of which you are a member,” McGonagall finished. “Now please, your side of the story,”

My mind processed this information then I began my tale.

“Draco was having a panic attack, so I led him to the nearest quiet place that I could find—”

“Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom?” McGonagall clarified and I nodded.

“I was comforting Draco—walking him through grounding and Harry burst into the bathroom. Draco got defensive of me, drawing his wand, and Harry cast a hex at the two of us... I remember telling Draco to stop... there was water everywhere. And then Harry,” I glanced over to the golden boy who was sulking in his chair. “Cast whatever awful spell that was. I didn’t think. The Unforgivable was the first spell that came to mind...” I paused, drawing in a sharp breath. “Then there was so much blood. Merlin...” I wrung my hands together in a desperate attempt to wash my clean hands of blood that was no longer there. “I did cast the spell, and I’m not going to apologize for it. I’m sorry for hurting you, but not for defending Draco,”

“I see,” Dumbledore nodded. “Well, it seems that all’s well that ends well,”

Harry and I both sputtered, glaring each other down.

“She should be going to Azkaban!” Harry exclaimed.

“Oh, you should really keep your comments to yourself Potter,” I snarled.

“If I remember correctly Mr. Potter, you also cast an Unforgivable at Bellatrix not last year,” Dumbledore raised an ancient eyebrow at a fuming Harry who instantly fizzled out.

“You cast an Unforgivable and you have the nerve to accuse me! Oh, stars above Harry where does it end with you!?”

“That doesn’t count! She was trying to kill me! She killed Sirius!”

I stared at him in quelled anger. “Funny,” My voice was calm and even. “I could have sworn I did it for the same reasons,” I watched the color drain from his face. “But I get it, I’m not the Chosen One, I don’t get free passes, do I?”

“Miss Y/n,” McGonagall warned.

“Am I free to go? I need to get back to Draco,” I looked to Snape.

He gave a seldom and I rushed out of the office, practically running back to the hospital wing. Abby caught me in her arms, stilling me outside the door.

“Hey, talk to me,” She demanded. “What happened?”

“Harry needs to mind his own damn business,” I growled. “He told that I used an Unforgivable against him after he tried to kill Draco. After he already used one last year! And he has the nerve—”

“Y/n?” Draco’s shaky voice was a lot closer than I thought it would be. It had to mean that he was up and walking.

“Dray?” My anger softened to concern and hope. “Draco what are you doing up?”

“You could have given us more of a warning about how much he would fight us after telling him that Dumbledore wanted to speak to you,” Pansy muttered, Draco’s arm slung around her shoulder.

“Sorry?” I offered, taking Draco’s weight, freeing Pansy. “You need to stay in bed,” I scolded him softly.

“How could you think that I would? How could you just leave?” His voice was trembling and uncertain.

“I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” I led him back to his cot, setting him down gently. “Forgive me?”

He nodded as I pulled the blanket back over him. Pansy and Abby aided me in getting him settled again.

“This is so stupid,” He groaned. “I should be there with you,”

“A few more days, my love,” I comforted softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Then you’ll be back beside me,”

__________________________________

Draco’s eyes met the plated silver. His reflection mocking him. His pale skin was decorated— was that the right word? Ruined, perhaps—with faded pinkish scars.

Of course, his mother had been livid. Visiting him in the hospital wing more days than not until he was medically cleared to go back to class, she was there, pacing, muttering, threatening, demanding.

Your sentiments matched his mother’s but ever since the fateful day that Harry had taken him inches from death, you had gone silent with a cold ruthless fury. A look that only faded from your eyes when they met his. Then adoration was evident. Love and dedication was evident. Kindness.

As he stared at his reflection, the phantom memory of pain danced along his skin.

“Hey there handsome,” Your gentle voice caught his attention. Catching the sight of you in the mirror he turned, leaning against the vanity.

“I don’t remember you ever calling me that before,” He mused, slightly teasing—part of him wondering if you were just saying it to make him feel better.

“I know you Draco,” You pressed off the doorjamb you were leaning against and took his hands. “Self-assured, confident, absolutely gorgeous,” A smirk hinted at your lips. “But I know you’re unsteady right now.” Gently your fingers traced the scars on his hands trailing up his arm making him shudder.

“And what of you?” He asked softly, bringing your hand to his lips pressing a kiss there softly, reveling in the warmth of your skin; something that he had lost, his skin retaining an icy chill with the dark magic that plagued it.

“What of me?” You countered softly. “I’m quite assured that I’m beautiful to those who matter to me... call it vanity,”

A chuckle escaped his lips, your words reminding him of Pansy. “No, that’s no mystery. You are stunning,” Your arms draped lazily around his shoulders as you waited for him to continue. “Are you okay? I know you, and you’ve been... I don’t know. Withdrawn? Distracted?”

He feared the anger that flashed in your eyes until you seemed to blink it away. With the fluttering of your eyelashes the ire turned to sorrow. Your shoulders rose and fell with the deep breath you took.

“I’m tired of being walked on. I’m tired of people underestimating me. Of thinking I’m harmless or weak.” You paused but then your eyes met his pleading, “I know who I am, I really do. I’m just tired of other people not seeing it.”

Draco smiled at you, reaching up and caressing your cheek delicately. “And?” He knew you had more on your mind.

“I’ve had enough of Harry thinking he can get away with anything.”

Draco nodded. Before his prejudices against Potter had been just that—prejudices. Now? Now they went so much deeper. The hurt and pain that Harry had caused to you and him was something that couldn’t be brushed off. Draco’s anger matched yours when thinking of Potter, but maybe the difference was he had never seen it from the outside looking in.

“He almost killed you Draco,” Your voice wavered. “If Snape hadn’t shown up, you would have...” Tears pricked your eyes and you quickly shut them. “I can’t... I can’t lose you... and I never want to feel helpless like that again,”

Draco cupped your face softly, your eyes meeting his as quiet streams of tears trailed down your cheeks.

“And you won’t have to, but my love,” He sighed softly and pressed a kiss to your forehead before drawing you into his arms, “I don’t want you to lose yourself... I know you’re angry, and I know you’re scared... I know you wish it would all just go away, because I do too,” He sighed deeply. “But we can’t lose focus on who we are,”

“When did you become the wise grounded one?” You pouted into his shoulder, earning a small chuckle from him.

“Some girl brought me back down to Earth,” He mused.

“Must have been some girl,” He could hear the smile in your voice.

“Oh, she’s quite wonderful, I think you’d love her. I know I do,”

“Sap,” You accused, smiling up at him.

“And yet you love me anyway,”

“I do,” You pressed up on your toes, your lips brushing against his softly.

The day that he returned to class, as expected, he got plenty of stares. Students gawking at him and whispering behind his back. Not that it was new for him. But maybe you were right—he was unsteady. You still held his hand in the halls though, and still looked at him as you would a piece of artwork. And whenever he became uncertain about his appearance your gently smile and soft kisses created phantom memories that kept him grounded.

“Ginny and Harry are together,” Hannah gave off hand one day at dinner.

Draco’s eyebrows raised in surprised. Your face soured a bit as your eyes drifted over to the Gryffindor table where sure enough Harry and Ginny were sitting together amidst their friends. He pressed a kiss to your temple, pulling you a bit closer. The pout didn’t leave your face, but your focus reverted back to your friends before you.

Draco hadn’t spoken to or gone near Harry since he had been back to class. The only real struggle was Potions, but Harry seemed content on ignoring him, and with Ernie as Draco’s partner, Draco’s thoughts weren’t consumed with Harry. Ernie was actually quite pleasant in class, Draco had to admit. Though he was a bit reckless and impulsive in a childlike manor, but he wasn’t impossible for Draco to work with. In fact, Draco almost preferred to work with Ernie because Ernie didn’t treat him any differently after his near-death experience. It was a vein of normalcy.

“This should work,” You lowered your wand, running your hand over the mended Vanishing Cabinet. “We should be done,”

His eyes met yours. There was hope in your warm eyes. Draco gave a seldom nod and grabbed an apple from his bag. It was the first test. Though weeks ago, the apple had made it to Borgin and Burkes, the live finches you had sent hadn’t survived. You mourned the small birds and buried them beneath your tree by the lake.

The apple was closed behind the wardrobes doors and after counting to thirty, your hand gripped tightly in his, Draco opened the door again and saw that the apple had a slice cut out of it. You let out a steady breath and went to the golden wire cage, with gentle grace setting down the small bird into the wardrobe. You closed your eyes, refusing to watch as he closed the door this time. Thirty seconds again, he opened the door, and the small finch was there, staring up at the two of you, an apple slice in his mouth.

You let out a scream of excitement and joy as you gathered the bird into your hands and kissing its small head before setting it back in the cage to enjoy its treat.

The next was a crow, easily transfigured from a goblet. Draco ser the bird into the cabinet and closed the door yet again. The ruffling of wings faded for twenty seconds until he heard frantic cawing and agitated movements. Throwing open the door, the crow flew out. With a quick flick of your wand the crow was a goblet once more, falling harmlessly into the piles of rubbish around the two of you.

“I have to go,” You breathed out, words that he had been dreading.

“Y/n,” He refuted. “We don’t know if it’ll work for larger animals, Pinnae might not make it.”

“It worked for the crow,” You pointed out. “Pinnae can make it,”

“It’s too dangerous,”

“Draco,” You gave him a flat look. “I need to go,” You took his hands into yours. “It’ll be okay, I’ll be back. If not, I’ll just fly back here from Diagon Alley.”

“You make it sound so simple,” He nuzzled his nose to yours.

“Because it is,” You smiled, pressing your lips to his fleetingly. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

“Please be careful,” Draco dismayed as your morphed into Pinnae, fluttering into the base of the wardrobe.

Then he closed the door, trapping you in darkness. Thirty seconds had never been so long.

There was a knock on the door then it slowly opened. Your smiling face was shining as you crawled out of the cabinet.

“It works,” You breathed out, amazed.

“By Merlin it works!” Draco exclaimed, spinning you in his arms.

You laughed and held onto him tightly. The two of you celebrated with laughter that turned to tears. When the entire world seemed against you two, at least one thing went right.

“I love you,” You sniffled through tears.

“Stars, I love you too,” He breathed in the scent of you deeply, burying his head in your shoulder. “We’re gonna make it,” He was almost hopeful.

“We’re gonna make it,” You affirmed.

“Who’s there?”

You and Draco froze, staring at each other in paralyzing fear.

“Hello?” The voice called again.

You sagged and let out an aggravated groan. “It’s Trelawney,” Gritting your teeth you let go of him, sighing. “I’ll go see what she wants. You get to Snape and tell him we do this tonight.” There was fierce determination in your eyes.

Draco nodded and watched as you made your way toward the exit. He could hear your faint conversation with the professor. Giving you five minutes head start, Draco slipped from the Room of Hidden Things undetected.

“It’s done,” Draco panted out, catching his breath after nearly running to Snape’s office. “The raid has to be tonight,”

“I see,” Snape rose. “And you’re certain?”

You burst into the office just then, also out of breath. “Harry and Dumbledore are leaving to go find something called—”

“Silencio!” Snape casted the spell on you, proving you mute. Infuriated, Draco drew his wand, stepping between you and the professor. “Calm down, she’s in no harm,” Snape rolled his eyes and lifted the spell. “But be careful with what you speak. It is wise to hold your tongue.”

Fuming, you nodded still.

Draco lowered his wand and took your hand.

“Now, you both know the task ahead of you?” Snape questioned. Silent nods affirmed the question. “Very well. He will be pleased, Draco. Very pleased indeed.” Another silent moment passed. “You have twenty-three minutes.”

Draco took your hand and pulled you into the hallway and along the corridors.

“Go, find Abby. Warn your friends. Warn your house. No one needs to get hurt. We’re already doing enough damage,” His voice was soft and gentle as unshed tears lingered in his eyes.

“I love you,” Your voice broke as he cupped your face and pressed his lips to yours desperately.

The kiss was hasty and despairing. Though neither of you would admit it, you both knew that it was a kiss goodbye. The warmth of your breath against his was the last of your warmth that he expected. The urgency of your fingers in his hair was the last of your comfort that he sought. The taste of your mouth was the last of your sweetness that he accepted. The softness of your lips was the last of your peace that he pursued.

“Twenty-three minutes,” He breathed out before letting you go and heading down to the murky waters of the Slytherin Common Room.

The Mark on his arm burned and Draco knew that Snape had called the others of the raid. A plan set into motion long ago, now coming to fruition.

____________________________

“Y/n!” Abby called my name as you burst into the common room. “What’s going on?”

My friends were all gathered in the common room as Abby tossed to me something small and shiny. A galleon. My galleon. From D.A. I might have cursed.

“How does he even know?” I chucked the galleon into the fire, watching it ricochet a flurry of ashes. My eyes met Abby’s. “It’s tonight,”

She nodded, knowing what it meant, knowing what was expected of her. A plan made long ago, that was now set into motion.

“Okay, this is going to get very bad, very quickly.” My voice trembled as I looked at all of the horror-struck faces before me. “But please, I need you all to keep the younger years safe. I need you to stay out of the halls until Abby comes and gets you.”

“But what about you?” Ernie asked.

“Look, you’re going to hear things. Awful things about Draco and me. And I can’t deny them, nor should I ask for your forgiveness. But please,” Tears streamed down my face. “Believe that everything I’ve worked for... everything I’ve done has been for this family,” I looked around the room. “I don’t have much of one by blood, but you? All of you... you’ve always been my family. And Hogwarts is my home.”

Abby’s arms wrapped around me and I could no longer hold back my tears. Soon there was a massive comfort pile and I was in the center of it. My friends, my family all there, all holding me close.

“So, what do you need us to do?” Taylor asked. I wiped my eyes and stood tall.

“Someone get word to the Ravenclaws and the Gryffindors that they need to stay in their dorm. You all have about fifteen minutes to be completely locked down. Cast protection spells. Silencing spells. Comfort younger years. Distract them. Do not take an order from anyone unless it’s Abby. Make sure she is not under a spell before you listen to her.” I glanced over at her. “This is a grave matter and lives are on the line tonight. One of which is mine. I don’t know what will happen tonight, but I won’t be coming back. Not for some while.”

“But why?” I didn’t see where the question came from.

“It will all be revealed soon. I love you all. And I hope that you all can forgive me after tonight. No matter what you think of me, please, don’t forget: have courage and be kind.”

They all nodded. I rushed up to my room, changing quickly into dueling robes, pulling my silver cloak on.

“Are you okay?” Abby asked, tying her hair back.

“I’ll be fine,” I drew her in for a hug. “Please just get out alive,”

“You too kid,” Abby smiled weakly, taking my hand. “Sister for life,”

“Hufflepuffs for life,” I finished, looking back one last time before taking off through the window and into the night.

With a soft thud I landed on Draco’s floor. He was expecting me. We didn’t embrace another, but instead got to work.

“The Hufflepuffs?” He asked.

“Warned and locked down. Word was sent to Ravenclaws and Gryffindors. The Slytherins?”

“Secured.” Draco affirmed. “Seven minutes,”

“Okay,” I nodded. “The Mark,”

Draco looked out his opened window and chanted something short and unfamiliar to my ears and I watched as a snake coiled from the end of his wand in a thick green smoke and into the sky merging with a skull. I took his hand, standing beside him.

“I still don’t want to kill him,” Draco confessed. “But I’ll do anything to keep you safe,”

“Draco don’t worry about me. Your mother and I have a plan if things go wrong.” It was an easy lie as I met his confused grey eyes. I smiled softly. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“The Astronomy tower,” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Go,”

I leapt out of his window again and circled the school, patrolling, watching two figures on brooms land on the tower I was destined for. The quiet night was eerily quiet as I landed, perched on a sill, watching Harry and a frail looking Dumbledore. I almost slipped out of Pinnae because of the regret that fluttered in my chest, but it was easily pushed aside.

I watched as Harry hurried over to the door leading to the spiral staircase, his hand just meeting the door as I heard running footsteps from the door opposite to Harry. My eyes trained and waiting for Draco missed whatever had caused Harry to keep fleeing.

“Expelliarmus!” Draco shouted, and I sprang into action, catching the wand in my claws and settling back on the sill.

Standing against the ramparts, very white in the face, Dumbledore still showed no sign of panic or distress. He merely looked across at his disarmer and said, “Good evening, Draco,”

Draco stepped forward glancing over to me then to the empty room. He was making sure that we were alone. I wanted to warn him that Harry was close, but I couldn’t not yet. Draco seemed to figure this out on his own however, as his eyes fell upon the second broom.

“Who else is here?” He demanded.

“A question I might ask you.” Dumbledore eyed me before his attention reverted back to Draco. “Surely you’re not acting alone,”

“No,” Draco said. “I’ve got backup.”

“I see,” Dumbledore said as if Draco’s actions were praiseworthy. “And won’t you join us Miss Y/n?”

Draco glanced to me, panicked. That wasn’t a part of the plan. I wasn’t to be human at all. No one was supposed to know that I was there. Not the Order or the Death Eaters and certainly not Bellatrix.

“I know that it’s you my dear, you might as well join us,”

It was a wildcard neither Draco nor I were expecting. Draco gave a seldom nod, looking utterly defeated. Against my better judgement, I morphed back human, wand in my hand as I took my place at Draco’s side, adrenaline and anxiety threading through my chest.

“You always were such a talented witch,” Dumbledore praised. “I assume you had a hand in this plan, finding a way to get the other Death Eaters into my school?”

“Yes,” I answered, my voice shaking.

“You do complicate things don’t you my dear,” Dumbledore’s eyes fell upon me. “To think if Mr. Malfoy never had you, what would have become of him.”

“I don’t dwell on what might have been,” My eyes narrowed at the frail headmaster. “But rather what is to come,”

“Ah yes, your little job,” A twisted smile curled on his face. “Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy,” said Dumbledore softly.

Confusion flitted across my face. Did Dumbledore know what we were here to do? How long had he known? Why the bloody hell hadn’t he said anything? A tense silence fell between us and I could faintly hear the fighting of Death Eaters and The Order occur somewhere below. I winced at the mental images.

“Draco, you are not a killer.” Dumbledore smiled. The words sounded cruel coming from his mouth rather than mine. Condescending.

“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” Draco snarled, gripping his wand tightly.

“Oh yes, I do,” said Dumbledore mildly. “You almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley—”

“That wasn’t us,” I interjected. “You really think I’d allow that?”

“Well you are here to kill me, are you not?”

Silently I seethed, gritting my teeth.

“It wasn’t us,” Draco replied coldly. “And we never figured out who it was,”

“Very curious,” Dumbledore mused. “But you were saying . . . yes, you have managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school, which, I admit, I thought impossible...How did you do it?”

Neither of us said anything. The echoes of the fight below were deafening. My blood ran cold, torn between who I needed to win. One to protect Draco and I. One to protect my family.

“Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone,” Dumbledore taunted. “What if your backup has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realized, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight too,”

“The Order is here?” Frowning I met ancient blue eyes.

“You think I wouldn’t have back up at my own school?”

Betrayal washed through me. I had no idea that the Order was here. That they were the guard against the raid that was merely a plan b. I never wanted them to get hurt. Why wasn’t I told that they were here? Wasn’t I apart of the Order as well? Then it dawned on me.

“You... you manipulated me!” I shouted. “You never wanted me as a part of the Order! You just wanted to keep an eye one me! Never for one moment did you believe in me!”

Draco winced at the realization of my words, as he took my hand, grounding me.

“Who was I to go against your father’s wishes?”

“My father is dead because he believed in you,” I spat.

“He died for you. Not me.”

I growled dangerously.

“But never mind all of that,” Dumbledore waved the thought as if it were something easily dismissed. “And after all, you don’t really need help... I have no wand at the moment... I cannot defend myself.”

I ran my fingers over Dumbledore’s wand in my hand. It was urging me on, daring me to cast an Unforgivable. Begging me to. If I didn’t get my fury under control, Draco might not have to kill Dumbledore. Because I would.

A silence fell again.

“I see,” said Dumbledore patronizingly. “You are afraid to act until they join you.”

“I’m not afraid!” Draco snarled, though he still made no move to hurt Dumbledore. “It’s you who should be scared!”

“But why? I don’t think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe... So, tell me, while we wait for your friends... how did you two smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I hissed. “We had the plan since this past summer. We could have easily done it by Christmas, but Draco and I deserved another year together at our home,” My words dripped venom as they met the crisp air.

“We had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one’s used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year.” Draco explained because anger claimed my voice, deeming me silent.

“Ah.” Dumbledore’s sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment. “That was clever... There is a pair, I take it?”

“We don’t have to explain anything to you,” I whispered, my eyes closed as I tried to reign in my anger.

“I see,” Dumbledore smiled. “But I suppose that I was incorrect when I assumed that you were not sure you would succeed in mending the cabinet and acted rashly? It does leave me to wonder who did almost kill Ms. Bell and Mr. Weasley.”

Draco’s grip on my hand tightened. He didn’t like the loose end any more than I did. “If you suspected us, why didn’t you stop us then?” Draco demanded.

“I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders —”

“He hasn’t been doing your orders, he promised my mother--”

“Of course, that is what he would tell you, Draco, but—”

“But nothing!” I interrupted. “I think Narcissa means a bit more to Snape than you do,”

“We must agree to differ on that, my dear. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape —”

“That’s marvelous,” I deadpanned. “But trust isn’t the same as loyalty,”

“Isn’t it though?” The old professor seemed as if he were having a hard time standing on his own without the help of the railing. I almost offered my aid. “But as for being bout to kill me, Draco, you have had several long minutes now, we are quite alone, I am more defenseless than you can have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted...”

Draco glanced to me and a gave a soft smile. The fear and uncertainty in his eyes caused my anger to morph into a fierce protection.

“I see,” Dumbledore went on. “I wonder why Voldemort has let you live so long Miss Y/n. You really do hinder Draco from what is expected of him,”

“Shut your mouth!” Draco snapped. “She is the cleverest, most brilliant witch I’ve met! If anything, she pushes me past what I should be and into who I am!”

“And who are you Mr. Malfoy? Are you a killer?” Neither of us answered. “There is little time, one way or another,” said Dumbledore. “So, let us discuss your options, Draco.”

“My options!” Draco scoffed. “I’m standing here with a wand—I’m about to kill you—”

“My dear boy, let us have no more pretense about that. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it when you first disarmed me, you would not have stopped for this pleasant chat about ways and means.”

Draco’s aspiration to kill Dumbledore might be fading, but my desire for it was growing with each moment that passed as I untangled a web of lies and manipulation in silence about the frail headmaster before me.

“I haven’t got any options!” Draco despaired. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill her! He’ll kill my mother!”

“I appreciate the difficulty of your position,” said Dumbledore. “Why else do you—”

“No,” The fury in my voice was cold and unforgiving. “Don’t. You. Dare. Don’t you dare make yourself the martyr. You have no idea the hell Draco and I have been through together. Your chosen one almost killed him for Merlin’s sake, and you have nerve to offer a false kindness? As if you were blameless? As if you understood?”

“No, you can’t,” Draco agreed to the weight of my words.

“Come over to the right side,” Dumbledore continued as if I had never spoken, “and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...When the time comes, we can protect him too. Come over to the right side, you are not a killer...”

“Like you protected my father?” I whispered softly. “When will you see we are on the side of good. But we’re not on your side.”

Dumbledore did not speak. His mouth was open, still trembling, as if to find the right words to manipulate us back to his side.

But suddenly footsteps were thundering up the stairs, Draco and I turned, in fear. We were both buffeted out of the way as four black robes burst through the door.

It seemed the Death Eaters had won the fight below.

A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle. “Dumbledore cornered!” he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. “Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done, Draco, well done!”

“Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. “And you’ve brought Alecto too... Charming...”

The woman gave an angry little titter. “Think your little jokes’ll help you on your deathbed then?” she jeered.

“Jokes? No, no, these are manners,” replied Dumbledore.

“Do it,” said the stranger standing furthest from me. He had a deep raspy voice and almost barked the words. All of my instincts told me to run from this man.

“Is that you, Fenrir?” asked Dumbledore.

“That’s right,” Fenrir barked, and I understood. Fenrir Greyback, the savage werewolf. “Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?”

“No, I cannot say that I am.”

Greyback grinned, showing pointed teeth. Blood trickled down his chin and he licked his lips slowly, obscenely. “But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore.”

I choked back a sob, struggling to stand upright. Faces of my family flashed through my mind. Whose blood was on my hands and on his teeth? My world spun as I tried to get it back into order. Draco’s arm wrapped around me, trying to keep me upright.

“Ah, the little harlot,” A familiar voice cooed. “I should have known you’d be the one to stop Draco from his task.”

My eyes flashed up, meeting Bellatrix’s.

“She’s actually helped quite a bit,” Dumbledore interjected. “She has my wand, and she’s the one who made your arrival possible,”

“Shut up you old fool!” Bellatrix sneered. “Now come along little prince, we are short on time,” There was an urgency in her voice that made me hopeful that perhaps the Death Eaters hadn’t won but merely escaped.

“Draco, do it or stand aside so one of us—”

I didn’t take note into who was speaking because just then, from the door that Draco had arrived, came Snape, rushing forward and taking in the scene before him. His eyes met mine then went to Draco’s before settling onto Dumbledore’s.

“Severus...” The plead startled me. My eyes turned to Dumbledore who for the first time tonight was begging.

Snape said nothing but walked forward and pushed Draco and I roughly out of the way. Draco steadied me and we both moved to the back wall, watching the other Death Eaters—even Bellatrix fall back without a word.

Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.

“Severus... please...” Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.

“Avada Kedavra!” It wasn’t my voice or Draco’s. But rather Snape’s.

Time around me slowed. Or maybe I could register everything around me all at once.

Dumbledore staggered back, falling, falling, falling down. Bellatrix cackled victoriously. Draco was a solace beside me, clinging to me as if I was his only lifeline.

“Out of here, quickly,” Snape ordered, glaring Draco and I down, a snarled look on his face.

He seized Draco’s cloak and forced him first through the door, with me trailing not far behind Draco. I didn’t bother to look who was behind me. Darkness fell over me and I proved blind. All I could do was cling to Draco’s robe and pray that wherever this darkness led, that there was a light somewhere at the end.

The darkness lifted as the starry night sky stretched before me letting me know that I was on the grounds of Hogwarts, not far from Hagrid’s.

“Go! Off the grounds and disapparate!” Snape ordered. “Go home!”

Draco and I stumbled as we ran through the dark. I wished nothing more than to morph into Pinnae and fly away, but I knew it was impossible. Just as we were at the outskirts of the grounds, Draco had to pull me out of the way of a bright red flash.

“Stop righ’ ‘ere!” A gruff voice called.

“Hagrid!” I called in relief until I realized I was no longer wanted here.

“Y/n?” Hagrid seemed just as confused as I was. “Wah are you doin’ ou’ wiff a bunch o’ Death Eaters?”

“I’m so sorry Hagrid,” I yelled into the darkness as Draco and I kept moving towards our freedom. “Take care of Steve, please!”

The distraction was enough to let a few black robes step foot off campus and disapparate. I turned back, a mistake, and saw Harry sprinting towards us, malice and torture in his eyes.

“I was right about you all along!” He shouted. “Don’t you dare show your face here again!”

Before I could respond, mostly just wanting to scream in frustration, Snape intersected the two of us, allowing Draco to grab my arm and pull me off the grounds.

“Y/n!” He called. “You need to disapparate! Go back to the Manor!” His eyes were wild and wide.

I nodded and wand in hand, I landed softly into the foyer of the Manor.

Of home.

chapter 11

masterlist

support a college writer

Tags: @coffee-addicti @msmcsmutt @ravn-87 @artemismohr18 @whygz @crazywritingbug @fuzzy-panda @bitemebro522 @zombiesnips-blog @savingdraco @welcometomyworldwithoutrules @akari180 @slytherin-emerald @memalfoy-spidey @queenfeatherwings @fanficflaneuse @go-whovian-universe @spicyshenanigans @darling-im-not-okay-i-promise @dietkiwi @katsukink @takemetothekingdom @strangerr-things @tmnt-queen @hxneybgb @justsomerandomgur @belcvayelena @moviesbooksandfandoms @howdycharlie @cocochanelthepupper @ninacotte @braelynn-j @jiggllyy @darcypotter-blog @atomicpunkrock @thiccheerioss @lottie289 @beautiful-pegasus @tceedlmao @deadlynyghtshayde @iconjuresnapeingrandmaclothes @anonymous034 @bi-andready-tocry @lunna-does-real-doodle @dragonsandbread @okaydraco @the-queen-of-hell-things @cmxreader @alienmotel @oh-itsnothing @sunflowerxsadnessw @fattycooter @thisisahugemistake @fanficsigottaread @gweaslvy @strawberriesonsummer @gaysludge @cleopatera @ray-of-sunrise @artist-bby @shadowsingeraxolotl @quillsareforwriting @ghostlytoadalmondhairdo @wollymalfoy @lilpieceoftoast @paper-cats @floweryjh @sdicapriox @peachesandpinks @hufflautia @livize75 @annie-mcl @riathearora @live-like-luna @justathoughtfulangel @coconutdawn @skteaiy @wannabeskinny-thinspo @naughtygranger @dragonsandbread @abundantxadorations @moony-artnstuff @myforeveryoungblog @and-then-a-girl-with-luv @1-800-luvsick @pandas-rice-field @mrvlfangirl3190 @in-slytherin-we-trust @emmaa-t @introvertedrae @infinity1o1 @stoleurmomsvan @echpr @dekulover @marshmallowtraver @cereuselle @lonely-skywalker @xlosttdreamss @sleepysnapesnake @hoeforthefictional @coldlilheart @helen-paris @romance-geek @rosie-starlit-sky @californiaa-babyy @vulture-withafile @hogstupefy @littlepanda-love @eveft @iraniq @groovyfluxie @cool-weirdo-wannabee-author @siriusblackdies @rosegold-thorns @criminaly-supernatural @annie-mcl @ghostofdolans @bforbroadway @mxl-foyrecs @ginger-haired-queen @bex4whovian @kellyrose193 @scrunchinn @unlikelygalaxygiver @marvel-trash-was-taken @one-edgy-bitch @supersouthy @narcissism-iskey @garbagejay @rejectedlonelyasianchild @lucymxwell @coldlilheart @cha0ticbisexual @elia-the-bibliophile @biggalaxydreamland

446 notes · View notes

thatsassyhufflepuff · 3 years

Text

Hello!

It is currently past midnight. I decided to make a post where I’d put all my favorite Dramione quotes so I can look back on them and squeal. That’s all.

✨✨✨

1. “You love fighting with me just as I love fighting with you, that’s why we do it so well.” He smirked down at her and pressed a kiss to her lips. “This house is just as much yours as it is mine, I’m sorry I made you feel anything less than that.” His thumb traced the edges of her lips before she reached up and took his hand in hers.”

2. “Hey, hey, none of that.” He gently admonished, “Granger, I can’t tell you whether or not we moved in too soon. I can say that this feels right, waking up with you, going to bed with you, even cleaning up all the hair you shed in the shower- how are you not bald? I am convinced your hair has magical properties all on its own-'' He grunted when she smacked him in the side. “What I mean is Granger, I want you for a long time, longer than I’ve ever wanted anyone else if I’m being honest. I’d have been kidding myself if I thought falling in love with a swotty pain in the arse Gryffindor would’ve been easy.”

Transformation

happy_valley

—

1. “Expecting a challenge--some tired but emphatic refusal to take Muggle medicine--I braced myself for the inevitable argument. He turned his head to my hand resting on his shoulder, kissed a knuckle, and went back to sleep.

I didn't stop shaking until I reached the Boots.”

2. “and given how I feel about you, you'd think I'd do everything in my power to ruin your marriage. Having him believe it was you acting on his behalf, seizing an opportunity that was tailor-made for him will not get me what I want. Sadly, the opposite is also true. I know you don't believe me, but I actually thought making him happy would make you happy.”

3. “I am not most women," I pointed out. "Hence the slapping."

"No, I admit they broke the mold when they made you. That's why I'm absolutely madly in love with you. Head over heels. Dizzy with desire. Crazy--”

4. “He shrugged and his mouth flattened into a line. "It's been a grim few months. I'm only human. Have I told you that I love it when you're stern with me? Your mouth gets all prissy and adorable. Like you've eaten a sweet lemon. A silly metaphor but somehow apt." He pursed his lips”

5. “Someday I hope you'll look at me, and I won't see that half-second of disgust with which your gaze always greets me. Anyway, it's not true. I want you because I love you.”

6. “He kissed me on the forehead and then despite his previous admission, he wrapped me in an embrace, his breath hot against my ear. "I love you. I know you don't believe me, but I do. And aside from the fact you are beautiful and smart and articulate and sexy, most importantly, you're the only person I know who has the guts and determination to stop me from becoming my father."

The Politician's Wife

pir8fancier

—

1. “After what felt like a lifetime and at the same time a split second, they parted, gazing into one another’s eyes with the passion they both felt. Hermione’s eyes implored him to say what she wanted him to say – that this wasn’t the end, that they would have another chance, that he wouldn’t give up – but he couldn’t lie to her. He would never lie to her.”

2. “Hermione just stared at the floor, biting her lip and feeling as though every dream she had ever had had been crushed. Maybe it had. “I wanted to save you,” she whispered, finally meeting his gaze. “I wanted to save you.”

Draco stepped forward, taking one moment more to touch her face with the back of his hand and memorize the deep brown of her eyes. “You did,” he said simply.

And there was no more to be said”

3. “Draco didn’t let her finish. His hands cradled her head as he kissed her, softly as first just like the night before, and then harder, with more passion and intensity. She returned the kiss with everything in her might, trying to say what she wanted to say – “I love you” – without words”

4. “She wasn’t going to give up though. Hope was in front of her now, and she had almost been afraid that such a thing was lost to her forever. Draco may have given up on saving himself, but Hermione wasn’t about to do the same. She loved him – that she knew for sure – and she was going to make sure Draco got his second chance.

She’d die before she let anything tell her otherwise.”

5. “I’m not leaving without you,” she said firmly. He didn’t reply, just set his mouth in a firm line. She wished she could make him feel what she felt – a certainty that this wasn’t the end for him, that she was going to fight until her last breath to give him the freedom he had suffered for. She wanted to reach out and hold him, to cradle his face in her hands and tell him that they would make it to the end together.

“This is your time, Hermione,” he said, reaching out and taking one of her hands in both of his. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

“It’s your time, too,” she said, and she hoped she sounded as confident as she felt. “This is your second chance.”

6. “Draco gave her an imploring look, gripping her upper arms and forcing her to look right into his eyes. “Hermione, you know how I feel. I’ve never told you, but you must know. So when I tell you that dying for you and your cause and my cause is the closest I’ll ever get to being whole again, believe me.” He paused, reaching his hand up to push the straggling bangs out of Hermione’s eyes. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Hermione Granger, and I can never thank you enough. So just let me help you in the only way I know how.”

7. “Hermione could feel tears forming in her eyes, and she quickly reached up to pull Draco into her arms. He held onto her tightly, trying to memorize every detail of her for the last time. When they pulled away, Draco swallowed the lump in his throat as he looked into her warm brown eyes. There’s never enough time for us.”

8. “You may not have forgiven yourself,” Hermione whispered to him, laying her face against his shoulder as he shook with sobs. “But we already have. One day, you’ll learn to see yourself the way we do.”

Bittersweet and Strange

UndiscoveredQueen19

—

“Hermione, I love you." She didn't smile, she didn't say anything back either. She just kept looking up at him. He wondered she even heard him. He knew it was wrong to say it in this moment, but he didn't know if either of them would survive. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you until now. But I love you. So much." He kissed her forehead.”

A Future Uncertain

LightsWrites

—

“Suddenly, Draco laughed, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Well, I guess it’s the least I owe you.”

He leaned closer to her, looking straight into her eyes, and she suddenly felt the urge to draw back and run away. She made herself sit still.

“I love you, Hermione. I think I have for a long time,”

Seven Years and a Day

Dark Rose

—

“She was half expecting him to just walk through the door but Draco surprised her when he suddenly turned around and returned to her side. She lifted an eyebrow but before she could say anything, Draco drew her into a hug.

“Goodnight.” His whisper tickled her ear.

She could barely return his hug when Draco pulled away with an impish grin. She knew he knew she was going to think of him for the rest of the night. ‘Darn it. Bloody Draco Malfoy.”

A cornucopia of noncoincidences

muffin_reverie

—

“Draco..." She felt a little uneasy.

"I love you." He had said it before, but the words had never sounded so fierce. "I won't let him hurt you.”

Alternate History

Furare

—

“You’re beautiful and compassionate and funny and… I know you probably hear it all the time but you’re brilliant and I plan on telling you that every bloody day. You make me want to buy a shop and sell potions and make my own way in this world doing something I love and something I excel at, but it’s more than that it’s… it’s…”

She waited him out.

“It’s bells on a hill with you, Granger.”

Bells on a Hill

HeyJude19

—

1. “Draco opened the door the rest of the way and pulled her into his arms; he held her tightly as if he would never let her go, as if he could push all the hurt away. She could feel his heart beating and its constant rhythm soothed her, as did the steady rise and fall of his chest. Gradually her sobs slowed, then stopped. She pulled away from him, wiping her eyes.

"Do you want us to stay?" he asked quietly. She shook her head, and he tilted her chin so their gaze met. "Hermione, will you be okay today? Tell me the truth. I hate that we're leaving you alone today."

She looked into his eyes and saw deep concern and worry. "Yes," she said weakly. "Thank you."

Draco wrapped her in his arms again, then released her and leaned down and kissed her forehead. "See you soon." He turned and left her standing there before he lost the ability and the resolve to leave.”

2. “Harry scrunched his nose in distaste. "How can you watch that rubbish?"

"It's actually really good, Potter."

"Whatever." Harry studied Hermione. She looked so peaceful that it hurt him to think of what was ahead for her, for all of them, really. "She's beautiful."

Draco looked at her as well, and without thinking about what he was doing, said, "Yeah, she is.”

3. “Hermione scowled and continued to hit him, but stopped yelling. Draco carried her into the house, up the stairs, and into her room. He set her down on the bed. She tried to get up; he grabbed her wrists and held her down.

She struggled, but when she looked into Draco's eyes, she saw they were wet. She lay still, holding his gaze.

"Don't make me Immobilize you."

She nodded. He released her wrists and took one of her hands in his. "I promise to come back, if you promise to stay," he said softly.”

4. “He kissed her with everything he had, all the fear, longing, pain, and joy he felt. He kissed her because he was scared to die, and he too wanted to see where this would go. He kissed her because of the secrets he kept from her, willing her to trust him, to believe him, to know that he would tell her. He told her he loved her, he would do anything for her, would die for her, would even try to live for her.”

We Learned the Sea

floorcoaster

—

1. “You are mine, Hermione, I don’t want anyone mistaking you for single again or even thinking of trying to coax you away from me.” He laid his hand on her cheek, his thumb brushing over her bottom lip. “Granger…Hermione…I love you.”

2. “The look of shock on her face matched his own. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even realized that he had those feelings for her, that he would recognize them as such. He was in unfamiliar waters and suddenly scared to death. He meant them, he loved her, and it terrified him because he had never loved anyone before.”

Something In the Way She Moves

Snapes_Godess

—

“Draco leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together and nuzzled her nose.

“Take it. Take my heart, and take the remainder of my soul as well. You can even filet my heart and crush my soul if you wish. It doesn’t matter, since in actuality, they’ve probably been already yours to break for a very long time.”

5 am, waking up

mysterious_intentions

—

“The deflated bits of his countenance inflated with her admission, until he felt as though he would float through the air. Moving his hands along the curves of her sides, he pulled her flush against his chest. "I love you, Hermione."

The admission left him in a single breath, causing Hermione to arch her back so that she could look him in the eye. She searched his depths, seemingly inspecting for any sign of deception. Finding none, a smile spread across her face. "I love you, too.”

I Carry Your Heart

TheMourningMadam

—

#draco malfoy #harry potter #draco fluff #draco fanfiction #draco malfoy fanfiction #dramione #draco x hermione

68 notes · View notes

theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years

Note

Among Us writing request if you get the chance~ That one episode of the Hermitcraft & Friends Among Us where the ghosts are all chanting "Kill! Kill! Kill!" to Pungence? :D

i actually wrote this back in February when the episode first came out, but i dont think i ever posted it here so here you go! polished it up a bit too :)

...

“Okay, Skizz didn’t kill anyone that time,” said Tango, looking around at the other three people’s faces around the table. “So it’s Pungence or Etho.”

“It’s Pungence,” said Etho.

“It’s Etho,” said Pungence.

Tango scoffed. “Wow, never saw THAT coming. What’s your gut saying, Skizz?”

Skizz groaned. “I’m so torn. Etho, say some words for me, buddy.”

“Quickly,” added Tango.

After a long pause, Etho’s high-pitched voice said, “Hey, everybody…!”

“It’s Etho!” yelped Skizzle, voting for the cyan crewmate. “I’m voting Etho; I might be wrong!”

Tango hurriedly locked in his vote as well. “Oh, please be right!”

Etho didn’t dare look as the votes were revealed. After a moment, he peeked through his hands and was both shocked and relieved to find that, despite Tango and Skizz voting for him, he was safe. Both he and Pungence had voted to skip.

“Oh no!” Skizz gasped. “He’s gonna kill us!”

Etho narrowed his eyes. “Okay, I’m suspicious of you, now, Skizzle.”

“Of course you are. Quick, everyone stay away from him!”

At that moment, the O2 alarm went off. Etho immediately rushed for the lower one, while the other three ran up and around to O2. After he’d entered the code, Etho took off after his friends, catching up with them in the corridor outside O2.

Meanwhile, Pungence was starting to become disoriented from the yelling that only he could hear. He now had the voices of Grian, Bdubs, and Beans chanting, “KILL! KILL! KILL!” in his ears, as well as Impulse’s voice yelling indistinctly amid the din.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He drew his gun and, without hesitating, shot Tango in the back, sending him down immediately.

He wasn’t fully aware of what had just happened until the report alarm flashed and everyone was teleported to the table. Pungence stared across the table at Skizz and Etho, realisation dawning in his mind. He had just killed someone right in front of the other two crewmates on the ship.

As soon as they all appeared at the table, Skizz dissolved into laughter.

“Okay…” Pungence hesitated, knowing he had to say something, and quickly. “I had some voices in my head… I don’t think they understood what was going on…”

As Skizz continued to laugh helplessly, Etho leant forward on the table, a grin hiding behind his mask. “Really? What were they telling you?”

“Well…”

Pungence screwed up his face as he tried to think desperately for something to say, some explanation for the incident that had just taken place. But try as he might, he just couldn’t do it.

“Just do what you gotta do,” he chuckled bitterly.

Skizz gasped for breath through his laughter. “Oh, man! It was you, right, Pungence?”

Pungence stared at him. “Wait, what?”

“I-I think I blinked, or something; it all happened so fast. It- It had to be you, right?”

“No, it- it was Etho!” Pungence’s heart leapt at the opportunity. “You didn’t see it?! It must have been Etho!”

Skizz groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Agh, I should have been paying better attention!” He turned to his friend. “Etho, say stuff!”

Half-stunned that Skizz somehow hadn’t seen what had happened right in front of them, all Etho could manage was, “It wasn’t me, it was Pungence.”

“No, no, it was Etho!” Pungence burst out. “He did it right in front of you!”

“Dangit, this is all falling on me! I didn’t actually see who did it!” Skizz groaned again and threw his arms up. “And right now, Tango’s gotta be yelling his head off at me.”

“YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT,” Tango screeched in his best friend’s face. “You’re lucky I’m a ghost or I’d kick your ass!”

Impulse gently took hold of Tango’s arms and pulled him away from Skizz. “Buddy, he can’t hear you.”

Tango strained against Impulse’s grip, jabbing his transparent finger at his alive best friend. “Skizz, if you eject Etho, I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you when you get here!”

Skizz’s distress was starting to get the better of him. “Etho, say more words! Please!”

“I cleared the other O2, Skizz,” Etho said quickly. “All three of you went to the other one so all I would’ve had to do if I was the imposter was just stand there in admin and do nothing.”

Skizz stared at Etho. “You DID clear the other O2. That’s right…”

“Does that help?” Etho asked, somewhat nervously.

“That helps.”

Skizz locked in his vote for Pungence, who couldn’t help laughing bitterly. “I was that close. I can’t believe you didn’t see me commit murder right in front of you.”

Etho snorted softly. “Well, I can’t believe you committed murder right in front of two witnesses. What exactly happened there?”

“I had three ghosts screaming “Kill! Kill! Kill!” in my ear over and over again,” said Pungence wearily. “I got so disoriented that I guess I didn’t realise that there were still four of us left, not three.”

Soon enough, the timer hit zero and Pungence was ejected, ending the game.

As everyone appeared back in the lobby, Pungence said, "Okay, uh... Why was everyone chanting "kill kill kill"?"

"That was my bad," Grian admitted sheepishly. "I thought you only needed one kill so I started yelling "kill!" at you and everyone else joined in."

"Why didn't you vote for Etho, Pungey?" asked Bdubs. "At the meeting before Tango died. You'd have won if you voted for Etho."

Pungence gave a chuckle. "I know. I was trying to clear myself but I ended up ruining it. Dangit."

"Dude, you almost won that," Skizz said. "I was THIS close to voting for Etho, even after I watched you kill Tango."

Tango shot him a glare. "You're such a moron, Skizz. Pungence killed me LITERALLY right in front of you and you "didn't see it"?"

"Hey, I'm not observant, okay!" said Skizz defensively. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, I'm just gonna kill you first next time."

"You better not!"

#hermits among us #pungence #grian #etho #skizzleman #tangotek #vaunna’s requests

34 notes · View notes

libsterslobsters · 3 years

Text

I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 2

Post 1

Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language, smut (IF YOU ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN, DON'T READ!!!)

*************************************************

One of the perks of being “enhanced” or in this case, a super soldier, is that you heal quickly. Within seventy-two hours, the bullet wound in his leg (not to mention the cut and black eye he sustained from several sharp blows to the face) and her matching one in the shoulder are almost completely healed, only a vague pink mark to show they were ever injured. The downside is-

“Do you want to punch sandbags until they fly off the hook, or run thirty miles around the compound first? I’ll start with whichever you don’t pick.” -they’re back to training as well.

He almost answers that he really doesn’t want to do either, it’s Sunday morning, for fuck’s sake, but it’s not like this is her first choice for what she could be doing this morning either, so he goes with-

“Punching things first. Think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so I’d best get it out of my system.” She nods and, squeezing his arm, takes off at a jog.

“See you on the other side.”

His instinct is to tell her to take it easy, she lost a lot of blood the other day and who knows if there’s been some bone or muscular damage that hasn’t quite fixed itself yet, but again, he swallows it down and focuses on the task at hand. Namely, taking out his bad mood on a punching bag.

Usually, when his body is in motion, his mind is at least somewhat at rest, but this time around, the exertion is just adding fuel to the flames. He’s too pissed off to just zone out and concentrate on hitting the target, still too busy trying to process what the hell happened three nights ago.

It was their first mission together. She’s been on a few separate from him, and he and Sam get called out together on the regular. Stupidly, he assumed that, since her specialty is translating or gathering intel, maybe being the little voice in someone’s ear to direct them through a maze of assailants and twisting corridors her visions had allowed her a glimpse of ahead of time, she’d be out of the line of fire. At the very least, most of the attention would be on him and Sam. But no, she was the bogey. She drew fire while he waltzed through a military fortress, recapturing stolen tech. When Rhodey so much as mentioned that possibility, he should’ve told him no, hard no. If anyone’s drawing fire, it’s him. Still, in his arrogance, he assumed it wouldn’t come to that extreme. Sam’s good at his job, and as much as he hates the reason behind it, so is he. They should’ve been able to hold the line without her painting a target on her back.

That, of course leads to yet another issue. He’s also pissed at himself for instinctively seeing her as more fragile, something that needs to be protected. Even before the same chemicals running through his veins infected her, she’d proven that she’s a damn capable person. He knows that she’s smart, both strategically and academically. Add onto that the fact that she’s fast and strong, not to mention she has visions (less than helpful ones most of the time, but they have their moments), and she’s a powerful ally. He certainly wouldn’t want to be on her bad side. And yet, when he saw that she’d been hit, his mind completely emptied. He wouldn’t have been able to remember which end of a gun to use if his life depended on it, because all he could think was, “Oh god. She’s hurt.” It’s old-fashioned, outdated. He should be past this mindset, at least when it comes to work. Out there, she’s his fellow soldier, not the woman he lies awake next to in bed, sometimes for hours, just to listen to her breath and know he’s not alone. Did Steve ever put Peggy in that box, he wonders? No, of course not, because Steve’s a better man than he ever was or will ever be. So yeah, he’s pissed off at himself.

And finally, although he can barely admit it to his own mind, he’s pissed off at her. Logically he knows it’s mostly fear, some primal instinct to protect what’s his, but every time he imagines her being shot, having a bullet pass by her lungs and arteries by a very narrow margin, and then telling Sam not to let him know that she was hit, it irks him. Did she think he’d come unhinged? Screw up? Or is she stuck in the mindset she seems to have adopted as a response to the last five years of “Screw looking after myself. It doesn’t matter.” A small part of him realizes that he didn’t call in either when he took a bullet, but that’s him! And, now he’s circling back to guilt for treating her like she’s weak.

All in all, he’s so damn furious that he doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone until she grabs hold of his arm just as he goes to swing again.

“Jesus, Bucky. I know you’re grouchy, but don’t you think destroying five punching bags in thirty minutes is enough? Save some aggression for the run.”

He looks up to tell her something (I’m sorry? Damn right I’m grouchy? Let me take you home and wrap you in blankets so that nothing will ever hurt you again?) and catches sight of her sweat-soaked face. He hates how far she takes things with the running. It’s like she’s trying to see what the limits are, how much she can punish her body before it gives out and she drops. That’s what it was in the very beginning after the snap. She’s told him that. Now he wonders if she’s really as recovered from everything that’s happened as she claims.

“Have you had anything to drink? Water, or-” She groans and reaches to detach the punching bag (there’s a decent sized rip in it where he was hitting it over and over), making her shirt ride up. Her clothes were already so tight that just seeing her out of the corner of his eye was making it hard to think, but now they’re completely adhered to her in a way that’s nearly obscene thanks to all the sweat. Dammit. Think about something else. He needs to think about something else.

“Yes, I’m on my second water bottle, thank you Barnes. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Just self-destructive.” It slips out before he can stuff it down. Her mouth falls open in shock momentarily, but then she squares her shoulders and looks him directly in the eyes.

“You’re one to talk. Always running straight towards the fire instead of putting it out first.”

“That’s my job.”

“It’s your hangup.” She laughs bitterly. “Bucky Barnes, the big, bad Winter Soldier. You’ve decided you’re so fucked up that the only way you can make amends is to run headlong towards whatever’s trying to kill you, without backup I might add, and keep to your mission no matter what your personal damage is.”

“Says the woman who took a bullet and stopped Sam from announcing that you’re hit.” They’re teetering closer and closer to a fight with every nearly snarled word, but he’s powerless to stop it. In fact, he’s ready to go. Have it out. But not right now, because-

“Hey.” He catches her arm just as she starts to hoist another punching bag onto the hook. “Be careful! You’re still healing.” -she’s hellbent on hurting herself. Again.

She whirls around as if he’s slapped her.

“Oh my god. You have to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop treating me like I’m going to break!” Her voice is shrill, rising higher and higher with each syllable. “I love you, but you are driving me insane. I am not your child-”

“No, you’re the person I want to marry!” He takes a deep breath, preparing to follow up with, “-and you keep acting like you have a death wish”, but before he can-

“You won’t even fuck me anymore!” Immediately, her eyes go wide and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

If her declaration surprised her, it absolutely stunned him so, not quite sure what else to do, he takes a few steps back and sits down. A few seconds pass before she approaches and, with a heavy sigh, sinks down next to him.

“Bucky, I am so sorry. I don’t know where any of this is coming from-”

“I think you do, Doll.” Her eyes dart nervously between his face and the floor. On instinct, he reaches over and takes her hand. “And so do I.” He takes a few moments to rearrange his thoughts before pushing ahead. “A lot has changed since-”

“The world ended. We lost. And then we won.” He nods.

“Yeah, and I don’t think either of us have quite wrapped our heads around it. I know I haven’t.”

It’s silent for a moment, and then, voice trembling, she tells him,

“After you went away, I was completely lost. Didn’t know why I had to stay. What kind of cruel trick is it, just when everything was starting to go right-” He finally had the poison of HYDRA sucked out of him, she’d found a safe place where she didn’t have to run and hide because of something she was born with, he’d worked up the nerve to ask her if she’d maybe one day be his wife. “-and then it’s wiped out? You finally went somewhere I couldn’t follow.” He still can’t imagine what those five years must’ve been like, not just for her, but everyone else who survived the snap. “I didn’t want to keep going. But I had to.” She chuckles. “Steve wouldn’t let me throw in the towel.”

A smile forms on his own face. “Yeah, he had a habit of doing that.”

“I guess…” She sighs. “I don’t know. I got harder, rougher around the edges. I thought I could just go back to normal once everyone came back-”

“But old habits die hard.” It’s not a question, but she nods.

“Yeah, and as much as I chip away at it, I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to who I was before.”

“You won’t.” She peers up at him, eyes wide in shock, maybe a hint of sadness. “I can tell you that right now from experience. You won’t go back, but-” He’s had a lot of time to consider this, so he can say it and absolutely believe it. “-I love the girl that’s here now. She’s pretty amazing, rough edges and all.”

She’s sitting so close. He could pull her into his lap, just hold her for a minute. So, that’s what he does, and just like the first time, they fit together perfectly, like she was made to fit in his arms, or maybe he was made to hold her. Either way, it leaves no doubt in his mind that they belong together.

“You changed. Everyone does. You got stronger and tougher, because that’s who you had to be. And I wasn’t there to change with you.” He can feel her shoulders shake, and even though she’s facing away from him, he knows she’s fighting back tears. “But I’m gonna catch up. It’s just taking me a while to get it through my thick skull that my girl’s a badass, and I need to ease off the bodyguard routine a little.” There. That’s more like it. A laugh, even if it’s a small one. “I just worry about you, is all. I don’t know how to stop it, and I’m not sure I can, but I’m working on it.”

“I worry about you too, you know.” She sniffs, swiping at her nose with her hand. “I’m fucking terrified because, now that I’m like you, I know what your limits are. I’m scared you’ll forget them, or you’ll ignore them because you’re trying to be a good man.” She cranes her head, meeting his gaze. “But you are a good man, Bucky Barnes. You never stopped being one, no matter what you think.”

“I think your picture of me might be more flattering than who I really am.”

“Shut up.” She presses her palm over his mouth. “I have visions, so seeing is never my problem. And it’s not the way I’m picturing you. We’ve known each other long enough for the shine to wear off.” Never. It’ll never be possible for him to know her so long that she’s not absolutely golden from where he’s standing. “It’s who you’ve shown me you are. And if the rest of the world doesn’t see it, that’s their problem. Not yours.”

He’s not sure if he buys all that, but it’s enough that she does. She sees him as that man, so he’ll try every day of his life to be just that.

“Come on.” Gently pushing her off of him, he stands and offers her his hand. “That’s enough training for today. We’re still wounded.”

She chuckles. “Is that your excuse for calling it early?”

He nods, barely suppressing a grin. “That, and you’ve gotta change into something that doesn’t fit you like a second skin before my brain permanently short-circuits.”

“Showers, then?”

“Showers.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

The compound sustained heavy damage thanks to Thanos crashing a ship into it, but in the past few months (helped along by Pepper’s billions and the entire galaxy’s appreciation towards the Avengers in equal parts), enough repairs have been done to make it partially usable. In this case, the locker room. Just the one, though. Which, of course means co-ed showers.

She won’t admit it, but she’s particularly appreciative of that little detail today. As she circled the compound on her last lap, she saw that the only two cars there are hers and Barnes. They’re the only two people here, and she fully intends to use that to her advantage.

“Join me? I don’t want to overextend my shoulder trying to wash my hair or back.” It’s a blatant lie, and from his expression, she can tell that he knows it too. But, he nods.

“Yeah, doll. I can do that.” Part one of the plan has been executed beautifully. Onward to part two.

She purposely leaves the travel sized bottles of shampoo and body wash on the floor so that, after rinsing off for far longer than is really necessary, she has to bend over to retrieve them. If it weren’t for her enhanced hearing, she’d completely miss the sharp intake of breath in response to her little show, but she catches it and can’t help grinning to herself. Part two: get him as worked up as she is. So far, so good.

The feeling of his fingers massaging her scalp, working the shampoo through her hair, is almost enough to make her forget that she’s a woman on a mission. Almost. As soon as she’s rinsed the soap out of her face, she turns to him.

“Your turn. Bend.” It’s not the first time they’ve done this, and as always, she has to fight back a laugh as he inclines his head towards her, the entirety of his hair falling forward to cover his face. “This used to take a lot longer before you decided to chop it all off.” He chuckles, eyes closed against the soap.

“What can I say? Seventy-three years without a haircut is my limit.” She can’t blame him, and although it was a shock at first, she’s come to like this new look. It makes him look…younger, somehow. More boyish. Like his life hasn’t contained as many horrors as they both know full well it has.

“You checking for lice or something?”

“Huh?” That jerks her out of her sentimental daze. “Looks like you’re clear.”

There’s no way to put it politely. She’s straight up ogling him as he rinses off. Five damn years…

“Ready to get your back?” And, she just got caught staring.

“Sure.”

His hands are gentle, putting as little pressure on her injured shoulder as possible, growing firmer as they work down her back. She holds her breath as she feels his palms ghost over the swell of her ass, but then he’s back to safer territory. At least, that’s what she thinks until the metal arm snakes around her chest, just below her breasts, holding her in place. His free hand runs down from her sternum to her middle, stopping just above her hips, then- fuck. Nothing. He’s backing away.

“Do you need help with your legs?” No, what she needs help with is located between them. Suddenly, the shower feels far too hot, and she’s desperate to cool off.

“That’s okay.” Her voice is shaky, and she mentally berates herself as she steps under the spray, rinsing away the soap.

She’s not at all sure that her excuse for leaving the shower and going to towel off made any sense, but with a few feet between them, she’s able to breath again. Alright, scratch the whole “shower seduction” idea. It wasn’t that great to begin with. She gets him as hot and bothered as she is, and then what? Shower sex is a slippery affair, and plus there’s the height difference… in the steamed up mirror, she catches sight of him climbing out of the shower and toweling off. Fuck it. What does she have to lose?

“Come here.” As he turns around, she hops up on the counter top (thank fuck Stark went all out and got the sinks that can easily hold the weight of an adult), allowing her towel to slip further down her chest.

She doesn’t miss the way his eyes flit down to her cleavage before settling back on her face as he stands in front of her.

“Yeah, Doll?”

“Let me get your hair. You’ll never get it dry yourself.” She’s really running low on excuses, but if she plays her cards right, she won’t have to keep up this ruse for much longer.

“You know-” She murmurs against his ear as she starts working a towel over his tousled locks, “-if you don’t take me right now, I’m gonna be really offended.”

His head snaps up, and she nearly drops the towel.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, can I?”

She has a smart-ass remark all planned out, but then his lips are pressed against hers, hard, insistent, and her brain completely empties of anything other than pure need. She’s not completely sure how, but somehow the towel wrapped around her torso (it’s so short, it didn’t even cover her ass sitting down) disappears, leaving them chest to chest, both still slightly damp from the shower. On instinct, her legs wrap around his back, bringing them so close together she can feel his cock twitch against her thigh.

“The floor, or-” It’s murmured against her ear between nibbles.

“No. Here.” It’s all she can do to hold back a moan as his whole body rumbles with quiet laughter.

“Someone’s eager.”

She leans back far enough to peer into his eyes.

“And you’re not?” The response is a thumb against her clit, and she has to bite down hard on his shoulder to muffle a yelp.

“If I’d known you were ready, you wouldn’t have gotten any sleep for the past two months.” That would’ve been a very small price to pay.

Five years is a long time, and her body tenses up at the intrusion of his finger inside of her, but she immediately forces her muscles to relax, and within seconds, it’s all she can do not to writhe against him.

“That’s it. Relax. I’ll take care of you.” It’s a lost cause. This is going to be noisy. She hazily thinks to herself that it’s all his fault.

He’s always been one for foreplay, making sure she’ll be comfortable once they actually get around to the main event, but finally enough is enough and, reaching between them, she stills his wrist.

“Get inside me.”

“Are you sure? You’re still tight-” Disentangling one of her arms from around his neck, she gives his hair a sharp tug.

“I’m like you now, remember? You’re not going to break me.”

He pulls back from her, hesitating, eyes darting between her face and the door.

“What?”

“I don’t have-” Oh. She quickly runs the calculations in her head. Given which day of the month it is, the likelihood would be-

“It’ll be fine. Just pull out.” To her relief, he doesn’t argue.

Her breath catches as he pushes inside of her, and if the panting against her neck is anything to judge from, she’s not the only one affected.

“It’s been too damn long.” Despite the situation (or perhaps because of it), she laughs breathlessly.

“You think it’s been too long? Try five fucking years!” His laugh tickles her neck.

“You’re never gonna stop using that one, are you?”

“Nope. I think I’ve earned the right.” After all, he constantly reminds her that he had to wait 98 years to meet the love of his life, so fair is fair.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.”

“Sounds like you just set yourself a challenge.”

“Guess I’d better get to work then.” As he says it, he pulls nearly all the way out only to slam back in again.

It’s primal, the way their bodies move together, desperate for a connection that’s been missing for so long. There’s no room or need for words to be spoken; their gasped breaths and strangled moans say it all. His hand sneaks between them, toying with her nub, and that’s what sends her over the edge. It’s the tipping point for him too because, muffling his cries against her shoulder, he pulls out just in time.

“We shoulda done that before the shower.” She’s still gasping for breath, but it forces a laugh from her. He follows suit, offering her a spare towel to clean herself up.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Barnes.” He shoots her a questioning look as she hops down on shaky legs. “I thought it was good before, but damn.”

He laughs, pulling on his jeans. “I didn’t want to risk breaking the bed. I’m a gentleman like that.” She knows the real concern was her safety, but if she concentrates on that too hard, she’ll start going mushy, and in this instance, crying after sex seems like it would kill the mood.

“You know-” She pulls her t shirt over her head, not bothering with a bra. “-I never really liked the bed I have now anyway.” It’s also really too small for two full-grown adults to share comfortably.

Sliding his duffle bag over his shoulder, he takes her hand. “Then maybe we should go home? Give you an excuse to get a new one?” Before she can answer-

“Go home. Please, I’m begging you, for the love of god, go.” Her eyes dart towards the source of the noise. The door, or more specifically, the other side of it. “Hearing you and the bionic man fucking once was enough. I’m gonna shoot you both and then myself if I have to listen to round two.”

Bucky catches her eye and mouths “Oops!”, sending her into a fit of giggles.

“You know Sam, you could’ve just walked away. You didn’t have to wait outside the door like a creep.” She has to bite her fist to keep from laughing out loud.

“Yeah, trust me. I could hear you from all the way down the hall.”

“Sorry.” She gasps it out between bouts of laughter, and she must be pulling a funny face, because he snickers to.

“No, you’re not.” No, she really isn’t. Just that they got caught.

“We’re heading out. You’ve got the place to yourself.” Giving his hand a tug, she pulls open the door, revealing a flustered Sam.

“I hope you remembered to wipe down the counter, you nasties!”

As they make their way down the corridor, Bucky calls out,

“See you Monday?”

“Yeah. And you’d better be wearing pants!”

#marvel #captain america #the winter soldier #bucky x reader #bucky fic #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes #post endgame #smut #part 2

64 notes · View notes

iguessilovebakugou · 3 years

Text

Beautiful || {Dabi/F!Reader} --- Heathers: The Musical -- Cause I’m a stupid fuck who can’t control themselves

Me: *Doesn’t post anything for 2 years*

Also Me when Dabi is on screen at any point ever: 👁👄👁

I’m also throwing this out there because like...I highly doubt anyone still looks at my blog, so I can hide my fucking shame that I’ve been thinking of this idea on and off for almost 2 years now.

Now...spoilers under the cut because I have to explain some things...

I know they just recently announced that Dabi “died” when he was a kid. So I will have to specify that I’m aging him up to be 17, since that would just...make sense?

-- -- -- --

“Venti salted caramel coldbrew, extra foam.”

There was a raid against villains that day. It had been the only thing anyone could talk about.

You had overheard the editors talking about it as they made their coffee. It was a good thing, right, that they were taking the fight to the bad guys? That not all hope had been lost? Most people just wanted an ounce of good news. Some confirmation that the way of things would hold strong - a nice sugar coat to swallow the hard pill. Though, it seemed like all any report worth their salt - you included - could discuss was the fall of society, what people were going to do if...or...when, rather, the heroes were yanked from their spot light and cast down in the dirt with the rest of civilization.

You weren’t a giant fan of them, considering, but you understood the necessity for someone to hold the mantle - someone who guaranteed the safety the mass populous required to keep them from falling to complete anarchy.

Your phone buzzed as a message appeared at the top, blocking the article’s title from view. Your boss, Fumihiro...again...for the 8th time since you left the office.

[INCOMING MSG] :: Where are you right now?

“Venti salted caramel cold brew, extra foam for...”

Your brows furrowed, your stance shifting from one foot to the other.

[OUTGOING MSG] :: Getting the coffee.

[OUTGOING MSG] :: Why? Want me to get you something?

Heroes. The way of things. Society.

Most people didn’t seem to care too much about it once their phones locked and it was out of their line of sight. When the terrible wasn’t in your face, it was easy to forget that everything hung on a tiny thread that was always threatening to snap. It was hard, you figured, to care about the state of the world when you were more concerned about mundane matters that were pressing in the moment. The rest of the world seems small when you have everything else to pressure you. It was easy to forget.

[INCOMING MSG] :: www.wtxz319.rdio.com/live/93901_error

[INCOMING MSG] :: u need to watch this

You wished you could forget about it. Wished that it hadn’t been looming over your head since...well...

Your thumb hovered over the link, the screen went black and a stream started loading. Some radio podcast? You read the title: ENDEVOUR TAKING ON U-A’S BEST AND BRIGHTEST?! UNLIKELY SON AND FATHER DUO?

“Venti salted caramel cold brew, extra foam!!”

Your heart leapt up into your throat as your eyes met the kid behind the counter. He paused only a moment before using his fingers to nudge your drink closer to edge.

“Oh. Sor-”

“Have a good one.”

You locked your phone as you shoved it into your back pocket, grabbed your drink and made a beeline towards the door. The streets were busy, given the hour. You had just enough time to get back to the office and finish your article on before the evening - just enough time for an editor to look it over, to do some quick fixes and-

You phone buzzed again, and Fumihiro’s face once again flashed on the screen.

[INCOMING MSG] :: Did you see it?

[INCOMING MSG] :: We need to be the first people on this. I don’t care about what else you were working on. This is more important.

You stopped at the crosswalk, staring at your phone and ignoring the woman who had to move around you with a huff. But...you were so close to getting to the meat of what the Safety Commission was hiding. You were so close getting to the heart of it all and, maybe - just maybe - throwing away some of the uncertainty that was hanging over everyone’s head after All Might’s retirement.

After the weeks you spent staking out police stations, hounding hero agencies, digging through dumpsters for any shred of proof the Pros and Police were hiding something - the favors you had to call in for breadcrumbs and scraps alone?! And just like that, he wanted you to drop it all? For what? Some stupid radio show speculation?

You didn’t hesitate to hit the phone icon in the upper corner, stomping towards the intersection.

“Hey-” You cut Fumi before he could even finish your name.

“What do you mean ‘drop the article’? Do you know-”

“I don’t care! This is bigger!!”

“What’s bigger than-”

“Did you even watch the link I sent you? Every station across Japan is getting hacked and it’s been playing on loop for a few minutes now on a few stations. It’s slowly moving to others now.”

“Fumi what the hell are you talking about!?”

“I, TOUYA TODOROKI, WAS BORN THE ELDEST SON OF ENDEVOUR.”

It...was hard to think for a moment. Like a memory, reaching up from the dirt to grab you, to finally take you down to hell.

That voice.

It felt like he was right in your ear, in your head. It had been so long since he had done it to you, since he...no...not him. He was dead. His father confirmed it. You confirmed it. You knew he was gone and there was no bringing him back and -

“I’VE KILLED OVER 30 INNOCENT PEOPLE UNTIL NOW.”

No. No, no no no no it wasn’t in your head - because if it had been, the sound of blood pounding in your ears wouldn’t be able to mask it so well. You froze, your hands shaking as your breath caught in your throat. It couldn’t be him. I couldn’t, it couldn’t...

“You need to get back to the office - I want you on this. I already have a copy of it in case you can’t screen capture it -”

“I WOULD LIKE TO LET EVERYONE KNOW WHY I’D END UP COMMITING SUCH A HIDEOUS ACT.”

Because you’re a fucking monster.

Someone next to you stopped and looked up. Then another and then another. You knew what they were looking at. Who they were looking at. And still, you couldn’t bring yourself to look up. You couldn’t do it - not again. Not now. Not after so many years of him being dead and buried where he deserved to be.

But he always had a hold on you. Something that drew you to him. And so...you looked up.

And as your phone and drink clattered to your feet, you felt the world stop.

“...Touya?”

-- --- --- --- --- ---- ----- ---- --- - - - - - - - - --- - - - - - - - --- --- --

September 1st, 20xx

Dear Diary - I believe I’m a good person. You know? Like, I believe there’s good in everyone. But um...here we are! First day of our Senior Year and I look around at the kids I’ve known for so long and I can’t help but think to myself - what happened?

You hadn’t really wanted to be friends with the Nori’s. Not really. They were stuck up snobs who made everyone below them miserable. But there was a power to them that everyone respected. You had been taught that knowledge held power. And the Nori’s had power because everyone knew if you double crossed them, your life would be a living fucking hell.

“Ah, Nori and Nori.”

You grimaced into your knees as Nori Ueda vomited for a third time since you had been hiding out in the bathroom. The teacher paused before sighing. “And Nori. Perhaps you didn’t hear the bell? You’re late for class.”

“Nori’s sick! We’re helping her.”

You had given the low price of just sitting at their lunch table - once, no talking would be necessary - in the hopes people would leave you alone. It was a simple fact of life: Where there are teenagers, there are winners and there are losers. And you had spent the majority of your High School career on the low end of the totem pole. You were so low, in fact, it seemed talking to you was all but taboo. Anything other than bullying, shoving into lockers, or calling out unfortunate break outs was strictly forbidden by anyone not wanting to suffer the same fate.

But the Nori’s? Solid Teflon: never bothered. Never harassed like you had been. They had a mystique, a pull, a confidence that couldn’t be matched. And you would have killed to be like them.

Perhaps that why you reached into backpack and yanked out the pad of hall pass papers.

You opened the stall door and slipped out, making your wave over to the group. Nori Ueda wiped her mouth. Nori Makino was leaning against the bathroom counter, focusing on making sure her bright red lipstick was perfectly placed. And Nori Kaneko? She was staring down the teacher, hands on her hips, completely equal and completely ready to start a fight.

The teacher laughed, so sure and so pleased that she had been the one to stumble upon the trio in the bathroom. “Not without a hall pass, you’re not. A week’s detention.”

“Uh...ma’am.” Your voice trembled out and reverberated off the tiled wall. It had been louder than you originally intended. Everyone turned quickly to you, only for their attention to be immediately drawn to your outstretched hand you held. “All of us are out on a hall pass...yearbook committee.”

She snatched it from you. For a moment, she simply glanced back between you, the paper, then the Nori’s, then back. After a heavy moment, she nodded. “It looks like you’re all listed.”

Nori Kaneko took it from the teacher, looking it over herself. You tried not to make eye contact as she looked at you. You instead focused on the teacher as she made her way towards the bathroom door. “Hurry up and get where you’re going.”

You heaved a sigh of relief.

“This is an excellent forgery. Who are you?”

You stuttered your name, shrinking under her sharp gaze. “I uh...I crave a boon.”

“What boon?” You weren’t sure if she was simply aggravated you had dared do more than answer the questions she asked or if the annoyance was just a constant manner of speaking for her.

You could forge anything thanks to your quirk - Copy. All you had to do was see someone or something once or twice, focus on it as best as you could and like that, you could be that person. From their mannerisms, their voice, to their penmanship. Its why you stole the pad of hall passes, to skip class whenever you wanted, to have an excuse to be hiding out in the bathroom.

It had worked...sometimes...

You stuttered out your name. You could see the two Nori’s snicker in the background. They had no clue who you were. It was...somewhat insulting. Their “friends” had done their best to make your life a living hell and yet you had flown under their radar.

Your eyes darted between the three of them. Nori Kaneko stared down at you, foot tapping and arms crossed as she took you in. You couldn’t help but feel like a prey animal, stuck in the line of sight of the Apex Predator.

But your mama didn’t raise no quitter. You swallowed and stood up just a bit straighter. “Let me sit with you at lunch, once. No talking necessary. If...I mean, if people think you guys tolerate me, they might leave me alone.”

The laughter was instantaneous. Kaneko looked back to the other two, her laugh light and condescending. The audacity, it said. The gall of you to ask to sit with them, of all people. “Before you answer, I also do permission slips, report cards, and absent notes.”

“What about prescriptions?”

“Shut up, Nori.”

“Sorry, Nori.” Ueda immediately slunk back to the shadows, gaze downcast.

Kaneka stepped forward and you thought for a moment she was going to shove you onto the floor. You braced your feet, mentally preparing yourself for the force of her push...but it never came. She was in front of you for a moment, and then the next, she was at your side. She hummed under her breath and you could feel her eyes trail over your body. Your school uniform a size too big, the bulky cardigan you had worn over it, the scuffed shoes and year old skirt. Your hair was a mess, your face was bare, and you could hear the sound of your knees knocking together in fear.

“For a greasy little nobody,” She started, reaching out a smooth hand and brushing some of your hair back and out of your eyes. “You do have good bone structure.”

Nori Makino perked up, coming over to take a look at you. She took your face in your hand, causing you to tense and try to pull away. For a girl bordering 90 pounds soaking wet, her grip was rather strong. “And a symmetrical face.”

“A...huh?”

“If I took a meat cleaver down the center of your skull, I would have matching halves.” She looked back at you, nodding. “That’s very important.”

“Of course,” Ueda added, glaring at you from over Kaneka’s shoulder. “You could stand to lose a few pounds.”

You opened your mouth to argue, to gain some sense of control over the conversation - but like everything, Kaneko had the power. She gripped your shoulders and turned you towards the mirror. You tensed, feeling her arm wrapped around your shoulders. You watched as she tilted her head this way and that before...smirking. “You know...this might be beautiful. Mascara, maybe some lip gloss and we might have something.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding once she moved away. “I’ll need some blush, Nori, get your brush.”

You were frozen, watching as each item was brought out and laid on the bathroom counter. A new jacket, skirt, perfume, a pallet of...color? You gripped your bag, trying to figure out what on earth was going on.

“Take that thing off - it smells.”

The...thing? You saw the Nori’s staring at you, waiting for you to comply. You glanced down at your cardigan, pausing only a moment to sniff the sleeve. It...wait, did it smell? Would they lie to you? You fumbled with the buttons, sliding it off your shoulders. Makino snatched it out of your hands and before you knew it, it was tossed in the garbage.

“Now, let’s make her beautiful.”

In that moment, you understood what was happening. As Kaneko stepped forward, the smirk on her face, she watched you. This...was an invitation. Into their group. Into the inner sanctum of popularity and the safety it brought. No more bullies, no more humiliation, no more terror.

“Okay?”

“Okay!”

They don’t tell you that being popular is more hell than it’s worth.

You wouldn’t say you and the Nori’s were...friends. It felt more professional than anything else. You had a strict uniform you had to stick to - above what the school required. Any accessory had to be approved by the trio. All meals had to be approved by Ueda - needless to say, the packed lunches your mother made every morning every morning included with a handwritten note never seemed to make the cut. The make up you did every morning never was good enough.

They had high standards, more inline with a sort of...job than actual friendship. In fact, over the past few weeks, it had been hard to tell if the three Nori’s were even friends to begin with. There was definitely a power struggle between Kaneko - the obvious leader - and Ueda - who tried to exert her dominance every chance she could but was shot down by Kaneko. Moniko was harder to figure out, more happy to follow than to lead. She was...nicer than the other two, though you weren’t entirely sure if it was simply because she didn’t want the drama or if she just...simply didn’t understand that what she said held weight beyond being...noises in the air.

Dear Diary - It just seems like our job is being...popular and shit.

“There you are!”

When Kaneko wasn’t around Ueda was hardly as docile. It was hard to tell she had thorns at all when she was standing next to the Cactus that was the head Nori. But any chance she got, she made sure to inform you in less subtle ways that you weren’t welcome among the three of them.

Which was obvious. Your name wasn’t Nori.

You jumped as Ueda’s hand slammed your book shut on your fingers. “Nori wants you in the caf - now.”

Moniko hardly offered you a glance as you flexed the pain from your joints. “Is that so? What for?”

Ueda snorted, “I don’t know. She just said to get your ass there...now.”

You normally punched out for lunch. You sighed, pushing yourself away from your desk and standing up. “How very.”

If the two Nori’s heard your remark, they didn’t say anything. Nor did they relay it to Nori Kaneko when the three of you had reached the cafe.

The Nori table was the nicest table in the entire cafeteria. With the perfect white table cloths, centered exactly in the middle of the room, other kids from the “popular groups” would migrate around it like a port. They would stay for the entire period or would flit about from table to table. And at it’s head, sat Nori Kaneko. She sat with her legs crossed, talking to another student who’s name you couldn’t quite place. You always thought you had been good with names. Turns out, you just didn’t know many people.

“Ah, you’re finally here. Took you long enough.”

When Kaneko had offered the make over and...”admission” into the popular crowd, you had thought maybe you pegged her wrong. Maybe she was just a normal kid, wrapped up in the politics of High School. It didn’t take long for you to realize she was still the same mythic bitch you had thought she had been - you just did things for her now.

“I need you to forge a note - in Souta Ishii’s handwriting.” With a snap of her fingers, the boy she had been talking to reached into his pocket and yanked out a few folded up pieces of paper. You didn’t need to open them to know what they were. But when you did, you couldn’t find yourself surprised at the fact Souta was barely passing most of his classes.

“You’ll need something to write on. Bend over, Nori.”

One day, it would stop shocking you how quickly Ueda would act to Kaneko’s command. You paused, looking to your superior for a moment. “Uh...I could just-”

“You’re not sitting with us.” She answer simply.

“...right.” You took the paper and pen offered by Moniko. You flexed your digits, feeling the flutter under your skin. “What do you want it to say?”

“‘Hey baby girl, I’ve been watching you and thinking about us in the good old days. I hope you can come to my party this weekend. We can talk about us. Love, Souta.’“ She leaned over, watching your hand glide over the paper in barely legible chicken scratch. “Put an XO after the ‘Souta’ too.”

It was gone the second the O was done. She looked over the note again. “Perfect.”

There was a glint in her eye that didn’t...settle well with you. With your quirk, you noticed certain...things about people. Little ticks and tells that everyone has. Ueda scrunched her nose when she didn’t like something - like everyone. Moniko would fidget with her hands when she was nervous - like everyone. And Kaneko would get a little sparkle in her eyes when she was about to ruin someone’s life.

With each fold of the paper, you stomach dropped closer and closer to your feet. “What’s that for, anyway?”

You never really questioned why she did half of what she did. It wasn’t like you could do anything to stop it. “You know how Souta used to hang out with Arisu Nomaru?”

Of course you did. You considered Arisu a friend - a good one. She was the really only nice person at this school. Of course, hanging out with the Nori’s meant that quality time with Arisu was...well, all but non existent at that point. But she assured you, through texts, that everything was fine. It was exciting! That maybe, she could join you and the Nori’s for lunch one day. It wasn’t possible, of course. You never even bothered to broach the subject to the three. Arisu was never going to be in the popular crowd and would be stuck watching them from a distance.

The only other constant in Arisu’s life - aside from her kindness and her exile from popularity - was the undying love she had for Souta Ishii. Ever since...

“We all hung out with Arisu. In kindergarten.”

Kaneko scoffed, looking up at you from under perfect lashes. “Well, we didn’t all kiss her on the soccer field.”

You had to fight your body’s desire to snatch the paper out of Nori’s hand.

Monika gagged next to you. “Oh my god! I forgot Souta kissed Arisu Nomaru. It was disgusting!!”

It took everything you had not to hit her. She met your glare with cool indifference, adding a laugh for good measure.

“Souta! Just the man I wanted to see!”

Souta was a...handsome man to say the least. You didn’t blame Arisu for having the crush she had on him, not by any means. But what he had in looks, he lacked in anything worthy of personality - aside from just being a huge dick. And where there was a Souta there was Jun Goto. His best friend. He was the smartest one out of his group of friends.

Which amounted as much as being the tallest dwarf, but hey - credit where credit was due. They were both smart enough to know to come when a Nori called you - no questions asked. And in a flash, the two pulled themselves up and made a beeline for the table - not after giggling to themselves first.

“Be a sweetie and give this note to Arisu Nomaru for me.”

Dread immediately filled your stomach. “What? No!”

“What the hell are you talking to Arisu for?” Jun demanded, reaching for the note.

“Don’t read it! She was having a heavy flow, and wanted some advice from Gyno.”

“That’s fucking disgusting!” You would have thought the boy had been burned with the way he flicked the paper onto the table, back away and retreat to the table he had come from.

“Yeah, I’ll take that.” You snatched the note up, gripping it tightly in your hand.

It had been a while since anyone had stared at you with such venom. If looks could kill, Kaneko would have you dead to rights. Her eyes darkened as she glared at you, hands slowly moving to her hips.

But you weren’t going to allow yourself to back down. Not over this. This was too much. “Arisu has had a crush on Souta for 13 years. This...” You waved the note. “This would kill her.”

It was quiet for a moment - and in that moment, you realized you made the biggest mistake of your fucking life. Nori smiled, stepping forward with a soft chuckle. “I didn’t realize we had a problem.”

“We’re not but-”

“Are we going to have a problem?”

You faltered for a moment.

“No, I just-”

“So you have a bone to pick.”

“No, Nori I just think you’re bigger than-”

“You know, when I dragged you out of the dredges of inferiority, I was shocked how far you would go.”

Before you knew it, she had succeeded in pushing you down onto the bench. Your elbow slammed into the top, causing you to cry out. Immediately, all eyes were on you. “So you wanna tell me, why now, are you pulling on my dick?”

“Nori! I’m not trying to argue with you! Just doing this-”

“I know!” She snatched the note from your hands. “It will ruin her. That’s the fucking point.” She offered the note to Ueda, who happily took it. You watched helplessly as she skipped back over to Souta. While he didn’t seem too pleased to be the one to deliver the note, he begrudgingly got up from his spot and headed to the corner of the cafeteria.

"You still have a lot to learn about how things work around here." You swallowed, digging your nails into the palm of you hand. "This whole school is my own personal candy store. I do what I want, when I want."

You watched as he slammed a fist on the table, causing Arisu to jump. She froze, stuttered, and then almost dropped the note when he tossed it to her. Your heart hammered - maybe if you got there fast enough, you could stop her from reading it. You could distract her and -

You were forced back down in your spot and perfectly manicured nails dug into your skin. “You got a good thing going here,” Kaneko stated, very matter of factly. “You could join the team, or you could bitch and moan.” You winced when her nails dug deeper into your skin. “But if you test me one more time, you will end up just. Like. Her."

Ueda grinned, an ugly, spiteful thing. "Welcome to our Candy-"

"Shut up, Nori!" All three of you flinched as your leader stood. Fixing her skirt, she offered you a sweet smile that made your stomach roll. "We'll see you after school."

They left you in that spot for a long time, staring at your hands. It wasn’t until you felt a tap on your shoulder that you finally looked up. And there above you was Arisu. She grinned and offered you the note. “Look! Look what Souta wrote me! He invited me to his party this weekend.”

You stared at the paper, then back up at her. You tried to smile - though it didn’t look like she noticed. “This proves he’s been thinking about me!”

She...seemed happy. And you knew in this school that happiness was hard to come by. Especially with people like Nori’s. You opened your mouth, before closing it again. You stared at that letter, at the handwriting that perfectly matched the papers left on the table. You could tell her, warn her it was a prank. Just...break her heart and tell her Souta wanted nothing to do with her.

“...color me stoked!” You grinned.

You were happy when she left. With a heavy sigh, you buried your face in your hands and ignored the bell above your head. You listened to the shuffling of your peers as they made their way towards the doors.

What the hell were you doing? What the fuck did you just do? Arisu had always been a good friend to you and you threw her under the bus? For what? Popularity? Safety?

“You shouldn’t have bowed down to those dogs. They’ll eat that girl alive.”

You had grown used to most voices, labeling them by people who was more likely to hit you or simply ignore your presence entirely.

But his voice? You had never heard that voice before. It was pleasant in it’s own way - low, guttural, and deceptively indifferent to the advice he was giving you. You sat up, turning to look over your shoulder. Your eyes trailed up to stark white hair. Bright blue eyes stared down at you, hands in his pockets. Your breath caught in your chest and your mind scrambled for a response. “I’m...I’m sorry, what?”

He watched you for a moment. Sizing you up. “Look,” He continued, “You clearly have a soul. You just need to work a little harder to keep it clean.” With a final shrug, he turned on his heel and made his way for the door. "We're all marked for evil."

Did...did he just...quote at you? It took you a moment for your mind to catch up to what he said. “Okay, don’t just quote Baudelaire at me and walk away. Excuse me?”

You scrambled to your feet. He stopped and turned to look at you. He didn’t move to say anything else however, leaving you in charge of continuing the conversation. You looked him over, took in his long, lanky form, the mess of white hair, they...very pretty eyes. You cleared your throat and motioned to him. “I...uh...I didn’t catch your name.”

He waited a moment before shrugging. “That’s cause I didn’t throw it.”

You watched him turn back around and make his way towards the door, mouth hanging down to your chest. It didn’t take long for you to realize how hot your cheeks were burning, how fast your heart was racing. You couldn’t help as your lips broke out into a smile.

You swore he stole another gaze at you him slip out into the hall.

So yeah. I’ll edit this later. Promise.

How did everyone enjoy their holiday season?

59 notes · View notes

angst-fairygodmother · 3 years

Text

Inspiration (Nathan Young x Reader)

A/N: I’ve been thinking more about my headcanon that Nathan has some sort of secret artistic talent. And then I had a flash of inspiration. Word Count: 1902 Content Warnings: drinking/alcohol, criminal activity, mention of animal abuse Cross-posted to AO3: here

“Hey,” Nathan said, waving his hand in front of your face, making you jump. “Earth to Y/N!”

“Sorry, what?” you said, slightly embarrassed that you had been zoning out.

“Am I borin’ ye?” he asked, pretending to pout.

“No of course not,” you were quick to assure him, before pausing a moment. “Well…”

He gasped.

“No! You’re not boring me. It’s just…we are just sitting around drinking stolen, bad, vodka,” you took a swig of the bottle in question and grimaced at its rubbing alcohol aftertaste.

“We could do somethin’ else,” he said, smirking and waggling his eyebrows before plucking the vodka out of your hands and chugging some.

You laughed and rolled your eyes, leaning over to punch him lightly in the shoulder.

“I was thinking more like...how do you feel about petty crime and vandalism?”

He gave you a curious look. “I’d say I’m a fan.”

“Good,” you said, taking out your phone to send a quick text to your friend to see if they could drop you some supplies. “Because I noticed a lovely barren expanse of walls on my walk over here that are just begging to be graffitied.”

“I’ve never done it,” he said with a shrug, “but I’m game.”

“Well,” you said, digging through the shopping bag you had found in the open boot of an abandoned car, right where you were expecting it, “El really came through with the supplies and the world is our canvas.”

You threw your hands in a broad gesture, before planting your fist on your hip. “And by that, I mean these two walls are our canvas.”

Nathan laughed, shaking his head wryly at you. “Lovely. So, what d’ we do?”

“Oh.” Your face fell slightly. You didn’t really know how to explain it to him. You had been painting street art for so long that it just came naturally to you. “Um...I guess you just, pick a can of paint and go for it. Paint whatever you’re feeling or thinking about. Or just your initials or something in a cool way. Whatever you want.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should watch ya for a bit, get some inspiration,” he drawled, giving you a cocky half-smile.

“I...uh...sure, if you want.” You shifted awkwardly, trying to ignore his gaze that felt like it was burning into the back of your neck as you riffled through the options to find the color you wanted. Stepping back, you looked critically at the wall, calculating it’s dimensions and what to start with. Satisfied that you had everything mapped out in your head, you set to work on the outline.

Nathan watched you work, your whole body moving fluidly in a way that sent his thoughts racing (not there was much you could do that didn’t), your brow knitted in fierce concentration. Once you had a vague outline of whatever you were designing, which he couldn’t even begin to guess, you shifted your focus to each individual section and detail. Occasionally, you would take a step back to see how the whole thing was coming together, tilting your head one way or the other, tongue poking out between your teeth slightly. He had never seen you so free and relaxed.

Suddenly, inspiration struck him and he practically dove into the shopping bag, rooting about for what he’d need. Taking a couple of the cans, he ducked around the corner to get started, a strange creative fire lighting in him.

“Finally come up with something?” you called softly, teasing.

“Yeah, yeah I did,” he said, almost absently. “But it’s a surprise, so no peekin’.”

“Ooh, mysterious.”

“Ye gotta promise ye won’t look til I say, Y/N,” he insisted.

“Alright,” you frowned, surprised he was getting so tetchy. “Cross my heart, I won’t peek. I’m pretty busy over here anyway.”

About an hour later, you put the final touch on your piece, your artist’s mark at the bottom so that anyone who knew anything would know who painted it. Stepping back, you smiled, wiping the slight sheen of sweat from your brow, formed by your exertion despite the cool night.

“You almost done, Nathan?” you called, surprised that he had been practically silent since he started working.

“Oh, yeah,” he called back distractedly. “Nearly. But I’ll come over there.”

“Sure,” you answered, puzzled by his odd behavior.

While you waited, you started gathering up the spray paints, putting any cans that still had paint in them back in the bag and tossing the empties in a nearby bin.

“Wow,” you heard Nathan say, making you jump as he appeared behind your back.

He was looking up at your art piece in awe. You had painted one of your signature designs: a laughing skull with flowers spilling from its open mouth. This time, the flowers were marigolds and foxgloves, and you had added a twist in the form of literal emerald eyes. You were quite proud of it, and Nathan seemed impressed.

“You like it?” you asked sheepishly, the heat of a blush creeping across your face.

“I love it,” he exclaimed, pulling out his phone to snap a grainy picture of it. “Make a cool shirt or somethin’. Or a pirate tattoo. Very punk.”

You rolled your eyes and stuck your tongue out at him. “It’s been an...evolving design since I was like 14. Leave me alone.”

“I’m not messin with ya, Y/N. I really like it.”

“Well, thank you.” You smiled and he grinned back, and for a moment you were lost in that. And then you remembered his very secret work.

“So Hotshot, do I get to see yours now?” you asked.

He jumped, startled and then shrugged, mumbling. “‘F you want ta.”

“Of course I do,” you said, taking a step toward the corner.

“No wait! If it’s a surprise, I should cover your eyes and lead you to it.”

Knowing him, you were suspicious that he had some prank or ulterior motive in mind, but you nodded your ascent. He moved up behind you, pressing his chest against your back and curling his long fingers over your eyes.

“Can ya see anything?” he asked.

“Nope. Totally blind.”

Slowly he walked you across the gravel ground. Once you stopped, he started shifting you around by little steps in one direction or another, as if trying to get you into exactly the right spot.

“Alright,” he said, a nervous tick to his voice. “Ta-dah!”

He dramatically uncovered your eyes to show what he'd been working on.

“Oh,” you breathed, stunned.

Staring back at you from the wall were a pair of eyes caught in mid-wink. Your eyes. Captured in exquisite detail, right down to the scar in your brow, earned as a child trying to stop a group of older boys from dropping a paper sack full of kittens into the drainage ditch during a downpour.

“Nathan.” You felt your heart swell at the level of dedication, the obvious emotion he’d put into this, and tried to keep your voice from breaking.

He scuffed the toe of his dirty sneakers in the gravel, looking down and away sheepishly.

“I know. It ain't very good and it's jus' yer eyes instead o’ yer whole face but I thought this way you wouldn't get busted. And ye said t' paint what I was thinkin of…”

You turned to face him, reluctantly pulling your eyes away from the work of art before you. Tucking a hand gently under his chin, you drew his gaze back to you.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, making sure he could see the sincerity in your expression.

He blushed, barely noticeable under the dim lights. “Ya think?”

You nodded, snaking your arm around his neck and stepping closer. His hand dropped to your waist as if on instinct.

“And very sweet. Some might say romantic even.”

“Hey, don’t go spreading those lies! I have a reputation to maintain ya know,” he joked, obviously trying to hide his discomfort at your praise.

“Nah, I like keeping that secret all to myself better anyway,” you teased, smirking before stretching up on your toes to press a teasing kiss to his lips.

He groaned, pulling you closer and kissing you back, tongue trailing over your lip almost immediately. You parted to let him explore your mouth, toying with an errant curl at the nape of his neck. Slowly he guided you backward, only to suddenly jerk you to the side, accidentally biting your lip in the process.

“Ow,” you whined, pulling back and bringing a finger to your lip to see if you were bleeding. “What was that?”

“Didn’t want to mess up the art,” he explained. “Or my jacket.”

“What do you mean?” you frowned.

He looked at you incredulously. You glanced down, realizing that in your haste to get ready, you had indeed pulled on his signature plaid-lined black garment.

“Oh,” you said softly before turning your face back up toward his with a smirk and a shrug to rival his most unapologetic expressions. “Oops.”

“Ye’re lucky ye’re so damn cute, or I might be mad at ya,” he teased.

“I’m sure I can think of some way to make it up to you,” you hummed, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned at you, and you stretched up to kiss him again, but just as your lips met, a strong, chill wind cut whistling through, causing you both to shiver.

“Maybe we should take this back to my place?” he asked, breath ghosting across your face.

“I like the sound of that,” you smiled back.

Quickly, slid the bag of remaining paint cans under the nearby dumpster for your friend to pick up later. All traces of your presence in the area (except of course the now much more beautiful wall) removed, you turned back to Nathan, ready to head out. He draped an arm around your shoulders and you happily leaned in to the gesture, tucking yourself against his side. As you walked back toward the community center, your head resting on his shoulder, you thought of something.

“Nathan,” you asked, slightly hesitant, fearful that he might put up walls against you again. “I thought you said you’d never done this before?”

“I haven’t,” he answered casually.

“Then how were you so good at it? The level of detail and real, genuine artistry…”

He shrugged, taking his arm from around you to fumble in his pockets for a cigarette and a lighter, the latter of which he couldn’t seem to find. You reached into the pocket of your jeans, holding out yours and letting him light the end of the cig with it. The distraction passed, you looked back at him as he looked pointedly away and took a long drag.

“I dunno. I mean it’s not that different from doodlin’ on paper with a pen or whatever, right?” he said finally with another shrug.

“That was more than ‘doodling’, Nathan,” you said, plucking the cigarette from his lips and placing it between your own.

He pouted at you as you took a drag and offered it back. His lips brushed against your fingers as he took it back, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Guess I’m just a man of mystery,” he said vaguely, draping his arm back around your shoulder.

“I guess so,” you murmured, not voicing how much you look forward to finding them all out.

#I think street art is really cool and I envy the artists' talent #so I made the reader one #because I can live vicariously #it is not however what she was busted for that got her put on community service #also let's assume that this is far enough from the center that they won't be assigned to clean it up in the morning #Nathan Young x Reader #Misfits fic

64 notes · View notes

im-just-velvet · 3 years

Text

A Big Apology

This may be seem a bit old but I feel like now that I’m older, I’m starting to understand this whole drama I went when I was 13… I was a pretty dumb kid playing victim card. I understand that I might get cancelled for this and for anyone who will unfollow me after reading this. You may start reading…

||MORE||

—Start of Story—

When I was 13, on Febuary 2018. I made a confession blog called @Koopaling-Confessions (now deleted).

As much I enjoy making confessions, edits, and shitposts over there. I did make a rule about no NSFW. Unfortunately I was raided by some very very VERY NSFW asks and confessions. I deleted them all of course but when I was raided again, I decided to give the anons a boot and say “No NSFW” as an answer.

And with that over with. I decided to continue the blog. Until when it got some fame. Apparently people started being sarcastic in the comments, saying, “I don’t like this”, “How do I delete your blog?”, “I want your location, we just want to talk.”

Although it was said with sarcasm. 13 year old me didn’t get the jokes. That’s because I was in a country where memes/sarcasm isn’t used in a joking manner. Thus me, getting offended, started to talk back, though the people said “oh my god! it’s a joke!”. Of course, I felt like I was assuming and just left it there.

That’s when I got anon hate. Jumping to conclusions, I started to accuse some of the few “haters” (the people who joked on my stuff) and then some drama happened. I did apologize to the people who I wrongly accused.

After a two week hiatus. I went back to work on the blog. When I posted a confession saying “X Character is hot” and the character’s head was on some stock image of a model in a beach shirt with his abs showing. He did have shorts on, nothing too NSFW.

But someone jokingly in the comments said. “Hey @/thisperson is this NSFW?” and the person they tagged liked the post. Being a dumb 13yo who can’t take a joke. I decided to delete the post take another hiatus. I was moving after all, so I felt like this moment is when I went on another hiatus.

On June of 2018. The @Koopaling-Confessions blog was no longer active. Due to not just the loss of interest with the fandom but as well as the drama I caused myself into. Thus, the blog has been deleted and I moved to CupheadConfessions.

Looking back at this in 2021, now 16, I realize that I was at fault. False accusations, childish behavior, edgy shit, and not getting a single joke. From what I learned. I understand that in Western cultures, memes and sarcasm is used as jokes. Everything is not a tele-novel-a where the protagonists always win in the drama. Self-pity is a horrible coping mechanism. And I was probably too young for Tumblr at that time.

I was pretty stupid at that time. In the next few weeks, I may have gotten some anon hate in my main blog. However, I decided to move on by erasing my name in the Koopaling fandom. For those 3 years, I was never heard, seen, or drew any art of them again.

—End of Story—

From my realization from looking back. I realize that maybe I should sometimes take the blame and probably not run a confession blog at 13. I was fame greedy at that time. Not just for recognition, but for art too.

I now want to apologize for the people who I wrongly accused, I’m very sorry for accusing you of being a hater. I didn’t understand sarcasm as a joke. I know you don’t use Tumblr anymore, but I understand that you may not forgive my actions.

To anyone else reading this. Thank you for taking your time to read this as a whole.

#long post

6 notes · View notes

dailyrov · 3 years

Text

Well, life’s been stressful, et cetera and so on. Welcome to 2021, which will hopefully be better than 2020, but boy-oh-boy is the bar low.

I was minding my own business today when some kind person dropped a comment on one of my ‘fics (If It Takes a Lifetime). I replied to them and then read through my other replies, relived the story a bit...you know, Something Fanfic Authors Do. I was reminded of something I wanted to post here for a while, but struggled to put into concise wording: my relationship to the series.

My first foray into The Rose of Versailles was in 2008, all thanks to a certain @kippielovesyou who baited me into watching the anime because she claimed the main couple had some things in common with a pairing I was super into at the time. I got hooked. I marathoned the anime and went to work after episode 39 without having gotten any sleep at all. Shift start was at 6:30am. The assembly line started moving. One of my coworkers nudged me. “Hey,” they said. “Did something bad happen? You look miserable.”

I wasn’t miserable so much as emotionally drained. “Just tired,” I said, and focused on my work for the next 8.5 hours. I wasn’t about to tell them that my favorite characters in a television show just died.

I went home and watched the 40th episode. I felt weird afterward. Still drained. Almost...empty.

Not angry. Not betrayed. Just...this really strange sort of blankness that I had rarely felt upon reaching the ending of anything. I recalled a similar feeling at the end of the 1989 film Glory, but no other piece of media could come close to touching it. I would almost call it peace, though the unsettling kind. I’m not supposed to feel peaceful about a tragic ending, right?

But I was hooked.

I downloaded the entire series on a torrent, something I hadn’t done before OR SINCE. I burned it to discs and mailed them to Wisconsin so that my oldest internet friend (now husband) could watch it. He cried at the end. I forced my sister to sit down with me to watch the whole thing. She cried, too. I wrote fanfiction. I drew fanart (it was bad, don’t @ me). I screamed about it to countless friends on Livejournal. I recommended the series to everyone I knew and a lot of those people joined me in writing fanfiction.

What a time to be in fandom!! We flooded the fandom with regular English fanfic for the first time ever. The fandom was hopping. I met two amazing women (Kasia and Loulou) who spoiled me rotten for fanfiction reviews for the rest of my life. I bought the French manga and read the entire thing. I fell in love with one specific page (you get one guess as to which that is lol). I distinctly remember crying twice while reading the manga in a language I could only stumble through: first when Andre tried to count the stairs in the house, miscounted, and tripped, and secondly when Oscar threw herself onto her mother’s lap crying that she was a human being with feelings.

I still get emotional thinking about these scenes, particularly the latter one. The Rose of Versailles got me through so much. I honestly don’t know where I would be, or who I would be, without it. There is no way Kippie could have known that I would need RoV. For her, it was as simple as, “I enjoyed it, and I think you would, too. Because shipping.” And yeah, I’m a shipper who did enjoy it for that, but it became SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT TO ME.

I don’t want to spit the whole long tale out here, but shortly after I obsessed over RoV, I had my own identity crisis. It was a tough time for me, but it also cemented my future as an essayist who focuses primarily on the literary device known as Identity. When I went to college in 2012 that was my focus in literature, and nearly every essay I wrote I chose to explore it in some fashion. Identity. What makes a character, what shapes them, what changes or moves or motivates them. RoV motivated that love for Identity and my essays motivated the English Department chair to give me a selective scholarship (that they chose, it was never applied for). The reasoning they cited to me was that I had shown a rare passion for literature and the characters within. For the first time in my life I felt validated in my obsession with Identity.

I was in my early 20s when I first saw The Rose of Versailles, and something about the character of Oscar spoke to me, but I couldn’t quite name it. I felt that I understood her, and not just for being a woman working in a man’s field. There was something else. But what? I couldn’t figure it out.

A few years later I started seeing an uptick in romantic and sexual identities online. Demisexual. Asexual. Aromantic. Greyace. Something clicked—for me, personally, as well as my understanding of the characters. And years later, Tumblr flooded with information about ADHD presenting in women, and autism in ladies. And my brain went, OH!!!! OH!!! OH I SEE!!

I know a lot of people love Oscar for their own reason, and I think that’s probably one of my favorite things about the series: that the main character is almost universally loved by everyone, and that she receives this love no matter how the individual fans choose to view her.

Something specifically that bothered me many years ago was a certain persistent disdain for Oscar not returning André’s feelings earlier. She was blind, she was stupid, she was mean, and the worst of all: she was Bad for these reasons.

My God, when I tell you now that the scene of Oscar falling onto her mother’s lap in tears over being treated like a doll made me cry, I know why. I spent years of my life wondering why I was born the way I was. I agonized over it. I didn’t want to be “normal.” I was happy being me. But nobody else was. My sister once accused me of not having feelings. I think of that moment every time I see Oscar struggling in RoV. She’s a private person who struggles privately, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel things. And there Oscar was in the manga, having lived her life the best way she knew how, only to have her father pull the rug out from under her without deigning to even explain himself to her. Suddenly, she was not allowed to have an identity of her own. Suddenly, she was not good enough as she was.

Do you know what marriage would do to someone like Oscar, particularly at that point in her life? It would kill her. How terrifying a fate to face, no control over her own life, or feelings, or even her own body.

There’s an important scene in the manga and anime where André considers that Oscar appears “as cold as ice” to others, but personally recognizes the fire of her passionate heart and finds that endearing about her... I always felt that he liked that about her because it was a side of her only he understood, only he recognized for what it was. Like she trusted that part of her in his presence and knowing this helped that love grow. I still think that’s true.

But beyond that, I think André is on the ace spectrum himself, and understands better than anyone how Oscar’s feelings work. (There’s so much more to it than that, but I’ll leave it there for now...)

The part of the fandom that felt Oscar was selfish or uncaring for not loving André back sooner...miss the point, I think, of her character, and of the romance of the series. It’s not that Oscar is unfeeling. It’s not that she can’t love André. It’s not even that she’s choosing not to love him. In my opinion, it’s that she’s ace and the way she shows her love and care is not only different than a person might expect it to be, but also difficult to express—though whether this is due to her upbringing or her romantic identity (or both!) is up to interpretation.

More importantly, she does not owe him herself.

(And, I think beyond all this, usually people who feel this way really adore André, and while that’s great, I think they’re ignoring a key component of his character, which is: he loves Oscar and never even once so much as suggests that she owes him anything.)

Anyway, that was a long post to say: I view Oscar as ace and ADHD and I wish I could go back to 2008 me and tell myself about both of these things, because it would have saved me a lot of worry and heartache all those years ago. But it’s okay, anyway, because I still felt that connection to Oscar, even without the specific words, and I knew André loved Oscar anyway, even though he knew she was different.

If you’re reading this now, in 2021 or later, I hope you’ve been able to find a similar connection to one or several of the RoV characters. It’s not often we get to see slices of ourselves in the media, written in a sympathetic and loving way. Having that made all the difference to me when I needed it the most. ♥ And I hope it’s had a positive impact on your life, too.

#The Rose of Versailles #rov #essays from versailles #Oscar Francois de Jarjayes #tl;dr: oscar is such a good character

28 notes · View notes

franeridart · 4 years

Text

Anon said: How are you just like "Oh these are just some warm up sketches" and post a full finished piece, while I'm over here sketching a triangle person and calling it a finished piece.

I dunno if this was a legit question asking for a legit answer, but I do happen to have a legit answer so I might as well give it! If I wanted to go into detals with it it’d take me forever though, so allow me to separate it into two points to make it easier

I learnt how to be very fast in putting down my lines and trained myself into not overthinking every single dot I put down. This took about five or six years of drawing daily and a whole life of drawing occasionally before then, because to do so you need to reach a point where you’re drawing something you’ve drawn so many times that by now your hand sort of goes without you needing to think about it much, so it’s not a fast process, but boy is it worth it. Mostly learning how to not overthink it, overthinking it used to be 90% of my time spent on a drawing and dear god did it suck the joy out of everything I drew

I have two very distinctive ways of approaching a drawing, one where I actually put effort in it and the other where I just want to let the squiggles out of my pen, and warm ups are the second one - the lack of effort I’m putting in can have different forms and show in different ways, so a warm up could be a fully colored piece as it could be just a pencil doodle, depending on where and on what exactly I’m being lazy: it could be the type of tool I’m using that allows me to draw without having to line, it could be a very tiny canvas that lets me avoid a ton of details a big canvas would demand. I might be cutting the time I usually put in making sure my anatomy is correct, I might be using a shading technique that takes a tenth of the time my usual one would, I might be using a style that’s just easier and faster to draw, or drawing characters I’ve drawn a trillion times in extremely generic poses and clothes. There’s a lot of things that I can do to make things faster for me! It’s skills you gain as you draw a lot - you learn how to draw things the hard way, and then you realize that along the way you learnt how to do them the easy way too

hope this actually answers your question! If it was a question at all lol if it wasn’t then sorry for rambling, please pretend I didn’t say anything hahaha

Anon said: I love your newest comic!!! So adorable!! I noticed Bakugou's mom does the affectionate hair rustle thing to him in the manga/anime, do you think Bakugou subconsciously does the same to show affection cause of it? I love the way you draw faces and poses, it's so expressive!!

Ahhhhh thank you so much!!! And yeah, it might be! After all we do take a lot from the people we live with even without realizing, and he’s already so similar to his mom!

Anon said: I saw your bakushima comic from October 9th (2019) where Bakugo falls asleep studying and Kirishima sets him down on the table properly and it was so soft my heart is crying

;;;;; !!!!!!!! I’m glad you liked it!! <3<3

Anon said: If it not to much, could I possibly get a Ochamina doodle pls? I just love some sweet lesbeans 👉👈

Awww I’m not taking requests right now, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time I want to doodle and don’t know what!

Anon said: I love your art! I envy you.

Please don’t! There’s a lot of reasons why being me isn’t a lot of fun - if it’s just my skill you envy, then all you gotta do is draw a lot!

Anon said: i just went through your entire kiribaku tag and omg it was beautiful seeing the progression in your art skills but still keeping the same funny/cute/heartwarming/etc traits you thought up for their dynamic!! i hope that makes sense haha !! love your art keep it up

It does make sense!!! Thank you so much both for looking through the whole tag and for thinking so, it means a lot to me!! ;;; <3<3

Anon said: Hey fran! I hope you're doing well(especially with quarantine and all)!! I really love your anatomy and how fluid and stylistic it can be! It's super fun to look at! I wanted to ask you if you ever did any in depth studies on anatomy? Like muscles and bones. I've heard a lot of artists mention the necessity of studying bones/muscles, i'd really like to know your opinion on the subject

Ahhh god thank you so much!! And... hmm let’s see if I can word this properly and have it make sense - always keeping in mind that this is just my opinion, of course!

If all you want to do is to draw, then all you need to do is to pick up your pencil and draw - it’s really that easy as far as I’m concerned. You don’t need to know anatomy in depth to just draw, everyone has seen a person, everyone knows how a person looks. That is, if all you want to do is to draw for the sake of drawing. If you want to draw an anatomically correct looking human being, though, you do need to know how anatomy works - and the deeper you’ll go into studying it the more correct your people will look. It’s kind how everyone can draw a bicycle, but if you want to draw a realistic bicycle you’re gonna need to look up references for it, you know? It’s all on the level at which you’re interested in drawing, the more technically skilled you want to be the more you’ll have to study

As for my personal experience with this, I hate studying with a passion. Studying puts a damper on my enjoyement of everything, and drawing isn’t excluded from this - you put a book in front of me expecting me to study it and suddenly I never want to pick up a pencil again. This means that I never sat down and studied anatomy in depth and all in one go just to learn how to draw a human being, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t, slowly and now and again and in bits and pieces, study parts of the body to get a better understanding of it. I know better about the skeleton than I do about muscles, and I still have enough to learn about everything that anyone who’s studied anatomy properly would find a trillion mistakes in everything I draw, but my way of going about drawing has always been and always will be putting my enjoyement of it first and foremost, so I’m not interested in putting myself through a tour-de-force to learn everything there is to know about anatomy just to make my doodles look appealing to someone with a medical degree haha I’m just doing me, and when the mood is right I look up how to properly draw something, but until then I just do it as best as I can with my limited knowledge, being fully aware that what I’m producing is far from accurate but being willing to make that compromise for my own comfort

So that’s my opinion on it lol it all boils down to how important it is for you to know how to properly draw the human body - of course it’s gonna look more professional and better if you’ve studied it, but everyone has their own priorities, you know?

Anon said: Thank you for your hard work, seeing an upload from you is so nice, and the colors are so pretty

Thank you so muuuuccchhhhh!!!! TTATT <3<3<3

Anon said: Opinions on Tokoyami Fumikage 💕

One of my top faves in the whole manga, actually! I have a drawing in the making of him, I should get back to it..........

Anon said: HOLY SHIT FRAN THE TOES HOW YOU DRAW THE TOES SO WELL FEET ARE THE DEATH OF ME AND YOU’RE OVER HERE DRAWING TOES THEY’RE SO GOOD PLEASE TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!! -❤️

Thank you!!!!!!!! So pretty much my way of learning this specific skill was being obsessed with elves when I was fifteen and wanting to draw them all the time and also for whatever reason being convinced that they were not supposed to wear shoes so I just drew a lot of feet with references and tutorials and stuff till I could draw my elves properly. Which isn’t necessarily what you need to do to learn how to draw feet, but, I mean, it worked for me lol

Anon said: I love ur Bnha ships and all but what would u do if some of them didn’t become canon??

Oh, I actually don’t care about that at all? I don’t expect most of them to become canon anyway - like, ochadeku sounds reasonable and kamijirou seems to be getting there, but everything else I never even considered it as an actual possibilily. I don’t really ship because I want to see my ships become canon, I just like the potential in what I can make with them? If that makes sense? They’re just fun to think about and I like making fancontent, that’s all there is to it really haha honestly if I had my way no ship would ever be canon ever ha ha ha

Anon said: Slep is for the wek

No actually sleep is for Frans who want a chance at getting up tomorrow morning without an headache for once, so I should do that and go to sleep already lmao

#fran answers #a couple of long ones in this one !!!!!#feeling blabbery tonight

281 notes · View notes

bbhyeoliskooks · 4 years

Text

・●○ 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎 ○●・

According to Yeonjun, the two of you can only stay as friends with benefits.

―●○◎◎○●――●○◎◎○●―

Pairing: Yeonjun x Reader (gender-neutral)

Genre: 3 cups of angst and two sprinkles of fluff !

Warnings: A bit of cursing, a BIT sexual (hickies and all?), passing out

Song: Stay

(Ooh, this one was fun and interesting to write !! Although, it kinda hurt a little bit, if I do say so for myself. Also, should I write Soobin’s pov? I think it would be quite interesting as I have just gained a few ideas.)

―●○◎◎○●――●○◎◎○●―

“Good morning, gorgeous~”

You were met to a comforting sight in the early dawn of Yeonjun delicately cupping your cheek. Once he noticed that you were awake, he sweetly placed a blissful kiss against your forehead while you relished in the feeling of your love seemingly being returned. You wanted to live in this moment forever, here in his arms just because this was the only way you would know his love was there.

He, himself was irreplaceable... no other person made you feel like this in the last 10 years since meeting him.

Like a pair, he was the flame while you were the candle. He was the Christmas mug, and you were the scorching hot chocolate. He was the heavy bricks while you were the strong rooftop. There were so many things that you could compare but in all of those examples, you needed him- easily more than he needed you.

The other thing that you could complain about though, or in this relationship with him was the label.

Friends with benefits.

It was extremely cliche that you wanted to choke from how spot on it was. One had feelings for the other while one didn't, inevitably breaking their heart or admitting that they had the same problem. The only thing about it was that you were sure that he didn't... well, love you back.

It seemed that shutting your mouth was the best option in this mess.

Effortlessly you could say to anyone who wondered that he was just your best friend. However there were so many things to keep in the dark. If you could name a few it would be hiding your tears whenever he left those passionate marks on your neck, letting his name roll out endlessly whenever he hit the right spot, and even telling you that he loves you while you incoherently mumbled in ecstasy that you felt the same way too...

He said that he loved you, that’s all you’ve wanted all this time! He loves you, so... why are you extremely greedy to reach for so much more?

The reason was simple.

It just... isn’t like that.

Sure he gifted you feelings that no other boy could give you, but this was only in a beneficial way.

He wanted sex, you wanted love.

There was a clear difference on so many levels that left your mental state shattered, not to mention the love you had built up for him.

Every single week this happened, you had to take it, or else you reckoned that your friendship with Yeonjun would be irreparably destroyed.

Confusion drew over you each time when he acted like he was in love with you. That was the one time where the two of you were alone... and the first time he took you to heaven.

Perhaps you went wrong with hiding one day, being much too obvious in front of him. You figured out that he found out that you loved him and slowly took advantage of it, telling you things you wanted to hear whenever he wanted something.

Maybe it was the way his eyes lit up whenever he saw you, which you simply thought he um- liked you, but it seemed that it obviously wasn’t the case.

You shook off all of those negative thoughts, trying to focus on the good things that were coming at the moment.

“Hey, can I ask you a question? It isn’t that bad, if you’re worried.”

Yeonjun let out a low hum in his chest to show that he was listening. He drew little yet gentle circles on your shoulder that had you swooning from inside. You closed your eyes to forbid yourself from melting into his touch, knowing that your thought process would be cut off if you sunk further down.

You breathed in deeply. “W-will you eat breakfast with me today? I mean, I just figured that-” the sound of the fumbling sheets snapped you out of your little daze and you shot up, panic setting in your nerves again.

No, no! He can’t leave! Everything was so perfect!

He arose from his spot on the warm bed, unintentionally- or purposefully extracting out your heart in his warm hands. You jumped out as well, immediately interlocking your hands with his.

“Wait, Yeonjun! You’re not going to stay?”

Oh, wow...

I guess that hit a sensitive nerve. You watched as he stopped dead in his tracks right next to the door frame. It seemed that he did not want to face the courage to look at you in the eye this time.

“I told you this over and over again, Y/N. I can’t, okay? How many times do I have to repeat it for you?” His voice was disturbingly calm, causing your heart to squeeze distressingly in your chest. He isn’t being serious, no way in hell he’s being serious when he told you he loved you... that he loved you so damn much.

Tears gathered in your eyes, no strength left in your body to hide them.

Silly you for actually thinking that he would actually stay, right? What a funny joke you so desperately wanted to laugh about.

You shuffled to turn on the other side where Yeonjun used to lay. Your fingertips grazed the hickies he had left on your neck. They stung a little bit but it didn’t amount to how much pain you were dealing with inside. What good would it do now if he kept marking you and calling you “his” if he didn’t even fucking love you?

You felt that the air in your lungs was constricted, barely managing to choke out a few, strained words.

“Y-yeah! I guess so... Goodbye, Jun.”

He didn’t say anything, only letting out a deep sigh of somewhat a relief. You realized then that you were holding onto his hand when he harshly pulled his hand away from you.

You stumbled back helplessly, desiring time- just time to say the things you needed to relinquish. His name kept tumbling out of your mouth, slowly gaining volume but still with all your might, he couldn't hear you. Couldn’t hear the desperation coated from your broken heart below, or how much you needed him to be with you.

Perhaps, he chose not to after you subtly asked him to stay with you, wrapped in your arms where the two of you could foolishly giggle in your bed all day.

The words of your sore throat came undone, and you couldn’t stop yourself from saying the words which would haunt him forever.

“You said that you loved me last night, so why the fuck am I not good enough?!”

The door to your room slammed shut and you sunk into the burning covers once more, your tears trickling like waterfalls against your swollen cheeks. Your lips were sore from earlier, but you didn’t want to apply any ointment on it right now in fear that you would trip on your own two feet. The information was irrelevant, but he went rough on you for purposefully flirting with Soobin to make him jealous.

It seemed that there wasn’t any light or hope in your body that pined for his touch now, the one that reassured you that he would have the ability to love you like that. It would never happen, you needed to keep telling yourself. Sooner or later, you weren’t going to feel anything for him anymore. You just needed time.

This vessel of pleasure for Yeonjun was the only thing you had, you even knew without him telling you directly. Hell, you didn’t even think that he thought of you as his best friend anymore.

The anger and frustration were barely restrained in your chest, endless reverberating sobs filling the silent house for the first time.

Stupid you for thinking that his body would be enough to fill the empty void he made. Stupid you for kissing his tears away, only to be left alone when he chose not to do the same. Stupid you for always loving... him.

It was excruciating, especially because it was your fault for saying yes. He was going to be eternally precious to you whether you liked it or not, but you knew that what you had wasn’t enough to make him stay. And yet, it it was just your body, then at least you had one thing to give up, draining you until you couldn’t keep going anymore.

Dark scribbles of pent up hate for yourself clouded your head, and the blinding light rushed towards you, black dots taking over your vision.

You passed out on the floor, and nobody knew until Soobin checked up on you minutes later that day.

Little did you know, Yeonjun listened to your desperate cries on the other side, his heart shattering from how much of a coward he was not to tell his best friend that he couldn't love you back no matter how much he tried.

10 years of friendship and September 24, 2020 was the day your friendship crumbled apart.

―●○◎◎○●――●○◎◎○●―

@unlocktxt , yes i tagged you 😚✌🏽 im proud of this one ~~

@petalskook , i tagged you too 😳 you’ve just been so sweet to me these days, so ive figured why not !?

——

Posted: 9/10/20- Added to Queue

Tags:

#txt #txt scenarios #txt imagines #txt drabbles #txt timestamps #txt angst #txt fluff #txt reactions #txt oneshots #yeonjun scenarios #yeonjun timestamps #yeonjun drabbles #yeonjun blurbs #yeonjun fluff #yeonjun angst #yeonjun x reader

56 notes · View notes

youllallriseintheink · 3 years

Text

Prison Cell, chapter 2

This is a story taking place in an AU where the studio became the sketch dimension before most of the sacrifices were made. While this AU will have an emphasis on horror, especially in the later chapters, I also want to show the resilience of some of these characters.

---

"Can I be the one to go down there?" Susie asked.

"No," Abby answered firmly. "First we need to decide what we're going down there for. And I'm sorry, but I don't think it's going to be a rescue mission. I don't trust you not to turn it into one. Beyond that, though, whoever it is, it has to be someone at least somewhat nondescript. So, not you- you're pretty well-known, and your size alone is pretty distinctive. And not me, either- there are no other black women in this studio, so there definitely aren't any who are loyalists. And not Henry- he's a wanted man. Any volunteers?"

In the end, Jack was chosen for the first mission. He was fairly forgettable in appearance, and the one of the two people down there who knew him well wouldn't be one to call him out. Of course, the other was Joey Drew, but he was nonetheless the best candidate.

After Jack had been assigned, there was a brief discussion about where to hide Henry, they found someone to replace Norman as the projectionist, and a circuit of people were chosen to keep watch of the elevator at night so that no one would be attacked.

---

The next day, Jack put on the loyalist robes, traded his hat for a mask, and headed down in the elevator. The first lower floor that the elevator stopped at was at the old breakroom. Two men were there, playing pool in uniforms but no masks. It was strange how normal it looked. Jack figured that the masks must have only been for specific uses, including any visits to the upper floors. Hopefully he didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

"Hey," he said to them, trying to disguise his voice somewhat, "I have to check on the prisoners. I'm covering for a buddy. But he forgot to tell me where they are. Can you help me?"

One of the men gave him a funny look. There were a thousand things that could have given him away. Maybe all loyalists already knew where the prisoners were kept. "Floor 3B. Take two lefts. You can't miss it."

Jack thanked them and left.

Floor 3B was the second-to-last one, and it opened in a nondescript hallway. Once he’d followed the directions, he got to what looked like an unremarkable row of office doors. They looked like that, but Jack could hear someone crying within them, and could smell human waste. This was, undeniably, the place. Jack tried a few doors and found them to be locked. So, after checking to make sure that there was no one else nearby, he tried talking to the people within them. There were six prisoners in total. One of them was Emma LaMonte. Four of them had been a part of a small insurrection early on. Their stories broke Jack’s heart. One of them, Lacie, had been left with a broken leg that they had done nothing to treat. It had set incorrectly and was now a permeant cause of pain and poor mobility. Another of them, Shawn, had been fed ink. The final prisoner was also a surprise.

“Allison? I thought you were a loyalist.”

“I was, but I wasn’t very good at following the rules. Tom caught me breaking a pretty big one. He doesn’t want me to end up dead. So, he dragged me in here, and told the others that I’d done something less severe. Something that would get me locked up a long time, but not killed. I get treated better than the other prisoners, and Tom comes to visit me and take me around most nights like I’m a free person, but he still doesn’t trust me not to get myself killed. I know it’s only temporary, though.”

“Temporary?”

“Well, Tom says that Joey is working on a way out for all of us. I hope that’s true. But I’ve been in the dark pretty much since the beginning.”

Jack nodded. “I’m real sorry this has happened to you. Can I ask what you were doing? Oh- and do you know where there might be more prisoners?”

“I don’t know about other prisoners. But as for what I was doing- I was visiting the outside without permission. I actually did it several times before I got caught. If you want to do it, the portal is on floor 2B.”

“Okay. Thanks again,” Jack said before leaving.

The portal was not hard to find. A door like any other on floor 2B was in fact marked with the word, “portal.” Someone had left their keys in the door. Jack pocketed the keys and went in.

The inside of the room had, in addition to many typical janitorial supplies, a rack of small vials of dark, nearly-black liquid, a set of post-it notes, and a set of instructions. The instructions read,

Step 1: write where you want to go on a note and stick it to a door.

Step 2: pour a vial of blood at the base of the door.

Curious as to how specific one had to be and how far the door’s powers extended, Jack wrote “China” on a note and poured out a vial. He opened the door, and on the other side was wilderness. Perhaps this was the very center of China. After being stunned for a moment at being able to see greenery and smell fresh air for the first time in months, Jack realized that, since the portal worked, there was a much better way he could be using it. Giddy, he wrote down his old address and repeated the ritual. The door opened to a closet in his own house. He could hear his dog barking and the voice of one of his kids, and for a moment he considered abandoning the studio and everyone in it.

Then the door shut, and opened again. Jack was roughly pulled through it, back into the supply closet.

“What were you doing!?” a woman yelled at him. Then, her voice dropped to a whisper. “Okay, give me back my keys and don’t tell anyone I forgot them, and I won’t tell anyone that you snuck a trip through the portal. Got it?” she was clearly just as frightened as he was.

“I won’t tell anyone. But could you please just let me have this? Just for ten minutes. Please?”

The woman appeared to mull this over. “Sure. But seriously- you can’t go through there dressed like that. Here, I’ll hold your mask...” the woman reached for his mask.

Jack backed up against the wall. “Actually, I changed my mind. But don’t worry, I still won’t tell anyone.”

“Wait... you seem familiar...”

Jack opened the door and scrambled to the elevator, not looking back to see if she followed.

---

“Okay, so the good news is that we know that the insurrectionists are alive,” Abby began after Jack had returned back and composed himself enough to report his findings. “And now we know about the portal. That’s very interesting. The bad news is that the prisoners are being kept in awful conditions, and they’re probably going to suspect anyone who’s wearing the mask in public places from now on. I guess the best thing to do is use someone who looks specifically like someone from down there. So, try to remember how the people down there looked. And thank you, Jack. That was very brave of you.”

Jack nodded and left Abby to her work. Planning an insurrection was difficult, and especially so on top of directing the art department. Shortly after Jack left, there was a knock on her door. It was Susie.

“Susie! Hi! did you get that list I asked for?”

Susie smiled. “Yep. Went to every department. There’s a good dozen or so people who are ready to hit the demon with an ax!”

Abby smiled back. Susie had been a big help to her. “Great! I’ll assign them floors.” hopefully the gambit would pay off. Hopefully they weren’t just throwing good fighters away. The forced blood extraction might have been frightening and violating to the people who received it, of whom there were more than a couple, but who knew when the insurrectionists might need their best fighters? If the demon just dragged them away anyhow, then this wasn’t the best use for them. Of course, being a leader in these times meant making a thousand decisions like that with limited information and hoping that things turned out for the better.

---

Days wore on. The guard system on the elevators had lasted all of a single night. The demon, finding a guard on each floor, had taken to eviscerating one of them. By the time the other guards arrived, the demon was standing over a corpse that appeared nearly inside-out. The demon scurried back to the elevator, and left before anything could be done to him.

The missions went poorly as well. Security had increased after Jack had nearly been found out. While the insurrectionists had managed to map out the lower floors (save for the very basement, which was sealed off), and found out that a great many of the loyalists were sick of a mysterious disease that caused blackened, shiny skin, they were unable to steal keys, free the prisoners, or access the portal again. After two weeks of no progress and three deaths, two of which had been killed after having been found out, Abby called the rebellion off. She felt it was what was best for everyone’s welfare, and since the loyalists had banned wearing masks on the lower floors, going undercover had become immensely more dangerous..

Susie continued to bring people together for meetings. She was not organized and dominant as Abby had been, and her meetings tended to be chaotic. The people were angry and had been emboldened. One night, a man stole a uniform and snuck down to the lowest levels. He killed a man with a knife and injured another before being imprisoned. The next day, Sammy came to the music department and escorted Susie to the basement.

"Where are you taking me?” Susie asked as Sammy clicked the elevator button to bring her to the lower floors.

“Don’t worry. No harm is going to come to you yet. This is something that Joey Drew is explicitly allowing. He knows that he needs to stop this rebellion, so he’s going to use sticks and carrots. And, well, this is the carrot.” Sammy’s face was unreadable.

They went into the room labelled “portal.”

“The first thing that I’ve been asked to do is tell you why all of this is necessary. Susie, your blood can open the portals to the outside. There were only six people in the entire studio with the right blood properties to do that, and your rebellion killed one of them last night.”

Susie nodded. “What I’ve never understood is why you don’t just let everyone out. I mean, you have a portal.”

Sammy took off his shirt, revealing a black growth that had spread across his chest, stomach, and shoulders. “If I spend more than a day or two out there, I will get sick and die. The same is true of everyone who was in the room when the ink machine exploded. Some of us are too deformed to even be allowed through the portal anymore. Joey is looking for a way to cure us so that everyone can be free. And until then, he needs your blood.”

“That doesn’t explain why he’s keeping everyone else.”

Sammy cringed. “That’s probably his own selfishness- wanting to maintain his studio the best he can. He’s not exactly as sane as he used to be. But... you’ll find out about that soon enough. For now, Susie, I’m supposed to give you your carrot. We have some money to spend, and I’ve been given permission to take you anywhere in the world you want for the day and send you back with an offering of gifts.”

Susie thought on this. “What if I told you that I wanted my gift to be Norman?”

“You’ll find out about him tonight. He’s a part of the bargaining.”

Susie’s face lit up. “Okay, wonderful!”

The two of them spent a day in Paris together. Afterwards, Sammy sent her back with two first-aid kits. One of them was fully stocked and then some, as it contained much of the contents that had been in the other one. The other they had emptied. Anything from it they couldn’t pack into the first box had been abandoned on the street, and they had filled the box with knives.

“Please promise me that you won’t use these unless absolutely necessary. Joey doesn’t want it to come to war, but if it does, there is a lot he could use against you. The loyalists could poison you with ink, or they could refuse you access to any resources and starve you into compliance. And thankfully, we don’t have guns, but if things ever escalated, we could get them, and you couldn’t. So, please, for own safety, only use these for self-defense.”

“I won’t let anyone know about these. But I'm not sure I can control them. Angry people that feel like they have nothing to lose are... really hard to lead.”

Sammy went quiet.

“Something wrong, Sammy?”

“Well, I told you that we were planning on using sticks and carrots, right? Well, Joey- if I can still call that thing “Joey”- is about to give you your stick. He wants to crush the rebellion with shock and awe. And I’m scared that he’s just going to make everyone angrier.”

Susie didn’t know what to say to that. “It’ll be okay, Sammy.”

“I sure hope so,” he replied, starting to cry.

Finding the portal again was easy- it was right where it had been at the beginning of the day, in some supply closet in some department store. A loyalist checked over what Susie had brought back, but Sammy had made sure that the person to do so would be another sympathizer, so they were let go. They stepped onto the elevator again. “Alright. Time for the stick. I’m supposed to deliver you to the very basement. I’m sorry.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #susie campbell #sammy lawrence #abby lambert #Jack Fain #Story: prison cell #my fanfiction

11 notes · View notes

skrltwtch · 3 years

Text

Muse

Prompt 1: Just like some people sleep-walk, you tend to paint or draw while in your transformed state because it calms you down. And apparently, people really like your art.

Prompt 2: A is a popular artist, and B messages them without thinking one day. They didn’t expect to become friends, and they definitely didn’t expect to become more. Person B just felt that connection between the two of them.

Prompt 3: A/Werewolf has a tendency to curl like a dog in front of the fireplace a lot (usually in their werewolf form, but it’s not uncommon for them to do it as a human). (Sources in master list)

Word count: 3,721 words

Genre: Fluff, romance, supernatural

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

I put up with the long commute to and fro between home and work for two reasons, and two reasons alone: the decent rent for a place with a picturesque view and that catered to my monthly needs, and the glut of time to catch up on my reading. And by ‘reading’, I meant ‘scrolling through the handful of social media feeds that survived my latest cull of shit that was taking up my time and storage space unnecessarily, and occasionally attempting (and failing) to pay attention to my Kindle’. Hey, at least I was aware I had a problem …?

Instagram was my first hit of the day. I flicked past images of makeup, friends in situations I wouldn’t be finding myself in anytime soon, and cute animals. The occasional meme and comic draw out an exhalation of air from my nostrils. I marvelled at artwork and photography, half wishing I were half as good as the people I followed and admired, half chiding myself for not practising either enough and losing interest quicker than I’d dropped money on new equipment in the name of my new endeavours. You could say one of my hobbies, the ones I’d been consistent about, was amassing gadgets obtained to indulge my whims and fancies.

My heart skipped a beat — or was it the pothole the bus went over? — when I came across a new post by George. I didn’t know him personally to refer to him by his first name like that, but hadn’t social media broken down boundaries between people, making them seem closer to each other than they really were? He was an illustrator whose work I chanced upon on Reddit a while back. His portfolio was a patchwork of subjects, often portraits, rendered mostly in traditional media like watercolour and oil paint. He sometimes shook things up with abstract, contemplative pieces. He had something for almost everyone. For me, it was his attractive, angular yet distinctive faces and statuesque figures, use of watercolour, and versatility: one piece could be superhero fanart, followed by a collection of moody, atmospheric paintings of the English landscape with some fantastical additions.

It also helped that he seemed to be a nice, chill person, and a handsome one at that, too, based on the smattering of pictures he had of himself on his feed. Please, let me imagine a world in which someone as ideal as him — or what I knew about him — wasn’t beholden to anyone for a moment.

His latest post was a drippy bust of a snarling wolf with full moons for eyes. The caption simply read: ‘Mood.’ I smirked as I hit the like button. Did I mention that he drew wolves a lot as well? Sometimes his wolves were feral; sometimes they were humanoid, but still wild. The latter featured heavily in his conceptual works, albeit as hazy, indistinct forms, like blurry photographs. In any case, I liked that he had a fondness for wolves and werewolves, as the constant presence of the full moon in art of the latter would suggest. Anyone who liked wolves was a-okay in my book. Anyone who liked werewolves was even more so. Because.

An interrupted connection between my brain and my reflexes led me to visit his profile. Instead of returning to my feed, my thumb gravitated toward the message button at the top of the screen. Not a single cell in my body resisted this turn of events despite the restored connection. Oh, what the hell. Why not? Like, what were the chances he’d read my message? He had tens of thousands of followers, a likely considerable chunk of them being bots aside. He must receive DMs every other minute. I’d be another sycophant in his sea of fans. Or he’d see my homely mug and locked profile, and he’d think I was driven to add to his never-ending count of unread messages simply out of misguided thirst.

The beauty of the Internet was that it made ‘out of sight, out of mind’ fairly easy to put into practice.

I got the following out of my system and into his inbox: ’Hi! Hope you’re doing well. I’ve been following your Instagram for a while, and your latest post just made me want to say your art is amazing. (I can totally identify with the sentiment behind it.) I especially love your more abstract pieces. There’s something so … raw about them. And I like that you seem to like wolves a lot, too. They’re beautiful animals, and your art really captures that about them. Anyway, keep up the great work! Take care.’

I exited Instagram, not caring about the rest of my feed anymore and not wanting to feel like I was stalking my notifications for something that’d never come. My phone buzzed with several notifications as I went down my Reddit homepage. I swiped away the banners with green icons that pelted the top of my screen. Those could wait. What couldn’t were the banners stating that I had a new message and a new follower request from —

‘Oh, my God!’ I said, loudly enough for me to hear my own voice above my music (the chorus of Walk the Moon’s ‘Shut Up and Dance’ at half of maximum volume, so … loud). Not one soul on this lightly populated bus acknowledged my exclamation — not even the woman sitting next to me. (Come on, lady, the front was mostly empty.) Thank God for technology making hermits of us all. Or my sudden outburst paled in comparison to the shit that could happen and had happened on public transport. When you took long journeys as I did every day, you’d see some real shit in due time, too.

I launched Instagram for the second time this morning (stop judging, Screen Time) and the first time ever with trembling hands. The notifications were real. I approved his request first. My mind raced to recollect anything on my profile that might make him regret his decision to let my piddling photos of food, myself, my cat, and random junk take up precious space on his feed. Nope, couldn’t think about that now, because I was now staring at an actual, honest-to-God message from George:

’Hey! Thanks for reaching out, and thank you for your kind comments. They mean a lot to me, especially what you said about my experimental stuff and wolves. They are stunning creatures, aren’t they? And yeah, I drew that last picture after a particularly rough night. You could call it a self-portrait of sorts, I suppose.’

I snorted. Change the fur colour and make the eyes normal, and it was a portrait of myself every full moon. Okay, not something I could tell someone I just met, let alone a popular artist on the Internet …

Before I could recover from the shock that my inbox held an actual, honest-to-God message from George Holden (that was his last name — the oxygen made it to my brain for me to remember that he had his last name on his profile), he sent another one: ’Anyway, how are you? I took a look at your profile, and it looks like we have quite a number of things in common.’

What, really? No way. Was it the lashings of sweet treats I subjected my stomach to every weekend? The horror and science fiction titles, celebrity memoirs, and comics, sometimes paired with an iced coffee at either a café I put down roots for the afternoon or the one-bedroom house in Waltham Forest I called home, I showcased to put forth some form of air of intellectualism? The cross-stitch projects featuring memes and popular culture icons? His profile was quite barren of anything that could provide insight into what else he enjoyed doing besides his art. Which, hey, was perfectly fine: no one was obligated to share their personal life online.

I replied, ’I’m fine, thank you. I’m on my way to work. Favourite part of my day, really. And really? Like what?’

Most of my notifications that day were from him.

✦✧✦✧

I was a bustling hub of activity in my seat: A sip of my drink. A shake of my knee. A lift of my phone. A turn of my neck. A shift of my weight from one butt cheek to the other. I was certain I was generating enough electricity to power a lightbulb in five-second intervals. I couldn’t help it. I was so, so excited — and so, so nervous. This was my and George’s first time meeting each other in person. There’d be no screen between us. Actually, what difference would that make? We’d been talking to each other for months, either through text or video calls, the latter more common in the weeks leading up to today. We’d seen each other even on our ‘I’ll put on a clean shirt, brush my hair, and hope for the best’ days. What could either one of us do in person that would irrevocably alter our friendship for the worse? Well …

The sound of someone entering the café stopped me from starting on a list of things that I could do to fuck things up. I looked up, probably the seventh time I did so in the last ten minutes. This was on me. I grossly overestimated the amount of time it’d take me to get somewhere as usual; a natural by-product of living far from the city. Seventh — probably — time was the charm: it was George — and right on the dot, too. His punctuality added to his attractiveness, which had already gone through the roof and was heading straight into the stratosphere. I bit my lip to suppress any unfortunate exclamations. He was a friend, Evelyn … just a friend, and I had no illusions otherwise.

I called out to him. He waved at me and joined me at the table I picked out for us. And the second our eyes met, devoid of any barrier between us, everything about him — and everything about us — clicked.

He was just like me.

And I was just like him.

And he was as astonished about it as I was, going by the long silence that passed between us, a first since we got to know each other.

‘Hi! Oh, my God, it’s so good to finally meet you!’ I said with a grin to break the tension. He broke out into a smile, his posture relaxing. Success. Should I go in for a handshake? No, that’d be too stuffy for a months-old friendship. A hug? No, that’d be too intimate for a months-old friendship, and an online one, too, no less. Was it obvious this was my first time meeting someone I met online?

‘It’s good to meet you, too,’ he said, his expression of cheer unabating. ‘I’m going to get myself a drink first, and then we can shoot the shit.’ His smile turned into a grin. ‘Do you want anything? My treat,’ he added as he spotted me reaching for my wallet.

‘I was thinking a red velvet muffin, please.’ I didn’t know why I didn’t get one earlier. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem. I’ll be right back.’

As he left, my nerves turned into happiness that I met another werewolf. It was rare to meet other werewolves just about anywhere. What were the odds that two werewolves, one of whom was Internet-famous, would become friends because the other one had a brain fart one morning to send a message to the Internet-famous one? You couldn’t make this shit up. In all the years I’d been a werewolf, George was the first one I knew. I didn’t even know the one that turned me. I got bitten one night, and that was my life changed forever. I figured everything out on my own — I had to. And my puny social network of werewolves made sense: this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing anyone would advertise about themselves.

Once George settled down and courtesies were out of the way, the first thing out of his mouth was ‘I never thought I’d meet another one like me’.

I moved my chair closer to him so that we could speak at length about what we were without the fear of being overheard. ‘Me neither.’ Then it hit me, and I quickly said, ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, though.’ Personally, I was okay with what I was. No existential dread here, contrary to what one might expect of a werewolf. It happened. I learnt to manage it in a way that made it not have any kind of significant impact on my life. I refused to let it define me. And honestly, I lived for particularly bad days that coincided with full moons.

‘Are you kidding me?’ His face lit up with boyish glee. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day for so long! As in, us meeting up in person for the first time and me getting to know another werewolf. Two birds, one stone: the only kind of killing I endorse. And I’m so fucking chuffed it’s you. I always felt like I could talk to you about anything, and now that really, really means anything.’ It was his turn to be able to power a light bulb, but in twenty-second intervals this time.

‘Same. How were you turned?’

‘I was bitten during a camping trip with friends a couple of years back. You?’

‘Secondary school. I was walking home from the library.’

‘Shit, that was some time ago, huh?’

‘Almost half my life a werewolf.’

‘Do you know the werewolf that did it?’

‘Nope. How about you?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Kind of sucks, doesn’t it, that you’ll never get to know the person who’s changed your life so … deeply? They won’t remember either that they turned someone. If only having kids was like that, yeah? Absolutely no sense of responsibility whatsoever.’ He gave his teaspoon a lazy twirl, causing a faint plume of milk to rise and sink into the dark, bittersweet depths from whence it came. ‘I struggled with what I’d become the first couple of months. The transformations were one thing.’ Oh, yeah. ‘I felt … grotesque. God, the amount of self-pity, like, why was I the only one who had to go through this every month when there were four other guys ripe for the picking? So, I decided to start incorporating wolves in my art to get to know and reclaim that part of me. I didn’t want to see it as something ugly. I mean, you get to experience a kind of rebirth every month. That’s extraordinary if you think about it. And I told myself that like myself, the wolf didn’t ask to be born. Ha, ha. Millennial humour. Anyway. Then the most miraculous thing happened one full moon: I woke up next to a coherent painting that wasn’t there the night before.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Right? My more artsy stuff? The ones I hate coming up with captions for? Almost all done while I was transformed. I’d started some of my art — bet you can’t guess which one — on full moons, too, and I finished them after I changed back. It’s as if the wolf knew we were now cool with each other.’ He took a big chunk out of his apple crumble and jammed it into his mouth. ‘Sorry if that sounded like spiritual woo-woo. I’ve been wanting to tell someone about this forever.’ Crumbs fell out of his mouth as he spoke. ‘Shit, I’m such an’ — he shot me an impish look as he swallowed — ‘animal, aren’t I? Fuck, I can make stupid references like that now, and someone would get it!’

I laughed. He was such a dork. ‘It’s not “spiritual woo-woo”. It’s amazing. How is that even possible?’

‘I have no idea.’ He held out his hands in front of him. ‘So thankful we get to keep our hands and not have them turn into paws.’ He waggled his thumbs. ‘Fuck, yeah, opposable thumbs. And I want to say it’s like when artists get high and make stuff. I do know artists who do that, and hey, no judgment. To them, I do the same thing, too.’

‘And here I am, feeling accomplished whenever I make it through another full moon without waking up in a trashed place. Seriously, that’s amazing.’

‘I think that’s what’s keeping me from losing it while transformed. I was surprised people liked those pieces when I started posting them, considering they’re such far departures from what I usually post.’

‘That explains why they’re so … visceral.’

‘Yeah? I figure you’d appreciate them even more now.’ He smirked. ‘And you know, no one really talks about my wolf art, and especially my werewolf pieces. Maybe if I didn’t make them blurry and made them more explicit …’ Oh, he’d get a different breed of followers altogether. ‘But that’s fine. I don’t want my lycanthropy to define me and my work. It’s just a part of who I am.’

‘My turn to say something possibly corny: I like your wolf art because … they make me feel seen, because they’re drawn by you.’

He put a hand on his chest. ‘That’s not corny. I’m happy my art makes you feel that way. You know I don’t care about the likes or comments. It just so happens I like drawing things that make me get likes and comments.’ He pushed his plate toward me and motioned at me with his fork to try some of his apple crumble. I obliged him. ‘Did you ever suspect anything? Not that, you know, I purposely drew wolves and werewolves as a kind of signal for other werewolves to pick up on. That’d be giving me way too much credit.’

‘No, I just thought you like wolves a lot.’

‘Same here. What you said about wolves being beautiful creatures when you messaged me the first time … that made me feel something, too.’

‘Then I’m very glad we got to be friends,’ I said. Born from the same blip in brain activity that set us on this path, my hand found itself on top of his. His touch had a pleasant, almost familiar heat to it.

‘Me too.’ He turned his hand over and clasped mine.

‘I have an idea,’ I said, mostly to distract myself from how right this felt. ‘Do you want to meet on the next full moon?’

‘Sure. I can’t wait to see what kind of inspiration will strike with another werewolf around.’

‘Your place, then?’

He nodded. ‘Unless you’re cool with me possibly trashing your place with paint and stuff. That hasn’t happened before, but who knows? What if wolf-me doesn’t like change?’

I stared at him in disbelief.

‘I can’t help it. You have no idea what kind of beast this has unleashed. Oops.’

We sat and talked in the café the entire afternoon; we took turns treating each other to food and drinks to justify our occupancy. Our conversation moved on to other topics besides the one special, biggest thing we had in common. Just like we didn’t want it to define who we were as people, we made a promise to each other, and we did so over a strawberry custard tart, that we wouldn’t let it become the foundation of our friendship from this point on. It’d be unfair to the moments we shared before this. We were friends because we cared about each other, we brought out the best in each other, we could truly be ourselves around each other, and, honestly, I didn’t think anyone else would have the patience for his goofy in-jokes.

✦✧✦✧

I lay in front of the fireplace, rejoicing in the warmth it offered on this cool night, while George was working on his newest painting. Since getting to know each other in these forms, we’d been able to exercise better control. For me, that meant greater peace of mind; for him, that meant a more refined grasp of his artistic sensibilities. As with much about our condition, we didn’t question this. What could possibly be a drawback of us spending more time in each other’s company? I now understood why animals curled up by a fire was a common sight in media and real life, too. Wait, what if this, and not George’s presence, was what I’d been missing all my life?

My tail wagging like a fiend when I felt his breath on my skin begged to differ. I licked his face. He gently parted my lips and slid his tongue onto mine. Our tongues engaged each other in a playful scuffle; the fire crackling in the background could only dream of coming close to causing the rise in temperature in the pit of my stomach. The tussle between our tongues didn’t get to turn into something more: he’d had a long night. I nuzzled him to convey reassurance. He lay down beside me and wrapped his arms around me, his hold firm yet tender. We fell asleep like this, keeping each other warm long even after the fire had died out.

We wished each other a good morning with a kiss — no, two kisses, and we got ourselves ready for the day. As we were having breakfast, George piped up, ‘Do you want to see what I painted last night, love? I’m really proud of it, and I think you’d love it, too.’

I nodded excitedly, my mouth too full of scrambled egg to speak.

He returned as quickly as he’d left the table. His hands held on to a painting … of me curled up by the fire last night. The figure was the clearest, most detailed he’d ever done; the lighting was phenomenal. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, tearing up a little, frankly. ‘I love it. It’s going to look so good in our new place’, along with the recent paintings he’d made of a similar nature. He’d come so far from the gauzy forms that once populated his attempts at capturing his — our — condition on canvas.

‘Of course, when I have the most stunning model.’ He gave me a peck on the cheek. ‘I love you, my muse, my mate.’

#exophilia #terato #werewolf #monster love #monster romance #mine #fun fact #I wrote this story in early october last year #and it's kind of truth in television for me now

8 notes · View notes