#for anything actually frequent and useful it would be many days walk across a massive mountain range to my least favourite city
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A Modest Proposal (Alcina x Fem!Reader)
Premise: You finally muster up the courage to propose to Alcina Dimitrescu. But will everything go as planned?
Note: Even though we technically don't know Alcina's middle name, I gave her Carmilla as her middle name in homage to another beloved Sapphic vampire! :)
Warnings: blood. Steamy scenes her and there, but nothing NSFW.
As you take the last steps towards your mistress’s chambers you have to stop for a minute and take some deep breaths. The other maids had taken to giving you concerned glances all morning. Your nerves had been so fraught that a plate had slipped out of your sweaty hands and broken. You didn’t mind the stares. To everyone else, this is just an ordinary day. Not for you.
Today is the day you are going to propose to Alcina Dimitrescu.
However, you have some errands to run first. For that you are going to have to ask Alcina, ironically enough, for the rest of the day off.
You steel yourself, slap your cheeks to banish any last nerves and knock on the door.
“Come in,” you hear an elegant, mature voice call.
Lady Dimitrescu is seated at her secretary, lining up accounts for the month. Her brow is furrowed in concentration. Upon clearing your throat, she takes off her reading glasses and when she sees you a smile bursts across her face that takes your breath away.
After a year and a half of courting, you could still not believe that this beautiful woman was your lover. You take in her laugh lines and dimples, her slightly puffy cheeks that she hated but you found adorable, her carmine lips freshly painted, and her blue eyes with a corona of gold around them that you found absolutely mesmerizing.
She takes your hand and kisses your knuckles. “Yes, iubirea mea, what can I do for you?”
“I would like to take the rest of the day off if that’s alright with you,” you say in a rush.
She blinks, surprised, but then smiles. “I don’t mind. After all, you’ve been working so hard lately. Have you cleared it with the head maid?”
“Yes-” Before you can say any more, in an instant Alcina has bent down and taken you in her arms with your back against her ample bosom. You feel hot breath on your neck and her curls tickle your ears as she whispers, “We could spend the whole day together. How would you like that, pet?”
You find yourself lost for words as she moves your uniform collar and begins kissing your neck. You lean back and sigh. Her perfume is intoxicating. She moves one hand to your hip and the other begins to peel back your skirt.
You would rather do nothing more than to make love to Alcina on your day off, however there are other matters more pressing. It takes great self control to take her hands off of you. A look of hurt crosses her face. You turn around and give her a chaste kiss and hold her face in your hands. “Forgive me, darling. I would love to but I have some errands to run. May I see you later? Dinner, the usual time?”
Her expression brightens and she kisses you deeply. “I’ll look forward to tonight then,” she says, tucking a curl behind your ear.
You can only nod and when you turn around, Alcina gives you a playful slap on the bum. You look back at her and she gives you a devilish grin.
Closing the door behind you, you can’t help but let out a chuckle. Alcina’s libido, it seemed, could never be satiated. As you take a step you wince and rub your behind. That woman honestly didn’t know her own strength sometimes.
You wrap your scarf around you as you leave the castle grounds. It may be the dead of winter but you find yourself sweating from nerves. The Duke catches your eye and waves you over.
“Ah, Miss Y/N! Just the lady I wanted to see. Your package just arrived.”
You feel your breath catch but nod silently. He turns around and begins rummaging around in the store. You turn around so as to not catch a glimpse of the Duke’s massive behind and you freeze. Alcina is at the window enjoying her morning cigarette. And she is staring directly at you.
You whisper to him, “Wait.” Alcina is still looking at you as she’s taking a drag off her cigarette. Smoke wreathes her gorgeous face. You give her a nervous wave. She waves back and then hears the phone ring. With a grimace, she puts out her cigarette and steps back inside.
You turn back to the Duke. “All right. It should be fine now.”
The Duke smiles and then presents you with a box slightly larger than a normal engagement ring box. With bated breath you open the box and behold the engagement ring that you have bought for Alcina.
Getting the ring had not been easy. When the Duke had told you the price for an engagement ring, especially a custom-made ring for Alcina, you nearly cried with frustration. After all, the main purpose of you working at Castle Dimitrescu was to send back money for your aging parents. When you and Lady Dimitrescu had first begun courting and she learned of your family’s financial situation she had offered to send them money herself each month so you didn’t have to work. However, your pride would not allow it. Any money sent back to your home, you wanted to come from your labors.
Getting enough money for your parents while also raising money to buy the ring had been a long and arduous process. You had begun taking up extra shifts to make up the money. There had been many nights where you had fallen asleep on the sofa with a feather duster in your hand and Alcina had to scoop you up in her arms and carry you to bed herself. But looking in at the ring within the box, you found it had been all worth it. The ring is beautiful, around 14 karats of gold inlaid with rubies forming the House Dimitrescu crest. You are sure Alcina would love it. It had taken time to get the exact measurements of her ring finger. While Alcina was asleep, you had taken her left hand often and studied her ring finger making sure the ring fit snug but not too tight. To get the crest right, you had taken to drawing it over and over again in your off time before you had a drawing good enough to show the Duke to have it commissioned.
You look up and grin at the Duke with tears in your eyes. “Duke, it's beautiful!” you breathe. “Alcina- er, Lady Dimitrescu will love it!”
He pats your hand as you slip the box into your apron pocket. “Not a problem at all, m’dear! Good luck tonight!”
With that done, you head back to the castle. You practically skip back to the gates, taking out the box every so often and peeking inside. Your joy dissipates when you realize what the next item on your to do list is.
Asking for Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters’ blessing.
When you walk in, you actually run into them getting ready to go out. Bela smiles at you as she adjusts Daniela’s cowl on her traveling cloak. “Y/N! Good to see you! Mother told us you had taken the day off.”
Cassandra pipes up, “We were just going out to go hunting! Want to come with us?”
“Actually I wanted to talk to you all about something,” you say as you look around the foyer for any sign of the girls’ mother. “Is there somewhere private we can all talk? Preferably somewhere your mother doesn’t frequent?”
Daniela’s eyes glitter mischievously. “Oooh, keeping secrets are we? Come on, I know a perfect place we can hide!”
Daniels leads the pack to the library. “Mother usually practices her singing around this time,” she says over her shoulder. “So there’s not a chance she’ll overhear anything you say.”
Sure enough, you hear Lady Dimitrescu’s voice singing an elaborate coloratura from upstairs. Perfect.
Daniela’s hands run over the panels in the wall. “Now where is it….Aha there it is!” Daniela picks up a loose panel on the wall and puts it to the side. She steps in and backons the rest of you forward.
There is no light in this room save for torches every couple meters. The room can’t be much more than 6 feet tall, so there was no way Lady Dimitrescu could fit in properly. “We used to hide from Mother here all the time as children,” Daniela winks conspiratorially at you.
Cassandra begins jumping up and down excitedly. “Now what’s the secret? Tell us! Tell us!”
You take a deep breath and then let it out. “All right...Tonight I am planning on proposing to your mother and-”
You are cut off by the girls’ cries of jubilation. Daniela runs over and gives you a big hug. Bela has burst into happy tears. Cassandra continues jumping up and down and chanting, “Bonus mom! Bonus mom!”
You can’t help but laugh. “Does that mean I have your blessing?”
“Of course!” they yell in unison.
Bela says excitedly, “The ring! Do you have a ring?”
Blushing furiously you nod and take out the black velvet box and open it. They “ooh” and “aah” and take turns looking at it before they finally relinquish it back to you. As you put the box back into your pocket, you say, “Well girls, I need to start getting ready. Please make sure not to do anything to arouse your mother’s suspicions. I want it to be a surprise.”
The girls nod their assent, but Cassandra interjects, “Do you need help getting ready? We want you to be looking your best for tonight!”
Everyone enthusiastically agrees and you can’t help but smile fondly at the girls. You may be closer in age to them, but ever since you had begun courting their mother, you loved them like they were your own children. “All right, if you insist.”
The girls cheer and Cassaandra takes you by the hand and leads you back to your room to get ready.
15 minutes before your meeting with Lady Dimitrescu you take a look in the mirror. The girls truly outdid themselves on your makeover. Daniela had curled your hair and it hung in ringlets over your shoulders. Cassandra had given you one of her dresses, a red column dress that was backless with a plunging neckline. This wasn’t the sort of thing you would normally wear, but you had to admit the silhouette was very flattering, highlighting your natural curves. The best part: it had pockets large enough to hide the ring box! Bela was on makeup duty, giving you wingtips sharper than Alcina’s claws and a smokey eye. You spritz on some rosewater perfume and head out. As you pass the hall mirror, you consider putting your hair up in a chignon but think better of it. Alcina had always liked your hair best when it was down.
When you are at the door to Alcina’s chambers you take a deep breath before knocking on the door. “Come in, iubirea mea,” Alcina’s voice purrs within.
You head inside and Alcina has her back turned on you, lighting the candelabras at the table she has set up for you two. “I’ve needed this, my love. You should’ve heard what that fool Heisenberg-”
She stops and stares at you. You can’t help but feel self-conscious as she takes you in. She finally sets the candlestick she was using to light the others back in the candelabra and heads purposefully towards you. She scoops you up in her arms and kisses you deeply, burying her hands in your curls. She breaks the kiss and strokes your cheek. “You look beautiful,” she says breathlessly.
You can’t help but blush at the compliment. “So do you,” you reply as she sets you down gently, praying she doesn’t hear the box rustling in your skirts. She takes your hand and leads you to your seat where she pulls out your chair for you. You take her hand that is resting on the back of your seat and kiss it.
Dinner proceeds as normal at first. You listen to her talk about her day, which takes your mind off the proposal for a bit. Then she puts it at the forefront of your mind when she says, “I saw you talking to the merchant this morning. Did you have anything special coming in?”
Your mouth goes dry. How do you respond to that? “Oh, no. He just wanted to chat. You know how he gets!”
Alcina purses her lips but nods eventually. “Indeed.”
Awkward silence settles over you for a bit. Then she begins talking again, this time ranting about Heisenberg and you almost sigh in relief. This is easy. You just have to listen and agree with whatever she says.
“And then do you know what that fool called me? He called me a ‘simp’ for Mother Miranda! I didn’t even know what that was. I had to ask my daughters and when they told me of course I was infuriated.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, a simp? Me? Ha! Imagine! He’s just jealous because he wishes that he had half the devotion that I have for her!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you think I’m a simp?”
“Uh-huh.”
She glares at you from across the table. Damn. She’s caught you.
You stumble over your words trying to correct your stupid blunder. “I mean, no! Of course you’re not a simp! Where would he get that idea?”
Alcina leans across the table and takes your chin in her hand, forcing you to look directly into her eyes. “Am I boring you, pet?” she asks, a dangerous edge to her voice.
“Er, no! No, I'm having a great time!” you say, smiling stupidly at her.
Alcina lets go of your chin and settles back in her chair, crossing her arms. Her stormy expression can’t disguise the look of hurt on her face. “You were the one that suggested we meet tonight, darling. I can’t see why you would want to if you’re not going to at least attempt to be present with me.”
“I’m sorry, darling. I-”
She turns away from you, her large hat blocking her expression. “Maybe you should go.” She gets up and crosses the room to open the door.
No, no, God, no this can’t be happening. This is your worst nightmare. You can’t let her open the door, you just can’t.
You practically fall to one knee. “Alcina!”
“What?” she snaps, turning her head toward you. Her expression softens as she sees that you are down on one knee with the box open. Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she says so quietly you have to lean to hear it, “Draga mea, what are you doing?”
You had a big speech prepared for this. But everything else has gone to hell in a handbasket, so you might as well get it over with. “Alcina Carmilla Dimitrescu, will you marry me?”
Alcina just stands there and stares. The tears that had been building in her eyes now spill over as she kneels down to your level and gives you a passionate kiss.
You smile against her lips and break the kiss. “Does that mean yes?”
“Yes, my darling,” she gives you a watery smile and caresses your jaw. “Yes.”
With trembling hands you take the ring out of the box and slip it on her left ring finger. She lifts her hand and inspects the new ring in the chandelier light. The rubies catch the light, nearly blinding you with their brilliance.
“How does it fit? It’s not too tight?”
She beams at you, positively radiating with joy. “It fits perfectly.” She then rises and heads over to her dresser and opens the top drawer. To your surprise, she pulls out a red box with the Dimitrescu family crest on the top. She sinks to one knee and presents you with an old, but beautiful ring. It must have been passed down through the Dimitrescu bloodline for generations.
Your face feels hot and you feel tears welling up in your eyes. She gently takes your arm. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” She wipes the tears that have already begun cascading your cheeks. “It is tradition for House Dimitrescu to propose with the family ring to symbolize the unification of two houses. I had been planning to propose to you next week. You beat me to it, you clever girl.” She takes your hand and slips the Dimitrescu family ring on your ring finger. It is slightly larger than your finger, but you don’t care. You couldn’t be happier.
Alcina takes you into her lap and kisses you passionately. In between kisses, she queries, ”All those extra shifts you took. They were all for me?”
“Yes, my love,” you say breathlessly. “All for you.”
She stands up and takes you in her arms. You wrap your arms around her neck as she deepens the kiss, exploring your mouth with her tongue. You can taste salty tears on her lips. She carries you over to the bed kissing you the whole time and sets you down gently. She kneels over you on the bed and you rest your leg on her hip. The slit in your skirt rises up, exposing your stockinged leg. After putting her hand gently on your shoulder, Alcina begins kissing your neck. You lean back into the cushions and sigh.
You hear a low moan in her throat, almost like a whine as she kisses your pulse point. You don’t say anything; you just nod. Soon enough you feel the sharp but familiar sensation of Alcina’s fangs piercing your neck. She holds you against her body and you bury your hands in her curls, causing her hat to fall off. Briefly taking her hand off your shoulder, she slaps the hat aside like it was so much rubbish. You take pleasure in every sigh, every moan, every exclamation you elicit from her as she drinks. When she finally stops drinking she wipes her mouth and gives you a seductive smirk. “Good girl,” she purrs.
Alcina’s mouth is on yours again as she undoes your halter while you unhook her garter. She breaks the kiss and cradles your face in her hands. “Te iubesc, draga mea.”
You take her hand and kiss it while saying, “And I you, Alcina.”
The two of you make love until the sun rises the next morning.
#alcina dimitrescu#lady dimitrescu#re8 village#daniela dimitrescu#bela dimitrescu#cassandra dimitrescu#re8 fanfiction#lady dimitrescu fanfic#lady dimitrescu x reader#alcina x reader#alcina x maiden#lady dimitrescu x female reader
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How Far We've Come
Paring: Dabi x Fem!Reader
Rating: Explicit (18+ only)
Warnings: Angst, Character Death, Smut (female-receiving oral), A Cocky Dabi, Cussing, A lot of Pet Names
Word Count: 7.8K
A/N: This is my contribution to the Smut Pile Apocalypse Collab! If you have the time check out some of the other amazing pieces! Everyone has worked so hard to make some beautiful fics!
Thank you so much to my wife @lady-lunaaa for reading, encouraging, brainstorming, and helping me the whole way from start to finish. I have said it before but I will say it again. You are absolutely amazing and this fic wouldn't exist without you! 💜 Also thank you @/deathcab4daddy (not sure if you want to be tagged) for taking the time to read through and for your advice!
You've seen all those movies, the decaying zombie hoards, the massive explosions that wipe out nations, or an unexpected illness that mysteriously kills off the population. But you had never really expected for any of those apocalyptic things to become true in your own world. They were just fiction, never something that could actually occur. Yet here you are faced with the reality of a hoard of rotting zombies. Like you have been thrown into one of the many movies or TV shows yourself.
People aren't even sure how it happened, especially in a world full of quirks where this should be somewhat controlled, right? Wrong, whatever caused this zombie apocalypse also seemed to nullify quirks over time. There was so much speculation whether it came into the water supply or passed through the air. But none of that really seems to matter anymore when you are fighting for your life every day.
And as the mass of decaying, walking corpses steps closer and closer to you, it seems like your end is near too. The smell of organs exposed to the air and sun stink up the room. You can see the blank, milky white eyes of the undead that somehow can still find you even though they can't really see. You've had a partner, at least—the man who has stood with you during this entire shit show.
He stands close to you, a single rusted knife covered in stagnant blood, not nearly enough even combined with whatever you could find for fighting off the seemingly endless mindless bodies coming your way. He's covered in burn scars and rusted staples that pull at his healthy skin. People used to jab at him for looking like the walking dead before all this went down. His firepower from before would have solved this problem in an instant. This rotting mob wouldn't have stood a chance.
But instead, it looks like it's the conclusion for the two of you. Memories flash through your mind. A memory of escaping the daily struggle of your mundane life by sharing take-out on your old couch. Or how his kisses always felt like burning flames against your lips. Your regular life consisted of trying to numb the pain of the past with alcohol or working endless hours. Even though you didn’t have a traditional relationship where you could go on public dates, being in a relationship with a well-known villain was worlds better than this. But if you were going to die, at least it was together. Solidarity in times like this seems to help the never-ending dread that the Reaper looming around every corner ready to take you. Every moment in this new hell had you wished you had more time to develop your romance with him instead of the tragedy that was about to befall you. You wished you had more time with this romance and that it wouldn't end in tragedy. It's hard to believe that there was ever a time when you couldn't stand this man, but even now, that's a fond memory for you. You would give anything to return to that old bar where the two of you met and relive all of these memories.
It really isn't a surprise that you met Dabi in a dark, run-down bar near Kamino. No, not the "bar" run by Kurogiri; everyone who lived in this area knew that it was just a setup. This bar is a tiny little hole in the wall with paint chipping off the walls and where the seats were hardly held together anymore, but that didn't really matter to people who lived in this area. You didn't come to this bar for a luxury experience.
The main reason people came to this bar was its location. It sat deep in a seedy area which meant no police patrolling nearby so you wouldn’t need to look over your shoulder constantly. Plus, the cheap liquor was enticing enough.
Every Friday night, you were perched on one of the worn-out bar stools as you nursed your gin and tonic. This was your place to unwind after another hellish week of your mundane job. It was still early enough in the evening that the bar wasn't thoroughly packed with bodies trying to get their drink. The music was still soft, later it would blare whatever song was currently sitting at the top of the Billboard charts. You were able to turn your brain off and listen to other patrons' mindless chatter in the background. You could just sip your drink, maybe take a shot or two if you felt like, and then head home to pass out.
You relished this little getaway, an oasis in the slums that made up your small world. The bartender and regular patrons didn't bother you, so you could have your own peace. But your Eden got interrupted by a cocky, fire-wielding asshole who had set his sights on you.
You didn't stir when said asshole plopped himself down in the barstool next to you with a thump. It wasn't until the jerk actually spoke to you that you were brought out of your mindless daydreaming.
"Hey, pretty girl, what are you doing in a place like this?" He said with a smooth tone. You didn't even have to look at him to know he had an arrogant smirk plastered on his face.
Who the fuck does this asshole think he is? The irritated thought instantly pops into your head. Anyone who frequented this bar knew you were from around here. You weren't some soft, delicate flower that wasn't supposed to be "on this side of town." Preparing yourself by putting on your best "I'm not interested face," you maneuvered your body to face him, ready to tell him off.
Your words caught in your throat as your eyes met his two endless pools of cerulean. Your gaze shifted to take in the burnt skin clinging onto the shining staples that were rooted in his healthy skin. A familiar black coat spread across his frame that was even more recognizable than those eyes, and the patronizing smile that you wanted to slap off his face. As much as you wanted to throw up your middle finger at him and tell him off, you knew who this was. Hell, everyone knew who this was.
The League of Villains didn't necessarily keep quiet around here. They didn't have to. This is the area where they recruited people to join them. You didn't just flick off and ignore a LOV member. Especially the infamous Dabi, who wasn't really known for his kindness or compassion. More for his ability to burn anyone who defied The League to a crumbling crisp.
But still, who did this asshole think he is? Waltzing in here like he owned it and saddling down into your escape from the world only to tell you that you don't look like you should be here? Fuck that nonsense, League member or not.
You swallow down a bit of the initial anger as your eyes narrow into a glare at the cocky asshole. "Thanks but no thanks, I'm not interested in being involved with the League. So if you don't mind going somewhere else to scout, that would be great." You try to say without a tremble in your voice as you wave your hand in a "shoo" motion.
You aren't sure what you expect Dabi to do next., burn down the whole bar you included? Tell you that you have no choice but to join, and you're coming with him? Rip you out of your seat and reprimand you for disrespecting The League? But instead, none of those things happen. Instead, he does something you don't expect, and his grin grows a little wider as the staples begin to pull more at his healthy flesh.
You can feel your anxiety rising. Get out, get out, get out, this asshole will kill you, leave NOW, your mind is practically sending off every warning signal it can.
Your chest tightens when Dabi lets out a low chuckle. "Oh no, sweetheart, you've got it all wrong." He says with a dark tone. "I'm not recruiting you for work. My interest in you is personal." Dabi points at you and then at himself and finishes with an infuriating smirk that seems to be mocking you. He's moved his hand and placed it on your forearm that was resting on the smooth bar top.
A shiver runs through you as the mismatched textures of his skin and the cool metal of the staples. You feel your anger bubbling up again. How dare this jerk think that you will just fall for him like a desperate fangirl. You are livid at this point, frustration coursing through your veins, fuck the niceties and preservation. He needed to be put in his place.
"I know you think you are some big shot because The League is doing so well right now but fuck off asshole. I'm not a League groupie that will just kneel down and suck your dick just because you want it." You spit out at him while shrugging off his hand and moving your body to face the way you were initially sitting. Grasping your drink and lifting it to your lips, you try and down what was left so you could leave immediately, any extra moment around Dabi was a moment you didn't want to have.
You were sure Dabi would have given up or at least killed you by now. You can't imagine that he is used to being rejected by women. He's handsome in a way that doesn't fit with the norm. He fills in that bad boy check-list like it's his job, which it practically is given his profession. Again though, Dabi surprises you with his response. He doesn't yell, he doesn't use his quirk, and he doesn't kill you. He lets out another dark chuckle like he's enjoying this and continues the conversation you had tried to cut off.
"I didn't say anything about sucking dick, but if you're offering, who am I to turn down a gift?" That smooth tone is back as he moves his hand to your hair and runs it through his fingers.
Bewilderment overcomes you, and you can't even stop yourself before you are turned towards him again, glass in your hand, ready to throw what's left of your drink on him.
As if he anticipated the response, Dabi moves quickly and grabs your wrist in a tight grip. "Now, why would you want to waste what you have left, doll? That's not a very smart choice." His grip tightens a little more around your wrist, and you can feel the staples begin to dig into your skin as he lets out a deep chuckle. He moves your hand back down to the bar but doesn't let go even after your glass has left your hand. "There we go, good girl. Now let's talk just a bit." He says sweetly, loosening his grip just a bit, but not enough for you to move your hand.
If looks could kill, Dabi would have died a cruel death by now. You are seething at this point. But instead, you're stuck there as he continues to do whatever it is that he’s trying to accomplish. "What were you drinking? I'll buy you another one and then leave, okay doll?" He says playfully and with a cunning grin on his face as you mumble out your drink order. You just want him to leave, and you really hope he plans on keeping his word.
Dabi motions for the bartender's attention, gives your drink order and plops a few bills on the bartop. He still hasn't let go of your wrist, and each and every moment he is even touching you, you can feel your annoyance continuing to build. You want to ask him if he's done yet and will kindly get the fuck out, but you have a sneaking suspicion that he likes the cat and mouse game, which would just lengthen the amount of time he sticks around.
The bartender finally delivers your drink, and it takes everything in you not to rip your wrist out of his grasp and grab the new glass to pour over Dabi's head. "Okay, one last question, and then I'll leave." He drawls out as you put all your focus into the condensation forming on your glass. You stay silent, waiting for his stupid question so you can move on and never see him again. Dabi continues with that condesending tone that is starting to cause your head to ache, "How often do you come here? I'd love to see you again."
Your heartbeat picks up, and little shots of adrenaline start to flow through you as you contemplate how to respond. Of course, you don't want this asshole to know when you come here. This is your escape from the world. You never want to even see Dabi again, but something from this interaction tells you Dabi isn't going to give up easily. So you tell him your regular time that you show up at the bar every Friday.
Dabi squeezes your wrist a little bit before letting out another "Good girl, sounds like a date. I'll see you then." You never want him to know how those few words send a shiver down your spine. He saunters out of the bar without having a single drink himself. Patrons stare dumbfounded between you and the doorway that Dabi just exited, trying to comprehend what just happened.
You let out an exasperated sigh before leaning your head down into your folded arms. The bar top isn't necessarily the cleanest of places to lay your head, but it’s pounding and racing with thoughts, and you can't really bring yourself to care right now. You try to formulate a plan so you won't ever see him. You'll just move your regular day to Saturday instead of Fridays. But then that stubborn anger flares inside of you again, and you sit up straight, glancing at your newly unwanted drink as the ice slowly melts, lifting the remaining liquid in the cup. No, I'm not going to let that asshole ruin my spot for me. He can come around here every Friday, but I'll turn that jerk down a million times. You think a little smugly to yourself. We will see how the big bad Dabi feels being turned down over and over. Maybe that will sting his ego.
And so you and Dabi play this game of cat and mouse. He comes every Friday when you are there without fail, buying you a drink, chatting to you with sentences filled with pet names, and planning another "date" each time. And every time you tell him you aren't interested or to go away, or really anything to try and get that stupid fucking smirk off his face. But it always remains cemented there as he watches you get fired up. And what you don't realize is the two of you are getting to know each other. Dabi adds in little questions, "what's your favorite food, least favorite, what do you do for work?" And the questions go on and on. You don't realize your walls coming down as the two of you find similarities in each other. And if there is one thing anyone who sees these frequent interactions between the two of you can say, it is that Dabi is determined.
You are so used to Dabi's Friday visits that they don't bring headaches anymore, and you realize something more has developed when he doesn't show up one week. A mixture of feelings rests in you, anxiety, confusion, anger. You wonder if he's okay, or has he finally given up. And then anger if he has. You don't want to admit it, but you miss his company, and you don't even have a number to reach out to him. You feel a sense of loss in your chest. How could he just give up? He's been trying for months! You think as tears begin to sting for a moment in your eyes.
You leave the bar that night not feeling uplifted or relaxed but sad and angry. And you aren't necessarily looking forward to returning the week after, but you do come back to your regular spot and hope Dabi will show. Your heart almost stops in your chest when you see him walk through the entrance of the bar, and before you can contain the words, they tumble out in a frantic sound, "where were you last week?" You are standing in front of him now, looking up at that little grin he always has on his face whenever you get annoyed with him. You cross your arms over your chest and exclaim, "Well? I'm waiting."
"Aw, did you miss me, baby girl?" His poker face never falls, but his grin grows a tiny bit wider as he stares into your fiery eyes. And without warning, he wraps one of his long arms around you, pulling you into a tight side hug.
A small eep escapes you at the movement, and you move to push him off. "What the hell are you doing? Answer my question, you jerk!" You practically yell as you push away from him. He doesn't let go and just pulls you tighter to him, and you find yourself not struggling anymore as you take in the weathered texture of his coat pressed against your arm and the smell of cigarettes on him. You feel your walls starting to fall entirely, "I was really concerned about you." You let out in a whisper, not really wanting to admit it to him, but you weren't sure how you would feel if something like this happened again.
"Aw, babe, you did miss me." The delight in his voice makes you shiver a little. He gestures you over to your regular spot at the bar, and the two of you sit down in the weathered chairs. He puts a calloused finger under your chin to bring your gaze to his. You stare into his cerulean depths that you used to hate and find yourself softening a bit. "I had to do something for The League, but I don't have your number, love. So I couldn't call and let you know I wouldn't make our date." His face relaxes a bit as he watches your frown turn into a bit of pout.
"Okay, well fine, I'll give you my number. But don't just text me randomly, okay?" You huff as you lay your palm flat and motion for his phone. Dabi chuckles and shakes his head before handing you the phone without another word. Lifting the phone, you type your number into the cracked screen and hand it back to him. "Okay, now text me, so I have yours. " You say, moving to grab your phone to wait for his upcoming text.
"Hmmm, I don't think so, doll," Dabi says, taking in your furrowed brow and then relishing in the way you roll your eyes at his taunting.
"Fine, whatever, Dabi. Just text me next time you can't make it." You say sourly while searching for the bartender to order your drink. You don't want Dabi to see the slight sting of hurt in your eyes because he won't give you his. The rest of the night goes as expected, drinking and talking, and you find yourself laughing more, not realizing how much you truly enjoyed this time with him.
The two of you depart with another hug, this one much shorter than the first, but you find yourself leaning into the warmth that radiates from him instead of wanting to push him off. As you begin walking down the street home, you feel a buzz in your pocket. Pulling out your phone, you unlock it to the message from an unknown number.
Unknown Number: Hey babe, see you same time next week - D
A small smile comes to your face as you type a response back.
The following year you grow in your relationship with Dabi. There are never really any titles between the two of you. Just that the two of you are together. You never meet The League. Dabi is insistent you aren't involved with them in case things go awry. But you spend a lot of time together when work or villain work doesn't take up the time.
Your relationship together comes to a head at the very start of the apocalypse. The two of you sit snuggled together on your worn-out couch watching the news as a young reporter stands in front of a local research building in town and goes through the facts of citizens becoming "mindless and violent in a matter of hours." And how they have people under lockdown who are experiencing symptoms of this "mysterious illness."
A slight shiver goes through you as the reporter goes on. "That's really scary. No one knows what's causing it," you reflect aloud while you lean in closer into Dabi's outstretched arm that is resting around your shoulders.
"Aw, babe, don't be scared. Those mindless fools wouldn't stand a chance if they tried to lay a hand on you while I'm there," Dabi says with a glint of amusement in his voice. He always sounds so condescending, but you know it's the truth. Remembering a time at the bar when a guy wouldn't take no for an answer-not that Dabi really followed that either- but Dabi didn't hesitate to let the guy know you were already taken. He flirts and likes to jab a lot, but there’s a complete shift in the atmosphere when he's serious.
"Ugh, Dabi, you know I don't mean them attacking us. It's whatever is causing it that worries me. What happens if one of us gets it? There's no cure right now," You say and worry your lower lip between your teeth.
Dabi picks up on your anxious state, and his cocky facade fades. He pulls you on his lap so that you are fully facing him with legs pressed on either side of his. Dabi holds one large hand on your waist, and the other he presses to your cheek. Leaning your cheek further into his hand, Dabi moves his thumb to trace over the slight marks in your lip where your teeth were just placed. "Hey, listen to me, nothing is going to happen, okay? I won't let any of these maniacs hurt you, and we won't catch whatever they have," Dabi says tenderly as he gives you a small smile.
It's nice to see him like this- when his mask of superiority disappears, and he's focused on encouraging you. It doesn't happen often because you like to keep walls. Comfort from Dabi doesn’t need to happen often but you can’t say you don’t like it when he does. You enjoy these softer moments with him that only you get to see.
You pull Dabi into a light kiss. The gentle pressure of his mismatched lips fit seamlessly against yours. You pull away after a moment to look into his deep blue eyes that now captivate you. Dabi has that coy smile still on his face, and as his eyes meet your in that moment, it's like the horrible events of the world aren't happening anymore. All that seems to exist is the two of you, not the TV still prattling in the background or even the noises outside your city window.
Dabi lightly caresses your cheek down to the length of your neck and finally ending near where your collarbones sit. Everywhere he touches leaves behind a trail of goosebumps on your skin. Even with these simple touches, you can feel yourself starting moving against him, trying to create a bit of friction. Dabi knew how easily he could rile you up with simple touches. It was frustrating at times, and you wished you could have the same effect on him.
"I love you, babe. And no matter what, I won't let anything hurt you," Dabi tells you, and you swear his voice seems to be cracking, but the moment is gone before you can think about it. Dabi lives on being mysterious most of the time, and you rarely get to see this vulnerable side of him. Even if he doesn't say it behind that mask of cockiness, you can feel that there is fear of what's happening right now. Or at least that's what you think the fear is from, but Dabi will never admit the fear is from losing you to whatever this is. He isn't sure he could survive this hell of a life he's been given without you.
Your heart aches at his sincere words from earlier, and you whisper back, "I love you too, Dabi." Drawing him into a more intense kiss. Dabi begins to run his fingers along the hem of your t-shirt and delicately brushes the skin right under with his fingertips. You feel a moan bubble up inside of you, but his mouth moving against yours swallows the sound.
"I want you so bad, doll. Let's just forget what's going on right now, let the world fall away," he says in a husky voice after breaking away from the kiss.
You nod to him before letting out a content sigh and letting your eyes fall shut while Dabi continues to trace his hands over your body. Dabi trails his massive heated hands under the thin shirt you are wearing and down to your hips. You can feel the bulge of his cock through his jeans as it begins to press against your clothed core.
Opening your eyes, you meet Dabi's half-lidded lustful eyes and bite your bottom lip and allow yourself to give into Dabi taking over you.
You can feel your heart beating a little faster, watching Dabi drink in every ounce of you. Dabi is one of the only men you have ever trusted like this. To have you so totally vulnerable. It's strange how someone you didn't want anything to do with for months has become someone you rely on for everything- love, comfort, pleasure.
Dabi places open-mouthed kisses along your neck that leave you breathless. "Fuck, I'm obsessed with every inch of you," Dabi growls out before returning to kissing and sucking your neck and exposed collar bone.
You grip Dabi's shoulder to ground you back from floating away into complete bliss and tip your head out to give him more access to your neck. Dabi's mouth is like a flame that licks at your sensitive skin as he continues to trail his mouth all over. You could be trapped in this pleasure forever.
Dabi grasps the back of your head and roughly brings your lips back to his. With your mouths slotted against each other, you moan as Dabi finesses you to where you are lying on your back on the old couch, and he is hovering over you.
You break the kiss to quickly pull off his jacket and expose Dabi's scarred arms. And just as you have only trusted Dabi fully with yourself, he has done the same. Of course, the two of you have had sex with other people, mostly with lights off clothing still left on to hide the imperfections. But with each other, there is no more hiding.
Heat begins to pool in your belly as you watch Dabi pull off your shorts and slide his warm hands all the way back up your leg and massage the plush skin of your thighs. Once your shorts are removed, Dabi brings himself back to your face and, with a lustful sigh, traces kisses on your jaw and neck.
"Just relax and let me take you away from all of this, love. I want to hear every sound you make." He growls as he moves down towards your pussy and lays himself between your spread legs. Dabi lifts your thighs to rest on his shoulder as you let out a little gasp. You can feel the excitement and heat rising in you.
Dabi kisses down the inside of your soft thighs and stops to suck at certain spots, leaving minor marks in their place. He stops for a moment until you are looking directly into his captivating gaze, and then he licks a stripe up your pussy over the cotton of your underwear. You let out a breathy moan at the sensation. That jerk knows precisely what he's doing.
Dabi then grabs the thin material of your underwear and rips them away from your body with a tear. Groaning, you are about to curse at him for ruining another pair but are cut short when he sleekly licks up your folds. A delicate, playful moan leaves your separated lips. Your eyes close, and you cling onto his white shirt to ground yourself.
"Baby girl, you're soaking wet," Dabi teases as if you weren't aware but cuts off any retort again with a quick suck to your aching clit. You can't hold back the loud moan that bubbles up in your throat.
Dabi smiles against your lower lips and continues his ministrations. His mouth is open wide, so he can move back and forth from quickly licking up and down your sensitive pussy as well as suck softly on your clit. You feel light-headed at the extended sensations, little whimpers and moans falling through your lips. Dabi has always been able to leave you speechless with just his mouth.
"Dabi please," Your breathing hitches, and you moan out as he flicks his tongue repeatedly over your small bud. You can feel that hot pressure building in your stomach as Dabi continues. He laps at you like you are holding the only source of liquid left in this world, his tongue working wonders on your dripping hole.
Dabi pulls back and looks up at you as you eagerly meet his blue eyes, begging him to continue. He smirks before lowering his mouth back down and laps at your sopping core teasingly. Fucking bastard. Always a tease from day one.
Dabi licks his lips before returning to eating you out even faster as a series of cries and obscenities continue to fall out of your mouth. You can't hold them back. His mouth is so hot and wet against your core.
With another curse, you tell him you are close. A sigh escapes your lips, and your head tosses back onto the cushy arm of the couch. Dabi pulls away but inserts two fingers inside of you in place of his mouth.
"Fuck, sweetheart, as much as I want to hear you beg and plead for me, I want to taste you right now." Dabi lets out with a rough voice filled with desire. You whimper as he continues to fuck you with his fingers. He smirks at your blissed-out face and then returns his mouth to your pussy. His tongue flicks over your clit repeatedly as whines and cries continue to be let out of your mouth. Back arching, you bite at your lip, barely able to even process the words that came out of Dabi just a moment ago.
"Oh, fuck, Dabi, please. Please, I'm gonna cum soon." The words fall from your lips, and your mind feels numb to everything except the feeling of Dabi's tongue on your pussy.
Dabi grunts and gives another hard suck to your clit before pulling away just a bit. "Hell yeah, babe, come all over my face."
Your eyes roll back, and your mouth opens with another cry as your legs begin to tremble as the tension starts to rise in your stomach. One more lick, and you know you'd come. Dabi's continued suckling of your clit sends you careening over the edge. Your cries fill the room, and your back arches as your legs try to squeeze around his head. Dabi continues to suck and lick as you orgasm. Panting and with your eyes twisted shut, you cling to his shirt as you start to come down. A final curse gently leaves your mouth as you wait for your legs to stop shaking. Dabi takes one last long slow lick before sitting back and wiping his face with the back of his hand. You can't bring yourself to move from the couch, still panting and weak.
Your mind starts slowly coming back to you as the bliss begins to leave. The realization of everything happening in the world washes over you. But you were thankful Dabi took the time to distract you from the horrors of what's going on. You move over so Dabi can cuddle with you on the couch. It isn't much room, but it feels good to be this close with him, wrapped in each other's arms. You both slowly start to drift off to sleep, but you don't miss Dabi's final words mumbled into your hair, "I'll never let anything happen to you."
Shortly after that, the world seems to descend into madness. The illness grows more and more rampant. People are getting infected every day. Whether it's through the original source of contamination or by those contaminated biting or scratching someone. Panic spreads throughout the country. But through all of it, you and Dabi stick together.
From the moment it was declared an emergency Dabi was banging at your door, insisting the two of you find somewhere safer than your run-down apartment. Because while the two of you needed sleep, whatever these things are could go non-stop, and your apartment was not fortified.
You and Dabi lost your quirks a month after the emergency declaration, along with the rest of the population. People couldn't fight these zombie-like creatures off anymore. Like all the movies and TV shows, the bodies became more zombies than actual living people.
After a while of jumping around from a destroyed place to another, the two of you found yourself in an apartment building that had a sturdy enough entrance that the zombies couldn't break through. The daily struggles were still hard, though. Finding food and water to survive became a daily task for the two of you. Through all of this, he never left your side. He always insisted the two of you stay together. And so you did. Fighting the living dead, but sometimes the living too when things got even more terrible, and scavenging was your everyday routine now.
You lost track of time and could only follow when the seasons changed. But Dabi was really the only thing getting you through this. Seeing people destroy one another for food or shelter destroyed you inside. Never knowing if these zombies you were killing were someone you had known at one point, or just another faceless dead person tore at every corner of your brain. Dabi stayed strong for the two of you. Holding you every night on the ripped blankets, you could gather for the strange bed the two of you slept in. You would sob into his muscled chest about how you couldn't live in this world anymore, how you couldn't kill another person, alive or dead.
But Dabi would never let go. He would hold you close and let your never-ending tears stain the only shirt he had now. He would rub your back with his warm hands; even though his rusting staples would catch on your shirt and rip from his skin, he still did it. He would hold you until you fell asleep, whispering how strong you were and how he could never do this without you. And after all the tears, you were thankful too. Because without him, you'd be dead or alone. You knew that without Dabi, you would have never survived this long.
But you could see Dabi was hurting too. You couldn't find supplies to treat his decaying skin. He hid his daily pain from you, but when Dabi thought you weren't looking or listening, he would hiss at the pain of another staple pulling at his burnt skin or let out a huge sigh when he would try to put it back together, but it wouldn't cooperate.
The only hope the two of you held onto was each other and that possibly a cure would come soon. Not that either you could really access that information with no electricity; there wasn't any way to get information other than hearsay. You survived the best you could in this world.
And as much as this wasn't what you would have picked for either of you, at least you had each other. You tried not to think of a time when you wouldn't be together, even though the chances of that happening were high- it hurt too much. To survive in this world without Dabi would be too fucking much.
It's almost as if fate chose to play a cruel game with the two of you. It seemed like a "normal" trip out to scavenge for food and water. The two of you had to expand your search area since places closer were mainly empty.
This time you found yourself outside of a convenience store, a reasonable distance away from your home. It hadn't been completely destroyed by some miracle and was not overrun by the zombified people. Still, in a state of decay, though, Dabi was quickly able to kick his heavy boots through the door and get the two of you in.
Sauntering through the gas station, you quickly begin to pick up canned food and stale bags of chips and shove them in your worn backpack. Dabi is doing the same on other aisles until he lets out a chuckle. "Hey babe, look what I found." He says with a cocky voice holding up a few boxes of wrapped condoms above the aisle for you to see.
You roll your eyes. "Thanks, Dabi. Is sex really what we want to be thinking about right now? Let's just get this shit and get out." You let out with an annoyed huff and continue to push the limits of how much your bag can hold.
Dabi comes over to your aisle and snakes his arms around your waist with your back pressed to his chest. He places his chin on your shoulder and whispers in your ear. "Yes, all I can think about is getting your beautiful body back home and finally being able to finish in you, and with these, I can." He lets out a dark chuckle as he pulls you closer against him and bucks his hips playfully.
"Okay, horn dog, let's get this shit done, and then we can do whatever you want back home." You let out with an eye roll. It's hard to stay mad at him. You know he's trying to keep things light for you, to keep you happy because he can see how hard this is. And his regular teasing is one way he knows will bring a smile to your face.
As you are finishing up trying to take inventory of anything else in the store that you can take back, you spot the clear plastic that holds the cartons of cigarettes behind the cashier counter. While you didn't necessarily want Dabi smoking, you knew he missed the vice. Cigarettes were just as hard to find as medicine in this new world. Smiling to yourself, you move behind the counter and reach for the plastic flap to lift it up.
As you try to lift the latch, it doesn't budge. You look around for what might be blocking it before seeing the tiny silver keyhole to one side of the compartment. Crap, of course, it's locked. You really wanted to surprise Dabi with this. Maybe you still could. The key had to be here somewhere, right? You think while scanning around the counter. You try searching through the counters for a hidden key but no luck. Letting out a heavy sigh, you call Dabi over.
Dabi wanders over to your annoyed face and can't help but smile at your slight pout. "I wanted to surprise you! But I can't open it. Can you get it, please?" It comes out almost like a whine as you gesture to the cigarettes.
Dabi's smirk turns into a genuine smile, and he pats the top of your head before saying, "My sweet doll. Thank you for thinking of me. Let me help you out." You could smack him, but instead, you watch as he hastily rips the plastic covering away and slips his hand below it to grab one of the wrapped cartons.
At that moment, everything changes. The fun times the two of you were having shatters as a loud alarm rings through the store. Panic floods your system as you stare at Dabi wide-eyed. "There is no electricity. What's happening? There shouldn't be an alarm." Horror is laced in your voice as words spill out of you. Every walking corpse within miles will be here soon with the sound.
"Fuck, must have had a battery attachment. Come on, let's go." Dabi's usual playfulness is gone as he abandons the cigarettes and grabs your hand. He's grave now. Getting the two of you out of here safely is his only goal.
You follow Dabi quickly, a hand grasped tightly in his as he runs towards the broken-down front door. And that's when even more terror settles into you. Zombies are pushing their way through the open door. Their rotting bodies and white eyes focused on the area where the alarm is coming from. There weren't many around when you broke in, but now it seems like they are multiplying by the moment.
"Fuck fuck fuck." Dabi curses under his breath, quickly turning around and pulling you towards the building's back exit. You follow behind adrenaline surging through your veins fueled by your flight response. Dabi grasps at the metal handle to the back door and shakes it only to find it locked. "Damnit!" he shouts before kicking the door violently.
Your heart is pounding, and you feel helpless as you stare at Dabi while he continues to slam himself at the door. While the front door was glass and flimsier, this door was only budging slightly. With all your focus on the door, you don't notice the continuously growing herd filtering into the gas station. Not until you feel one brush against your shoulder.
Your eyes widen as you feel a scream bubbling in your throat. This is it. This is where the two of you die and either become fodder for a herd of living dead or turn into one yourself. Your brain is pure panic as thoughts fly through faster than you can catch them. You don't even realize you have screamed out Dabi's name until you see his face turn towards yours.
His typically blue eyes are almost entirely covered by his dark pupils as he takes in the monstrosities behind you. But unlike you, he doesn't hesitate. He pulls out a knife he keeps in one of his pockets and slams it into the decaying skull of the zombie that is right behind you. Splurts of dark blood hit your cheek as he pulls out the knife, and the creature behind you crumples to the floor.
"Keep trying the door! I'll keep them off you." Dabi shouts, pulling you into the spot he previously stood. Your heartbeat is so loud you can feel it in your head, and you can't even make a coherent response as you begin to slam your body against the solid surface. You can feel it give a little more with each push of your body, and everything in you is screaming not to give up. Doing your best not to glance at Dabi's grunting and movements as he continues to try and put down zombie after zombie.
You can't give up; this can't be the end . Desperately your brain is screaming as you continue to feel the door give more and more. Your shoulder hurts from the continued impact, but you aren't letting it slow you down. You can feel it; it's almost there.
Suddenly the door gives, and you can see the sun shining through on the other side. You cry out in relief and turn back to tell Dabi to come with you. But as your eyes meet, fear fills every ounce of you.
He's still fighting them off, but there is a gaping bite wound on his right arm— rows of teeth marks embedded in his skin. You feel like you're going to be sick. There is no coming back from this; there's no known cure. At any point within the next twenty-four hours, he would be another one of the walking dead, no sense, no logic, and looking to consume others. This can't be happening, this can't be happening. Your heart is sinking with every second that ticks by.
"What the fuck are you waiting for? Get out! Get out!" Dabi screams at you as he embeds his knife in another zombie.
"No, no, I can't leave without you! I-we can find something. I'll find something, please! Come on, Dabi, I can't do this without you!" You are sobbing now, hot tears streaming through the dirt and blood mixed on your face. An ache in your heart starts to form. You know you don't know how to help him, but you'll do anything to not leave him behind.
Dabi lets out a grin despite the feral dead people closing in on him. And gives you a wink before saying in a voice that seems too calm for the situation, "Come on, doll, you are the most intelligent person I know. You have to go. Live for us, babe. Look at how far we've come. Go show this world that it won't ever break you down. I love you, and I'll come to find you wherever you are in the afterlife and annoy the shit out of you. Now go!"
It's like your heart is being ripped into a thousand pieces. Your breath comes out in short huffs, moving towards hyperventilating. You want to go back to Dabi and cling on for dear life, but you won't let him die in vain. Not after that speech. That would be an insult to everything the two of you have overcome. So with all your strength, you give your lover, the man who has come so far with you, the last look before letting out a final "I love you too" and burst out the door.
You don't look back, aching feet propelling you forward as tears continue to stream and fall off your face. When you first met Dabi, you would have never thought you'd miss him. But you will , you'll miss every snarky comment, every flirty glance, and the tender way only he has loved you. The man that you were sure was just some asshole trying to get laid became the love of your life and sacrificed himself so you could live. And you could never let that go to waste.
#smut pile collab#Dabi x reader#Dabi smut#tw: character death#bnha fanfiction#mha fanfiction#Dabi fanfiction#my fic#how far we've come
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okok hc or fic: reader was teiko’s “head” manager(?) and her talent was being a medic (if someone gets injured they’re back on the court in under a minute type thing) and training plans. suddenly momoi’s talent blooms, she starts working w/ everyone in the team (+ reader’s crush akashi) and people think she’s a better manager than reader. because of this, she overworks + collapses in front of her best friends kuroko + kise (don’t let akashi know yet i have plans for that 👀)
HELLO? YES OFFICER? I JUST FOUND A BANGER REQUEST RIGHT HERE? YOUR BRAIN IS SO BIG AND SEXY IVE BEEN DYING TO WRITE THIS🏃🏻♀️💨 part 2 here and part 3 here AND update: part 4 here
Akashi x Reader
[Teiko!manager Headcanons]
you had a knack of being a natural chiropractor in loosening up tense muscles instantly (for more fluid play) or easily putting in back dislocated joints
basically you have crackhands
in your free time as a hobby and a job as the “head manager” (that Akashi announced to the team himself), you’d often bury yourself in anatomy studies and gym plans on the internet and databases to review over Akashi’s team training routines to see if they were effective and safe; oftentimes, you’d return back with improved plans, and as time went on, Akashi entrusted you with creating the plans yourself completely
you took on the job so eagerly to impress the Teiko captain, if you were being honest to yourself
your enthusiasm even inspires Momoi, Teiko’s other manager, to work harder
no one in Teiko knows physiology better than you, and as expected, it was also your best subject along with health
Kise often looks at you in horror and respect at how you don’t cringe/flinch at the loud cracks resonating across the room or court when players come to you for instant relief (the origin story of how he came to call you (y/n)-cchi was the very fact that you manage to put back his dislocated shoulder in 3 seconds flat one game)
when Kuroko first joined the 1st-string, he was a walking magnet for injuries, and you ended up being there for him every single time… nosebleeds? check. sprained ankle? check. nausea from over exhaustion? check.
both you and Kuroko relish in the fact that everyone in the team can never understand how the both of you do some incredible things with your hands
both of you being quite dexterous, you both often teach each other your specialties for fun; it’s almost shocking to see Kuroko effortlessly loosening up a stress knot and you pulling off a well-done palm pass
you admit, you do juggle a lot of responsibilities… from being a makeshift nurse, to a chiropractor, to a budget gym coach, and even to being moral support
Momoi often reminds you to take breaks being the caring person that she is
you often showed her the ropes and tricks of being a manager, on top of your duties, and you find it really endearing that she’s so earnest in learning from you
even if you enjoyed doing what you do, part of the massive workload is to try to get into Akashi’s good graces
talking to him about basketball duties is easier to achieve than talking to him outside of the extracurricular
you might be a tad bit insecure about it; after all, what middle schooler is already so accomplished in academics, sports, and everything you could think of? wasn’t he also studying to take over his father’s company??
to you, who only starred as Teiko’s humble manager, it felt hard trying to establish common ground for conversation outside of basketball
so you stuck to working hard at your position, hoping that your work ethic would get his attention one day; you were a firm believer of actions over words, so you hoped your actions would come off as genuine
picture you and Momoi running across campus with stacks of papers for the team… it makes most of the teammates’ hearts melt at the sight
your work certainly got you praises from other teammates, but out of all players, Kise was the one who figured out your motive
you felt absolutely morbid; to think that Kise, of all people, would figure you out like the back of his hand
Kise being sweet as he is, offers to help you get with the captain but you merely prompted to threaten to break his arm if he spilled your crush to anyone else
“(y/n)-cchi… I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes, Kise?”
“It’s really cool that you’re working so tirelessly for the team, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason why you work so hard.”
“O-Of course I do! I want to see you guys all succeed!”
“Then I’m curious as to why you always look at Akashicchi—o-ow, ow, ow!! (y/n)-cchi, I’m sorry! So can you please let go of my—ow!”
“H-How did you know?!”
“I-It was as obvious as day, (y/n)-cchi! I’m pretty sure even Kurokocchi found out about this before I did!”
“N-No way!!”
“Tell you what, I’m super duper knowledgeable in this stuff! You can count on me for this sort of advice—OW!”
spoiler alert: Kise was right in that Kuroko definitely noticed your attraction to Akashi before anyone else… he just never brought it up to you
one day, Kuroko comes up to you to whisper:
“(y/n)-san, have you realized that Akashi-kun has been observing you recently during practice?”
“W-Wait! Is he looking over here right now?”
“Not that I think. He’s occupied with the coach right now.”
“D-Do you think this is a good sign?”
Kuroko gives you a small smile before he replies, “I would like to think so. Keep working hard, (y/n)-san.”
and you do, you’re constantly on top of your game for the next season until Momoi suddenly gets more recognition for her “precognitive defense” skills
her newfound talent was extraordinary and never-before-seen, and her ability became more critical to Teiko’s victories than your own skills
you were happy and proud for her, because after all, her achievements were extremely deserving to be praised
it’s only when some 1st-string players started making offhand comments about how you weren’t really needed in the 1st-string and was more suited to the lower strings that placed seeds of doubt into you
these people would often compare you to Momoi in how she improved much more despite you being in the team for longer
there’s also talk about how your skills are more useful for 2nd-string and 3rd-string players because Momoi’s ability is already sufficient enough for Teiko’s starters
after all, how would a player even be injured if they can predict their opponents’ moves to avoid such incidents?
there’s also the fact that Akashi has been calling Momoi more frequently to research on upcoming teams for analytical data because her talent has become very useful to ensuring victory
the same peers and adults who gave you praise were the same people who began to ignore you or dismiss you; that being said, the collective change in attitude is definitely subtle enough that it would fly under most people’s radars
Kuroko was the first to notice and defend you against a small group of players who were bold enough to badmouth you in the gym
Kise would find out a little later about the somewhat unpleasant gossip about you and would pull the “no you” reverse card, returning back with MEANER underhanded comments that would send these shit talkers CRYING HOME (manga Kise strikes here unexpectedly eh?)
Murasakibara is someone who would be slightly uncomfortable with the gossip about you, especially since you’ve always been so helpful and kind to the team and himself; he’d either leave the room himself or easily scare them away with his looming height and presence without saying a single word when he enters the room “minding his own business”
Midorima is a bystander judging from how he’s reacted to the Teiko dynamic changes in the actual show // he, of course, wouldn’t like the nasty talk about you but would actually mind his own business, choosing to focus on himself and what he has to do to contribute to his team; he assumes that you would work hard the same way he is and let your contributions do the talking
now Akashi surprisingly wouldn’t hear much of the gossip, since his presence alone SHUTS them up and commit to their practices like normal; after all, it’s very clear that Akashi doesn’t tolerate this type of behavior in the team (example: Haizaki), and it’s more apparent that he wouldn’t hesitate to drop kick them out especially since he has a soft spot for you (which Kise never fails to bring this up to you, but you think he’s reaching too much into it) // TLDR; the teammates mostly have the common sense to not utter anything bad about you… maybe one kid would slip out and get punished for “bad sportsmanship,” but Akashi merely assumes that it’s just one bad apple and not necessarily… the many others as well
Aomine???? bro he ain’t even at practice wdym (HELPPP LMAOO) // jokes aside, if he catches wind of players shit-talking outside of the gym… say at the convenience store or when he’s walking home or something, well… they wouldn’t have a good time…
Momoi simply chastises the gossipers when they try to talk shit on you to make Momoi herself look good, and it leaves? such? a? horrible? taste? like, she wants to believe that they’re just really poor jokes and not what they really believe in, and the teammates merely reassure her that they’re just bad jokes and that they “wouldn’t do it again;” poor Momoi wholeheartedly believes them
the weird talks about Momoi being “the better manager” just signalled to you that you haven’t contributed enough to the team yet, and it motivated you to work even harder
oddly, you weren’t jealous of the fact that Momoi was receiving more positive attention than you
you were more afraid of the fact that you were going to get left behind, and this fear only tightened its hold on you when more teammates (who used to talk to you a lot) have changed their tunes when they speak with you now, compared to them talking to Momoi
and you felt that the Generation of Miracles would do the same too… including Akashi
it wasn’t an irrational fear for you because he’s already been calling Momoi a lot more frequently for help than you recently
so you even offered to mop the gym floors after practice, offered to stay later than usual to be the one to lock up the gym for anyone (cough, Kuroko) who wanted to practice whenever they wanted
at one point, you even tried to do what Momoi does: researching on upcoming teams and making your own predictions (that didn’t really work, and that cost you a few nights’ worth of sleep every single time)
not to mention that you still had regular school like any other student? you were the epitome of a mess
Kuroko was with you in the empty gym, you putting away the extra basketballs in the storage closet while he practiced his dribbling, until he heard a crash in there and a few basketballs rolled out the door
you collapsed right when you rolled in the basketball cart
POOR KUROKO HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO // he just tries to give you a piggyback ride as he abandons his plans of practice and tries to jog to the nearest local clinic
that’s where he bumped into Kise, who was heading home after an evening shoot when he saw the two of you
chaos ensue as Kise freaks out and Kuroko had to calm him down himself after answering the never-ending questions
at least the doctor there gave relieving news that you only collapsed from over-exhaustion and that the bruises from the fall were very faint
Kise makes a joke to Kuroko about, “What’s with you and (y/n)-cchi falling to the floor and fainting? You guys can’t be that alike.”
when you shortly regain consciousness, you were met with a… very stern Kuroko and Kise, who were both ready to hear your explanation and to scold you to oblivion
to your surprise, they were understanding; Kuroko understands the feeling of not being enough and working hard to meet other people’s expectations, and Kise understands the struggle of juggling multiple things in his schedule (come on, student, athlete, and model?)
they still scolded your ears off:
“(y/n)-san, you idiot. Why didn’t you ask anyone to help out?”
“That’s…”
“(y/n)-cchi, do you think we’re undependable?!”
“Er, no, that’s…”
you were still dizzy from the fall and the lack of proper sleep (and maybe nutrition if we’re being honest), and you were just a ball of stress
you kind of begged your best friends not to tell a SOUL to anyone about this incident, especially to Akashi… you didn’t want to look even more incapable in his eyes than you already were
they do agree on one condition: for you to take AT LEAST a day or two off school to completely recover and rest up (you reluctantly agree; besides how were you going to explain the bruises that can’t be covered to your peers?)
HELP WHY ARE KISE AND KUROKO THE BEST LIARS TOGETHER ON CAMPUS LITERALLY NO ONE SUSPECTS A THING… except Akashi, the ever sharp captain, felt something was amiss
especially since some Teiko players emanated a feeling of relief at the news of you not being here that day, or the next
Akashi would play detective sleuth and find out what’s really going on sooner or later
End Note: gonna cut this off here b/c I KNOW this anon got a juicy part two i FEEL IT
#kuroko no basket#knb x reader#knb#knb fic#knb fics#knb headcanons#knb teiko#teiko middle school#kuroko tetsuya#kurokocchi#kise ryota#kise ryouta#akashi seijuro#akashi x reader#akashi seijuro x reader#knb headcanon#midorima shintarou#midorima shintaro#momoi satsuki#aomine daiki#murasakibara atsushi
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by design pt. 3// Prince Friedrich
series masterlist
summary: friedrich and y/n’s arrival in prussia! ft. frederica ;))
word count: 4.7k
warnings: none
a/n: apologies for the long wait darlings. here she is though. and she is a long one. also a side note for those who love symbolism as much as i do 💐 ;) also, my banabaer @milkbaer this one is for u baby. thank you for all of your help!!!
a german lesson: Gänschen means goose🦆 (that’s a duck but we can pretend) and schloss means palace/chateau/mansion
The massive railway station stood proudly as the gateway to Potsdam, located right where the forest met the city. Three archways made of worn bricks welcomed old friends and strangers alike. There was something in the slightly tinted mossy green that offered you an odd sense of home. Like you had been here before.
Friedrich stood next to you near the exit. You had had breakfast together, then got ready separately before meeting each other again here.
“I had a lot of memories with this train station,” Friedrich said as the train finally passed the great archway.
You didn’t realize that you had been holding your breath the entire time, waiting for the wheels to come to full stop. You had been storing information from Lea and Ilse about Friedrich’s mother all morning. Anything that might help you strike up a decent conversation with her from her favorite flowers (gardenias) to her pets (a schnauzer named Fifi). Since then, you had been a little preoccupied by your own imaginations of her as a mother.
From the way Friedrich talked about her, your first guess was that they were extremely like-minded. Aside from that, there was the fact that she was a Queen to consider. She obviously must be extremely elegant and poised. Even her dog sounded posh-Fifi the Schnauzer...
You were still listening to Friedrich though, just not closely. “Really?” you asked, your eyes following the platform numbers as they passed by.
He nodded proudly. “I ran here from the Palace and caught the train to Berlin for a boxing match.”
You laughed, now entirely engaged in imagining little Friedrich fleeing from his guards. “And how old were you?”
“Thirteen. I skipped a dancing lesson.”
“Shame. You could have become a ballerina and outdone my stunts at your Christmas party.”
“Who’s to say that I did not? There are still many shocking things that you don’t know.” His plan to distract you from your own nerves had worked wonderfully well. You two continued to discuss his boxing match up until you were escorted out of the station.
There, you were greeted by a great spectacle of carriages and a horse parade. Everywhere you looked there were men in uniforms. They were on horses, in open top carriages, on the streets, all waiting for you and Friedrich.
Back in London, your family frequently had two to three carriages to accompany you to social functions. It was already considered excessive for the ton. You would have laughed at the idea of this. Or to be honest, wouldn’t have even been able to imagine having an entire parade to accompany you a couple of blocks down the street.
And of course, you could not forget the icing on the cake-the largest carriage you had ever seen. The one you saw in France could not compare and certainly not the one in England. This one was completely enveloped in gold from top to toe-or rather from roof to wheels. On the top of the roof, there were golden cherubs holding up an olive branch and flowers.
It was a harsh reminder that Friedrich, someone who you had grown to identify as your friend over the last several hours, was also the firstborn son of the King, heir apparent to the throne. And you were his wife. Whatever agreement you had made with each other in private was not valid in the public eye. Here, you were a Princess. The Princess.
As Friedrich watched you marvel in the magnificence of the royal parade, he turned to Heinrich with a last minute decision. Well last minute for his father and valet but not for him. Friedrich had wanted to visit his mother for ages.
“I’m heading to my mother’s. We’ll catch up with the staff afterwards and meet you at the Berlin Palace.”
All of this was not on the schedule his father had drawn out and Friedrich was well-aware. He had even cancelled the state train that Friedrich specifically ordered to Potsdam just to make sure he would not take you here first. But Friedrich was not one to lose.
At the same time, however, he knew that his valet was absolutely terrified of his father, as did most people. Soon enough, when his father found out that his son was not on the train to Berlin and was nowhere near the Royal Palace, he would definitely not be happy.
“But your Highness, we really must get going now or we won’t reach Berlin by noon.”
“If he asks, just blame it on me. I’ll be in and out in one hour.”
Heinrich didn’t say anything after that, just nodded. For that, Friedrich was thankful, he did not want to ruin this magical moment for you. It was not going to be this magical for long.
As Heinrich left with your staff, Friedrich turned back to you. “Y/N?”
“I-Is this for us?”
The look on your face made him laugh. Your jaws were grazing the floors, your eyes slowly sweeping across the scene then glanced at him and back to the carriages again.
“I believe it is,” he smiled, offering you his arm.
…
The entire ride back to the Palace was essentially just for you to fathom the welcome wagon.
You could barely string a sentence together, nodding along as Friedrich picked out places that he mentioned in his stories last night, especially enthusiastic about the candy shop he was never allowed to go in.
Potsdam was charming. You could certainly imagine a very fulfilling and peaceful existence here where it wasn't hectic like London but not entirely placid like the countryside.
Just when you thought you could not be more impressed, you arrived at Sanssouci Park.
When Ilse briefly mentioned it, you had expected a park. Like Hyde Park or Regent’s Park or the little garden behind your house that your parents insisted was a park. Whatever you had imagined, however, could not hold a candle to what it was in reality.
“Welcome to Sanssouci Park,” Friedrich said casually, casting a brief look out the windows while your eyes were completely glued to the towering gates opening up for your parade to pass through.
The name was not meant to refer to a park. It was definitely not a park. It was a bloody forest. As you entered the road lined with dense trees, the temperature dropped slightly with the shade, effectively cooling you both from the outside in.
“This is what you call a park? Whatever do you two think of Hyde Park then? A child’s sandbox?”
Before he could answer, your attention was quickly captured by a glimpse of something magnificent as the carriage passed a gap between the tree trunks. You pointed towards the dash of yellow you’d seen. “Is that where your mother lives?”
Friedrich followed your gaze and promptly nodded. “That’s Sanssouci Schloss. Here is the back of it.” Just on cue, the carriage rounded the corner and headed towards the back of the Palace.
Your jaws were officially off now as your eyes feasted on the very picture of splendor.
From personal observations, people usually spent a great deal of time and fortune on making the fronts of their homes as extravagant as possible. It was all in the face, as they said. But not here. Here, even the rear side was grand.
There was a huge water fountain in the middle of the yard, the blue sky printed on the surface. Naturally, your eyes followed straight ahead, past the window behind Friedrich’s head towards the most elaborate set of marble stairs you’d ever seen. On either side were tall walls of hedges and rose bushes that covered the hillside.
“Can we walk up those steps?”
Friedrich turned to look at the steps and then back at you again.
It was not a steep hill. More of a gentle slope but exactly because of that, the steps were long and the landings were wide. Anyone in breeches would find it challenging enough as it was. But you were in a gown, in the sweltering July heat and you were volunteering to walk. “You can. People usually go straight to the entrance though. Are you certain you’d want to walk? It is a long way.”
You nodded, brushing off his concerns. All you cared about was the sight.
Per your request, the carriage stopped right before the grand stairs to Sanssouci Palace. You and Friedrich got out of the carriage.
From where you stood, you had to crane your neck up slightly to be able to see the Palace up the top. The strip of yellow you’d seen from afar turned out to be much more intricate than you’d expected. Beautiful white windows lined the yellow walls, right in the center was an oval shaped room with a cyan dome on top, perfectly aligned with the stairs. Even though it only had one story, its width certainly made up for its height, stretching across the hill.
As you walked ahead, Friedrich decided to stall a little bit. Memories of endless summer days spent on these lawns came flooding back.
He had missed this.
The last time he was here was the summer before he left for England. It was actually here that his aunt Charlotte came to visit with an invitation to Cambridge-the day that changed his life.
And now he was here with you. Someone he had dreaded to marry a mere few days before. Now a dear friend to him.
Straight in front of him, you were marching up the steps with admirable determination, your hands holding onto your skirt, lifting it off the ground. With sun on your skin and wind in your hair, you laughed and told him to hurry up. For that split second, he wished he was not just your friend. Though he discarded that thought as quickly as it came, it stayed stuck in the back of his mind as he matched your pace.
“These are a lot of steps,” you remarked after the first flight of stairs was behind you. There were at least five more ahead. The excessively wide spaces between each step did not help with the general morale either.
“I did warn you,” he chuckled. “It was too exhausting a trip that Marie Antoinette rode a horse up these steps after her stroll in the garden.”
You paused for a moment.
Friedrich thought you were imagining the French queen trotting up the steps with her stallion. But as it turned out, he was wrong.
“Did he invite her over during one of the military clashes between Prussia and France?”
To say that Friedrich did not expect that was an understatement. You had told him you read but he never asked for the specifics on what exactly you were interested in. At that moment, he simply thought you’d be interested in a made-up tale to forget about the stairs. He did not think for a moment you’d be interested in foreign conflicts enough to know the feud between Prussia and France. He knew he certainly wasn’t as a student.
“You can’t fool me. I know,” you said, laughing at the shock on his face.
Pleasantly impressed, he remarked, “Full of surprises I see.”
“You’ll see that in this friendship,” you motioned between yourselves, “you’re not the only one who can shock.”
He gave you a nod, lowering his eyes and watched his steps before he murmured to himself. “Friendship, yes.” He reminded himself of how grateful he was to be your friend. And that maybe pining over you for the rest of his life was better than having you hate him.
If there was one thing for certain, it was that you two would not repeat his parents’ mistakes.
“Darling!”
The voice caused Friedrich’s eyes to snap upwards, slightly alarmed as they weren’t expected on this side of the Palace. Everyone was supposed to be at the front.
The first thing he saw was that you had stopped as well, only standing two steps above him. And then, on the top flight, he saw his mother, waving at him. She wasn’t supposed to greet them outside. At the same time though, he wouldn’t expect her to wait that long for anything anyways.
He waved back with a laugh. She hadn’t changed one bit since the last time he saw her nearly a year ago. A straw sunhat on top of her head, a basket of flower and gardening tools in her hand.
“I-is that-“
Friedrich nodded. “Yes, that’s her. That’s my Mama.”
The nervous jitters came back to you. You knew how much his mother meant to him. She was the true hero of his childhood and you were just excited to meet her. However, you also knew that in no way was this arrangement made by her. And no matter how friendly you were with Friedrich, as his mother, she would not easily trust you.
You quickly masked your nervousness with a gentle smile. It was the safest route after all. Better look like a smiley fool than a grumpy idiot. You thought.
The Queen began to walk down the steps briskly, meeting you halfway up the last flight of stairs. Immediately, she threw her arms around Friedrich, pulling him into a bear hug. “There you are, you Gänschen! You’ve kept your mother waiting long enough!” She said, messing up his hair and only letting go of him once he was shaking with laughter.
When he and your maids said she was very carefree in private, you did not expect her to be this carefree. A lady was not supposed to be out in the sun like this, no less a queen. She was also much more beautiful than you could ever imagine, with her honey blonde curls tumbling down her back in waves and her big blue eyes which were now on you.
“Apologies, Mama,” he stepped back, allowing you to take a step forward. “This is Y/N, my wife. And Y/N, this is my Mama.”
“It is such an honor to meet you, your Majesty,” you said, bending your knees into a curtsy, praying you wouldn’t stumble backwards and ruin the first impression.
You had an overwhelming want for her to like you. And you felt like this first meeting was of paramount importance in deciding that. If it did not go well, she would never see you as anything more than a girl her son was forced to marry. And that was terrifying even in the case where Friedrich remained a good friend.
You were not wrong. Frederica did not expect much from a match made by Louis, a man who clearly did not know his own son or even cared to try. Assuming he did know his son, it would not even be of any matter at all. The only thing he had ever cared about was grooming an heir. This arrangement, no doubt, served that.
But Frederica could not ignore the large smile on her son’s face as he ascended the steps with this young lady.
That? That was not by design.
Frederica shook her head and offered you her hand to help you stand up straight. “I prefer Frederica. At least when we are not in court.”
She gave you a cheeky wink and plucked a gardenia from her basket, tucking it by your ear. “Come on now! I am sure it has been a long trip for the both of you. Let us have some tea before you go.”
...
Frederica led the both of you into the Palace through the doors into the oval room. Inside it was just as spectacular as its exterior. Tall columns held up the painted dome where a chandelier was hung. The three arched windows looking out to the gardens were pushed open by three footmen, allowing sunlight and fresh air to gush into the space, lightening up the entire room.
“Please have a seat, dears,” Frederica said, gesturing to the rounded table in the middle of the room.
You were still too in awe to be able to settle down calmly in your seat but obeyed her anyways. Beside you, Friedrich was glancing around the room, like he was in search of something.
“Is Fifi not here?” he asked as a butler approached the table with a cake stand.
Just on cue, Fifi-his mother’s Schnauzer, shot through the doors. You nearly gasped out of sheer excitement when you saw the ball of salt and pepper fur fly into the room like an arrow. You had always shared a fondness for dogs. Yet you never had one. The only dogs you had were your father’s hunting hounds and he made sure you remained far away from them.
“Speak of the devil...” Friedrich turned to you, “this is Fifi, hated by most but very loved by my mother. Mostly because she smells like fish.”
He kept his eyes on the dog as she strolled around, heading in your direction and getting alarmingly close. “Fifi!” he said, shooing her off. The dog didn’t care, just kept on going forward.
“Oh, it’s quite alright! I love dogs,” you said, fighting the urge to pet Fifi who was quietly sniffing at the hem of your skirt.
Frederica was absolutely surprised when she saw her Schnauzer so quiet. Her dog was not friendly with strangers. By this time there should have been an accident.
The delayed accident happened right after that. Fifi bit down on your dress, tugging at it playfully.
More surprising, however, you didn’t seem scared of the feisty little old thing either. You just laughed.
“Fifi! Leave the poor girl alone!” Frederica said, tapping her shoes against the floor.
Friedrich quickly leaned forward and picked her up. Being lifted off the ground, she released your skirt and focused on wiggling out of Friedrich’s grasps instead. When she eventually succeeded, Fifi headed back to you, circling your feet, her tail wagging.
Friedrich clicked his tongue, about to bend over again to shoo Fifi off. Not that she would care. But the dog plopped down between your chair and his mother’s, out of Friedrich’s reach.
She looked up at you with big eyes, begging for a pet, which you were happy to provide. You reached down and scratched her ears. It was all rather brave, if he must admit.
“I know it is hard to believe but she seems fond of you,” Frederica mused, seeing Fifi transform into a whole other dog under your touch. She was not usually this sweet.
Friedrich scoffed. “The devil almost ripped her skirt off,” he gestured to the hem of your dress, and glared at Fifi.
“It’s fine, honestly. I think it was a compliment if anything,” you said with a smile.
He sighed. “Don’t defend the perpetrator! She has a terrible temperament. And you know it,” he turned to his mother.
“Fifi does. as much as I love her,” Frederica nodded. Fifi’s ears perked up at the mention of her name, blinking at her owner. “But you seem like a very experienced animal whisperer.”
“No, actually. I never had one.”
“Well, that’s a shame. You’re great with Fifi. And if you can handle her, you can handle any dog.”
“Any dog is better than Fifi,” Friedrich said under his breath. Nevertheless, he was glad to see the two of you bond. Even if it was over Fifi the Ferocious.
On the bright side, at least she wasn’t coming back with them to Berlin. It was the only thing Friedrich and his father had ever had in common-a dislike for the Schnauzer.
...
Heinrich was being escorted into the Palace towards the audience room. A place he would much prefer not to go to on his own. He had arrived for over an hour and still you two were nowhere to be found and it was only for so long he could hide the train of carriages. Eventually, one of the butlers alerted the King of his presence and he was immediately requested inside.
Heinrich had suspected that you would arrive slightly late. He just didn’t think it could be this late. He had no idea what he was supposed to say. One misstep and off with his head.
When the doors to the room were swung open, the King was throwing a fit. His deafening yell rang across the room and bounced against the tall walls. It certainly did not help with the nerves.
“WHERE IS MY HORSE?” he demanded, rising up from the throne. From where he stood, he towered over the poor footman. “I am late for hunting!”
“Your Majesty, you cancelled today’s hunt.”
“And why on earth would I do that?”
Heinrich kept quiet, remaining invisible as he approached the throne behind the butler. He was not about to be caught in the middle of a crossfire during one of the King’s fits.
The footman blinked. Heinrich could see the man debating whether or not to answer, lest it was a rhetorical question.
“B-because the Prince is back from England, sir?”
“Oh,” the King said. His voice quieter than before and sat back down again. The crease between his Majesty’s eyebrows disappeared, his expressions softening slightly. Then he turned to the footman with a quizzical look. “And where is the Prince?”
The footman turned around and met Heinrich’s eyes. And then the King followed his gaze. So much for not wanting to be caught in the crossfire.
“I-“ Heinrich began, his mind drawing a blank.
If he were to tell the truth, Friedrich and you would no doubt be in trouble. However, if he didn’t tell the truth, he’d be in trouble and so would you two. And if he just said he didn’t know, he’d be on the first ship to an island far far away.
“Well?” The King barked.
“I’ll go get them, your Majesty!”
“Don’t just stand there. Hurry along then! Before I chop all of your heads off.”
Heinrich had never walked so fast out of a room his entire life. His heart was pounding as it began to dawn on him that he had just lied to the King. Well, it was not exactly a lie. He was going to get them. They just weren’t here yet. Unfortunately, none of that mattered. There was no reasoning with such a powerful man. All he could do was hope that he would still be alive to see another day.
Just when all of his luck appeared to have run out, he heard the distinct sound of hooves against cobble and rushed outside.
Friedrich helped you out of the carriage, still engaged in the never-ending tales of Fifi the Ferocious. You were laughing when you caught sight of the magnificent Royal Palace-Berliner Schloss. It was much boxier than Sanssouci Schloss with towering walls that casted a great shadow over the front lawn.
Household staff lined the steps on either side, straightening up as Heinrich dashed past them. Some had their heads turned, the younger ones especially, their curious eyes on you, trying to catch a glimpse of the new Princess. The more seasoned staff near the top stayed perfectly still, resisting the urge to look anywhere other than straight ahead.
“Your Highnesses!” He said, bowing so quickly you were worried his head might snap off. “Your presences are requested. Immediately!”
...
Through the doors you could faintly hear your titles being announced. Your palms were clammy so you hid it behind you, focusing on what you might say in a couple of moments.
Friedrich was not nervous, of course.
He was the one who planned the detour in the first place. And while you had enjoyed the time with Frederica very much, perhaps a little too much, it had delayed your schedule by well over a couple of hours. It meant that you made the King of Prussia, your father-in-law wait.
The only person more nervous than you was probably Heinrich. Every time you caught a glimpse of his face, he seemed more haggard than the last. You were not certain whether he was really sick or just worried.
"My father will say things. Things that are aimed to test you. Do not mind any of it," Friedrich said quietly.
"Something tells me I should take that as a suggestion. One look at Heinrich and I know what I am in for."
Friedrich sneaked a glance at his valet and gave you a small smile. "Heinrich has always been that way. Worries a little too much."
"Maybe that is for good reason-"
The trumpets sounded, prompting you to straighten up, smooth your dress and put on a smile. In the corner of your eyes, you could see Friedrich cracking up. Had it not been for the fact that you were being presented right then, you would have given him a slipper to the chest. He was still smiling up until you had to walk through the doors.
Then, his demeanor shifted completely. You did not dare to make eye contact with the King. All you saw was brief glimpses of a man, wearing a red cloak on the throne. But Friedrich, he was looking straight down the room, challenging his father.
From the stories he had told you, you knew that Friedrich had a rough relationship with his father. Once he got a chance to break away, he vowed he would allow his father to have full control of his life again. And from the suffocating tension in the air, you knew his father would not make it easy.
“The Prince and Princess of Prussia, your Majesty,” a footman announced.
"Your Majesty," you said, giving the King a curtsy.
"Welcome, welcome. I hope the journey was not too rough for you.”
You smiled and nodded. Not a bad start.
However, it was a completely different story when you saw Friedrich’s face. He raised his eyebrows, clearly unconvinced by his father’s concern. "You do, father? Wasn’t it on your orders that the state train never arrived?”
“Now, now, Friedrich. That was none of my doing.” The King turned to you with a small smile. “I must say, you are much prettier than I expected, my lady.”
He had made such an effort to emphasize the last two words that even if you weren’t listening, you still would have caught them. The King was smirking on his throne, his icy eyes sending chills down your back.
“I believe it’s your Highness, father.”
This row was your fault. You could tell.
“No, I don’t think it is. You didn’t get married.”
“We did.”
“That did not count.”
“How? Because you weren’t invited?”
“I see all of your manners have gone out the door since you stepped foot out of this country.”
Friedrich wanted to scoff. It was always going to be about England. If they were going to have this conversation, he was going to do it properly. But not in front of you.
He turned to Heinrich. “Take the Princess to see the chambers.”
You didn’t want to leave. You were responsible for this in one way or another. You should be here to take the blame. But Friedrich shook his head like he knew what you were about to say. “Come with Heinrich. I’ll meet you later.”
“No need for that. Lady Brandt, your chief lady-in-waiting, will take you for a tour. Bernadine?”
You remembered Lea and Ilse mentioning her as well. However, at that time, she didn’t have a name or a face for you to attach her to just yet. You just knew that she was going to be in charge of all of your affairs like Heinrich was doing for Friedrich. Now she had a name and a face.
At the mention of her name, she nodded and stepped forward from the line of staff on your right. She was dressed in a blood red dress, a strand of pearls wrapped around her long neck. She came towards you, giving you an impressive curtsy, tipping her head forward slowly yet keeping her hat perfectly still on her dark raven hair.
When she looked up, you were finally able to see her striking hollow eyes, tall cheekbones and an ever so slightly upturned corner of her lips. She looked awfully familiar. Like a much younger version of your mother actually. And she was just as terrifying.
“Come with me, your Highness.”
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mint
yandere enji x reader
summary; every gardner knows that if you leave mint unchecked it'll take over the whole garden. enji hasn't checked up on you in a while
a/n; a continuation of houseplant and commish for @neroesecuzioni
tw; pregnancy, implied abortion, threat of physical abuse, a baby walks into enji’s fiery body and disappears in like the first couple paragraphs
word count; 4.1k
🌱
It’s the same dream again. You hold your son in your arms, his hazel eyes round and wide, gazing at you with a look so pure and curious and knowing that you can’t fathom any other option except to love him. His small hands grab at your face as you rock him in your arms, humming a simple melody as his eyelids slowly close.
The sight of his perfectly content face as he sleeps brings a flood of joy through your heart like you’ve never known before, and you set him down gently in his crib before turning to do something else. It’s always something different every time; you go to warm up a bottle, you leave to get his stuffed animal from the wash, or maybe you go to get a cool washcloth for his slightly too-warm face. The result is always the same.
You return, object in hand, to find an empty crib. You turn around, frantically searching for your son, only to look out the window and see Enji’s burning form in the backyard. As you rush down the stairs and out the back door you finally see him- your son, the joy and love of your life, crawling towards your husband who looks at him with little more than cool indifference on his face.
On good nights, you wake up then, sweat coating your body and chest heaving as you calm your racing pulse and convince yourself that it’s just a dream. Most of the time, though, you watch, rooted to the spot and horrified as your perfect, sweet, helpless little baby crawls straight into your husband’s fire. It doesn’t help that he vanishes almost as soon as the flames hit him. If anything, the uncertainty of his fate hurts worse.
On these nights, the sight of Enji’s callous blue eyes are the last thing you see before you wake, cold enough to burn. You always wake with tears on your cheeks, sheets tangled from your thrashing. Enji used to wake with you, trying to soothe you in the best attempt that he could manage, but after one too many panicked blows to the face he’s given up, merely moving to the downstairs couch whenever it happens.
You can’t tell if you’re disappointed by that or not. In the past month your dreams have been getting more and more frequent, almost always ending with the image of Enji’s cold blue eyes seared into your brain, and you can’t tell what that means.
You don’t want to know what that means.
🌱
Lately, the garden has become a place of refuge for you. What started as a meager little plastic pot holding a pathetically wilted tomato plant has now become two full garden beds and a hearty-looking peach sapling. The mint plant has its own cute little terracotta pot, lest it terrorize and take over the rest of your carefully-tended plants.
As the frequency of your dreams increase, so does your time spent gardening. The raised beds are bursting with plants and produce, and you’re starting to eye the yard surrounding your little garden as free real estate.
You’ve been saving newspapers for a while now, with Enji buying you one every time he leaves the house, and now all you need is a bag or two of mulch and some straw. And maybe also some wooden stakes and chicken wire. And more wood for more garden beds. And seeds for the new beds.
Okay. Maybe you need a little more than you thought. At this point it would just be easier for you to go and pick it up yourself; you know exactly what you need and if you think of something else you want you don’t have to frantically text Enji and pray that he reads it in time.
You haven’t been outside for such a long time. Well, you’re outside right now, but like, outside in society? When was the last time you stepped foot in a supermarket? As a matter of fact, when was the last time you set foot off the property? Your inability to answer those questions leaves you restless and desperate to prove your independence.
Maybe…no... Enji’s made it clear on numerous occasions that you’re not leaving the house. Except, he can’t really be thinking about keeping you here forever, right? He’ll reintroduce you to society, he has to, even if it’s not for another month or so. You assume that it’s been about six months since you were first brought here.
The hunger for a taste of the outside world plagues you for the rest of the morning, and you find yourself unable to concentrate on anything. It’s after lunch that you grow bold and restless enough to finally broach the topic with Enji, satiated by a light meal that just happened to use some of the vegetables from your garden. The fact that you’re drinking lemonade made with mint from the garden is also a coincidence.
“So, I was thinking about expanding the garden this morning. I’ve got enough newspaper to cover the amount of land that I want to turn into beds and I just need a couple things from the store?” Enji grunts in acknowledgement, looking up briefly from his reports.
“Write them down and I’ll get them from the store tomorrow.” Your fingers twist nervously and you take a deep breath.
“I was actually thinking that I could go with you?” It comes out sounding more like a question than a statement, and you curse yourself for it. Not that it matters, apparently, because Enji doesn’t even look up again. You wait a second before repeating yourself. Maybe he just didn’t hear you correctly?
“I was thinking that I could go with you to pick the supplies up. It’s a lot to get and that way if I forget to write something down on the list I’m already there and don’t have to text you to make a double trip.” At your calm, firm tone Enji finally raises his head, putting the tablet down.
“That’s nice, y/n.” You lean forward expectantly, waiting to hear his approval. He reaches for the tablet again, and you feel a spike of irritation lance through you.
“Can I go?” It takes a lot of effort for you to ask civilly, though it’s rewarded by Enji’s mildly surprised reaction.
“You were serious?” You stare in shock? Were you serious? Were you serious? Is he fucking serious?
“Yes, Enji, I’m serious! It’s been-” You stand, pausing to scroll through the calendar on your phone, looking for the little marker you placed on the day that you first woke up here. You scroll for a very long time.
“It’s been a little less than a yea-” You choke. “It’s been a little less than a year since I’ve first got here.” He says nothing, face dangerously neutral, and you slowly step forward, holding one of his massive hands in both of yours.
“Please. I want to be able to go outside again.” There’s a subtle tick in his jaw.
“You can go outside. We have a yard. You have your garden.” You give his hand a little shake.
“Enji, please. You know what I mean. I want to be able to get in a car and drive myself to get groceries or seeds or whatever else I need.” Again, that tightening of his jaw.
“I already get you what you need.” You feel tears of frustration sting the back of your eyes, and force yourself to take a deep breath.
“You know I won’t try to run. Please, I would never leave you like that. Haven’t I done everything that you wanted since I came here? Enji, I just want to have some control over my life back. I was a pro, I used to disappear for missions for weeks at a time but I always came back. Why can’t you trust me to come back to you after a trip to the grocery store?” Tears are beginning to blur your vision, but you can still make out the softening of Enji’s face as he listens to you. You feel hope start to soar in your chest and-
“You’re so cute when you’re passionate. We can talk about this later.” The hope thuds down to your stomach, quickly dissolved in a pool of irritation and anger. You resist the urge to squeeze his hand as hard as you can and instead stroke your thumb across it as soothingly as you can.
“Enji, you’re eventually going to let me go about a semi-normal life, right? We can start now, with you watching me.” Your voice is light and encouraging, and Enji raises an eyebrow, somewhat placated.
“When did I say that?” Involuntarily your grip on his hand tightens.
“What?” He looks you straight in the eyes, gaze mildly patronizing.
“When did I say that?” You sputter.
“I just- You- You can’t be planning on keeping me locked away forever! I’ve been so good for you and I’ve done everything you wanted and eventually you’ll let me out of the house, right?” Enji just stares at you, unmoved.
“I’ve already let you out of the house. Where do you think the garden is?” Something deep seated and ugly within you snaps, and you throw his hand down and away, flinging your own out.
“ENJI! I’ve stayed here and done everything you’ve asked of me, I’ve fucking gotten down on my knees to clean up and suck your dick, I’ve fucked you without complaint and you won’t let me go to the store? I had a perfect mission completion rate before you took me, you know.” You sneer.
“Except you wouldn’t because you didn’t bother to learn anything about me before you took me. Do you know how many men I could’ve killed in the dead of night, how many men’s throats I could’ve slit as they lay beside me? Consider yourself lucky that I haven’t decided to do the same to you.”
The shock on his face quickly gives way to anger, and you scoff at the way flames dance along his hands.
“Go ahead. Burn me. Mark me like your property, cripple me like you crippled your fucking wife and like how your wife marked your son. Maybe after you brand me I’ll start to love you more.” Flames burst out along his whole body and face, until you’re no longer looking at Enji, only Endeavor.
“You ungrateful little bitch!” He swings his arm down, hellfire in his grasp, and it takes everything in you not to flinch. If he wants to hurt you he can hurt you. You both know there’s nothing you can do to stop him.
His hand stops millimeters away from burning off your face, flames vanishing abruptly in what you know is a massive show of power. His fist trembles before falling, and when you look him in the eyes again his face is confused and awe-struck.
“You would have let me hit you.” The words come out whispered and reverent. Your tears fall in a silent stream down your cheeks.
“When have I ever been able to stop you?” There’s nothing Enji can say to that, and nothing more that you have to say to him, and slowly, laboriously, you climb the stairs and make your way back to your old bedroom.
🌱
When you open the door you’re met with the same sight you saw after first waking here, and the memory alone is almost enough to break you. Apparently Enji’s love for you alone isn’t enough to grant you even a sliver of control. Apparently, Enji’s never truly loved you.
The world outside is dark by the time you decide to stop sulking. Enji barricaded himself in your, no, his room shortly after you slammed the door on your own and left once to fix himself dinner. You’re pretty sure that he’s been done for a while, but just to make sure you peek your head out the door, listening intently for any sounds of movement.
Upon hearing none, you creep your way down the stairs, finding the kitchen lights on but the room empty, to your relief. Your stomach growls, and you hurry to make a simple dinner of rice and miso soup with pan-fried fish cakes on the side. Your eyes go soft as you remember how your mother used to make this for you on nights that she didn’t feel like cooking.
The meal comes together in minutes, and your mouth waters as you sit down at the dinner table to take your first bites. You don’t even taste what you're shoveling in your mouth for the first few bites until you do, and suddenly you’re making a mad dash for the bathroom.
Nothing comes up, thankfully, but you spend a good minute or two gagging and producing spit. Okay, maybe you ate too fast. It’s when you catch sight of the pregnancy test in the trash that you pause. Enji doesn’t give you birth control and he sure as hell doesn’t wear a condom, so to soothe your anxieties you ordered a bulk box or pregnancy tests online and take a test every week. You’ve been lucky so far, but…
The hastiness with which you open the box makes you fumble it, and you take a minute to calm yourself. As you set the test aside after peeing on it, you think about how you would go about telling Enji that you’re pregnant. Would you tell him? There have to be home-brew remedies to an unwanted pregnancy.
Before long, the ten minutes are up. With shaking hands, you pick the box back up. For a second, you hesitate. Is this really something you want to know? What do you even want to see? You can’t answer either of those questions, so instead you just open the box, eyes closed as you grab at the little stick of plastic.
You feel the front, orienting the test so that you’ll be able to read it, and open your eyes. The world drops out around you and you feel all the air on your body leave in a single, shaky breath. God. Maybe you should tell Enji.
🌱
You get up early the next morning, needing the extra time to prepare a traditional breakfast before Enji wakes. You hope that the familiar food will make him more amiable to what you’re about to say to him.
You’re just about done pan-frying the fish when the telltale sound of Enji’s footsteps hurrying down the stairs reaches your ears. He stops abruptly at the entrance to the kitchen, and you turn to see him looking at the already set table with a look of mild shock on his face.
He just stands in the doorway, watching as you turn off the stove and carry the pan over to the table to serve up the fish. You place the now-empty pan back on the stove before untying your apron and getting a mug from the cabinets.
“Coffee?” His shoulders tense at the sound of your voice, and something close to guilt and apprehension crosses his face.
“Yes please.” You hum in acknowledgement, filling the mug almost all the way before pouring in a little bit of whole milk, just the way Enji likes it. You set it down on the table before going to get yourself a glass.
Enji gingerly slides into his seat, like a child who’s not quite sure whether it’s okay for them to sneak into their parent’s bed at night. You smile at the comparison, and the relief that breaks on his face is obvious.
You fill the glass with water, emptying the coffee grounds in the trash before taking a seat at the table. Enji stares expectantly at your glass of water, and then to the coffee pot. You raise an eyebrow.
“Yes?” He blinks.
“Are you going to pour yourself a cup of coffee?” Enji’s voice is mild and hesitant, like he’s afraid that the smallest change in tone will set you off. You slide into your seat at the breakfast table, setting your glass of water down.
��Oh, honey, too much caffeine isn’t good for the baby.” The effect of your words is instantaneous. There’s a look of guarded wistfulness in his eyes, mouth slack with surprise and his formerly clenched hand soft as he reaches for yours. You let him take it.
“The baby?” He glances down at your stomach, as if it’ll confirm what he’s hearing. “You’re...pregnant?” You give him a sweet, affirming smile.
“Judging by when my last period was I’m two weeks in.” Enji rises from his seat, walking around the table to kneel between your legs, a large hand splayed reverently across your abdomen.
“I’m going to be a father again.” This is both the happiest and weakest you’ve ever seen Enji in your life. This is probably the happiest and weakest he’s ever been in his life. Then, like a bucket of ice-water being dumped on him, his mood switches.
“You don’t want a baby.” There it is. The realization you were waiting for. You smile with far too many teeth, eyes cruel and sharp.
“But you do.” The words hit him like a slap across the face, and sadistically, you revel in the pain his inner conflict causes him.
“You don’t want a baby.” Enji repeats his words dumbly, as if saying them again will make them make sense. Your smile grows wider.
“But you do.” You take his hands in yours, squeezing gently. “Everything that I do is for you, isn't it? My life revolves around you.” He yanks his hands back as if he’s been burned.
“Stop. Stop this.” You lean forward, until your noses are almost touching.
“Stop what, Enji? Stop trying to please you? Stop trying to mold myself into the perfect image of your wife? Stop fulfilling every foolish wish you made in bringing me here? Stop what?” He swallows hard, blue eyes wary.
“Y/n, stop this.” There’s a slight growl to his voice. You press on.
“You could stop this. Force me to swallow plan B. Take me to a clinic. Push me down a flight of stairs. Take a coat hanger and-”
“STOP!” His voice rings out, desperate and pained, and finally, you acquiesce, face grave and serious.
“I always wanted kids, you know. If you had just dated and married me properly I would have given them to you, happily.” Your eyes go fuzzy around the edges, gaze faraway and wistful.
“I wanted a girl, first. A sweet daughter to spoil and coddle. And then another, so that they would always have a friend. I always switched back and forth on whether I wanted a third child. I think that if I were to have one, I would want a son.” Your eyes refocus, spearing Enji with a look far too knowing and cognizant.
“You know, the youngest child always learns faster. They have their siblings to model after. How does that sound, Enji? A strong, talented, prodigy of a son. Finally a child worth neglecting the others for.”
His face is tight with pain, and you tread carefully. Not because you’re afraid of what will happen should he shatter, but because you haven’t decided whether he would be more useful broken. You lay a delicate hand on your stomach, rubbing gently as if you can feel the baby kicking.
“Do you think that the daughters would come back and visit a father who was never there for them? Do you think that they would still see the man who cast them aside for their younger brother as a father? Would they call you daddy as they reach for your credit card? Or maybe they would call you father, in the same way you call a teacher sir. Maybe even Enji, if they’re feeling bold enough. Bastard when they’re talking about you to their friends.”
Enji’s hands clench spasmodically, opening and closing like the fluttering wings of a dying bird.
“Or maybe they don’t talk about you at all. Why spare any thought for a man who obviously never thought of them?” You lean back, satisfied at the complete and utter destruction written across his face. Enji may have taken you from your life to his own, but in doing so he gave you the keys to his emotional annihilation. You don’t think that he even knew that, not until this very moment.
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” His words are broken and strangled, his head bowed. You regard him with a cool sort of disdain.
“Where was this concern for my desires when you decided that I was going to be your wife?” He hands his head, unable to look you in the eyes.
“Is this what this is? You’re getting back at me for bringing you home?” Though his words are muffled, there’s a slight edge to them. You bristle.
“I may have some sort of feeling close to love for you, Enji, but know that it’s not by my own choice. It’s my brain literally trying to keep me alive.” He lifts his head, blue eyes blazing.
“I know you love me. You’ve said so yourself.” You scoff incredulously, almost choking on your own spit.
“You think saying something makes it true? Oh my god, I pity you, Enji Todoroki.” His fists clench once more, anger and humiliation boiling just under the calm facade that he forces onto his face. He says nothing, not that there’s anything to say.
You let him stew in his own fury and shame for a minute or two before sighing and shifting in your chair, watching as his ire is slowly replaced with a look of deep, intense apathetic sadness.
“I’m not actually pregnant.” The emotions that play across his face at that are instantaneous; first relief, then grief, then yearning, then resignation.
“That’s probably for the best.” Enji sounds so, so tired. You’re sure you look just as much so. The food on your plate no longer looks appealing, and you push it away, going to pour yourself a cup of coffee.
For a couple minutes there’s nothing but the sound of you sipping at your coffee and Enji finishing off his breakfast. It’s when he sets his chopsticks down that you finally break the silence.
“Do you really think you love me? Like, when you say ‘I love you’ do you actually mean it?” Enji looks at a loss for words, and you tilt your head slightly to the side. “Do you even know what it means?” In what might be the most humbling act of his life, Enji slowly shakes his head. You sigh.
The look of shock and mistrust on his face as you cross the table to straddle his lap and place your hands on his shoulders is almost amusing, but you force yourself to stay focused.
“Enji, with the way our relationship is now, I can never love you. I may feel sexually attracted to and affection for you but love requires some level of respect and I don’t respect you because of what you’ve done to me and how you’ve handled it.” He opens his mouth, probably to protest, and you squeeze his shoulder to get him to shut it.
“Maybe you don’t need me to love you, and I get that. Companionship and sex aren’t poor substitutes for that. But when you have your kids and they ask why mommy never leaves the house and why you and mommy fight every night when you think they’re asleep, well, I expect that companionship and sex won’t fix that.” You slide off his lap, going to get yourself a mug of coffee.
“I’ll love my kids. But will they love you once they know what you’ve done? Because half of them will be from me and I know that I will never love you if you refuse to change this relationship you have with me.”
Cream, a little bit of sugar, you stir your coffee before taking a sip and watching his face. The breakfast table isn’t really the ideal place to be having moral crises at, you know, but you don’t think that Enji’ll complain about it. You sit back down, not touching a bit of your food as you watch what could be spiteful silence or genuine consideration play across his face.
It’s after the five minute mark that you consider speaking up, reminding him that though you’ve had plenty of chances to run recently you haven’t. Knowing Enji though, you think it’ll do more harm than good. It’s when your tense silence hits the ten minute mark that Enji looks up, jaw set mutinously.
“We can go to the hardware store today.” He spits the words out like poison, but you smile anyways, a bright cheery thing that has Enji’s rock-like expression melting slightly. You swoop in for a short kiss before picking up your plate to put away for later, smile growing wider as you hear Enji huff and begin eating again.
You know this isn’t a guaranteed road to freedom yet, but you like to think that you’re pretty similar to the innocuous looking mint plant in your garden. Enji’s just buried you in open ground.
🌱
commission a fic here
#yandere enji x reader#yandere endeavor x reader#enji x reader#endeavor x reader#yandere enji todoroki#yandere bnha#yandere#tw: pregnancy#yandere x reader#commission
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Day 4 - Giant / Tiny
Content: heavy alcohol use, referenced rape, borrower!Logan attempting to look after a struggling Remus
Words: 4,962
Logan Shelf knew that, logically, he was making a big mistake.
But he had been making this same mistake almost every evening for months now, and he hadn’t died yet.
Besides, the chances of the giant actually waking up were next to zero, he reflected, picking his way carefully around a reddish puddle wider than he was tall.
This close to him, the scent of alcohol on the giant’s breath was almost overpowering: inhaling too deeply made his head spin, and the first few nights he had tried this he had ended up staggering home, woozy enough that he had been almost unable to make the climb up the side of the ferret cage to the painting that obscured the front gate. Patton had been furious with him, wrongly assuming that his nephew had been borrowing from the giant’s liquor cabinet.
Logan couldn’t blame him for that.
Not when Patton and his sister had spent several years doing the same thing with what Patton called religious fervor. Not when Logan’s mother had taken a drunken dare to walk across one of the strings supporting a large plastic spider suspended in the ground floor hallway, a feat she had managed plenty of times sober, and had fallen to her death. Not when Patton had gone cold turkey the day after the funeral, a subdued affair attended only by Cages and Shelves, and struggled to remain sober for the last eight years.
There were five families living in the house: the Cages; the Shelves in the office; the Washers, who lived somewhere under the tumble dryer in the scullery; the Easels, who lived in what had once been a bedroom but had been converted into a crafts room some years ago; and the Cabinet-Chimneys, the largest family, who had once been the Cabinets with their front gate in the bathroom and the Chimneys with theirs near the kitchen fireplace, and had merged into one several years before Logan had been born.
And then there were the giants. There had been five of them when Logan had been young: two adults, a pair of boys (Logan had only heard stories about them, unruly and dangerous, making borrowing difficult to get away with quietly), and an old woman who rarely left her bed and often left food uneaten - the rights to borrow from her had oft been contested between families, and Logan could remember the afternoon his mother had come home triumphant, tipsy from the wine on the woman’s bedside and carrying a squishy, sugary lump she had called Turkish delight. The stuff had been horrible, but the ham and fresh bread and butter that had accompanied it had been delicious, if far from the hot meal Logan had been hoping for.
Then they had gotten a ferret and a cat, and Logan’s uncle Patton had taken some friends from each of the four families and vanished to start his own. Borrowing had gotten more dangerous, with additional obstacles to avoid.
The old woman had died when Logan was ten.
It hadn’t just been the other four humans in the house to mourn her (although Logan heard murmurings that one of the adults - the woman - had been relieved to see her gone, and that the newfound subduedness in the boys made borrowing easier): plenty of borrowers lamented the easy pickings of meals left all but untouched on her bedside as she slept, and still more spoke reverently of the stories she used to tell the boys. Logan’s mother had spoken about her as though she had been an old friend.
Nine years later, and the house was empty apart from the sleeping man that Logan was currently creeping toward, senses on high alert for signs of wakefulness, for other borrowers watching him risk being Seen and bringing scrutiny down on all of them, for the sound of the front door that would signify the return of the other brother or the two older giants.
The giant had his arms crossed loosely on the table, pillowing his head; the hand with the eyes on the knuckles was closest to Logan and flat on the table, so that was where he started. Only two rings on this side today: a bumpy, ridged, neon green one on the fourth finger, and a massive silver skull on the third.
The first few times he had done this, he hadn’t removed the giant’s rings for him. Logically, it was incredibly stupid to be in such easy reach of a giant. It would take barely a second to grab him and crush him to death. Before he had known how deeply asleep the giant truly was, before he had gotten brave enough to attempt the rings, he had stuck to just removing the earrings.
Now, though, Logan removed the two rings with the comfortable ease of an action he had done many times before. They were large enough that Logan could probably wear them around his waist like a belt - although he was very thin, and doubted any of the other borrowers he knew would manage that. He stacked them neatly in the middle of the table, beside a still upright beer bottle.
“Other hand… Then ears…” Logan murmured, beginning to skirt the sleeping form. The other hand was usually more difficult: when one was pressed against the table, the other tended to be tucked between face and elbow, or else arm and body.
It would be wiser not to try to slip the rings from fingers clenched into a fist and hidden so that Logan had to stand directly under the giant’s head to pull them off - it would be wiser not to be doing this at all - but Logan couldn’t help himself.
Six months ago, the older giants had left on a trip around the world. They were in Japan at the moment (Logan had memorised the schedule they had spent months planning out, but even if he hadn’t taught himself to use the computer in the office, he would have been able to tell from the most recent addition to the pile of postcards on the kitchen counter), and would be away for another six months.
Four months ago, the red brother moved out. Well - that wasn’t quite right. He had left most of the things in his room, and he came back every week or so. It had taken Logan a while to figure out that he had moved across town (“just across town,” he had said, as though that were like walking between the sink and the pantry rather than going somewhere no more accessible to Logan than Japan) to live with his boyfriend. At least he had taken the cat.
Two months ago, Logan had been collecting carpet fibre from under the living room couch in a spot of midnight borrowing when the green brother had stumbled into the living room, bringing with him the strong smell of alcohol. His steel-toed shoes were accompanied by a pair of heavy boots attached to a giant Logan had never seen before, and when Logan peeked out to see what was going on, he saw that the green brother looked as though he was leaning heavily on the stranger. Then the couch dipped above him under the weight of two people. There had been the unmistakable sound of wet lips on skin, the sound of shifting fabric, and a slurred voice. “No, sstoppit… ‘M too drunk t-mmph…”
When the kiss ended, there was another complaining murmur, followed by shushing and a much more steady tone. “Shh, shh. You’re fine, see? Brought you home like you asked. Gonna be just fine…”
Logan had spent almost half an hour hiding under that couch, listening to the green brother’s complaints be drowned out by the creaking of furniture and the sounds of skin against skin, terrified that if he moved he would be noticed, sick to his stomach at what he was hearing. It was when he realised that his giant had stopped begging the stranger to stop that Logan finally gave in and made the dash across the room to the cage. If either giant saw him, he’d take the repercussions as they came: he couldn’t bear to listen to what was happening for a moment longer.
He had thrown up halfway down the tunnel leading to the Cage home, and spent the next two days in bed, not wanting to think about anything he had just seen. Then Logan had pushed the memory aside, gotten up, and started borrowing again.
There wasn’t anything else he could do, after all.
It had been a week after that that the Rem- that the giant had started drinking.
Logan shouldn’t have been paying attention as much as he should, but he had started looking out for his giant. The yellow friend had stayed for a week before moving out; it wasn’t as though there was anybody else here to make sure he was eating and sleeping (although Logan couldn’t actually do anything to ensure this). He had started trying to make sure he knew when his giant was in the house, listening for the slamming of the front door or footsteps. He could see the bowl on the living room coffee table where the giant stored his housekeys from the front gate, though keys weren’t the most reliable way of telling whether he was home. Logan had listened to several arguments between the brothers and gathered that the green giant frequently ended up climbing in through a window when he forgot to bring them out with him.
And so Logan had noticed the first night that his giant fell asleep at the kitchen table, and again when he had done it three days later, and again the following night.
Logan had noticed the way he started twitching a few hours after falling asleep, the way he started pawing at his hair and face, at his torso and shoulders and neck and hips.
Logan had noticed the bloody scratches appearing on his bare skin where his giant’s many rings cut against his skin.
Logan had noticed the tattered mess of the torn-out piercings.
It had been painfully obvious, after the first few mornings and the first dozen plasters, that his giant didn’t care enough to remove his often very spiky jewellry before drinking himself into unconsciousness.
Really, it hadn’t taken Logan as long as it should have to gather the courage to sneak close enough to the giant to help him. Logan should have taken weeks to gather data, to use the never-charged tablet to look up giant sleep patterns and the effect of alcohol upon them, to sketch up plans and weigh benefits against costs, to conclude that he needed to keep the giant healthy so the giant could keep bringing food into the house for them to borrow.
Instead, he had found himself sneaking across the table and trying to figure out how to remove a spike as long as his forearm from the giant’s ear.
There were six rings on his giant’s left hand this evening: a thick black one with a large claw on the thumb; a spiked circlet and a golden snake swallowing its tail on the forefinger; the black ring with moving parts that his giant sometimes fiddled with on the middle finger; a silver loop with glittering red and green stones (glass: Logan had checked his giant’s internet shopping history), and an unwieldy ring shaped like an octopus that covered almost the entire distance between the first and second knuckles on the fourth. It took Logan three trips to carry them all down to the small shiny pile he was making in the middle of the table.
The giant let out a rumbling snore that shook the table, and Logan froze, exposed, as he shifted, stirred, and then was still again.
He wasn’t waking up. The night before Logan first started removing his earrings, the borrower had watched a broom propped against the table (Rem- the giant had smashed a bottle on the floor and gotten halfway through cleaning up before giving up) slip sideways until it glanced off his shoulder and crashed to the ground. If the light impact and the subsequent noise hadn’t been enough to wake him, Logan doubted that his own near-silent working would.
Going still at the first loud noise was one of the first tricks Logan had learned, though. The giants rarely seemed to see things if they didn’t move.
The scramble up to the green brother’s shoulder took moments, and then he was using two hands to unscrew the backs of a series of pointed studs, to pull apart the hinges of rings, to snap open the catches of cuffs, and tuck them into his bag. Having no desire to repeat the experience of having to scale back down the giant’s arm after removing each piercing, Logan had started bringing a sack with him to collect the small bits of metal and plastic.
He dealt with both ears before returning to the tabletop to deposit the contents of his bag beside the small pile of rings, and then turned to look back at his still-sleeping giant. He had snored a few more times, each time making Logan cling to the shell of his ear or risk taking the fall to the kitchen tiles far below, but had been almost tranquil aside from that.
What next?
Some nights, the green brother wore spiked bracelets velcroed around his forearms - not tonight. Tonight, he was wearing a hoodie that was chartreuse beneath the stains, sleeves long enough that had he not had them pushed back, they would have covered his hands with ease. Even if he were wearing his spiked wristbands, Logan doubted he would be able to cut himself on them.
“... Which leaves the face…” Logan mumbled.
Right.
Five in the eyebrows, one in the nose, four in the lower lip. There had been two in the nose and seven in the eyebrows, but the extras had been ripped out.
It had been the face that had taken Logan the longest to build up the courage to approach, entirely disliking the idea of being that close. Even now, he took a moment to steel himself before moving closer, slipping over one arm and into the space between face, table, and elbow.
There was also one in his giant’s tongue, but Logan wasn’t about to climb into his mouth.
He wasn’t that stupid.
He wouldn’t be that stupid. (At least until his giant started cutting up the inside of his cheeks with it. Or he started trying to rip it out).
The mouth was closest, though, so that was where Logan started. It still felt weird to tug at one of the large lips until he could reach the back of the piercing, saliva warm and slimy - he had had to start wearing sleeveless tunics to avoid questions about why the arms of his shirts were always damp.
Logan was just reaching up to unscrew the glittery nose stud when the front door opened.
He froze, arms stretched above his head, one hand actually inside the giant’s nostril.
Nobody ever came in this late at night.
If he were lucky, it would be the red brother, exhausted, coming to crash upstairs after an argument with his purple boyfriend. The giant wouldn’t bother coming into the kitchen to-
“Remus? Are you here?”
Fuck. It was Ja- It was the yellow friend.
The yellow friend had spent a lot of time in the house in the days after that night, to the point that he had brought a snake in a cage that had sat on the kitchen table for a week. Logan’s giant hadn’t started drinking until after he had moved back out.
The yellow friend would definitely come into the kitchen - Logan could already hear his footsteps approaching. Jerking his hands back to his sides, Logan glanced around, possibilities racing through his brain.
If he left the shelter of his giant’s arms, he would be out in the open, easy to see and grab and squash. The yellow friend would be able to see him with barely a glance over the table: a small pile of jewelry, a sleeping giant, an upright empty bottle, two on their sides and dripping beer, a closed, half empty bottle of vodka, and a tiny person.
If he stayed where he was… Well, he was hidden from sight until the green brother woke up - and Logan doubted that would happen. He had watched the giant sit down earlier that evening and drink with the air of a man steeling himself for the gallows, as he had three nights out of the previous four (the fourth night, the giant had been drunk already when he got home): he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
Inhaling deeply (and regretting it as his head spun with the alcohol on his giant’s breath), Logan retreated closer to the green-clad arm and crouched beside it, hoping the shadows of the crook of the elbow would obscure him completely.
“There you are… Oh, Re…” The footsteps had stopped; the smooth voice was right above him now. Logan hissed in another breath as the green brother shifted in place, then realised that it wasn’t a sign of wakefulness but merely the yellow friend resting a hand on Remus’ shoulder.
(Yes, Logan knew their names. Logan knew all their names: Valerie, the old woman who had told stories and had died when he was ten. Dot, the woman who hadn’t been sorry to see Valerie dead, and her husband Larry, who had always wanted to travel the world and finally gotten to do so. Roman, the brother almost always clad in a red shirt, red jumper, red sash or tie or dress, and his boyfriend Virgil with his purple jacket. Janus, the friend with the black hat and the yellow lining in his coats and jackets, his blonde hair. And Remus, Logan’s giant, the one he looked after because Janus was the only one that was really there for him, and even then he wasn’t there all the time. Yes, Logan knew their names, and Logan knew he shouldn’t have allowed himself to know their names, shouldn’t have allowed himself to care about the huge, clumsy giants that never noticed when things were borrowed yet could destroy their lives with a clumsy footstep. It had become harder and harder to stop himself from using their names in the last few weeks).
A snore.
“I wish you talked to me…” The giant was moving again, and from the clink of glass on glass, Logan guessed he was clearing up. A few seconds later, there was the sound of cloth on wood - he was wiping up the spilled alcohol. Good - the table had been getting rather sticky over the last few weeks, ruining the soles of Logan’s most comfortable borrowing shoes. Remus never got around to cleaning it.
Then there was the clink of metal, and a faint chuckle. Was he looking at the pile of rings? “That’s not like you. I’m glad, though… Explains why you started looking slightly less cut up last time you answered your phone.” A pause. “Two answers. In a month. Not cool, Re. You’re better than that…”
The green giant didn’t answer. Neither Logan nor Janus had been expecting him to.
“I wish I hadn’t had to go.” More clinking. What was the yellow friend doing? Logan wished he’d leave. His legs were starting to cramp from his uncomfortable crouching position. “If I could have stayed, you know I would, right?” Was Janus aware that Remus couldn’t hear him? Logically, he must be - so could he save the soul-bearing for later? “I didn’t want to leave you alone.” Apparently not. “I did tell you to call me, though - ‘every night’, you promised. And I thought I was the liar here, huh? Dick. Come on, let’s get you to bed…”
Wait. What?
Logan didn’t have time to react as his cover was pulled away. All he could do was close his eyes and cover his head.
There was a sharp intake of breath from somewhere above him.
It seemed that staying perfectly still didn’t quite work when he was the only thing on a table aside from a small pile of metal jewelry.
“Well, I have to say that I completely expected to see a tiny person hiding under the unconscious body of my best friend.” There was the sound of movement, and Logan hunched his shoulders more tightly. “Come on. You shouldn’t look at me or anything. I’m absolutely going to turn you to stone when you make eye contact.”
He couldn’t make a run for it.
Quite aside from the fact that the yellow friend would probably catch him before he had gone half a metre despite supporting Logan’s giant, any hiding place Logan escaped to would result in the giants tearing up the house to try to find him. He couldn’t go home without leading them straight back to his family.
All he could do was make sure he didn’t do or say anything to give away the rest of the borrowers living around the house.
“Oh, come on. You’re the one hiding underneath my friend.” Movement again.
Slowly, Logan allowed his hands to drop, and tilted his head upward.
Janus was staring down at him, vast face impassive, one arm around Remus’ waist. One of Remus’ arms was draped over Janus’ shoulders, though the green brother’s body was limp in what was quite clearly still unconsciousness. It didn’t look as though Janus was struggling with his weight, and Logan suddenly noticed how thin his giant looked.
Maybe he hadn’t done such a great job of taking care of him after all.
“What are you…” Logan’s gaze snapped back to the yellow friend’s face in time to see his eyes (one grey, one pale brown, which was supremely cool) flick between him and the pile of rings still on the table. There was no sudden comprehension dawning over his face, but one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. “How long have you been taking out his studs for him?”
Logan swallowed hard, met the giant’s stare coolly, and remained silent. The giant let out a frustrated huff.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to know what you’re doing in my friend’s house.”
Logan licked his lower lip, narrowed his eyes, and said nothing.
“If Re had a fairy godfather, I would have expected him to be a little more…” The giant gestured vaguely. “Rock’n’roll. Grimy. Bigger, definitely. You can’t exactly do mu-”
“At least I’ve been here for him,” Logan snapped, and regretted it as soon as Janus’ mouth twisted into a smirk.
“You do talk! Excellent. I’m going to assume that Remus doesn’t know you exist?” Janus glanced around briefly as he spoke, then lowered Remus into a different chair and took the one his friend had just been slumped in. Logan shook his head jerkily, once. “Well, I won’t tell him then.”
It was Logan’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “How can I trust you? You lie.”
A beat of silence.
Then the giant chuckled, a great wave of sound that Logan stumbled away from on instinct, found that his legs had gone to sleep, and stumbled over. The piercings he had rescued from Remus’ lower lip rolled out of his satchel and across the table; they were swiftly caught by a massive finger and pushed into the pile as well. Remus snored again.
The laughter stopped abruptly, and Janus lowered his face until his eyes were on a level with Logan, the grey suddenly the colour of winter, the amber as hard as the wood of the table beneath Logan’s body. “I never lie about looking after Remus.”
Logan paused, then nodded once, just as sharply. He believed the sudden sincerity in his tone. “Five weeks.”
“Five w- Oh. Right. That’s like… Just after I moved out again.” Logan nodded again, trying to massage the pine needles from his calves, and Janus groaned. “He told me he was fine on his own… How long’s he been drinking like this?”
“About six weeks.” Logan glanced sideways at his giant, then returned his attention to the feeling coming back to his toes. “You shouldn’t have left him.”
“He promised he was fine,” Janus repeated. Logan flinched as he lifted a hand, but the giant only moved to rub his face. “And then my cousin died and I had to help pack up and organise the funeral. I came back as soon as I- Why am I explaining myself to a mouse? Why aren’t you explaining what you’re doing in my friend’s house?”
Logan frowned. “I am not a mouse. I am -” He hesitated then. He couldn’t call himself a borrower: Logan knew from years of observation that the yellow friend possessed keen intellect, and didn’t want to imply that there were other borrowers living there. “- Logan. And I live here.”
“Logan, huh? Okay. I’m Janus, this is Remus.”
“I know.”
They lapsed into silence once more, the stillness broken only by Remus’ snoring and the chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall. Two in the morning.
“I’ll stay here tonight,” Janus offered, and Logan glanced back at him - he had been staring at the way Remus’ hoodie hung from his thin frame. “Grab Jake The Snake and some clothes from home tomorrow, and come back to stay with him. I can sleep on the couch, and-”
“He burned the couch.” This time it was Janus that flinched, and Logan felt a momentary satisfaction that the sharpness of his words had been felt. Then he regretted it. Janus was just trying to help his giant, after all.
“What?”
“Three nights after you left. Dragged it into the garden, poured a can of petrol and a bottle of vodka on it, threw one of his lighters at it.” Logan shrugged, working hard to bring his voice back to his usual neutral tone. “I watched from the window.”
Janus frowned. “Why would he…” He trailed off at the flinty look Logan was giving him, and glanced over at Remus. Janus’ face was no longer blank. Instead, a mix of horror and nausea that Logan recognised very clearly were rising on it. “Oh. That’s where…”
Logan nodded.
“You were there.” It wasn’t a question, but Logan nodded anyway. “Oh.”
Silence again. They were both staring at Remus now.
After a moment, Janus turned back to Logan and forced a smile onto his face. It didn’t fit, and slid off a moment later. “You’ve been trying to look after him.”
“He needs it,” Logan agreed. “I doubt he would do it if we just left him.”
“We?”
Logan winced. He probably shouldn’t have said that. This was the problem with allowing himself to care for a giant and learning their names… “I meant, ‘I’.”
“Or… It could be ‘we’.” Janus shifted a little, ran his fingers through his blond curls, then rested his hand lightly on the table. Logan edged away from it, watching the giant pretend not to notice. “We could work together. Make sure this gremlin takes care of himself.”
“How do I know you won’t just put me in a jar and dissect me?” It had to be asked, but Logan regretted it at the smirk that flickered over the giant’s mouth.
“Well, now that you suggest it…” He chuckled weakly, then shook his head. “I told you. Looking after Remus comes first. Besides, I have no interest in chopping you up. We’re on the same team now.”
Logan hesitated, then groaned quietly and pushed himself to his feet. “Fine. But I can’t do much, given my size. You’ll have to make sure he eats. I can watch him. I’ll draw up a schedule for-”
“Fine. Do that.” Janus waved a hand, and a gust of air washed over Logan, almost enough to knock him down. “I’m dead on my feet. We can discuss this tomorrow. Kitchen table. Eleven pm. Deal?”
Logan frowned. “You… Seem quite alive to me. And you are currently sitting down - there is very little -”
“It’s a figure of speech. Deal?”
“Fine.” Crouching, Logan picked up his satchel, double checked that he didn’t still have any of the studs in there, and swung it over his shoulder. He wasn’t going to move until he was sure that Janus and Remus were upstairs and he couldn’t be seen, but he should at least be ready to do so. Who knew how long it would take Janus to put his friend to bed? Logan didn’t want to get caught making his way home. “Deal. Tomorrow, twenty-three hundred hours. Tell nobody. Bring a notebook and a pen and be ready to take notes.”
Janus chuckled and stood as well. “Done.”
Logan watched as Janus picked Remus up again and made his way slowly out of the kitchen and into the hallway, and waited until the third step from the top creaked in complaint before he started making his way back toward the cage in the living room.
As terrified as he was by the prospect of having just been Seen, having just spoken to a giant, having promised to speak to him again… Logan had to say that he was relieved to have help in looking after his Remus. There was only so much he could do, given how small he was compared to the man he was attempting to take care of. Maybe having broken every rule he had ever been taught about borrowing wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Maybe making mistakes was a good thing sometimes, no matter how illogical that sounded.
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What It's Like to Have Unmedicated ADHD
A little over 2 weeks without my stimulant is going to be rough. But with this last pill, I'm going to describe to you exactly what it's like to be unmedicated with this disorder.
Here is my average day unmedicated, typical of the past 24 years of my life:
I get up an hour late (way better than yesterday!) and sit dehydrated with a painfully dry mouth and a pounding headache for hours. Occasionally I'll glance at my empty water mug and think about how I could refill it by walking 10 feet to the fridge. Even with a full mug, I frequently forget to drink water. Just grabbing the mug and drinking more than a couple seconds is too much, for most times that I even remember it.
As I'm doing this, I stare at the icons on my desktop. I think about how I used to have fun playing Stellaris. Though I can't remember why I stopped, setting everything up to play it again sounds useless and impossible. I go through these thoughts for 10 other games I used to enjoy, before I go to Reddit.
I browse Reddit for a couple hours, opening a new tab for every comment section because I can't stand just looking at one thing at a time. I go through gifs and pictures so rapidly that I don't really absorb any of it. Occasionally, I'll actually start reading something in the comment section. Most times this happens, I'll close the tab while I'm still reading through it, as if my hand had an attention span of its own and I so rudely exceeded it. This might frustrate me enough that I'll open that comment section back up, and then immediately forget why I did, so I close it again.
Then it's time for thinking about the basic self-care I'm supposed to do. About how it's been 3 hours since I've woken up and I've accomplished nothing. I think about how I could just get up and do my stretches so easily. About how if I went to the bathroom and started now, I could bathe and brush my teeth and shave without skipping stuff due to the pressure of getting to work on time. Then, I get on Youtube.
I see some 15 minute video compilation for a game I enjoy, from a creator I enjoy. Maybe it even promises some information I actually care to know. I open a new tab for it, and 7 others for 30 second meme videos I don't care about. Hey, they're so short there's no reason NOT to watch them, right? They're about anime and movies that I've never watched, but I go through them all anyway as if I enjoy it. The fast-paced nature of them is probably the only reason I bother. I open even more of them from recommendations, and continue this for the rest of my pre-work time. By the time I finally stop, my recommendations are full of references to countless pieces of media I have never, and probably will never, consume.
I finally get back to that 15 minute video I actually wanted to watch, but there's no time for it now. I have at most 20 minutes to wash myself and get dressed before I leave. I stress about how I'm about to go to work still dehydrated, and I forgot to brush my teeth for the 4th day in a row, and I haven't clipped my fingernails, and I'm going to have to buy yet another $1 stick of deodorant because I forgot to use any before I rushed outside.
Once at work, I remember I didn't get anything to drink still. I end up having to buy massively overpriced water from the registers, because buying a whole case would look weird and people might comment on it. I realize after walking across the store that my hair looks insane. Nobody said anything to me, probably because I looked at my phone to avoid looking at anyone. Even still, I felt their disdain for me. I don't disagree with it.
For my whole shift, I majorly stress myself out. I get absorbed in one of 2 different kinds of daydreams;
In one kind, I'm often about to be written up or fired. I tearfully scream at my bosses about how when I'm at work I only think about how afraid I am of losing my job. I'll eventually break down and cry about how hard it is just to do my daily routine, let alone work each 8 hour shift efficiently. All the little labels and numbers are so hard to remember let alone find, and I'm put in an unfamiliar area every other day. My focus is pulled to abstract thoughts and daydreams, no matter how hard I try to stay in the present. Usually I work on autopilot, fumbling with each item I put up like a dumb zombie. I can't stop myself from getting like this for long, I can only snap out of it when it's already happened. I feel fear and shame each time, not knowing how much time I've wasted.
They frown and shake their heads at me, like strict parents that caught their kid in the cookie jar. Even as I wipe the sweat out of my eyes they tell me how slowly I work. I rant about how horribly uncaring they are, wearing tight-lipped expressions and speaking in condescending tones as they rip away the financial stability of desperate folks that are trying their best to hold on. That no matter what they tell themselves about only being messengers, the suffering of each person they've fired hangs like rope around their necks.
The other kind of daydream is an idealistic fantasy of how I could start actually doing the things I want to do and earn happiness. I diet like I want to and get fit and attractive, I actually spend time developing interests and realize I have real talents that are useful and appreciable to others. I meet a friend and lover that shares many of my interests and cares about me, and lets me care about them. Often the feelings I get from having these daydreams are intense enough to put me on the verge of tears. Maybe that's why I typically have them when I'm assigned to an isolated spot in the store.
By the time I get home, I am emotionally ruined. I feel stable, but the slightest inconvenience makes me clench my muscles and scream silently until I feel like I've finally had an aneurysm burst. This is when I'm most likely to snap and bite my grandmother's head off, because she's started ranting about Obama or socialism/communism or the vaccine. Or about how the vaccine is socialism and that's why it's bad. Maybe it's because instead of getting me home so I can rest, she's decided to drag me to some fast food joint because she refuses to buy frozen food like I do.
After I get home I throw my clothes aside and put on whatever sweatpants I can grab. After taking 3 different sleeping pills, I fidget and flop around in bed for a few hours, never feeling comfortable.
Eventually, I fall asleep thinking about how I'll do better tomorrow.
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Francis is perfect for England.
England is self-critical to the point of almost self-hatred in some regards, but he's also unrivaled in his pride. Much of this is a facade, of course, but some of it is actually a genuine expression of his attempts to like himself. Being constantly denigrated/neglected as he was growing up made him much more vocal about his self-praise (even if it's ingenuine praise he doesn’t think he deserves) to make up for the fact that he wasn't really getting it from elsewhere. I think most people around him just see this as arrogance (which it is sometimes, to be fair, especially during his adventuring days). His incredibly opinionated nature means that he comes of as aggressive to others, which he is when he believes he’s being more logical or correct (which is often). He loves physical labour, walks, anything to stay active, but a good mental challenge is incredibly fulfilling to him as well. He also has a strong tendency to overwork himself, he is prone to melancholy, and dwells too much on how and why he's alone, often to the point that he overlooks the smaller ways he makes others happy. He doesn’t really realise that he has much, if any, positive impact on others, which leads him to believe that he’s a worse person than he is. He is incredibly stubborn, but his sense of duty often makes him cave in to doing things he would prefer not to, which generally is work or war. He is almost defined by this strong pull of duty, of being a gentleman, of Englishness to a harsh degree. This impossible standard also makes him ashamed when he obviously can't live up to it, and this shame is something he believes others feel about him as well. To him, when he cannot fulfill an expectation, it's not only himself that feels regret, it's that everyone is looking down on him. This also makes his responses to other people less than friendly, often incredibly defensive (which for him looks like outright vitriol to others sometimes) which isn't doing him any favours when he's trying to not push people away. He's a hard nut to crack, so it's understandable why some people just choose not to even attempt to deal with it at all. He is, however, irredeemably sentimental deep down, and such a softie that he's actually quite ashamed of himself over it. He’ll buy sweeties for kids that can’t afford it, help people across the street, spend time he should be working on paperwork helping out anyone in need (which occasionally gets him scolded for being late, only leading to more self-doubt as to how good he actually is). He’s a quite masculine person, being a drinker and pub-frequenter. While he does hobbies traditionally considered “feminine”, he tries not to think about how this “brings him down” in other people’s eyes, though he does have layers of toxic masculinity to him. This often is worsened by his “stiff upper lip” mentality. No whinging about anything, from physical pain to emotional anguish, a lot of which he considers pathetic if he does it, but natural if someone else does. His double standard for behavior and tolerance of pain is something really clear in his relationship to other people, especially kids, the elderly, and strangers in general. If he caught a kid, or anyone else, spouting the mentality he enforces on himself, he’d instantly rebuke it! Sentimentality is a very, very difficult layer to find within him, though, and it usually only surfaces when he's in massive amounts of emotional anguish. That's when he gets quite retaliatory, like with Alfred when he was breaking away. A lot of this also has to deal with his absolute emotional ineptitude. If he's writing alone, or talking to someone he's not especially close to, how eloquent he is! His poetry is almost unrivaled and he's decently good at reading the room, so to speak. He also can be quite the flirt (though never in a real romantic sense)! Old women love him over that, they think he’s the sweetest young lad they know. This demeanor goes out the door the moment he feels "attacked" in any way, though, which most often is when he's feeling insecure. If that's the case, watch him try to struggle to get a compliment out, or to say anything other than a nasty insult meant to express an entirely different (often more favourable) message to the recipient. What he means to say as “you’re looking nice today” often comes out as “you don’t look as crap as usual”. The reverse is true too, when he means to say “I’m glad you’re spending time with me”, what comes out is “Wow, you’re wasting your time talking to me?” What a mess...
That's just why Francis is perfect, though. His stubbornness is most certainly a match for England's in most regards, and in some cases even trumps it, generally with things like his determination to weasel England's genuine emotions out of him. Francis is self-confident, too, and why wouldn't he be? Harsh comments can effect him, of course, and he is also sentimental, but the fact that he's much more open and honest about his emotions makes him generally easy to talk to and communicate with, as well as more impervious to critique. Unlike England, he's not ashamed of who he is or how he feels in practically every regard. He's unabashedly himself. He takes no shit because he knows what he wants and deserves, so if his bosses or anyone else tries to overwork him? Nope. He wants a coffee break because that's what's good for him, so he's going to do it. This makes him distressed when people he cares about aren't as rigorous with their own self-care, appreciation, and praise. This doesn't come up too often with Gilbert or Antonio, though Gilbert is quite similar to England in many regards, but boy does he have a field day with England. Often times he gets frustrated with him, though, since he just doesn't understand why he let's himself get pushed around, ignored, etc, and this only gets worse when England responds with "well maybe you should work harder?" Francis usually throws back a "You wouldn't expect others to do this, why do you do it to yourself?" The answer is obvious and Francis knows it. Many people can't see past the rough exterior, and Francis has had his fair share of "fuck it, I'm done with you" moments too, which are entirely understandable. But then he remembers the little kid crying over being abandoned again, and he understands how that's led to how England reacts to things now, and he wants to show him that the world isn’t out to get him and that the viewpoint on life of his that has been reinforced is a lie. Francis is just emotionally fluent, and that means for basically everyone. A lot of it is just intuition, or just some weird ability of his, but since he holds real love for everything in his heart, he also has an odd and immediate understanding of things on a level England can't feel immediately. This means basically every tactic England generally uses to evade other people, their judgement, or even his own feelings, is completely transparent to France. Other people think England is honestly boasting and degrading others after someone else does a good job? Francis finds it kind of sad how hard England is trying to hide his own embarrassment or feelings of ineptitude. England is leaving meetings early and says he has better company to look forward to, and everyone thinks he's haughty? Francis is surprised England feels so left out and alone that he has to pretend to have better friends. This goes the other way as well! When England feels snubbed by someone, Francis is there to reassure him that it’s a misunderstanding. Alfred’s being himself again? It’s alright, that’s just his way of expressing himself, he’s not trying to be hurtful. Francis is good with interpreting between England’s emotions and other people’s, which is something England REALLY needs. Is this intuition of his always functioning, however? Nope! Francis can be quite the drama queen, and that primarily shows up when England genuinely rebukes his earnest attempts to make him feel better, or when other people are really caught up in whatever (admittedly) idiotic thing England's done most recently. This has gotten the pair into a history of misunderstandings that even a language barrier can't hope to achieve! Still, once he's able to have a one-on-one again when their both in a better frame of mind, it's not difficult for him to sort things out again. England hasn't felt heard most of his life, and Francis is a great listener and a master at emotional intelligence. Francis doesn't really hold much shame about himself or shame others (unless their clothing is just TOO atrocious), so he's a natural at working through those problems with England. From England's perspective, though, he's just... fascinating. He finds Francis arrogant, not because he thinks Francis doesn't live up to the standards Francis espouses, but because he DOES find Francis that great for the most part and thinks it rude to show off so much! He thinks Francis is too blunt about things to the point of rudeness (in a VERY distinct way from America since Alfred typically does this without the tact Francis has), but that bluntness makes Francis open and accessible to him in ways that others aren't. He can be far too silly and frivolous, but England needs that so he’s not such a hardass, which Francis often reminds him of. Francis is also impeccably charming and is one of the only people who give England the precise praise that makes him feel so unequivocally good and appreciated...But he sees France be just as kind to everyone else and he feels like he's been used. The thing is, though, that they both get under each other's skin. That makes them so quick to bicker, of course, but England needs someone he can be quick and witty and his own Austen-like figure with that can stand up to the challenge. He goes easy (or what he thinks of as easy) with people he cares about, but that's often still too much for most people, but not for Francis. Francis is as quick as a whip, too, and he's not one to shy away from many challenges, even if he is still a bit of a scardey-cat with some things.
Not to mention that England finds Francis so dumbfoundingly attractive and is his best partner in bed as well... England's feelings of inferiority means he needs reinforcement, but not so much that he feels he's being pitied or looked down upon, and Francis does this naturally. England often feels he no longer has control of the direction of his life, that he's not as strong, as dutiful, as capable as he once was. I feel like that's why he'd not really ever bottom in bed, he already feels that he doesn't have that power in his day to day life and he wants a place to find it during sex, and that fits perfectly into what Francis needs as well. It's also a trust thing, I think, where when England is able to take charge, he's given real trust from Francis that he can't really find anywhere else. When England needs to feel like a powerful king, Francis gets gratification from helping him fulfill it. On the rare occasion that England just wants something caring, a place to feel that he's in control and can express love and tenderness for someone, Francis makes sure he's in charge and comfortable with how he does it it, which is key to him not being ashamed. They both also have equally ravenous libidos so that's a plus, too. Also Francis has a phat ass and his moans are really hot in bed.
Check out this link for a look at Francis, and why England is Francis's perfect match as well!
#hetalia#ukfr#fruk#hetalia england#hetalia france#aph#aph england#aph france#hws#hws england#hws france#france/england#england/france#france x england#england x france#hetalia world stars#hetalia headcanons#fruk headcanons#ukfr headcanons#hetalia fanfiction#fruk fanfiction#ukfr fanfiction#england fanfiction#france fanfiction
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December 1st- Lights Out
Universe: 1970′s AU (The Great NYC Blackout of ‘77)
Rating: M (Mature, Sexy times)
Length: 3077 Words
A/N: So here we are again. Advent fics, and also decades AUs! I wrote from 1900 to 1950 for last year’s advent and I did 1960 in the spring, so here we are picking up where I left off! If you can guess what company Anna works for in this fic I will give you a cookie and a sticker.
Lets see if I can finish at least the decades this time around, shall we?
Anna sighed as soon as she walked through the front door of the apartment, letting her hair fall out of the low bun she’s had it up in all day. She knew that it was probably silly to keep it up. After all she hated it being that way, but she wanted to make a good impression at work. The better she did, the quicker she could get a good reference, and the sooner she could get out of the city.
She was a bit amused though, despite the hairpin headache it had given her all day, that a coworker had compared the look to something out of the sci-fi flick that had come out some months back. She hadn’t seen it yet, but she imagined that being compared to the princess in the film was probably a good thing, she did know that it was exceedingly rare that a princess was evil or ugly. Her experience with children’s content was, of course, what she’d in part been hired for in the first place.
She shook out her hair and heard some of the little metal bobby pins fall to the floor, they clattered and skidded, undoubtedly falling into cracks and corners she didn’t have the time, energy, or light to locate. She knew that she’d find them again someday, but she hoped that it would soon be because she was busy moving furniture into a truck and her belongings into boxes. New York was interesting, to say the least, but she’d decided that she was much more of a small-town gal than a city chick.
She gathered up the rest of the pins in her hand as she raked her hair through the long and snarled mess. Those pins that hadn’t jumped ship with the initial shake had found themselves tangled in the waves of descending hair and were sometimes angrily biting at strands and taking pieces with them as she removed them. She could already feel her headache easing as her scalp tingled and readjusted to the natural weight distribution of her hair.
The worst part of her job was not the headaches, the hairstyles, or even the momentary concerns that maybe the princess she looked like was the rare evil and cruel type. No, it was much more mundane and far more upsetting, the factor being, of course, the hours. She had been working since noon and it was one of the rare days that she was able to get home before nine at night. Of course, she had expected this when she joined on the CTW’s education research and grant writing division. Kid’s television didn’t exactly make itself, much less make itself educational, but she was looking forward to going elsewhere and working for a less high-profile program and company. A nine to five, she thought, would suit her just fine, especially if it meant that she’d spend more time actually working with kids.
She kicked her shoes off and let herself breathe for a moment before turning around to lock the apartment door behind her. Kristoff has been asking her to be more careful lately with the door, and on the subway, and doing just about anything. They weren’t in a particularly dangerous area of the city and the office she worked out of was only two subway stops from their apartment, but she understood the worry. She was young and pretty in his eyes at least and there was talk in the news about some psycho attacking women. She couldn’t let herself give into the fear of it though, she was done being afraid. She had spent too much of her life being scared and lonely to let it ever happen again.
The bathroom door opened on the opposite side of the room and Anna grinned at the familiar creak of the hinges. She turned and saw Kristoff, fresh from the shower with steam rolling out from behind him, looking as happy to see her as he felt seeing him.
“There’s takeout in the fridge,” he said, looking a bit sheepish, “I was going to cook but I didn’t know when you were getting home tonight and I forgot to pick up the egg noodles on my way back from the shop.”
She wondered how he’d react if she told him that he was the only thing she was hungry for. She’d forgotten to call him to let him know that she’d had a sub at the office while finishing up on some research for an upcoming episode about astronomy, and while she appreciated his efforts at takeout, she didn’t need to eat. She was much more interested in the feast for the eyes before her. She was starving for his attention, to let her hands wander down his chest and to the towel slung low over his hips the way her eyes were traversing the same path.
They were both working crazy hours, saving up as much as they could for their dream of moving to the suburbs or to upstate or wherever they could both find jobs in their fields with a nice little starter house that they could set up a life in. Consequently, they’d both been too exhausted lately to spend their time together doing anything other than eating, sleeping, and maybe listening to the radio before falling asleep. The monotony of it was more exhausting than the workload, particularly when she spent a fair amount of her day wishing for the opportunity she now found before her.
She saw him grin when her eyes wandered back up to his. She knew that he couldn’t have planned to be just getting out of the shower when she got home given he hadn’t known when she would get home, so she called it kismet instead. She shrugged off her blazer, barely turning as she hung it up on the coatrack and returned the smile, throwing in an eyebrow raise for good measure.
It made him laugh, and that let her know that she had looked exactly as mock-lascivious as she’d meant to. She’d learned that when it came to Kristoff, she never really needed to try to flirt, he just gave her the love she needed on demand. Any flirting between them was, at this point in their relationship, mostly for the laughs.
As she stepped forward to meet him she watched as the room went from softly lit to pitch black in an instant. It caused her to jump about a foot, rush forward, trip, and encounter Kristoff who had been, in return, crossing the room to get to her. The impact wasn’t gentle, he was normally her favorite pillow, his largeness being mostly a virtue given the fact that despite his muscle he was overwhelmingly soft, but she had never run straight into his chest before. It was a bit like what she felt running into a padded wall would feel like.
“Oof.”
His grunt of discomfort was a strange comfort when compared to the more concerned sounds, shouts, and confused cries that came from the surrounding apartments and the street below. That, Anna realized, meant that they were certainly not the only ones who were out of power.
“Sorry!”
She offered the apology meekly as his arms wrapped around her. He gave her a little protective squeeze and she rested her weight against him a bit more fully, still recovering from the impact of their bodies that had her a bit shaky on her feet. Normally she enjoyed the sensation of him thoroughly wrecking her, but crashing into him unexpectedly was significantly less enjoyable.
Power outages weren’t exactly uncommon in the summer as everyone ran their fans and air conditioners, but it normally wasn’t something that lasted exceedingly long. This already felt different though, particularly as Anna heard the hollers and shouts coming from through the window from the rest of the block. Whatever had caused their power to go out was not localized to their apartment or building it seemed.
She let her eyes drift over to the window as they adjusted to the darkness they’d been plunged into. She could see past the no longer running fan that there were no lights to be seen in the park across the street from it, nor were there any beyond it.
“I think it’s the whole block,” she said quietly, “maybe even more. There’s no lights in the park and I can’t see any light past that either.”
They were both quiet for a moment as she felt him turning to look as well, turning them together to the side so that they could both look through their dark window, into the dark city beyond.
“Crap,” he groaned, “Might be the whole borough.”
Anna shook her head. That would be insane. They were in Manhattan, it was massive, and for the sheer amount of different areas it contained there was really no logical way for her to wrap her head around the power being out across it.
“If Manhattan is out, the whole city might as well be. I don’t know what it would take for it all to go out.”
Kristoff sighed and Anna’s eyes finally adjusted well enough for her to see his grumpy expression, or at least the shadowy set of his displeased jaw. They sat like that for a while, eyes adjusting to the dark, waiting for the power to click back on and for them to be proven wrong about any more than just their block being out. It didn’t return after minutes passed like hours, and they were forced to move from their standstill.
“Well… guess it’s a good thing that Elsa bought us candles for an apartment warming gift. Do we even have a lighter?”
Anna sighed, “Honestly I don’t know? I think I have a box of matches in the drawer next to the stove because we needed them when the igniter wasn’t working. One of us needs to take up smoking if this is going to become a more frequent event.”
That, she was pleased to report, made him laugh again. She stepped out from his arms to bump into furniture in her search for the drawer containing the matches. She never truly realized how many obstacles their apartment contained until she crashed her hip into the table edge, bumped into a basket of laundry she’d only half folded, and stumbled across a chair leg.
“That seems like an extreme option. We could just buy a lighter and not smoke. I know you don’t like the smell. You always complain about it when we go out to eat and someone lights up at a table near us.”
Anna hip checked the counter by accident but managed to find the drawer handle with one hand as she rubbed the now sore skin through her pant leg with the other. Somewhere on the other side of the apartment she heard Kristoff open the closet door and make a valiant attempt to dig through out-of-season coats, miscellaneous pieces of décor, tools, and sundry to find candles that, like everything else in their apartment, he couldn’t see.
For her part she was rummaging through the junk drawer, fingers making contact with buttons, patches, glue bottles, tape dispensers, and all manner of unnecessary-until-they’re-necessary items. She always told herself when she went into the drawer for something that she needed to clean it out, but it was one of those tasks that never made itself a priority.
“I don’t like it, but I’d probably have a lighter in my pocket if I did.”
She could practically feel his eyes rolling when her fingertips brushed against the rough, sandpaper-like striker of the matchbox. Her hand wrapped around the little box, and she was grateful to feel something rattle around inside. It would have been just like her to have thrown an empty box back into the drawer, and she couldn’t help but appreciate past Anna for leaving her at least a few matches.
“Found them,” Kristoff called just as Anna was about to do the same. It was a small mercy, she thought, that they’d managed to be prepared despite not intentionally preparing for anything. She held the match box up in the dark and shook it hard, the rattling heard across the apartment even with their neighbors still grumbling and shouting.
“Great,” he replied, hearing the sound or seeing the movement confirming the existence of the matches. “Though you should know… Anna I think I lost my towel somewhere near the closet.”
***
The lights hadn’t come on. They’d spent hours in the living room, reading, lazing, complaining about the heat as they read and lazed and sweated in their underclothes. The possibility of going out and seeing what everyone else was doing was offered and quashed by them both on a few occasions, ultimately with them both deciding that they wouldn’t be leaving the apartment that night, nor would they be doing so in the morning, even if the power was back on.
“I deserve a day off,” Anna moaned as Kristoff’s hips rolled into hers.
They’d went to bed innocently enough, planning to sleep in and catch up on rest. The plan had lasted all of a few moments until Anna took advantage of Kristoff spooning her to press her rear suggestively into his crotch. She thought that they deserved some sort of prize for making it into bed in the first place. She’d wanted him since she walked into the apartment, and though he’d managed to put on underwear out of the half-folded laundry basket after losing his towel, Anna had been more than willing to spend the rest of their evening on the couch in candle light.
Their current arrangement was better on their backs, and less likely to start a fire.
“You do baby,” he agreed, his voice deep as they engaged in the only agreeable activity a young couple could possibly agree on when it was late, the power was out, and there was nothing to be done about the heat.
His hands were on her waist as she moved above him, his fingers pressing into her skin as he helped her find a rhythm. She loved the way it felt to have him below her, to give him the pleasure he deserved while taking it for herself.
“You deserve a day off,” she added, “We can spend the whole day in bed.”
He groaned and she felt his fingers squeeze a little tighter at the idea of spending a whole day alternating between making love and napping. Though, she supposed that he might also be reacting to the fact that she was speeding up her pace, riding him hard and fast, trying to make up for weeks of unwanted celibacy in one night.
She was full of him, each time she rolled her hips and sank down on him brought her closer and closer to the edge. She’d spent hours daydreaming of it, feeling the stretch of him filling her, watching the euphoric daze come over his features as he let her give herself to him again and again until they were tired and sated. To see it now in the dim flickering candle light brought an intimacy that she hadn’t imagined before, the light dancing over his kiss swollen lips as he groaned and panted along with her.
“Anna, if you keep doing that I’m going to…”
She rocked her hips and his rolled in return, seeking just the right angle together and finding it as the friction of their joining brought her to her climax before he could achieve the same. She kept her pace, riding out the euphoric sensation as he panted out her name. She let him take up the lead then, letting him set the pace as she moved along with the urging of his hands on her waist.
“Kris,” she encouraged, “Gosh baby you make me feel so good. Please come for me.”
She settled her hands on his shoulders, using him for support as they sped up and worked together to find his end.
He came for her, his grip tightening and his eyes fluttering closed as she watched his face. That was her favorite part of being on top, the view it afforded her of his features softening as she felt him go pliant below her.
They stayed like that for a moment, his hands on her hips and her just holding his shoulders for support, watching him. When he caught his breath and her thighs began to shake from the effort, he pulled her to his side and kissed her lips softly, almost chastely.
“I hope the power stays out,” Anna teased as she got comfortable on the bed at his side, “I know we agreed not to go to work tomorrow, but I think I could live without electricity if it meant more of this.”
Kristoff chuckled against her ear as he pulled her back into him. It was too hot for it, too hot for what they’d just done, but a slight breeze through the window cooled the sweat on their bare skin and made it bearable. She felt him kiss her throat and she hummed appreciatively at the contact, her arm settling over his where it crossed her stomach.
“Or we could just move sooner than planned. Imagine all the free time we’ll have together when we’re on the same schedule. I’ve been looking at jobs North of Albany and I think with our savings we can live on one income for a little while if you want to move up the timeline.”
Anna smiled at the idea.
“Want to hear something crazy?”
He didn’t speak but instead she felt him nodding behind her.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve been looking at open positions upstate too and Fisher Price is looking for someone with an education background to join their research and design team. I was thinking about calling about the position and setting up an interview, but it just seemed like it was a little fast.”
“Anna that’s not crazy… baby that’s wonderful.”
“You’re wonderful,” she teased, leaning back into him and turning her head to give him a peck on his arm.
He laughed and kissed her on the top of her head in retaliation, and as they quieted and dozed off to sleep, Anna could not help but to think that maybe the blackout was fate after all.
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How I Write, How I Dream: ESTP Edition
Mod: An ESTP asked permission to submit this, since she noticed I do not have an ESTP ‘How I write stories’ description in the archive to match this series. What follows is in her own words.
ESTP: How I Write, How I Dream
So this submission is like 6+ years late topically, I think, but it’s an understatement to say I get side-tracked easily. First I had to be self-aware enough to actually determine my type with confidence, and then I had to remember to write this up. Hopefully it’s an edition that’s better late than never – in any case, I thought it might be fun to contribute, given the frequent lack of Se-dom voices in things like this.
I’m aware that I might be in a comparatively small group as a regular ESTP writer, let alone one familiar with personality typology, but I wrote my first short story at nine for a 4th grade assignment, and then my first full story/intended book when I was eleven, (both of which I immediately proceeded to act out on the playground), so it’s sort of always been a part of my normal retinue of hobbies/coping mechanisms/diversions/distractions. Usually I find that I write the most when I’m bored or otherwise dissatisfied with my real life – sort of using it to spice things up with more exciting events, even if they’re regrettably fictional. I also suspect that I use writing to experience all the interesting things I find myself unable to physically do, at least for the moment – not unlike what your ISTP contributor described. I think sometimes that I use it to subconsciously work through certain concepts, too, until I understand them holistically. It’s like it gives me a way to actually engage and interact with a philosophical concept through tangible expression – through embedding it into [fictional] human behavior. Like how I understand the nuances of the concept of apostasy better for having walked through the plot of Silence (2016) with Scorsese than I would have if it was still just a definition in a theology textbook. Application helps me. (I also had a counselor a while back who told me that I used my writing to work through the emotions I hate to process in real life, but I was never wholly convinced of that or the connection of my plots to my real life events, so jury’s out, I guess.)
When I was a kid, I liked to read a fair-ish amount. Spies were oftentimes my favorite topic, but I also wanted eagerly to be one and owned probably every kid spy gadget ever manufactured for sale at the Spy Museum in D.C., to which I dragged my parents practically every weekend so I could crawl through air vents, etc. However, my favorite children’s series of all was actually the Ingo series by the late Helen Dunmore, which provided me with exciting, nature-based, and [mostly] emotionally satisfying adventures in my lifelong favorite unpredictable environment – underwater. (I also dragged my parents constantly to our local aquarium.) As I got older, the frequency of my reading dropped, and I now find myself usually pulled more towards nonfiction.
[Note – I just realized a lifelong quirk with me and books. I’m sort of ridiculously set on *seeing* the books I own. I mean, I know what I own, but I still constantly get out every book I own on a particular topic just to see them all at once. It makes the knowledge more cohesive for me to concentrate it visually, I guess. Even just the covers. Anyway.]
My writing habits are kind of awful – in that, like alluded to above, I pretty much only write when I either a) am seized by a great idea, or else b) have nothing better to do. I have little ambition to actually publish or anything like that, regardless of encouragement, and I prefer to think of my writing as just a diversion, an amusement for myself alone (though I do crave minimal approval, as I do in anything). In any case, as soon as the pressure of a schedule is attached to my writing, it drains of all joy for me. Much like your ISTP contributor described, I think I hover somewhere between plotter and pantser, depending on the story. Too much planning leads to my feeling like I have no incentive to actually write it, as I’ve already experienced it, and too little leaves me spinning aimlessly with no real direction. I write both prose and screenplays, and the rule seems to hold true for both, overall. Also, whenever I have a problem in my plotting or characters or whatever, I find that I have to step away, go be busy with something else, sometimes for a long while, and when I come back everything just falls into place. I guess unconscious Ti and/or Ni finding solutions? I’m not totally sure how/why that happens.
As my inclusion of screenplay format may suggest, I experience my stories in an incredibly visual way. I think sometimes that my narratives come across very much like movies, with all the requisite limitations and usual lack of character introspection. I feel like I pretty much focus on the observable actions of my characters – I find describing any kind of extended rumination highly unnatural, at least most of the time. Even my planning is highly visual. I have a tendency to graph, chart, draw, and plaster my options all over the walls. It’s ridiculous sometimes, but in many cases I just have to be able to see them all next to each other, even if there’s no other information provided. Like my books, mentioned earlier. It helps clarify my plot choices in my mind. It’s also a quirk/weakness of mine that I am often entirely dependent on outside images for descriptions. I need to find a real person, place, or thing to base my fictional ones on physically if I hope to have any kind of concrete knowledge to allow description. Again, it helps solidify them/it in my mind.
I have another weakness in my writing that often results in much incredulous laughter – I’m often entirely blind to any hidden meaning or symbolism in my own writing. I might get the vaguest sense of something being a good line, but be unsure why until my ISFJ friend starts praising my deep, archetypal references and crafting – and then staring at me when I clearly have no idea what she means. It’s happened several times by this point, and though it makes me laugh, I’ll just blame it on the subconscious inferior Ni. I pretty much never have any kind of goal of being symbolic or laden with deep meaning. If I were ever to try that, I think it would massively stress me out.
In terms of editors, beta readers, or whatever else we want to call those who give solicited criticism – that’s just what I need/want. Criticism. For the most part, I’m incredibly thick-skinned about my writing and would be absolutely fine if someone told me that it was utterly terrible and the whole thing needed revising down to the very concept. That may be because I think many of my concepts are lackluster to start with. But nothing frustrates me so quickly as readers unwilling to actually [and harshly] criticize. I always tell them that I want him/her to rip it to shreds. I mean, that’s the only way it’ll get better. (I’ve made mistakes before by assuming that other writers feel this way, too – my sister did not appreciate my input.)
I write almost exclusively dramas these days, I guess, though of varying subtypes. (I also maintain the availability/ready accessibility of about 10+ stories at any given time of active writing. I bounce between them sometimes based on what I’m feeling like at the moment or what I have a new thought about.) I have a sort of historical drama thing that takes place in the 1680s, a modern drama prompted by a premise of genetic engineering, a Most Dangerous Game kind of hunting/weapons thing, a detective story in the immediate aftermath of WWII, a classic deserted island story, a thing involving the phenomenon of stigmata… the list goes on and shifts constantly.
However, while I’ve typically enjoyed writing, here’s the omnipresent rub – engaging with it for any great amount of time makes me really unhealthy emotionally. I’m pretty sure that after like two or three days primarily working on a story without other overriding priorities, or like six or seven with those scattered distractions, (at best), I’m plummeting straight down to my inferior functions. My historical stories do this even more quickly, because they oftentimes seem to require more mental effort. I get super irritable, drown in self-loathing, start to think that everything real that I want is never going to happen – it’s really not good. The fact of the matter is that while writing is a fun diversion oftentimes, I go insane doing it for too long, because I need to get out and engage. (Thanks to my pesky Se-dom, daring to ask for more than just incessant fidgeting.)
When I do write, however, I’m known for my in-depth research, my character-driven plots, lines some people in my life seem to think are witty or something, and emotional depth, believe it or not. I’ve been complimented on it, as well as my tendency to accurately portray mental/emotional illness. I don’t know. I’ve never thought I was overly talented at such things, but then again, I never paid much attention. Even this write-up has been hard – analyzing my writing like this. It’s not a strength of mine to scrutinize my own habits.
After all, I’m busy – I have to go blast Maroon 5 as I jump off a 20-foot wall yelling, “Parkour!”
I am an ESTP, remember? ;-)
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Can you do a fanfic where Kensi is forced to work together with an old NCIS rival and she is furthered annoyed when she begins making moves on Deeks despite them being married.
“Did Hetty say who we’re meeting?” Deeks asked as he and Kensi walked into a five star hotel. They were supposed to meet Hetty, along with some other agent who they would be working with on an undercover case. Deeks would be going under as a high stakes lawyer, while Kensi played his assistant.
She knew he was looking forward to this case. It wasn’t supposed to be terribly dangerous and they would spend the majority of the time together. All while staying in a $700 a night hotel.
“No, but she said she’s in high demand at several agencies,” Kensi answered as they took an elevator to suite 317. She glanced over at Deeks; he wore a black suit with a light blue shirt and a black tie. Hetty had certainly outdone herself this time. Kensi let her eyes drift down to his impeccably tailored trousers, which clung to his legs. “Your tie’s crooked.”
He turned, giving her better access and she straightened it, letting her fingers linger at his collar. “Mm, much better,” she murmured.
“Sugar Bear, if you keep looking at me like that, our new colleague is going to figure out why no one wants to share a room with us,” he said, grinning shamelessly at her. He was doing his own share of ogling.
“That would be very unprofessional, Mr. Deeks. Especially since I’m your employee.” Kensi shot him a coy look, wondering if she could convince Hetty to loan them their outfits after the case was over.
Deeks wiggled his eyebrows at her while he stuck the keycard Hetty gave them in the locking mechanism to room 317. He gave a perfunctory knock before opening the door.
Hetty was sitting in a small living room across from another woman who had her back to them. All Kensi could see was the leg of a charcoal gray pant leg and red hair. Hetty waved them in and stood.
“Ah, I’m glad you’re here,” she said, gesturing for the other agent to stand. “Special Agent Mallory Weaver, this is Detective Marty Deeks and-“
“Kensi Blye,” she interrupted as Kensi smiled tightly, recognizing the other woman as well.
“You know each other?” Deeks asked.
“Oh we go way back,” Mallory said. “Kensi and I attended FLETC together. We were always neck and neck, weren’t we?” She tilted her head slightly, looking Kensi up and down in a way that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.
The Mallory Kensi remembered had blonde hair and spent 80% of her time in agency provided workout gear. Despite the differences in appearance, she still carried herself with the same aloofness and self-assuredness Kensi remembered. She was also impeccably dressed; her blazer and pants didn’t have a single crease and would have passed even Hetty’s stringent expectations.
“We might have been a little competitive,” Kensi acknowledged. “But that was a long time ago.”
“Yes, it was.” She turned to Deeks then, her expression calculating. “Did Hetty say you were a detective?”
“Yeah, I’m the team’s LAPD liaison,” he replied, reaching to shake her hand. “Nice to me you, Agent Weaver.”
“And a former lawyer,” Hetty added, bringing the introductions to an end. “Which is why he is perfect for this operation.”
“Well, then let me catch you up on the what our goal is for today,” Mallory said, taking charge.
***
“So, how long have you and Deeks been working together?” Mallory asked as they prepared the technology they’d be using for the operation. Hetty had left a few minutes before and Deeks was in the master bedroom making a call.
“Over 10 years,” Kensi answered, a little surprised that Mallory was showing an interest. From past experience, she tended to be singled minded.
“Wow, that’s quite a commitment.” They were silent for another minute and then she asked, “Is he in a relationship? I don’t usually prefer men with long hair, but the way he fills out a suit...I’m willing to look past it.”
“Actually, he’s married.” Kensi only imagine Deeks’ expression if he knew Mallory was interested in him.
“Really? I didn’t see a ring. Maybe he’s not as committed as you think.” Mallory smirked at that and Kensi felt her annoyance rising.
“We don’t wear our rings on the job,” Kensi said, emphasizing the word “our”. Just in case she missed the hint, Kensi gave her a pointed look.
Mallory raised her perfect eyebrows and then laughed incredulously.
“You and Deeks are married?” she asked, with an insulting amount of disbelief. “Wow, I did not see that coming. I remember you were the girl who couldn’t make it past one date with a guy.”
“Well, like we said, that was a long time ago. I’m sure we’re both very different women than we were back then.”
“That seems pretty obvious. I always imagined you doing more with yourself than this, but I guess some people are willing to settle.”
Kensi held back a nasty comment, knowing it would only encourage Mallory.
***
“Marty, what made you switch from lawyer to cop?” Kensi heard Mallory asking Deeks as she came out of one of the massive suites.
“I was working as a public defender and got sick of watching criminals go free,” Deeks explained, shrugging self-deprecatingly. “And then a few years later, Hetty snapped me up.”
Kensi walked into the room, quietly gathering a comm device she would need later when they met their contact. Deeks was reviewing the details of the fake portfolio Eric and Nell had set up for him. He’d pushed the couch and armchairs in the living room to the side and moved the small dining table to the middle of the room. Mallory say next to him, peering over his shoulder, a little closer than Kensi would have liked.
“Yes, as LAPD Liaison.” Somehow Mallory managed to make it sound laughable. “You should consider joining my team.” From her peripheral vision, Kensi saw her touch Deeks’ arm, lingering on his bicep.
“I didn’t realize you had a team.” It was a non-committal statement, neither expressing interest or a direct refusal. Mallory made a negligent sound.
“Oh, I’ve been toying with the idea of forming one. We should talk about it over dinner sometime,” she continued. She leaned closer, adding, “I know this fantastic place that makes the most delicious tiramisu.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” Deeks said. “But I’m pretty busy.”
“You should take some time off. Everyone needs a break.” Kensi watched her hand drop to his thigh and squeeze. “You could even stay at my condo on the beach.” Deeks made a sound that was something between a cough and a laugh.
Unable to take it any longer, Kensi turned around and headed back into the the bedroom. There was a small terrace that looked out on the beach and she slammed the sliding door open, not even caring if Mallory heard. Or what she thought.
Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes, clamping her fingers around the wrought iron railing. The metal biting into her fingers was oddly grounding. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before the door slid open again.
“So, uh, you ok?” Deeks asked. She opened her eyes, resisting the urge to snap at him. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I’m fine.” He came closer, leaning with his back against the railing.
“Yeah, you know I’m not buying that.” He waited for her to respond and when she didn’t, he nudged her knee with his. “You want to tell me what’s going on with you and Agent Weaver?”
“You mean aside from her hitting on you and pawing your thigh?” she bit out, surprised he needed to ask.
“You know I don’t like it and would never do anything to encourage her,” he said. He actually looked worried and she rolled her eyes, turning to face him.
“Of course I do. I trust you completely.”
“Then what’s the problem? Women hit on me pretty frequently and you don’t get this upset.”
“Oh I don’t know,” Kensi sarcastically. “Maybe the fact that she knows we’re married and still tried to get you to come to her condo on the beach? While I was standing right there. She didn’t even have the decency to wait until I was out of the room.” She felt a little petty for saying it, but couldn’t seem to stop.
“Ever since we were in training together, she’s tried to one up me. You and this case are just another chance to prove that she’s superior.”
“Hey,” Deeks said, tipping her chin up. “You do not need to prove yourself to this woman or anyone else.”
“She makes me feel inadequate,” she admitted quietly. Deeks made a noise in the back of his throat and gathered her against his chest.
“Kensi Marie Blye, you are an amazing woman in so many ways. Your intelligence and strength and compassion astound me every day. And there’s a thousand other things I could say about you, but then we’d be here all night.”
Her throat tightened a little with emotion at the love and truth she heard in Deeks’ words. He pulled back, cupping her face between his palms.
“You are perfect exactly as you are,” he added. “Don’t let some woman who doesn’t know you and hasn’t seen you in a decade make you think otherwise.”
“Thank you, baby,” she murmured, leaning her forehead against his. They stayed that way for a minute until she sighed. They would need to go back inside soon. “She just knows how to push all my buttons.”
“Hey, of she says anything else rude, I’ll beat her up,” Deeks promised. She snorted at that, patting his chest.
“Babe, you would never beat up a woman.”
“That’s true, but I can make nasty faces at her while you take her down.”
“You are so ridiculous,” she sighed. “But you always know just what to say to make me feel better.”
“That’s my job,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
***
A/N: Thanks for the prompt! I hope this came off alright without making Kensi seem petty or something.
#ncis la fanfiction#marty deeks#kensi blye#densi#is this angst?#I don’t know#anonymous prompt#ejzah fanfiction
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Mass Protests Can End Vaccine Passports
Story at-a-glance
Peaceful protests work. In the U.K., following massive protests against vaccine passports, government may now scrap its plan for vaccine passports as a legal requirement for large events
In the U.S., 14 states have enacted laws that ban vaccine passport requirements in order to prevent the creation of a two-tier society. Only two have implemented vaccine passport requirements for certain activities
Vaccine passports or any other type of certification are part of a much larger plan to implement a global social credit system, which would rely on the interconnectivity of thousands of databases, which Oracle offered to do for the U.S. government in 2002, for free
Oracle manages databases for COVID-19 cases, vaccine data and clinical trial data, the U.S. national security database and databases for the CIA, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the National Security Agency, plus banking, and a host of commercial databases. Oracle Labs is also partnered with DARPA to create an interconnected supercomputer
Ultimately, the vaccine passport will expand to include not just vaccination status but also other medical data, basic identification records, financial data and just about anything else that can be digitized and tracked. The end goal is to end freedom as we know it, using a social credit system based on 24/7 electronic surveillance to ensure compliance
March 20, 2021, on the 1-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 lockdown, people in more than 40 countries took to the streets to peacefully demonstrate against COVID-19 lies and tyrannical measures under the banner of “Worldwide Freedom Day.” While synchronized around the world that particular day, demonstrations are more or less ongoing in various areas.
Peaceful Protests Are Ending Vaccine Passport Requirements
In the U.K., Britons held a “Unite for Freedom” rally in London, Saturday May 29, 2021, as seen in the short video clip above. According to ITV.com,1 hundreds of no-vaccine-passport protesters surged into the Westfield shopping mall in London, while another large crowd gathered in Parliament Square.
They were reportedly cleared from the mall after about 20 minutes by police, but no one was injured or arrested in this particular instance.
As reported by Reuters2 May 30, 2021, it now looks like the U.K. will be scrapping its plan for vaccine passports as a legal requirement for large events, although a government spokesman told Reuters that a final decision has yet to be made and that the COVID-19 vaccine certification review is still ongoing. Why the sudden change? Undoubtedly, it’s because Britons have repeatedly taken to the streets in protest of the medical apartheid these passports create.
14 US States Have Banned Vaccine Passport Requirements
In the U.S., there’s also good news. A number of states have enacted laws that ban vaccine passport requirements in order to prevent the creation of a two-tier society of those with the freedom to live as they please, and others whose lives would be restricted based on vaccination status alone.
As of May 28, 2021, the following 14 states have banned vaccine passports from being required:3 Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming.
Utah has issued a partial ban that applies to state government only. Only two states so far — Hawaii and New York — have actually implemented vaccine certification requirements for certain activities.
In Hawaii, only those with proof of vaccination are allowed to travel between counties without pretravel testing and quarantine restrictions, while New York requires you to be vaccinated or have a recent negative COVID-19 test to enter certain sports arenas and large performance venues.
Florida Fights to Make Cruise Lines Adhere to Law
In my home state of Florida, one of the best pro-freedom governors in the U.S., Ron DeSantis, is now fighting the cruise industry over its proposed vaccination passport requirement.4 The bill he signed into law May 3, 2021,5 prohibits state government from issuing vaccine passports and private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination status to enter or obtain services.
As such, cruise lines that do business in Florida and want to restrict travel to vaccinated-only are in violation of this new anti-medical apartheid law. As reported by NBC News:6
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the go-ahead Wednesday to begin work toward restarting cruises for the first time in over a year after the massive ships became some of the first superspreader locations for the coronavirus …
To comply with CDC guidance … several cruise liners want to require nearly everyone onboard to be fully vaccinated. But that could now be illegal in Florida, the center of the American cruise industry, under a law DeSantis signed … that prohibits businesses from discriminating against unvaccinated customers.
‘In Florida, your personal choice regarding vaccinations will be protected, and no business or government entity will be able to deny you services based on your decision,’ DeSantis said of the law, which codified executive orders he had already issued.
The dispute may end up in court, as the cruise industry argues that the state law doesn't apply to it thanks to federal rules. In the meantime, companies may decide to move ahead with plans to require vaccinations, even if it means racking up violations in Florida.”
A Social Credit System Is the End Goal of Vaccine Passports
It’s important to realize that vaccine passports or any other type of certification in and of themselves are not the end goal here. They’re merely a part of a much larger plan to implement a social credit system, such as that already implemented in China. First, they’d be expanded to cover other required vaccinations.
Ultimately, the vaccine passport will expand to include not just vaccination status but also other medical data, basic identification records, financial data and just about anything else that can be digitized and tracked. The end goal is to end freedom as we know it, using a social credit system to ensure compliance.
Booster shots against COVID-19 variants would logically come first, followed by any number of other vaccinations. The sky’s the limit as far as that’s concerned, and many are likely to be gene-based and therefore dangerous in the extreme. Already, vaccine makers have announced they’re working on a combination COVID-flu/mRNA vaccine,7 a pneumococcal-COVID/mRNA booster shot for adults over 65,8 and mRNA/seasonal influenza vaccines.9
Ultimately, the vaccine passport will expand to include not just vaccination status but also other medical data, basic identification records, financial data and just about anything else that can be digitized and tracked. It may even extend to include real-time biological data.
The end goal is to end freedom as we know it, using a social credit system to ensure compliance. If you disobey or act “out of line” with a prevailing dictate, your freedom to travel, bank, shop, get a loan or even leave your home could be vastly restricted.
We can see how such a system could work by looking at the Chinese social credit system10 where behavior is electronically monitored to assess “trustworthiness” in real-time. Aside from failing to pay taxes on time, score-lowering actions can include such minutia as cheating in an online video game, jaywalking, not visiting your parents on a frequent-enough basis, smoking in a nonsmoking zone or walking your dog without a leash.
Momentary thoughtlessness can also land you on any one of hundreds of blacklists controlled by a variety of state agencies with their own jurisdictions, and if you end up on one, you’re typically subject to blacklisting across all of them, at which point you won’t be allowed to do much of anything except work to improve your score. On average, it takes two to five years to get off a blacklist, and that’s assuming you comply with all the recommendations put forth.11
While the Chinese social credit score is still in its infancy, eventually, the plan is to use it to “search for signs of potentially harmful behavior before it occurs”12 — in other words, a real-world pre-crime type of situation as illustrated in the movie “Minority Report.” This is what vaccine passports can lead to, and there’s every reason to believe that is the plan.
As noted by Naomi Wolf, a former adviser to the Clinton administration, in an interview with Fox News’ Steve Hilton:13,14
“I’m [the] CEO of a tech company, I understand what these platforms can do. It is not about the vaccine, it’s not about the virus, it’s about your data … What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. It can be merged with your Paypal account, with your digital currency.
Microsoft is already talking about merging it with payment plans. Your network can be sucked up. It geolocates you everywhere you go. Your credit history can be included. All of your medical and health history can be included …
It is absolutely so much more than a vaccine pass … I cannot stress enough that it has the power to turn off your life, or to turn on your life, to let you engage in society or be marginalized.”
It’s All Been Building to This Point
Indeed, recreating China’s social credit system here in the U.S. is likely easier at this point than anyone would like to think, and probably wouldn’t take long to implement. Silicon Valley titan Oracle nabbed the contract to be the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s central data repository for all COVID-19 vaccine data in the U.S. early on in the pandemic.
Oracle also manages the database for COVID-19 cases and the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) database for clinical research into COVID-19 vaccines and drugs, a program overseen by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Now consider this: Oracle has for many years also managed the U.S. national security database, as well as databases for the CIA, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the National Security Agency, plus banking, and a host of commercial databases. As reported by The Defender:15
“’The information about your banks, your checking balances, your saving balance is stored in an Oracle database,’ Ellison was quoted in the 2004 book, ‘The Naked Crowd.’ ‘Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database.’”
And, as Ellison admitted in 2002, thousands of databases can easily be integrated into a single national file — something he offered to do for free for the U.S. government all the way back then.
The Defender also recounts an old Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program called Total Information Awareness (TIA), which sought to collect the medical records, drug prescriptions, DNA, financial information, travel data and media consumption habits of all Americans.16
The justification for this vast data collection, according to DARPA, was that “the whole population needed surveillance to prevent not only future terrorist attacks, but bioterrorism and even naturally occurring disease outbreaks.” The program was defunded in 2003 after intense public backlash, “but TIA never really went away,” The Defender writes.17 “Various of its programs ended up divvied into a web of military and intelligence programs.”
Here are a few more connections to consider when trying to decide whether a social credit system is really in the works, and why a vaccine passport could serve a central function.
Oracle Labs, the research arm of Oracle, is partnered with DARPA to create an “optically interconnected supercomputer” — something that would come in handy if putting together a massive social credit system that demands interconnectivity between thousands of databases.
DARPA is also working on advanced pandemic surveillance and biological threat detection.18 In fact, it has an entire division specializing in biological technologies — the Biological Technologies Office (BTO) — which developed hydrogel, an implantable type of nanotechnology that transmits light-based digital signals through wireless networks.19
It’s basically a gel-like biosensor that can both record and share biological data. The hydrogel is manufactured by Profusa, which is partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation20 and backed by Google, the largest data mining company in the world.
In 2020, there were rumors that this hydrogel would be part of Moderna’s mRNA delivery system.21 DARPA, by the way, actually funded Moderna too.22 However, it is unclear whether hydrogel actually ended up being used in Moderna’s or any other COVID-19 vaccine. At any rate, it could be used, if not now, then in the future.
Now, ask yourself, considering all of these various data points that I’ve covered — which by no means includes everything — just how likely is it that a national social credit system based on digital surveillance, including medical and biological surveillance, is NOT in the works?
Vaccine Passports Spell the End of Freedom
I recently interviewed Wolf about her book “The End of America.” The book, published in 2007, was a prescient warning about the very time we now find ourselves in. In it, she laid out the 10 steps toward tyranny that have been followed by virtually every modern-day would-be tyrant.
“They all took the same 10 steps, and they always work. I warned people that when you start to see these 10 steps, you have to take action, because there is no way to recover once things go too far without a bloody revolution or a civil war. We are [now] at Step 10 … and once Step 10 locks in, there is no going back,” Wolf says.
The 10 steps toward tyranny start with the invocation of a terrifying internal and/or external threat. It may be a real threat or an imagined one, but in all cases, it’s a hyped-up threat. From 2001 onward, that threat was terrorism, which was used as the justification for stripping us of our liberties.
The last and final step in the implementation of tyranny, Step 10, involves the creation of a surveillance state where citizens are under constant surveillance and critique of the government is reclassified as dissent and subversive activity. Vaccine passports are clearly an integral part of that surveillance apparatus, and a precursor to a social credit system.
There simply can be no doubt of that, and if we don’t put a stop to it now, we’ll be locked into not just a national dictatorship but a global one, run by unelected, largely unknown individuals and Big Tech oligarchs. There will be no one to help anyone else, because all nations will be in the same boat.
Peaceful Protest and Legislative Action Are the Remedy
To avoid the fate that comes next, everyone everywhere needs to recognize the danger and take action. Such action includes peaceful protest and civil disobedience — simply not complying with mask mandates, social distancing, lockdowns, vaccination or anything else.
We must also fight through legislation. As mentioned earlier, 14 U.S. states have already passed laws banning requirements for vaccine passports, which protects the freedoms of everyone within those states. While that’s a good start, there are dozens more to go, and other countries need to enact such laws as well. As noted by Wolf in my interview with her:
“Once [vaccine passports] are launched … people like you and I, Dr. Mercola, will be switched off of society. ‘Oops, my vaccine passport is positive. I guess I can't go food shopping for my family.’ ‘I said something critical of biofascism on Dr. Mercola's show, so now my child can't get into school.’
Just as in Israel, where people who are critics are being surveilled [and] marginalized from society, it has turned into a two-tier society. If you choose not to get vaccinated, then you're really in a marginalized minority in an apartheid state.
The more we know about these vaccines, the scarier it is to have coercion that is social. It's also illegal. In America, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act. It means it's illegal to even ask me anything about my medical status. You can't ask me if I'm pregnant. You can't ask me if I'm disabled. You can't ask me if I have diabetes or HIV. You cannot ask me anything. By definition, these intrusive measures are unlawful.
We have to use the law to save the law, basically … We have to fight before we are living in fascist regime where every move is tracked and we're marginalized from society.”
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently posted more than 50 video presentations from the pay-for-view Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination held online October 16 to 18, 2020, and made them available to everyone for free.
The conference's theme was "Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century" and it featured physicians, scientists and other health professionals, human rights activists, faith community leaders, constitutional and civil rights attorneys, authors and parents of vaccine injured children talking about vaccine science, policy, law and ethics and infectious diseases, including coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines.
In December 2020, a U.K. company published false and misleading information about NVIC and its conference, which prompted NVIC to open up the whole conference for free viewing. The conference has everything you need to educate yourself and protect your personal freedoms and liberties with respect to your health.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. I was a speaker at this empowering conference and urge you to watch these video presentations before they’re censored and taken away by the technocratic elite. [go here, scroll to bottom of page for access]
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Switching Sides: Part 1 (HLITF)
Annnddd I have a new series even though I haven’t finished any of my others yet. Heh heh. Although, this is like a year and a half in the making 😅 Also, I wanna thank @theshove for being my proofreader and basically editor haha. Check out her kbtbb fic cos it’s super good!!
Premise: Growing up in a life of crime in a Japanese mafia, Atsuko Motomori has seen enough injustice to last her a lifetime. To try and give back to the universe her family has taken so much from, she dreams of being a detective from a young age. Her twin, sharing her disgust for her father and many uncles, just wants an ordinary life away from the crime, paing and suffering. Instead, she wants to be in the spotlight with the soft notes she makes with her cello. In their escape of 2015, on their coming of age birthday, they must split ways, never to be together ever again. If one was found, they didn't want the other dragged down with them. Atsuko, having changed her name and appearance as best she can without a scalpel, sets off to start her life of car chases and arrests.
Four years in a seemingly dead-end police station in the middle of nowhere, being passed over time after time for promotion, Atsuko finally gets a shot at her dream, having been sent to an academy for the best candidates in the country by her boss who had always kept an eye out for her. After discovering her boss may have made her bite off more than she could chew, Atsuko must become the slave of a dominating instructor!? Who so just happens to be the captain of the most famous police unit in Japan? Not to mention a total knockout! Will Atsuko finally achieve her dream? Or will her new instructor put her through the wringer?
Warnings: None for this chapter, but fair warning this fic does get pretty dark. It’s also a VERY slow burn.
~~~~~~~
The loud rattling of the subway was silenced ever so slightly by the soft beat emitting from my earbuds. Looking around the carriage, I spotted an advertisement for a famous orchestra and their tour dates. She's gotten so far, I thought to myself, looking at the edgy, green-haired woman standing with the composer and a few other famous instrumentalists within the group. We had the same features, same voice and same upbringing, but on paper, we were from completely different worlds.
Fighting back the lonely feeling crawling up my spine, I averted my gaze to the people on the train carriage. Across from me was a man: tall, like every other member of the opposite sex compared to me, dressed in casual clothes for a young person. And he didn't stand out in a crowd. But he had a certain look. I recognised it from all the bad people and high stake criminals that frequented my home as a child. I eyed him closely before approaching him.
"Sir, what do you think you're doing?" I glared down at the hand slipping out of the pocket of the man standing in front of the suspicious character. Everyone in the area swivelled around in surprise at my judgemental tone. "You shouldn't steal, y' know. It doesn't set you in a good light." I frowned, the older man ensuring his wallet really was taken.
After exclaiming that it had been, the seemingly normal guy whipped out a pocket knife. Everyone jumped back, except for me, as the thief waved the blade around. "Don't be dramatic. Put the weapon down." I sighed out in boredom before he could lunge at me. I grabbed his wrist as it passed me and twisted my body into his, slapping the knife out of his hand and elbowing him in the face.
Falling back in painful anguish, I ignored the wails of the man to pick up his small blade. When I turned around again, having slid the blade back into the handle, a long-legged man was kneeling down to pull the thief to his feet. Before I could say anything, I saw the silver shine of handcuffs clicked around the thief's wrists. Is he a police officer? I pulled a quizzical expression as the silent man turned to me. He didn't look like much of a city policeman, not like the ones I had seen growing up. His black hair reached the bottom of his neck, not to mention scruffy like a teenage boy's. The only thing that set him apart from the police I used to see visiting my childhood home was the fact he was actually arresting the criminal.
"The public shouldn't endanger themselves." An angry expression soon took over the blank one I saw moments ago.
"Oh, err... Okay?" Thrown off by his handsome appearance, I didn't know how to respond and completely forgot I was also a cop.
Then, I saw the blood trickling down the criminal's face and my eyes grew wide when I noticed my instincts, forced upon me since I was able to walk, took over. "If you're nervous, you shouldn't do such dangerous things." He frowned at my face, twisted up in cringing embarrassment, as I was annoyed at myself for causing a scene. I had lasted this long in a small town of Nagano, being a patrol officer, and not drawn this much attention to myself before. Having this opportunity of becoming a detective, thanks to my boss sending me to a new institute for training officers like me, I had become a bit more ambitious.
"Was he acting alone?" Another tall, nicely dressed and stoic faced man appeared, only he was wearing glasses, and looked at the cuffed man being held by his acquaintance.
"Yeah. Watching his technique, I'd say it's habitual." The suited man replied, losing his look of annoyance at me. They were probably colleagues, they both had the air of lawmen, and they were the only few on the train that was still wearing blazers on a hot day like today. I wonder if they're on an investigation?
The man in glasses, who had most recently appeared, then turned to me. "Any injuries?" With his question, I was quickly pulled back to reality.
"Nope. All good." I smiled, ignoring the earlier comment from the man holding the thief I apprehended.
"It's admirable that you don't overlook crime, but please do not get involved." The smarter looking man furrowed his eyebrows, making his expression look even sterner. "It's more important that you do not get injured." His face quickly eased at the caring comment, his frown replaced with a flat smile.
Growing up, whenever I had accidentally injured myself in the hazardous place I called home, the men in my life would only get angered by my whining. When I joined the police academy, I had to show how strong I was or I'd fall so far behind the male-majority class that I'd get tossed from the class. Thrown off from being shown concern, I hastily lowered my head thankfully at the detective with a hidden badge.
However, I felt like I needed to make them aware that I, too, was an officer of the law. But, before I could, another one approached the one with glasses.
"You collected their garbage?" A moodily-faced man, with long, neat hair and a sloppily tightened purple tie, frowned.
"He brandished a knife on the train. I had no choice." The kind detective's expression froze over once again as he confronted his colleague.
"You could have left that thief to Little Miss Justice here." The new character glanced dismissively at me, which made me raise an eyebrow. He, on the other hand, was like the detectives I saw growing up.
"So that way your scandal isn't the only thing getting attention." The man with glasses took a jab at his associate, but it only made the other man smirk. Or was it more like an irritated grin?
"I don't want to hear anything about a scandal. That's just a lie." As I watched the two bicker, I couldn't help but wonder if they got along well enough to be able to work together.
When the train finally stopped, the moody man disembarked and the ones who helped me hauled the handcuffed man off. I watched the backs of the men who quietly discussed something between themselves until I realised it was my stop. As I ran through the closing doors, I sighed in relief that I didn't make myself late on my first day. With that rush of adrenaline, I forgot about the eventful morning that seemed to whiz by.
~~~~~~
"Wow." I gaped at the grand, white building in front of me. It was wide. The main building in the centre was four stories compared to the three-storied buildings that led off it. I could tell thanks to the rows of windows. On top was a clocktower that also had one set of windows in each of the two floors it contained. The massive archway that led into the main building made the scene look like a western college in a teen movie. Pink sakura trees lined up either side of the pathway towards the academy.
So, this is the new police academy... Amazing! A smile spread over my face as I watched the beauty of the new building unfold before me. The reason for being on that train this morning was for this school. As a girl who grew up dreaming of being a detective, I never got my opportunity to get the promotion the usual way. There were always men that got there before me. After three years of striving for excellence and finally giving up hope, my boss eventually gave me my chance by enrolling me at this academy. One built to promote officers to detectives.
I've heard the details are limited to very few officers but... My fears of all my hard work not paying off made me nervous. How did my boss know about this place? The reason it was built in private is that they'd likely get hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants within the first week! Then I never would have gotten in. There'd always be men that were ‘better’ than me.
I continued along the well-maintained path as I thought about how lucky I was to be attending such a prestigious and, not to mention, beautiful school. As I walked through the campus, I spotted a dojo to my left.
Wonder if anything's going on in there? Having grown up needing to defend myself, I trained in judo and karate, so I decided to take a look out of curiosity. It should be fine. My instructors didn't mind it when I snooped around, I thought to myself, overlooking the fact that I was the daughter of a major mafia boss and if the instructor did reprimand me, he'd lose a finger.
I was awed by the interior, watching the expansive ceiling go further than I expected it to. Looking around, I spotted a man wearing a kendo gi, robes used when performing the art, and meditating in the rays of the sunlight that filtered through the gridded window. I recognised them from what my sister practised in our youth.
He seems young, but could he be the instructor? His eyes were shut, but his expression looked kind. His long, tied-back hair was very feminine looking for a man with such youthful features. The guard he had wrapped around his torso was black compared to the blue robes he had on underneath.
Enthralled by his quiet, mysterious atmosphere, it surprised me when he opened his eyes. As a kid, I had never seen anyone let their guard down like that. To sit in a room, all alone with their eyes closed as they listened to their innermost thoughts: the concept made my nerves arise. But now, face to face with someone I had been snooping on, my heart raced. His penetrating gaze froze me over, stopping me from moving to look less inconspicuous.
Awkwardly not removing his eyes from mine, the light brown-haired man smiled softly at me. Having grown up around mostly men, I was no stranger to the variety of the male appearance. But, I had never seen a man so beautiful before. The new fantasy before me forced me to keep my mouth shut.
"Are you a new student? Reception is in that building." Hearing words come out of his mouth, I jumped back to reality. I quickly realised I was staring intensely at him and my face flushed brightly. I mentally recoiled at that embarrassing display as I thanked him.
Entering without permission and probably creeping him out... What is wrong with me?
"Good luck." His face lit up in a radiant smile. I bowed deeply to show my gratitude and ran off towards the main building.
~~~~~~
Along a glass-walled corridor, I searched for a locker room to change into the uniform the admin office had given me. I spotted one and pushed the door open, only to find myself looking at the backs of several naked men. Before anyone spotted me being a perv, I closed the door and pulled the school map out. Not seeing a distinction between the locker rooms, I called over a man in uniform.
"There's only one. But the shower room should be empty..." With an uneasy eye, the man directed me to the place where I could change. I thanked him, although I was suspicious. There wasn't a women's locker room, but there was a women's shower room? The only reason I could think of for them to think that was okay was that there were so few of us. They likely thought it was fine for us to change in the same area.
Typical. I sighed, heading for the shower room in the back, deciding to check the details later.
As I walked through the door, I was affronted with a man fixing the towel around his waist. Body still wet, I assumed he had just taken a shower.
Annoyed and embarrassed that I had put myself in another embarrassing situation for the second or third time today, I sighed out my apology. "I was told the showers would be empty." I tried to make him understand why I was still standing in the doorway, showing a small smile to help him know I wasn't some crazy girl off the street.
"Yeah, it doesn't get much emptier than this." He chuckled, seemingly not having a problem with my intrusion. My brows furrowed, confused about what the man outside had told me.
"This is the men's shower room, right? So the women's is..?" I trailed off, letting him finish my statement.
"There are no facilities at the school for girls... Except for the women's toilets, I think?" He answered without an expression change, something I quickly noticed hadn't happened since I entered.
Now allowing myself to look at him, his body was in perfect shape. Although his body was of an exceedingly fit man, his blond, bowl haircut made him look younger than I'm sure he is.
"You're kidding?" I slouched, my hope for the progressive police force dulled in a matter of minutes.
"There are only two girls this year. You and one other." He looked into the distance to think about the math. "They can't prepare facilities for so few of you." The bluntness of his statement didn't help my mood as I quickly became deflated. "Well, if you're worried, we could arrange for special times or something?" Noticing my defeat, the man gazed blankly again. "I'll be out soon, just wait a moment." Suddenly, he showed me an encouraging smile.
"Thanks." I smiled back, appreciative that he would give me my space. It was the first day for all of us, so I'm sure he understood my nervousness. Abruptly, he starts changing, right in front of me. I hurried to look away, but he didn't seem to care either way.
"Alright, don't forget to hang up the key..." Throwing the key he had left on one of the sinks, I caught it in a hurry, not wanting to look like a fool for not catching it.
"Sorry for rushing you." I gleefully showed him I’d caught the keys as he began to walk towards the door. As he approached, he closed the distance between us.
"No worries." His expression quickly turned mischievous. "Besides, I don't mind naughty girls like you." His tone was serious as he whispered in my ear, which is what threw me off.
"Naughty?" I shrieked without thinking, maybe reacting more than I should have.
"Don't be so loud. They'll hear you out there." He smirked at my reaction and I grew angry.
"Look, I'm not looking to get into anything here. I'm here to become a detective, I just wanna do that. So keep the harassment to a minimum, alright?" Trying to keep calm and not make a fool of myself, I didn't let his handsome features get the better of me. His expression went blank again. He looked me up and down, and then let out a short chuckle. Then, he left as I tried to cover up my panic.
You're not here to mess around, Atsuko! If you flirt with one guy, they'll think you're a bimbo! I told myself after I began to regret turning him down. Showering like a madman to get to the ceremony in time, I changed before running to the gymnasium.
~~~~~~
"So, it looks like it's just you and me." I laughed with a sigh, having met the only other female student at the academy in the gym.
"Hey, I'm just glad I'm not alone and have you here, Atsuko." She sighed in relief as we stood in the bustling hall. It was full of skyscraping men in the same blue uniforms as us.
"Me too! I was a little surprised when you hugged me, though." I laughed uneasily, not wanting to offend her over-friendly attitude. She was a cheery girl with short, brown hair and hadn't stopped smiling since we met.
"I was just happy to see another girl for the first time since school started." Naruko Sasaki sat beside me in the plastic, foldable chairs. She's my age, which I'm thankful for. I struggle to not feel intimidated by those older than me. And I think my pride would take a hit if some young probie was admitted into the school. Although, Naruko did act a little childishly.
"It's only people chosen from the force... I guess it's unavoidable that they're all men." Naruko sighed after inspecting the testosterone-heavy room.
"Chosen? So it's not a lottery?" I turned to her, surprised to hear that. Coming from a small, boring town, I was surprised that I would be selected for such a prestigious opportunity.
"It might be a lottery in the end, but only people with connections qualify, right?" Clueless to my surprise, the girl just smiled. I quietly agreed with her, trying to think of any connections I would have to get me here. I didn't have the same name as I did in my childhood, so any crooked cops that worked under my dad wouldn't be able to track me down.
"It's called a police academy, but it's meant to train elite public safety detectives." Naruko continued explaining the school to me. I yelled out in surprise. I really had no clue what I was getting myself into when my boss threw this assignment on my plate. The Public Safety Division is an elite group within the National Police Academy. Honestly, I would have been happy to become a homicide or narcotics detective. I never thought, coming here, I would be trained to deal with terrorism or anything with that degree of danger.
"Uhh, Atsuko... Did you apply without knowing anything?" Naruko finally caught on to my confusion as she showed her own astonished expression.
"My superior told me I could become a detective if I graduate..." To be honest, It was my fault I was in this mess. I hardly asked any questions before jumping at the offer.
As I circled further into my confusion spiral, the ceremony began. The Director gave a strong, hardened greeting, then the instructors took to the stage. There, I saw all the men I had run-ins with walk up onto the stage.
"They're all so young... I thought they'd be retirement-aged..." Naruko whispered to me, excited shock written all over her face. I, on the other hand, couldn't hear anything she was saying. "And they're all so handsome in their uniforms." She squealed as quietly as possible as the Director continued. I tried to quieten her before she drew too much attention.
I struggled to keep my jaw from dropping, fear of embarrassing myself in front of all my new teachers taking over my thoughts. Surely, hopefully, they don't remember me?
Around us, I heard our classmates also gossiping about the instructors. One I heard questioned how good they could possibly be, only being a little older than us.
Stepping up to the microphone, I saw the moody man from this morning. "My name is Hyogo Kaga, Public Safety Captain." He announced, and I felt my insides crumble.
He called me Little Miss Justice... I'm going to be a laughing-stock. I slid down in my chair, wanting the world to swallow me whole. I didn't have the guts to tell them I was a cop. If they recognise me, they're going to think I'm a rookie or completely inept.
"We'll be instructing you while we perform our everyday duties as officers. We can't afford to waste our time on spoiled brats." His bluntness silenced the room of anyone that might still be gossiping. "If you have no potential, we will drop you. That is all." With that statement, which I felt was personally directed at me, I went into a state of existential crisis. I didn't even know what the academy was training us for, which showed how good of a detective I would be. I so badly wanted not to be the first out, but surely I would be one of the dropouts. I had no connections and very little detective training. The most of an official investigation I’d seeb was when I was given scut jobs the real detectives didn't want to do. Let's just say I’d been in far too many dumpsters than a human being should’ve been in.
"Terrible way of speaking, but he's still handsome!" As Naruko continued to whisper to me, I got to learn what kind of girl she was. It would be difficult for her to focus here. Over the silence Captain Kaga had created, I heard another classmate explain how he was the most skilled person in Public Safety. Then, the man he was talking to began to argue that "Ishigami" was the one who couldn't be matched and would easily beat Kaga in a fight.
After the Captain, the man with glasses stepped forward. That must be Ishigami, I thought, remembering how un-scary he seemed on the train this morning. The man announced he was, in fact, Ishigami, and that he was a Captain as well. "This school will produce excellent officers. I want you all aiming to create a force that can take down terrorism and foreign crime." His ambitions for the students threw me another punch to the gut, until I remembered what the school was built for.
When Captain Ishigami stepped down, the messy-haired man approached the mic. "I'm Goto. Member of Ishigami's Team." The man was as blunt and as harsh as he had been this morning. "My rank is Lieutenant. Thank you." And like that, he was gone, replaced with the long-haired man I had found in the dojo.
"Hehe, what a short greeting. That's so like Goto," Now in a police uniform, the beauty introduced himself while I tried to ignore Naruko jittering at all the hot guys that had been on the stage so far. "Nice to meet you, I'm Shusuke Soma, also a member of Ishigami's Team. My rank is First Lieutenant. I hope to grow alongside all of you. Thank you." He smiled in the same gentle, pleasant way he had when I’d met him, which only made it harder to listen to their speeches without wanting to destroy myself. Naruko announced that the 1st Lieutenant was her type and I quickly prayed that she would shut up before she was caught and got us both in trouble for gossiping and made fools of.
Appearing after Soma was the man I saw in the shower room. I did not accuse an instructor of trying to harass me, please, God, tell me I didn't. I slid further down my chair, the heavy weight of my actions pushing me down.
"I'm Ayumu Shinonome of Kaga's Team. My rank is Lieutenant." And, of course he had to be a lieutenant, not some rookie who was there to step in for some retiree on sick leave. "Feel free to call me Ayumu. Thanks." He smiled before the gossiping started again.
"Shinonome is a genius and the youngest officer to ever be selected for the top squad." Naruko and I were awed at overhearing that fact, although for different reasons.
He must think I'm incompetent for standing around in the shower room while he changed. I sighed to myself as Naruko categorized our instructors into who would be the easiest to get along with. Our classmates also vocalised their prayers of not being taught by the Captains of the unit. However, I heard one voice that helped me refocus my reasons for being here. "But only the best become instructors at this school. They're all super-elite. Don't you want to train under the greats?"
~~~~~~
After all the daily and special instructors had been introduced, (there were only 20), a supervisor stepped up to the platform, announcing that the ceremony was over. "New students, change into suits and report to the Monitor Room." Everyone the instruction was directed to stood in unison, all either eager to get to work or scared of being reprimanded.
"I wonder what we do in this so-called Monitor Room?" Naruko thought aloud as we shuffled out of the hall within the masses of men. "Ah, I forgot my map. I'll be there after I go get it." She showed me a clumsy smile as we parted ways, me telling her I was going to change, as instructed.
As I approached the doorway, I ran into Captain Ishigami. Avoid eye contact. If I can't see you, you can't see me, I thought to myself, trying to not look at the floor or in his general direction. However, maybe by some sort of telepathy, the captain began walking towards me. I tried to inconspicuously navigate my way through the masses and out of his way, but the boys wouldn't part. I frowned up at the back of the person that was blocking me as the instructor stopped in front of me.
"Captain! Great speech up there, sir!" Trying to play it off like I wouldn't know what he was approaching me for, I smiled to try and distract him.
"You are an officer?" His gaze turned serious, just like it had before he had started talking to me this morning, as he pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I thought I had no choice with there being only innocent people around..." He trailed off, referring to his team's interference. If it were anyone else, I would have explained that he didn't have to step in. But, by his tone, I could see I was on thin ice as it was.
"But the story changes if you're an officer. Dragging the public into a dangerous situation like that is an embarrassment." He frowned, gritting his teeth as if it was going to help him hold back.
You have no idea, I thought to myself, feeling the eyes of every person in the room watching eagerly for the first student to be kicked out of the school. I bowed in apology, thinking it best to not retaliate with how I had handled the situation.
"A passenger could have been taken hostage. Did you consider that?" He continued to frown down at me.
"That's why I disarmed him." I let the words slip without thinking, my heart racing the second I realised what I had said. I couldn't look him in the eye as I asked myself if I had just done what I had done.
"Ah, so that was you this morning." The instructor I had met in the shower room approached the situation as I felt myself turn to stone. Ishigami hadn't responded yet and I couldn't tell if it was because he had never met anyone stupid enough to talk back to him or if he was just too ticked off to respond calmly.
"You better make sure Kaga doesn't run into you, the perp we were tailing got away during that mess." Ayumu Shinonome laughed at the inconvenience.
"I wasn't aware I hindered an investigation. I'm so sorry." I gasped, bowing again as I wished I could re-do this day. It would have been better if I was hit by the train.
"Hmm, don't just apologise with your mouth..." Instructor Shinonome's tone was surprisingly stern. "I want you to take responsibility... But that was my fault too." His face was suddenly in front of mine, him having closed the distance once again.
"Responsibility?" I question, trying not to be affected by his forwardness as I took a step back. Thankfully, Ishigami stepped in between us.
"That can wait for later. Hurry up and change, then get to the Monitor Room." Either misinterpreting what Ayumu had said or wanting me to get out of his sight, the Captain allowed me to leave with all my body parts intact.
~~~~~~
In the Monitor Room, the small amount of new students looked around in awe of all the technology covering the surfaces. There was a long wall of monitors that I'm sure gave the room its name.
"Our first round of training will begin now." Ishigami caused confusion within the small crowd of students and the air grew thick with tension.
"But I thought today was just orientation?" Naruko sulked, joining in on the bewildered complaining of our classmates.
"Anyone who can't make it through this training will receive a special punishment. So look forward to it, scum." Captain Kaga smirked down at all of us. As the rest fretted over the punishment the losers could receive, I was caught on what he had called us.
"Scum?" I sighed, wondering what need he had to belittle us like that.
"Additionally, we'd like to reward those with excellent results. So please do your best." Instructor Soma, the man I saw in the dojo, seemed more joyful than the rest of his team. "Especially those who want to get ahead." Reminding us all that this school was a race that we were all competing in to become the best detectives for the Public Safety Division, Soma sounded more easy-going than the statement was. As I looked around at all the faces of classmates lighting up at the notion of progressing, I realised how career-driven they must be. They were aiming for the top.
"This is training for undercover investigations and will be done with an instructor," Ishigami spoke up again. The idea made my heart rate with excitement. Going undercover was like something out of a movie and a perfect occasion for me to show how ‘ordinary’ I can be. I had been living out of the spotlight for four years now; I would be able to continue in the shadows.
"You will be going undercover to a location designated by the instructor. This time we'll let you decide which instructor you'll pair with in order of ranking. Number one is..." Looking down at the clipboard in his hands, Ishigami's brows frowned at the name listed as the best performer in this class.
"...Atsuko Motomori." Announcing the name I had taken as my own after leaving my family, I was shocked to hear it. Even Naruko seemed confounded.
"That's amazing!" Probably thinking she had made a great friend to learn from, I quickly grew worried that my boss back in Nagano had altered my resume to make me look more appealing. I had been working in a small town, doing the most basic police work for three long years. There was no way I could hold a candle to half the people here.
Knowing about my earlier failure of not being able to look away from injustice, Ishigami stared at me in disbelief. Beside him, Shinonome bore a strangely knowing smile on his face. Looking around the room at the five instructors I had met standing before me, I couldn't help but freak out. I had the chance to work with anyone I liked and learn the years of high-stake experience they had collated.
"Motomori, who will you partner with?" Ishigami closed the book of names and held it under his arm, keeping a close eye on how I was reacting. Letting my eyes meet each one of the detectives' before me, I took in a deep breath to calm my nerves.
#her love in the force#hlitf#hlitf goto#hlitf kaga#hlitf ishigami#hlitf shinonome#hlitf shusuke#hlitf soma#hlitf hyogo#hlitf seiji#hlitf hideki#hlitf ayumu#oc#ooc#crime#mafia#mob
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When the World Finally Stops (Biadore) - Tanawrites
SUMMARY - Various moments that ensue after Roy returns home to find Danny has taken refuge at his place for the quarantine.
A/N - details of Bianca being on tour and the stay-at-home order are embellished a little for the story. timeline is a little hazy for the same reason! also I’m not from the US, sorry if anything is desperately wrong and for all my added ‘u’s.
-
The familiar sound of his front door unlocking was music to Roy’s ears. Coming home was always a good feeling after any amount of travel but missing home was for the most part, a small price to pay compared to all the rewards of his career. As more and more tours came about, home wasn’t quite as frequent as he would have liked. Luckily his current tour had him only on the other side of the country, not the other side of the world as the pandemic hit.
Getting home had been a struggle of frantic packing, airports and uncertainty. The constant stream of news playing on the airport televisions, notifications on his phone and watching others in their panic with face masks and hand sanitiser had done nothing for Roy’s anxieties.
He was home now though. Where apparently, he would be staying for a while.
Wheeling the large suitcase behind him, he was idly writing himself a mental checklist. For someone who packed as precisely as he did, unpacking wasn’t a massive task but it was a priority on his list. Call the boarding kennel to organise picking up the dogs as soon as possible was a close second. Write a grocery list. Email his manager to see what all this truly meant for the rest of Bianca’s tour and performing in general. Even amongst all the panic of the past few days since the announcement of a stay-at-home order, the comfort of his home had started to lull him into a sense of normalcy.
It was a small clink from further in the house that drew him out of his thoughts. He frowned and paused where he was still in the entryway, trying to peer closer to where the sound came from.
“Chill! It’s just me.”
Roy felt his body sag in relief. He had heard ‘just me’ enough times after handing over his second hotel room keycard or the spare key to his home to expect exactly who walked out from the kitchen.
Danny.
With a bowl of what Roy perceived to be cereal that was dangerously close to spilling over his expensive rug. Roy eyed how casually Danny’s lanky arms were thrown out towards him, no regard to the milk droplets he was splashing, wearing nothing but a loose tank top and underwear by the looks of it.
As much of a comfort as being home was, seeing Danny felt like Roy could breathe again.
“No, no wait. No hugs yet.”
Roy held a hand out to even further ward Danny off and felt a twinge of remorse for the bluntness when he saw his expression fall. He felt the same way. It had been months too long since they’d seen each other and even though yet again, it was all part of the life they’d chosen, it had been hard.
“Not like that, c’mon pussyface. I’ve just been at the airport with god knows who else and I want to be careful. Let me have a shower and we can catch up.” Roy waited until Danny nodded, sending him a reassuring smile before continuing into the house.
“Don’t bring that in here.” Roy turned around at the doorway of his bedroom to further emphasize that he meant it with a pointed look back to the kitchen. “I’ll take my time so you can try and hide whatever it is that has you looking so guilty.”
His usual cackle carried through to his bathroom as he stored away the guilty, deer-in-headlights expression on Danny’s face deep into his memory to make fun of him later.
-
“Thirty second warning!” Roy called out once he was dried off and dressed again. He tossed his clothes in the hamper, resisting how much he wanted to put them all in the washer immediately. The urge to seek out Danny had already won out against his discomfort before it was even truly a conflict in his mind.
He couldn’t help from conducting a less-than-subtle inspection on the condition of his home as he wandered through the house to find Danny. It was no secret that they were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to organisation. His place seemed to be in a mostly decent condition though - the mussed sheets on his bed and the makeshift ashtray on the balcony were to be expected with any visit from Danny.
Roy didn’t have to go far before his eyes were settling on Danny sprawled across the couch and he wasted no time in tucking himself into the space that seemed to be purposely left for him against Danny’s side.
“Missed you.” It was a simple admission, said quietly into the skin of Danny’s neck as Roy settled. They had never really needed all too many words to know exactly what the other was actually trying to say. That’s not to say that he didn’t feel a warmth settle over him when Danny returned the sentiment with a kiss to his head.
Affection felt natural for them, years of friendship and the tight quarters of hotel rooms and tour buses meaning their bodies were drawn to one another and knew exactly how to move around each other. Those years, starting with drunken kisses and later very purposely sober hookups further cemented how important touch was to the both of them. It was as much of a form of communication as talking was for them.
The way they had instinctively curled around each other was enough to settle Roy’s nerves but not enough to satisfy his curiosity.
“What are you doing here, queen? I thought you would have gone to your mom’s place.”
“Too crowded. Like, I love them all but I just know my mom’s probably freaking out with this whole thing going on and I wanted to stay in the city.”
Roy hummed his understanding before tilting his head to meet Danny’s eyes more. “And your apartment? You know, that place you pay rent for every month? Where all your worldly belongings are?”
“Well I didn’t want to be totally alone for the whole stay-at-home order and I figured you’d be home when I got here.”
“How long have you been here?”
Danny looked slightly embarrassed, to Roy’s amusement, as he admitted “A week and a half.”
“You bitch, there wasn’t even a mention of a quarantine then.”
“Ok ok, maybe I just missed your ridiculously comfy mattress and needed a change of scenery for some writing I’ve been trying to do. Why can’t you ever let me get away with anything?”
Roy rolled his eyes as Danny whined. It clearly wasn’t a problem for him that Danny was here - there wouldn’t be a spare key made up for him if it was.
In all honesty, Roy was more relieved to see Danny here than he was to be home in general. It made him feel human to have Danny around and with his anxiety flared from all the uncertainty, he was starting to feel grounded again.
It would only be all that much better when he had Sammy and Dede curled around his feet again as well.
“Crazy times, queen.”
-
After spending the night bringing each other up to speed, far too late into the night for how tired Roy was from travel, he still found himself waking up before Danny.
He untangled their limbs carefully, though he knew he didn’t have to. Danny could and has slept through almost anything, including any alarm he set ever and Michelle Visage banging on their door to let them know he was late to a meet and greet. Always an early riser, despite how often Danny tried to tempt him to stay in bed, Roy barely even jostled the snoring man he left in bed.
As he prepared a pot of coffee, Roy started to write out a list for groceries, knowing Danny wouldn’t be much help in his meal-planning anyway. He had essentially nothing in the pantry or refrigerator - except for an almost empty pizza box, which Roy certainly hadn’t been responsible for. After a peek in the trash can, his suspicions were confirmed. Danny had been purely living off of take-out for the whole time he’d been here.
Roy finished his list and his first mug of coffee without even a stir from the bedroom where he’d left Danny. He poured another mug and set about the rest of his errands before he found himself back in the bedroom. There were probably still a few other things he could do to keep occupied but he’d much rather attempt to wake up the sleeping mermaid in his bed.
Perching on the edge of the mattress, he paused for a moment to watch Danny. His hair was longer than Roy had seen in a while but he was pleased to see that Danny looked good, like he was eating and sleeping enough. Doing all the things Roy usually worried about Danny neglecting in favour of more exciting parts of life. He placed his mug on the bedside table - namely his own bedside table since Danny always rolled onto Roy’s side once he was out of bed, ignoring the way his whole body warmed to the fact.
“Angel, it’s time to wake up.”
Reaching to stroke Danny’s hair, Roy waited until he started to stir. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth to get Danny out of bed, especially if he wasn’t ready to get up yet, which he was rarely before noon.
“Don’t wanna.”
Somewhat expecting that response, Roy kept running his hand through Danny’s hair, eventually feeling him lean into the touch.
“Don’t you want to come to the store with me? Maybe get a vegetable or two into you for the first time in two weeks?”
Danny had apparently woken up enough to grin lazily up at Roy, who rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what joke he was hinting at.
“Shut up, bitch. Get in the shower and get ready to go.”
Roy began to stand but was quickly brought back down again in a move he should have anticipated from Danny. It really had been too long since they’d seen one another, he was getting rusty.
He had more or less been pulled on top of Danny so he relaxed into it, supporting most of his weight but still leaning to rest his forehead against Danny’s.
“Can I help you?”
“Yup.”
The slight tilt forward of Danny’s chin and the cocky grin on his lips was enough of an answer and Roy didn’t hesitate in closing the small gap to press his lips against Danny’s in the first kiss they’d shared since reuniting the night before.
Their physical relationship had never trumped their friendship, never at the forefront of their interactions. It was just something that had developed naturally between them, their closeness resulting in a tantalizing pull that they had eventually given in to. It was at the expense of nothing though, both of them vowing to be honest about their feelings and that their friendship would never suffer. There were no expectations other than clear communication between them and it had been that way for years now. They were in no way exclusive but they always updated each other if there was something or more importantly, someone new on the scene and as much as neither of them were ready to admit, they were a constant for each other. What they always came back to when they needed something more.
It had seemed complicated when they tried, once, to explain it to Courtney but it was the furthest from complicated. It was just how they were.
Roy didn’t realise how much he’d missed it though, how much in this moment he felt like he needed the press of Danny’s lips against his own more than anything else. They’d both been busy, so busy the past few months and it had been hard to match up both of their sparing free time. The last time they’d seen each other was when Roy flew Danny out to where he’d been on tour and had a rare weekend off - a weekend they spent in a luxurious hotel, wrapped up in one another, spending way too much money on room service to avoid the outside world.
Now, nothing in the outside world was even functioning for them to go out even if they wanted to.
Before the kiss could turn into some other kind of reunion, Roy pulled back. He nudged their noses together, in a show of affection few had yet to see from him, to stop Danny’s complaints at the separation.
“I know, I know. Good morning to you too. Now go brush your teeth because if I have to kiss you again with that breath-”
Danny’s lips stopped his joke right in its tracks and despite his warning, Roy made no move to pull away again.
-
Danny felt ridiculous. He’d mostly kept his mouth shut though, after he caught Roy’s eye just before they’d left the house. Roy looked nervous. So Danny had quit the jokes and let Roy put gloves and face masks on the both of them.
It wasn’t until they got to the supermarket that Danny started to understand.
People were panicking.
He’d been reading the news on his phone and keeping up to date on things. That was nothing compared to seeing it unfold in front of him. He had been holed up at Roy’s house for weeks now and hadn’t witnessed any of the panic first hand.
Danny felt a pang of sympathy when he realised how much worse this would have been at an airport and what Roy had obviously gone through the past few days.
With a glance at how white Roy’s knuckles had turned from how tightly he was gripping his shopping list, he could tell Roy was thinking about it too so Danny slipped his hand casually into Roy’s, twining their fingers together.
“So, ice cream aisle first?”
He tossed a grin back at Roy, only half joking. He really did want at least a few tubs of ice cream to take home but mostly, he wanted Roy to smile back at him. It took a second but eventually Roy scoffed.
“Of course you’re thinking about fucking ice cream right now. Is your brain not part chocolate fudge brownie by now?”
And things were back to normal, or as normal as they could be right now, as Danny was pulled through the aisles hand-in-hand with Roy, dutifully holding the basket and pressing up against Roy’s side as he paid.
Danny was kind of known for being the basket case out of the two of them. Always the one who was in a mess or more commonly, was the mess himself who Roy was always there for. It wasn’t as common that Danny got to do the same for Roy, to be the support system or the pillar holding him up. Danny could see the anxiety bubbling just under the surface since Roy had gotten home yesterday and the tiredness that had gathered under Roy’s eyes though and without Roy saying it, Danny felt needed.
They didn’t have to discuss the fact that this trip was going to be a once-off thing. Any other groceries they needed, were going to be delivered from here on out. He also didn’t mention the fact that he watched Roy put three pints of ice cream in their basket when he thought Danny was distracted.
-
“What do you want to do today?”
Roy glanced over the top of his newspaper at Danny, who had draped his whole body across Roy’s legs, dangerously close to dangling off the edge of the couch. They’d already started their day with laying in bed far longer than Roy usually preferred to so he was trying to continue his usual morning routine, catching up on the world over a cup of coffee. The question was unexpected since they hadn’t really planned anything except meals.
“What do you want to do?”
“Bake.”
Roy faltered. He didn’t know what he was expecting to hear but it certainly wasn’t that and it must have shown on his face since Danny was tossing his head back in a laugh only a second later.
“Bake! Not get baked. Well, I mean I would love to but-”
“Yeah, yeah we know. Pipe down, Laganja Estranga.”
“Seriously, I’ve been seeing all this shit about banana bread and fancy ass cakes. I want to bake something.”
“Do you even know how to bake? You don’t really strike me as the Easy Bake oven kind of gal.”
“Well…no. But surely you do! That’s what grandmas do best, isn’t it?”
Roy abandoned his article in favour of rolling up the newspaper to hit Danny with it in retaliation. Before it turned into a full-on war, he sat up a little more and smiled down at Danny, amusement written all over his face.
“Alright, Martha Stewart. Let’s go bake.”
-
His kitchen was a disaster.
Roy took a moment to glance around. There was flour all over the island counter and the iPad Danny had set the recipe up on. The carton of milk was open on the bench, a puddle all around it. Roy had given up early on trying to clean up after Danny because he insisted on Roy being right next to him for every step.
Contrary to what Danny assumed, Roy didn’t know a damn thing about baking. He could cook well enough, sure. But cakes? Not exactly his forte. Not even on a basic level. So it was basically the blind leading the blind as Danny bounced around his kitchen, pulling out more than what Roy thought they actually needed to make a cake.
Standing on his toes to peer over Danny’s shoulder, Roy raised an eyebrow. “I really don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to look.”
It wasn’t the first time Roy had mentioned it but the more they added and stirred into it, the worse it was looking. Danny had defended it a few times, calling it an ‘unconventional kind of pretty’ or just mumbling incoherently to himself and going back to the recipe.
This time, Danny slumped back into Roy and sighed.
“Want to go have a shower instead?”
Roy’s hands were already up the back of Danny’s shirt, dragging the material up his chest before Danny was even finished speaking.
-
“Wake up.”
Roy nudged Danny again, sighing as Danny rolled further away from him again, snuggling deeper into the pillow.
“Adore, it’s time to wake up. There’s coffee,” he tempted, avoiding the arm that was flung out towards him to no doubt try and lure him back to bed.
Danny’s grumbling made him snicker but he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Placing the mug of coffee safely out of the danger zone of Danny’s still searching arm, he eventually let himself be pulled back to bed.
Roy didn’t let Danny settle into the little spoon position like he was trying to and instead nudged against Danny’s hip until he rolled onto his back. Settling so that he was straddling Danny’s thighs, Roy let his fingers trace across the soft skin above the waistband of Danny’s thong.
Danny made a low hum but still made no move to open his eyes.
“Come on, you sleepy chola. I want to organise the drag room today.”
Roy watched Danny’s face fall into a displeased pout and rolled his eyes.
“If you get up now, I’ll let you try on stuff as we go along.”
“Anything I want?”
Danny finally opened one eye to peer at Roy, almost like he needed the visual confirmation.
“Within reason.”
“No deal.” Danny turned his head dramatically to the side, his hair falling across most of his face. Roy sighed as he started to gently push it back to see him.
“What are you thinking? Because I’m telling you baby, that season seven finale dress wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I was washing off glitter for a whole week.”
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t want to anymore.”
“I want you to do it with me. And I need you to reach the stuff on the high shelves.”
Roy wasn’t expecting Danny to sit up suddenly with Roy still in his lap. He quickly grabbed onto Danny’s shoulders to steady himself and raised his eyebrows in question.
“You’re so tiny.” Danny laughed, rubbing his faces into Roy’s chest, arms looping around his waist.
“You’re lucky you look so damn young when you first wake up. Even I can’t be mean to an infant.”
Roy’s actions said it was more so that Danny looked cute when he first woke up with his sleep mussed hair and stupid tired smile as he kept combing his fingers through Danny’s long hair.
“If you rip any of my dresses, I reserve the right to cut up one of your wigs. Though in your case, I might be doing you a favour.”
“Shut up, yanx. Need coffee first.”
-
Roy was running a brush carefully through one of Bianca’s wigs, the last one he had left before they were all neatly aligned on the shelf. He had set Danny up with his jewelry, trusting that he could stick to the usual color coordinated organisation Roy used.
Danny had on one of Bianca’s dresses, one Bianca hadn’t worn in a long time. Getting it on Danny’s frame, when there was no cinched waist and their different heights, was a bit of a struggle that almost ended in a split seam. Not particularly because the dress was too small but mostly that they were both laughing so much through the process.
It was worth it in the end though because for the last hour, every time Roy glanced over to check Danny’s progress and caught sight of his concentrated stare, he started cackling again. There wasn’t a trace of make-up on Danny’s face, his hair was still messily skewed from sleep, and the dress was so out of place with his bare feet and casual slouch over the desk, which all added to the illusion.
The dress was far from Adore’s usual style but it was the closest Bianca had in her closet. Danny still looked great in it, which Roy had told him at least twice already.
“You miss getting into drag?”
Placing the last wig onto the mannequin and sliding it in place, Roy spun his chair to face Danny. Neither of them had been in drag since Roy had come home, for weeks now.
It had been years of painting Bianca’s face almost every day. Whether it was five times a week for shows in clubs or later, to sold out tours.
It was the longest in a long time that he hadn’t been Bianca and he was curious if Danny was feeling the same reminiscence.
“Yeah, Adore always has so much fun.”
Danny pouted and Roy met it with a scoff but he was relieved to hear that he wasn’t alone in his feelings. He should probably be more grateful for the time off - it was no secret he was getting older so travelling constantly for tours was hard and makeup was harsher and harsher on his skin. Bianca came alive on stage though, releasing a part of Roy that loved to perform. For himself, for the crowd.
There was such a stark contrast between his drag and Danny’s but they shared that same love of performing, the freedom of being on a stage with a microphone in their hands.
“I’m only telling you this because I know you’ll never be able to prove it even if you do blab but I don’t even really miss the insults or the jokes that much. I do a little because it’s getting old having to think of new material for you but mostly…I miss seeing Bianca’s face.”
Turning back slightly to look at his reflection, Roy sighed. He noticed his age taking its toll on his face. The laugh lines that had deepened in the last few years and the new wrinkles in his forehead. It was all things he never noticed as Bianca, just how dramatic her eye makeup was and if her wig was straight.
“Jesus Christ, it turns out everyone was right. The quarantine is making people go insane.”
It wasn’t a good joke but it was an attempt to lighten the mood from where the conversation had gone, from where his thoughts had taken him. He heard the jewelry drawers close and the wheels of the chair as Danny rolled to a stop just behind him. It was obvious Danny had seen right through the joke and heard the truth in Roy’s voice, read the expression on his face.
“Why don’t we then?” Danny asked, closing the last drawer of jewelry and rolling his chair over to Roy’s, bumping them together and peering over his shoulder to meet his gaze in the reflection of the mirror.
“Why don’t we what? Get institutionalised together?”
“No. Get into drag!”
Turning to fully face Danny, Roy raised an eyebrow at him. Danny barely took note of it though, already having made up his mind that this was happening.
“Party,” Roy drawled out sarcastically, though it was an underlying agreement to Danny’s offer. Danny laughed and kissed Roy’s cheek before he was running off - as well as he could in Bianca’s form fitting long dress, supposedly to get his suitcase from Roy’s bedroom.
-
An hour and a half later and the drag room wasn’t in quite as good shape as it was intended to be after spending the better portion of the day organising it.
But there they both were - Bianca and Adore. Adore had forgone Bianca’s dress in favour of a tight short skirt that Bianca had no idea how she could be comfortable in, while Bianca slipped familiarly into one of her favourite dresses.
Now they stood next to each other in front of the full-length mirror after putting on their final touches and Bianca snapped. She started laughing, a chuckle she tried to stifle at the start but eventually succumbed to her usual cackle.
“What? I even brushed out my wig.” Adore looked confused, watching as Bianca came unravelled.
“We…we just got fully into drag. I cinched your waist and we’re wearing heels and I tucked….and…we’re not going anywhere!” Bianca’s explanation came out between fits of laughing.
“Fuck willow, I thought you could see my dick out of the bottom of my skirt or something.”
It had been Adore’s idea but it came from Bianca’s want so they were both to blame. In the middle of a quarantine, with nowhere to go and no one to see, two grown men got fully made up into their best absolute best drag. It was utterly ridiculous to her and she was shaking her head against Adore’s shoulder as she tried to contain herself.
Adore had started to giggle along herself though and eventually, they were leaning into each other.
“Come on B, surely this is an excuse to break out your rich lady wine. We can’t go out but it can still be a party.”
Accepting that the quarantine had absolutely gotten to their heads, Bianca agreed with Adore and pulled them both along to the kitchen.
-
“I can’t believe they let her get away with this shit. Hello bitch, we’re on the fifth challenge here!”
Adore was covering her mouth to stifle her laughter as she listened to Bianca’s commentary. Neither of them knew how they had ended up here but somewhere between the first and third bottle of wine, they’d come up with the idea of watching their season premiere. That was nearly six episodes ago and they were still sitting on Bianca’s couch, both their shoes long since abandoned and kicked away, their bare feet on the coffee table.
Sober Roy would be mad at their mess but drunk Bianca had long since given up her inhibitions. That’s when the commentary came in. If Adore didn’t know better, she would be recording it. The reads were some of Bianca’s best work and had her in fits of giggles, tucked into Bianca’s side.
“I’m surprised they didn’t just make us the top three right here. God, it’s barely even a competition at this point.”
“Shut up, you love all those bitches.”
Bianca glanced to Adore, clearly ready to argue but softened once she caught the way Adore had turned to look at her. She had relaxed into the back of the couch, head turned sideways to look up at Bianca. The buzz of the wine had gotten to Adore but not in a way that made her want to dance on the table, rather in the way to sit back and enjoy tingles that were running across her body.
Letting herself relax enough to mirror Adore’s position, Bianca tilted her head towards Adore’s.
“You’re my favourite though. Don’t tell Court.”
“She totally already knows it. All those times she found me in your bunk on the tour or when she had to share a hotel room with Darienne because we were always together.”
Both of them grinning fondly at the memories, Bianca lifted her mostly empty wine glass up and waited until Adore did the same.
“Happy quarantine, Adore.”
“Cheers to that, Bianca.”
-
“Want to trade-”
“No.”
“Why, yanx? I’ll give you more money than it’s worth!”
“And this is why our world’s economy is shot. Your generation is in charge of it now.”
Roy shook his head, continuing to glare at the board, deep in thought like he had been for nearly five minutes now.
Danny has all but given up hopes for finishing their game and was lying on his stomach to pat Sammy and Dede while Roy was deliberating.
It had been Danny’s idea to endure their hangovers with a board game, found deep in Roy’s closet. After teasing Roy about how this edition of monopoly surely came out before he was even born, they set it up on the coffee table. It had started out as harmless, mindless fun but Roy was competitive and all his moves were thought out and calculated, which put him further ahead in the game than Danny who seemed to have a mere twenty-five dollars left.
“You have to be cheating.”
“You’re the banker. There’s no way for me to cheat when you control all the money!”
“Well then the game is rigged.”
“Or you’re just a sore loser.”
Danny made a grunt of complaint but didn’t say anymore. Roy finally took his turn, putting another hotel on one of his properties and pushing the dice towards Danny.
Sitting up to roll the dice, Danny rolled and started to move the small silver tophat. He groaned loudly as he came to a stop on one of Roy’s properties. The one he had just upgraded with a hotel. Danny covered his face, groaning as Roy cackled in glee.
“Alright, come on.”
Danny stood up with a huff, turning towards the bedroom.
“What? We’re right in the middle of the game.”
“Yeah, I know. Come on, I have to clear my debt and then beat your ass.”
“Clear your debt? You’re not gonna find any Monopoly money in there.”
“Nope, I’m gonna suck your dick and we’ll be square.”
Danny’s bluntness nearly had Roy’s jaw on the floor. Lucky he had years as a performer meant that his facial expressions were trained and he quickly got a hold of himself.
“It’s just a game, queen. We don’t have to keep playing-”
“I want to.”
Every time they were intimate, Roy always wanted to make sure Danny was sure. That what they were doing was mutual and positive for both of them. Years behind them had made him more confident in initiating, whereas at the start he left it all to Danny. That had led to problems in itself and it began clear to him that Danny wanted to feel wanted as well.
He didn’t need anymore confirmation before he was following but it was Roy who was pressing Danny down into the sheets, his lips mapping their way down the dip of Danny’s hip.
-
Days later, inspiration had struck Roy the night before and he got out his sketchbook. The next morning, he didn’t disturb Danny as he took solace in the drag room. His sketches were pinned up where he could glance up at them as he ran material through the sewing machine. He was lost in thoughts of pins and thread, so much so that he didn’t take note of Danny pushing open the door until he felt the weight of Danny’s head laying against his shoulder.
“Whatcha making?”
“A dress.”
Danny breathed out a laugh. Roy was just happy that years of his dry, harsh humour was still enough to warrant a laugh from Danny. He didn’t mean to be blunt though so he continued.
“I don’t really know what it’s for but it’s been a while since I’ve made anything.”
It’s been a long time since Roy had been home long enough to sketch out and then craft an entire dress is what he meant and Danny read through the lines.
“It’s pretty.”
Danny looked up at the sketch of what Roy was making, remembering the few times they’d tried to teach Danny how to use the sewing machine, especially right before he was set to return to the competition for All Stars. It had never gone well, with Danny usually ending up frustrated at himself, despite Roy’s seemingly endless patience.
“Do you mind if I come in here to write?”
Neither of them had been doing anything exactly productive. The past few weeks had been all lazy days of movies on the couch, cuddling and playing with the dogs and then catching up on the newest season of Drag Race. Danny hadn’t been writing any music and Roy was left in his own limbo because while the lockdown laws were in place, his tour was cancelled until further notice.
It was a welcome surprise to hear that Danny seemed to be inspired or at least motivated enough to try to be. Roy took his foot off the pedal and turned back just enough to kiss the top of Danny’s head.
“Yeah, baby.”
-
Hours later, Roy had a mostly finished dress on his mannequin and Danny was still humming under his breath, tapping a pen against his notebook to a rhythm only he could imagine.
Roy was on his knees to put the finishing touches on the hem of the dress when Danny made a sudden noise of revelation.
“I’ve done it! I finally finished this fucking song.”
Danny dropped the notebook dramatically to the floor but the smile on his face was contagious. Roy let his hands fall to his lap as his attention shifted.
“Yeah? That’s great, bitch. You going to sing it for me?”
Embarrassment flushed Danny’s cheeks and he began to look more nervous than relieved. He shook his head.
“No. This won’t even be the finished product on the album after I record it.”
“So? I wanna hear it exactly the way you wrote it.”
Danny started to tuck his chin and Roy pushed up to his feet, closing the distance between them. He tucked a finger under Danny’s jaw to coax his gaze up.
“I’m not going to force you or anything but everything you were humming before sounded really great.”
Roy had always been full of praise for Danny. He was the first to offer constructive criticism when needed but he had come to respect everything Danny produced. It wasn’t the same as his own art, their drags were polar opposite and their outlets were as well. He knew that Adore didn’t look nearly as polished as some of the other drag queens in their circle but there was reason and purpose behind them and moreso, passion. Roy saw Danny’s passion shining through everything he did, as himself or Adore. That’s what changed his mind about Adore during their season and something he still loved most about Danny to this day.
“Ok but only so that you know what song is about you when you listen to the album and plug it on all your socials.”
“Wait, it’s about me?”
Despite Danny’s response trying to feign some confidence, he turned red again. He didn’t try to break their eye contact again though as he shrugged at Roy.
“Yeah, kinda. Some parts of it, for sure. You were totally my muse today, watching you concentrate so hard and work on something that you could have paid someone else to do. You’re a fierce ass bitch and I love you.”
Not expecting the long-winded answer, Roy let it sink in before he responded.
“I love you too.”
It wasn’t often that Roy wasn’t quick witted or responding with his usual sharp tongue. There were moments for it though and he could read Danny enough to know he was feeling vulnerable with the confession so this definitely wasn’t the time.
He sunk onto the floor where Danny had sat most of the day, alternating between laying on his stomach or his back or sitting in other positions that Roy wanted to make a snip about their age difference about. His old man bones still allowed him to bend his knees enough to sit cross-legged in front of Danny. When they were at the same eye level, he smiled at Danny and took his hand to play idly with his fingers.
“And when this next album comes out, you come over again and I’ll make you anything you want to wear for the first time you perform it. Promise to even cut up the shirt for your aesthetic.”
Spoken with none of his usual bite, Roy softened his voice as much as he could. The gravelly tone couldn’t be helped - thanks God, but he had practically melted at Danny’s feet at this point. It was the biggest compliment he’d gotten, some of Danny’s art, the closest and most precious thing to his heart and he’d let Roy into it.
“Thanks, B. You’re the best willow.”
Roy accepted the embrace as soon as Danny started to lean into it, wrapping up Danny in a tight hug, their cheeks pressed against each other.
They sat like that for a long time, holding each other on the floor. It was a moment Roy didn’t want to end, despite the twinge he was starting to feel low in his back from the way he was leaning or how cold the floor was on his bare legs. None of that mattered for right now. Not while they were embraced like this, speaking volumes with the intimacy they were sharing. Eventually, when Roy didn’t feel like breaking the silence between them would shatter the moment, he cleared his throat.
“Come on, I’m about to need a hip replacement if we stay like this any longer and I want to hear this song of yours.”
-
Unfortunately, the little bubble they had been in was eventually burst. Roy had gotten a few emails about live streams and videos, apparently posting on social media once every few days wasn’t enough and he had to get back to work. From his garage. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
He’d have his fellow queens to bounce off but that was nothing compared to audience interaction or a crowd he could read.
Still, he painted his face into Bianca and put on a flowy tunic top but in a show of rebellion that no one but he and Danny knew about, refused to wear anything other than sweats and his slippers on his lower half as Bianca sat down. Danny watched from the doorway, off the view of the camera, smiling at Bianca over a mug of coffee as the timer counted down and then she was live.
It was easy enough to settle into Bianca again, especially with Lady Bunny to banter with but this felt weird. Bianca was acutely aware that Danny was watching, listening to the audio from the other queens but Danny’s watchful eyes aren’t what had Bianca uncomfortable.
As soon as it was over, Roy texted his manager to let him know Bianca wouldn’t be doing anything else like this, if he could avoid it. He missed being Bianca but not like this. Roy didn’t blame the other queens he saw posting these videos, he didn’t judge Danny for the short video he made of Adore singing for the digital DragCon. It just didn’t feel like performing to him but he knew people still needed to make a living. He was just thankful that at this point in his career, he wasn’t stressed about that just yet.
When Danny approached him, reaching under the top of Bianca’s shirt to start rubbing Roy’s shoulders, he finally started to relax again. Knowing he didn’t have to explain the tension that was there, he simply sighed and leaned back into Danny. This was the first time he wished that this was all over, that things could go back to normal in the world.
-
The next night, after they had retreated to the bedroom for the night and they were both lying in bed, scrolling on their respective screens, Roy sighed. He put his phone down and turned to lay on his side, waiting till Danny mimicked the actions and their legs were laced together.
His mind was circling and had been since the filming yesterday. He was tired. Tired of the traveling and Bianca’s shows night after night. He still had a passion for performing but he worked hard, harder than almost anybody he knew but it was taking its toll on him and yesterday had proved it to him. He could barely bring himself to set up a video camera to be Bianca. It hadn’t come from a place of not wanting to be her anymore but an exhaustion. This lockdown had been a break, despite how much he missed Bianca but it hadn’t been enough just yet.
“The best thing about this whole lockdown has been having you here, you know.”
“Yeah, imagine all the crazy lady cleaning you’d be doing every day if I weren’t here.”
“I meant it, Danny.”
At the sound of his name, the rarest thing to ever come from Roy’s mouth which was a habit grown from spending so much time together as their drag personas, Danny grew as serious as Roy clearly was.
“I know, I mean it too. You’ve kept me from going totally crazy or off the rails in all this and I really missed you before it all happened.”
“Me too, queen. I want to go back to work really badly but I want this even more.”
Roy squeezed them impossibly closer, as if Danny could really confuse what he meant by this. He was fighting all his natural urges to zip his mouth up and stop talking by reminding himself that this was Danny. Someone who had never undermined Roy’s thoughts or made him feel bad for something he was feeling, especially when it was from a place of vulnerability.
“I do too, yanx. I promise, even when all this is over, we’ll be better. We’ll make more time for each other again.”
Danny emphasised his point by pressing his forehead to Roy’s, meeting him halfway onto the pillow they were sharing.
“I wish we’d never stopped.”
“Work sucks, hey? Sometimes I wish we were on Drag Race again and just down the hall from each other in a hotel or in the same tour bus.”
Roy nodded his agreement but he was satisfied by the fact that Danny felt the same way, his anxieties about what would happen with them again after this was all over and Danny went home momentarily quelled. It was a classic Roy move to panic over something that wasn’t even in the works of happening yet but Danny knew him well enough to know how to deal with it by now. Closing his eyes and finally feeling content again, Roy was happy to let the conversation come to an end but Danny spoke again.
“We’re going to be here for at least another month here though, at least that’s what everyone’s saying. So we still get to have the best Bianca and Adore staycation ever. We have Sammy and Dede and so much of your rich lady wine, plus no shows to rush across the world to do or albums to record-”
Roy cut Danny off with a kiss. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hear it, just that it was the best thing he’d heard. He couldn’t help himself from closing the distance between them, his hands fisting in Danny’s tank top.
“Just you and me?”
Roy barely recognised his own voice, small and full of a humility that he or Bianca never usually possessed. It faded into a quiet but strong feeling of confidence as Danny confirmed,
“Just you and me.”
-
#rpdr fanfiction#adore delano#bianca del rio#biadore#fluff#canon compliant#tanawrites#concrit welcome#tw quarantine
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I Know That I’ll Lose - Chapter Thirteen - Love Me (If That’s What You Wanna Do)
Just like the mornings prior, the light streaming in through the large windows in Matty’s bright house woke her up. However, unlike the mornings prior, the tangle of arms and legs, the arm around her stomach, the soft snoring in her ear and the curly hair tickling her cheek were a welcome new addition. Her eyes took a brief moment to adjust to the room around her. It was nice not being jetlagged, or hungover, it meant that she had enough braincells functioning to accurately recall the events of last night. She shuffled slightly, moving to grab her phone from the bedside table to check the time, only to feel Matty’s arm tighten around her and pull her back into the middle of the bed.
“Stay in bed.” He mumbled; the tone of his voice thick with sleep.
“I thought you had stuff that you’re meant to do today?” She questioned, letting him keep her there anyway.
“Don’t care. Want to stay here with you.” He answered. She already felt that heart-warming feeling spreading through her chest after remembering how last night had gone, and he was very easily amplifying it tenfold with such a simple comment.
“When did you get so sappy?” She muttered as she pressed her forehead into his shoulder in an attempt to hide the blush covering her cheeks.
“I will be as sappy as I damn well want.” He laughed as he squeezed his arms around her, trailing kisses from her cheek to her lips. Fucking hell. How did she ever think that she stood a chance to not fall prey to his charm?
Which pulled her mind back to how they’d left things last night. “So…” She cleared her throat anxiously. “Uh, when did you wanna talk?” It seemed best in her mind to just get it over with.
“Whenever you’re ready to.” He shrugged.
She paused for a few seconds. “Now?” She suggested.
He let out a deep sigh, ending it in a yawn as he rolled over, stretching his arms above his head. “Let’s head downstairs, then.” He nodded. “We can chat over breakfast.”
They made their way downstairs, Y/N/N taking a seat at the small outdoor table as she watched him potter about the kitchen. He hummed quietly to himself as he searched the cupboards for something basic for the two of them to eat. The contented atmosphere around him was plain to see. It was nice seeing him at ease when he was frequently so tightly wound or on edge about something.
He sat down at the table, setting a mug down in front of her as he cradled his own tea in his hands. As he stared down into his cup, he tried to carefully picked his words. Where to begin? “I guess I should start with: I’m sorry about the bet. It er, got a bit out of hand, I suppose.”
“No kidding?” She replied sarcastically as she took a sip of her drink. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh at that before pulling himself back on track.
“It started as just messin’ about. I liked your company and you gave me a run for my money. I didn’t know what I wanted out of what we had because I wasn’t sure how I felt. I thought…” He swallowed hard, hating that he had to admit the next part. “I thought that I just liked having you around because you helped me deal with my thoughts when they were… getting difficult. I told you that things run smoother for me with company, but I truly struggle without my friends. I wouldn’t have been able to get clean - stay clean, if it weren’t for them. I rely on them massively. When you came along, it was easy for me to shift some of that emotional reliance onto you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She frowned. Had she known that was the case, she would’ve been able to offer some assistance through his rough patches rather than watching him suffer in silence.
“Because I thought if I told you that I felt dependent on you to stay in a good headspace, you wouldn’t wanna be around me anymore. It’s hardly charming to hear that I don’t function properly alone.” He answered truthfully. “In my best efforts to avoid confronting that, I did everything I could to keep you around without being open about why. And the bet seemed like a good way to do that. If I kept dragging it out, it gave me an excuse to stay in your life.” He elaborated.
“Matty, you didn’t need an excuse-”
“Yeah, I know that now, Y/N/N.” He grinned. “But hindsight is twenty-twenty. As it so turned out, anyway, that wasn’t why I was so hell bent on keeping you around.” He pointed out as he took a swig of his tea.
“So…” He stared down at the hole in his jeans, picking at it absent-mindedly. “I ignored my motivations behind what we had for a long time, and gradually they changed without me noticing. It wasn’t until George talked some sense into me after tour ended that I realised why I’d been doin’ it.” She stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. “Because I was into you, too.” He clarified with a roll of his eyes.
“You see? See how it fucking feels to have someone make you say it?” She laughed as she shoved his shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. I said I was sorry, all right?” He chuckled. “I only realised it while you were away working at that show.”
“Is that what that voicemail was about?” She asked in surprise as the pieces suddenly clicked into place.
“Uh, kinda. More so what the call the next day was about. And why I asked you to come out here. Once I was aware of it, I finally had to do what you’d been bugging me about since we’ve met and actually work out what I wanted.” He said with a short laugh. “I wanted to tell you, I knew that much. But the rest I needed a bit of help with.”
“And that brings us to the difficult bit that you didn’t want to confront: what happens after all this is said and done.” He added as he stood up and walked over to his coffee table. He opened the drawer on the side of it, pulling out a stack of papers. Glancing at the cover quickly to double check that he’d definitely grabbed the right thing, he made his way back to the outdoor table. “Because I know that us being into each other doesn’t mean much if I end up on tour for the majority of the year.” He flipped through the pages anxiously, choosing his words wisely before he spoke. “I want you to come and be the director of our merch.” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. What? “It’s, erm, it’s a real job. Not something daft I made up like the Rome merch gig. You’d be in charge of our whole merchandising operation: organising stock levels, contracting out the merch jobs to the venues as we tour, making sure that they set it up correctly and that sales are lining up. Sam and I would still be designing our stuff, but you’d do pretty much all the rest. I know you don’t like sitting around doin’ nothing, so it’s proper work. You’d pretty much have to live on the road with us, have downtime when we record or have downtime ourselves. But, um, you don’t have to decide now.” He handed her the thick wad of paper. “This is the contract. Read it over, make sure you know what the job is. And don’t say yes because of me. The offer isn’t anything to do with me, it’s The 1975 exclusive. It was George’s idea actually, it didn’t even come from me.” He laughed lightly, scratching nervously at the back of his neck. Ah, that explained their secret conversation yesterday. “But I don’t want you to say yes because you think I want you to. Which is not to say that I don’t want you to, it’s just…” He let out a deep sigh as he tried to get his thoughts back on track. “Whether you say yes to the job or not, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t change any of my opinions. And if you say yes, anything that happens between us, good or bad or nothing, it doesn’t affect the job, yeah?” He had too many things on the list in his head to try and convey that he was starting to worry that his point wasn’t coming across coherently.
She stared down at the papers in her hands as she mulled over the offer. “This is incredibly generous, but I don’t want to be taking someone else’s job away from them.” She said as she went to pass them back. He just pushed it back into her grip.
“You’re not.” He assured. “Previously this is something that Jamie or I did. It’s about time we delegated, so if you don’t take the job it will be offered to someone else.” As he spoke, the sound of his ringtone started filling the air around them. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the caller ID. Realistically, he shouldn’t have been surprised. “Ah, shit… That’s Hann.” He huffed, running a hand through his hair. There was still so much more that he wanted to say.
“Are you running late?” She asked.
He nodded. “I gotta go meet the guys at the studio. I’ll be back in a bit. Read the contract, see what you think. Jamie said you can have a week to think about it before he looks for another person to fill the position.” He explained as he made his way inside, throwing a jacket over his shoulders. “There’s a spare key on top of the fridge if you need to duck out.” He shouted as he headed towards the front door. A quick goodbye was thrown over his shoulder, before the heavy door was pulled shut, and she was left by herself to digest all of this information.
She migrated back inside to sit on the couch as she flipped through the contract. He was right about it being a proper job offer. Everything was listed in these sheets of paper, from the amount of hours she should be expecting to work down to how she would have to filter any posts online about the band. The pay was… more than adequate. There were even clauses in there about the contract not locking her into any long-term agreements, she was free to leave when she wanted. It was a tempting proposition. She loved doing merch work, and she’d been doing it on and off for over a decade now. It made sense to take a leap into something more permanent than just taking jobs as they were offered to her during peak touring season. Controlling a whole merch operation for an entire band would be an interesting challenge to tackle, a rewarding one she suspected. But this was much bigger than just a job. It would mean uprooting her life at home, committing to a life on the road. And as much as he said that it didn’t, it did mean committing to Matty to a degree. Whether that was in the sense of a relationship or not, it meant that he was going to become a permanent fixture in her life. Was she certain she wanted that? She’d had less than twenty-four hours to come to terms with the fact that her feelings were actually reciprocated. And did he actually want that? It was a while of her looking at the pages before Allen came to find her; the big dog padding into the living room and watching her with curiosity. She read and re-read certain clauses as he jumped up on the couch and rested his head in her lap, trying to find something that would either seal the deal or break it. But in the end, it was her decision to make. She had to weigh up the pros and cons and decide what was going to give the best outcome.
* * *
Matty made it to the studio a bit breathless, having half jogged there in an effort to not be too late. They were meeting with someone to sort out the pressing of the album on vinyl, and the meeting had started fifteen minutes ago. He exchanged a few quick greetings with the people mingling around the front of the building before making his way down to the back room where he knew the rest of his band would be waiting for him.
“So sorry!” He blurted out as he stepped into the room. “Time got away from me this morning.”
“Not like you to be late.” George stated, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. Matty could hear the teasing tone underlying his voice.
“Yes, well…” He tried to think of a witty comeback as he shrugged his jacket off. But he found himself coming up empty.
“Are they the same clothes that you were wearing yesterday?” Ross questioned, eager to jump onto this bandwagon.
“Did you sleep in those?” Adam chimed in.
Matty sat there in silence, running a few responses through his head. None of them were going to get him out of this. “So, we need to get Notes out as soon as possible,” He started, opting to change the topic instead. George sniggered a laugh under his breath.
The meeting went well. They organised that the vinyl could be out in a few months once they were ready to go ahead with the final master of the album. A few last administration bits and pieces were confirmed. They lined up their next few social media posts and when they would be posted. Things were really starting to come together. Once it was just the band left in the room, Matty finally felt the stress release from his shoulders. He knew he was about to receive a hard time from his mates, but at least now he wasn’t gonna have to let strangers in on his personal life.
“Why were you actually running late?” George asked eventually. “Did you finally talk to her?”
The smile he was trying to conceal gave him away before he could even start talking, earning a chorus of approving noises from his friends. He waited until they’d calmed down for a second before he spoke. “Yeah, we’re on the same page now.” Matty nodded. “And I was going over the contract when you rang.” He added, gesturing towards Adam.
“Ah, shit. Sorry, man.” He apologised.
“It’s cool.” He shrugged. “I left it with her so she had a chance to read it.”
“And?” George urged.
“And what?” The lead singer frowned in confusion.
“Are you guys together now or what?” He clarified.
“Oh, erm, well…” Matty started hesitantly. He hadn’t had the chance to get to that bit this morning.
George let out a loud groan in annoyance. “You still didn’t ask?”
“I didn’t want her to feel weird about it! Throwing the job offer and that at her in one morning seemed like too much. I just told her that it didn’t matter if we were or weren’t, the position was separate to all that.” He explained. Adam nodded in agreement. “I was gonna get to that part once she knew if she wanted to join the team or not.”
“Well, we won’t keep you any longer then.” Ross said with a nod towards the door. “Go see what she has to say.”
* * *
The sun was beginning to set by the time she heard the front door lock click open. Allen instantly jumped off the couch next to her to bound towards the sound of the noise, and she heard Matty greeting his dog eagerly before seeing him step into the living area.
“Sorry, I tried to get out as quickly as I could.” He said, kicking his shoes off.
“How was the meeting?” She asked as he flopped down onto the couch next to her.
“Good, yeah.” He said with a nod. “We sorted out a few last things with Notes so it should be right to go soon.” He eyed the papers sitting on the table. “So, uh… how did you get on with the contract?” He asked, clearly anxious about her answer.
“It’s very… thorough.” She chuckled.
“George wrote it up with Jamie to make sure that all the legalities were covered and you had an out if ever you wanted one. We of all people know how rough this sort of lifestyle can be.” He should probably stop talking about the downsides of the job if he ever hoped for her to want to accept it.
“I went over it a couple of times, the job itself seems great. The only things that worried me were having to relocate my existing life at home to commit to living on the road with you lot. I don’t know if I could cram my life into a suitcase. And I’ve never handled something as major as this. There’s a lot to learn, with pretty high stakes involved and I’m sure I’ll be being thrown straight into the deep end.” She sighed, feeling the sense of dread at fucking it all up sitting at the back of her mind.
“However, despite of all of that, I’d like to take the job.” She grinned. He couldn’t help but match her smile as a wave of relief washed over him. When she’d started talking about the negatives, he was sure that it was going to lead to her turning the offer down.
“Welcome to the team.” He said, holding his hand out to her for a handshake. She laughed lightly before shaking it. “We’ll have to head down tomorrow to get all this finalised and tell the guys.” The excitement shone in his eyes.
“I look forward to it.” She replied.
“That just leaves one last question, then.” He continued, wanting to keep the ball rolling.
“Hm?”
“What did you want to do about us?” He asked as he tried to maintain his usual confident bravado, at least until this conversation was over.
“Ah, yeah… about that…” She sighed. His hours out of the house had also given her a lot of time to consider what she wanted out of all this - out of him. “Matty, you are quite possibly the most egotistical and arrogant person that I’ve ever met. You are relentless when you’re right, and just as difficult when you’re wrong.” These were things that he was already well aware of, but he couldn’t help the pang of hurt in his chest at having to hear them again. “And yet, for whatever reason, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since we met.” She huffed. What? “Which might be because despite the incredibly annoying traits that you possess, you also possess many redeeming ones. You’re passionate and kind and endlessly talented.” He could feel his cheeks warming slightly at her words. “You go to the ends of the earth for the people that you care for. You’re smart and funny and fuck. I don’t think I could continue ignoring my feelings for you, even if I did want to.” She admitted as she ran a hand down her face in frustration. “Even at my most blindly stubborn, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if I committed to being around you more than I already am. Especially after everything that’s happened since I got here.”
He considered what she was saying carefully. “What did you want our next step to be, love?” He asked, wanting to leave the ball in her court and not push her into anything.
“I’d be keen to give a serious relationship a try if you were.” She answered bluntly. He let out a triumphant laugh. “Don’t get too cocky now that you managed to win me over.” She cautioned him, but her smile betrayed the warning in her words.
“Too late. That ship has long since sailed.” He said as he pulled her into a tight hug.
She hugged him back just as tight, glad to finally have it all out in the open. It was probably going to be a bumpy road ahead, with a million setbacks and challenges. But she was pretty excited to be facing those things with Matty by her side.
“To think, you got yourself into all this mess with a troubled musician just because you didn’t know how to reprint a t-shirt.” He scoffed as he pulled back. She could hear the joking tone in his voice, but the incessant need to correct him still bubbled to the surface.
“That is not at all what happened.” She argued.
“I’m fairly sure it is.” He nodded. “Pretty sure that I walked in there, you needed me for help with the shirts and then you begged me to hang out with you more.” He lied.
“I’m certain that you are the one who bothered me to hang out with you more.” She shot back. The smirk on his face made it pretty clear that she’d just taken the bait. Again. “Stop being such a twat.” She laughed.
“You make it way too easy.” He replied with a chuckle before leaning down to kiss her.
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What Lies Out of Sight
No one:
Absolutely no one:
Me: Hmm... I should create a bunch of weird headcanons to try to add continuity to a world that explicitly doesn’t care about such things.
Anyway, this story for @starprincesshlc and @jklantern ’s Nintember event is a bit more of a ‘Lower-Deck Episode’ type, focusing on the sorts of individuals that go unmentioned in the tales we see, those who are passed over without a second thought, but must surely exist if the world were an actual one, fully fleshed out, not just made for a game for playing. This story is also only a little shorter than the length of the last two combined, so, prepare for that, I guess...
~~ Meal, Depths, Ascend, Teamwork, Determination ~~
“You sure you’ll be alright?”
“I already told you, I’ll be fine!”
None of the other members of his squad ever seemed to want to take risks and branch out. They were perfectly happy to spend their time off lounging at the beaches or the café, or doing whatever other mind-numbing things came to their minds. Kolba preferred to use his free time to see what else the world had to offer, beyond his little hometown and the drudgery of work.
Kamron always seemed to fret about Kolba’s escapades. Even though he came back from each of them just fine, even though he was never late when he returned, even though he had frequently shown that there was nothing to worry about, Kamron refused to let him hear the end of it.
“Y’know, if you’re so worried for my safety, why not come along?”
“Because it’s dangerous, and I’m trying not to put myself in harm’s way when I don’t need to!”
“Well, maybe we’ll be safer together. Strength in numbers, he always says…”
“That hasn’t once worked out for us! No matter what formations we take, those two always chew through us faster than we can blink! And that’s if Karla, Kollen, Kiam, and Kyrra haven’t walked off a cliff, as usual!”
“And ‘those two’ won’t be there, so there’s no problem!”
“That’s not the point!”
Kolba sighed and shook his head. He didn’t know why he continued to argue with Kamron about his plans; neither one ever budged on their positions and no new arguments ever came up. He threw his pack onto his shell, adjusted his boots, and walked out of their quarters into the warm ashy air of Bowser’s Fortress.
He’d give his boss credit where it was due: no matter what the design, every single building in the fortress was great at keeping the smoke and smog out, palace, towers, and barracks alike. It wasn’t absolutely choking, but spending time out in it did eventually make it harder to breathe, and it was typically better to avoid it as much as possible, especially in times such as now, when the volcano below was more active than usual.
Kolba walked down the rocky paths and across the ashy fields, toward the nearest long-range warp pipe, which lay a little beyond one of the cracks in the rocky wall around the volcanic region. He would have much preferred for one to be near the barracks, but given that those who maintained the network, whoever they were, were on Peach’s side, Bowser’s forces weren’t allowed to have one within their walls. And he had heard tell that the reason so few short-range ones existed within the fortress was some disagreement between the pipe maintainers and His Stubbornness himself, though he had no clue what that could be.
As he crossed through the crack, it was as though he had passed a magical barrier, for beyond it the sky was suddenly clear and blue and not a trace of ash wafted in the air. He took a deep breath and then set off down the hill towards the massive red pipe at its base. He always thought it interesting how different long-range pipe travel was from short-range; the smaller pipes were always just big enough to fit comfortably, and your movement remained controlled, while the larger ones, well…
Kolba jumped up onto the rim of the pipe and stared down into the dark pit within. The first time he used it, it was quite daunting, but he had long since gotten used to it. With one final check that he had everything in his pack that he needed, he leaped from his perch into the darkness. After a few seconds, his descent slowed and came to a stop for a split-second, then his body began to rocket upwards, the pipe spitting him out into a small grassy clearing surrounded in part by trees, and the rest by more open fields. He looked around to get his bearings, noting that the pipe he emerged from was smaller than the one near the fortress, though certainly not as small as the pipes typically were. He hopped down and looked around some more. Judging by the grey mist in the area, he was already in a location that was only partially active.
That was one of the aspects of their land that he was never sure if he liked. The Mushroom Kingdom and its surrounding regions had an alarming tendency to shift around, the locations of forests and deserts and mountains and everything else moving elsewhere quite noticeably and often suddenly, taking entirely different names and appearances in the process, and many locations hiding themselves away or appearing out of seemingly nowhere. But if the land did not shift, his off-time pastime could not exist. He loved to explore the areas that had become hidden, their entrances having become barely detectable paths that were far off the usual routes.
One of which should be right… around… here!
In the foliage at the edge of the field was a winding string of rocks about as wide as his finger. He pushed through the plants and began following it closely. In almost no time at all, the grey mists had set in more and he emerged from the bushes into a rocky and craggy location. If he had seen it when it was active, he did not know, but he was sure that it was inactive now; the stones lodged in the sheer cliffs that clearly had been paths up and down them were now greatly displaced from one another, and all the pipes were bent oddly and emerged from the ground or pits at weird angles.
Kamron frequently expressed his concern that Kolba would be caught in an inactive zone when the world shifted and then be unable to find his way back, but he was not concerned at all. He knew that the shifts only ever happened on three occasions--between Bowser’s schemes, between other sorts of crises, and between sporting events--and he made sure to never go exploring when nearing or after the end of any of them. And given that His Surliness was busy planning his next scheme to kidnap the princess (which would no doubt ultimately fail), and the world had shifted only two days ago, he was confident he’d be safe for this excursion.
He began to climb up the cliff in front of him, to see what was beyond it. The hand- and footholds were entirely unusable, but his training in being a Fence-Climbing Koopa allowed him to scale the cliff anyway, albeit with some difficulty. In only a few minutes, he had reached the top and pulled himself up. The clifftop had other cliffs he could climb, but there was also a clear disjointed path of relative flatness, so he chose to follow that.
He would have liked to have seen the views from the crags, but the dense grey fog that marked an area as inactive made that an impossibility. On other adventures of his, there was usually something interesting about the locations he was exploring, or something curious to find, but this place seemed to be nothing but broken rock, sheer cliffs, and weird pipe formations.
Maybe I’ll take a few pictures of the weirdest ones… yeah, that’ll work…
He stopped, pulled his camera out of his pack, and continued onward. While the pipe shapes so far were certainly odd, there were none that he thought particularly picture-worthy. After another several minutes of walking, he decided to flip about and walk backwards for a bit, to see if anything notable popped out where he couldn’t see before, after he made sure the ground before him was relatively straightforward and flat. Walking like this for a few moments, he noticed that his footsteps sometimes seemed to echo about the cliffs, and other times they were practically silenced in the fog.
And then, as if to confirm it, he felt his boot touch something else’s leg as his pack leaned into something similarly squishy. He whipped around to find the telltale mushroomy shape of a Toad doing just the same.
“Oh, hello—”
“Waaaaauuuugggghh! It’s a Koopa Troopa!” The Toad began to flail and scream, as they so often did whenever the Army attacked one of their towns.
“Uh… yes? How are y—”
“G-get away from me! Or I’ll… or I’ll… I’ll make you!”
He brought his arms up to what was probably supposed to be a fighting stance and bent his face into what was likely meant to be a brave and daring glare, but both were quite shoddy attempts.
“Hey now, I may be part of Bowser’s Army, but I’m not here to—”
“Bowser?!” The Toad started yelling even louder and hopping back and forth on his feet, shaking the ground beneath the two, in what could only be described as a dance of panic.
Wait… shaking the ground?
Kolba looked down and saw that the ground around them was cracking from the Toad’s stomping. He reached out his arms and tried to get him to stop, but the Toad seemed too enveloped in his own frenzy to notice anything else in the world.
And then the ground beneath them gave way, revealing the gaping maw of a long-range warp pipe. Kolba turned to get to safety, but the rim of the pipe was too far away and he had already begun falling.
If this was any other pipe, he would have been fine, and could just be sent back up and out once he reached the warp zone. But because this area was inactive, so too was the warp pipe, and so no warping was possible. A panic welled within him, but he took a deep breath and made to recall his training for situations like these. The rhyme for long falls…
Pull in your limbs and tuck in your head, that’s how you don’t end up dead!
And so he did just that, giving himself a slight spin in the process. There was always something comforting about being inside a shell, the walls pressing close, offering a peace wherever one may go, providing protection from basically everything, halting any possible dizziness. To say it was simply ‘nice’ would be to put it far too mildly.
After what was probably around half a minute, he felt his shell bounce on the hard metal at the bottom of the pipe, the spin keeping him from turning in any other directions, and the bouncing stopped, he stuck out his legs to halt the spinning and then fully emerged. It was almost completely dark, the only light being what little made it down from the entrance high above.
He took a moment to catch his breath, then sat down to brainstorm a way out, but his thoughts were interrupted by a strange rhythmic squeaking noise, slowly getting louder and louder. He looked up just in time to have the giant mushroomy head of the Toad hit him in the snout, squeaking even louder. As his unwilling assailant fell face down on the ground, Kolba rubbed the point of impact; though it wasn’t really painful, it wasn’t exactly comfortable either.
The Toad popped up and whipped around. “Gah! You’re here too?! Why?!”
“...Because you broke the ground beneath us…”
“HUH?! How?!”
“...With all your yelling and screaming and stomping. Like that.” Kolba tried not to be overtly rude, but he couldn’t help but let a slight amount of irritation creep into his voice.
His comment, however, seemed to get the Toad to realize what happened and calm down. “...Alright, fine, no, that’s right…” he looked around, likely coming to the same conclusions Kolba did. “So now what? I’m stuck at the bottom of a warp pipe next to a Koopa Troopa with no way out. What did I do to deserve any of this?!”
Now that was just plain rude. “Well, since it seems we won’t be getting out of here anytime soon, you can sit down and quit acting like I’m the worst thing since Bowser’s Hotel Scheme.”
He made to protest, but immediately his eyes seemed to fill with sudden realization. There was a moment’s pause, then he took a deep breath and plastered a weird smile, somehow both entirely genuine and entirely forced, onto his face. “I’m sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Hi! My name’s Jol, as in Jol T. I’m from the town of Shroomvale.”
Now that was better. Kolba plastered on his own mostly-real smile. “Hello, I’m Kolba, Kolba Koopa. I’m part of the Koopa Troop in Bowser’s Army. Pleased to meet you!”
Kolba stuck out his hand for Jol to shake. He hesitated at first, but then grabbed onto it and quickly shook it. His face seemed to relax in relief. “Oh, good! I thought that might’ve hurt…”
This comment came as a surprise to Kolba. “How exactly would a handshake hurt you?”
Jol seemed to fidget back and forth, realizing what he said, then stumbled about for an answer, saying nothing that Kolba could find meaning in besides what was probably a sort of backpedaling. Eventually, he interrupted, tired of the pointless blubbering.
“Look, it seems like you have some… ‘conceptions’ about me that are preventing us from talking like two normal individuals. So, if you would, please tell me what the problem is so we can work things out. I am all ears.”
The Toad stared at Kolba, with some mixture of confusion and shock, then sighed and began to formulate his words properly. “It’s just… after all the attacks by Bowser on Peach’s Castle, and all the Mario Brothers’ adventures to stop him, rumors start going around, y’know? That the members of Bowser’s Army will stop at nothing to help him, that they coat themselves with something that makes those aligned with Peach unable to normally touch them without getting hurt, that they are imbued with an evil magic that makes their every move serve some purpose of Bowser’s. And now that I say it out loud, to you, it sounds completely insane! But… when so many around you say something, it kinda affects how you think, y’know?”
Kolba closed his eyes and thought. He knew that rumors spread about the Troop, but he had no idea that some were like this. A part of him wanted to feel insulted, but he then suddenly realized that his own societies had similar misgivings.
“Well, some of us aren’t too much better. For a time, I was convinced that all Toads, save for a select few that I could count on one hand, were complete cowards who couldn’t do anything to try to save themselves from danger.”
“Oh? What changed your mind?”
“Met a decent handful over the years who attempted to fight off our attacks. I don’t think it ever worked, but I admired the thought, and felt bad that our assaults succeeded in spite of their efforts.”
Jol nodded, something seeming to give him pause. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke up again. “So, if you feel bad seeing the destruction Bowser’s Army causes, why do you still work for him?”
Kolba sighed. “It’s… a living. Obnoxious as Bowser and his direct lackeys can be, there’s a lot that’s provided free of charge, and I’ve met some good friends there. I know the attacks can be difficult, but I’d like to think that we make up for it and then some when the Mushroom Kingdom counters, which, more often than not, consists of a thorough defeat from Mario and Luigi.”
At this, Jol snickered. “Y’know, that’s honestly perfectly fair! Exactly how many times have you had to respawn due to them?”
“Oh, I’ve lost track at this point… I think I’m up to, like, fifty separate times or so?”
“Really?! Fifty times you’ve been trounced by one of their boots?”
“Or hit by a fireball, or punched in the face, or used to destroy brick blocks and then hurtled into a pit, yeah… you get used to it after a while, comes with the territory and all…”
“That’s… okay, fine, that’s honestly impressive that you’re able to put up with all that…” he paused for a moment. “Y’know, I’ve honestly never realized just how much you guys go through as well, having to serve Bowser and all. No offense, of course, the thought just never crossed my mind.”
“Eh, none taken. Though I am curious: how did you know I was a member of Bowser’s Army? Surely you don’t think every single Koopa is aligned with him?”
“Of course not! I actually have several good friends in Koloburg who are Koopas. It’s just… I guess I can just sort of ‘tell’? I don’t know what it is, there doesn't seem to be any specific visual difference, but unless someone’s in disguise, I just know who’s going to be friendly and who’s going to be hostile. …Or, would be hostile under typical circumstances, I suppose…”
“Oh, then it’s just like us! We can tell which other individuals are aligned with us and which aren’t. I guess that’s a universal thing…!”
Another brief bout of silence, then: “So… we really only get to see Bowser being the attacker… what’s he like when you’re working for him?”
“Not much better, I’d say. His Grouchiness is impatient, petulant, and pretty much impossible to please. It’s not like he mistreats us, but I think he could stand to be a little more grateful if he’s going to keep pulling these schemes to kidnap the princess. ...If you ever get the chance, don’t tell him I said any of that.”
“No worries! Why does he keep doing that anyway, if it never works out? Like, at all?”
Kolba smiled and dropped his voice to a conspiratory whisper. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but the tone would make all the more impactful. “You didn’t hear this from me, but there are rumors going around that it’s not actually Peach that he wants; they think he’s doing this to get Mario’s attention, but he doesn’t actually know how to do that… well, like a normal person. There are a couple of holes in the idea, but it certainly would make the whole situation a lot more interesting, right?”
“But didn’t he rob several other Kingdoms and throw a wedding on the Moon just to try to marry Peach, like, only a few months ago?”
“Like I said, there are a few holes. Some think Peach might be in on it all, but that’s even more flimsy… still though.”
Jol sat for a moment in thought, then shrugged and giggled. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d be at all surprised if it turned out that nearly every crisis in our kingdom was the result of the world’s most dangerous love triangle.”
“Right?! Anyway…”
The wall between them had finally been broken and taken down. For some time after that the two talked about all manners of things, laughing and joking as though they had always been friends. Eventually, however, the conversation did indeed once more die down.
Kolba stood up, Jol following suit. “So, fun as this has been, I think it’s high time we get out of here. Any ideas?”
“Oh, I completely forgot where we were… uh, hm… rope obviously wouldn’t work, and we can’t wall kick like the Bros…”
“Yeah… although…” An idea was rapidly forming in Kolba’s mind. It wasn’t guaranteed to work, but it was the best idea he had.
“Huh? What is it?”
“You know how the Brothers occasionally use this move where one stands on the other and they spin through the air?”
“Y’mean their Spin Jump? Yeah, I think I’ve seen it.”
“If we imitate it in here, if we can move the air around enough, it might provide us with enough lift to get us out of the pipe.”
“Huh… I mean, it’s worth a shot…”
“Right! Grab your bag and hop on!”
With haste, Jol leaped onto Kolba’s head, which he had to retract a bit to be able to properly grip the Toad’s feet. On his mark, the two began spinning clockwise, jumping more and more frequently, and in little time at all, they felt their jumps being boosted by the air flow. Though it was beginning to dizzy them, they kept at it, each jump and twirl bringing them slightly higher.
And then, Kolba’s feet did not reach the ground, and with a quite similar sensation to exiting a functioning warp pipe, the two shot upwards, reaching the top of the tube in about as much time as it took them to fall to its bottom. The change in space outside caused them to lose their rhythm, and the two shot off in opposite directions, each hurtling pack-first into a cliffside. Both took several seconds to catch their breath and balance, then stood.
“Yeah!! Your idea worked! Nice job!” Jol ran to Kolba and proceeded to vigorously shake his hand with both of his own. Kolba returned the gesture with far less excitement.
“I’m… honestly a bit surprised, but yeah, we’re out now! ...Should we do something about the pipe?”
Both turned and looked at the maw of where they were trapped only minutes ago, the last gusts of the wind they created dissipating into the fog.
“Nah, it’ll fix itself eventually. So, what are you going to do next?”
“I dunno about you, but I think I’ve had quite enough adventure for one day. I’m gonna head back to active places, maybe get something refreshing from a café in a simple grassy region. ...Ya wanna join me?”
Kolba thought for a moment, then grinned. “You know what? I think I will.”
And with not another word, the two began their return treks together through the grey mists.
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