#he knocked it out of the park with this one
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what makes the sunset?
3k celebration blurb for @katsu28! you can find my celebration post here if you'd like to celebrate with me :) title inspired by the song what makes the sunset? - frank sinatra. if you’d like, give it a listen! that’s the vibe of lando x reader in this💛
word count: 845
summary: sappy sunset with lando. obvious they both love each other but no established relationship (i love idiots in love).
The time was nearing 8:00pm – you’d already cooked and cleaned up dinner, thrown a load of laundry in the washer, changed into comfy PJs, and vacuumed your entire living space.
The tick of your tv remote was beginning to drive you mad. Each time you scrolled to the next tv show or movie in your recommended, the sound grew louder and louder. After ten minutes of searching, you reached for your phone and went to the last text thread in your messages.
what should I watch? I literally can’t find anything that looks interesting and it’s driving me insane
The reply bubbles appeared on your screen almost immediately, but your (hopefully) saving grace decided to call instead of respond via text.
“What are you in the mood for?” Lando asked, his mouth clearly full of his dinner.
“Did you call me so that you wouldn’t have to take a break from eating to text me back?”
“Maybe, but I’m the one asking the questions here. What are you in the mood for?”
“Hmm,” you paused, “something beautiful, passionate, emotionally stirring. I want to feel something.”
“And you came to me for suggestions?” Lando’s laugh rang through the speaker, the sound filling you with warmth.
“Well, excuse me, Mr. ‘I’m a Scorpio and let me tell you all about it’! Aren’t you supposed to be passionate and emotional?”
“Alright, give me a minute to think!”
The silence was brief, not even 30 seconds had passed before Lando began speaking again.
“Be ready in 15 minutes, I’ve got the perfect idea.”
Before you had a chance to ask what he meant, the line went dead. You huffed out a breath and made your way to your room to change out of your pajamas – which, quite honestly, soured your mood a bit.
Exactly 15 minutes after your call ended, Lando Norris was furiously knocking at your door.
“Come on, come on, hurry up!!!” You could hear him yelling from outside your apartment – thank goodness it was early enough that your neighbors wouldn’t complain about a nighttime disturbance.
Swinging your door open, you came face to face with Lando, his arm raised to knock incessantly once again.
“You are insufferable,” you huffed. Those were the only words you could get out before Lando was practically dragging you towards the elevators.
“Where are we even going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he sang. You couldn’t help but laugh at his giddiness, following him blindly down to his car sitting outside your building, still running and somehow not stolen.
You tried to guess – ice cream, a friend’s place, a movie theater. With each guess, Lando shook his head and teased that he wasn’t going to tell you. Soon, Lando had parked his car in a familiar lot, one you’d driven to many times before when the weather was nice and he was miraculously home.
The sand was white and inviting – it squished underneath your toes as you stepped onto the beach, soft and still slightly warm from the sun beating down on it all day. You began to sit down when you heard Lando shouting behind you.
“NO sandy bottoms in my car, I brought a beach blanket you heathen!”
Sure enough, you turned around and there he was with the beach blanket you’d bought for him last summer. It had papayas on it, you simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“So what are we doing here, Lan?”
He gestured towards the view in front of you. “You said you wanted to watch something beautiful and emotionally stirring.”
You looked at him quizzically, his hint completely lost on you. He rolled his eyes teasingly, scooting closer to you and bringing his arm up to look at his watch.
“The sun should start setting in about…five minutes? If I timed this correctly.”
“You brought me to the beach to watch the sunset?” A soft smile graced your lips, and it was your turn to scoot closer to Lando, only a few centimeters separating your legs.
“It just kind of popped into my head, but I should have asked you. I didn’t totally think this through, I’m sorry – ”
“Lando,” you interrupted him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He smiled at you and breathed a sigh of relief as he looked out towards the water, his shoulders visibly relaxing. It was silent for a few moments until he tensed again, turning to face you with wide eyes.
“Are you cold? The temperature is going to drop like twenty degrees, I have an extra hoodie in my car, let me go grab it.”
As he started to get up, you gently grabbed his arm and pulled him back down, finally closing the tiny gap of space between you.
“I’m fine, Lando,” you insisted, leaning your head on his shoulder and linking your arms. “You’re everything I need.”
He relaxed again and lowered his head slowly to meet yours, intertwining your fingers at the same time. As the two of you sat in silence, unspoken words and feelings swirled around in your minds.
Emotionally stirring was an understatement.
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𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝚰𝐍𝐄 | 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝚰𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝚰𝐎𝐋𝐎
synopsis: you and Chris (boyfriend) attend a party, but what happens when he sees you being friendly with another guy?
“you come here, i’ll knock your pussy out the damn frame." - brent faiyaz
jealous!dom!chris x poc!reader
warnings: fingering, eating it from da back , oral (fem!receiving) , p in v , unprotected sex (you don’t want that late text , that “i think i'm late” text) , slight choking , alcohol, overstimulation , safeword (mentioned but not used) , spanking, and swearing
a/n: first time doing a chris pov , but i hope y’all enjoy babes 💋 also join the taglist !
word count: 1.7k
not proofread
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The noise of makeup products and brushes could be heard clattering from the bathroom, Chris peeking his head out checking on your progress since you had to leave soon.
“You almost done mama?” he asks as you finish putting on your setting spray.
“Yeah almost, I just have to put my shoes on, then I’m done.” you say, stepping away from your vanity and walking over to the standing mirror in the corner of the room, where lies your shoes for tonight.
You bend over, slipping your shoes on, tying them as well. But as you're doing so, you hear Chris’ footsteps inch closer to you. He comes behind you and pretends to give you backshots in the mirror.
“Boy if you don’t stop!” You tell him, laughing as you return to a standing position.
“I can’t help it ma, you look so good.” he says, as he hugs you from behind and plants kisses on your neck. You pull away, spraying on some perfume and grabbing a purse for tonight.
“C’mon Chris we have to go.” you say as you reach your bedroom door, walking down the steps to reach your front door. Chris simply follows behind, shutting the bedroom door behind him. He walks before you and opens the door for you, flashing a smile in his direction as you head to the car.
You both reach the car, and Chris hops into the front seat as you sit in the passenger. Starting the car, he pulls out your driveway, making the trek towards the party. You sat there quietly scrolling through instagram as Chris’s hand rubs your thigh while driving.
You guys arrive at the party, the music being heard from the outside as people are congrating and laughing. Chris parks the car in an open spot on the side of the street, wanting to get out immediately, itching to get some alcohol into your system.
Chris gets out of the car first, you slowly follow after. When you get out Chris notices your ass peeking out of your skirt, now slightly wishing you didn’t wear it.
“Baby pull your skirt down, your ass is showing.” he says into your ear, causing you to shrug your shoulders as you continue walking. Chris slips his arm around your waist, pulling you protectively against his side.
Upon entering the house, all corners of the house are severely crowded, the loud music being heard over the loud voices. You peel yourself away from Chris, making your way into the kitchen while looking for something to drink.
You find a bottle of Don Julio on the counter, pouring it into a red solo cup, and downing it in one go. You turn around and face the dining room, seeing a face staring dead at, slowly licking his lips. As you send him a quick smile, you don’t expect him to walk over.
He approaches you , the smell of his cologne filling the lining of your nose.
“Hey beautiful.” he says , the diamonds in his ears twinkling underneath the low light.
“Hello.” you reply back , slightly smiling as he looks you up and down.
“You wanna dance?” he asks , his arm leisurely wrapping across your waist. You nodded your head yes , pouring more Don Julio into your cup. You followed this man, knowing Chris was watching you the entire time.
𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐕
I watched her as she shamelessly whined and grinded next to this man , being all touchy with him as if i’m nonexistent.
I clenched my jaw , my grip becoming tighter on my cup , taking the last swig before throwing it in the trash. I kept my eyes on her at all times, making sure this freak wouldn’t try any shit.
But the way she was moving had me hypnotized, my dick pushing against my jeans , becoming aroused. I leaned farther into the wall, watching him put his hands around her hips, helping them sway back and forth.
That’s when I decided I had enough, enough of her acting like I was invisible. I strutted my way through the crowd, not caring if I had pushed or hurt anybody in my way. When I reached her, I grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the man.
I led her to the bathroom, locking the door behind me, and placing her roughly on top of the counter.
“Chris what the fuck, I was having fun.” She whined, blowing out breath after. I could smell the alcohol on her breath. , telling me she wasn’t fully sober.
“That was fun?” I questioned, her nodding her head yes in agreement.
“Well it wasn’t fucking fun for me.” I said, grasping her neck with my right hand, lightly applying some pressure.
“Seeing him touch what’s mine was killing me.” I stated, slowly trailing kisses down from her lips, to her jaw, and down her neck.
“Guess we’ll have to show who you belong to , hm?” I question, taking my head from out of her neck, and making her look into my eyes.
𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐕
“Guess we’ll have to show who you belong to ,hm?” Chris questions , taking his head out of my neck, and making me look deeply into his eyes.
“Turn around and face the mirror.” Chris demands, you comply quickly. He lifts your skirt up, revealing your black laced thong.
“You like making me jealous, baby?” He questions, caressing your ass while doing so.
“No.” you say, your tone coming out shaky, immediately telling you were lying through your teeth. A loud smack echoed throughout the bathroom, pain ricocheting through your right ass cheek.
“Tell the truth ma, admit it.” He says, sending another smack to my right ass cheek.
“Fuck, fine chris yes I do.” You admit, pressing yourself into his aching length. Chris groans out, gripping your hips, and pushing you away. He crouches down and starts to move your panties to the side, running his fingers down your slit. You sigh out, completely melting under Chris’s touch.
Chris adds his index and middle finger into your wet cunt, your head throwing back as you’re immersed in this sudden pleasure. You expectedly feel Chris’s tongue swipe against your soaked area, a throaty moan escaping your mouth.
WIth Chris’ fingers and his tongue torturing your pussy, you begin to move your hips in the rhythm of him, needing more.
“Mmm shit Chris!” you moan out, making him grip your ass and spread it, moaning into your dripping cunt while doing so. Your legs begin to violently shake as Chris’ fingers repeatedly abuse your g-spot.
“Don’t you dare cum.” Chris mumbles, placing his lips on your clit and sucking aggressively. You start to lose control of yourself, not being able to contain your orgasm anymore. You came, a lengthy moan leaving your mouth whilst doing so. Chris immediately pulls away, standing up and wrapping his hand around your neck from behind.
Chris pulls you up to a standing position, heavy breaths vacating your mouth. You lean your head onto his shoulder as he trails his hand down to your clit.
“You just love making me upset don’t you.” Chris says, rubbing slow, painful circles on your clit.
“Please Chris, faster.” you whimper out, wanting him to stop his slow torment to your clit. Chris goes faster, sneaking his head into your neck, kissing and sucking on it. Chris then removes his hand from your puffy bud, leaving you frustrated, and proceeds to bend you back over the counter.
You hear Chris fumble with his belt, taking it off, and wrapping the belt around your wrist. He then drops his jeans, his boxers hastily following after. You see his hard dick through the mirror, slightly gawking at it as Chris pumps it in his fist.
Chris then pushes his tip into your tight, leaking hole, making you push back into him. He eases his way into, letting a guttural groan leave his throat. You moan loudly, clenching your fingers into a fist whilst Chris enters you.
Chris increases his speed, soon ramming into you, the cabinet doors beneath the sink clattering together after each thrust.
“How many times do I have to fuck you to show that you’re mine , all mine?” Chris grunts against gritted teeth, making you drop your head down, now looking at the sink as you let out sounds of pleasure.
Chris grips the back of your neck, forcing you to look up into the mirror. You and Chris maintain eye contact, whining out when Chris speeds up a bit more.
“Could he fuck better than me, huh?” Chris questions you, making your eyes roll to the back of your head as his other fingers string down to your clit.
“Answer me!” Chris snaps, now rubbing your clit at an animalistic pace.
“Mmph, n-n-no Chris!” you yell out, your climax going up on you. Chris then props your right leg on top of the counter, now stroking at a different angle.
“S-shit Chris i’m gonna cum!” you moan out, clenching around Chris’s length.
“Go ahead, cum for me.” Chris says, looking down and seeing you paint his dick white as he continues to thrust inside you. You whimper out, noticing Chris is still continuing his attack inside you.
“Fuck C-chris, it’s- shit, too much!” you say, slightly moving your thighs closer together.
“You know your safeword mama.” He responds, driving to reach his high which is coming up on him. Moaning aloud, you grip onto the counter, becoming overstimulated.
“Who’s pussy is this?” Chris asks, his thrusts becoming somewhat sloppier as his climax is approaching.
“Yo-fuck, yours Chris!” you say, a whine following after. Chris continues to hit your g-stop persistently, egging on your third orgasm of the night.
“Who fucks you this good?” Chris groans out, his hair sticking to his forehead as he slaps your ass. You look at him through the mirror, the sight of him making you even more wetter.
“Hm? Answer me.” He says, his strokes fully becoming messy and sloppy as you cum as well.
“Chris, Chris, Chris!” You moan out, feeling his load shoot into as your cum mixes with his.
“That’s right baby.” He says, catching his breath while slowly pulling out of you. You wince, your hole sensitive from all the abuse. You stay bent over for a chunk of time, trying to regain your breathing and strength.
You stand up and turn around, wrapping your arms around Chris. He gives you a forehead kiss before collecting his boxers and jeans. He slips those on, holding the bathroom door open for you. But when you walk out, he notices the limp he gave you.
He smirks to himself, knowing that you were all his.
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tags: @mattslolita @muwapsturniolo @luverboychris @sturnsslut @bigbeefybitch @rileysturniolo @itsnotmariahh @summerssover @l0ver-i @thenickgirl
#sturniolo triplets#chris sturniolo#fanfic#sturniolos#chaossturns#fanfiction#christopher sturniolo#chris sturniolo smut#chris x reader#sturniolo smut
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Did I Forget to Mention That?
Pairing: Eddie Munson x You
Summary: Eddie overhears a phone call between Evil Woman and the father she hates, which leads to a discussion they probably should've had ages ago.
Contains: Switching POVs, eavesdropping, excessive sarcasm, suggestive interlude, cuddles, rambling, declarations.
Words: 1.4k
Eddie knocks at the kitchen door. He can see Gareth leaning against the wall with the phone to his ear and a look of amusement on his face. The blonde waves him inside and places a finger to his lips.
Eddie slips inside and closes the door quietly. Gareth beckons him closer and holds out the phone so they can both listen. Curious, Eddie slowly leans in until he hears a man's voice.
"What kind of life do you think a boy like that can provide for you?"
"A happy one," his girl says from another phone, her voice lifeless and bored, like they've been at this for a while.
"He'll amount to nothing, and so will you." Stern. Condescending. This must be the father she avoids like the plague.
"We're both very competitive." There she is, with that impressive deadpan delivery again.
"And think of your children!"
"I'm not due for several months."
Eddie's heart skips a beat, and he looks at Gareth in terror. The drummer ducks his head and shakes with silent giggles.
"I hope you're joking," the man seethes.
"Them free clinic docs don't tell no jokes." Her response is delivered in a heavy accent that sounds a little bit like Wayne's. If Eddie wasn't so confused and terrified by this conversation, he might laugh.
"What's it going to take to make you take this seriously?!"
"A Ferrari oughta do it."
"I should have waited until your mother was home and talked to her instead."
"She prefers Mustangs."
"You are impossible!"
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Eddie can't help but to be impressed by how calm she is. All this relentless badgering, and she just sounds bored. She's probably doodling or flipping through a magazine while she effortlessly irritates her old man.
"No daughter of mine is going to marry a filthy, inbred piece of trailer park trash!"
A silence falls over the whole house. Eddie's not even sure where she is, but he can sense the change in her mood from the kitchen. He and Gareth both hold their breath while they wait for a response.
"Fuckin' watch me," she spits, her voice so full of venom it makes Eddie's hair stand on end. And then she hangs up. The old man yells all the way back to the base, where Gareth hangs the kitchen phone back on the wall.
"Gareth, did you hear this fucking assho…" she trails off as she rounds the corner, stopping when she sees Eddie. It's like storm clouds parting to let the sun shine through when she smiles at him. "Hi."
Eddie is too stunned to say a word. He stands frozen to the spot, no idea how he's supposed to react to this.
"How much of that did you hear?" she asks.
"He came in right before the pregnancy joke," Gareth says proudly, pulling a bag of chips down from the cabinet.
"Awww," she coos, laughter in her voice and a smile on her face; a completely different person than the one he just heard on the phone. "You know that was a joke, right?"
Eddie nods.
"That old man's a joke, too. Fuck him."
Eddie's eyes fall to the kitchen floor, but before he can let his brain replay everything he's just heard, a sharp "hey" makes him jerk his head back up.
"Don't even think about letting your brain run wild with his bullshit," she warns from the doorway. "He doesn't matter. Not even a little bit."
"Tell him why you got The Call," Gareth mumbles through a mouthful of chips, leaning back in his chair at the table. He holds the bag out and offers them to Eddie, who declines with a shake of his head.
She rolls her eyes. "Mom sent my grandma a picture of us at Christmas, and he saw it. He thought my mood ring was an engagement ring."
"And did you correct him?" Gareth grins.
"Oh no," she covers her mouth in mock shock. "Did I forget to mention that?" She drops her hand and laughs.
Eddie stands quietly, not sure he's seeing the humor in this. Her dad already hates him. Knows he's not good enough. How long will it be before the rest of them see it too?
"Hey," she says, softer this time. She crosses the room and stands in front of him. Two of her fingers lift his chin so he has to look at her eyes and not her socks. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
She bops his nose with her finger and gives him that smile she saves just for him. She reaches for his hand, and Eddie feels himself relax; how is it that one touch from the right person can make everything seem like it's going to be okay?
"Come with me," she says quietly, leading him away. He follows, but they both come to a halt when they reach the hallway. She calls back to the kitchen.
"Hey, baby bro?"
"Whaaat?" Gareth whines.
"You should probably put some headphones on for the next half-hour or so." She winks at Eddie and pulls him down the hallway.
They hear an anguished groan and an "I'm fucking moving!" from the kitchen as they enter her bedroom with matching grins.
Twenty-seven minutes later, you and Eddie are pulling enough clothes back on so it won't seem suspicious when your mother comes home. You collapse onto your bed together in t-shirts and unbuttoned jeans, side by side, staring up at the ceiling.
"I love you," you say fondly as you turn your head to admire the beautiful boy beside you. You don't give a damn what anyone says; Eddie Munson is absolutely perfect.
"Yeah?" he asks, looking at you with a dazed smile.
"Yeah," you confirm, happy and sleepy and wishing you had the energy to roll over and smother him with the affection he deserves.
"Love you too," he mumbles, eyelids beginning to droop. He lets out a sigh and then flips himself over so that he's half on top of you. His head rests in the crook of your neck, his leg settles between yours.
"Up," you order, and he lifts his head so you can get your arm around him and hold him closer. He nuzzles into your breast - his favorite pillow - and sighs happily. You wish you could stay like this forever.
You close your eyes and play with his hair, and just as you're about to drift off, Eddie starts rambling.
"I know we haven't really talked about this before, but… uh…" Eddie takes a deep breath and blows out the air slowly. "Is that really something you'd want? To marry me one day?"
Before you can respond, he continues: "Because I know being a Munson of Hawkins isn't anyone's dream. You wouldn't have to take my last name if you didn't want to. I just… I dunno. I love you, and I'm gonna love you forever. If you want to make it official… I mean, we don't have to. But, uh... I'm in if you are."
You wait for a moment, then ask: "You done?"
"Yeah," he sighs. You can feel his face burning through your shirt.
"I thought we weren't really talking about it because it was a given."
"What?" he asks, raising his head to look at you.
"Of course I wanna marry you, dingbat." A nervous smile appears on his face. "And some of the best people I've ever met are Munsons of Hawkins. I'd be honored to become one of them."
"Yeah?" he asks, smile widening and eyes glistening.
"Yeah," you laugh. In what world would you not want to be his forever? You lean forward to kiss the tip of his nose. You stare at each other for a moment, and then your lips meet in a tender kiss. When you part, nothing more needs to be said.
Eddie rests his head on your chest again, and you resume playing with his hair. You drift off to thoughts of falling asleep with him, just like this, for the rest of your lives.
Yeah. That's really something you'd want.
#writings of despair#eddie munson x you#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson x evil woman#no this was not written 9 months ago and completely re-written in the last 48 hours that's just crazy
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Vacation + fake dating - Kiri x reader please 💖💖💖
not this ending up being almost 2K words... i blame my inability to write without providing context. i hope you like it em!!!
for the fanfic trope mashup game!
34. Vacation Fic + 48. Fake Dating 💖 Kirishima Eijirou x Reader
“Mom,” you say, a little exasperated, watching her as she fiddles with her luggage. “It’s fine. You didn’t forget anything. You shouldn’t mess with it—the Kirishimas will be here any minute.”
Your mother pauses. “You’re right.”
She turns to your father. “Now, I know you definitely forgot something. Do you have your wallet?”
You sigh, tuning them out and turning to watch the road.
Going on a joint family vacation was not on your bingo card this summer.
A couple months ago, on a phone call with your parents, you let yourself be guilted into it. You’d moved several regions away for university after high school, and your education has kept you away for nearly ten years since, as you’ve worked hard to obtain your doctorate and secure your job.
Of course, when you could afford it over the years, you visited your parents for holidays and special occasions. But recently, you’ve been so busy with work that you haven’t seen them in over a year. So when your mother told you she’d won an all-inclusive stay at a resort and asked you to come with, you couldn’t say no.
Conveniently, they omitted the information that they’d invited the Kirishimas, long-time friends of your parents, and their son, on this vacation.
“It’ll be nice for you to see Eijirou again!” your mother told you. “Don’t be such a downer.”
You aren’t being a downer. It’s just… The last time you saw Kirishima was when you were kids. You’d grown up playing together. You’d gone to school together, though had different friends and were in different classes. He completely fell off your radar once he got into U. A., though your parents kept you informed about his wellbeing through that troubling time during his first year and through the war.
There were times when you wanted to reach out to him—check in and see if he’s okay. Tell him you’re proud of him, proud that he got over that insecurity he had over his quirk and became a hero like he always wanted. But it just never happened.
A van turns the corner and slows as it approaches your house, and you tap your father’s arm.
“Is that them, you think?” you ask.
“I think so!” your father exclaims just as the front passenger’s window rolls down and Kirishima’s mother sticks her head out and waves.
As they park, your mother immediately abandons her luggage to talk to Kirishima’s mother.
You shake your head at her, and your father laughs before going to greet Kirishima’s father.
You grab your luggage and your mother’s, beginning to roll them to the back of the van, when a voice says your name.
“Hey! Long time no see!”
You turn, a greeting on your lips, before you nearly bite your tongue as you look up.
Kirishima—Kirishima does not look like the Kirishima of your memories. His hair is bright red, for one, and he’s so tall. The last time you saw him, he was shorter than you. And he’s gained so much muscle. What the actual fuck.
Your eyes catch on his biceps, his shirt sleeves tight around them, and his veined, defined forearms. He’s in loose jeans, but something tells you his lower half is just as fit as his upper.
The only familiar thing about him is that smile of his—bright, warm, genuine. It helps you get yourself out of your head.
Knock it off, you tell yourself. Don’t make it weird.
“Hey—Kirishima. It’s good to see you,” you say, returning his smile.
His smile fades, replaced with confusion.
“Kirishima?” he repeats. “What happened to ‘Eiji’?”
You shuffle your feet, flustered. “We were kids when I called you that! And it’s been so long, I don’t know. It felt weird to be so informal after all this time. Sorry. This is awkward.”
He touches your shoulder. You look up at him.
“Don’t be sorry,” he tells you. “Call me whatever you’re comfortable calling me. But I do miss hearing someone call me ‘Eiji.’”
He gives you some exaggerated puppy dog eyes, and you laugh.
“Okay, okay. Let’s start with Eijirou first and work our way to it.”
“Sounds good to me!” he says, smile back in place. When you reach for your luggage again, he steps forward and gently takes them from you.
“I got this! Feel free to get in the van. I’m sitting in the back if you wanna sit next to me. I’m pretty sure your parents called dibs on the middle seats so they can talk to my parents.”
“You sure? My mom and I don’t pack light…”
You trail off as you watch him pick up both of your luggages as if they’re five-pound dumbbells.
“Nevermind!” you say, laughing. “Thank you.”
As you accept your drink from the bartender, you catch sight of a familiar face from the corner of your eye. You hurriedly turn to the side.
Please don’t notice me, please don’t notice me, you chant in your head just as you hear your name being called. You work hard not to wince before turning, a smile pasted onto your face.
“What a coincidence, bumping into you here!” Kaji, a fellow professor at the university you teach at, exclaims. Of all the people to bump into.
“Yes, what a coincidence,” you say weakly.
“Are you also here on vacation?” he asks, putting a hand on the counter close to yours. One of his fingers brushes yours. He smiles at you.
“Yes,” you say, surreptitiously moving your hand to stir your drink. “I’m here with my family.”
“That’s great! I heard that you worked hard this past term. You deserve the break.”
“Oh!” You soften a little. “Thanks so much. That’s very nice of you to say.”
Maybe you’re worrying over nothing. When he’d flirted with you at the beginning of the last term, at one of the student orientation events, you had to be heavy-handed about shutting him down while balancing being cordial because of your new faculty status and his seniority. Maybe he took the hint and moved on. He’s just being nice.
You set your drink down and smile, trying to relax. “What about you? How’d this year go for you?”
He leans against the counter. “It went well, as usual! You’ll see. The more years you put into teaching, the easier it gets. Once you establish the material you need for each class, you’re set. Just recycle it every year.”
Humming noncommittally, you cross your arms over your chest. You catch his eyes dropping down, and you become suddenly conscious of the amount of skin you’re showing in your swimsuit. You quickly readjust your arms so that they cover up more skin.
“That makes sense. It means you only have to update your material every so often, so less prep time.”
Kaji snorts. “You’ll learn. You untenured faculty won’t have time to update anything if you ever wanna climb the ladder.”
You just barely manage to stifle your frown. His condescension is really grating.
Laughing, Kaji waves a hand. “Enough about work, though. What are your plans for tonight? Tomorrow?”
Dread creeps up your spine. Fuck. Maybe he’s just being friendly.
“Oh, just going to have dinner with the family,” you say. “Then we’re going to take a tour of the museum tomorrow, sight-see a little.”
“Hmm,” he says. “What about tomorrow night? You can’t spend the entire day with your family, surely. Let’s have dinner together. I’ve been meaning to get to know you better.”
Fuuuuuuck, he really did not take the hint. Can he not read the room? You’re afraid to offend him, though, because although he isn’t in your department, so many of your colleagues are on friendly terms with him. You’re just starting out; you can’t afford to sour any relationships right now.
“Oh, I—thank you, but—“
In your peripheral, you catch a glimpse of red.
It’s Kirishima, looking around, scanning the area. You wonder if he’s looking for you; you really have been gone longer than you intended.
Your eyes meet, and an absolutely ridiculous, desperate idea develops in your mind in an instant.
“Eiji! Over here!” you call, waving at him.
Kirishima perks up at the sound of your voice, so like a puppy, that the smile that comes to your lips is as natural as anything. He strides over to the poolside bar where you and Kaji are standing.
When Kirishima reaches you, you lean into him, looking up into his face. His eyes are a little wide as they gaze down at you, and you give him a pleading look, hoping he doesn’t react negatively, hoping he catches on quickly.
“Kaji, this is my boyfriend, Kirishima Eijirou. Eiji, this is Kaji Katsuyuki, a professor at the university I teach at,” you say.
Since he’s pressed all along your side, you feel it when Kirishima startles a bit. Anxiety swells in you. As you begin to panic about how the hell you’re going to smooth this situation over, distantly, you hear Kaji’s voice as he greets Kirishima. Kirishima, after a little delay, says hello back.
“I thought you said you were here with your family,” Kaji says to you, tone clipped.
To your surprise, Kirishima wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you close. His hand settles on your hip. Squeezes. It completely halts your racing thoughts.
Instead, you’re endlessly aware of him. He’s so warm, radiating body heat like he’s absorbed all of the sun’s rays. The feel of your bare skin against his is addicting; you just want to soak him in.
“We’re here with both of our families!” Kirishima says, smiling. “It’s a joint vacation. Right, babe?”
“Right,” you say after a moment, trying to rein in your body’s reaction to the pet name. You like it a little too much.
“I see,” Kaji says. “Well, I won’t keep you. It was nice chatting with you, and good to meet you, Kirishima.”
“You too,” Kirishima says cheerfully, and you say your goodbyes as Kaji beats a hasty retreat.
There’s a long silence between the two of you that feels impossible to break before Kirishima says, “Did I do good?”
This startles a laugh out of you, and you relax, shoulders lowering. Looking up at him doesn’t feel as intimidating, so you do to find him smiling down at you.
“You did great, Eiji, thank you. I’m sorry I sprung that on you. He was just being so pushy!”
Kirishima shakes his head. “I don’t mind! Anything for you.”
#fanfic mashup ask game#kirishima eijirou x reader#kirishima eijiro x reader#bnha x reader#bnha#jess scribbles
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Cool With You
Tim Drake x Parent!M!Reader
Warnings: angst subject, fluff, suggestive bi!reader, struggling!parent!reader, kinda long fic,
Summary: While on patrol, Tim comes across the reader who is being harassed by loan sharks in an alleyway. When Tim saves the reader, he notices a baby is in the reader’s arms and before he can ask any questions the reader walks off. Tim decides to track the reader down and talks to him at the park.
A/n 1: This post is inspired by @strangeshoepatrolbandit
A/n 2: this was originally supposed to be one long story but I decided to split this into separate parts so that you guys had something 😭
Quote: “So… uhh… rough day huh?”
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It was a dark and stormy night in Gotham and Tim was out on patrol as usual. There was surprisingly nothing really happening that night so Tim decided to call Alfred and just have a chat.
In the middle of their conversation, Tim heard some noises in an alleyway, so he decided to check it out. It could’ve been some rats digging the garbage can for some food, but something in Tim’s gut was telling him that it wasn’t. Lo and behold there were some guys in the alleyway surrounding someone and harassing them.
“Hey fellas, what are you up to?” Tim asked.
One of them immediately turned around and tried to attack Tim. The guy tried punching Tim, but quickly got knocked out. As soon as the first guy went down, the rest of them immediately went after him. One by one, Tim knocked all of them to the ground until it was only him and the person they were surrounding.
“T-thank you so much sir!” The guy said.
Tim took a moment to look at the guy’s face. He looked so handsome, so innocent. Were those people trying to mug the poor guy or something? But that’s when Tim noticed that the guy had a baby in his arms. Who’s baby was that? It couldn’t possibly be the guys, he looked far too young to even be a father.
“Is that a bab-”
“Sorry I have to go” the guy said quickly before walking off quickly.
Tim didn’t even have time to process what you said before you zoomed away. When Tim finally came to his senses, he tried to see if you were nearby, but you disappeared. That was really weird.
After that night, Tim couldn’t stop thinking about that guy. He was stuck in Tim’s head, so much so that Tim decided to do some research and try to crack who that guy was. After weeks and weeks of investigating, Tim finally found out who the guy was.
A guy named y/n l/n. A former college student who dropped out due to unknown reasons. You used to be the top of your class, you would’ve even been valedictorian. But one day you just dropped out without an explanation.
Tim found out that you worked several part-time jobs to pay rent for your crappy apartment. He felt bad for you, from what he’s seen, you came from a wealthy background, you had good looks, good grades, good friends, and a good social status. But what happened? Why was that baby in your arms? What did those guys want from you?
Those are the questions that Tim wanted to find an answer to. He decided that he was going to follow you for a whole week, just to get an idea of your schedule so that he could “accidentally” bump into you.
He found out that you just worked the whole day, but the only time you weren’t working was to go home, and to go to the park to relax during your break. Bingo, he knew exactly what he was going to do. For the first time in a while, Tim actually made sure to get a good nights sleep beforehand. What were you doing to him?
It was the day that Tim was planning to “accidentally” bump into you. Tim was feeling really happy and giddy, was it because he finally got a good night’s rest or was it because he was excited to see you?
You usually walked into the park around 3:30pm so Tim just had to wait for you to sit on the bench where you usually sat. When you finally arrived you immediately sat down at your designated bench.
Tim felt a bit nervous at first, was he being too creepy? Should he have just let you be? But regardless, Tim took a deep breath before walking up to you.
“Hey can I sit here?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, of course” you smiled.
Tim sat down awkwardly and you both sat there in silence for a good five minutes before Tim spoke up.
“So… uhh… rough day huh?” Tim said.
“Don’t even get me started” you chuckled.
“Work problems?” Tim “guessed”.
“Yeah, I work all day. I barely have time to spend with my kid, he spends more time with my neighbors than he does with me” you joked.
“You have a kid?” Tim said.
“Yeah, I accidentally got a girl pregnant when I was at a party. We decided to keep it but she didn’t want to be a mom so she gave up her parental rights. I don’t blame her but it’s kinda hard you know?” You confessed.
Tim started putting the pieces together in his head slowly but surely. The reason why you dropped out was to take care of the baby.
“I-I’m sorry if I overshared” you apologized.
“No, no, you’re fine, how’s life like with the baby? Tim asked.
“It’s pretty hard, but I’ll always be grateful that I have him, I honestly don’t know what I would do” you chuckled.
“What’s his name?” Tim asked.
“Theo” you smiled, thinking about the image of your child.
“That’s a wonderful name” Tim complimented.
“Thanks” you said.
It went silent again and for some reason, Tim just felt attached to you. He wanted to get to know more about you, but not in a “I need more information about him” kind of way, more like a, “I want get to know more about him” kind of way.
“Hey uh, I can watch him for you if you want to” Tim suggested.
“It’s fine I don’t want to trouble you, and I’m pretty low on money right now, so I wouldn’t really have anything to pay you with” you replied.
“I can do it for free” Tim said.
“Really? Thank you so much, you have no idea how much that means” you exclaimed.
I know what you’re thinking, ‘why would you just trust some random stranger that you just met with your baby?’. Something in your gut was telling you to let him.
“My name is Tim by the way” Tim smiled.
“Y/n” you smiled back.
You pulled out your phone to check the time, and your break was almost over already!
“Shit, sorry but my break is almost over” you said.
“Can I get your phone number before you go?” Tim asked.
“Oh, yeah sorry about that” you said before typing in your number on Tim’s phone.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then” you smiled before waving bye to Tim.
Tim looked on as you slowly walked away. When you were finally out of his eyesight he started looking back on the conversations until he realized something….
HE OFFERED TO BABYSIT! Tim couldn’t even take care of himself properly! Let alone a baby! WHY?! WHY WOULD HE DO THIS TO HIMSELF!
Tim took some deep breaths before slowly calming down. Who knows maybe babysitting won’t be that hard. He spent the whole night looking up videos of how to change diapers and take care of a baby. All he could do now is pray that all we go well….
#male x male#mlm#malexmale#male reader#mxm#rosesrrosie3#gay#tim drake x you#tim drake x reader#tim drake x male reader#tim drake#red robin x y/n#red robin x male reader#red robin x you#red robin x reader#red robin#tim drake x y/n#tim Drake x parent!m!reader
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"On The Field"
PART TWO:
Footballrry / Reader
Plot: Dating the football star is not what you pictured happening your sophomore year of college, but it's happening, and you have to keep calm...how does one keep calm when he looks like...that?
Word count: 3.51K
Warnings: a swift kick in the ass. JK, just a punch or two.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
3 MONTHS AGO
“I cannot believe we are even having this discussion right now. You promised you would be there.” Isla whined at me.
“Isla, I am still going. I am just going to be late.” I tried to reason with her.
“Y/N, I can’t go out there without you?!” She yelled, throwing herself on her dorm bed, I rolled my eyes sitting on my bed across the room.
“Isla, you won’t be on the field for the first 20 minutes anyways, I am going to be there for you. I just need to turn in these essays to my professor so I can get this class over with, and since she has meetings tonight in the class room with other students, she is allowing me to drop them off. Also, it is dead ass across the street, please stop being dramatic.” I chuckle, watching my best friend throw her arms down on the bed.
“Okay, the dramatics are done. But I am letting you know that if I embarrass myself in those 20 minutes that my good luck charm isn’t there, that’s on you, Y/N!” She sighed loudly.
“I will take the fall, you have my word. I love you, I’ll see you soon.” I promised and grabbed my bag before racing out. Hurrying down the two sets of stairs and out the door, I make my way across the street to the vehicle that puts a smile on my face everytime I see it.
My 1967 Chevy Camaro. My parents were tuners growing up. They met at an illegal street race back when they were both 18, the grand prize? A dark teal 1967 Chevy Camaro Z28, but not just any ‘67 Chevy. MY ‘67 Chevy. They tied that race and agreed to split the time between them and the car.. That is not how races go, but my parents wouldn’t take no for an answer and the rest was history for them. She is a thing of beauty. With the bold, blacked out grille that has a Z28 badge in the middle, she stands alone in a crowd so beautiful as the white pin stripes make her stand out wherever she goes. She has 15-inch Rally wheels, which are iconic to the Z28, wrapped in Goodyear Wide Tread GT tires. She is perfect and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.
Hopping into the driver seat I push the key into the ignition and listen to my girl come to life. The smooth revving of her engine fills my ears as I pull out of the parking spot I am in. I slowly released the accelerator as I came up to a stop sign, I texted my professor on the group forum that we have that I was on my way and quickly set my phone down. Looking both ways before driving, I pressed on the gas to get to campus.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
Pulling into a parking spot, I swiftly turn my car off before grabbing my bag from the backseat, hauling ass inside the building my professor's room is in. I have time. I shouldn’t be rushing, but Isla’s dramatic ass has me worried she’ll purposefully fall just to spite me. She is dramatic AND petty like that. The hallway is quiet and nearly empty as I walk towards her Office. I gently knock on her door, not wanting to interrupt the study session she is currently in. “Come in!” I hear her soft voice speak up. Opening the door, I see the students all sitting in their usual lecture hall spots as she has a powerpoint pulled up on the board. I walked down the steps at a leisurely pace and smiled at her as I made eye contact.
“OH! Y/N! Welcome in, do you have the essays for me?” Mrs. Portello asked with a smile.
“Yes, thank you again for allowing me to barge in here and hand them in. I also want to say thank you for allowing me time on that last essay.You are the best, seriously.” I smiled back while handing her my folder with both essays inside.
“Oh nonsense! Things happen, no need to dwell on it. I am glad you were able to go home for the week and be with your family. I will read these over tonight and your last official grade will be posted tomorrow before noon.” She patted my shoulder before setting my folder on her keyboard. Front and center so she doesn’t forget. “Now, Go enjoy the game, and tell Isla I am rooting for her.” She winked. I laughed loudly before nodding. She must have told the professor something dramatic.
Zipping up my bag I walk up the step towards the door. Opening the door as quietly as I can I am just as gentle closing it, careful to not disturb the students and Professor Portello once more. Making my way out of the building across to the parking lot, I climb into my Camero. Glancing at my phone, I see I have a text from Isla.
Isla ☼ : Hurry up, we have 10 minutes until Kick off!
Y/N: On my way, see you soon drama queen.
I fire up the engine again, listening in pure bliss over the purr she gives me and as the sound fills the air, I am making my way to the stadium.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
Pulling into the stadium parking lot, I can already see the lights of the field glowling brightly against the night sky. I find a spot before making my way inside, showing them my photographer badge, I make my way in front of the bleachers next to the cheerleaders. Isla is front and center, giving her team guidance and confidence boosts like she does every game.
The excitement of the game, seeing everything come together for both the cheerleaders, and the footballers and also the prospect of seeing all the students and fans fill the stands lifting my spirits, making me quickly forget about the essays I handed in to Portello that decide my fate.
Isla spots me immediately and waves at me and motions me towards her.
“You made it!” She exclaims, throwing her arms around me.
“Ofcourse I did. I told you it would be quick. Now get out there and show them what you got.” I winked and swatted her leg. She squealed out a giggle and hopped over to her team and then quickly made her way out to the track to cheer for our college.
“You are the best, Y/N!” She yelled to me, but quickly let the smile leave her lips as she got ready to count the girls in. I watch as she stands with the rest of the cheer squad, feeling a sense a pride and anticipation. Grabbing my camera out of the camera back, I am quick to capture her stance, before moving to the left and then the right to capture the other girls in their ready stances.
Isla puts her poms together over her head before shouting loud to the crowd,
“R-O-W-D-I-E, that’s the way we get rowdie, ROWDIE. let’s get rowdie.” and claps three times. This time her teams joins in before they yell for the Badgers. “LET’S GO BADGERS!”
The crowd does as they say and starts stomping lowdly, smiling at the enthusiasm, I lift my camera one more time and capture the crowd in their moment of pure choas.
Co cheer captain Danielle waves her palms before starting the wisconsin cheer.
“U, RA RA, U RA RA.” She shouts and the stadium is quick to shout back. “WIIIISCONSIN.”
Isla is next, “U, RA RA, U RA RA.” And ofcourse we all follow suit. “WISCONSIN.” Everyone joins in for the 3rd and 4th round and says it quickly.
“Alright Wisconsin!” The announcers voice comes. “Let’s give it up to the team that brings us to victory everytime, the WIIIISCONSINN BAAADGERRRRS.” He exclaims, and I am quick to capture the crowd before swiftly turning around and getting the star player smasking through the paper banner.
Harry Styles. Star player, golden boy, most beloved, and smart as a wip. He closes his fists together pumping them outward and roars for the crowd as he runs to the center of the field. *click* What a man.
He puts his arms in the air and screams. “Let’s fucking go!” *click* With his arms still up he makes eye contact with me before forming the goal post with his arms, eyes squeezing closed with his tongue sticking out. *click* What that tongue do. wtf is wrong with me.
With a wink to my lense, and a finally *click* I am quick to pan to over to where the once put together banner was and got flicker shots of the rest of the team coming out. The chilly-ness in the air tonight making it look cool as you can see their breath as they shout and run out towards their captain on the field.
“Tonight, we play Idiana University, The Purdue Boilmakers!” The annoucer says, and that moment the opposing team, Purdue is quick to make their exit under the tunnel and the loud crowd on the opposite side of the field is shouting for them as well.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
WISCONSIN: 22 VS PURDUE: 13
Looking up at the scores never gets old, even almost two years in I get excited to see our team kick the opposing teams ass and it is a rush everytime. Hearing the cheers of the squad and the crowds, I am quick to continue flicker shots of my camera.
With time counting down, We are all in suspense as the Center, Ryder, snaps the ball to Harry, who immediately drops back to pass. The offensive line holds their blocks well, creating a solid pocket.
Harry has three choices for this pass, the wide reciever, the slot reciever, or the outside reciever. After seeing his options, he notices the linebackers biting on the drag, and the cornerback on the outside reciever giving him a bit of cushion. Harry reads the defense with precision, he delivers a high pass over the line backers and just ahead of the safeties.
Our teams tight end makes and athletic leap, catching the ball at its highest point, securing it with both hands. He lands in the endzone, securing the touchdown. The crowd erupts as the Badgers take the lead.
Harry shakes his tight ends shoulders with pride before getting bumped by Purdue’s captain,
the surprise attack coming out of nowhere has harry knocking into his team mate. The visible anger is enough for the other Badgers to step in to help hold harry back.
“What the hell dude?” Harry’s deep voice snaps at the captain.
“Oh, my apologies, I didnt know my opposing captain was such a pussy.” The footballer snickered. I rolled my eyes. What a comeback dude.
“Harry!” The Badgers coach shouted across the field. “He ain’t worth it son.” He shouted once more. Harry’s team grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him toward their bench.
“I might not be worth it, but you know who is?” He patronizes. “Your cheer team. They look like a fun time.” He digs deep.
Our football team shake their heads in unison, still walking away without confronting the situation any longer. The announcer noticed the tention on the field before saying you cut it with a knife. I picked my camera up and pressed the capture button. Proud of our boys for taking the high road, documenting the moment, the click was like a pin dropping.
“Or maybe your little photographer. She looks like fun.” He chuckled. Um, ew?
“In your dreams, dude.” I scoffed, but my luck has never been the best, because what I thought was under my breath actually wasn’t.
“What the fuck did you just say?” He snapped. Choosing to ignore him, I am staring down at my camera, looking at him through the screen that is angled up at me. I pretend to click the non touch screen, trying not to add to the attention I have created for myself. He has angled his body my way before making his way towards me. Having the inkling to press record, I do, and my god this next part is cinema. “That’s what I thought, stupid bit-” He is cut off by a flying fist hitting him square in the jaw. Moving my camera quickly you can see Harry’s arm before he is on top of the rival captain and punching him once more in the jaw before getting up. Please god tell me I got that all on camera. Looking down and playing back the video, I see I did infact get it and cannot wait to show Harry later.
“Don’t EVER talk about a lady like that.” Harry barked. Officially walking away, and straight to the coach to get repremanded. My legs are metaphorically spread.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
WISCONSIN: 37 VS PURDUE: 17
The crowd roared to life as the final touchdown was played. The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Purdue Boilmakers for the second time this season and with how halftime went, no one on our side is complaining. Infact, they are cheering and chanting the only four words that matter whenever we win a game.
“EAT SHIT. FUCK YOU.” Over and over until the last fan of the rival team is off benches and off our field. I have just captured the last photo of the night and while I am putting my camera down to hang around my neck I am looking every which way for my trusty hero.
I won’t pretend that Harry and I are friends, because that is not the case. He is nice and stands apart from the typical college guys who are either rude or just looking for a hookup. Harry parties hard, but he’s also incredibly smart and priorities his grades and football over being the campus’ biggest jerk. It���s this balance that make him Intriguing.
Our paths crossed often enough- shared classes, mutual friends, the occasional study group- but we’ve never had a deep conversation. Still, there’s a mutual respect there. He is the kind of guy who will hold the door open for you, offer a polite nod in the hallway, and never push boundaries.
So when Isla dragged me to yet another party at the frat house where Harry lives, I didn’t mind as much. The house was loud and choatic, filled with music and mingling voices. Isla was immediately swallowed by the crowd and I found a nice quiet corner to people watch and sip on my jack and coke.
As the night went on, I noticed Harry moving around the crowd, talking to everyone, yet never staying in one place for too long. He had this effortless way of making people feel at ease, and it was clear why he was well-liked. When our eyes met, he gave me a small knowing smile and raised his cup in acknowledgement.
I smiled back, feeling a strange mix of comfort and curiosity. It was clear that Harry had layers, and while I wasn’t looking to peel them back, it was nice to know that not everyone at this college fit into the same mold. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to him than meets the eye. And maybe, just maybe, i’d find out some day.
But until then, Let’s find him so we can watch this video in slow motion and watch the football captain of Purdue get his shit rocked.
“Hey, Y/N!” I hear my name get called. Turning around I see Isla walking over with the one I was looking for. He has an iceback on his fist and he is looking straight at me. I smile at them both and wave.
“Isla!” I screamed, “I got that whole thing on video and I need you both to watch it ASAP.” I giggled. Isla squeeled and agreed while Harry groaned.
“I can’t believe I let my anger get the best of me.” He sighed loudly.
“But it made for great cinema Harry.” I winked. Pulling my camera up I went to the video and played it. “I’ll send you a copy. BAM. Bitch went down.” I rewind and played it one more time in slow motion.
“You did not just quote Tatum from Scream because I punched someone?” Harry laughed loudly.
“OFCOURSE I qouted the second queen of scream. Thank you for doing that by the way, it means alot.” I smiled. He shook his head and waved me off. Lowering my camera, I looked down to the screen. I felt Isla put her arm around my shoulder.
“Well, I am off. I really do want a copy of that. Our own personal superhero, I want a keepsake.” Isla giggled when Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head.
When Isla walked away Harry kept his gaze on her, not once looking down, still focused on her head. When she turned left at the field gate to walk to the parking lot, Harry looked down at his cleats before inhaling a deep breath
“So, you’re a Scream fan, huh?” I can just hear the smirk in his voice, and when I looked up I was right, tucking some hair behind my ear I nodded. Stop smirking at me, I’m feeling things.
“It is a guilty pleasure for sure.” I blushed. Keeping my eyes locked on his I could see a glint of adoration in his eyes, why? I couldn’t tell you. I felt the shyness creeping up and I quickly dropped my head to look at my camera.
I heard is quiet laughter and then soon after felt his knuckle under my chin. Making eye contact once more, He smiles softly at me. “Maybe we could watch them together.” He whispered.
My eyes widen, “Like a date?” I whispered back. abort abort abort abort.
“Woah woah woah, take me out to dinner first.” He pulled away and smirked, resulting in me slapping him lightly on the arm and giggling causing him to howl out a cackle.
“I would love to have a scream marathon with you, Harry.” I smiled up at him.
After a few minutes of just staring at eachother, we quietly exchanged phone numbers and headed our seperate ways for the night. This is fine. I’m fine.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
Taglist: @namoreno
#harry styles smut#harry styles fanfiction#harry edward styles#harry styles#football harry styles x you#footballrryxyou#harry styles writing#harry styles fanfic#harry styles one shot#harry styles x reader#harry styles imagine#harry styles x you#harry styles x y/n#harry styles x original character#harry styles blurb#harry styles boyfriend#harry styles au#harry styles series
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Celebrity Crush
Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!reader
Summary: You have what some might consider to be an odd celebrity crush. Until you meet him in real life, that is. | 1.1k+ words of fluff!
Masterlist | Tim Bradford Masterlist | Request Info/Fandom List
As you twirl your straw in your drink, you tune out the conversation of your friends. The message to get ready had come last minute, with only a few minutes to prepare for an outing before your best friend arrived to pick you up. You had been watching a true-crime documentary when the message came through, and rather than listen to your friends discuss their weekend plans, you think about the case in the show. Or, more specifically, one of the officers who worked the case.
“Hello,” one of your friends calls.
She draws the word out and waves a hand in front of your face, which you bat away when your attention returns to the restaurant and the people around you.
“Sorry,” you apologize. “What are we talking about?”
“Celebrity crushes!” she cheers. “Mine is Tom Cruise.”
“Gross! He’s old enough to be your dad,” another girl comments.
“And he can pay for everything like my dad, too.”
“Can we move on?” someone interrupts. “Who’s yours?”
“Mine?” you clarify, pointing at yourself. “Oh, uh, you probably haven’t heard of him.”
“C’mon, spill!” they encourage.
You shake your head, and the friend closest to you repeats, “Who’s your celebrity crush?”
“Tim Bradford,” you answer softly.
“Who?”
“He’s a cop, and he’s been in some documentaries. Like the ones with Corey Harris and Aaron Thorsen. Plus, a new one with doppelgangers,” you explain.
“So, he’s a cop, not a celebrity,” your best friend argues.
“He’s been on TV! More than once,” you point out.
“Girl, you know I love you, but that’s more of a ‘hear me out’ than a celebrity crush.”
You shake your head and sit back in your seat. The sooner you get home to finish the documentary, the better.
The next day, after you’ve finished the newest documentary and your crush on Tim Bradford has strengthened, you find yourself out shopping with your friends. Thankfully, they’ve moved on from the celebrity crush comment. While you’re in the third store of the day, you wait in the dressing rooms to rate your best friends’ choices while the other girls shop.
An employee approaches you with a nervous smile and asks if anyone else is in the fitting area.
“Yes, one of my friends is trying something on. Is everything okay?” you answer.
“Oh, of course. I don’t want to alarm you, but we’ve locked the doors because there are some suspicious characters in the area. The police are on the way, so everything will be under control soon.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” you say.
She sighs in relief that you were kind about the ordeal, then walks away to alert other customers. You look toward the large windows on the storefront but don’t see anything happening in the parking lot.
A few minutes later, after your friends have purchased their items and are waiting to leave, two police officers walk to the locked door and knock on it. The employee you spoke to earlier rushes to let them in and obeys when the male officer instructs her to lock the door again.
“Ladies, we’re with the LAPD,” the shorter man says. “Our colleagues are outside handling the situation as we speak. However, we need your help; if you’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary today, please meet me at the counter and we’ll fill out a report.”
The employees follow him to the counter, and you realize that he is in the documentaries you’ve been watching. As you turn to look outside again, you see the other officer.
“Are you Sergeant Tim Bradford?” you ask.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answers. “Can I help you with something?”
“Oh, no, I just watched the documentaries you were in and thought it was you. Your insight was informative; I liked listening to your side of the case.”
He smiles kindly and says, “I’m glad.”
You nod, then step back and look around the store. Unsure how much longer you’ll have to wait, you take a moment to look at the merchandise. You usually tag along on shopping trips but don’t buy anything. Your friends have different tastes than you, and an easier time buying things for themselves. One item catches your eye, and you run your finger over it. They have your preferred size, and you tap it a few times before you look away again.
Unknown to you, Tim watches you. He’s seen people come up to Aaron, Lucy, and even Nolan, and claim to have seen them on television. Those encounters usually end with someone asking for a picture, an autograph, and, once, to get their cousin released early. This is the first time he’s heard a genuine compliment, and he’s happy to have been the one you chose to give it to.
“Officer Bradford?” his partner calls. “A word?”
You smile at Tim when you look toward him, and with his eyes already on you, he notices immediately. He dips his chin as he walks past you, and you walk across the room to your friends.
“Wait, is that your celebrity crush?” your best friend whispers. “You didn’t say he was like… Abercrombie model hot!”
You shrug, and she turns to your other friends to talk about how attractive the officers are. Your gaze wanders back to the only thing in the store you’d ever consider buying, but you shake your head and look at Tim Bradford instead.
“The situation has been handled and the area is safe now. You’re free to go,” he announces. “Thank you for your help.”
Your friends rush out, eager to get to another store, but you walk toward the door at a normal pace. Tim and his partner are walking out too, and you hold the door for them.
“Go ahead,” Tim tells his partner. “Thanks,” he says to you.
He stops beside you, and you let the door close. After a glance over his shoulder, Tim passes you a bag.
“What is this?” you inquire.
“A thank you.”
“For?”
“Being nice. Plus, you didn’t ogle me like your friends.”
You chuckle and smile as you argue, “You’ve got to be used to that.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
You peek in the bag and see the item you were looking at. “I can’t accept this.”
“The ladies inside told me I had to take something for keeping them safe.”
“And you got me something?” Tim smiles, and you shake your head. “Thank you.”
“If you’d really like to thank me or hear more about those cases you seem to like so much, maybe we could meet for dinner sometime.”
“I would love that.”
“Great. I have to go, but… give me a call.”
You watch him leave, then realize that he didn’t give you his number. As you walk away, you pull the receipt from the bag. But it isn’t a receipt. It’s a piece of paper with his name and number. Under that, he wrote, I never wanted to be a celebrity crush before today.
#tim bradford x reader#tim bradford x fem!reader#tim bradford imagine#tim bradford the rookie#tim bradford#the rookie abc#fem!reader#hanna writes✯
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Put it on My Tab (15)
Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!reader
Warning:
Terrible drivers, Picking on someone not your size, Jason being cute while trying to look cool, Stupid cupid strikes again
A/N:
Please comment/like/reblog. If you’d like to be tagged moving forward, please let me know!
As always, a huge thank you and shout out to @harlequin-hangout for the amazing banners you made for me. @vbecker10 , thanks for always listening and helping with all my idea rambles! This story sold have been stuck off not for you.
If you’re new to the story, please check out the master post for the rest of the chapters.
The evening traffic was not horrible, Jason had anticipated that it would be worse. The only terrible thing was the expensive brightly colored car that had cut him off when he tried to turn into the parking lot. Had it not been for his quick reflexes, he would have been forcefully acquainted with the pavement. He glared at the car as it took up two spots from poor parking.
There’s no shortage of dumbasses here. He purposely parked a few spots away from the crazy driver when a well dressed woman came stomping over. Her mouth was moving and her eyebrows were furrowed, but he could not hear a thing thanks to the music that was currently playing through his helmet speakers. I’m guessing she’s pissed and trying to blame me for her shitty driving. He watched her arms flail about, motioning to the car that nearly hit him and his motorcycle. When she gave it a rough nudge in an attempt to knock it over, he frowned. Standing up at his full height, he looked down at the woman who stumbled a few steps back when she saw just how much bigger he was than her. He scoffed at her attempt to try and paint him as the villain, but the lack of an audience only made her look even more ridiculous.
Huffing and puffing, she turned on her pointy heel and stormed into the cafe. Jason could only shake his head in response to the crazy person, grabbing something from one of his saddlebags. He carefully placed it in his jacket pocket, making his way inside and into the line. Normally he would’ve taken his helmet off by now, but he wanted to surprise a certain barista. What was not planned for was the rude customer causing a scene, the same person who nearly hit him with a care. Seeing as no one wanted to step up, Jason took matters into his own hands.
“Why don’t you call him? Since you say you know him so well, call him. Let him know that you’re harassing his employee for doing her job and following his rules implemented in his establishment.” He cut into the conversation, stepping forward as others made room for him. The look of shock on Y/N’s face when he removed the helmet was plenty of reward for his noble act, but he was selfish and wanted to do more. He wanted to see more of her reactions, but first he needed to get rid of the eyesore.
The woman flinched at first, but when he removed the helmet her attitude completely changed for a third time. He noticed the flushed color on her face from all her shouting was quickly softening as she stood taller and fixed her clothing. It was painfully obvious that she found him attractive now that she saw his face and it took a good level of control to not roll his eyes and curse her out for making a mess wherever she went.
“I know how this might look just walking in, but she has been quite insolent this entire time. I am merely trying to teach her her place.” She was calmer, but her tone was cloyingly sweet. It made him feel suffocated and uncomfortable.
Don’t do it. She’ll tack on to Y/N and that’ll only cause more problems. “Not from what I’ve seen since you walked up here. Did you forget you nearly hit a biker with your car and cursed them out? Hi, that biker was me. Now, get your drink and sit quietly or leave, or you can call the owner and he can check the CC footage to see what happened. You pick,” he kept his tone leveled and firm. Any attempt of her flirting with him was clearly useless and he was not going to even entertain being anything except cold and disinterested. Her face paled and she ran off to the pick-up counter,
“Thanks for the help. I’m sorry you had to step in like that.” The genuine smile of relief she gave him was a direct shot to his heart. It injected warmth into his veins and filled his chest with immeasurable pride. There was also an ache underneath it all, but he pushed all of it aside to focus on the conversation.
“Don’t mention it, I told you, I save damsels in distress. You just happen to be in distress more often than most.” He smirked and winked at her, earning an eye roll in response. “I’ll have to insist you clock out for the rest of the day though. You look exhausted and after all of that, you deserve a free night at the least.” The two other employees were quick to jump in and assist him in trying to get Y/N out. Seeing as they had it under control he simply stepped aside and waited for her to come around after clocking out when his ears perked up at a particular word used to describe him. She’ll correct it, there’s no point in expecting anything else. Though he was smiling, that odd sting from earlier was back. Yup, any moment now. He sighed, waiting…and waiting. Only to hear the door open and close with no argument from Y/N. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged out into the chilly autumn night.
Wait, she didn’t correct them?! Does she not mind it? Well now, I guess I’m just meant to play the role. Her coworkers waved and wished them a good night. Y/N refused to look back while Jason was grinning to himself. The first time he played the role of her boyfriend was way back when she was being harassed by some older guy who slipped something into her drink. Now he was being mistaken for it and it made him chuckle.
“What are you laughing at, oh great capeless crusader?” She scoffed, turning to face him as soon they were outside the doors. “Well, whatever drink you wanted to get is cancelled now. Sorry about that, you can head to some other coffee shop if you want. You don’t have to spend time with me or anything, I’ll just cross the street and play at the gaming lounge.” She pointed to the strip mall which he went to on that fateful day thanks to the IP address.
“And what kind of boyfriend would I be if I just bailed on you like that?” The grin on his face only grew into a smug smirk as she scowled back at him.
“The kind I actually have, nonexistent.” She managed to retort.
“So you’re single.” He mumbled to himself. Good to know. He logged the bit of information away as he looked across the street at the dying strip mall. Slipping his hands into his jacket pockets, he felt the smooth wrapping and paused for a moment. “I came all the way here to give you this.” He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag with a zipper lock that held three dark squares in it. It was the brownies she had joked about earlier. “I’ve gotta make up for my lack of texting somehow.” He handed the baggie over to her and watched her carefully hold it in both her hands, wide eyed and smiling. Another direct hit to his heart at the purity and innocence of her happiness.
Y/N carefully cradled the confections in her hand, afraid to smush them even just a little bit. It was a simple gesture that made all the stress and frustration from the day quickly melt away. She really did want a brownie after talking to him about it, but the last thing she would have thought was him bringing her some. “Did you make these?”
“Yeah, I dabble in baking from time to time. I live on my own and living off of fast food has lost its appeal.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “They aren’t anything super fancy, I didn’t wanna risk putting in something you can’t have or you just won’t like.” Y/N ducked her head in hopes to hide the blush that was warming her cheeks as she gently placed the treats into her bag. She knew her initial judgment of him was not the kindest due to the coffee fiasco, but he proved himself to be someone more respectable and straightforward.
“Thank you, you really didn’t have to though. But if it helps, you did earn some points.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get. So, did you really want to go to the lounge or is there a chance I can sway your decision?”
“Oh, what do you have in mind?” Y/N felt her facial temperature was more regulated at this point so she looked up at his face once more. He’s really too handsome for his own good. The price to pay for seeing it so often is pretty steep though.
“Maybe dinner, my treat? There’s a really great diner not too far from here. I always hit it up when I’m in the area.” She carefully considered his offer, looking over at the lounge. It had been a while since she last logged on and her usual buddy was nowhere to be found. She was hoping to possibly catch him tonight, but she knew there was no promise that he would be online. Biting at her lower lip, she tilted her head side-to-side as she debated on what to do.
There’s a slim chance that Arkham_Knight might be online, but he could just message me and I can check on it later. Hottie Toddie over here actually brought me brownies and helped me with a horrible customer. She took a deep breath and turned her attention fully to Jason. “Sure, let’s go to the diner. But uhm, how are we going to get there? You came here on a motorcycle, right?” I'll log in tomorrow, we usually meet during the week anyway.
“Yeah, we’d just ride my bike. Why?”
“I’ve never been on one. All I know is you sit on it like you do any bike.” She rubbed the back of her neck, her gaze falling to the ground once more.
“I promise I’m a skilled rider, you just need to climb on behind and hold on tight.”
“Hold on tight? To what?”
“To me.” He offered her his hand. Seconds ticked by like minutes as he watched her look between him and his hands. Though he was very cool and confident in what he was saying, he was a mess inside. She could easily reject him and this would be an embarrassing mess. The thought of her declining felt wrong. He wanted her to say yes, he was wishing for her to say yes. The waiting was making him nervous and he was grateful that his gloves hid the cold sweat on his palms. “So, what’ll it be?” There's no reason for me to get nervous.
“Mmm, ok.” He swallowed the sigh of relief that threatened to come out as she placed her hand in his. He wrapped his fingers around and instantly noticed how much larger his hand was compared to hers.
“I’ll keep it slow, I don’t wanna scare you on your first ride. You’ll be wearing the helmet, too. It’s not far, so you don’t need to worry about me.” He rambled a little as he led her to his prized vehicle. “You can keep your bag in one of the side bags here.” He popped one open for her and she quickly deposited her items in it. As soon as she was done, he slipped the helmet over her head. It was a bit loose, but he fastened it as tightly as he could under her chin.
When the world suddenly grew muffled, Y/N nearly panicked. Thankfully the weight of the safety accessory helped her realize she was not fainting from exhaustion.
“Woah, this is a lot heavier than I expected. Are you sure it’s safe for you to not wear one? We could just call a taxi or take the bus?” She offered, fiddling the way it fit on her head. It's this hour a fish feels in a fish bowl? I kinda feel like I'm swimming in it. “It’s moving around a lot.”
“I’ll be fine, just don't move your head too much. Now, just follow my lead. You’ll need to sit real close and hold on to me.” She watched as he effortlessly straddled the bike, her gaze dropping to his muscular thighs that became more prominent now that he was on it.
Quit staring , she scolded herself and looked further sken at her own two feet. It's a good thing I’m wearing pants. She nervously inched closer to the vehicle and hesitated before swinging a leg over. She teetered a little from the added weight to her head but managed to keep her balance and sat safely behind him. Her heart jumped into a bit of overdrive when she realized she was unable to touch the pavement when he straightened the bike. Reflexively she wrapped her arms around him and gripped as tight as she could without trying to hurt him. Though that fear was hard to believe now that she was reminded of just how solid he was. Now her heart was racing for an entirely different reason. She only hoped he was unable to feel or hear it.
Tag: @vbecker10@wordsfromshona@harlequin-hangout@harpy-space@tild3ath@gone-batty-fics@princessbl0ss0m@dakotali @antiquecultist
#jason todd#jason todd x reader#red hood#jason todd x y/n#jason todd x fem!reader#y/n#jason todd fic#red hood x reader#fanfic#fanfiction#jason todd fanfic#jason todd fanfiction#jason todd x female reader#jason todd x you#jason peter todd#jason todd x female!reader#red hood fanfic#red hood x you#red hood fanfiction#red hood x fem!reader#red hood x y/n#your name#reader insert#batman#batman fanfic#batman fanfiction#tim drake#dc fanfiction#dc fanfic#dcu
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Ardiente Tentación
DBF!Javier Peña x Plus Size Reader ft. Marcus Pike
word count: 1.4k
warnings: implied smut (nothing too descriptive), reader is plus sized/fat, readers got tig ole bitties (no skeeter bites in this house), wedding, inspired by s10e12 of greys anatomy, javi being a bit of a douche, marcus being a sweetie pie, not beta read
note: so sorry this took so long 😭 work has been kicking my fat ass on a spiritual level. but she's finally here! i'm sorry if this sucks but i hope everyone enjoys!
song inspo: Ardiente Tentación by Sentidos Opuestos
"Whatcha doing pretty girl?” Marcus whispered in your ear, placing a kiss on your sweet spot. You giggled like an idiot as you turned your head and pecked his lips.
“Working on invitations for the rehearsal dinner.”
“You know we could have hired someone to do all the planning.”
“Yeah but I like doing it myself.” Marcus chuckled, knowing when it came to things like this you always preferred to do it yourself. He glanced over the scattered invitations on your desk and let out a small hum.
“What?” you asked, looking back up at him.
“Don't see your dad anywhere.”
Things were… complicated. After you had moved away, you stopped talking to your family. It was nothing against them but you just needed a fresh start. Sounds harsh but it really helped. After a few months you decided to reach out and check in on everyone. Your mother was happy to hear from you- nearly cried and wept the entire phone call. But your dad didn't wanna hear what you had to say. He sure did speak his mind though- calling you selfish for leaving and not looking back, saying how much of a disappointment you were because you wanted to follow your dreams and not his.
“Haven't spoken to him since I left and before you say anything I don't plan on it.”
“Okay okay I won't… How about you take a break?”
“Marcus I don't have-” you were cut off by him picking you up from your chair and getting tossed over his shoulder like a sack of taters.
“Marcus what are you doing?” you yelled out as you gripped onto the back of his work shirt.
“Gonna make my fiancé feel good till she can't walk anymore.”
— • —
You sat at the table next to Marcus, talking to your friends as Marcus talked to his. The rehearsal dinner was going great- everyone was enjoying themselves and everything was going as planned. Until you felt Marcus reach over and gently squeeze the inside of your thick ass thigh.
“What is it baby?” you asked, looking over at him. He didn't say anything and just motioned over to the entryway of the venue. You looked over and saw your dad standing there.
“Want me to take care of it?” Marcus asked, gently stroking his thumb up and down the skin of your thigh.
“No I got it…” you excused yourself from the table and walked over to him.
“Hey sweetie…”
“I didn't invite you.”
“No but your mom-” you scoffed and rolled your eyes. Ever since you told her your dad wanted nothing to do with you she'd been trying to mend things between you two. You expected her to go above and beyond for the two of you to talk but you never thought she'd invite him to the rehearsal dinner. You're starting to remember why you moved away and cut off communication with everyone here.
“Dad there's a reason why-”
“Hey I got the car parked."
The sound of his voice knocked you back a few steps. It's like you were face to face with a damn ghost.
Javier fucking Peña.
He looked the same but older. He still had his mustache but he'd grown his hair out a bit. As much as you hated to admit this to yourself he still looked fine as hell.
“Hola hermosa.” he smirked. “I know we weren't invited but thought we could drop by and say hi.”
Cocky asshole.
“Hi.” you flashed a fake smile. “Now you can leave.”
“Cmon hermosa don't be like that. Just one drink and we'll leave.” he walked closer to you, tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. “Promise.”
To this day you couldn't understand why or how Javier had you eating out of the palm of his hand. Even after all this time- even after being with Marcus and on the verge of marrying him, it still worked.
“One drink and you're gone. Both of you.”
—
“Honey…” Marcus whispered in your ear. “Gonna take your dad home.”
You looked up and over at your dad. Just as you suspected the “one drink” turned into almost running the venue dry. You looked around, trying to find Javi so he can take your dad back home since he was the one who brought him here, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Thank you baby… I'll take care of everything here and I'll see you at the wedding?”
He smiled, leaning down and kissing you gently.
“See you at the wedding almost-Mrs Pike.” he kissed you one more time before getting up and escorting your dad out the venue.
You got up and walked around the venue, making sure everyone got home safe. Once everyone was gone you were alone in the venue, collecting the last of your things before leaving.
“So you're getting married huh?” he called out. You turned around and nodded.
“Yeah. He makes me happy. Something you could never do.”
Javi chuckled, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “I made you happy hermosa. Had you always begging for more.”
You rolled your eyes. “I had a weak moment..”
“Weak moment? Amor I hate to break it to you but that weak moment lasted almost 2 years.”
“I have to go.” you pushed past him, walking out of the venue and over to your car. He followed you, spinning you around and pressing your body up against your car, crashing his lips onto yours.
You wanted to pull away. Everything in your body was screaming to pull away or knee him in the balls. But you didn't. It was like you stepped into a time machine and went back to sitting on his couch, all sweaty because of him.
You reached behind you, opening the door and climbing in with him.
“Tell me if you wanna stop…” he whispered in between kisses. He reached around and unzipped your dress, slipping the straps off your shoulders and exposing your huge tits.
“Mierda los extrañé…” (Fuck I missed them) he whispered, leaning down and taking one of your nipples in his mouth, his tongue swirling around in circles. You arched your back, moaning at his touch.
Stop. Pull away. This is wrong.
If it's so wrong then why does it feel so right?
— • —
You looked at yourself in the mirror, your fingers rubbing over the delicate fabric of the white dress. It was beautiful. It outlines every detail of your soft body- every curve, every love handle. Your tits practically spilled out of the sweetheart neckline. One wrong move and you'd have a nip slip. You didn't care. You were getting married to the love of your life…
A knock pulled your attention away from the mirror. You turned around and there he was.
“Te ves linda…” (You look beautiful…) Javi muttered.
“What are you doing here Jav?”
“Wanted to wish you luck.” he walked closer and tucked your veil into your hair, pulling the front side over your face. “Now you look like a bride…”
“Yeah a bride who cheated before she even got married…”
“Think of it as… your last fuck as a single woman.” he placed a soft kiss on your temple. “Happy wedding day.” with that he walked out of the room. You turned back around and looked at yourself in the mirror.
Fucking Javier Peña…
—
You walked down the aisle, eyes instantly going to Marcus. His heart swelled at the sight of you walking towards him. Tears filled his eyes. His dreams were coming true. Dream job, beautiful woman as his wife. Everything was perfect. You stepped in front of him and held his hands. He reached down and pulled the vail over your head.
“God you look beautiful baby…” he sniffed, few tears rolling down his cheeks.
“And you look so handsome honey..” you reached up and wiped his tears away.
You both stood there, staring into each other's eyes as you listened to the ordained minister talk his speech. Right before you switched rings with Marcus, the minister asked one question.
“Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony? Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
He was in the far back, close to the door. He stood up.
“I love you.” Javi blurted out, grabbing everyone's attention. He slowly started to walk down the aisle getting closer. “I love you hermosa. I always have. And I always will.”
You turned and faced him, too stunned to speak.
“Run away with me. We can leave right now.” he walked up to you, taking your hands out of Marcus’ hands. “What do you say?”
divider: @saradika-graphics
Main Masterlist — Javier Peña Masterlist
#javier peña x reader#javier peña x plus size reader#javier peña x you#javier peña#javier peña fic#dbf!javier peña x reader#marcus pike#marcus pike x reader#marcus pike x plus size reader#plus size reader#tw smut#pedro pascal characters
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⇢ word count: 13.5k
⇢ warnings: past unethical experimentation, you have to accept the premise of a single human empire in space in the future with colonies and a military and not think deeper about that, multiple needle/injection mentions, main characters are morally gray, and oh yeah cursing
⇢ genre: sci-fi, set in the near-ish future, humans and aliens and robots, black op mission, captain kun, ?????? reader, slow burn, fluff, dash of angst, ft. wayv as the crew of the vision
⇢ extra info: took a lot of obvious inspo for this one from isaac asimov’s robot stories, specifically his concept of positronic brains & the three laws of robotics (and if you’ve read any of his stories, you’ll probably be able to see some other places too)
⇢ author's note: holy shit, this is finally it. the last part. THE last part. im literally vibrating rn y’all, im so excited for you to read this one, i hope you’ve been enjoying this fic im so so proud of it and love it so much
⇢ series masterlist | prev.
You looked down at his hand, then back up at him. “Do you want whatever a robot’s love is?”
“Here’s the engine room,” Ten announced, pushing open a door. Inside were multitudes of pipes, tubes, and wires. On your tour with Kun, he had only pointed out the door to you, not taken you inside.
You looked around with interest, following the pilot further in. He was walking towards a large cylinder set lower than the floor, about the same height as him. Thin bands of white light wrapped around the body of it, stopping where it tapered into a blunt end. Ten stepped down into the inset, now a head shorter than the cylinder, and jerked his head for you to follow.
You dropped down as well, looking up at the contraption.
“This is the slipdrive,” he gestured to it grandly. “Brand new.”
“It’s smaller than the second gen,” you observed immediately, looking around the engine room. “The dimensions of the prior model would be… twice as large?”
“Correct.”
“The Vision was built before the new slipdrive, it’s meant to use the prior model, which has a completely different energy signature. How are they compatible?”
“You’re fun,” he declared with a grin, resting a hand on the side. But the explanation he seemed about to launch into stopped short, as the smile fell from his face and turned baffled. “Well that’s not right.”
“What?”
“ZEN?” Ten called out for the AI. “There isn’t something wrong with the slipdrive, is there? You’d tell us.”
“Of course, Sergeant,” ZEN’s voice confirmed, though his avatar didn’t appear. You figured he might not have a terminal to project himself from down here.
“So it’s just… idling?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Why’d you turn it on idle?”
“Captain Qian’s order.”
“Should’ve figured. Thanks, man.” Ten just looked even more troubled.
“What’s wrong?” You asked.
“Captain apparently ordered ZEN to suspend us in slipspace…” He crossed his arms thoughtfully. “I’m assuming you know the difference between turning off a slipdrive and idling one?”
“Turning off a slipdrive drops the ship out of slipspace. Idling it suspends it in slipspace.”
“It’s not exactly putting it in park. The longer we’re in slipspace, the more the slipdrive and the ship’s systems have to work to hold its position outside time and space. Not an ideal position to be in for a protracted amount of time.”
You gulped, following after Ten as he started towards the door. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to ask the captain why he suspended us in slipspace,” he said simply.
Ten seemed to barely register you accompanying him to Kun’s office, or at least didn’t mind if he did notice. The door was open when the two of you got there, and Ten knocked as he walked in.
Kun looked up from where he had been staring rather listlessly at his desk reader displaying some report. He dismissed the document as he went to give his greetings, “Ah, Ten, Y/N. How can I help you?”
“We were just down in the engine room, Captain,” Ten started. “I was showing Y/N the new slipdrive, when I noticed that it uh, it wasn’t set to propulsion.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Why did you suspend us in slipspace, Captain?” His words, despite their bluntness, held no hostility or malice, they clearly weren’t accusatory or suspicious, just curious, inquisitive.
The captain sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. You chewed on the inside of your cheek nervously. After far too long of a pause to be comfortable, he replied, “There is… a matter that needs to be resolved before we arrive at UHN Main. Do you trust that you do not need to know anything further at this time?”
“How long will it take to resolve?”
“I don’t know, unfortunately.”
“Just making sure we’re all on the same page about the slipdrive idling.”
“It’s brand new, and the newest model. Not to mention ZEN is monitoring all the systems. If an immediate danger becomes present, I will obviously reevaluate.”
Ten seemed satisfied. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, yeah?”
“Thank you, Ten.”
“Alright, Y/N, have you seen the armory? I bet you could trick out a blaster like you did the coffee machine.”
Before he could take you back out of the captain’s office, however, Kun cleared his throat. “I wanted to have a word with Y/N, actually.”
“Gag, okay.” Ten headed for the door alone. “I’ll find a manual for the blasters, Y/N. Find me when you’re done. Bye!”
And then it was just you and Kun. And ZEN, presumably.
You turned to Kun, fidgeting with your fingers. “I didn’t say anything about you suspending the slipdrive, Kun. He was showing me the engine room because he knew I had read about the new slipdrive model, and he noticed it was idling all on his own. ZEN told him you suspended the ship.”
“I’m not angry, Y/N,” Kun reassured you gently. “Apparently Liu has been doing some thinking, about the headache you got yesterday.”
“…Right.”
“He wants to take another look at your head, to see if he can figure out what was causing the pain. And ideally, disable it.”
The mention of a painful headache made you shift your weight from foot to foot. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you knew what he was talking about, but it felt like it happened to someone else, not like your own memory.
“Okay, sure,” you agreed.
In Yangyang’s lab again, he had you lay down on one of the cool metal counters this time, and you felt startlingly like an autopsy cadaver as you stared up at the sterile white light above.
“Well?” Yangyang prompted the captain pointedly, holding his hand out palm-out.
“Well what?” Kun snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.
“My positronic Allen key that you stole yesterday. I need it back now.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Don’t tell me you destroyed it in some noble, romantic gesture, or so help me, Captain—”
“I have it, Yangyang,” you interrupted, digging into your pocket to bring it out. You offered it out to the roboticist. “Here.”
“Ah, thank you, Y/N,” he beamed, accepting the coin into his hand. “Now, unlike last time, I’ll be putting you into repair stasis. You’ll lose muscle tension, kind of like when you’re asleep, except you’ll be awake. Hence why you’re laying down. That’s so if I were to test out anything that caused unexpected movement, you wouldn’t injure yourself or break anything. But I won’t be messing with any of that, promise. I’m just going to be looking around at how your head’s constructed.”
“Like… opening my head?”
“I don’t think yours does that.” He shook his head with what looked like a nearly disappointed frown. “I’m no human doctor, but from what I remember of your x-ray, I’m pretty sure your positronic brain is encased in mostly human stuff. At least, stuff that doesn’t look like metal on an x-ray. Bone, skin, who knows? I’ll be doing live imaging with some robotics tools this time to try to look at what’s inside.”
“Got it…”
When he held the Allen key up to your head this time, the side that faced you had a glowing pentagon in the center rather than a triangle. Yangyang talked as he slowly slid it around your forehead and temple, “The receiver to turn on repair stasis is usually around the same area as diagnostic stasis, but not always.”
“Holy shit…” Liu breathed out as he moved the sensor over your forehead, continuing to develop the image on the small handheld screen in his other hand.
Captain Qian tensed. “What? What’s going on?”
“I was kind of right. Y/N’s head wasn’t exploding so much as ripping itself apart from the inside.” The roboticist squinted at the parallel, jointed strips of metal at strategic points around your positronic brain casing. If they were to expand, which it definitely looked like they were meant to do, they would not only rip the casing apart, allowing the organic, wet human fluids like blood into the carefully aligned positronic brain, but fracture and break your skull from the inside out.
“Well fix whatever did that!” The captain snapped.
“I can’t.”
“What kind of roboticist are you?”
“A fucking good one,” the lieutenant shot back, the tension in the room finally getting to him as he bit back at his superior. “Because I can tell that nothing is faulty, Captain. It’s a failsafe. If certain parameters are met, the failsafe is triggered, and her entire positronic brain is permanently destroyed.”
He sighed, looking over the mechanics again. They were almost too familiar to him, rudimentary, but effective. They were widely considered cruel to use on robots nowadays. His roboethics professor was the first vocal opponent of such failsafes, especially when the topic of sentient robots was brought up. A human ordering a robot to destroy itself was one thing, a direct order, a choice, a decision. But installing failsafes for a robot to destroy itself, entirely unaware of what was happening to it was different. You weren’t even just a robot, you were… something else. A person, regardless of what percentage of you was organic matter.
“I doubt she’s doing it consciously,” Liu added, as if that made it any better.
“But you said someone either took all her data or destroyed it already, then ordered her to forget everything! What the fuck would this failsafe even do?” The captain was still demanding answers, insisting on reason, on anything less than the brutal reality in front of them.
“Presumably destroy the last thing left from whatever shady thing was happening down there.” Liu nodded to you, laying limp on the counter, eyes closed, almost looking peaceful, if one could imagine that you were sleeping.
“I hate to ask… but why keep her like this in the first place? Why not just destroy her when they abandoned Aegeum? Why do all this to her and not just trigger the failsafe? It’s just… cruel,” Captain Qian said, his voice hoarse. The lieutenant didn’t need to look at him to know that he was staring at you. They both were.
“I wish I knew, Captain. I wish I could tell you anything.”
“It registers as pain for her?”
“She remembers being human a lot better than she remembers being a robot, those might be the only words she has for it,” Liu offered up an explanation, then another, “I also haven’t seen a model exactly like her… I don’t know how much of her is organic. She could have nerves, pain receptors. If she says it hurts, then I believe her as much as if you told me you got a boo-boo.”
“Is there any way you can take the failsafe out? Or deactivate it at least?” The captain asked, voice near pleading now.
Liu turned away from you to shoot the captain a look, retorting, “Without accidentally triggering it or turning her into a positronic vegetable in the process? Fuck no.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“God, what the hell went on down there?”
“The more I learn, the less I think I want to know.”
“You’re going to have to tell the rest of the crew. You know that, right?” The roboticist said bluntly, leaning his elbows forward on his knees to look the captain in the eyes.
Captain Qian ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I know…”
“I won’t blab. This is between you and Y/N. We all trust you to tell us what we need to know when we need to know it. But I think they need to know this for Y/N’s sake.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t want them accidentally triggering the failsafe or ordering her to do something.”
“Or another flying knife incident.”
“Fuck, that too…” He swore, looking up to the ceiling as he tried not to imagine your head randomly exploding at mess one morning. The captain focused back on his crewmate. “Are you about done with her like this?”
Liu stood up, setting the positronic Allen key onto the countertop next to your head. “Yep.”
“See you at mess, Liu.” The captain nodded to him as the roboticist moved to leave, closing the door behind him.
The captain picked up the Allen Key, gently lifting and turning your head to be able to access the base of your skull. He slid the key into place as he’d seen Liu do twice now, pressing the side with the pentagon to your skin until the coin buzzed twice against his fingertips. Setting the key aside, he delicately placed your head back down.
This time, you could tell that time had passed. Kun was standing above you, in the process of letting your head go, so tenderly, and you didn’t quite remember him grabbing it, but you didn’t not remember him grabbing it. You blinked slowly, eyes following him as he stepped back politely.
“Y/N?” He said your name quietly, holding your gaze. “You with me?”
“Yeah, Kun,” you replied, slowly sitting up. “I’m here…”
“How much of that were you actually hearing?”
“All my systems were operative but not talking to each other. I could hear you guys, but I wasn’t actually processing what you were saying.”
“Sounds like Wong in our briefings,” Kun joked dryly, and you let out a half-hearted chuckle. When tense silence fell over the two of you, he cleared his throat and continued, “Anyway, Liu thinks we have to be careful with our words when discussing certain things about your amnesia or Aegeum, and that the headache is a failsafe is to keep us from prying too far.”
You tried to argue, “I can deal with a headache if it helps—”
“Y/N, it’s not just a bad migraine. It’s a self-destruct button. And pushing it wouldn’t help us at all.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So we’re going to leave it alone, alright?”
“No picking at the scab.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “Exactly.”
“I-I think I’d like to go back to our room,” you said weakly.
“I’ll go with you.”
When you woke up from your midday nap, you weren’t expecting Kun to still be in the room, honestly. But there he was, sat at the desk with the paperback book from Aegeum, having turned the chair around to face the bed. As you stirred, he dog-eared his page and set the book aside. You yawned and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes for the second time that day.
He stood up and moved to sit on the edge of the mattress, offering you a tentative smile. “Hey.”
“Hey…” You echoed hesitantly.
Kun inhaled through his nose, then exhaled through his mouth before drawing his eyes up to meet yours and setting his shoulders. “Whatever kind of impulses and signals fire in me that my brain interprets as love, I don’t question those. If the best word you have for what’s going in you is love, it’s not my place to question that either. I’m not the gatekeeper of the word.”
You held his gaze steadily. “Do you think I only love you because of the First Law?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Can you live with yourself not knowing?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sure this has been a lot for you too, I won’t push you for an answer right now,” you said quietly, slinging your feet over the side of the bed to stand up.
As you made your first step towards the door, hand outstretched to grab the handle, Kun spoke up, “I…”
You stopped, your hand falling back down to your side as you turned back to look at him curiously. “What is it?”
“Never mind.” He rushed to shake his head.
“You were going to ask something, weren’t you?”
“It’s okay. You were going.”
“You can ask. I know the difference between question that I can say no to, and an order.”
He still hesitated.
“You’ve seen me say no, haven’t you? Even to you, when there was no danger. Think.”
Kun finally nodded. “You’re right.”
“So?”
“I want— Could you… Would you mind… staying, for a little bit? You don’t have to… you can sit over on the other bed, or at the desk, or leave, or whatever you want, but…”
“I want to be around you too, Kun,” you said the words that you knew he couldn’t bring himself to for fear of it being too forceful, sitting back down next to him, closer than before. “Even if… you don’t know what to do about it.”
He swallowed thickly, and you saw his jaw tighten. You held your hand out for him, watching as he slowly put his on top.
You woke up first in the morning. From where your head rested on your pillow, you could see Kun’s own sleeping form in the bottom bunk of the other bed. Yesterday had been a bittersweet time: he told you about the book he was reading, you shared what you’d learned about the latest subject you’d been perusing, you gave him his injections, and the two of you had been unable to leave each other. Until it was time to go to sleep, and then Kun wordlessly got under the sheets on the other side of the room.
Slipping out of your cabin, you started down the halls of the ship. You had no particular destination in mind, thinking that maybe you’d go to the observation deck before eventually meandering over to the kitchen for mess, but more-so wanting to stretch your legs and let your mind ruminate. Your positronic mind. Even that thought alone was something you were still turning over.
As you passed by the robotics lab, however, you weren’t expecting to see light coming from under the door. Stopping, you gently turned the handle and pushed it open, finding it unlocked. Yangyang—or who you assumed to be Yangyang, as their face was completely covered by a welding mask—was at one of the workstations, welding something together as sparks flew up around his hands, and you squinted, covering your eyes against the brightness.
“Hey, Yangyang,” you announced your presence.
He perked up towards the sound of your voice, and waved his hand that was holding the robot piece in it. “Oh, hey, Y/N.”
“Are you busy?”
“Does it look like I am?” He gestured to the materials in front of him.
You looked over the countertops that seemed more cluttered than normal, welding tools that he was actively using, and robot part that was still in his hand. “I mean, yeah, kind of.”
“Nah, come in.” He waved you in, setting his tools and project down as you stepped further in. Still aware of how early it was in the morning, you shut the door behind you. The roboticist took his welding mask off, putting that aside and mussing his hair up with his fingers. “I really am sorry about the other day, by the way. Giving you an order.”
“Oh, that’s not why I’m here.”
“I didn’t think it was, but I still wanted to apologize. I needed to do it, but it was still a shitty thing. So I’m sorry. I’d do it again, to save your life, but I’ll apologize after every time.”
You tilted your head curiously. “Then what’s the point of apologizing?”
“Because you deserve one,” he said sincerely, firmly.
“Well, thanks. For saving me, and apologizing, I guess.”
“So, what do you need?” He changed his tone, throwing on a bright smile.
You took a deep breath, pulling up another stool to sit across the counter from him. “Do you think I can love?”
“From a robotics standpoint, I don’t know enough about how you’re constructed to be able to say much about what you can do.” He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the tabletop, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. “But that doesn’t matter. Ever since humans invented the idea of love, we’ve been debating about if it’s real, what it is, trying to study it, sell it, whatever.”
“Sounds like you don’t think it’s real.”
“Sure it is. As real as any abstract, undefinable concept is,” he shrugged. “Humans like to think they’re special. It was only in recent human history that we even learned that we weren’t the only intelligent species in the universe. And even then, there were some people who said that surely what sets us apart from them is that humans are the only species capable of love. And when we finally got translators proficient enough and could talk to them and we found out that they had the concept of love too, then it became that humans are the only ones capable of real love. Whatever that is.”
“The other species might’ve been thinking that about humans, too.”
“True.” He tapped his thumbs together thoughtfully, then continued, “My old roboethics prof, he used to say something: There’s no true metalman.”
“What does it mean?” You asked curiously.
“It’s a play on ‘no true Scotsman,’ which is a logical fallacy. The fallacy itself is kind of irrelevant. But it means there’s no such thing as a pure robot, free of human influence. That no matter how hard a roboticist may try, they’ll unintentionally leave some trace of themselves in whatever they create. There is always some human choice to be made at some point in the process. Some cases are more obvious than others, like early robots that had more limited built-in vocabularies talking like their creators, or a roboticist making seemingly arbitrary aesthetic decisions for a robot’s head features then his buddy walks in and jokes that it kind of looks like the first guy’s ex-wife.”
You blinked. “Did that really happen?”
“It’s an ‘everyone knows a guy who worked with a guy who…’ kind of thing,” he explained. “Anyway, my point is that I don’t think it’s so hard to imagine that a species so obsessed with love might, intentionally or not, make something that loves too.”
You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth, thinking about the difference in Kun from before and after you went into repair stasis. “Is that what you told Kun?”
“What?” Yangyang’s confusion seemed genuine.
“I don’t know, I figured he would’ve talked to you about it,” you mumbled, looking down at your hands.
“No, he hasn’t.” After a moment, he added, “For what it’s worth, I think if he was to be taking my word about if you can love over yours… that wouldn’t be a great sign?”
You let out a choked laugh. “What does it mean that I’m asking you that then?”
“You’re someone who knew so little about yourself in the first place and now feels like you’ve had all that turned on its head. You’re doing what you’ve always done: Asking questions. I think that’s perfectly fair.”
“You don’t think I’ve completely lost what little sense of self I had?”
��I think you might feel like that—I can’t read your mind—but this doesn’t make the Y/N we got to know on Aegeum a figment of our imagination. You weren’t pretending to be our friend.”
“You don’t think that was the First Law?”
“The flying knife and the ceiling, definitely First Law behavior,” he conceded. “But I’ve met some rude, unhelpful robots before, trust me.”
“When did you know?” You asked. “That I wasn’t completely human?”
“I suspected something from when they found you untouched with no memories. I thought you were an android with a busted memory core. But then you bled.”
“I thought androids didn’t exist.”
“They don’t, but it’s the best I could come up with. No way was I expecting that they had actually developed a functioning humanoid before the first android.”
“Maybe they did but they didn’t survive.”
“Oh, you see, now that’s sad,” Yangyang clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Don’t make me think about that.”
“Sorry,” you chuckled a little, then went to change the topic. “So what were you working on?”
As Yangyang began explaining the personal project he had been tinkering with when you walked in, you let your seemingly ever-present problems fade into the background, eagerly listening to his enthusiastic words.
After breakfast, you took an extra plate of food to Kun’s office, knocking firmly on the closed door. When ZEN had called him for mess earlier, the AI reported back that he didn’t want to be disturbed, and the other six of you were to eat without him.
“Come in,” he voiced from within.
You entered, spotting him at the desk, hunched over reports with his head in his hand. “You missed breakfast.”
“Sorry, I… thinking.”
“About?” You asked, setting his food on the only empty space left on his desk.
“Thanks,” he took the food, moving some of his papers aside to put the plate front and center. “The Skippers that were on Aegeum, we still don’t know why they were there.”
“No, we don’t. Or why they were flying Fishead pods instead of their own ships.”
“I was just re-reading this report from the Admiral from before we entered slipspace. List of attacks by Fishead pirates, but there’s something off about a couple of them. The targets are all UHN scientific sites, not military vessels or trade outposts, and nothing was pillaged. Just destroyed.”
You tilted your head thoughtfully. “Were any K’llor spotted at the attacks, or only their ships?”
“It looks like they were just aerial attacks, cannon blasts. So, it would seem like a no.”
“If we assume those weren’t K’llor pirates driving those pods, and were actually more Skippers looking to destroy rather than plunder…”
“Two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern.”
You sat in one of the chairs across his desk from him. “Were the facilities bigger or smaller than Aegeum?”
“Sites, not facilities,” Kun corrected you. “They weren’t even buildings. One was an unmanned space station in orbit around a meteor. It was ran entirely by robots, so it had no defenses. The other was a solar farm installed on a colony planet. They left the city it was powering alone.”
“So… no fatalities?”
“None. The city that lost their solar farm is running on back-up generators until the solar farm gets fixed.”
“If they were all Skippers, and they were all together, then what the hell happened on Aegeum?”
“They may not be in the same faction. Or they may have been at some point, then diverged only recently because of… differing ideals.”
“Still makes you wonder how they ended up at Aegeum in the first place…” You mused. “Doesn’t seem like a place you could really stumble upon accidentally.”
“No, not particularly.” Kun shook his head. After a beat of silence of him pushing food around on his plate and you silently mulling over what you had just been talking about, he changed the subject, “You got up early this morning.”
“Yeah, I was thinking, too.”
“…About?”
You shifted forward in your chair, resting your elbows on the desk in front of you and folding your arms together. “I understand that you’re worried about my having a lack of… choice in the matter, when it comes to this. And I can appreciate the sentiment, Kun, and where that concern stems from. But don’t you think, that in unilaterally ending our relationship supposedly for my own good, that also takes away my agency? The thing that you’re so worried about me keeping through all of this?”
Kun’s fork stilled over his food, and he swallowed as he held your gaze steadily. He slowly nodded, the weight of your words clearly resting heavily in the creases of his forehead. “I-I didn’t think of it like that. I’m sorry.”
“Do you trust me to make my own decisions? Even about this? Or do you really just think of me as a mindless, obedient robot?”
“No, I don’t think of you like that. God, Y/N, of course I don’t,” he denied, his voice troubled.
“Then you have to trust me to make decisions about us, too. You can’t just make them for me.”
“I…” He opened and closed his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words. “Can I digest this? Think, before we keep talking?”
“Of course,” you agreed, well aware of the gravity of your questions. Hopefully, your next ask would be lower impact, “Yangyang asked me to stop by the shop after breakfast, I’d like you to come with me, if you can.”
Kun gave you a small smile. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“No, she’s not something for you to experiment on,” Kun rejected Yangyang’s idea as soon as he had started pitching it, his voice biting.
“She’s all we have left of what they were doing,” Yangyang replied, gesturing to you zealously.
The captain stepped in between you and Yangyang, his fists clenched down by his sides. “Exactly. Don’t you think Y/N’s had enough people studying her? You’re not going to put her under your microscope next.”
You looked at your friend from around Kun, shaking your head for him to drop it for now. Yangyang held his hands up and started backing away towards the door of the lab. “I’m going to grab a juice…”
Kun watched him leave, his chest heaving with deep breaths.
“Kun… what’s wrong?” You asked calmly.
“What?” He looked back at you.
“You’re shaking.” You gently picked up one of his trembling hands.
“I’m angry,” he answered shortly. “Why aren’t you?”
“He’s trying to help.”
“Did you see his face? Liu’s just found a new toy. You’re not just some… specimen to be studied.”
“This is his field of study, he’s allowed some interest, I think. And I don’t think that’s all he thinks of me.” You watched as Kun started pacing, running a hand through his hair, visibly agitated. “You’re thinking about your program, aren’t you?”
He sighed bitterly. “We weren’t people to him. Especially not the discards.”
“That makes me angry.” Your blood simmered just hearing him talk about himself like that, so casually, as if it were an objective truth. “You’re not… disposable, Kun. You hold your crew together, and I… treasure you.”
“God…” Kun looked up at the ceiling again, and it was then that you saw tears forming at the corners of his eyes as they reflected the lights above him.
“Yangyang is not Dr. Yoon,” you said firmly.
He stopped his pacing, hung his head, then nodded. “No, he’s not. He’s a good kid.”
“Exactly.”
“Y/N…” He said your name weakly, desperately, looking up from his feet to your face. You saw the tear tracks on his cheeks.
“Yes?”
“It’s true, that you were created by Dr. Yoon. I wasn’t letting myself think about that earlier. But I don’t hate you.” He didn’t falter in his words in the slightest, determined, resolute, his mind made up. “You are probably the only good thing that has come out of that man’s existence.”
“I might’ve done awful things, back at the lab,” you said, warning him.
“Yeah…” He shrugged one shoulder almost sheepishly. “And I work for the head of Intelligence at the UHN, right now. Do you think my hands are clean?”
“I’ve never thought they are.”
“You’ve always been able to just see me. I’m sorry I was refusing to see you before, but I’m looking now, I promise.”
“Can you live with yourself? Not ever knowing… if it’s the First Law?”
“Roboethicists and robopsychologists can talk themselves to death on that, I don’t care. You were right. I wasn’t giving you any sort of autonomy by making a decision like this for you. So…” He inhaled softly, but in the dead quiet of the room, you could hear every rustle of fabric, every breath, every step he took closer to you. Kun held a hand out towards you. “I can’t offer you anything close to a normal life. Or really anything at all. Other than me.”
“That’s all I can give, too. Myself. You can accept that I am in love with you, whatever that means to me, just as I accept that you love me, however that reality presents itself to you. But…” You looked down at his hand, then back up at him. “Do you want whatever a robot’s love is?”
“You are more than enough, Y/N,” he pleaded.
You took his hand. “So are you.”
“All of you, how you were made, what you very well could have done, what you are… You are more than enough,” he repeated like a prayer, pulling you in closer at the same time that he stepped forward and wrapped his other arm around you, as if he hadn’t seen you in several lifetimes, holding you to him with a crushing strength that you hadn’t experienced from him before. You hugged him back as tight as you could, so he knew it was real, that you were real, and that you were here.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing his lips to your cheek. “I’m sorry—”
“No, Kun,” you hushed him. “We both needed time. It’s okay. Thank you, for trying to do what you thought was best for me.”
“Are you sure about this? What Liu wants to do?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” You pulled back from Kun’s embrace to look him in the eye. “I’m the proof. I was built there, and if we want to know what they were doing, we have to study me. I wouldn’t trust anybody more than you guys to do it.”
He cradled your cheek. “You’ll tell us as soon as your head hurts? You cannot push through the failsafe, Y/N.”
“I will, I promise,” you agreed, wiping at the drying tears on his cheeks. “I like my head in one piece.”
He stroked his thumb over your skin gently. “Yeah, me too.”
“Alright, ZEN,” you called out to the AI. “Can you get Yangyang back here?”
“Lieutenant Liu has been loitering outside the entrance for the past two minutes,” ZEN informed you.
“Of course,” Kun sighed, stepping away and turning towards the door. “Liu!”
Yangyang traipsed in, a nondescript juicebox in his hand. “Reporting for duty, Captain.”
“Explain your idea again, please.”
“Right, so, every robot’s positronic brain has a unique imprinting of positronic pathways,” the roboticist started. “New copies of the same model that are fresh off the assembly line might be nearly identical to begin with, but as they’re exposed to new stimuli, learn new things beyond their base impressions, those pathways will diverge and change.”
“So kind of like a fingerprint?” Kun asked.
“If your fingerprint changed after you learned trig for the first time, sure.”
“You want to look at the pathways in my brain closer,” you said. “Will you be able to figure out what I was imprinted with and what has been… divergence?”
“That’ll be a little bit of trial and error,” Yangyang replied regretfully. “I mean, I can assume that you were imprinted with knowledge of Outspacer, and obviously you’ve had to learn who we are… and using your brain’s positronic flows from those, I can start building a functional image of your pathways.”
“How will you access her brain?” Kun questioned. “You’re not going to open her skull, surely.”
“No, no,” the other man shook his head. “Y/N, still got that positronic Allen key on you?”
You reached into your pocket for the tool that Kun had returned to you yesterday. “Had a feeling we might be needing this. Diagnostic stasis or repair stasis?”
“Diagnostic. Sorry. But, I’m hoping you have a secondary active diagnostic stasis. If not, doing a functional positronic pathway image will be pretty much impossible, since you won’t be able to respond to any stimuli.”
Kun narrowed his eyes. “What’s the difference between this and the repair stasis, then?”
“Loss of muscle tone and level of awareness.” Yangyang took the tool from you, then grabbed a nearby notebook and pencil. “An active diagnostic stasis will keep you pretty much frozen in place unless you’re executing an order, Y/N. And you’ll be fully conscious. You ready?”
You sat up on the countertop. “Yeah, ready when you are.”
“Woah, wait,” Kun interjected before the positronic Allen key could be brought anywhere near your head. “What sorts of orders will you be giving her?”
“I won’t be giving any,” Yangyang answered defensively. “Just having her react to stimuli. It’ll look like we’re having an interview, kind of. Or a conversation.”
You gestured to one of the stools that was nearby. “Kun…”
He seemed to get the idea, pulling it up closer to your side and sitting down. Yangyang, meanwhile, rolled his stool in front of you, bringing with him his notebook, pencil, and the Allen key.
“I’ll probably have you help me, Captain, if that’s alright with you,” your friend kept talking as he flipped open to a new page, then leaned in towards you with the Allen key. “I’d love to map what the positronic flow of love looks like.”
This time, he found the spot at the base of your skull with precision, lining up the Allen key deftly. Kun watched the movements of his hand closely as he responded, “Just… having a conversation?”
Their voices faded out as your muscles froze up for a moment, then faded back in, before Yangyang drew his hand away from you and sat back in his stool. You still couldn’t move, but you could listen in on their conversation once again.
“…nothing weird, Liu,” Kun finished whatever warning he had been giving.
“Of course not, Captain,” Yangyang grinned, then turned to you. “Hey, Y/N. So you’re in active diagnostic stasis right now. We’re going to get started. Can you tell me your name?”
“Y/N,” you replied automatically.
“Great.” He sketched something onto his notebook, then grabbed a tablet from the counter. After a few taps, he turned it around to show you the screen. “Can you read this for me?”
It only took you a moment to read the Outspacer glyph. “Grain.”
“Cool.” He swiped, then showed you another. “This one?”
“River.”
“This?”
“Emergency communication.”
He set the tablet aside, grinning as he looked back down at his notebook. “Fantastic.” Then, he asked, “What did you have for breakfast today?”
“Oatmeal.”
“Who sat on your left at breakfast?”
“Corporal Wong Kunhang.”
“And who sat directly across from you?”
“Lieutenant Xiao Dejun.”
“Who did you meet first? Corporal Wong or Lieutenant Xiao?”
You were quiet, unable to formulate your response.
“Y/N?” Yangyang said your name. “Do you understand the question?”
“It’s unclear.”
“That’s okay, I’ll rephrase: Who did you encounter first in your life? Corporal Wong or Lieutenant Xiao? Regardless of if you knew their identity at the time.”
“Corporal Wong.”
“And who personally introduced themselves to you first? Corporal Wong or Lieutenant Xiao?”
“Lieutenant Xiao.”
Yangyang nodded, his pencil never stopping once while you were talking. “Great. What’s my name?”
“Lieutenant Liu Yangyang.”
“And where did you meet us? Myself, Corporal Wong, and Lieutenant Xiao.”
“Aegeum.”
“Who are the other members of our unit?”
“Staff Sergeant Ten Lee, Captain Qian Kun, Professor Dong Sicheng, and ZEN.”
“I’m going to have Captain Qian talk to you for a minute now.” Yangyang rolled out of your view.
Kun scooted into your vision, offering you a soft smile as he met your eyes. “Hey, Y/N…”
“She needs a more direct prompt if you want her to respond verbally, Captain. Either a question or an order,” Yangyang said.
“Shut up, Liu,” he responded through gritted teeth. After taking a deep breath, he addressed you gently, “Uhm, do you remember the story I told you about my parents? What my dad built for my mom?”
“A greenhouse, because your mother wanted to grow strawberries, but the climate on Dura-Jil was too cold.”
“Yeah, and—”
“I read about greenhouses.”
That seemed to catch Kun off-guard. “Wait, really? Why? We have ag bubbles.”
“I wanted to understand what love means to you.”
“Because I said when I think about what love is, I think about him building her a greenhouse.” He nodded in understanding.
“It’s an involved process, requiring a lot of thought and planning. Your father must have had to go to great lengths to get many of the materials for it on Dura-Jil.”
“My dad was an architect. I don’t think I’ve told you that, have I?”
“No.”
“That’s why we were one of the first families on Dura-Jil, he was overseeing the construction of the buildings. He was a civilian contractor with the UHN.” Kun cleared his throat, then said, “Liu has a few more questions for you, okay?”
Then Yangyang was back in front of you. “What other topics have you read about while you’ve been on the Vision?”
Kun brought the positronic Allen key down from your head, his eyes watching your face very carefully. You blinked, readjusting in your spot and rolling out your shoulders. You could recall your entire lengthy conversation with them, thought the memories felt slightly hazy, as if you had been half-asleep the entire time.
“Alright, I’ve—”
“Sorry, would you mind if I stood up while you talked?” You interrupted Yangyang sheepishly. “It feels like I’ve been sitting for a while…”
“Yeah, of course.”
Kun helped you off the counter, his hand hovering over you cautiously as you stood, until he seemed sure that your muscles would support you. Your limbs felt just fine, no aches in them, but you felt the need to move your joints around again.
“So I’ve got your positronic pathways mapped out,” Yangyang announced giddily, gripping his notebook with two hands.
“How could you even measure that though? All we did was talk, you didn’t have anything attached to me, and you couldn’t see my brain,” you asked curiously, grabbing one of your arms to stretch it across your chest.
“You were indicating the positronic flows with your fingers.”
“Wait, really?” You looked down at your hands.
“Yeah, it looked like you were playing the piano on your knees the whole time,” Kun replied, his brow furrowed. “You didn’t feel that?”
“No, I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”
Yangyang’s face lit up. “We should totally do this again with a piano under your hands! Hearing the positronic pathways as music? That’d be so cool!”
“Liu, focus,” Kun said sternly.
“Right, anyway. Here it is!” He turned the notebook around for you to see what he had been sketching.
You couldn’t tell what you were looking at. It definitely didn’t look like a human brain, or even what the components on the x-ray had looked like. If anything, it looked like some combination of abstract art and quantum physics. Intersecting curved lines, straight lines, circles, the occasional indication of a charge or other scientific symbol, some numbers. It was fascinating to look at, and sort of beautiful in a strange way, but you definitely wouldn’t be able to identify it as a brain, much less your brain, without being told that.
“…What was the point of this?” Kun asked frankly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It looks very complex,” you added. “What does it tell you? And what will you be able to do with it?”
“Well, first of all, the degree complexity is interesting. You see these more condensed areas?” He gestured to a few areas on the page where the drawing was more congested with information than others. “We call those nodules. Some robots’ impressions will only have two nodules: The Three Laws, and then whatever their pre-programmed job is. Those are basic robots, meant to do one thing. You have a lot, as well as sub-nodules, but I also watched you gain a sub-nodule in real time as we were mapping.”
“What sub-nodule?”
“When you were talking to the captain, he gave you new information about himself, about his dad, his family,” Yangyang rambled on with enthusiasm. “What a thrill… Anyway, you’re very dynamic.”
“Uh, thank you?”
He laughed. “You’re welcome. But also, that means something when it comes to positronic brain construction. You’re able to construct new nodules and sub-nodules on your own, as well as modify or combine existing ones when presented with new information. Pretty advanced stuff. You obviously weren’t designed to be a one-trick pony. You don’t have the most nodules I’ve ever seen in a positronic brain, but you had all your non-impressed knowledge wiped, to be fair. By my estimate, you’ll surpass that other brain in… a couple weeks maybe?”
“How old was the other brain? With… more nodules?” You asked curiously, hoping you were using the jargon correctly.
“Several years old.” He beamed. “And, I was able to confirm that you were ordered to wipe everything that wasn’t impressed. You see, when data is wiped from a robot, the data itself can be entirely erased. However, it’s like leveling a house. The house may no longer be there, but the foundation is still in the ground. The positronic pathways from when the robot did have that data still exist, sort of.”
“You can see the pathways from the data that I wasn’t impressed with, but you can’t tell what that data was?”
He nodded. “The pathways are there, but since they haven’t been used, they’re degraded.”
“We have no clue what the house looked like just because we can see the foundation,” Kun sighed.
“Exactly.”
“This degradation,” the captain continued. “Is it bad? For her?”
“No.” Yangyang quickly shook his head. “They weren’t for any sort of sort of critical functions, as those would’ve been in her factory impressions, and they won’t spread to any other pathways that are currently being used.”
“Good.”
“Did this tell you anything about Aegeum?” You questioned nervously.
The roboticist tapped the eraser end of his pencil to his paper. “This is one of the most advanced positronic brains I’ve seen, and I’d love do another mapping in the future, if you’d let me.”
“Why does it sound like you’re hedging, Liu?” Kun cut in.
“But… I can only learn so much under the current circumstances.”
“You’re not opening her skull up.”
“That’s not what I was going to say!” He defended himself. “I meant… she’s not a robot. I can’t study her like one. I’m not even 100% what parts of her are flesh and blood and which aren’t, other than the positronic brain.”
“Do you think we should call Dejun here too?” You suggested.
Kun hesitated. “Why?”
“Well, we know I have a positronic brain, but the field scanner and the infirmary scanner thought I was plenty human enough when he tested me. And, I obviously bleed, sleep, and eat too.”
“She’s right. We thought we were on the trail of… something else down on Aegeum. Getting a doctor’s second opinion on the fleshy parts couldn’t hurt,” Yangyang offered his support.
Kun approached you, holding your gaze seriously. “Are you sure about this? The more people know…”
“I trust Dejun,” you affirmed. “I trust all of you.”
“Go get him, Liu,” Kun directed. ZEN had been put on a blackout again for the actual mapping, meaning that he couldn’t just ask the AI to page him.
“On it!”
“You’re fucking with me,” Dejun deadpanned.
“Nope.” Yangyang shook his head, feet kicked up on one of his workbenches, having just explained why he’d dragged the doctor to the robotics lab.
“Y/N doesn’t get Earth humor, fine. But how did you get the captain to go along with this weird as fuck joke, Liu?” Dejun pointed to where you and Kun were standing off to the side.
“It’s not a prank!”
“She bleeds!”
“I know.”
“And breathes! And sleeps! And eats! And has vitals that can be picked up by diagnostic scanners!”
“Those only look for the presence of an illness or disease, right? Or abnormal heartrate or breathing?” Yangyang pointed out.
“Yeah…”
“So, an absence of certain things wouldn’t register. She’s got a heart and lungs, as best I can guess.” He continued, “Positronic brain confirmed. Everything else… we’re a bit less certain about.”
Your friend looked over at you, squinting in clear confusion, then back to Yangyang. “I… Huh?”
“Need a consult, Doc,” Yangyang grinned.
You sat down again for Dejun to start his exam. He brought over a few things from the infirmary, one of which was an ordinary stethoscope. He put the earpieces in his ears, then held the other end up to your chest. Everyone was silent as he listened.
“Yeah, okay, heartbeat. It’s… normal. Normal resting heartrate,” he murmured. “I’m going to listen to your breathing now.” He moved it to another place on your chest and paused again. After a moment, he switched it to his other hand and gently touched the back of your shoulder. “Forward.”
You leaned forward for him to reposition the stethoscope, and at the same time out of the corner of your eye, you could see Kun tense up and unfold his arms.
“Xiao,” Yangyang said urgently.
“What?” Dejun paused, sounding annoyed to have been interrupted.
“The Three Laws. Careful with your requests,” the roboticist reminded him.
“Don’t order her around,” Kun said more bluntly.
Dejun blinked and looked down at you, clearly startled out of his usual routine for an exam like this. “Oh. Right, sorry. Forgot you were… Sorry, Y/N.”
“It’s fine, Dejun,” you reassured him. “I didn’t… It didn’t process like an order.”
“I need to listen to your breath sounds. Can you take a few deep breaths for me?” He requested, looking between Kun, you, and Yangyang hesitantly, as if to see if he had said that correctly. When you felt him place the stethoscope on your back, you breathed in then out, deeply, as he had asked. After a few breaths, he said, “Okay, and normal breathing now?”
You evened out your breathing again, and he listened for a few moments, then drew back. Dejun took the earpieces out and hung the stethoscope around his neck, putting his hands on his hips.
“Well?” You prompted him.
“Those were definitely lung sounds. And I mean, you’ve already breathed into my field scanner, so I don’t know if it would’ve made more or less sense for you to not have them,” he declared. Next, he tested all your reflexes, then contraction and dilation of your pupils. “You have a heart, lungs, a circulatory system of some kind, and immune system, since you haven’t been bleeding uncontrollably from that cut you got. I’ve personally seen you eat, drink, sneeze, cough, and at least a dozen other normal, involuntary human reflexes.”
“Oh, about the cut…” You grabbed the end of your bandages, quickly unwinding them and taking off the pristine gauze that was underneath. Turning your hand, you displayed your unmarred palm.
Dejun took your arm to look at it closer, then looked at your other one as if to double-check that he was looking at the correct one. He held it up closer to one of Yangyang’s table lamps, running his fingertip over where the cut should have been.
“No scar?” He pushed on it with his thumb in disbelief. “Pain? Tightness? Muscle or tissue damage?”
“No, nothing. It’s been like this since the day after I cut it. I don’t know exactly how fast it healed, but it was less than a day.”
“Seriously?”
“I saw it when I went to change her first bandage. It was like nothing ever happened,” Kun confirmed.
“That’s…” Dejun trailed off and sighed. “Again, I don’t know if that makes more or less sense than her healing at a normal speed.”
“My turn,” Yangyang stood up, walking over to the x-ray machine that had started this whole thing. “Since the captain made me destroy the last image I took—Y/N, you mind?”
“Oh, sure.” You followed him.
“This is why you took my portable head x-ray machine?” Dejun asked incredulously as Yangyang got you situated, then went back over to his computer. “I thought you were just being a weirdo and wanted x-rays of your own head!”
“Xiao…” Kun’s voice held an air of warning. “Next time Liu is ‘being a weirdo’ like that, let me know.”
The process was as quick and painless as before, and you all gathered around Yangyang’s screen as the images processed and loaded up. Despite knowing what it looked like, somehow, you were still as baffled as before. Like there was still some part of you expecting a human brain. You didn’t know if it was the old order conflicting with your personal knowledge, or if you just couldn’t believe that that was your brain that you were looking at.
“Holy shit,” Dejun breathed out.
“Positronic brain,” Yangyang declared, as if it weren’t apparent enough to the doctor that he wasn’t looking at a human brain.
“Alright, I believe you now.”
Kun cleared his throat. “Liu—”
“Yep, deleting right now,” Yangyang quickly erased all the films he had just taken.
“Who knows?” Dejun asked you.
“Just the people in this room,” you informed him. “Even ZEN’s knowledge is somewhat limited, he’s on blackout right now.”
Dejun’s eyes strayed over to the captain.
“I’ve suspended us in slipspace and haven’t reported a word of this to Admiral Lee,” Kun answered his unspoken question, clearly bristling at the implication. “Nor do I intend to. Our story stays the same: We found a human survivor on Aegeum with amnesia.”
“I’d like to take some samples, if that’s alright.” Dejun’s focused back on you. “Blood, cheek swab, nothing invasive.”
“Sure,” you agreed.
Dejun took the cheek swab first, then prepared your arm to take the blood sample. Unlike the field scanner, which just needed a pinprick from your finger to get a quick rundown of your vitals, he apparently needed a bit more for the tests he wanted to run this time.
“Y/N, what you were saying earlier, about not processing Dejun telling you to sit forward like an order, what do you mean by that?” Yangyang asked as Dejun wrapped a band around your upper arm.
“I mean, I guess I knew that it was a request and not an order? Like, it didn’t shut me down like the order you gave me. I did what he asked, but there was no reason for me not to, you know?” You explained, trying your best to articulate the difference between the two experiences.
Yangyang tilted his head, his eyes once again glittering with that studious fascination. “How did you know it wasn’t an order?”
“I mean, his tone of voice, and the context? He was giving me directions for the exam, but it wasn’t really an order, right?”
“Oh my God…”
“What? She’s right. I wouldn’t have forced her to lean forward if she said no for some reason. I definitely didn’t think I was ordering her around,” Dejun scoffed, preparing the needle and collection tube. “Y/N, small pinch.”
You felt when the needle pierced your skin, but your focus was still on Yangyang, who was now pacing the room and gesturing furtively.
“Well, early robots did everything that any human told them to do, usually very literally. No room for sarcasm, no nuance. All orders were of the same level of importance. Then, they started being able to prioritize based on who gave an order, as they were given capabilities to create hierarchies of people in relation to themselves—only for the Second Law.” He then pointed to you. “But Y/N is the first I’ve heard of not only deciphering tone and context, but also then using that to determine if she was actually given an order or not.”
“So… what we do? Understanding social cues?” Kun arched an eyebrow, seeming unimpressed.
“That almost sounds like she doesn’t have a Second Law. Or at least not a very effective one, if she can think her way around it,” Dejun added skeptically. Having finished, he held a cotton ball to the site as he untied the band around your arm. “Here, I’ll get you a band-aid.”
“I don’t think you need to,” you reminded him quietly.
Dejun tentatively lifted up the cotton swab, and sure enough, there wasn’t any indication that you had just had a needle in your arm. No bruising, no blood, no small pinprick hole to be found. He silently nodded, turning away and bringing his materials with him.
Yangyang continued with his explanation, “Okay, think of it like this. We’re given a command, and based on tone, context, word choice, and other social cues, come to the conclusion that it’s an order. Despite knowing it’s an order, we can still choose not to obey it. Y/N, on the other hand, once she determines that she’s been given an order, she has to follow through. Like she said before, the Second Law shuts down her other systems until she’s executed it.”
“I’m not sitting there thinking it through like that… but yes, I think so,” you agreed.
“It all happens in less than a millisecond, like it does for us.”
Kun rubbed his face thoughtfully. “So she still has a Second Law, but what other robots might interpret as an order, and would therefore trigger their Second Law, Y/N might not interpret as an order, and wouldn’t have her Second Law triggered?”
“Exactly. Makes for much more natural interactions, especially if you want to treat the not-quite-robot you’ve made uh, not like a robot.”
“So, you guys think Y/N was… made there? On Aegeum?” Dejun asked, wincing over the word ‘made.’
“That’s the… working hypothesis,” Yangyang answered tentatively.
“So, she’s the proof of concept, then? Of the robot-people?”
You touched your forehead instinctively as a dull, familiar pain started up in your head again.
“Y/N?” Kun rested a hand on your back. “Your head?”
“Yeah…”
“We’re done,” he declared forcefully. No room for arguing.
Dejun looked between Kun ushering you to your feet, and Yangyang, who was watching the two of you somberly, with bewilderment and concern. “What’s—”
“I’ll explain in a minute, Xiao,” Yangyang said quietly. “Let the captain get Y/N out of here first.”
In your cabin, Kun sat you down on the single bed. He cupped your cheek to lift your gaze to him as he stood in front of you, eyes tracking over your face. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” you assured him, placing your hand over his. “You can’t be mad at Dejun, he didn’t know.”
“No, but I can be worried, and afraid of your head… of the fact that you have a self-destruct button that we can’t disarm.”
“I’m okay, Kun.”
“This time,” he added bitterly. “I get why you hate what I’ve been doing, with my enhancements degrading. The way I was acting. Why you called me a pathetic idiot. I don’t like seeing you like this either, especially when it doesn’t have to be happening.”
“You should tell the others, about me,” you said. “What I am, orders, the failsafe, everything.”
Kun sat down next to you. “Are you sure?”
“We didn’t know enough before. It would’ve been too much, for everyone. But we know enough to be able to tell them something, and to tell them what we don’t know. And you need to tell them everything. So nobody accidentally triggers the failsafe or gives me an order. Or asks why we aren’t at Earth in a week.”
He nodded with a resigned agreement. “And I have to tell them…”
“So you can speak candidly and they can ask whatever questions they need to. Without worrying about my head.”
“That’s not fair to you,” he stated.
You reached over to take his hand, lacing your fingers with his. “But it’s what will keep my head in one piece, isn’t it?”
Kun looked at the time on the wall clock above your cabin door. “There’s still a few hours before mess… Can I do it then?”
“Sure,” you chuckled. “Can I make a request in return?”
“Of course.”
“Will you sing for me?”
He looked at you with genuine shock. “Excuse me?”
“When you and Yangyang were talking about the piano earlier, I realized… I’ve never heard music.”
“God damn it… Hold on.” Kun moved around until he was sitting up against the headboard, then gestured for you to come closer. “Come here.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to do this with you looking at me. So—” He once again motioned for you.
Reclined back against him, your head against his chest and his arms around your waist, you definitely could not see his face from this angle. You were looking out at the desk and the dresser, in fact.
You half-expected him to try to dissuade you again, as he cleared his throat from behind you. But instead, the next thing you heard was the quiet, uncertain beginnings of a hum. He slowly added more words to the tune, every so often dropping back into a hum. His voice never rose above a quiet murmur right beside your ear, a performance just for you. It was a simple melody, only a few notes, and repeated over the few verses. But you found yourself enthralled the whole time, never wanting it to end.
His soft singing faded out, and he cleared his throat again, signaling the end of the song.
“Can you sing it again? Please?” You didn’t dare look back, not wanting to startle him from fulfilling your request, but you grabbed his hands tightly, hoping to pass along your enthusiasm through your touch.
“Really? It was just a nursery rhyme my mom used to sing. I don’t think I’m even a very good singer…”
“I liked it.”
“Alright,” he sighed, a tinge of fondness in the word as he leaned forward to press a featherlight kiss to your cheek.
So far, this wasn’t as big of a shitstorm as Kun had been expecting, really. The crew who didn’t already know were understandably shocked, but ultimately, let the other three finish briefing them with minimal interruptions or questions.
“So Y/N’s a…” The Professor trailed off, looking to Liu to fill in.
“Humanoid,” the roboticist offered tentatively. “So far the only robotic part we’ve found is her brain.”
“You say that like she has a prosthetic pinky toe,” Ten retorted. “It’s her brain.”
“Ten, come on, dude. It’s Y/N,” Wong scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“I’m not saying we deactivate her or throw her in a cell or anything. I’m just trying to make sure we all understand the gravity of the situation.” The pilot sat forward in his chair. “She’s clearly the proof of concept that they were trying to preserve by doing a partial scrub. The question is what use is to she to them like this? No offense to her, Captain, I’m not calling her an idiot, I’m saying they erased her memories and convinced her she was a normal human. Whatever she was doing for them before the partial scrub, she doesn’t know how to do it now.”
“Maybe she has some component to whatever they were doing there that’s vital enough to risk her being discovered,” the Professor suggested.
“Right, Liu said they could have backed up her data externally. Maybe they were planning on this being temporary. They knew they were about to be found out for whatever they were doing, and had to get out, but couldn’t bring Y/N for whatever reason. So they make an external back-up of all her sensitive data with the intent of putting it back in later and, you know, picking back up where they left off. But they wipe it off her memory banks so if she’s found in the meantime, whoever finds her has nothing.”
Kun interjected here, “I’m telling you, Y/N didn’t—”
“You think they just kept one of the most advanced robots—sorry, humanoid—Liu has ever seen around a top-secret, illegal, unsanctioned lab for conversation?” Ten retorted, then seemed to catch himself, and added as an afterthought, “…Sir.”
“Captain, we all like Y/N…” Liu assured him.
“She’s one of us, just like ZEN,” Xiao jumped in to defend you as well.
“But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the fact that she was definitely involved in whatever was going on in that place. Somehow,” Ten argued.
“We don’t know how. Or if,” Kun reiterated forcefully.
The Professor quickly tried to smooth over the rising tensions in the room, “You’re right.”
“I mean, I just think it’s crazy that they took her memories from her—her entire life—and you guys are assuming that there’s going to be proof she did all this awful shit in there!” Kun was on his feet now, he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stay in his seat another moment, not when a righteous anger was electrifying every inch of his being now.
“And you’re assuming that it’s going to be the opposite.” Ten remained seated, but no less impassioned then before.
“No, I’m saying we don’t know! So we can’t just treat her like a criminal because we’re assuming she’s going to be one!”
“Nobody’s doing that,” Wong tried to placate the captain now. He repeated, “She’s one of us, Captain.”
“She’s not here. We’re talking about her without her. That doesn’t seem like she’s one of us,” Xiao stated bitterly.
“Right, so you want her head to rip itself apart from the inside?” Liu reminded him.
“I would have preferred to be able to have Y/N here as well, but we needed the ability to discuss this openly without risking her safety,” Kun said regretfully.
“I hate this,” the doctor announced.
The captain sighed. “So do I, Xiao.”
“Uh, I feel like we’re all forgetting something here?” Wong spoke up hesitantly.
“What?” Kun asked shortly.
“Y/N’s a robot… kind of. The First Law? She can’t hurt a human.”
“She could’ve not known what they were doing,” Ten immediately proposed.
“Then that blows a hole in your whole theory that she was crucial!” The captain retaliated.
“There’s been loopholes found in the First Law before. Robots who were convinced some kinds of people weren’t humans. Robots who were convinced that hurting individual humans for the greater good of humanity was okay. And then of course, we have robot surgeons,” ZEN gave his own incredibly helpful input at that moment.
“Did I ask for a fucking encyclopedia article?” Kun snapped at the AI.
The Professor waved his hands to get everybody’s attention, declaring, “This conversation is getting us nowhere.”
Kun stood up straighter and rolled out his neck, taking a deep breath to recenter himself. This was not the level-headed leader he wanted to be for his first crew. “The Professor’s right. This isn’t productive. I wanted to debrief you all now since we know more, and also for Y/N’s safety.”
“Yeah, what was Liu talking about her head ripping itself apart from inside?” Wong asked, clearly concerned.
“The failsafe, that we had mentioned earlier,” Liu took over explaining this part. “Specifically, the mechanism is in her head, and the best that we’ve been able to figure out, it’s to prevent anybody who may have found her in her amnesiac state from finding out too much about the experiments they were doing, while also having her, uhm, intact.”
“She gets headaches, usually around stuff having to do with the people-robots on Aegeum. That’s the failsafe. If you’re talking to Y/N, or within earshot of Y/N, and her head starts hurting even a little bit, shut the fuck up. Talk about anything else,” Kun instructed, deadly serious.
“So it’s like a game of hot or cold of if we’re on the right track?” Ten tilted his head curiously.
“A game that we’re not fucking playing,” Xiao smacked his teammate’s arm. “Because winning means Y/N’s head exploding.”
“Why do you people assume the worst of me? Fuck…” he grumbled, rubbing his bicep. “I was going to suggest that we could try to reconstruct what was being talked about when Y/N got her previous headaches. Not give her new ones.”
“ZEN, look through your archives,” Kun instructed. “Next: Orders. Do not give her a direct order.”
“Y/N’s really good at distinguishing what’s an order, or direction, or suggestion, or question,” Liu clarified. “But so far, it seems like the word ‘order’ triggers her Second Law.”
“So like, what can we say to her? Like, if I’m fixing the coffee maker—” Wong got interrupted by incredulous sounds from the others. “—and she’s closer to the wrench, can I ask her to hand me it?”
“Yes, you can say ‘Can you hand me the wrench?’” Kun affirmed. “Just don’t be demanding, and don’t use the word ‘order.’ Third: No flying knives.” He was practically boring holes into Wong with his eyes.
“I haven’t done any knife tricks since that happened!” Wong defended himself.
“That goes for everyone. No doing stupid shit that could get you hurt around her. I don’t care if you’re willing to risk slicing your finger off because you’re spinning a knife around, unless you’re also willing to risk slicing Y/N’s finger off, don’t do it.”
“First Law. She will intervene,” Liu added, in case they had somehow forgotten about your positronic brain the past ten seconds.
“Uh, Captain…?” The Professor tentatively raised his hand. “We’re on a pretty dangerous mission. Does this mean you've changed your mind about keeping Y/N aboard?”
Kun’s brows were furrowed as he evaluated the options in front of him, none of which seemed like good ones. “Leaving her somewhere else in order to keep her safe in regards to the Second Law would require briefing whoever she went with about what she is, which would put her in an entirely different kind of danger.”
“So she’s staying?”
“I wish there was a better option, but yes.” The captain watched the uncertain glances that his crew were exchanging. “I’m not asking that this affect the way you do your job. However, outside of the mission, when you’re around Y/N, don’t be doing stupid shit you don’t need to be doing. She’s not made of metal. If it’ll hurt you, it’ll hurt her.”
There were murmurs of agreement and head nods, and Kun let out the breath he’d been holding unwillingly.
“Any questions?”
After everyone else filtered out to go to mess, Kun remained on the bridge, sitting in his seat at the head of the table. He held his head in his hands as a hologram of a green cube materialized in front of him. The captain didn’t even react, continuing to stare through the transparent projection.
“I think that went well, Captain,” ZEN declared. Kun couldn’t tell if the AI was taking pity on him.
“If the crew can survive this, I think we can survive anything,” Kun stated, not sounding very optimistic about the chances. Shaking himself out of his despondent spiral, he asked, “Where’s Y/N? At mess?”
“I let her know the meeting was over and she thought it best to wait for you, Captain. She’s in your cabin.”
“Thanks, ZEN. I’ll go see her.”
Mess wasn’t as awkward as you had been expecting. Sure, the crew had some questions, especially when you took your first bite of food, but they were all pretty tame, and seemed to come from genuine curiosity, not suspicion.
“What else needs to be done before the slipdrive can be reactivated, Captain?” Ten asked between bites of food.
“Xiao, how long will your tests take?” Kun turned to the doctor.
“Should all be done by tomorrow,” Dejun answered.
“Liu, anything else pertinent that we need to take care of before arriving on Earth?”
The roboticist let out a puff of air as he looked up at the ceiling, thinking. After a moment, he brought his eyes back down and shook his head. “Nah, all clear here.”
“Pending the results of the tests that Xiao is running, we’ll be turning the slipdrive back to propulsion soon.”
That got them excited again, one step closer to shore leave, the crisis of the evening almost completely pushed from the crew’s mind. Almost.
“Hey, Y/N,” Kunhang got your attention, mischievous grin on his face. “Xiao said something about how you’ve got super-healing. You up for a drinking contest on Earth?”
“You’ve watched way too many old superhero movies, Wong,” Dejun scoffed. “You think she’s going to have a superhuman metabolism and not be affected by alcohol, right?”
Ten, meanwhile, was laughing. “She’s probably never had a drink! She’s going to be a lightweight!”
And of course that set them all (including the Professor and Yangyang) off into a debate about, theoretically, based off what they did know about your physiology, whether or not you’d process alcohol like an average human or not. You looked over to Kun with amusement, and found his eyes already on you. Quirking an eyebrow up at him inquisitively, you didn’t receive a verbal reply, but instead he reached over to briefly squeeze your arm before dropping his hand back down to his lap.
“What’s Earth like?” You asked Kun as you prepared his injections that night.
“Tired of hearing about Dura-Jil?” He teased, settling in on his front.
“That isn’t the only place you’ve lived,” you pointed out. “And we’re on our way to Earth. I’m curious.”
“I didn’t go to Earth when I was 15. I went there after.”
He didn’t say it, but you knew where he had been in between Dura-Jil and Earth. The program.
“When you enrolled in the Academy?” You disinfected the injection area.
“Yeah. Couldn’t believe how blue that sky was…”
You aligned his first injection. “Is it a similar color the sky in the ag bubble?”
“Sometimes.”
Click.
“But Earth has weather, and clouds,” Kun continued, humor in his voice. “Central, the city that UHN Main is located in, it’s got all four seasons. I think we’ll be coming back in late summer. I kind of wish you could see snow. It’s got a big military population, Central, obviously, but the city’s so huge that if you can get a few blocks away from the UHN Main building itself, you can kind of forget that. As long as you don’t see a solder in uniform.”
As you listened to Kun gradually and sporadically paint you a picture of Earth, you could feel the soft, persistent smile on your lips, even as you had to switch out his med-pod, which didn’t make him falter or stutter. He was telling you about a restaurant within walking distance of UHN Main that he used to frequent when he was on Earth between missions when the second med-pod clicked again, signaling it had finished. You disposed of the materials and sat back down next to him, up by the pillow he was resting his upper half on.
To your pleasant surprise, he didn’t immediately roll over or sit up this time, simply looking at you over his arm. You ran a hand over his hair, dropping it down to rest it on his shoulderblade.
“I can’t wait for you to get your adjustments,” you sighed. “How long is the procedure?”
“An hour or so,” he informed you. “I’ll have Xiao wait with you.”
“Dejun should be able to enjoy his shore leave with the rest of the crew.”
“I’m sure he’ll want to wait with you anyway. It’s what friends are for.”
You stretched a finger out to trace his cheek with your fingertip. “Does it hurt?”
“No, I feel fine,” he promised. “Still doing good on two med-pods.”
“I meant the adjustment.”
“Oh, I’m under anesthesia for it. Don’t feel a thing.”
“And after?”
“A little stiff for a day or so, but after that, good as new.”
Before you could respond, there was a rapid-fire series of knocks on your cabin door, and you exchanged a bewildered, concerned look with Kun. You stood up as Kun slowly began shifting himself into a sitting position.
Dejun was on the other side, and you didn’t hide your confusion as you looked him up and down in his pajamas as he stood in the hall. “Uhm, hi?”
“Can I come in?” He requested quietly, his brow furrowed deeply, a look of worry cut deeply into his features.
“Sure.” You stepped back, opening the door further for him to enter.
“This couldn’t have waited until morning, Xiao?” Kun asked flatly, clearly disgruntled at the nighttime disturbance.
“I’m not Wong, I take no joy in this.” He gestured wildly to his surroundings and the three of you. “But no, this felt rather urgent.”
The captain sighed, “Go on…”
“The tests I was running. A few of them came back. I also ran another test on the sample from the lab on Aegeum.”
“I thought you already did all the testing you could with that sample. It was human, right? The other results were largely inconclusive.”
“Yeah, yeah. But I realized I could run another test, actually.” Your friend was clearly agitated about whatever it was, fidgeting, unable to stand in one place.
“And?” You prompted him.
He met your gaze, face clearly filled with regret and a deep want to not be saying this to you. “It’s a partial DNA match for you.”
“Partial? Like she’s related to it somehow?” Kun questioned.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a familial connection… I sequenced the genes and they’re almost identical.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, the differences in these genes wouldn’t come about from the natural shuffling of genes that happens during reproduction, or even familial variations. It looks… more precise.”
“Genetic modification?” You guessed.
“More like genetic design.”
“So Y/N and the sample you found…” Kun trailed off, and you weren’t sure if he didn’t know how to finish his own sentence, or didn’t want to.
“Same base DNA, different modifications,” Dejun did it for him anyway.
“Clones?” You could feel your eyebrow shoot up.
Dejun rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “If you want to be crude.”
“And what’s the not crude way to say that, Xiao?” Kun snipped.
“I’m just saying, we don’t call identical twins clones…” The doctor replied levelly. After a beat of you and Kun still wrapping your minds around the information, Dejun cleared his throat and added, “The sample was all undifferentiated cells—stem cells—it wasn’t… developed like you are, Y/N. Uhm, for what’s that worth.”
“Oh, okay…” You said just to say something, grabbing your upper arms and holding yourself tightly.
“Anything else, Xiao?” Kun asked tersely, already getting to his feet.
“Nope, nope, I’ll show myself out,” Dejun scrambled for the door. “Sorry, goodnight, and uhm, sorry again.”
You heard the door close behind you. Looking up at the ceiling, you could feel the tears gathering in your eyes before you even knew why they were there. They easily eked out the corners of your eyes and slipped down your cheeks.
“What are we going to do, Kun…?” You whispered, your voice coming out as a nearly unrecognizable squeak.
“ZEN, set the slipdrive to propulsion.” Kun’s stern command made you turn your head towards him in confusion. But his brow was set with determination, just like it had been when he’d suspended it in the first place.
“Are you sure, Captain?” ZEN questioned an order from Kun for the first time that you’d ever heard.
“Yes. Then go on blackout.” After a beat, the cabin was quiet, save for your shaking breaths, and the sound of Kun’s feet as he padded over to you. He wiped his thumbs over the wetness on your face, holding your gaze steadily as he answered your question, “We’ll be arriving on Earth in two weeks. The crew will go on shore leave. I’ll give my full report to Admiral Lee about Aegeum, the human survivor we found there with amnesia, and Dr. Yoon being alive. I’ll get my tune-ups. If we have time, I’ll take you to a concert to see some real music, live. And then we’ll go where the Admiral sends us.”
Keep going. Don’t pick the scab.
You gulped. “What if he sends us to find Dr. Yoon?”
You weren’t sure if you ever wanted to see the man who made you, whose experiments, in one way or another, got all those people killed on Aegeum, who did what he did to Kun…
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” His voice stayed steady.
“You said Admiral Lee has never lied to you. Why are you willing to lie to him, for me?”
“I already told you. All I can offer is me. You’re the first person who I got to choose to give that to.” Kun smiled bittersweetly with his words, still cradling the side of your face, giving him the perfect view for when your tears rose back up. “Y/N? Are you okay?”
“I was just thinking about your program again. And Aegeum…” You admitted, bringing your own hand to your damp undereyes. “Do you still think you’re… not human?”
“I’m certainly an experiment that they didn’t plan on living this long. But I did, which let me meet you. So whatever I am, I’m lucky.”
“Then we’re two experiments, created for something, and choosing each other instead.”
Kun chuckled softly. “You know, I actually think I like that a lot better than cyborg or humanoid or clone or whatever else.”
“Me too.” You wrapped your arms around his waist to hold him closer. “I love you, Kun.”
“I love you, too,” he murmured, pressing his lips to your forehead.
⇢ series masterlist | blog masterlist
#kun x reader#wayv x reader#nct x reader#kun imagine#wayv imagine#nct imagine#kun#qian kun#wayv#nct#i: kun#f: frankenstein complex#fc: 4#writing#text#mine#bias tag#kunkun
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For May' @jilychallenge I started two plunnies. One was Dillweed in a Fancy Metal Can and the other is this.
Partner: @charmsandtealeaves
Prompt: University Football/rugby/field hockey training is open to the public, on a very hot day star player A takes a shower from a water hose and B walks against a lamppost bc B might have been staring
Either read on AO3 or under the cut!
It was Wednesday evening in The Leaky Cauldron, which meant the lads had gathered in the back of the dingy establishment for their weekly team gathering. Well, James liked to call it their team gathering, it was mostly an excuse to grab a pint in the middle of the week for most of them.
In front of them, on the large oval table in the back, they assumed was supposed to be their ‘event space’ that none of them could imagine would actually be used by anyone but them. After all, they’d celebrated most of their big moments around this table ever since uni. Lay the newest redition of their pub league bracket.
“I am sure we can manage,” Sirius commented, his finger gliding down the print-out with their pub league charter. Smirking as he tapped, their first match. “The Hog’s Head team always sucks. I’m pretty sure good ol’ Mundungus still pretends to be their striker.”
Both the men rolled their eyes and a snicker went through the collection of young men gathered. Glasses clinked together. “Wait, Mundungus is their striker? The one that sells pot? Owns the pawnshop?” Frank asked curiously, squinting at the paper.
“It almost feels bad to be playing against them. At least we don’t need to run too fast then,” Peter grinned, downing half of his pint in celebration.
While James would not celebrate an easy win as readily as his friend, he could not help but feel a little bad for the middle-aged blokes having their first game against them. But he supposed that is why they had a point system instead of a knock-out.
“We play Babberton Arms the week after, they’re usually decent, same goes for The White Wyvern.” It was then that a name caught his eye, there was a pub in the league that he wasn’t familiar with. They were new on the sheet, and what was more surprising was that their listed captain was one ‘Lily Evans’, a woman.
Sirius noticed his hesitation, throwing his arm over his shoulder as he leaned in to look as well. “Anyone know The Three Broomsticks?” he asked, the team falling silent for a moment before Kingsley supplied:
“It’s a small gastropub down in the village. Nice place, little highbrow, though.” This caused a couple of people to pull out their phones to look it up.
“They have a good menu.”
“The lady who runs it is a total MILF.”
“I think I had a date there once. Nice place.”
So far, it sounded pretty good. James reckoned he would probably recruit Sirius to go on a recon mission soon. Spend an evening there to scope out the competition. It would be fun. While he would never admit it aloud, he was not opposed to something a little finer than this.
Peter, who started laughing, holding out his phone for everyone to get a glimpse of what was on the screen drew everyone’s attention. As far as James could tell, it was a team picture. All the players were posing in front of the metal goal that was part of their local park.
He was not entirely sure what was too funny about it, but several people were chuckling and scoffing when the phone passed to them. “They’re all females?” Someone asked, clicking their tongue and earning a round of laughter.
“We’ll be fine; I am sure a bunch of girls are not going to take our cup,” Remus commented, squeezing James’s shoulder.
Sirius was quiet until someone made a remark about how they would at least have a good time looking at them run, pretending to jiggle a pair of tits, making the rest of the table burst into hysterics.
Easily and masterfully redirecting the jokes in an effort to cut short this sort of talk. By joking. “All I know is that we might want to put Pete in goal because he has never scored with a girl once in his life.”
There was a short bout of silence around the table before the first person broke, Benjy snorting loudly and slapping Peter, who was not looking as amused as the others, on the back hard enough to hear it connect.
“I just think we shouldn’t be too quick to judge them, it looks like they actually train,” James deducted, having found the profile himself and scrolling through the public posts. Finding out some interesting things about this other captain.
Lily Evans and he had a few mutual friends, mostly people from the pub league and a bloke that went to the same gym as he did.
They liked similar bands, she attended a Lord of the Rings marathon he’d been unable to get tickets to.
By the looks of it, she and her friends dressed up.
She volunteers for or supports multiple charities. Her work involves a white coat, which intrigued him.
Her red hair was natural, and her green eyes were breathtaking.
He also found a post about wanting to start this women-only footy team. With dates and times when they were supposed to meet up.
James leaned in a little too close, to squint in the background of one of her throwback pictures where he could swear he knew the grease ball she was toting along when his finger slipped and he accidentally liked a picture of her on holiday.
“Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck no,” he muttered to himself and frantically tapped the little thumbs up, only to be offered more options. By the time that he finally figured out how to unlike it, he’d left a heart, angry and laughing reaction, and there was no way in hell she did not know he was stalking her Facebook.
Turns out, he did not need to be physically talking to someone to put his foot in his mouth. His ineptitude with the dinosaur that was Facebook did just fine at making him look like a right idiot. Though it must be some record, taking less than ten seconds.
What made it worse was that, not a minute later, there was a buzz, the light on his phone blinking blue. A Facebook notification. Worse, a friend request from one Lily Evans.
After having ignored the notification for several hours James found himself staring at it, bending over his container of Szechuan noodles. Staring long and hard enough for Sirius to elbow him in the side.
“If some spicy text got you this wrapped up, I need to see it,” he chuckled, trying to lean over to see what James was staring at. Not shrinking away from the glare he received, much to James’s disappointment, he was reminded that his best friend was not intimidated by him in the slightest.
Turning the screen to show off the notification bar, rolling his eyes at Sirius snorted. “Isn’t that the captain from the Broomsticks team? What does she want from you?”
“Maybe she wants to plead for mercy?” he suggested with a smirk, his thumb hovering over the decline button. Why would he accept it? It wasn’t like he knew her. His tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth for a moment before selecting ‘accept’.
He might not know her personally, but he was not going to turn down the possibility of spying on their new rivals. As team captain, it was his responsibility to be prepared for anything. This certainly had nothing to do with the bikini picture he spotted earlier.
---
By the time that his phone buzzed the following Saturday, while he was stretching before their first game, he had completely forgotten about this happening.
‘Good luck today! {insert football emoji and a smiley]
Squinting against the glare of the rising sun behind him, he could almost make out the picture of the redhead rival captain. There was a nervous roll of his stomach, eyes darting around the field. Wondering if maybe she was here to spy on them. But most of the crowd was distinctly more follically challenged and would not look nearly as good in a black one-piece as he had learned Lily did.
He reacted to the message with his usual lion emoji before tossing the phone into his bag. Not wanting to get too distracted.
What did not help was checking it again at half-time, only to find a new message.
‘You should pay more attention to that centre back.’
Making his eyes roam the stands in search of a hint of the spy, but if she was there, she was hiding in the crowd.
‘We’ll be fine! He’s no Matt Clarke.’
The message was sent before he realized it, a reference to his favourite team that his friends would likely get. But would she? He supposed she could always google him if she wanted to know, he supposed. The ref blew his whistle and just before he tossed the phone back in the bag he saw the notification pop up.
‘Think you’re good enough to go up against the Bald Eagle?’
She knew. And he considered that maybe he was already in love with this stranger.
---
Just like that, his recognizance mission was compromised. Or rather, forgotten about. Until Peter asked casually while beating him mercilessly at a game of FIFA. “Did you hear the chick team won their first game seven nil? Maybe we should try and catch one of their trainings. See if this was just a stroke of luck.”
He did not even have the decency to look at the screen when he tipped in another goal against him.
James considered accusing him of cheating, but what was the point? The last time he did that, they were in college, and it had been embarrassing enough to still make him cringe today. “I did see a post about it on Lil’s timeline. I think they meet every Thursday.”
The characters on screen celebrated the end of the game, and he immediately flicked to the main screen, not particularly feeling like seeing his pathetic stats.
Peter grumbled something about the stats being there for the both of them before falling silent. Giving James a confused look. “Lil? You two are that friendly already?”
He pulled up his shoulders and ran a hand through his hair. “I’d like to think so.”
“Are you two secretly chatting or have you just become intimately familiar with her beach holiday pics?” Peter was still laughing between the coughs when his elbow landed in his stomach, throwing his hands up in defence. “Right, right! Got it! It’s both.”
James shot him a playful glare and pulled up his shoulder, eyes returning to the screen to select another formation for his team. Certain he could out-strategize his friend’s undeniably superior skill.
“I’ll go check them out this week.”
---
The sun was starting to set when James and Sirius slunk into the park, rugged up in oversized cardigans they borrowed from Remus and stylish baseball caps that were generously donated by Kingsley. Who did insist they were not to adjust or bend them, as they were, collector's items. Or rather, they would be one day, and he was not going to risk it. Which did lead to a rather loose fit on Sirius and a promise of a very bad hair day for James.
The pair of them carried a picnic blanket and book to look less suspicious. If they pretended to hold a book club. The biggest risk they ran was to look like nerds.
Which they were. Not that James or Sirius would openly admit to this to anyone but each other. They are rather skilled at hiding their general nerdiness under a layer of muscle and smooth talking. Even if the smooth-talking occasionally included references to their nerd media of choice.
James had overthought the time they should be arriving. Not too early, or they would notice something was off. Not too late, because then they would not get enough time to observe. After a lot of mulling over, James decided that twenty minutes after practice started should be perfect.
He knew that their team took, at least, ten to fifteen minutes to waffle and joke around, and ten minutes was a quick warm-up. Which meant that they would probably wander in just as they started playing.
Once he spotted the group of women, or rather, a collection of bouncing ponytails, James learned he was wrong, and he could not be happier about it. They were still warming up. Better yet, they were stretching and it was utterly enchanting.
No matter how hard he tried, which was not very hard, he could not take his eyes off their captain. The feisty redhead he’d been texting off and on since Saturday wore a bright smile and a pair of criminally tight bike shorts as she dropped into a low lunge.
A sight that he was clearly not prepared for. If it had not been for Sirius grabbing his arm, he might have walked straight into a rubbing bin. Frankly, he’d have deserved it for shamelessly staring. But what was a mortal man like him going to do? Avert his eyes when given the chance to glimpse at a goddess?
But as Sirius spread the blanket on the field across from the training, where he could resume his research in peace. The book he was pretending to read was open in his lap, his phone in his hand. He could not help himself.
‘Good luck! [insert football and lady running emoji]’
Only after hitting sent, James realized that he might have just blown their cover. If Lily had done the same thing he had done when he got her message, it would not take a genius to figure out who they were. If there was something he’d learned about her over the past week or two was that she was, in fact, an actual genius.
If the gods were merciful, she would see the humour in this. She’d not said anything about his little bikini picture snafu, which was arguably a lot creepier, and he had profusely apologized for it after a few pints to settle the nerves.
That had been what had really set off their chatting. Messaging back and forth to the point that he had his eyes glued to his screen even while watching footy. Remus had made remarks about it, which meant it had to be painfully obvious.
Not that the screen was any sort of distraction now, for obvious reasons. However, there was also a less obvious and far more concerning reason for his mobile to lie discarded on the blanket.
They're good.
No, that was an understatement. They were terrifyingly competent. It was intimidating and did things to him, he would rather not admit to.
“Prongs, I think we’re fucked,” commented Sirius after they watched a tall blonde flip throw the ball with such ease their jaws were on the floor.
James swallowed, nodding slowly at his friend’s assessment. “So fucked.” A firm shove jolted him out of his trance to notice that, across the field, several of their rivals had turned to look at them. Most of them took this moment to catch their breaths, hands set into their sides. James could see their breaths form little clouds in the cooling evening air.
He reeled in his jaw and raised a hand in an awkward greeting. As if he was not already done for, Lily raised her hand in what he thought would be an awkward wave back. Only for her to flip him off before winking and returning to her practice. Her jumper had ridden up and exposed a swath of tattooed skin on her side.
Hand to his chest, James fell back into Sirius’s lap as if shot. Maybe he had been, because he was unwell. They’d never even spoken face-to-face, and he’d already decided on a May wedding at the Riverside, four kids and a Newfoundlander named Elvendork.
Sirius peered at him with, what seemed like, genuine concern as James raked his hands over his face. “You right, mate?” he asked, the cap sliding forward as he tipped his head down to look at James.
“Yeah. Yes. Though I could do with the incessant urge to make a fool of myself for her,” he groaned, an offended tsking rushing past his teeth when his friend pushed the cap down over his eyes. “Oi! Can you blame me? Just look at her!”
Sirius looked up while he wrangled the cap back into place, taking a long moment and then some before sighing in defeat. “I vote Irish wolfhound and late spring. I look good in lavender.”
“I was thinking Newfoundland,” he answered, a smirk playing around his lips.
“Only if I can be the godfather,” Sirius bargained, the raise of his eyebrows caused the cap to slide forward once more making James snicker. He let himself be pushed up and to his feet. “Go talk to her! Don’t do anything stupid,” his friend encouraged.
James shot him a playful glare, tossing his own cap towards him and fixing his hair. Well, as much as it could be fixed. His feet already carrying him down the slight slope to the field. “It’s not like I am going to run into a lamp post,” he joked, tossing a grin over his shoulder seconds before connecting with just that.
In his defence, the ladies were having a water break and Lily had taken off her jumper, standing there in just her sports bra, sweat glistening in the setting sun. Her hair was frizzy from the humidity and surrounded her like a halo.
If that had not been enough, Lily had laughed, her head tilted back in delight and James was pretty sure he would move heaven and earth to be the one to make her laugh like that. Which was the thought that spun dizzily through his mind while he reeled from the impact.
James staggered back a few steps, rubbing the side of his face that had made the actual impact. His glasses askew while he sat back down on the grass, blinking the spots from his vision.
When his eyes focussed again, Lily was right there, her forehead creased with concern. Before he could think about it, his mouth moved. “Marry me?” Which was probably the first time that James Potter ever was truly mortified by something he had said. Mouth opening, this time intentionally, to apologize.
But before he could, she laughed, and the sound was pure and surprisingly not like she wanted to run away. “How about you take me for a drink first?”
The vigorous shake of his head made him reel all over again, but James didn’t care. ”It’s a date.”
(A little reference vid, because I can.)
youtube
#jily fic#jily#james potter#lily evans#jple#jily fanfiction#sirius x james#modern au#jily au fic#Youtube
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This game is astonishingly good it makes me feel crazyyyyy it feels like everything is done w thought&intent in such a way that feels like it actively rewards close attention, rereading and trying to pick things apart. & then at the same time it is just plain fun to read on a moment to moment basis! Especially the PC's dynamic with Aeran is so enjoyable for me personally; I feel like you really get the sort of closeness/familiarity that comes from lifelong friendship that's hard for me to find, even in media that is nominally About those sorts of relationships! And you go and casually knock it out of the park whilst also having incredible fantasy worldbuilding that's deeply complex+engaging without ever leaving a bad taste in my mouth like I'm used to having to power through with a lot of the "greats". And you're only on episode 3!!! My god! What can't she do!!!!!
Thank you so much! 💖 The PC's relationship with Aeran has definitely been one of the highlights of making this game, even with how complex and multi-layered it is. Whether you love him or hate him, have a good relationship with him or have hit rock bottom, want to be with him forever or yeet him off a cliff - or any combination of the above - he is someone the PC knows very well and they have been around each other for a very long time.
And this may or may not be a good thing - for either of them.
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I don't feel better when I'm fucking around and I don't write better when I'm stuck in the ground
#heart in a cage#the strokes#samuel bayer#he knocked it out of the park with this one#it's a very underrated video... and song tbh#i remember when i saw a gifset here... it caught my attention and i checked the video. and i fell in love with the strokes#the story is longer but whatever nobody asked#i even remember it was an oasis fan that had reblogged that one lol#first impressions of earth#julian casablancas#yeah i know it's his birthday. happy birthday i guess#favourite videos#favourite edits
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what's weird about the fantasy high drama is that like. it seems to me like people forget d&d is primarily a) a game you play with your friends and also b) luck based.
I mean it's fine to say that "nothing felt like a challenge" and "they just dominated everything and there weren't any stakes" but like. it's not as if they weren't up against huge threats. they lost the mall fight. the last stand was an onslaught of enemies. they fought a dozen dragons from an airship. the fights were hard. they're just really good. they've had very good dice luck in general this season and are all very high level and highly specialized. fig is gonna beat deception and performance checks. adaine's gonna figure out the arcana. riz is gonna succeed investigations. like. for some reason their strategical competence and wisely picked abilities are. a downside? a disappointment?
the thing about d&d that you need to remember is it's first and foremost a game. it's mostly random and it takes you down weird paths and you're playing to have fun with your friends. the dice are literally telling the story that it's their time, it's their year. they've struggled enough. they've trained enough. they're good at what they do. and in my post about the academic/domestic/personal stressors being the focus, d&d doesn't have any other system to work them out than rolling different skills. that's what d&d is. brennan set specific challenge levels for different tasks and the players strategized to prioritize which abilities they were strongest in. the challenges were there. and the players rose to them. they were both smart in their delegation of responsibilities and lucky with their dice rolls. of which, both are foundations of d&d.
don't mistake them being good players and getting lucky with there being no hardship. just because they smashed through the wall, that doesn't mean the wall wasn't strong. they were just stronger.
#i know some people are disappointed from a storytelling perspective. but you have to understand.#what was brennan supposed to do. he threw things at them both at and above their challenge level#he created a whole system to simulate academic and person goals and stress throughout the year#he gave them plenty of chances to fail#he set DCs high.#the players just knocked it out of the park#you can't tell any story but the ones the dice want you to#if he had manufactured more danger or difficulty where there was none it would have felt cheap#and do you not remember the night yorb fight#like. the whole point of the year was that it wasn't hard. it just never stopped#they can do it they're capable they're smart. but the hustle and the stress and the fighting and the working never ends#that's why nothing 'had stakes' or 'felt challenging'#it's the slog that gets you. it's how long you're willing to keep going.#how much life can break you almost to your last breath but you get through it and you keep going anyway#but. i digress.#and i say all this with complete and total respect to other people's opinions#i feel no hate and wish no bad feelings on anyone who disagrees with this!#it's just my personal view on the whole thing#sorry if im being annoying i just have. opinions.#fantasy high#d20#dimension 20#fhjy
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I’m EXTREMELY hyped for the new Ultraman Rising movie so I designed shirts for my fam and I to wear for the premier!!
It’s literally my favorite trope of all time and features a giant pink lizard baby, I am smitten
#ultraman rising#Netflix#Shannon tindle is one of my favorite artists/directors/writers for animation#he consistently knocks it out of the park#(pun intended)#my art#fanart#character design#sketch#art#Emi#Emiko#Ken Sato#Ultraman
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911 Lone Star | TK Strand in 4.04 Abandoned
#911 lone star spoilers#tk strand#his eyes in this scene are seriously breaking my fucking heart#ronen has been lowkey knocking it out of the park this season ngl#from comedic shit to... this. my god#the slow realization as he looks at the board of dead women#the vacant look in his eyes in the last one at the thought of carlos ending up on a board like that#my gifs#911 lone star#episode: s04e04 abandoned
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