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jeonmagines · 4 years

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anything for you 1

jungkook x reader (ft. taehyung)

genre: angst

warnings: jungkook is a meanie here,, curse words,, mentions of death, suicidal thoughts,, overthinking,, mentions of sex.

synopsis: you’d do anything to make him happy. even if it hurts you.

S/N is sister’s name

“hey, i noticed you didn’t really eat anything during lunch so i got you this.” you say as you tapped the boy who had his head down on his desk. he looked up at you and scoffed. “you woke me up for this?” he says with an attitude. “oh and i graded your paper. mrs. lim said that if you needed help you can ask her or jinah over there. i’m not really good at explaining so i can’t do much for you.” you say as you hand him his paper which he scored a 30/50 on. “even if you were an option i still wouldn’t pick you. stop trying so hard it’s annoying.” his friends looked at you in pity but continued to do their work. you never really understood why jungkook disliked you. you don’t remember doing anything bad to him or at least something that would irritate him. the truth is you actually liked him. ever since he transferred, you, along with many other girls had your eyes on him. you weren’t a try hard though. you’d buy him food, give him water, or offer to help him with his homework but nothing more. you did this because you knew that he didn’t really care for himself. he barely ate at school which is probably why he was so tired all the time.

when the bell rang everybody left except for jungkook. he walked over to jinah who was still fixing her backpack strap. “hey uh...i was told you could like help me out with my homework? can you?” he seemed so innocent and kind when he asked her. why did he have to be so rude to me? you asked yourself. she politely agreed and you overheard them saying that after school they’ll head over to the library. everyday you’d volunteer at the library since ms. jay needed to go home early to feed her cats. she said she didn’t want to bother you but you insisted since the library was a really relaxing area no one really went to. you enjoyed it there.

students returned books and some checked them out. you had your eye on jungkook and jinah and to be honest it looked like they were flirting more than studying. you were envious of jinah. she had the perfect smile, body, and attitude. cliché RIGHT. who wouldn’t want a girl like that right? you knew exactly what jungkook saw in her. you on the other hand are not really that interesting which is probably why you only had like two friends who barely talked to you. you were grateful for them though, even though they didn’t feel the same towards you.

as you were typing in the list of kids who still need to return books, you saw how mr. kim was struggling with picking up the trash the students left since he was a bit old. “mr. kim, let me help you with that. why don’t you sit down for a sec? i have some cookies and a water bottle in my backpack. you can eat them while i clean this up.” you grab his garbage bag and started picking up the trash the students dropped. “why are you such a good kid, y/n? you remind me of my grandson. he goes to a different school though. i think you’ll be good together.” he says while taking a cookie from the container you took out of your backpack. “ahh. mr. kim, i kind of have my eyes on someone else right now.” you say as he nods his head and continues to eat.

jungkook was eyeing you from the far end of the table. why were you so nice to everybody? he thought to himself.

you saw jinah get up and leave after bidding goodbye to jungkook, but jungkook stayed at the table. there were only four people in the library; you, jungkook, and two other kids who were trying to look for an interesting book. you walked towards them and asked if they needed any help finding a book. when they told you what they wanted you led them to where the books were. as you were walking though you felt someone glaring at you. your first thought was jungkook because who else would be staring at you?? a ghost??? when the students checked out their books and left it was finally 6pm which meant it was time for you to LEAVE. you walked up to jungkook who was still reading his book. “hey uh. im about to lock up.” he scoffed again and glared at you. “so when other kids are here you offer them help but when it’s only me left you have to ‘lock up’ you were BEYOND irritated. all you wanted was to go home, eat, and sleep but jungkook was keeping you away from that. “it’s 6. i’m supposed to lock up at 6. so. leave.” he was shocked. you’ve never given him attitude, it was always the other way around. you walked away and gathered all of your things getting ready to leave. jungkook also packed up his things while you held the door open for him. when he walked you shut the door loudly and locked the door.

you walked behind jungkook, but not too close because you didn’t want it to seem like you were following him. you sat on the bench while jungkook got in his car. you saw him look at you but you quickly look away to avoid the awkwardness. after a while you saw him standing right in front of you.

“why are you sitting here? go home?” why was he so concerned you thought to yourself. “i’m waiting for the bus. you go home.” he then grabbed your hand and led you to the passenger seat of his car.

“it‘s dark out. tell me where you live.” he opened the passenger’s seat and you went inside his strawberry scented car.

“i’ll just uh. point.” you say while smiling.

cute he thought NO IT’S Y/N. NO. jungkook shook that thought out of his mind and started his car. he played some music to make the situation less awkward.

you on the other hand were way past feeling awkward. you’d check your messages even though no one has texted you. hell, you even went on the weather app just to check the weather in london.

“uh just go right my house is the first one on the block.” you say as he nods.

“thank you. i appreciate it.” as you tried to get out of his car, he grabbed your arm. “why are you so nice to everyone? especially me? i’m such a dick towards you.” you laugh a little at his question. “i’m nice to everybody. especially you because i know you don’t really take care of yourself.” he nods and you thank him again.

when you get inside of your house you hear yelling coming from your parents’ room again. ever since your sister passed away they weren’t the same as before. you hated it. you hated how your sister was gone instead of you.

you just wanted someone to talk to, but nobody really wanted to talk to you. your friends..would you even consider them friends at this point? you shook your head and tried to focus on something else.

jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook jungkook think of jungkook. you say to yourself.

the next day was the same as always. you’d walk through the hallways and see people with their friends. people who actually wanted to talk to them. you wondered how it felt to actually be wanted.

you sat down on your chair and got out your books to start writing down the agenda, but someone tapped your shoulder. “hello! i’m mira. would you like to be my friend? i’m new here.” you smiled at her and introduced yourself.

when class started your teacher told mira to come up and introduce herself. “hi! i’m mira. i transferred from (school name). i hope to become your friend!” everyone says hello and she sits back down. you noticed how jungkook’s eyes followed her from the front of the class to her desk. you felt a bit jealous, but didn’t think about it too much.

when lunch came around you tapped jungkook’s shoulder to give him his food. “i got you this sandwich and i baked cookies last night so i thought you’d like it.” he looked at you with no expression and you waited for a thank you but as always he didn’t say it and put his head back down.

“y/n, do you think we can hang out after school? get to know each other a little bit?” mira said with a cute expression on her face. you agreed and she gave you a hug.

after school you and mira went to the ice cream shop near by. “really? i’m five months older than you? i thought i’d be younger since you’re so mature!” you laugh and say you get that a lot. “so earlier i noticed you gave food to that jungkook dude. do you like him?” she says as she wiggles her eyebrows. “kinda.” she squeals while she shoves the ice cream in her mouth.

after eating you both bid your goodbyes and you walked home. finally. i finally have a friend. you thought to yourself.

you came home to your parents fighting again. usually to cope with how you’re feeling you bake in the middle of the night. it was a weird coping mechanism but it worked. baking helped you relax and think about other things.

“if it wasn’t for your fucking daughter! s/n would still be alive right now!” you heard your dad yell. he was right though. it was all your fault. and everyday you’d beat yourself up over it. you quickly went up to your room and started sobbing. you looked at the picture of you and your sister together. “why was it you? couldn’t it just be me? if it was me they wouldn’t be arguing. i miss you s/n.” you kissed the picture and hugged it and drifted to sleep.

the next day you did not feel like being nice to anyone or at least talk to anyone. you put your black hoodie over your head to avoid attention as you walk through the halls.

when you walk into class you see jungkook flirting with mira. you weren’t in the mood to deal with him today so you didn’t even bother. lunch came around and you kept your head down on your desk with your hood on. “y/n? you ok? i’m gonna go get some food. do you want anything.” mira asked. you shook your head and thanked her.

“yo kook, what’s wrong with y/n she didn’t give you food today.” jimin asks. “i don’t know. she’s usually always doing something.” jungkook says as he shrugs his shoulders.

when the bell rang you gathered all of your stuff and jungkook saw how your eyes were red. were you crying? he thought to himself.

you walked outside the school building and thought it was your lucky day because it was raining and you didn’t bring an umbrella.

you sat on the bench, drenched in water, watching students go by laughing with their friends, but suddenly feel the rain stop. you look up and see an umbrella under you.

“thank you, but there’s no point. i’m already wet.” the boy chuckles and says, “ha. that’s what my ex girlfriend said.” not caring whether or not he was going to get wet, the brown haired boy sat next to you. “i’m taehyung. i just transferred today. i’m in my fourth year. let me guess are you in your second?” he says, still holding the umbrella under the both of you. “nope. third.” he nods his head and points at his car. “if you want i can give you a ride home?” he asks with a smile. “really? i’m drenched though. your seats will get wet.” “don’t worry about it. it’s leather.”

as you walked really close next to taehyung, you didn’t know jungkook was watching the two of you from afar.

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (7/17)

Summary: “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Note: I was busy with fic exchange pieces for a while but will be focusing on updating my multi chapter fics now. As always, feedback is very much appreciated :D

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 8

Link to cross-postings: AO3

“So you’re Levi Ackerman?” The woman who had just entered the room looked excited. Too excited.

After being kept waiting that long, Levi was in no mood for anything, especially unnecessary pleasantries. For the past thirty minutes at least, he had been sitting on the couch of a quaint office. It was spacious and there was at least enough room on the couch to elevate his knee comfortably. Probably the reason he had the self control to give a curt nod in reply.

“I’m a fan! I watched a few of your events actually and I’m so glad to have you here,” she said too enthusiastically. She paused for a second and shook her head. “No, I’m horrified about you being injured which caused you to end up here but I’m just really excited to get to know you.”

Levi didn’t feel the need to reply.

She walked to her desk and dropped her canvas bag before sitting on the couch in front of Levi. “Sorry for being a little late. I just came out from another meeting and went out to get something to eat after. Maybe I could give you my number and you could text me if you get here before I do.” She took a post-it out of her purse and scrawled a few numbers on it and slid it towards Levi.

Shouldn’t you have my number? Somehow it was hard to believe that she was a counselor. “Name?” Levi asked.

“Shela. Just call me Shela.”

Levi had met those types of people before who go by nicknames. More often than not, he couldn’t blame them, usually they had a very old fashioned or embarrassing name behind it. He couldn’t believe someone as transparent or excitable as her who didn’t look like she had much control of her filter, would have issues about how embarrassing a name was though.

“I have a very old fashioned first name.” Shela added, only confirming Levi’s suspicions. “Shela… Sierra - Hotel - Echo - Lima - Alpha.”

Levi typed the name on his phone and saved the number.

Last Name? Academic History? He set the rest of the details aside. As long as he knew her name, he could probably get through enough sessions to at least keep both his coach and Erwin satisfied. Going to a counselor was not his idea after all. It was his coach apparently who had requested it and it was Erwin who had pushed for it. Without twice a day training or even the freedom to go wherever he wanted without being completely exhausted within hours, Levi had not much of anything else to do anyway.

Shela brought out a notebook from her purse, opened it to a bookmark paged and wrote something on it before looking up at him. Levi couldn’t help but note that when she wasn’t looking ashamed or overly enthusiastic and she did look like she knew what she was doing.

“I’m going to skip the question of ‘what brings you here’ because I think we all know why you’re here.” She gestured her pen towards Levi’s leg. “Let’s start with something simple. How are you? How are you feeling today?”

“My knee hurts and I can’t train anymore. But I’m focusing on studies now so I think I’m doing okay.” He answered, having prepared that script in his head the thirty minutes he spent waiting for her.

“I’m not asking how you’re coping. I’m asking how you’re feeling today.” Shela’s piercing eyes were a beautiful shade of blue. The serious look she gave him then bore into him. In fact, it felt like it bore into his soul.

Despite the generally bad first impression she gave him, Levi was somehow convinced that she was qualified to do that type of work and his showing up there might turn out to be worth something after all. Levi found himself almost hypnotized by that look she gave him, a healthy mixture of concern, interest and professionalism.

Hiding and watching his words felt pointless and Levi found himself saying his answers as his brain came up with them.

A Tale of Two Slaves

The hospital where he was slated to have his next sessions was that same hospital he had stayed in a week ago. Conveniently, it was a five minute walk from where he had been staying since he got out of the hospital: Hange’s apartment.

Just until I can walk up stairs. Levi had told himself. There were many dormitories clustered around campus yet he had ended up staying in the least handicap friendly one. The first floor had a lobby and a common room and the actual bedrooms were only found at the second floor and the third floor. To top it all off, there was no elevator. He had to note though that it was an old building with only three floors so it would have been useless to put one.

He was on scholarship and it was assigned to him back in first year so he did not have much of a choice. He didn’t need to think too much of it either that past three years of college since he had never been injured enough to the point of being unable to climb stairs

With his leg completely immobilized and a deadweight, Levi was sure it would be a nightmare to brave that everyday. The paperwork and legwork required to change dormitories in the middle of the semester seemed daunting as well. In the end, Hange had offered to let him stay over in her apartment.

Her condominium was spacious, it had an elevator and it was walking distance from the hospital where he’d have both his counseling and physical therapy sessions.

Walking Distance. For non handicapped people, it should only take five minutes to walk the two block distance from the hospital to the apartment building. Levi took ten minutes to clear it and by the end of it he was exhausted and despite the chill of mid autumn, Levi found himself sweating as he arrived in the apartment.

It was a Friday afternoon, a week after he was released from the hospital. Nobody was pressuring him to go back to school yet. His professors had been kind enough to send him lecture slides and give him extensions. Some classmates had dropped their own summarized notes and get-well messages.

Levi settled on his bed and propped his knee on his pillow, looking through the lecture slides of his last class. Despite his self imposed week long isolation, Levi just wanted to go back to normal life.

But it never will be normal again. Although Levi did see a glimmer of hope in the possibility of feeling normal again when he went back to school, the realist in him knew it wouldn't happen.

Levi was supposed to be in the process of accepting at least that it would never be the “normal” he used to have and had taken for granted. Something inside him was rebelling the process though.

If I can't live the life I want, then I won't live at all. That something screamed inside him.

That form of rebellion left Levi with little energy for anything else. His mind was slower. His body was heavier. He was seeing little reason to move beyond the mechanical and primal movements needed to survive.

As if by magic, his body that used to carry him over two meter tall bars, suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. The weight crushed him everyday. At times Levi found himself unable to breathe. That was he found himself in that same position for sixteen hours a day, either sleeping or staring at the same white ceiling above him.

In fact, the only time he had left the Hange's apartment was for that one counseling session Hange had prodded him to go to. That was the only time she had forced him to go out of the house as if she herself understood somehow the comfort and at the same time the panic that came with a self imposed isolation.

What else was there to do?

He was alone. He had kept to his own bubble in college, only flitting between the two islands of academics and trainings.He was always either busy or exhausted and the lack of in-between had given him little time to reflect on the state of his mental health. And suddenly he had lost one of his islands, the bigger one, the one that had given him meaning the past few years. That had left him completely and utterly lost. Maybe even desolate.

That was what Shela had pointed out in their first counseling session as Levi attempted to articulate the emptiness inside him, the slight panic that came with idleness, the sudden need to turn off all message notifications and the frequent mood changes that came with Hange's entering and exiting the apartment.

And his weird dependence on Hange.

In between studying for his three subjects that semester and icing his bum knee, what else was there to do? Wait for Hange to come home? Talk to her during that one to two hour window when she wasn't working on her thesis? That was what his life had ended up revolving around anyway.

Levi found himself only replying to anything related to studies or graduating. He had received a few messages from others, suggestions to visit training, offers to visit from teammates and he had ignored them all. Somehow, the reminder of the loss of the one hobby that had kept him busy for the past decade of his life, was mocking. He became someone who waits, someone who just went with the flow of everyone's schedule. Having been busy his whole life, having been constantly needed and looked for and only recently, having been reduced to where he was, Levi felt his life was just a series of wrong choices, wrong choices that only formed a distrust with himself and consequently a refusal to engage in activity.

What else am I supposed to be doing? Levi opened his laptop. For a moment he had tried to go through his school notes at Shela’s advice.

After less than an hour of halfheartedly reviewing his notes and forgetting it soon after, Levi had exhausted his already scarce energy. With nothing else to do, he had decided to move to scrolling through timelines which displayed little to no signs of real life obligations, pinterest and reddit to pass the time. Within an hour of just scrolling through both, he had gotten tired of it too. It was a new feeling. Usually he could drown himself in hours of social media and timelines but at that point, nothing was interesting to him anymore.

Have you tried writing out how you feel? Shela’s suggestion echoed in his head. Like maybe get a journal. It’s a great way to process your thoughts and emotions.

What’s there to write. Levi asked himself and Shela’s voice as it echoed in his head. Levi could only stare at the blank screen, his emotions too non-existent to write. The blank document he had opened in front of him was the best representation of his thoughts and emotions already.

There are no right or wrong answers. Shela had brought up another good point during their session.

You think, therefore you are. You feel therefore you are. As long as you’re processing images, sounds and sensations, you’re thinking. You’re feeling something and you can write something down.

Then why do I feel so empty? Levi had asked.

Shela had compared it to a false bottom. As he continued to stare at the blank page in front of him, Levi was starting to feel for that false bottom in his mind. It was a matter of discipline more than anything, determination to dig into one’s self.

It could have taken hours but as Levi looked at the time on his laptop, he realized much time hadn’t passed. In fact, the time to the lower right of his screen, was still the same. But Levi was starting to think differently.

He did have something to look back on. Stories he hadn’t thought back to in a while, having been occupied by training, Hange’s tests, studies and recoveries. They continued to taunt him in the mornings. With the magic of worldly obligations, Levi had managed to set them aside.

His motivations particularly lay in the fact that his world was a little bigger, he was talking to more people and the idea that these same people he was seeing were the same ones he’d been writing fictional stories for had him questioning his own sanity and had him a little self conscious about having those dreams in the first place.

At that moment though, his inability to think and feel beyond that false bottom had Levi more alarmed and he found himself attempting to articulate those dreams on the word processor just to experience a semblance of something.

Levi at least confirmed one thing, that bottom was false. And the more he articulated those dreams, the more they became real. He was starting to scrape on that false bottom and the first things that were oozing out were dreams. Somehow, the dreams were more vivid that he had ever remembered them to be. He felt almost guilty for having set them aside like some sort of fair weathered friend.

“Hey not bad! Is that homework?”

Levi tensed up in surprise. He should have been able to hear the familiar footsteps and the jangle of the keys from his place on the sofa bed. He never missed it once. Levi didn’t know if he should be proud that he had distracted himself enough not to consider Hange or terrified that she was right behind him at that moment, probably reading through his work.

He quickly closed his tab and looked at the time on the lower right. It was only five. Hange usually went home at seven.

“You’re early,” Levi commented.

“It’s my apartment. I can choose when to go home.” Hange answered. “Anyway what was that? Are you writing?”

“A journal,” Levi explained. There was not much point in lying.

“Did the counselor tell you to do that?”

“Yeah. Something about processing emotions and thoughts.”

“It’s a good exercise. Especially since you seemed pretty out of it recently...” Hange trailed off.

Levi looked back at her and noticed a flicker of what looked like guilt in Hange’s eyes before she looked away.

“Out of it?” Levi knew what she was talking about. He just felt the need to keep the conversation going.

“You spent the past weekend just lying in bed. I never even saw you look through your phone or open your laptop. ” Hange explained. “I’ve seen how these types of things develop so... So yeah, I’m just so happy to see you so focused on something else.”

“I don’t really have much else to get into other than school.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Hange said.

Levi bit his lip, instantly regretting that last sentence. Hange averaged two apologies a day which was a lot given the fact that they only ever had a two hour window to talk in between Levi’s long hours asleep and Hange’s long hours on campus.

“It wasn’t your fault. I was kinda going crazy too...With the jumping I mean.” He added. “And I was the one who decided to make that last jump in the first place. And now you have to change your whole thesis topic.”

“It wasn’t too difficult. Just one week building a new proposal. It’s still the same case study, it’s just I decided to document a recovery. Erwin’s unconventional methods with the recovery makes it worth documenting.”

“At least I’m still useful somewhere,” Levi commented wryly. Hange had explained the thesis to him over the weekend. He should have been relieved at least to know that they weren’t separating anytime soon. Surprisingly though, he wasn’t even happy to hear it. Everything around him just seemed too bleak to celebrate anything. Good news that used to make him smile and celebrate internally suddenly only made him feel a slight sense of relief, the equivalent emotion of seeing a wet floor sign in an area with slippery floors.

Hange sat on the sofa bed next to Levi and looked towards him. She took a deep breath. “I know with what’s been happening, it looks like you don’t have much going for you. And I know things seem pretty dark now but things will get better. You just have to keep living.”

“I’m still breathing.”

“You know what I mean,” Hange said. “When I get up in the morning you’re asleep. When I get back we talk for an hour and half the time it’s just me talking. You barely even answer when I ask what you want. This past weekend I didn’t even see you look through your phone. It’s like you’re practically dead.”

“What else is there to do. I can’t show up for training. My professors aren’t asking me to go back to school soon.”

“Find a new hobby? Continue whatever thing you’re writing. Enjoy the food I bring home. Laugh when you see a funny meme. Or you know, at least smile and do that nose blowing thing people do when you show them a funny meme..”

“My teammates are preparing for the new season. My classmates are at least all caught up in class. I spent too much damn time on that fucking sport. Now that it’s all gone, I feel like I’m just going with the flow of life instead of actually swimming,” Levi said, having taken that last part from Shela’s book.

“Everyone is just going with the flow of life. We’re all at the mercy of time anyway. Live for yourself. See joy in the small things at least. Look at me, I’m simping for athletes like some idiot in between studies.”

“Live for yourself? You follow people’s orders a lot for someone who gives this type of advice.”

“It’s not obeying people. I’m just asking questions and seeking advice. The more relevant facts, information and experience you have, the better the decisions you can make right. So can’t I argue that having more information at my fingertips makes me freer? ” Hange gave Levi a knowing and playful smile

He could tell by the look she gave him that she expected something in return. It was a rhetorical question though, maybe even a premature victory lap for having won that argument. Levi silently looked back at his laptop, not wanting to let her win.

Hange broke the silence. “Okay now that we’re on the topic of asking questions... who’s that Squad Leader Hange Zoe you’re writing about?”

A Tale of Two Slaves

Levi could not pinpoint the exact moment he decided for certain that squad leader Hange Zoe was real, when he decided for himself that the stories he was writing out should have been real.

It came as a gradual decision after incessant questions from Hange that at first, he was determined not to answer. Hange was smart about it, keeping the questions as things that could be answered with one word, and before he knew it, he was giving her too much information, it was pointless to blatantly refuse. After he had answered her more than enough questions, she smiled.

“Looks like you got my personality down,” Hange commented. Levi somehow knew her enough to tell there was no judgement or obligation in that voice. In fact, when he looked into her eyes, he saw that same wonder, he had seen many times before when she witnessed the jumps.

That wonder only carried over from questions on the squad leader to questions on his dreams and finally, to questions on how he wrote his dreams out.

“How do you see the world?”

“How do I see the world?”

“Like what type of camera angles do you see the world in. If I asked you to imagine a tree, what kind of tree do you imagine? Do you imagine it from top to bottom, from trunk to top? Our minds are the most creative producers and cameramen you can think of.”

“Do you notice how well our body blends sensations? When the light turns off then on, there’s a split second where you see shapes when your eyes adjust from light to dark?”

“What are the physical manifestations of emotions? Do you feel your stomach drop? Do you ever get that tingling feeling in your legs and suddenly they’re jelly?”

Did you ever witness something so beautiful that you wish you could live forever just so you could never forget it?

The conversation was a little deep and a little too philosophical for him. It was a ploy to get him writing and maybe a ploy to get him to understand the same wonder she had in the world from what he could tell. Somehow he needed it. The way Hange had described the world, the way she had described reality, only made the line between what could have been his imagination and his memory a little more distinct.

It was around then did he look at Hange Zoe the medical student to see the squad leader from his dreams. Erwin Smith, Hange Zoe and every single one of the soldiers in these dreams. They weren’t just dreams or manifestations of an exhausted mind.

In another life, she could have been real. The angles at which he saw the world, the way his body processed those sensations in his dreams, the manifestations of those emotions, too vivid even more vivid than a catharsis from a good book or a phenomenal ending to a TV show.

The questions continued to echo as Hange turned off the lights and Levi lay in bed awake. That food for the thought left Levi hyper aware of his surroundings, all the way down to the small details --- the way every piece of thread on the bed covers beneath him pressed on to him, the way his breath made a sound in the utter silence late at night no matter how much he tried to quiet it, the way the palpitations in his chest could be felt all the way until his head. He was excited to sleep, dream and take stock of his dreams yet he was too excited to fall asleep.

Like a five year old the night before their first field trip, Levi did not fall asleep anytime soon.

A Tale of Two Slaves

Nobody really questions the logic of dreams.

Sometimes one can find themselves only a few millimeters tall on top of a giant donut. Sometimes they can find themselves having milk tea with their favorite celebrity. Dreams are more felt by the moments they bring to people, not by the logic. It was only natural Levi did not question much of his dreams then.

That night as he lay awake, Levi made the conscious effort to live in his dreams, to take note of every detail from the sights and sounds, to the smells, the emotions, repeating to himself the questions Hange had asked earlier that day. What he had failed to consider then, was the context of dreams.

Were Hange and the others okay?

He found himself on the battlefield and he knew exactly what had to be done. In front of him was a large furry creature which the military had dubbed the Beast Titan and around him were other naked humanoid creatures called titans.

The Beast titan was flinging rocks at them and the soldiers were dying at an alarming rate.

Commander Erwin Smith ordered a suicide mission. All surviving soldiers were to rush towards the Beast Titan while Levi flew from the side of the walls and snuck towards him.

He knew what to do. The movements were natural and Levi had flown before, the gear on his waist had only made the whole mission easier. Somehow, on the battlefield he had the luxury of stock knowledge.

That stock knowledge was what had him slicing through the arms, through the eyes, through the achilles and finally through the nape of said titan. He pulled out a blonde man and pushed the sword through the man’s mouth.

He could feel his blood boiling. From anger? Of course, the man had killed Erwin. For a second, Levi had managed to get a view of the blond commander as he flew from the wall slashing titan after titan. He knew the man was probably dead.

But there was a way to revive him. There was a serum.

Before Levi could give it a second thought, a duck billed monster tore into his view and---

Levi sat up and screamed. He found himself in no hurry to dodge that duck billed titan. He was in Hange's apartment, too injured to be flying in the air in those contraptions anyway. He ran his hands through his body and up to his face, taking stock of his reality. He didn't reek of titan blood nor was he covered in it. He scanned the dark room, or at least what was visible given the moon was his only light source.

Somehow, those few moments as captain Levi had felt so real, watching the moon from his place on the sofa bed seemed almost dreamlike.

Which one is my reality? Levi found himself questioning it all. As quickly as the questions came, they were answered. All he needed was one stimuli, strong enough to root him back into his reality.

"Hey, bad dream?"

The dark room and his own state of mind had made it difficult for him to notice that Hange had settled beside him. That voice though had pulled him out of his trance and he became certain at least that he was not dreaming anymore.

"Yeah," Levi managed to say. At the least he still had control of his voice.

Hange sat cross-legged next to him. The moon was at a perfect angle to illuminate her face and even in the dark room he could see it. Her eyes were looking right at him as if she were studying him a little too seriously.

She brought out one finger to his eye and pushed at the corner. That was when Levi felt it. The small tear spread on the corner of his eye and dried up within seconds. Levi only hastened the process by wiping it himself.

"I'm not leaving you tonight."

"Why?"

"I'll take full responsibility for this. It was my mistake that got you into this in the first place.”

"I've had them before. This is nothing new.” Levi argued. As Hange lay on the sofa bed next to him though, he realized he didn’t want her to leave. His body froze as if understanding that emotion, unwilling to accommodate the protests, the impulse inside him to argue, to force her to go back to her room.

The sofa bed was at least big enough for both of them, wide enough for a comfortable one to two feet space between them. Hange had made sure as well to lie on her side, only widening that space a little more.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this but I swear I really do mean it every time. I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked as she said it.

Levi only continued to stare at the ceiling above him, listening to her disturbed and hitched breaths next to him as if she was holding back something. He didn’t want to look to his side, not wanting to further aggravate a reaction he sensed was raring to come out of her or to further tighten that knot which had settled itself on his chest. His dim surroundings only illuminated weakly by the moon, did not help at all.

Levi lay awake for a while longer, scrambling for words that could placate her.

This is nothing new. It hadn’t worked.

I’m fine. But he wasn’t.

Things happen. Had he not given that same consolation so many times before?

Eventually the rhythm of her breathing evened out enough for Levi to guess that she had fallen asleep, and as if by some special force, Levi found his breathing slowing down too. He was starting to relax.

The apartment was dark and quiet. It was peaceful, so peaceful that Levi never did notice when exactly he was pulled back into his dream. The dimness of the apartment was gradually replaced by the dimness of the forest a long time ago. The distant sounds of passing cars gradually replaced by the crackle of a fire and the rustle of leaves on a windy night.

He was surrounded by trees. A broken wooden cart lay to the side and a few feet away from it a campfire.

The soft and even breathing next to him stayed though. The same exact pattern, the same exact rhythm, the same hitched breaths--- all signs of the light uneasy slumber of his companion.

That was all Levi needed to hear to have sworn nothing much changed about her.

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange #levi x hanji #levihan fanfiction #fanfic

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mosylufanfic · 3 years

Note

Killervibe + 66 😈😈

CONGRATS ON FINISHING! ✨🎉

66. “I’m not sure you understand how much I care about you.”

@thatkillervibe, I had this ready a few days ago, and then I watched the clips from the episode to get the details of her apartment right . . . and realized I'd have to re-write a bunch of it. Ugh! Anyway, thanks for your patience. Enjoy!

Keeping Warm

Ralph left after they got Caitlin stable - which in this case, meant they'd gotten her up to a temperature above freezing and she wasn't spilling off mist like a cooler full of dry ice. He was reluctant to go, but she shooed him out. "I'm doing much better and I'm sure you have things to do."

When she tried to shoo him along after Ralph, Cisco crossed his arms and said, "Nuh-uh, I'm parked here, young lady."

She knew that look. She gave up.

But she out-stubborned him on the topic of maybe going to a hospital, or at least urgent care. "They wouldn't know what to do if my cold powers took over again," she said, "and they might contract frostbite trying to treat me."

Cisco had his mouth open, ready to offer up a quick breach to Star Labs, before he remembered he didn't do that anymore.

He retrieved throw pillows from the floor instead, tucking them behind her so she could sit up on the couch and drink clear broth out of a coffee mug. There was still a zone of cold around her, but no worse than sticking your hand in a refrigerator.

Against his will, he pictured her as she had been when he and Ralph had burst in: lips blue, fingers bone-white, mist spilling out around her, even the blanket frosted over. And her plaintive voice - help me.

He shuddered.

"Real talk," he said. "You think this is going to hold?"

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I hope so. At least until my mom gets back to me."

She'd called her mom and left a message, clearly trying to strike a balance between asking for help and sounding like she didn't really need it, not really. Ralph and Cisco had exchanged the looks of men who had experienced Caitlin's mom in person.

Dr. T hadn't called back yet.

He brought her another mug, this one piping hot, drowning a tea bag, with a thick layer of honey at the bottom. "Well, I'm here."

She gave him a smile. "Thanks." She considered her half-full mug of broth and traded it to him for the tea. "I'm just glad that your plan worked to bring my temperature back up."

Cisco frowned down at the broth. He'd brought it to her less than ten minutes ago, fresh from the microwave, and it was stone cold. "You done with this?"

"Mhm," she said, stirring the tea.

He took it back to the kitchen and dumped it out in the sink. As he was stashing it in the dishwasher, a yelp of surprise and distress came from the couch.

He whipped around. "Caitlin?"

"I froze it," she said, staring into her tea.

"You froze it?"

She held the mug out to him and sure enough, the tea inside was frozen solid, the handle of the spoon sticking up straight, the string of the tea bag sadly flopping around the surface like ice fishing gone wrong. It was a wonder it hadn't cracked the mug.

He picked up the thermometer and aimed it at her forehead again. 4 degrees, he saw, and his throat locked up for a second before he realized it had switched to Celsius. He hit the button, and it converted to Fahrenheit: 39. Still not great, but not freezing, either.

All he could think to ask was, "Need another blanket?"

"I think it was a flare," she said, carefully setting the mug down on her end table. She held her hand out in front of her. "I'm not misting."

Her fingers were shaking.

He went and got another blanket anyway, tossing it over her feet when she wouldn't allow him to wrap it around her shoulders. He wanted to cuddle her for comfort, but she was worried that she'd freeze him next, and he wasn't one-hundred-percent pooh-poohing that notion.

He texted Barry to bring him a set of dampener cuffs, and got a text back that their friend was in the middle of something. He said, 911 Caitlin needs them and got no reply.

"I'll be okay," Caitlin said. "He needs to conserve his speed and the cuffs would be a last resort anyway. It took me by surprise the first time, but I know the warning signs now and I can turn things over to Frost if it gets really bad. She thinks she can handle it better."

Cisco sent out a group text asking for someone to bring him the cuffs, just in case, and stuck his phone back in his pocket. "Maybe you should call your mom again," he suggested.

She shook her head, pulling the second blanket up over herself. "I've called her once. She'll get back to me."

"Call her again. Please."

She looked away, and it might have been a really long-winded argument except that her phone rang at that moment. She grabbed it and informed him, "It's her," before answering. "Mom? Hi. Thanks for returning my call."

Seriously. Who said that to their mom? What kind of mom made their kid feel like they had to say that?

He tried not to listen in, but the open layout of her front room made that pretty hard. He focused on washing dishes and figuring out how to thaw the frozen mug enough to dump the tea-block out. When that was done, he busied himself texting Kamilla that he wouldn't be home tonight.

"Okay," Caitlin said. "Okay. Uh-huh. No, that's all right. Yes. I'll keep you informed. Okay. Bye, Mom."

At the sound of her sigh, he put his own phone down. "What'd she say?"

"She'll be here in a few days."

"A few days!"

"It's fine, I'll stay home until then. I'll take care of the wound and switch to Frost if I need, and if someone can bring by the cuffs, I can have those, too."

"But - "

"She has to get things in order at the office so she can take the time off."

He stopped dead, mid-protest. He couldn't think of the last time Mama Snow had ever taken time off work for her daughter. He was pretty sure that when Caitlin had been born, Carla Tannhauser had popped her out during a board meeting and stashed her in a file cabinet.

Caitlin looked up. "She's very concerned."

"Yeah." He sat down on the coffee table, ignoring the way she hissed at him. She hated when he did that. "So she's going to like, come here?" He pictured Mama Snow at Star Labs, snipping at all of them. "How long?"

"No, she - " Caitlin cleared her throat. "She'd like to take me to the lab in the Arctic."

"Hang on, Icicle's cryotastic lair of chilly evil?"

"Don't call it that, and yes."

"You're leaving?"

"I agree with her. We'll need the specialized equipment there to figure out what's going on, and maybe to stabilize it."

"How long?"

"As long as it takes, I guess."

How long would that be? "You want I should come with?"

"You just got back," she said. "And no offense, this is really more of a biomedical issue than a mechanical one. If it turns out we need some kind of device built, I can always call you."

"Yeah, you got my digits," he mumbled. "So what'll you do until then?"

"The wound did close up before my immune system went haywire," she said. "So now it's a matter of taking it easy. The antibiotics should start to work, and I'm taking in lots of fluids. I'm not concerned about that part, it seems like it's just a matter of time."

She was the doctor. He nodded. "Okay. But I'm staying here tonight to look after you."

"You don't have to do that!"

"Yeah, I know, I want to."

"What if I freeze you?"

He grinned at her. "Baby, I'm too hot to ever get that cold."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Seriously. You don't have to stay."

He squatted down next to the couch, as close as she would allow him to get. "Caitlin," he said, looking her in the eye. "I'm not sure you understand how much I care about you."

"I know you care about me."

"But you still think I'm going to see you in this condition and go swanning off back home."

She chewed her bottom lip. "What does Kamilla think?"

The rebuttal should have come easy. She's fine with it. You're my friend, you need help. It wouldn't be the first time he'd put in overtime to help a friend. It was one of the things Kamilla said she liked about him.

But for some reason he couldn't get the words out. "She understands," he said. "I filled her in. She says get well soon."

She doesn't have any reason to be jealous, he thought, and then immediately thought, Jealous? Why did that even cross my mind?

Caitlin studied him, and he tried not to squirm.

"Anyway," he added. "We should get in some concentrated bestie time, since I was on the road and you're going to be off in the Arctic. Hmm?" He looked around and found her remote. "Here, I'll even let you pick the first movie."

"Oh, really," she said archly.

"Yes, really, here."

She took the remote with a pleased hum. "I should get injured more often."

"Umm, hard no on that."

***

By the time they'd finished “Always Be My Maybe” and “The Old Guard,” she'd downed some egg flower soup and a mug of tea without flash-freezing either, and taken some antibiotics as well. The cuffs had arrived too, courtesy of Allegra, who'd stayed long enough to eat three egg rolls and watch the end of Caitlin's rom-com.

When Cisco finished cleaning up the Chinese delivery boxes, she was snuggled into her pillows, eyes closed.

"Hey," he whispered. "You awake there?"

She snored a little. He snickered.

He considered her couch. He'd had occasion to sleep on it before, and he knew it was decently comfy. But she would probably prefer her bed.

On the other hand, she was asleep now, and she clearly needed the downtime. He didn't want to wake her all the way up just to steer her into her bedroom a few feet away. Especially if it would break open her wound again, or her suddenly-uncertain powers were under shakier control in her sleep.

He decided to leave her where she was and claim the futon in her study. He knew where all her extra blankets and pillows were.

He held his hand a few inches away from her cheek, testing. When it failed to freeze over, he pulled the extra blanket up over her, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her skin was unsettlingly cool under his lips, and he paused until he saw her chest rise and fall. Then he brushed her hair back and murmured, "Sleep tight, frosty girl. I'll be right here if you need me."

FINIS

#Caitlin Snow #Cisco Ramon #killervibe #celebration prompt party #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #fanfiction #episode reaction #man it's been a long time since I did one of those #the flash #thatkillervibe

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commonwealthoccurences · 3 years

Text

Sunflowers On Ice

TW: Dead body mention.

Note: Usual platonic-friendship-only disclaimer

The horror that etched itself onto Sole’s face as they looked into the different cryopods was foreign to Deacon. Of course, he’d seen them upset; they’d known each other for around a year and he’d taken them in under his wing once he realized how young they were. A teenager, now around seventeen, just learning how to stand on their own in a world so foreign to the one they were born in.

This was something completely different than upset or shocked, though. Their expression was petrifying in itself, like reality had been shattered like a single sheet of glass in front of their very eyes. Deacon was nearly hesitant to step forward and look in, but he did. They were partners in crime, and that meant he faced the hard shit with them, too. He moved to stand next to them and looked into the cryopod. Then he understood.

Inside the cryopod was Sole, older than they appeared now. Dead. It appeared they died the same way the rest of the residents of the vault did; suffocation due to a mechanism failure. The dots connected faster for Deacon than they did for Sole as they stumbled backwards, falling to the floor, trying to put as much distance between themself… and, well, themself as possible.

Deacon turned to face them and stepped into their line of sight, blocking their view of the body before he moved towards them. They were so shocked he doubted they even had the thought to cry. Slowly, hands out, he took a few more steps towards them before kneeling in front of them and holding out a hand. They took it, and allowed him to pull them to their feet, avoiding all glimpses of the freezing casket. “But… I…” They shook their head, looking up at him as if he held all the answers

With a gentle, sad smile, mourning the ignorance they had held that just died, he guided them out of the hall of cryopods into a different area of the vault, and helped them collapse onto a bench. “Deacon?” They asked, tears streaming down their face.

“I’m sorry you found out this way. I swear I didn’t know, though.” He squatted in front of them, looking up at their devastated face sympathetically.

“Know what?” They choked out. They needed him to say it.

Ah, denial. A tactic he was too familiar with. He rubbed a conflicted hand over his face before deciding to rip the bandaid off. “Sole, you’re a synth.” He spoke quietly, looking down at the floor.

They shook their head rapidly and he felt guilt flood his veins at the way the truth hurt them. It was understandable. The one thing they were sure of was everything about their past, and that had just been proven wrong. He sighed and reached up to pat them on the shoulder when they grabbed his hand tightly. “No.” They whimpered, clutching at him like he was the only thing anchoring them to reality.

He moved closer and brought them into a hug, cradling them as they folded in on themself. Their crying echoed through the empty halls of the vault, haunting in the way they reverberated, like the residents of the graveyard just down the hallway were crying out for them as well. They clutched at him hard, silently begging him not to leave, as tears soaked through his t-shirt and seemed to sting at his skin like betrayal.

Deacon reached up and rested a hand against the back of their head. Their helplessness was contagious, it seemed, in the way he felt himself close his eyes and clench his jaw to keep from getting emotional. He knew what it was like to feel as if you’d witnessed the end of the world with your own two eyes, and there was nothing he could do to protect them, despite so desperately wanting to. “Deacon?” He hugged them tighter when their voice cracked.

“Yeah, Sole?”

“What do I do?”

Sole’s breath shook as they tried to regulate it, their body shaking in panic. Often, he forgot how young they were, considering how readily they took on the responsibilities of being a leader, and how determined they were to find their younger brother. There was nothing that seemed to indicate that the survivor in front of him was just a kid. Until now. They looked like all of the aging experiences of the Wasteland melted off of them out of pure horror, running from something more horrifying than themselves, leaving Sole alone and terrified.

Deacon placed their hand on his chest as he took a deep breath, guiding them to regulate their breathing, trying to stave off the lightheadedness he knew had taken over their thoughts. Once they weren’t hyperventilating anymore he spoke. “We pick up and continue. You’re still Sole. This doesn’t change who you are or anything you’ve experienced. You’re still the General, still a part of the Railroad. I’m still so proud of you and everything you’ve done. You’re still just as brave and selfless. It changes nothing, Sole. You’re you and nothing can take that away from you, not even this.” He looked them in the eyes, trying to make sure the message got across.

Sole nodded and pulled back, hands shaking from how hard they had been gripping the back of his shirt, and wiped their hand across the back of their face, smearing tears across their skin. They blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling, searching for something that couldn’t be seen, nor found. Eventually, they leaned forward and put their head in their hands. Deacon got up from the floor and dropped onto the bench next to them, folding his hands together.

It was a sight to behold, the way they both appeared to be mourning and repenting for something they had no control over, no claim to. Sole’s shoulders shook every now and then as they attempted to get ahold of what they had left of their identity, Deacon’s face stone cold as he blocked off the sympathetic terror he felt for them. Both internally scrambling for answers, for the next step in something no one had a guide to, had no advice for other than to keep moving.

Hours slipped by in silence, other than the occasional cracking of ice that echoed into the hallway, like the bodies in the other room were trying to get their attention. Eventually, Sole straightened up, back aching from the position they had held. Deacon turned to look at them as they glanced around, gathering their thoughts. They took in a deep breath and looked at him with a familiar expression; cold determination. “Let’s go find my little brother.”

#fallout 4 #fo4 #imagine #Deacon #angst #hurt comfort

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yacoka · 3 years

Text

the journey back

i. a life half-lived

character(s) — tsukishima kei, matsukawa issei

pairing — tsukishima kei x reader

genre — royalty!au, reincarnation!au, soulmate!au

warning(s) — death, PTSD, loss, car accident

beta(s) — @/doughnuts-5ever

masterlist

The funeral is something you barely remember, white noise buzzing loudly in your ears as you move around almost mechanically. In front of all these people, you aren’t quite sure how to act, and the subdued pride in you refuses to break down so publicly.

You’re ushered around by warm hands, seated in chairs, drinks pushed into your still hands. Hushed whispers are exchanged above your head, but you can’t be bothered to figure out what it's about. All that runs through your mind is the scene of the accident playing on repeat. You watch it with a morbid fascination, eyes distant as you recall the burning heat on your skin, the stinging in your eyes, the aches on your body. The blood that trickles into your eyes as you scream yourself hoarse at the mangled bodies of your parents, how broken they were, how dull their eyes were.

You blink once. Twice. Thrice.

Cool beige walls greet you as you begin to take in your surroundings. A grey couch, an askew photo frame on the wall, a familiar shirt and worn sweatpants.

“Issei?” Your voice is small, and your breathing begins to quicken. “Issei!”

He comes darting through a door, a towel hanging around his neck. You jump to your feet and dash into his arms, gripping the soft material of his shirt tightly. His arms flail around in surprise for a second before coming to wrap around you tightly. He smooths your hair down, and the familiar action has you calming down.

“You’re at my apartment, it’s okay.” His deep voice grounds you, and you look around to see that, yes, this is Issei’s apartment. One that you’ve been to too many times to count. It is a place you’ve spent many days lounging in, and many nights sleeping over at.

Issei guides you back to the couch gently and you cling to him, refusing to let go of the one thing that was holding you back from tipping over the edge. There are so many words you’d like to say right now, but the only thing that comes out are strangled cries.

Everything that you’ve been holding back since the accident, everything that has been pushing against the flimsy door you’ve hidden it behind comes pouring out in the sobs that wrack through your body. Issei doesn’t bother with words; he knows they aren’t what you need right now.

What you need is family, and he’s all you got left.

“Issei!”

Sweat drips down your neck, soaking the flimsy shirt you wore to bed. All you could focus on was the screeching of car tires and the horrid, wrenching twist of metal twisting as your parents flew out of the car, their broken bodies strewn across the street. And all the blood, god, there was so much bloo-

Your door slams open, and Issei flies in, his hair sticking up in all directions as his sleep-clouded eyes are filled with worry. He slips into bed, kneeling in front of you. The heat of his knees brushing against your legs through the sheets has you shifting uncomfortably, though his presence soothes your panicked mind.

He doesn’t say a word, too accustomed to waking up in the middle of the night to your nightmares. He just sits and waits for your breathing to even out, eyes trained upon your twisting fingers. A familiar silence sits between you as you match your breaths to Issei’s steady breathing.

“I-I had the dream again.” Your voice is soft, trembling ever so slightly. You hate the weakness showing through, and you would give anything to put the usual mask of indifference. But this was Issei. Issei who had been there for you since you were kids, who had watched you skin your knees the first time you tried rollerblading, who had helped you sneak out of the house when your parents were fighting. He was the one who took you in after you lost your parents, and the only one you trusted enough to be vulnerable around.

“Do you wanna go walk?” Issei, ever the reliable best friend. He knows what you need before you even say anything. You nodded, letting him pull you off the bed. It is only with years of familiarity that you allow him to dress you in warm clothes without any shame. He’s seen all of you before, so what was the point in hiding?

You’re out of the house and walking down the dimly lit streets before you even realize, and the creeping shadows in the corner of your eyes has you shifting closer to Issei. He wraps a warm arm around you, pressing you into his side. He’s the only safety you’ve ever known, and that stays true tonight as your raised heartbeat steadies out.

The night is quiet, punctuated only by the distant sounds of cars, the soft rustle of leaves dancing along to a gentle melody playing in the back of your mind. You hum along to it, and Issei merely squeezes your shoulders in response. It’s a song you’ve sung a million times since childhood, and neither of you have bothered to acknowledge that it’s a song you’ve never heard.

You aren’t sure for how long you’ve looped the blocks, and when you’ve arrived back home. All you know is that your mind is no longer a panicked mess, and Issei is by your side, as he used to do, as he’s always done. You owe everything to him, and you would give everything up in the world for him.

“Do you have everything you need?” Issei fusses over you as you give him a tired smile. He had taken it upon himself to take care for you since the accident, and while you appreciated him for it, you didn’t adore the mothering he occasionally did.

“Yes, Issei. I have everything.” Your dry response has him raising his brows and backing away.

“Alright, alright. I get it. No more fussing.” He grins at you, hands raised. “Can you blame me though? You’re heading into college at last.”

A frown slips onto your face. “You’re only a year older than me dipshit. Stop making me sound like your child or whatever.”

“Ah, but you are now. My adoptive child,” he sniffs and pretends to wipe a tear away. “How they grow up so fa-”

The fist you send flying into his stomach is enough to knock the breath out of him, and he groans, dropping to the floor in his usual show of dramatics. You ignore him, stepping over his prone figure and head towards the door. But before your hand lands on the door handle, Issei yells at you to wait.

“What Issei? I’m going to be late at this rate.” He isn’t deterred by your sharp tone and gestures for you to wait as he disappears into his room. “Whatever, just hurry up.”

He comes running back out, brandishing a long, thin thing. Was that a stick?

A vision flashes through your mind's eye, only for a second, but the details are vivid - Issei looking as sleepy as always, but somehow different. His clothes were of olden style, his face littered with scars. And those hands, ones that you were so familiar with, large and calloused were holding a stick too.

You blink rapidly, washing away the lingering after images as Issei, your Issei, waves a lazy hand in front of you, the stick narrowly missing your eyes.

“Oi, earth to Princess.” You scowl at him.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then don’t zone out when I’m giving you presents.” He pulls a face at you. You mirror his expression, go as far as to stick your tongue out. Issei makes to poke it with the stick, and you lunge back with a shriek.

“Why are you even giving me a stick anyways?” You grumble. Honestly, nineteen years with this guy and you still have no idea how his brain works.

“Because it reminds me of you!” He grins.

Your face falls into a deadpan. “It what?”

“You know, stick, sticky? Like how you dropped your ice cream the other day?”

“You know, I worry for you sometimes,” you drawl, dead eyes boring into his smiling ones. “Besides, didn’t you bring me that already?”

His smile drops. “No? This is the first time I’ve brought you a stick?” Issei narrows his eyes at you. “Who else has been giving you sticks? Was it Makki? I’ll fight his ass!”

“No, it wasn’t Makki. You’re the only weirdo who gives me stupid things like this,” you snicker. “Can I go to school now?”

“Wait! Bring the stick with you.”

You gape at him, brows raising so high it was a wonder they didn’t jump off your face. “No.”

Issei pouts, though you could see the amusement shining through. “Why not? I got it for you as your first day of uni gift.” He shoves the stick closer into your face, and you bat it away.

“Because it’s a stick? And it’s too long for me to fit in my bag?” This doesn’t deter him, instead prompting him to break off a piece of the twig, shoving it into your hand before darting off to your room.

“Okay, here, now you can have a tiny piece of it to put in your pocket. I’ll put the rest in your room!”

“Issei, no-” The fight leaves you, knowing that your stubborn best friend won’t listen to anything you say. Stuffing the piece of twig into your pocket, you yell over your shoulder as you leave the house. “Whatever, I’m leaving.”

His voice calls out from where he still lingers in your bedroom. “Bye Princess! Have a good day at school!”

The journey to the university doesn’t take long, and before you even realize, you’re seated in your first class next to a lanky blond who has his headphones on as he messages someone. You frown slightly at him, an odd sense of deja vu washing over you as you stare at him. He must have felt your gaze on him, as he finally lifts his gaze off his phone to return your frown.

“Can I help you?” Despite the politeness in his words, you pick up on the slight undertone of annoyance. You shrink back from him, and mutter out a soft no, turning your head to stare down at the wooden table instead. You shove your shaking hands into your pockets, your fingers curling around a thin, rough object.

Please look away, please look away, please look away.

He huffs, and turns back to his phone, fingers returning to their rapid dance across the screen. Despite his chilly greeting, you couldn’t shake the odd feeling that settles upon your skin, clinging like spiderwebs. But there isn’t time to contemplate it, not when your teacher’s starting the lesson and your laptop hasn’t been set up yet.

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu tsukishima

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epicstuckyficrecs · 4 years

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Weekly Recap | April 6-12

I went on a bit of an Evanstan (re)reading spree this week as you can see!

Complete

character bleed by luninosity/ @luninosity (Evanstan RPF): In which Chris and Sebastian are cast as the leads in a Regency-era gay romance, and Chris has difficulty with a certain emotional scene...

ecce amore by Anonymous (Evanstan RPF | 3,8K | Teen): “You weren’t filming a sex scene in there.” Chris doesn’t have it in him to protest, anymore. Chris doesn’t think he even wants to deny it. He just needs this to be done. He’s not sure he’s going to last much longer with the pressure as it mounts again. “I think,” Sebastian tilts his head. “I think you might have been trying to make love.” (Inspired by luninosity's Character Bleed)

[End Scene] by Anonymous (Evanstan RPF | 2,1K | Teen): The Death of Captain America was, from conception to publication, one of the worst ideas Marvel had ever spawned. So of course: they film it, anyway. And he should not have been surprised by the way that it hits him. Runs him over and crushes him, skull to sternum, take after take after unforgiving take. The Death of Sebastian Stan is more accurate, to his mind. Admittedly, though: it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Pleased To Meet You (Hope You Guess My Name) by Brenda/ @brendaonao3 (TJ Hammond/Steve | 7K | Explicit): Or: TJ and Steve meet cute in a Starbucks and shenanigans ensue.

Seas(on) The Moment by luninosity/ @luninosity, musette22/ @musette22, paperstorm/ @paper-storm (Evanstan AU | 4,6K | Explicit): Quarantine coping mechanisms. Or: Sebastian watches Chris's internet cooking videos, and falls in love. And posts a video of his own...

Let It Be Glorious by brucespringsteen (WW2 | 8K | Explicit): The sign above the entrance to the large factory says American Army Men Who Desire Showers Are Welcome, and it is hanging haphazardly; the letters are big and blocked, and messy, and the bolts securing it over the big double doors are rusted. Steve turns to Bucky. “What do you think?”

it's this sunrise by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3 (Sugar Daddy Steve | 4K | Explicit): He knows Bucky being grumpy and sleepy shouldn’t be so goddamn cute but, fuck, it’s the most adorable thing Steve’s ever been witness to (Part 11 of Modern Daddy Steve Rogers/Young Bucky Barnes)

WIP

Paradise Lost (& Found) by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Modern AU | 30/? | 67K | Mature): Meeting at a tropical resort AU where Steve is there on a 2-week honeymoon package after his fiancee left him at the altar, and Bucky is there for his sister’s destination wedding but doesn’t have a room because there was a mix up with the reservations in the system.

💙 How to Fuck With (and Feed) Your Soulmate by BlueSimplicity/ @bluesimplicity73 (Soulmate AU, Shrunkyclunks | 13/? | 73K | Explicit): It’s called the Grey Space; a patch of skin marking you as blessed and the first sign you have a soulmate. Steve Rogers didn’t have one when he crashed into the ice. But he did when he woke up in the future. The second sign is the Sense, a sharing of one the senses to help soulmates find each other. Steve’s Sense, taste, is rare, but he loves a challenge and a soulmate is a gift from the Fates. Except instead of a blessing, it’s a curse, since his soulmate is a dick. Bucky Barnes loves food and a homecooked meal is something he cherishes. When his Grey Space starts to itch, Bucky can’t help his excitement, since the Sense he and his soulmate share is taste. But not for long. Whoever he’s bound to has the blandest diet in the world, ignoring all Bucky’s messages. After weeks of putting up with tasteless food, Bucky decides to strike back.

The Mnemosyne Project by onymousann (Post-WS | 5/? | 15K | Explicit): Someone’s trying to talk to the Winter Soldier. Steve intends to find out who. (Part 2 of ocean eyes)

💙 four dreams in a row where you were burned by voxofthevoid/ @voxofthevoid (canon divergent, post-Endgame, 1945 alternate timeline | 10/? | 58K | Mature): When Steve uses the last of his Pym Particles to travel to 1944 and save his best friend, he doesn’t have a plan beyond leaving behind the battlefield and living his life alongside the people he loves. But the life that finds him is not the one he expects.

Re-read

💙 just a couple lovebirds (we got a good thing) by luninosity/ @luninosity (Evanstan AU | 55K | Explicit): Sebastian grabs his laptop, and opens a new client file, and names it Evans, Chris.

Bro by eclecticxdetour/ @eclecticxdetour (Evanstan AU, Uni AU | 3,6K | Explicit): Sebastian gets dragged to a frat party and catches the attention of an attractive fraternity brother.

💙 (baby won’t you please) run your fingers through my hair by luninosity/ @luninosity (Evanstan RPF, BDSM | 20K | Explicit): “I can’t just Google sex dungeons,” Chris says, “even if it is for a role.” Sebastian says, “I might know a place.”

Commandments by eadunne2 (Evanstan RPF | 3K | Explicit): Thou shalt not fall in love with Sebastian. He makes it a rule even though he’s already broken it. He needs a reminder that it’s his own damn fault his heart is breaking. That he knows better.

Break Your Heart And Give You Mine by coloursflyaway/ @coloursflyaway (Evanstan RPF | 8,8K | Teen): Chris and Sebastian have never really been friends, but when Chris comes back to shoot yet another movie with Sebastian, everything changes.

when i'm with you by betoning (Evanstan RPF | 6,3K | Mature): In which a lovesick Sebastian is about to leave the dinner Team Cap filmed with Chelsea Handler.

What the Fuck, Why, What -- Fuck (and Other Boston Classics) by rallyonward/ @rallyonward (Evanstan RPF | 3,7K | Teen): So it happens like this: Sebastian calls Chris on a Tuesday.

notes from the in-between by radialarch/ @radialarch (Evanstan RPF | 4,8K | Teen): At some point, he thinks, he's stopped acting.

💙 It Takes Three (To Make A Thing Go Right) by Brenda/ @brendaonao3 (Steve/Bucky/TJ Hammond | 10K | Explicit): Or: Bucky and Steve meet TJ Hammond at a fundraiser and take him home with them. It's the start of a beautiful relationship.

💙 Recipe for Demi-saster by Imagineitdear (Modern AU | 24K | Explicit): When Steve finally realizes he isn't broken, he settles in for a nice life of cookie-baking and kinky porn. Gone are the days of trying to push himself into flirting, no-strings-attached sex, or awkward dates with near-strangers. Gone is the nagging self-doubt that he should want things exactly how everyone else does. Years later, on one of his least favorite days of the year, he re-meets one of said no-strings-attached hookups from his past. Who just moved in down the street and seems to want to be friends now. After having a great time for *once* on a Fourth of July, Steve wants the same. But he’s forgotten something rather important: for demi-sexuals, there's no place more dangerous than the friend zone.

#stucky #stucky fic #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction #stucky fic rec #evanstan #evanstan fanfic #evanstan fic #evanstan fanfiction #weekly recap

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emrysaf · 4 years

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Atrophy & Rally Pt. 13

Soulmates aren’t the ones who make you happiest, no. They’re instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation, and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.

― Victoria Erickson

“Got here as soon as I could. Your message wasn’t all that clear. All Might, what exactly is-”

“Shigaraki Tomura- What has happened?” Kurogiri interrupted Aizawa.

The tired-eyed man’s gaze slid over to the villain with a tinge of disdain, but returned his gaze to the tall blond with a tilt of his head. “Yes, what has happened?”

“Soulmates. . . A soulmark touch like I’ve never heard of before,” sighed Toshinori. “They are both out cold, and Shig-Young Tenko’s quirk has made it virtually impossible to get in or out of the room.”

“That is why you requested my presence then.” The sentence was a question, but the Warp-quirk user’s tone muttered it as a statement of fact. “If that is the case, we still must wait. There are precautions they must take to the nullifications in the cell. . . And out here.” Kurogiri finished his explanation by touching the mechanism around his chest like a harness that effectively canceled out his quirk.

All three men looked at one another and solemnly turned their gazes to the ground.

And they waited.

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Inside the minds and soulbonds of the young couple, memories filtered through.

Y/N was still in the small, slight body. The younger version of her soulmate. But now a different, large man was approaching them while the curled in body shook with the force of her-his cries combined with the fear of this man.

“No one’s coming. You’ve had a hard life Tenko Shimura.”

He takes slow steps forward.

“‘He’ll be fine. Eventually the heroes will help.’ I’m sure that’s what everyone thought as they looked away and ignored you.”

The tall man tilted his head at the seemingly obvious explanation, and held a hand out to her-him.

“The world shouldn’t be so unforgiving.” Cautious-seeming crouch like this large man was approaching a feral animal. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I am here for you.”

Y/N felt a blossoming in her-his chest. ‘Someone cares.’

Another flash and she was still in Tenko’s smaller body while the large man, his ‘Master’, //manipulated// explained how the young boy had no one else. How he was one of the one’s born with no soulmate, but it was fine because now ‘He was here’.

This memory was fading out; changing again.

“No, Tenko. I’m here.”

Shi-Tenko had vaulted farther from the infant’s memories.

Looking at his-her small hands he would gauge the was still in a very young version of his soulmate as his gaze shifted up to look at a doorknob above his-her head. Again, he was along for the ride as the small body’s legs carried him-her to the parents again. They were smiling back at the child, and it hurt Tenko’s heart in a bittersweet way.

Slowly he realized the pain was almost physical when his-her tiny hand came up to grip the shirt over his-her heart and a whimper came from the child’s mouth. Both parents’ beaming smiles dropped in concern as they rushed to the now crying child who had brought the other hand to join the first over his-her chest.

“What’s wrong honey?” asked the mom with her kind eyes worrying over the small girl.

“It cold,” explained the child to the best of her abilities.

The woman who looked so much like his own soulmate, yet so different, delicately took the small child’s hands from their death grip on his-her shirt and slid the collar to the side a bit to feel the skin of her soulmark.

“Hun, it is,” she gasped to the man standing beside his crying daughter and kneeling wife. “It’s cold.” The mom slid the shirt aside a bit to look at the mark; it was light in color, but no different than it had been since it appeared. “It isn’t fading though.” she questioned while looking wide-eyed at her husband.

“Whoever is on the other end of the bond,” began the man trying to remember articles he’d read on soulmates and strange cases; a hobby of his. “They are blocking it. Maybe not intentionally, but they are putting up a wall. The bond will be. . . Faint. Until they meet; if they meet.”

Both gazes shifted from looking into each other's eyes to looking at their small daughter.

“Owie.”

The small family cried together.

“No,” Tenko cried as he felt the fade and pull of changing to another memory. ‘Leaving her behind, again.’ “I didn’t mean to.”

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In the outside world, Shig-Tenko’s emotions had his quirk swirling about seeming to brush on things and erode them a bit, but not full on decay. The push and pull of his quirk’s pulsing had him face down on the tile floor now. Hands out looking like he was reaching for Y/N.

“No, I didn’t mean to.” he mumbled with his face pressed to the ground.

The bond was growing stronger with each memory they traipsed through, and while unconscious Y/N’s own quirk seemed to have a mind of it’s own as well. A thin layer of ice was forming under her to ease traction as weak viney-roots tried to push and pull their way toward Tenko.

“No, Tenko. I’m here.

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If no one got in to help them, who knew what the combination of their quirks and the almost-sentient soulbond would do.

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shadowhuntertrash · 4 years

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High Notes

I own nothing

Chapter Six

The day went by quickly and Thomas didn’t have much time to ponder the almost kiss he had with Alastair or the girl's from the coffee shop’s words until dinner that night. Lucie and Cordelia had gone and had an early dinner with Alastair and the other boys had decided to have a late dinner and go ahead and knock the rest of their rehearsal out.

James and Christopher were in a deep discussion about dress rehearsal they had tomorrow and Thomas found himself, once again, under the scrutinizing gaze of Matthew. Thomas moved the fry around on his plate, his hamburger long forgotten. He was too anxious to eat anyway. “Who started it?” Matthew asked in a quiet voice. Thomas raised an eyebrow, “Math I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.” He said innocently shrugging, Matthew just glared.

“Stop it, we both know you do.” They held eye contact for a minute and Thomas was reminded vaguely of a dominance match between dogs. Thomas gave up with a huff and looked back down at his fries again. “I honestly don’t know. I had a panic attack and then we were just walking and then it just kind of… happened. Lord, that sounds dull.” Matthew smirked at him and Thomas groans, burying his head in his hands. Matthew laughs softly and James looks over at them. “What are we talking about?” James asked, propping his chin on Matthew’s shoulder so he could see Thomas.

Thomas had sat in this booth first, Matthew had sat next to Thomas and then James, the social anxiety impersonation he is, sat next to Matthew instead of sitting in the booth with Christopher. Which led to Thomas, Matthew, and James being squished together and Christopher propping his legs up in his practically empty booth.

They had to sit in the back because most places they go they get noticed by fans and won’t get any peace. It was a habit now (for their band and Alastair and the girls) to ask for a spot in the back or off in a corner somewhere when they went out to eat.

“We’re talking about Thomas and Alastair almost kissing.” Matthew said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Christopher choked on his drink and James looked at Thomas with wide eyes. “When did that happen!” Christopher said when he had stopped choking. Thomas was sure he resembled a tomato at this point.

He hit Matthew, who was still laughing hysterically, in the arm and slumped further in his seat, hating his height more than anything at the moment. “When we found them, they were about to kiss and then we stumbled upon them and they didn’t.” Matthew frowned and slumped against James. “What a bunch of cock blocks we are.” Matthew said as if it were him that didn’t get to kiss someone he wanted to.

Thomas found himself laughing at Matthew’s forlorn expression and James’s still too wide eyes. “Nothing really happened. We were just walking and talking. We were actually trying to find you guys because I told Matthew twenty minutes and then I realized I was late because I didn’t have my phone on. Sorry about that Math, I know you worry. So I was trying to-”

Matthew cut him off with a raised hand. “Stop rambling it’s okay. I was just picking and James was just a little shocked.” Matthew finished with a shape jab to James’ ribs which seemed to snap James out of his daze. James nodded enthusiastically before looking at Matthew with a wide smile. “Oh my god otp Matthew OTP!” Matthew and Christopher burst out laughing and Thomas slumped impossibly further in his chair. Why did they always have to pick on him?

Matthew dropped his hand on Thoams’ shoulder and Thomas looked at him. Matthew was looking at him with a look that was strictly reserved for James, Thomas, and Christopher. A soft look that was often off putting since he was constantly annoyed or making a joke out of everything and anything.

“You know Tommy we only pick on you because it’s easy with how embarrassed you get. We love you and as much as I dislike Alastair I think you two would be good for each other. Plus,” He added a wink that made Thomas blush before he even heard the next part. “I think you could teach him some well needed manners.” Thomas laughed softly and gave Mattew a pointed look.

“You really shouldn’t make fun of my pining, saying as it is not nearly as bad as yours was.” Matthew put his hand to his chest in mock hurt. “You wound me Thomas. Anyhow even if that was accurate,” He turned to James and stuck his tongue out boyishly. “Which it wasn’t,” He turned back to Thomas who was smiling at his friends. “It isn’t my fault you’re too nice and didn’t pick on me when you had the chance.” Thomas rolled his eyes.

It was common knowledge that Thomas was nice, it was why the fans had dubbed him the ‘Kind One’ or ‘Gentle Giant’ as some others called him. He hated that one thought, gentle giant made him sound dull. They had dubbed Matthew as the ‘Sexy One’, James the ‘Mysterious One’, and Christopher, well Christopher was his own category.

Thomas pushed Matthew playfully and Matthew fell back dramatically accidentally falling on James, causing him to fall out of the seat. “Jesus Math, be careful.” James said taking Matthew’s outstretched hand and getting back to his feet, Matthew was too busy laughing to listen to him.

Thomas sat back watching them, his brothers by all means but blood, and smiled. How did he get so lucky?

When it was time to go back to the hotel rooms, which they were staying in when they weren’t on the road, they all split ways smiling and wishing each other goodnight. Thomas followed Christopher to their room. There were two beds so Thomas knew he could stand staying with Christopher.

Thomas showered as soon as they got to the hotel. Some people thought it was weird but Thomas showered twice a day and washed his hair at least once a day. Matthew always picked on it but Thomas just shrugged it off he didn’t feel clean if he didn’t wash his hair.

Thomas took his time feeling the hot water wash off the stress of the day. As soon as he had got to the quiet hotel room the fans from the diner’s words came back to him. He knew he would spend too much time thinking about this.

He got out of the shower about 40 minutes later and ran his towel through his hair shaking it out. He flopped gracelessly on the bed and groaned. Christopher was fast asleep on the bed next to him, the sound he was making strongly reminded Thomas of a lawnmower.

Thomas grabbed his phone, turned the brightness down, as he began feeling the beginning of a headache, and read the texts he had received.

Matthew Unfairchild:

Sleep well dream of your knight in shining armor <3

Thomas scoffed and replied,

Tommy:

We all know I’m more into Prince Charming. <3

He opened a text from Lucie and smiled at her picture. It was a picture from the first time they went to Disney World. No one else would go with her, Cordelia didn’t like it because she couldn’t stand the lines and decided it was no more magical than Six Flags. James and Matthew had claimed too manly (however it turned out they went two months before without telling anyone), and Christopher, bless his soul, wouldn’t stop going on and on about the mechanisms in the rides and that just made everyone untrustworthy of the shaky rides.

So Thomas had gone with her and they had stayed for two days, riding rides and meeting characters. The picture that made her profile was of her in front of Cinderella’s castle with a bunch of fireworks going off in the background. She was mid jump and a look of pure happiness plastered on her face, she had an ice cream cone in her hand however the ice cream was mid fall.

It was Thomas’ all time favorite picture of her and he was quietly proud of his photography skills. Lucie’s parents, Tessa and Will, had taken one look at the picture and demanded it be framed and hung on the wall of their house. Thomas was proud of that too.

Luce <33:

Matthew told me what happened. I'm so mad at myself. You two were finally gonna kiss and I messed it up I’m so sorry Tommy.

Thomas laughed and shook his head. It seemed everyone was rooting for them and Thomas was quietly pleased. Thomas just hoped he wasn’t going off of false hope.

Tommy:

It’s fine sweetie don’t worry about it. I wasn’t thinking anyway.

Thomas checked his other text to find pictures of Barbara’s engagement ring and a video of her telling our parents about her engagement. Thomas smiled slightly and watched the video with the volume on low knowing exactly how his mom would react. He did however have to turn it up when he couldn’t hear the video over Christopher’s snoring.

He watched as Barbara casually, without words, held up her engagement ring for them to see. Sophie’s hands automatically came up to cover her mouth as her eyes started watering dangerously. Gideon however stared at it not comprehending yet. “He did not!” Sophie all but screamed. He listened as Barbara and Oliver started laughing.

Gideon’s mouth fell open slightly, understanding brightening his eyes. He walked over quickly and hugged her, Sophie joining quickly. The video ended then and Thomas sent his sister a text.

Tommy:

Aww! They’re so proud! I’m proud of you. It was about time Oliver took the next step! Love you tons miss you more!

Thomas opened the last unread message and furrowed his eyebrows, it was an unknown number. Thomas opened it and felt a smile stretching across his face.

Unknown Number:

Hey I asked Lucie for your number hope you don’t mind.

Unknown Number:

It’s Alastair btw lol

Thomas let out a happy sound that immediately made him blush even though Christopher wasn’t awake to hear it. Thomas took a few calming breaths cursing himself for acting like a little girl with a crush.

Tommy:

Oh hey I don’t mind sorry for responding late

Thomas stared down at the message, that was cool right? Not too eager, not too pushy. Thomas sighed roughly and put his phone on the nightstand by their beds. Thomas closed his eyes and replayed the events of the day, the practicing, the boys trying to convince him to sing at a concert, the girls words which were still ringing in his ears much to his dismay, and Alastair.

Daring Alastair with his stupid dyed hair and his face that lights up constantly. Thomas shook his head as if he could physically fling the thoughts from his head. He got up knowing he wasn’t going to be able to sleep yet. Christopher was making sure of that. Thomas knew in the back of his mind that he was probably going to end up in James and Matthew’s room.

Thomas got up and picked up his guitar. It had been a long day and he had written a song but he didn’t want to play it for anyone yet. It was deeper than his normal ones, it was more just words he needed out of his head. Thomas huffs loudly the girls words playing on repeat in his head, he could tell he was getting a migraine but he bit back the pain and started strumming.

I don't know why I just feel I'm better off

Stayin' in the same room I was born in

I look outside and see a whole world better off

Without me in it tryin' to transform it

You are out of my mind, oh

You aren't seein' my side, oh

You waste all this time tryin' to get to me

But you are out of my mind, yeah

Listen, I know

This one's a contradiction because of how happy it sounds

But the lyrics are so down

It's okay though

Because it represents, wait, better yet it is

Who I feel I am right now

You are out of my mind, oh

You aren't seein' my side, oh

You waste all this time tryin' to get to me

But you are out of my mind

Heard you say, "Not today"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a sound

Heard your voice, "there's no choice"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a noise

Oh, don't you test me, no

Just because I play the piano

Doesn't mean I, I'm not willin' to take you down

I'm sorry

I'm, I'm out of my mind, oh

I'm not seein' things right, oh

I waste all this time tryin' to run from you

But I'm, I'm out of my mind

Heard you say, "Not today"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a sound

Heard your voice, "there's no choice"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a noise

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah, oh

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

You are out of my mind

You aren't seein' my side

You waste all this time tryin' to get to me

But you are out of my mind

Heard you say, "Not today"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a sound

Heard your voice, "there's no choice"

Tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a noise

Thomas sighed and sat his guitar down rubbing his forehead with one hand. He got migraines when he had stressful days, which in all honesty were more often than not. Maybe he could ask Matthew for migraine medicine, he was sure to have some.

Thomas got up and jot down a message telling Christopher where he went in case he woke up, which wasn’t likely but he didn’t want to risk it. He put some sunglasses on because the yellow lighting in the halls made his head worse and walked down to James and Matthew’s room which was only three doors down.

Everyone knew where the others were sleeping in case of emergency or if they just wanted to hang out.

Thomas was about to knock when he heard some noises coming from inside. He furrowed his eyebrows wondering the hell they could be doing to make that racket. He could hear the bed hitting the wall and realization dawned on him. Crap.

Thomas whined softly knowing that he couldn’t get Matthew’s medicine now. He blushed furiously and walked away from their door quickly trying to erase the noises he had just heard. He sighed and shook his head stopping for a moment when a sharp wave of pain hit him and he stumbled slightly.

Thomas put his hand on the wall and walked slowly to Lucie and Cordelia’s room slowly, waiting for the room to stop spinning. He cursed when he stood in front of the door. He knocked sharply not wanting to be too loud in case they were asleep. He stood there for a few minutes before he turned to head back to his room deciding to wait it out.

The door opened as Thomas took his second step. Thomas let out a noise of relief. “Lucie-” He started softly before realizing that it wasn’t Lucie standing there, it wasn’t Cordelia either. It was Alasatiar.

Thomas looked at him for a while trying to wrap his head around why Alastair was there before slowly realizing that this wasn’t the girls room it was Alastair’s. Thomas groaned loudly and stumbled slightly. Alastair’s eyes, normally playful and joyous, were now darkening; he was practically scowling and Thomas shrunk away.

“Lightwood please don’t tell me you’re wasted.” Alastair said glaring Thomas shook his head and promptly sat down when the room spun too fast. Thomas let out an exasperated laugh. Alastair was now looking at him with concern, all annoyance gone. “Lightwood what’s wrong with you?” He said squatting down so he was eye level with Thomas.

Thomas looked at him in confusion before shrugging trying to ignore the pounding in his head. He hadn’t meant to be here and it was quite embarrassing to be a stumbling, collapsing mess in front of someone he cared so much to impress or at least not embarrass himself in front of. Alastair’s eyes narrowed, not a glare, but a look that said stop lying.

“Thomas you all but collapsed in front of me and you’re saying there’s nothing wrong?” Thomas let out a small noise. “James and Matthew are shagging.” Alastair’s eyebrows shot up. That was obviously not what he was expecting, Thomas laughed. “And this affects you and I how?” I close my eyes, the pain radiating and pulsing in my head.

“I needed his medicine.” I explain quietly trying to show him he needed to be quiet. He seemed to take the message because the next time he spoke it was significantly quieter. “Thomas what medicine?” Thomas furrowed his brows trying to think of the name giving up quickly when that just made the pain in his head worse. He really really hated migraines.

“Thomas,” Alastair said, now kneeling in front of Thomas. He looked slightly desperate and Thomas took a moment to appreciate that he had never seen Alastair look like that before. “Thomas come on what medicine.” I pat his shoulder and stand up shakily. “It’s alright I actually meant to go to Lucie’s room.”

Alasatir gave him a serious look and took his hand gently leading him inside the cold hotel room. “Thomas just come here and what medicine do you need?” Thomas didn’t even try to fight him, knowing Alastair was too stubborn to let him go easily. He was attempting to ignore the fact that his head was steadily getting worse and how his stomach was flipping dangerously. “Migraine.” Thomas said simply, answering Alastair’s question as best he could. Alastair looked at him wearily.

“Is that what’s going on? You have a migraine?” Thomas nodded and that was all it took to push him overboard. Thomas gasped and stood up quickly stumbling to the bathroom and barely making it in time to empty out his stomach in the toilet. He felt a hand on his back and soothing words but the burn in his throat and throbbing in his head was all he could think about.

“Thomas, I’m going to go get some medicine okay? Do you want me to stay or are you going to be okay for a minute?” Thomas just groaned in response and continued emptying his stomach contents. He honestly didn’t believe he had much in his stomach because he hadn’t eaten much that day but he was being proven wrong.

He felt the hand leave his back and he threw up a little more before sitting back and resting his back on the bathtub. Thomas groaned in embarrassment when he realized that not only had he accidentally come to Alastair’s room, collapsed in front of him, and was dragged into his room, but he had also thrown up in front of him.

Thomas didn’t get much time to ponder that thought because Alastair came back with pills and water. His face was calm but his eyes were slightly panicked. Thomas wondered if he was the only one who could see it or if Alastair just showed it obviously.

Thomas took the water gratefully and drank it quickly, onl stopping when Alastair put a hand on his and carefully lowered it, taking the glass with it. “I brought you some medicine too. It’s not migraine medicine but it should help a little.” Thomas nodded, head still throbbing and took the small pills Alastair had offered him. He threw them back easily and swallowed them dry, taking the drink back from Alastair’s frozen hand.

Alastair was watching him with a dark look in his eyes, something Thomas couldn’t place but he knew it wasn’t bad. Not the kind of look Alastair had when he thought Thomas was drunk. Thomas shuddered and finished the water. Alastair helped him up and put his arm around Thomas’ waist to keep him steady.

Thomas flopped on the bed, not unlike he had earlier that night and sighed. His stomach didn’t feel as bad but his head was still pounding. Alastair sighed and sat up against the headboard, holding his arm out, inviting Thomas closer.

Thomas didn’t have to be told twice. He all but collapsed on Alastair’s lap. Thomas hummed contentedly as Alastair ran his fingers through his hair. Thomas grunted when he couldn’t find a comfortable position with his sunglasses off. Alastair gently tugged his glasses off and Thomas groaned as a new wave of pain hit him when his eyes saw the light. Alastair quickly blocked the light with his hand and leaned over to turn off the lamp.

The room was plunged into darkness and Thomas just cuddled deeper into Alastair’s lap. He could vaguely remember that this wasn’t his room and he shouldn’t be doing this but need to sleep, most likely due to the pills, was overwaying his ability to freak out properly. When Alastair started humming he couldn’t keep himself aware of much anymore.

One thing Thomas was aware of was the fact that Alastair’s fingers felt good in his hair. Thomas wondered what it felt like to run his fingers through Alastair’s hair. To bring his face closer. To kiss him.

There were so many things he wanted to do and a massive inability to do any of it. Thomas was decidedly ready to tell Alastair how he felt. If he were any more awake he might have even done it right then, but he knew he was far too gone to do it.

Thomas listened to Alastair’s quiet humming and decided that he would tell him over a song. Thomas shifted slightly so his head was resting more on Alastair’s thigh and smiled tiredly. “Alastair?” The man in question made a noise in place of an answer. “I’m going to sing my song.” He realized too late that that probably made no sense whatsoever but it seemed Alastair understood because he beamed at Thomas and ruffled his hair slightly. “I’m glad. I love hearing you sing. I’m proud of you for deciding to do it.”

Thomas hummed non-committedly. “Only for you.” He mumbled before his eyes slipped closed against his will and his mind gave way to dreams. He could have sworn right before he fell asleep that he felt someone kiss his head, but he chalked it up to sleep and want.

#thomas and alastair #thomastair #thomas x alastair #fanfiction #tlh #the last hours #high notes #other tags im too lazy for

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misfireanon · 3 years

Text

The next morning, Nihlus gets up early to prepare breakfast. The weather outside is still terrible. The storm had lessened during the night, but by the time he got back in bed, it had picked up again, accompanied by a fresh chorus of ferocious howls. Now, hard clumps of snow are smacking against the window like the wind’s percussive accompaniment. He swirls the leftover tequila and drains it in one gulp, setting the flask on the table with a loud thunk. There.

Right on schedule, Saren peeks out from the bedroom, his unblinking eyes pointing from the empty flask, to the plate of gnawed ribs in front of Nihlus, to the six small dishes (and one soup, all proper and shit) laid out for him. Nihlus doesn’t wait for him to begin an interrogation. He spears a cube of the hitherto untouched blue pudding on his talon and slurps it down, raising a browplate at Saren’s frown. “Why don’t you come sit and eat so my hard work doesn’t go to waste? I had to take all this from the deliverybot and put it in bowls all by myself, you know.”

Saren drops into his seat with a grunt. “You turned up the heating.”

“Yeah, because I was freezing my ass off last night. Don’t make that face, I know you can afford it. Heck, you can probably afford to burn this building down and build a new one, legal fees and all.” He looks out at the storm. “You’d be doing this place a favour. I can’t believe there are people who want to live on Noveria.”

“The volus, as a species, are well-suited for these conditions. Krogan, of course, thrive here as they would almost anywhere else. What remains of their culture drives them to extremes.”

Nihlus flicks a mandible. “I mean you, specifically.”

“Only here for business,” Saren says, carefully peeling off a single layer of the hundred-layer loaf and dipping it in an elaborate concoction of ground spices. Nihlus follows suit, except he grabs a good quarter of the thing and rolls it around in the spice, making sure to give the ends a thick coat. Saren begins to sift out conglomerated chunks from the powder, setting them with the bones. Nihlus shrugs. Hey, at least he’d used a fork this time.

“Business requires you to live in a refrigerator?”

“The cold keeps me awake when the paperwork grows dull.” Saren offers him the soup; Nihlus refuses. “I should have changed the settings after you arrived.”

“Does it help you sleep, too?”

Saren looks at him over the rim of the bowl. A whiff of steam obscures his eye. “At times, yes.”

“How does that work, exactly?”

“It’s a habit. After I finally resolved the Virial’s heat dissipation issues, her HVAC system began to act up. Competent mechanics have eluded me.” Saren takes another long sip. “I know you don’t like satusan leaves, but this was a good choice. Thank you.”

It came as a set meal, but Nihlus had picked that particular set from a menu of dozens, so he feels justified to beam with pride before setting his mandibles at a more serious angle. “I think you might need medication more than a mechanic. Spirits know there are enough doctors on Noveria, crooked or not.”

“‘Crooked’ is euphemistic, extremely so, in ways I’d rather not discuss over breakfast.”

Or ever, really. But Nihlus shrugs and reaches for the loaf again. It’s mechanically prepared, has to be; they’d never turn a profit otherwise. It’s also the reason he’d picked this set over the others. Saren had cooked it for him once, cutting a small chunk of meat into dozens of paper-thin slices with a wicked silver knife. Not long after, Nihlus had bought the same trio of knives for himself, though it had ended up collecting dust at the bottom of a drawer, only opened on one memorable occasion for some impromptu surgery.

This restaurant’s offering pales in comparison to those he’d sampled on Tenebrae, and is not even in the same star system as what Saren had made. Still, he shortens the stack, five slices at a time.

Saren watches him eat, his expression blank. The soup bowl is empty, but the other dishes are practically untouched. The blue pudding wobbles as Nihlus takes a second cube. Saren seems fascinated by it, though he soon shakes his head and makes to stand. Nihlus pulls him down by the sleeve.

“I have messages at the console,” Saren snaps. “And need to find a matching shirt,” he adds more gently.

Nihlus raises his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing that can’t wait, right? Besides, all your shirts are grey.” Saren pointedly lays his wrist on his thigh to illustrate the difference, and Nihlus sighs. “It’s an expression. All cats are… Oh, never mind. I just want to talk for a bit longer.”

Saren scowls and the little voice inside his head, who can really be a fucking coward sometimes, mutters: this is how the hotshot Spectre’s life ends, with his mouth full of pudding. Nihlus swallows the food, stuffs the voice down the same pipe, and meets Saren’s eyes. The look is venomous, but it bears no fangs.

“Have you heard about Avitus?”

“Avitus Rix?”

Nihlus nods.

“No. What about him?”

“He’s planning to retire. Gonna get out before he hits his limits, or so he says.”

Saren snorts. “He won’t.”

Listen to those undertones, Kryik, and understand precisely why you should shut up and count your blessings. Won’t even consider it for someone else, never mind himself. In fact, when you wrangled him into civvies -- Nihlus frowns, his stomach fluttering. The voice is drowned, though it’s trying to claw its way back up. “Don’t be so sure. Look at you. You’re more of a businessman these days.”

“I have found my limits.”

“You have? And what’re you going to tell me next, that your plan is to become a broker? A venture capitalist, even?” He chuckles. “Or that you really like Noveria’s weather, and that the alpine regions aren’t so bad during the summer. That you want to settle down here, adopt a couple of baby krogan. Don’t lie to me.”

“That’s a vast misinterpretation.”

“Enlighten me, then. What’s the retirement plan?”

Saren looks at him like he’s a modern sculpture, the one in that Thessian gallery that’s just a solid block of granite. Very dense granite. “The Council and related authorities decide when--”

“The Council,” Nihlus interrupts, “spent three days on an agricultural tax bill for some asari colony, added hundreds of amendments, and just left it on the table for next month. Pardon me when I say that they shouldn’t be the arbiters of our lives.”

“I see you’ve acquired an interest in Citadel governance. Recent?”

“Reluctant. Has its own charms, but best appreciated when I’m no longer slogging through Omega on their behalf, I’m sure.”

“Politics won’t suit you. Perhaps you should revisit the works of those elcor poets you praised not long ago. Your voice brings them to life.”

“Are you saying that I should do poetry readings at local dives for a living? Do they even have those on Noveria? I didn’t think so. It’s all so… modern. Clean and corporate. It stinks here, Saren.” Saren hums his assent. “If you’re trying to correct things, if you think they’re better than the slavers in the Traverse -- well, that may be, but the roots of all evil are the same, aren’t they? It seems futile. And besides, every adoption agency’s going to take one look at your face and hide their babies, krogan or no.”

“I’m only here for business,” Saren repeats irritably. “If you want to announce your own retirement, stop avoiding the topic.”

“Like how you’re avoiding yours?”

Saren glares at him then, and he’s pretty sure the delicate display case behind his skull now sports a couple of cracks. The little voice trapped in his gizzard lets out a squeak, which he quashes by helping himself to a generous serving of the bevelled cake. It’s cold now, but meaty enough. As he drops it into his mouth, he glares right back into those cybernetic eyes. Nihlus won’t be the first to look away. “Yeah, I mean it. Call me cocky, but don’t call me wrong. I worry, you know.”

Saren flexes the fingers of his prosthetic, and clenches them into a fist. Shards of ice are beating relentlessly against the windowpanes. “We can put those worries to rest.”

“Gladly, after you finish,” Nihlus makes a sweeping gesture over the remaining food. “Not sparring when you’re hungry.”

Saren impales some cake with vehemence. “Your remarks on the Council can be interpreted as treasonous.” Nihlus opens his mouth to speak, but Saren holds up his hand, the ugly mechanical hand he’d earned in their service. “It’s important to maintain our reputation of loyalty, especially in these times. We must keep other powers in check.”

Nihlus works his jaw. Need to divert that combustible train of thought to safer tracks. “I get it, Noveria is a bad fit. You could settle in the Traverse instead; that’s a better idea. I’m sure they’d be grateful if you just shot down some pirates from time to time, retired or not. And then you can tinker with the Virial all day long, no distractions, no dockworkers. Plenty of unclaimed planets out there. How’s that for personal space?”

“Nihlus,” Saren whispers, and Nihlus suddenly gets the impression that he is speaking from a great distance, from the future, perhaps, where Nihlus’s earnest pleas can find no echo. From the distant past, back when Nihlus had believed himself beneath the notice of that famous Spectre, the youngest turian ever inducted, and now the longest to hold that post. Those ageless eyes are still mesmerising, though they no longer reflect his face.

But then, then -- he realises that he’s tired. He slinks out from that gaze and gently shakes his head.

“I’ve heard it all before,” he says. You believe you were forged, not born. Saren blinks, and Nihlus smiles. Feels like he spent hours getting Saren into that shirt last night. Under the sterile lights of the dining room, its narrow stripes clash horribly with his differently-striped pants. “I know, it’s okay. But it only means you’ll have time to find the perfect LZ with your Spectre privileges. I’m counting on you, because I’m not making hundreds of decision charts to find a place to call home. Tropical climates only, please. And preferably not like Invictus.”

The shared memory is enough to lift Saren’s mandibles by a precious few degrees. “And if the search is fruitless?”

Nihlus looks outside. What were once icy flakes had turned into dice-sized hailstones, and the window’s noise-cancellation function had automatically engaged itself. So much for the Noverian summer. The gravy around the meat, too, had cooled to an unappetising jelly. He shoves it around with his fork, making a little pile atop the last remaining slice.

“This isn’t half bad,” he replies.

#Mass Effect #fanfiction #Nihlus Kryik #Saren Arterius

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blissfulalchemist · 4 years

Note

"Why... why did you just take off your shirt?" + "Does my being half-naked bother you?" for Victorious Secret

Thank you for this Kate! Here’s more of their new canon!

Fourteen days. That’s how many days in a row Wes had seen Chance, including weekends, from exactly six in the evening until nine at night, except on Fridays when Chance had a lab night and they met for some dinner in the dorm hall from five to seven thirty. Wes didn’t mind, even if it was late on the weekends, good parties didn’t start till ten anyway, he got to be with him and get to know him, well, as much as one can in between research for their project. It was Saturday with the only difference being that for once they started earlier in the day, the deadline a week away. Chance’s nerves must have been starting to get to him as the two were in his dorm instead of the library, their textbooks and notebooks sprawled across the floor with no care as Chance didn’t have to share his room for the next week.

Wes felt himself start to nod off as the words became blurry and lost their meaning the more he looked at the textbook trying to annotate it to Chance’s standards. They had been going at this for almost four hours straight. Wes rubbed his eyes looking up to Chance as he sat in the cloth chair next to the desk, his feet propped on the ladder of the raised bed, eyes glued to the supplemental book on Jar Head’s approved list. Wes stared at him, noticing the way Chance’s mess of curls were starting to fall into his eyes as he shifted sliding down farther off the chair, Wes felt tempted to brush his brown hair out of his eyes, make life easier for his friend, It looks like it could be really soft. Chance blinked a few times before looking over to Wes, his green eyes sparkling in the last bit of sun filtering in, “You getting lost?”

In your eyes, “No,” he said, looking back down finally realizing he hadn’t turned the page in almost thirty minutes. Time to give up, Wes thought as he adjusted himself on the futon sofa below the roommate’s bed.

Chance looked around the room frowning, “Have we been sitting in complete silence for the last,” he glanced over at Wes, “What time is it?”

“Almost four.”

Chance’s eyes widened, “Four hours?! We’ve been sitting in silence for four hours,” he groaned leaning back covering his face with the book. “No wonder I’ve been staring at this page for at least thirty minutes,” his voice muffled by the book.

Wes couldn’t help but notice the way Chance’s shirt pulled up his body exposing a sliver of his abdomen, “Break time?”

“Damn right,” Chance said, tossing the book on the built in desk, rubbing his tired eyes, “Should we get dinner?” He looked out the window behind him, watching as the big snowflakes started to fall, “Dorm food or order in?”

“Not hungry,” Wes said, stretching out his muscles.

“Dude, I haven’t eaten all day so you haven’t eaten all day,” Chance pointed out, “Here toss me my phone.” Wes picked up the red and black phone in its case flinging it his way, almost hitting Chance in the eye, Oops. “Careful,” Chance opened the phone scrolling through the places that delivered to the dorms and weren’t that far away, “You ever had Pita Pit? Never mind don’t answer that. You probably haven't,” Wes gave a small shrug, Chance wasn’t wrong. He placed his order pushing his hair back, “You want me to pick for you or do you want to scroll through the menu?”

Wes held out his hand, “I’ll do it.”

Chance handed it over standing up, reaching his hands up to the ceiling, distracting Wes as he watched taking in Chance’s lean muscle that he could see as his shirt raised up. Wes quickly looked down to the phone quickly picking something that looked good, “Get a breakfast one too,” Wes looked up through his lashes, at Chance as he pointed out the window with his thumb, “In case the snow gets bad and you gotta stay here for the night.”

“Oh,” Wes looked back and just ordered whatever Chance had ordered, “That why we came here?”

He nodded, “Yeah. Here all day cause of the deadline, Seed hates us, and lastly, perfect timing that my roommate went ice climbing with his family.” Chance took the phone back placing the order, “What should we do while we wait? We can play games, power nap, or watch a show.”

Power nap, “Whatever you think best,” Only one useable bed.

Chance rubbed the back of his neck moving to sit with Wes, “Maybe some games while we wait,” he said grabbing the controllers, “Might fall asleep and miss the food with the other options.”

“Can we nap after,” Wes asked.

“Yeah,” Chance patted Wes’ shoulder, “Sure big guy. We can nap after we eat, you’re not leaving until nine anyway,” Wes gave him a smirk, “Unless the weather gets bad.”

“Right,” Wes agreed, his mind saying silent prayers for blizzard-like conditions.

Chance handed over the controller, “You fine with fighting games, or do you want to play something like Halo?”

“Uhm,” Wes hadn’t really played any video games, sure he watched when his two roommates played against each other but he never joined in. “Fighting….games?”

Chance was turning the console on getting ready to sift through the digital library, “Sure. I got Mortal Kombat, Blazeblue, Injustice one and two, Marvel vs Capcom three, uh, let’s see what else,” Chance leaned forward looking at the squares on the screen.

“Whatever’s easiest to play,” Chance looked up to him, his green eyes curious, Wes gave a shrug looking away, “Never played.”

“Huh,” Chance leaned back clicking on a game that Wes didn’t catch, “Thought you would have.”

“Why’d you say that?”

He gave a shrug, “Cause of your roommate, the short one.”

“They’re both short,” Wes retorted.

Chance gave a laugh, “Fair. Everyone’s gotta be short to you, except maybe me on a good day.” Chance turned the tv volume down, the sound loud enough to trigger a small headache, “The not so hot one. She dresses in flowers.” Wes knew which one he was talking about now, “Anyway I remember seeing her at the game store, she kicked some ass during the Injustice tournament, thought you’d have played against her at home.”

Wes shook his head, “No. Wren plays with her though.”

Chance gave a sly smirk, “Plays with her or plays with her?” Chance laughed getting a small shove from Wes, “Joking jeez, but Wren though, that’s her name. Pretty,” Chance said her name once more giving a small nod, “More serious note, are they together? Are you all together, like some kind of poly thing.” Wes gave him an exasperated glare, this wasn’t the first nor the last time Wes had been asked this, Chance held his hands up, “No judgement here, just curious is all.” Chance snapped his fingers to point at Wes, “If it is though, you’re one lucky guy, get to go home to them every night, livin’ every guy’s dream.” Chance turned back to the tv the game starting up.

Wes hesitated in answering, he could easily lie and say that Wren was taken, stop Chance from ever trying to hit on her. Then again, “No. To all of it.”

Chance gave a slow nod, “Nice.” Wes knew Wren wasn’t that into guys like Chance, but if he believed it then maybe he’d come around more. Chance’s phone lit up as he got the beginner settings set up with Wes’ controller. It was a text message from someone saved as 413, asking if he’d come down and help keep them warm with the incoming snow tonight. It was cheesy and Wes noticed there were a few other messages like that on his phone, some with names more cryptic than the others.

“You’re popular,” Wes commented, Chance glancing down at his phone rolling his eyes.

“Gotta block ‘er,” he shook his head, “Texts me twice a week at least. Don’t want to hook up with her again ‘nd she can’t take the hint apparently.”

“Whatta ‘bout the others?”

Chance handed the controller back over to Wes, “What about them?” Wes took the controller, “You’re here, don’t have time for them.”

Them, he keeps saying them, Wes turned the words over and over as Chance explained the game, Was it possible that Chance was bi. Could I actually have a shot at this? By the time they started playing Wes forgot all the basics that Chance had just explained, hitting whatever buttons he felt would do something. It wasn’t lost on Wes that Chance held back letting him get a feel for the game and it’s mechanics, which just meant that Wes was able to become semi-competent in the team Chance helped him pick out.

“Alright now the real competition begins, button masher,” Chance said as he picked a new team for himself.

An idea came to mind, Wes unable to stop his mouth from holding it back, “We play like strip poker?”

Chance didn’t even look Wes’ way, “Yeah, sure man. Whatever you want.” Wes gave a small, sly smile before turning to the screen. The fight itself didn’t last very long even with the second round that Chance started to really determine a winner, then again it didn’t help that Wes only learned one move for each character he could successfully repeat to do more than just basic punching and kicking. Chance threw his hands up in victory as Wes set his controller down in his lap, pulling his shirt over his head. Chance did a double take, “Why-Why did you just take off your shirt?”

“We’re playin’ strip fight,” Wes felt his heart race, “like strip poker.”

The slightest bit of red started to creep up Chance’s neck, “Uh. Oh, well, I thought you were asking to play Street Fighter after this.”

Wes swallowed, sifting for another excuse to want to pull off the impulsive idea, “It’also kinda hot in ‘ere.” He heard Chance hum a tune Wes didn’t recognize, “Sorry.”

Chance shook his head, his eyes looking over Wes’ bare chest briefly, “It’s fine,” Chance felt the blood make its way up his neck higher towards his cheeks.

Wes felt himself at an impasse as to what his next move to be, after seeing the brief, very brief, running of Chance’s eyes on his body. The blush was hard to make out of it being from being uncomfortable or from some form of attraction. On the one hand he could keep up the temperature lie, see if Chance would look at him again, or just put the shirt back on and hope he didn’t just screw things up. “Does it bother ya? Bein’ half-naked ‘nd all.”

Chance blinked a few times, “Well, no, if it’s too hot in here for you. Hard to control the temperature in here,” he stammered, heart racing and ignoring the pull in his abdomen. “So if you want to you can stay as you are. Shouldn’t care too much anyway cause it’s just toxic masculinity and all that.” Chance needed to shut up, he looked for a change in subject as he rubbed the back of his neck, his cell phone ringing. He let out a breath of relief as he recognized the delivery driver’s number, “Looks like the food’s here.” Chance made his way to the door grabbing his keys, “Go ahead and pick something for us to watch,” he switched the lock on the door. “So no one walks in and gets the wrong idea about you. Some of the guys here can be mean,” Chance justified seeing the worried look on Wes’ face.

Chance walked out the door, quickly making his way to the stairs to walk down the ten flights to the lobby. Wes sat, his heart slowing as he put his face in his hands, rubbing his temples, “Hope I didn’t fuck up.”

#x: victorious secret #It's wholesome and I love it okay!

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grailfinders · 4 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #11: EMIYA

Today’s build on Fate and Phantasms is the surprisingly versatile swordsarcher EMIYA! He’s technically not a servant, but he looks polite so we’ll make him a build anyway. We have three goals for this build: you need to be able to throw all kinds of swords everywhere; you need to be able to enter spirit form for fast getaways; and you need to be passable with a bow and arrow. As usual, the build’s spreadsheet can be found here, and there’s a more detailed explanation for everything below the cut!

Race and Background

Emiya is a Human, but he’s not a normal servant, so we’ll take the variant option. This gives him +1 to Dexterity and Intelligence, proficiency in one skill of our choice, grab Survival, since it’s the closest thing the vanilla stat sheet has to cooking, and an extra feat, which will be Spell Sniper. This turns Archer into the Archest, doubling the range on spells with attack rolls, ignoring half and 3/4 cover on those attacks, and giving us a bonus cantrip. Grab Eldritch Blast. It has to use your charisma for the attack roll, but any spell that involves throwing a lot of projectiles around will work for you, as long as you remember to always call them swords.

Your background is a bit of a pickle. You were an orphan, but not alone, so you’re not an Urchin. You spent plenty of time perfecting your magic, but the most you can do is make swords, so you’re not a sage. In the end I had to throw my hands up and just say you’re a Far Traveler. You get proficiencies in Insight and Perception, and you also get to speak another language (like, say, English).

Stats

As usual, we’re using the standard arrary, but feel free to roll if you want. Just make sure your dex and wisdom are high enough to multiclass later. First, put your highest score into Intelligence. You have info on game mechanics that even we aren’t that clear on, and also you really need this. Next is Dexterity. You’re an archer, so it would be nice if you’re good at it. Follow that up with Charisma, then Wisdom. You’re Chaldea’s #1 mom for a reason, and we just need wisdom to be a 13. Next is Constitution, you’re an archer, so just try not to get hit too much. Finally Strength is your dump stat. Your muscles are impressive, but we needed other stats more.

Class Levels

1. Wizard 1: You may be an archer, but making things with your mind means we need magic and a lot of it. First level wizards gain a spell book and Arcane Recovery, letting you recover a number of spell slots on a short rest with a total level equal to or less than half your wizard level, and they all have to be below level 6.

You start with three cantrips and six 1st level spells, and can prepare a number of spells each day equal to your int mod and your wizard level (so right now 4). For your cantrips, grab Sword Burst (Swords out of nowhere, nice), Blade Ward (you’re... making swords to block physical attacks coming in?), and True Strike (Taking aim at a long distance target). For spells, grab Catapult (throwing existing swords at people), Ice Knife (Somebody’s had to have made a sword out of ice by now, right?), Jump and Longstrider (anime level movement), Mage Armor (you’ll probably die without it), and Magic Missile (more swords, and these can’t miss!). In case you couldn’t tell, a lot of the work for your kit is going to be more flavor based than anything. If we stuck with only spells that explicitly involved making and throwing swords, we couldn’t get much done. Fortunately, Unlimited Blade Works is well suited for this, as your DM can’t prove that flaming sword you just threw doesn’t exist in UBW.

2. Wizard 2: Second level wizards graduate from their chosen school of magic. Sadly, the School of Swords doesn’t exist (there’s the bladesingers and the bard’s college of swords, but neither of them are really what we’re after), so we’ll have to go with the next best thing, the School of Conjuration. As a conjurer, you become a Conjuration Savant, so copying conjuration spells into your spellbook costs half the time and money. You also learn Minor Conjuration, letting you spend an action to conjure a copy of any nonmagical object you’ve seen that would fit in a 3′ cube. The object is magical, glows, and only lasts for 1 hour or until it takes any damage. You can also only have one object at a time, so you can’t make Kanshou and Bakuya just yet.

For your spells, grab Expeditious Retreat and Shield for more movement and survivability options. You have Rho Aias bumping around in there, so it tracks.

3. Wizard 3: At third level, grab Cloud of Daggers and Misty Step. The former is an obvious choice, the latter counts as moving really fast, as long as you say “Nothing personnel, kid” afterwards.

4. Wizard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to beef up your Intelligence. Also grab Message as your cantrip, you’ll be away from the action most of the time and should try to stay in touch with your team. For spells, grab Invisibility to get closer to a true spirit form and Magic Weapon to improve what you can already conjure up.

5. Wizard 5: Grab Shadow Blade (weirdly not conjuration) for more sword-based fun, and also Summon Lesser Demons. The latter lets you summon 2-8 “swords” somewhere within 60′ of you. You don’t actually control these “swords”, so try not to get your teammates caught in the crossfire. The phb says to let your DM decide what gets summoned, but generally if you already have a stat block ready to go they’ll let you choose. I’ve attached stat blocks for some easily-flavored-as-living-swords demons (Dretch and Manes) in the spreadsheet.

6. Wizard 6: You gain Benign Transposition, letting you teleport as an action to any spot within 30′ of you, so long as anything in that spot is willing and small or medium size. You either teleport to that spot, or you and the willing creature swap places. You can only use this ability once per long rest, but it also recharges every time you cast a conjuration spell.

For your spells, grab Nondetection to conceal your presence and Melf’s Minute Meteors (again, weirdly not conjuration) to create and fire several broken phantasms over the course of a couple turns.

7. Wizard 7: Grab Stone Shape to make swords that will actually last, and Conjure Minor Elementals to create more living “swords”. These will listen to you, at least! Like before, you can make 1-8 “swords” that will obey your commands. Like with the demons, I’ve included some likely candidates for you to use in the spreadsheet.

8. Ranger 1: Despite being an Archer, you haven’t had proficiency in a bow and arrow yet, so let’s fix that. We’re using the Class Feature Variants UA for some of this level. As a 1st level ranger, you gain proficiencies with Light and Medium Armor, shields, simple and martial weapons, and one skill from their list. Grab Stealth to make combat an even bigger pain for your enemies. You gain a Favored Enemy, giving you advantage on checks to track and remember information about a group of creatures. As a Counter Guardian, Beasts are a pretty good choice for you to pick. You also become a Deft Explorer, grabbing the Roving option which increases your walking speed by 5′ and gives you a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walk speed. You don’t need to worry about melee combat when you’re faster than everyone else.

9. Ranger 2: You gain another bit of spellcasting as a ranger, but you’ll have to check the multiclassing table to figure out how many spell slots you’ll have. Grab Hail of Thorns (A flurry of shots in that general direction) and Hunter’s Mark (just really, really hating that guy in particular). You also get a fighting style, Archery, which gives you +2 on all attack rolls made with ranged weapons. Sadly, saying every spell you cast is a sword doesn’t count.

10. Wizard 8: Use your Ability Score Improvement to grab the Sharpshooter feat. This lets you fire a bow at long range without disadvantage, ignore half and 3/4 cover, and take a 5 point deficit to your attack roll in exchange for a 10 point bonus on damage. Ideally, your opponent should be somewhere in the next zipcode when you engage them.

For spells, grab Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere for more shield action and Greater Invisibility to get closer to your spirit form.

11. Wizard 9: Grab Conjure Elemental for one big “sword” that will follow your orders. Just try not to lose concentration until next level, or it might start swinging at you. As with the other summoning spells, some good picks for swordifying are in the spreadsheet. Also grab Telekinesis to get finer control when you throw swords around.

12. Wizard 10: You learn Focused Conjuration, making it impossible for you to lose concentration due to damage when focusing on conjuration spells. Grab Green Flame Blade as your cantrip this level. You probably will never use it, but it does have blade in the name so it can’t be all bad. Also grab Creation to make swords that can last a bit longer than the ones made by Minor Conjuration. Also, grab Animate Objects so you can perform Triple Crane Wings from 500′ away.

13. Wizard 11: Grab Sunbeam to make some Swords of Revealing Light that will ruin the day of anything within 60′ of you. Also grab Legend Lore. With this many legendary weapons rattling around inside you, you’ve probably gotten pretty good at figuring them out.

14. Wizard 12: Use your Ability Score Improvement to max out Intelligence, and grab Melf’s Acid Arrow- I mean sword- and Tongues to make sure everyone knows how cool your chant is.

15. Wizard 13: Grab Crown of Stars to put more finesse behind your Swords of Revealing Light, and Etherealness to reach a true spirit form.

16. Wizard 14: You now have Durable Summons. Any creature you make with a conjuration spell starts with 30 extra hit points. Sadly this only really effects your demonic and elemental “swords”. Grab Prismatic Spray to launch eight different elemental swords at once, and Plane Shift to drag your enemies into Unlimited Blade Works if they get too close. You haven’t made Unlimited Blade Works yet, but you’ll get there.

17. Wizard 15: Grab the spells Demiplane to start making your own pocket dimensions filled with swords. Each casting of Demiplane makes a door to a 30′ cube room that can hold anything that can fit in it. Each cast can either make a new room or connect to a room you have already made, or even one made by someone else if you know of it. Also grab Counterspell. You have Rule Breaker in UBW, so chuck one at a wizard if they start getting too uppity.

18. Wizard 16: Use your last Ability Score Improvement to become Resilient in Dexterity. You have plenty of movement options to avoid physical combat, but a fireball is still an issue. Now you have a better shot at surviving a spell or two. Grab Mighty Fortress to relive the Gudaguda days, and Flame Arrows/swords to give your bow attacks a bit more variety.

19. Wizard 17: Grab Wish to win the Holy Grail, and Meteor Swarm to launch some supercharged Broken Phantasms.

20. Wizard 18: For your last level, grab Prismatic Wall and Invulnerability to make some shields worthy of the name Rho Aias. You also gain Spell Mastery, letting you cast a first and second level spell at will for no cost, as long as they’re prepared. I’d suggest picking Shield and Ice Knife so you can use the former constantly and the latter to recharge your teleportation in a pinch, but you can always change them later, so it’s not a huge deal.

Pros: You have a lot of long ranged attack options, with plenty of damage types to pick from. If any enemies do get close to you, you can always teleport away.

Cons: You have very, very, very low health. If you get surprised or run out of teleportation, a solid crit can be a serious threat to you. Also, you only have ranged attacks, meaning your usefulness is inversely proportional to how far away you can stay from the enemy. Open fields? very powerful. Cramped caves? Much less so. A lot of your spells need concentration too, so you can’t summon too many swords on your enemies at once.

#fgo #fate grand order #dnd #EMIYA #Fate and Phantasms

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incoherentbabblings · 4 years

Text

An Endless Hope (2/9)

After a horrendous blizzard falls over Gotham, Tim undergoes a sharp change in character before disappearing. Upon discovering what has become of him, Stephanie sets off on a solo journey in a magic realm to bring him home, meeting some faces which seems awfully familiar along the way.

Archive Of Our Own Link Click Click!

“Our tires have gone. Cracked and popped.” Red Robin reported, switching the interior car lights on, as Stephanie pulled out a small laptop tablet, switching to checking satellite views of the city. Tim peered at his dashboard, noting, “GPS says we’re down by Stagg Enterprises and the Trigate bridge but honestly… it’s reached whiteout. We can get out and –”

“No.” Batman interrupted. “Stay put. If your tires have frozen up it’s too cold for our suits for any trek across the city. I’m not far in my car. Signal, Robin, what did you find?”

“Mr. Freeze is a dead end.” Duke said over the commlink. “He made the valid point of this not doing much for his research. He was worried about the power outage.”

Red Robin and Batgirl, sat in Tim’s redbird car, watched the snow fly around them, heating blasting out hot air to keep the car and them from freezing. Tim peered out the windscreen, whiteout leaving them blind to the world. They could leave, but it was approaching minus thirty. Their regular suits were good… but not that good. For the moment, they were stranded, waiting for Bruce and his tank of a Batmobile to come to the rescue.

“It’s bizarre.” Batgirl said, scrolling through data. “Weather doesn’t work like this. The storm is just over Gotham. That’s not…that’s not physically possible. Blizzards are usually hundreds of miles wide. Not thirty and constricted to a bay. It came out of nowhere. There’s no way the air could grow cold that fast to freeze all that water naturally. And the wind is at eighty miles per hour. Normally it’s around forty.”

“The Flash has a weather themed villain.” Robin supplied.

“I checked.” Cassandra’s quiet voice, barely audible over the storm she was standing in, came over the speakers. The screaming wind cut off when she got inside, the door of wherever she was slamming shut. “He’s in Iron Heights. It’s not him.”

Stephanie continued to look through local news, in and outside of the city, desperate for someone over social media to have spotted something manmade about the phenomena. Tim jolted next to her violently, hands flailing over the steering wheel.

“Someone walk over your grave?”

“What?”

Stephanie put down the tablet and leaned over, staring at the white surrounding them. “Or did you see something?”

“You’d think I was crazy.”

“I’ve learned not to doubt gut instincts, Red Robin. They’re there for a reason. Especially yours.” Unable to spot anything but white, she looked back at him. Like her, his cowl was down, his nose red, skin very white. He looked frightened and instantly Stephanie became alarmed. “What is it? Did you see something?”

She whirled back around, hair falling around her shoulders and back. It really was too long at this point, but Tim reached up and tangled his fingers into it. Something to hold onto. He tried not to tug on her too hard.

“I just think someone’s watching us... me.”

“What? Who? Bad guy?”

“I think I’m seeing things.”

Stephanie hummed, slowly retreating into her seat.

“I’ll bop ‘em if they hurt you.”

Colour returned to Tim’s cheeks, and he smiled. “I know.”

The sound of roaring engines became audible over the car’s heating, and a little too close for comfort, the black Batmobile emerged, parking directly in front.

“Get in you two. I can’t drag the car with your tires gone. Lock it down, Red Robin. When the storm lessens, we’ll retrieve it.”

“Go ahead Batgirl. Locking it down will take a second.”

“’Kay.” She kicked her way out, fighting against the wind. Her cape, weighted so it wouldn’t fly up and around her face in such conditions, billowed out behind her, but her hair flew up and around her face. It made her stumble a little ungraciously as she felt her way around the car, opening the door enough to slide in the back.

“Jesus.” She breathed. Batman was looking over his shoulder, checking she was unharmed.

“I told you to cut your hair.”

“Yeah, yeah. I braided it but the wind…”

Bruce grunted. “We can’t do anything. We give it two more hours to show signs of passing. If not –”

“Call in the League?”

Batman’s face indicated he was not happy with the idea, but it was still the best solution. They were trained for street level crime, not climate change.

Tim tumbled in a moment later, shaking from the cold, slapping the ice and snow that had collected on his costume. Reaching across, Stephanie took off her gloves and placed her warm fingers on his cheeks, hissing at the cold. Tim sighed and closed his eyes, shivering.

“Where’s the others?” Stephanie asked, watching Tim’s shudders lessen as he warmed up again.

Bruce set off, heading back to Bristol.

“In the city tunnels. A lot of people are taking shelter there. They’ll be heading back now. We just have to wait it out for now.”

Stephanie did not miss the loathing in his tone at such an inaction.

“We can’t do anything for the time being.” Tim stated. “But when it passes –”

“If it passes.” Batman grumbled.

“–Then we’ll work overtime to help with recovery.”

Stephanie nodded emphatically in agreement.

“It’s not good enough.” Bruce muttered.

Stephanie went to remove her hands from Tim but to her shock he actually reached up and snatched her wrists, pulling her back. Damn, he really was cold. Usually he wasn’t that grabby.

“Sometimes ‘not good enough’ is all we can do.” Tim bit back.

Holding her breath, noting the tension in the car rising with the steady hot air being blasted, Stephanie pinched Tim’s nose, desperate to break the potential argument. Tim looked at her, a little outraged. Stephanie ignored him, speaking to Batman,

“Whoever did this – if it is a who – we’ll hold them to account.”

It really wasn’t good enough, and Bruce did not respond. The drive back was odd, Bruce relying on technology to navigate through the city. As soon as they cleared the bridge however, visibility resumed. It was a blizzard – a bad one – but nothing compared to what seemed to be only growing in intensity over the three main islands of Gotham.

When they arrived back at the cave, Stephanie asked Alfred to take a look at Tim, worried about his body temperature. She snuggled up to him, arms wrapped around his waist, cheek to cheek, as she tried to erase his shivering.

“Honey, why are you so cold? We weren’t exposed long.”

“Just feel cold. Like in my bones.”

She rubbed his back, trying to friction up some heat.

“Cuddle away then.”

“You’re like a furnace. It’s nice.” He sighed.

Alfred came over, took one look at Tim and shrugged off any major concern.

“Just a chill.” He confirmed after taking Tim’s temperature. “Take a warm – not hot – shower.”

“Sure Alfred.”

He went to walk off, hand around Stephanie’s, but she dug her feet in.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m gonna wait for the others to come back safe.”

Tim blinked, then looked down at his grip. She wasn’t showing it, but with a dropping sensation in his stomach, he realised how tightly he was squeezing her. Mechanically, finger by finger, he let go.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll be a little bit.”

She smiled, worry leaking through, and he dashed off. She flexed her wrist, hissing a little at its stiffness. Tim was just spooked by the weather, she told herself. Nothing more.

The others returned soon enough, following the city sewer systems back to the cave entrance. Tim eventually came back too, in warmer clothes, dry hair and a calmer disposition, and everyone sat by the computer, and waited.

*****

“How certain are you of this lead?” Tim asked three mornings later.

Bruce ran a hand across his face. It had been a long three days, Wayne Enterprises was going to be funding quite a number of building sites and repairs to basic utilities over the coming weeks, but for now, the weather had calmed enough for people to emerge from the lockdown. The streets were now filled with people enjoying the snow, to which Tim couldn’t blame them. There was something beautiful about freshly fallen snow and a horizon which blurred the line between sky and ground.

“Not very,” Bruce admitted, approaching the piano. “Hence why I’m only taking Robin with me.”

Damian’s little chest puffed out – proud to be the chosen one to accompany his father. Bruce looked at Stephanie, Tim, Duke and Cassandra as he spoke, deliberately holding their gaze to convey the importance he held their task.

“You four are remaining in Gotham. I’m trusting you to look after it until we get back. There shouldn’t be any major operations. The river is frozen, and many roads are blocked still with up to six feet of snow. But still, do what you can.”

“Be safe.” Cassandra urged.

Stephanie gave a tiny wave to Damian, who’s hand twitched to return the goodbye, but thought better of it, and he tutted and turned to follow.

Uncomfortable silence filled the house as the clock closed behind the two, leaving the four remaining members of the family stood awkwardly.

“Now what?” Steph asked, pushing back the heavy curtains to peer outside. “College is cancelled, no schools, no work… At least the snow has stopped. Should we monitor for problems or take a break… just for an afternoon.”

She looked back to smile at Duke, Cass and Tim, tilting her jaw outside. Cassandra clapped her hands in joy. “I saw on the tv people playing in the snow. I never have before.”

Duke gave an encouraging noise. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Snowball fight.”

Tim looked reluctant, until Stephanie elbowed him in the gut and agreed with Duke, saying, “Yeah. Sounds good. Need a bit of levity right now, huh?”

She raised her eyebrows, and Tim got the message.

“Oh! Yes. Sounds good!”

His tone was forcibly cheery, but he would warm up to the idea when actually outside, Stephanie thought.

Alfred, with the hearing of a bat, poked his head around a door frame. “Please wrap up warm, and shower when you are finished to bring your body temperature back up.”

“Can we have coco, Alfred?” Cassandra pled, eyes big as dinner plates.

“Yes, sounds a lovely idea. Try to get some joy from the terrible weather please, all of you.”

Cassandra burst off to get wrapped up, the other three trailing behind.

Stephanie laughed at Cassandra’s exuberance, trying to get her shoes on quicker. The Manor, built on the hill in the way it was, meant that the five feet of snowfall hadn’t reached the back door and steps. It did mean though, after some shoving by Cassandra, the door heaved open. She ran out, throwing herself down the stairs and onto a hug pile of freshly laid snow. She faceplanted with a shriek of joy, quickly creating snow angels. Stephanie trotted after her, calling,

“Cassie, have you ever made a snowman before?”

“No!”

“Me either. Help me?”

Tim watched for a little while as the girls – for a lack of a better term – frolicked in the white snow. Cassandra stood out more against the white, dressed from head to toe in black, Stephanie in that blinding white, purple and green jacket blended in a little more with the landscape. He was quite content to just sit on the salted steps and watch, but a solid smack to the back of his neck, snow and ice sneaking down his collar, made him squeal.

Duke laughed, “Bad form, dude! Gotta keep your eyes peeled!”

“Jesus!” Tim choked out, reflexively grabbing a pile of snow and flinging it back weakly. A snowball fight ensued.

Alfred watched the four from the kitchen window, more than a little delighted at the childish screams of joy that made their way across the Estate. At least some people were finding joy in such miserable weather. As an adult, snow only meant pain.

Transport difficulties, concerns about plumbing and electricity, would the roof cope? What if there’s flooding? Need to clear the sidewalks and drives and roads. Is there enough food to keep us going long enough for the storm to pass?

So many worries.

For children, it only meant wrapping up warmer, maybe missing a week of school, and games outside.

Never mind, let them enjoy it for a little while longer.

Alfred noted that flurries of snow had begun to fall, though immediately he could tell they snow was larger and slower falling than the other night. Still, the four had been outside for a couple of hours by this point, perhaps it was time for them to come in.

He moved away from the stove, turning off the heat on the milk, and making his way to the door to call them back in to warm up.

He managed to get the door open only to be met with a violent shriek from Tim, his body falling to the floor and curling up in a ball.

Instantly the frivolity stopped, and Stephanie burst across the snow. She wrapped around him, pushing his hand away from his eye. Cassandra and Duke hovered around, nervous and unsure.

“It wasn’t me.” Duke begged, “He was looking up, I didn’t throw anything at him.”

Stephanie cooed, trying to see the damage.

“What happened? Is it your eye? Did something get in your eye?”

“Get him inside so we can take a better look,” Alfred urged. “I worry the weather is only going to deteriorate.”

Alfred quickly put on the fire in one of the sitting areas and sat Tim down on the rug. He still had the heel of his palm pressed to his left eye socket. Cassandra and Duke continued to hover, nervous at the damage. Stephanie came through from the kitchen with a cold compact in case there was any swelling. She knelt in front of Tim.

“Can I see?”

Tim gave her a suspicious look, which she didn’t understand. Reaching him, she went to peel his hand away, and he flinched back. Her outreached hand froze in mid-air.

“Does it really hurt?” She asked. “Do we need to get to the hospital somehow?”

“No. I don’t want you touching me.”

She shook her head, reaching for him again. She tried to gently tease, “We can’t fix it if we can’t see what’s wrong. It’ll just take a second.”

Stephanie pushed back his hair from his forehead, as she always did to comfort him. She heard Cassandra gasp before she realised what happened, but Tim recoiled at the touch and – even worse – slapped her hand away from his face.

“I mean it. Don’t.”

It had been a while since he had directed such a sharp rebuke towards her. Her palm stung with the force he had smacked her with. Immediately, she entered a panic.

“You… Okay. I won’t. Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

His sneering look did not fade, and it made Stephanie get up off the floor. She passed the cold press to Alfred, who Tim, still looking supremely uncomfortable, allowed to examine the damage.

She left the room and the manor, sitting on the steps to try and calm down. Weird how one sharp word could make her feel like she was five years old again. The falling snow muffled the sounds of the Estate, and everything was eerily quiet, save the sound of her panicked breathing.

Immediately Cassandra came out and joined her, wrapping her up in a hug.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Stephanie whined.

“I know.”

Stephanie leaned down, forehead resting on Cassandra’s bony arms. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me. He’ll feel bad later, and you can talk it out.”

Stephanie nodded, knowing Cassandra was right. In the meantime, she flexed her hand, the one Tim had hit so sharply.

“He’s yelled at me before…”

“But never looked at you like that?”

“No.” Stephanie’s lip quivered. “I’m overthinking it.”

“You aren’t yourself when you’re in pain.”

Stephanie nodded fervently and frantically. “Right, right.”

They sat still for a while, listening to the silence. Then the door opened once more. It was Tim. Immediately Stephanie was on her feet. His eye looked fine, not even bloodshot or swollen.

“Are you okay?” She asked. He looked at her, suspicion gone but now a little bored and pouty.

“Fine. Listen, can we go home now?”

“Home?”

“To the apartment.” Tim shuffled in place, looking disgruntled. “I’d drive myself but Alfred won’t let me. My eye is fine.”

Confused, but deciding to not make a scene until they were alone, Stephanie nodded. “I’ll have to go slow. I don’t know how much of the roads have been cleared.

“Whatever.” He murmured, looking distracted.

Cassandra gave Stephanie a look which was a little unreadable. Stephanie gave her thanks to Alfred, and waved goodbye to Duke.

The drive back was painful in every possible way. Stephanie’s little purple car was sturdy, but she still went much slower than normal. Tim curled up in his seat next to her, head pressed to his knees. She could see that with one hand he was aggressively clawing at the centre of his chest, near his heart. Neither spoke for the duration of the drive.

When they got parked up, he slowly and stiffly got up and out. Stephanie grabbed her phone and messaged Duke that they had survived the journey.

She arrived in the apartment after Tim, finding him looking around the space with his lip curled. He didn’t look impressed with the place, as if it wasn’t his own home that he had decorated and lived in.

She sat her bag down by the door, and walked over to him.

“Sweetie, are you sure you’re okay? I hurt you earlier.”

“No. You didn’t.” He said, moving through to the kitchen. Whatever he was looking for wasn’t to be found, and he migrated upstairs to their bedroom. She followed, anxious about leaving him alone.

“Can I see your eye? I’d feel better taking a look myself.”

He sighed like she had asked the world of him and plopped himself at the foot of their bed.

“Hurry up, then.”

She approached him like she would a rabid dog, turning on the overhead light so she could properly see. Gently, she rested her fingertips on his cheek and brow bone.

Like he said, there was nothing amiss.

“What happened?” She breathed. “If nothing hurt you –”

“You’re really warm.” He interrupted. His disinterested look became hungry, and Stephanie dropped her hands, only for Tim to catch her wrists. His fingers were frozen, which should not have been the case after a car ride where the heating had been keeping them toasty. Stephanie felt a lump of ice form in her gut.

“Tim, stop it. What’s going on?”

“Cold.” He murmured. He squeezed her wrists tighter, tight enough to make her twist out of his grip in fear. Immediately he stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling into to her. Stephanie became stiff, listening to him licking his lips and mutter, “You’re warm. Hot. Need…”

Backing off just enough to look her in the eye, his expression twitched, and naked panic appeared for just a moment. Trying to maintain a poker face, Stephanie released herself from his grip, unnerved. Removed from her warmth his apathy returned, and the tenseness in his posture fled.

Confused, Stephanie massaged her wrists, and tried to buy herself some time.

“Go take a nap and warm up. Okay? Just… Just go take a nap.”

He smiled at her, but not warmly. It was mocking. “Yes, mother.”

The feeling of dread only rose and spread. She felt like there was a permanent clump in her throat. Finding there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t result in an argument, she just turned and left, leaving Tim’s sardonic smirk behind.

He had never made her uncomfortable before. Never. He had been angry with her. He had argued with her. He had yelled at her, belittled her, and once or twice in moments they never spoke about, he had been physically violent with her (the unspoken excuse was, both times, he didn’t actually know it was her… as if that made it acceptable). But never had she been made to feel unsafe. Tim was predictable in his moods. Whatever was going on frightened her. She shouldn’t have come back alone with him.

Maybe she could message Cass or Duke…they could get here in around an hour and…

While her mind raced, she resolved to make some comfort food for dinner. She opened the fridge, finding casserole beef that would be out of date in two days, an onion, a carrot, and three potatoes.

“Good enough.” She muttered and set to work.

Two hours later, as the stew continued to cook slowly in the oven and she was washing the dishes, Tim came downstairs quietly. He made his way over to Stephanie, finding it a little amusing how she tensed up when he wrapped his arms around her waist.

Stephanie managed to not gasp out loud when he pulled her long hair out of the way and pressed kisses to her neck, but she couldn’t help the involuntary goosebumps and risen fine hairs. He was frigid.

“How are you feeling?” Stephanie asked.

“Had a nap.” He rested his sharp chin on her shoulder. “I made you worry, didn’t I?”

She said nothing at his patronising tone, not sure what to say. Yes, and you still are. What the hell is wrong with you right now? But no, she was trying to be good and not respond and set off an argument.

“My eye’s fine.” He continued.

“That’s good.” She said, slowly leaning back so she could take off the rubber gloves. The moment she did, one of his hands snaked down to intertwine with her own. That did make her gasp, and flinch, but his grip on her waist tightened.

“What are you making?”

“Some stew to warm you up.” She replied, voice aggressively chipper.

Tim looked over to the oven, unimpressed.

“It stinks.”

Somehow that was the breaking point for Steph, who threw her arms back and moved away.

“What is your problem, huh?”

He looked back, almost gleeful. “You’re upset.”

“No shit I’m upset! Something’s wrong! You got something in your eye that made you fall to the ground in pain and now it’s nothing? You are physically cold as ice and you’re just being a pain and mean and childish and –”

“Childish. Childish?” He looked to the side as if he had a bright idea and moved away, back into the living room. “I thought you wanted that.”

“God, Tim, what are you blathering on abo—”

She cut herself off as he stood next to the windowsill with the flowers. It had been a couple of weeks since they had brought them home, and they were doing well, even with the general lack of sunlight. Tim stared at them like they were weeds, with nothing notable or pleasant about them, then he smiled maniacally.

With a carelessness comparable to a toddler throwing a tantrum, Tim pulled his red roses off the windowsill, the pot crashing and soil flying everywhere. Stephanie couldn’t help it, she screamed, stuck in place by the kitchen.

“Tim, no! No! Why would you… No don’t! Please don’t!”

His hand was hovering over her lilac flowers. His awful smile froze, then fell away, leaving an equally awful emptiness. His hand trembled, and his fingers instead stroked the petals. Stephanie twitched, half ready to body slam him if he threw her plant on the ground.

His hand fell away, and Stephanie – shamefully – began to cry. He had left her roses alone but wrecked his own.

“Why would you do that?”

He looked at her like she was stupid for not getting the joke. “They’re so ugly. And I thought it would be funny. Your face.”

“Funny?” She sniffed, eyesight blurry and nose running. She couldn’t bear how bored he sounded, how mean he was being.

“When you get all angry and hot.”

“Tim! You don’t do that to someone you care about!”

“Care about you? Do I?” He blinked, uncomprehending. He had gotten distracted again and was looking out the window at the snow.

She shrieked, feeling like she was talking to a brick wall or an uncaring five-year-old. She rushed over to his wrecked plant, trying to pack the soil together as best she could. Tim watched her for a moment, then kicked the spilt soil and plant. Stephanie flinched away, staring at the scattered dirt. Intentionally or not, he’d hit her hands that were trying to salvage the situation. It was such an unnecessarily spiteful and painful thing to do, that finally she’d had enough. Stephanie got up, and shoved Tim.

“Stop it.”

He didn’t look satisfied with her reaction anymore, and asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

“I want you to stop being so fucking cruel.”

It was like her words were literally going in one ear and out the other. It was like he wasn’t even talking to her, rather he was talking at her. Or he was talking to someone (something) else. “I’ll go then. I’ll go. I’m bored.”

She watched, mystified, as he put his shoes back on. He looked at her once and tilted his head like a confused dog, then moved back towards her. Still crying, she choked out,

“What are you –”

He kissed her, once, desperately. She flinched away, feeling violated for the first time in years. It seemed he was not happy with the kiss either. He looked off to the side, sucking on his tongue, musing the flavour. He shook his head once.

“No good.”

Stephanie stared, heartbroken. Tim just shrugged, like the entire thing was nothing more than a mild conversation about the weather. Grabbing her car keys. He opened the front door, giving a half-hearted farewell. And then he was gone. No coat, no gloves, no scarf. The snow flurries had picked up once more, as had the wind. He was going to very quickly freeze out in the open dressed like that. Even if he did have the car, getting stranded was a real possibility in the storm.

Hating him, but also petrified, Stephanie resolved to drag him back inside. She’d make him sit down, shove the stew she’d made down his stupid throat, then call Batman. She didn’t care what he and Robin were doing at the South Pole, something had gone very wrong back home.

Stephanie grabbed the apartment keys and grabbed her own shoes, running after him. The lights flickered, a power surge apparently occurring due to the storm, and she tripped over their pile of shoes at the front door and she tugged it open.

“You dick!” She screeched to the howling wind. No sign of Tim though, or her car. She jolted, confused at how he could have pulled out of sight that quickly. Already the tire tracks were covered in a fresh layer of snow. Her confusion quickly returned to anger.

Fuck him, she thought spitefully, slamming the door shut and going back inside. Getting back down to see what of his roses had survived his abuse. She cleared space in her own box, hoping that they would take in their temporary home.

She then went to call him, for once being the first to crack after an argument of theirs, only to realise before she clicked his face that his phone was still in his jacket that was hung on the rack.

He really had left the house with nothing on him but the clothes on his back.

She didn’t know what to do. She’d been an idiot during their time at the Manor and had left behind her suit, leaving her stuck inside with nothing warm or secure enough to go hunting for her purple car. As several hours passed, the more her anger made way for pure grief.

That wasn’t Tim. Never in a million years would he be that cruel. Angry yes, spiteful sometimes, but not callous. And he did care about her. She knew that for a fact. More than she believed almost anything else. Even when their relationship was at its worst, he had said, word for word, that he still loved her.

He wouldn’t make fun of her until she cried, he wouldn’t hit and kick her, he wouldn’t wreck a present that he knew was important to her, he wouldn’t be such a self-absorbed brat.

The wind screamed outside, and Stephanie blinked.

Freak storm. Tim’s adverse reaction. The pain in his eye and drastic mood swing.

The whole thing stank of something unnatural.

It was next to nothing to go off, but she had to try and see where that line of thought would lead. First things first though, she needed Tim to come home.

But he didn’t.

Panicking wouldn’t do any good. Tim could look after himself. Even in a storm like last night. Her little car was given to her by Bruce. It was as sturdy as a tank. He would be fine.

But still. Stephanie panicked and did not sleep that night. Instead she sat in the living room, drinking mug of tea after mug of tea, watching her roses and the snow blowing outside through the window. Occasionally she’d burst into tears, not sure what to do or what to say. She could brave the storm, maybe? But Tim didn’t have a key. What if he came home and couldn’t get in? What if he found a phone and called her, would she go to him then? What if, what if, what if?

Stephanie wondered briefly who people coped not knowing where their loved ones were before mobiles became extensions of their arms.

Maybe he’d just left Gotham, gone out of the city and away from the storm. It was minus twenty that night, again unbearably cold. Stephanie sat still, grief stricken, and waited for Tim to come home.

He never did.

Come the morning, she started her hunt, looking at the CCTV footage of Park Row and the neighbouring streets and businesses, but found nothing. The footage blinked, showing Tim exiting the apartment, then he and the car was gone, and it was Stephanie poking her head out to yell.

It was like he had shut the front door behind him and vanished. Or it would have been, if not for the fact that that blip of a power surge had happened at an awfully convenient time.

She messaged Cass and Duke, who confirmed that he did not return to the manor. A quiet enquiry to the Titans showed he had not made his way West either. The storm over Gotham that night was almost as bad as the first. He would have died if he did not find shelter.

The stink of the unnatural grew.

Her grief turned to panic, and two more awful days passed. The three of them took to frantic searching across the city, but a fresh layer snow made tracking her car difficult. Even worse, the GPS system installed by Bruce on her car (a safety precaution to now where she was at any given moment) wasn’t working. It hadn’t since Stephanie and Tim had arrived at the apartment.

Duke checked the different homes the Drake’s had owned just in case he had holed himself up there. The townhouse, the mansion in Bristol, but nothing. Cassandra and Stephanie had checked every safe house in Gotham, but no luck.

Duke wanted to inform Batman. Whatever lead Bruce was chasing, this was doubly important. One of his children had gone missing. Cassandra disputed Duke. Bruce had an entire city to worry about, adding Tim’s disappearance would not make him more urgent. If anything, it would make him sloppier. Nothing made Bruce more irrational than his family in danger. Let him tackle the issue with a clear head. The three of them in Gotham could find Tim.

But three days later, they hadn’t.

So Cassandra conceded, and the awful call to Bruce was made. Stephanie did not speak to him, but judging by Cass’ face after the conversation ended, it had not gone well. She relayed the information that his own search had been a dead end and would be home before the evening came round.

This served to make an anxious bubbling a permanent fixture in Stephanie’s gut. Surely if Bruce was coming home, the problem would be resolved?

A problem she had allowed to happen. Letting Tim just waltz out into a blizzard great job Steph.

No-one blamed Stephanie, though she certainly blamed herself. Tim’s roses were not taking to their shared space with Stephanie’s, and it felt like a miserable metaphor of how their relationship was seemingly incompatible.

What the actual hell had happened?

Staring at the roses, and hating herself a little, she decided to go speak to one of the few people in Gotham who maybe would have a clue about what was happening to the natural world.

Poison Ivy had a connection to the Green, whatever that was. It was a shot in the dark, but maybe Pamela would have heard something through the literal grapevine about what was causing the horrendous weather. From there, maybe Stephanie could chase a lead to Tim, and bring him home.

Alive. Preferably.

#dc #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph #my fic tag

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raccdog · 5 years

Text

UNHEALTHY COPING MECHANISMS (Part 5)

(NOW ON AO3!)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Adrien laughed at the joke Nino had just told him. He was eating lunch with him and Alya, on one of those rare occasions where his father let him have some free time. The girl was going through her mobile phone, a slight frown on her face. She was sitting on the opposite side of the table, right in front of her boyfriend Nino, the space to her side empty as they waited for their fourth friend.

Adrien smiled to himself. He was glad he had made up with Marinette yesterday. He had spent the rest of the evening with her and Luka and it had been the most fun he’d had in a very long time. He had tried the tea -he had almost barfed from the pungent smell,- played videogames, sang to Disney songs as Luka played them with his guitar and most importantly, he had eaten a good deal of baked goods. That night when he had gotten into bed his stomach had been as full as his heart. The warmth of the bakery following him to his cold sheets and never leaving. One of the perks of being friends with Marinette was that, he supposed.

“Hey guys what do you think about the way Ladybug’s been acting,” Alya’s sudden question pulled him from his reverie. “What do you mean?” The blond asked, wincing inwardly. He had been avoiding the heroine, choosing the patrol routes he knew were more uncommon and not meeting up with her before or after them. She had tried calling him at the beginning, but after his avoidance she stopped, just sending curt messages in case of akuma attacks.

He knew he was acting childishly, but he couldn’t help it. Their last argument had left a bad taste in his mouth and he dreaded talking to her again, in fear of another vicious altercation happening between them. This was not the time for in-fighting either. With Master Fu and Chloe gone, and the miraculous in Hawkmoth’s possession the Parisian heroes needed to stay together more than ever.

“It’s just, there are so many reports of civilians seeing Ladybug out on patrol, even during the day too,” Alya explained. “She’s never been that active before. It’s as if she was looking for something.” Adrien frowned at that. That’d make sense actually. Maybe Ladybug had been trying to locate Master Fu’s or Hawkmoth’s location?

Deep in thought, he didn’t see a black-haired girl rushing towards them.

“I’m sorry I’m late guys!” Marinette panted behind him, startling him. “I had to talk to a teacher beforehand and I couldn’t find them anywhere.”

“Girl were you running the whole time? You look like you’ve just ran a marathon,” Alya commented worriedly, her eyes scrutinizing the other teenager. Adrien agreed. Marinette was heaving loudly, sweat running down her skin, her expression pained.

“Yeah...I didn’t want to be late to lunch,” she groaned, sitting down besides the brunette, sighing in relief as she rested, eyes closed.

The rest of the day was pretty boring, even by Adrien’s standards. The only thing he looked forwards to was his evening meeting with Kagami after fencing class.

They walked down the Seine, ice cream in hand, making small talk. Kagami hadn’t made any advances on him this time though, and Adrien felt guilty when that made him sag with relief. He liked Kagami’s company and wanted to spend time with her, but he’d be lying if he said the idea of kissing her felt... off.

It’s not that he didn’t find her beautiful, as she was ridiculously his type, but the idea of intimacy with her put him off for whatever reason. He hadn’t voiced his worries with her yet, too afraid of the consequences. Maybe it was a bit selfish of him, but he still wanted to hang out with her. If he could prolong this as long as she’d let them without any further need for intimacy, he’d try his luck, as bad as it was. He was sure the ache for close affection would appear eventually anyway, so it was only a matter of time.

“Hey, is that Ladybug?” Kagami said, looking up towards the roofs a block ahead of them. Soon enough, a flash of red could be seen jumping across Paris’ roofs. Adrien tensed for a second when she stopped and looked down, her eyes fixating on the pair for a minute before she took off, running and jumping away once again.

“I wonder what’s she doing here,” Kagami wondered aloud. “Do you think there’s any trouble?” Adrien only shook his head, anxiety crawling like bugs under his skin. “There hasn’t been any akuma alerts yet, there’s probably nothing wrong,” he told her.

But as they resumed walking his mind was filled with doubt. Something was wrong, very terribly wrong.

It was midnight when he decided to go patrolling. He was planning on talking with Ladybug today. Alya was right. The superheroine had been seen at all hours several days in a row. She was probably overworking herself again. Whatever she was doing seemed important and he couldn’t let his own pettiness get in the way of their hero responsibilities any longer.

It was almost an hour later when he decided that Ladybug wouldn’t show up tonight. Cursing his luck, he moved to a more deserted part of the city. There were plenty of abandoned sheds and factories there, where they had fought Copycat a long while ago. That would be his last stop before he gave up.

Of course the night he finally decided to meet and talk with her was the night she chose to take a break. Karma had decided to bite him in the rear, apparently. Grumbling, he paused on top of a large abandoned warehouse to check his baton. Maybe he could check his messaged and try to call her? But just before he could dial Ladybug a whiff of a familiar scent made him halt.

That smell... But it couldn’t be her. What could she possibly be doing here, so far from home? And at this hour too?

Bristling slightly he followed his nose, and soon he found the cause of his displeasure a few meters down the street, walking and scribbling away on her notebook, not even looking up. Was she crazy? Didn’t she know how dangerous it was for a girl like her to be walking alone at this hour, on a pretty deserted zone no less? With his baton’s help he leaped from the top of the warehouse, landing right in front of her and making her shriek in fright.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He chided, a growl rumbling in his throat.

“Chat Noir! You almost gave me a heart attack!” She complained, her hand on her chest.

“Don’t even start!” He yelled back, anger and worry pouring out. “What are you doing here? At this hour too!”

“Well I-”

“Do you know how dangerous it is for you to walk alone at night? And you weren’t even paying attention! What if something happened to you!”

The girl only rolled her eyes, making him flare in annoyance. “Ok mom,” she retorted, not looking at him. Chat Noir gasped indignantly. “Marinette! Don’t give me that!” He roared. “Are you out of your mind?” He waited for her to say something, his eyes searching hers, but she was still pouting and looking away from him. “What happened? What could possibly be enough of a reason for you to be fucking here!” She flinched at his cursing, making Adrien feel kind of bad for rising his voice, but at the moment he couldn’t care. She still kept silent.

“Tell me!”

“I needed inspiration for designing!” She finally screamed, her glare turned to him. Adrien felt himself take a few steps backwards, her explanation muddled by his worried and anxious thoughts.

“D-designing?” He whispered in disbelief. She was this far from home in the middle of the night just for that? He felt himself grow dizzy as he shook his head. He had to sit down before he blacked out.

“Are you trying to kill me princess?” Chat Noir sighed as he leaned down on the sidewalk, his head between his hands as he closed his eyes, the panic from before receding. He had been so unsettled with the idea of Marinette walking the shadows all alone and unprotected. “You can’t do this to me Mari, I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you,” He confessed, his voice trembling as his shoulders shook slightly.

Chat Noir heard her approach but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. Even as she sat down beside him and embraced him sideways he still couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” her voice said in his ear. “I didn’t mean to make you so worried.”

They stood there for a while, neither of them saying anything. Chat Noir found comfort in her warm embrace. She was still there with him. She was ok. Nothing bad had happened to her. He sighed, tension finally leaving his shoulders. He returned the hug, savoring the way her body felt against his. Marinette hugs were pleasant and cozy. He wished he could get them more often, both as his superhero-self and as his civilian-self.

Finally deciding it was late enough, he stood up slowly, grabbing her hands as he went so that she followed after him.

“Come on princess, let’s get you home,” he said, Marinette nodding and stepping closer, her expression a mix of guilty and tired.

The journey to the bakery was a quiet one. Her arms around his neck held him tight as he carried her bridal-style. Chat Noir saw the bakery come closer as he jumped from house to house in mild disillusionment. He wanted to stay like that a bit longer. Keep her in his arms just for a couple of hours more, the moment unbroken. He knew she’d be safe that way at least. But, it was very late, and he didn’t have the luxury to be selfish right now. Because that’s what he was. Selfish.

Soon they landed on her terrace and she stepped down, luckily for him without her noticing the grabby motion his hands had made unthinkingly after they separated. They stood like that for a minute, neither of them sure of what to say. He searched her eyes and so did she. Her blue eyes glowed especially tonight, her gaze mysterious and bright, but so tired. He hated seeing her like that. So drained. He’d give her his own energy if he could.

Not being able to resist anymore, he stepped closer, holding her arms gently.

“Promise me you’ll never put yourself in danger like that princess,” he begged. Her eyes widened at his words, and an odd expression he couldn’t read crossed her face.

“Chat I can’t-” But he cut her off. “Please promise me Marinette,” he murmured, resting his forehead on top of her head. She just stayed silent for a while, before hesitantly nodding, making him slump in relief.

He untangled himself from her, his face feeling warm as he smiled softly down at her. Her face remained conflicted and oddly unreadable, but her promise was enough. He turned to go back to his house, barely reaching the rails before soft fingers around his leather-clad hand stopped him.

He looked at her once again, her bluebell eyes wide and bright. Too bright. They were almost gleaming. Before he could ask her if she was ok she spoke. “Chat I’m...” she started before her mouth snapped shut. She stared at him, her eyes darting all over his face. He waited for her to continue, not wanting to make her more upset than she appeared, and it seemed like whatever she was to say was of big importance. The magic was abruptly cut when she smiled, softly shaking her head as she closed her eyes, which made him blink in surprise. He had been so entranced in her deep sapphires it’d felt like a shock when they disappeared behind her eyelids.

A mild chuckle left her rosy lips, and he felt his eyes immediately zeroing on them, his face warming up even more. She looked at him once again, appearing resigned for some reason. “Nevermind Chat,” she said. “I’ll tell you another time.” She let go of his hand.

“Goodnight Chat Noir.” She whispered.

“Goodnight, princess,” He answered, frowning, but parting ways nonetheless.

As he leaped away, he couldn’t help but feel like she had meant that goodbye to be a final farewell. And he hated it.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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