#i hope i can find a way to sneak teddie inside here somewhere.....
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seeing the villainess-like otome game au on @/hourlyhanamura twitter (thank you retrospring anon) has made my brain rumble and started making me (unfortunately) think.
Who would be the villain(ess)!!! It could go both ways!!! It really could!!!
Yosuke is the favourite but not really favourite antagonist—some people like him, some don't
Maybe some things like a romance path with him was cut (HM JUST LIKE. HM.)
And perhaps Yu gets recommended the otome game by a classmate. It's popular, the characters are cute, what more could you ask for
Yu is just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "ok guess i'll try it" cuz it's not like he has anything else to do in his free time besides studying, housework and making meals for himself
The game is pretty fun, and it doesn't shove romance into your face every chance it gets. He definitely gets into the rabbit hole after he realises that he's been playing it for a very very long time
As he gets heavily invested into it and the characters, Yu starts crushing on the villainess (yosuke), and wishes that he could be in the game with him/out here in real life with him
idk the crush starts as something small cuz the story could progress and show the villainess as having a sympathetic side/being more than his cold, jerkish and standoffish side except GASP it's choice locked in another character's route, so players might miss it
And then story progresses more, more softer moments with yosuke and that all adds up into a mega fat crush on him
Want to add that almost all the endings of the game are just Yosuke leaving Inaba (Junes does not disappear tho) or being absolutely humiliated and never showing his face ever again. [Sorry yosuke]
Maybe he becomes more like shadow yosuke as the game progresses....
Though that also kind of asks what kind of villain yosuke would be... would he be a calculating cunning type or like cartoonishly evil kind of bullying. i'm kind of leaning towards a mixture of both because a) this image
And b) the protagonist of the game is like. Idk a transfer student. Yosuke is as well, but unlike him, the protag is well-liked and well-received. And he wants that, wants to be liked as well but because of Junes and what it represents to Inaba, he gets none of that.
All he has are harsh glares and murmuring of housewives as they whisper to each other about yet another shop out of business. They really have nothing better to do, but neither does he, out in the god damned countryside.
So he becomes insanely jealous and he decides to be a prick to the protag out of his envy and the mindnumbing dullness of Inaba. He's mean to everyone tbh, but it's more or less a shield to protect himself.
And then in comes Yu, as the newly isekaid or something idk protag.
Despite all of Yosuke's general prickliness and jerkishness towardd him, Yu still showers him with care and affection, something Yosuke hadn't really gotten since... he came to Inaba. It's kind of nice, it's making him happy that someone likes him, but he's also waiting for it to be a huge prank/the other shoe to drop
Because really. Someone actually liking him? Someone making him feel like he's much more than the scourge of Inaba?
There's just no way. Sooner or later, the townsfolk or his classmates will convince him of the Prince of Junes who ruins everything, tell him that Yosuke's such a disappointing person, don't get too close to him if I were you and whatnot.
It's better for Yosuke to push Yu away before he inevitably leaves Yosuke alone.
But Yu continues to stay, continues to lavish him with affection despite there being other, better people to give it to.
Whatever. He'll just secretly bask in it as long as it lasts, until Yu moves on. This definitely doesn't make him stay awake at night, wondering why the popular transfer student would do this.
ON THE OTHER HAND VILLAIN YU
again its similar to if yosuke was the villainess, where he gets recommended a popular otome game and he plays it, and then having a big fat crush on yosuke
Except yknow. Yosuke has his own route instead of his moments being choice-locked in a different route.
Once more the cold and cruel villainess has bad endings, resulting in getting banished or whatever.
Now, Yu gets transported and becomes the villain. He definitely sees this as a chance to lavish all his affection onto Yosuke
This gives Yosuke a crisis because mmmm this guy is pretty much rumoured to be very bad, so why is he so caring??? with me??? why are there butterflies in my stomach.... why is he also such a dork as well i saw him petting twenty cats at once...
In Yosuke's route, he has some pretty low self esteem coupled with comparing himself to the protag and junes
Because the protag is a transfer as well, but they seem to be making themselves at home while he's stuck at the doorbell
I genuinely dont know how to explain this its all in my head and makes perfect sense right now. Maybe its something like JUNES related, ingame reasons and all.
But out of the way protag, Yu is now taking charge of Yosuke's route, regardless of whether he's the villainess or not.
I dont quite see Yu being able to play along with the rumours of the villainess being a ruthless and cruel person. Sure, he might come off as cold to people, but it's his "dont get too involved" mindset that carried over.
It would be funny if some misunderstandings start adding more fuel to the fire.
Torturing cats? No, he was actually feeding them fish. The angle looked really bad to the person.
Mugging an old lady? No, he was actually escorting mrs tatsumi across the road, something which kanji is very appreciative of
Bullying year 1s? Nope. They dropped something and he was trying to give it back to them
But yeah yosuke being unable to get to sleep because he's too busy getting flustered over Yu's actions, and wondering if everyone's got yu wrong or if this is just an act to trick him into letting his guard down.
But then again, what kind of evil person would go out of his way to make him... happy?
#persona 4#yosuke hanamura#yu narukami#souyo#im actually genuinely crumbing like fried chicken#air fryer sounds#i hope i can find a way to sneak teddie inside here somewhere.....#i like thinking about flower bros#good heavens its 2 am#this is also thinly veiled propaganda to go follow hourlyhanamura on twitter right now#go follow them please and thank you#they have a tumblr here but i dont remember the name....
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Final Exam- Teen Titans x Aquagirl! Reader
Masterlist
Request: Helloooooo! I have an Episode request “Final exam” (Season 1 ep 3) with Aquagirl!reader please and thank you very much!
Summary: It's a good thing you have junior life guard training as you face a new force of evil. Will you and your teammates defeat these foes or will you drown in the pressure?
Pairings: Robin x Reader (nothing serious, just some blushing lol)
Word count: 3192
A/N: hey!!! sorry this took a while I was just doing other things lul. Reminder that I'm now on AO3 (username is butterknifee) and that requests are always open! Hope you enjoy!!!
It was an uneventful day in the tower. Cyborg and Beast Boy were rummaging around the living room looking for the TV remote, Raven was reading silently and you were practicing your water skills, balancing an orb of water in mid air.
"It's gotta be around here somewhere!" Cyborg says, rummaging through the whole room. He lifts up the whole couch as Beast Boy sniffs around in dog form.
“How could you lose the remote?” Cyborg glares at Beast Boy.
“What makes you so sure I lost it?” Beast Boy asks, turning back into a human.
“Uh...'cause you're you.”
“Hey! Just because I lost that video game--”
“--And the toothpaste, and my football, and the waffle iron--”
“Things disappear. How am I supposed to know where they go?”
You continued to focus on your bubble, but couldn’t help but notice Raven lowering her book. You peeked over to see her annoyed expression, obviously caused by the two boys.
Cyborg huffs. “Well how am I supposed to watch TV without a remote?” Suddenly, Raven slammed her book, breaking you out of your focus and causing the water you were balancing to drop into a puddle. You stared wide-eyed at Raven as she stood up.
“Simple. You can just get up and change the channel.” she says with a stone cold expression.
“Don’t even joke like that.” Cyborg says. You hover your hands over the puddle, trying to pick it up with your hydrokinesis.
“Do you think you guys could argue in like, the bathroom or something? Cause-” you start, but Raven interrupts you.
“I wasn’t joking”
“Good, 'cause it wasn't funny!” Cyborg says. “Now either help us look for the remote or go back to your nasty old book and--”
“This is a pointless argument over a useless device.” she snaps, her face red from frustration.
“You know what, I'm just gonna get a mop or something,” you mumble. You consider actually getting up to get a mop as they continue to argue.
Robin and Starfire walks in to the three teens arguing and you sitting to the side. You make a pained expression at the two, your way of saying go back, before it's too late.
But Robin steps towards the bickering Titans. “Whoa! Take it easy, Titans! Combat practice is this afternoon!”
“We must mend your dispute by the sharing of unhealthy junk foods. I shall fetch them.” Starfire adds, happily flying towards the kitchen.
Cyborg continues to argue. “I don't need food, what I need is a time machine, I didn't--”
Beast Boy cuts him off. “Back me up here, Robin!! Have I ever lost any--?”
“Ok, ok!” Robin puts up his hands to stop them.
“To stop him from taking the REMOTE!!!” Cyborg yells.
“Hey! Come on!! Settle down! ENOUGH!!!” Robin starts yelling too. You start to cover your ears when a loud noise causes all of you to look up. You see Starfire staring wide-eyed at the fridge, her hands glowing green. Blue mold had exploded from her starbolt, causing it to land all over the kitchen. You made a mental note to start cleaning the kitchen more often.
“Maybe we should go out for pizza,” Robin decides.
.
.
The arguing does not stop at the pizza place.
“Can we please just order something?” Raven groans.
“As long as its vegetarian.” Beast Boy says.
“Come on, man, how can you deny me the all-meat experience?” Cyborg whines.
“Dude, I've been most of those animals!”
“Just no anchovies for me,” You say.
“I suggest a large pizza with pickles, bananas, and mint frosting.” Starfire says with a smile. You shudder at the thought of eating something like that. Robin leans over.
“Uh, Starfire? Not everything on the menu is a pizza topping.” She blushes at her mistake, Beast Boy and Cyborg going at each other again.
“Double pepperoni!!”
“I'm not eating meat!!”
“There's no meat in pepperoni!!”
The sound of a vehicle horn finally ended their argument. You all look up to see a bus barreling straight towards a baby carriage, a baby screaming from inside.
“Titans go!” Robin yells. You, Cyborg and Raven ran to stop the bus while Robin, Starfire, and Beast Boy ran to save the baby carriage. You summon a jet of water from a fire hydrant and shoot it at the bus, slowing it down. Cyborg planted himself in front of the bus, his bulky arms holding it back. Raven uses her magic, pulling the gearshift inside the bus to “park”. When the bus finally skidded to a stop, you three looked inside. No one was there.
“Um… don’t buses normally have drivers?” Cyborg asks.
“And don’t carriages normally have babies?” Robin says nearby. He, Starfire, and Beast Boy were staring at a teddy bear that was inside the carriage. A voice suddenly projected from the stuffed animal.
“Are you pit-sniffers normally this stupid?”
Suddenly, the teddy bear shot lasers out of its eyes, sending the three teens flying into an alleyway. You turned to see the bus next to you be lifted up by a large, hairy man in black and yellow. He smiled and threw the bus on top from the three of you, trapping you under it. You grunt as the weight of the bus begins to press down on your chest. You hear a voice from outside the bus.
“That was too easy. What a buncha cludge-heads. You guys want to get pizza?” The voice matched the one from the teddy bear. You gritted your teeth as you heard Cyborg’s sonic cannon warm up.
“This isn't over!” you hear Robin yells. Cyborg blasts his cannon, sending the bus in the air. You got up with the other two titans.
“We’re just getting started!” Cyborg yells.
“Who are these guys?” Beast Boy asks, stuck in a trash can. “And what’s a cludge-head?”
“We are the HIVE!” the villain who called you ‘cludge-heads’ said. He was a short kid, wearing a green jumpsuit and goggles. He basically looked like an evil Caillou.
“Your worst nightmare!” said the guy who crushed you with a bus. You noticed that he had a large amount of hair on his whole body.
“And this is attack pattern Alpha!” said the last villain, a goth looking girl with pink, hornlike hair. They jumped out of their poses, and towards you. The small guy in green flew forward in a jetpack, shooting lasers at Robin, Starfire and Beast Boy. The lasers hit the alleyway around them, causing a pile of rubble to fall on them.
Cyborg immediately started brawling with the large guy, Raven and the pink-haired girl attacking each other with their magic, and the smaller kid flying around your head. You tried to shoot him down with your blasts of water, but he wove through your shots. He then flew towards Cyborg, holding something metal.
“Cyborg watch out!” you scream, but it was too late. The green kid attached the metal object to Cyborg's back, and at that moment you realized it was a rocket. Starfire recovered from being crushed by rubble just to see him flying through the air.
"Cyborg!" She yelled, flying after him and out of sight. The two leaving so abruptly caught you off guard, so off guard that you didn't notice the burly guy sneaking up behind you. You turned just as he went to kick you, kicking your stomach and causing you to go flying. You hold your stomach in pain and try to run back towards him, but Raven being thrown towards you sends you crashing back towards the ground. You groan in pain as you hear Robin and Beast Boy meet a similar fate. You see them laying next to you.
"Is it just me or are we getting our butts kicked?" Beast Boy asked, the rest of you standing up.
"It's just you," the three of you say at the same time.
"Listen up team, I have a plan," Robin begins, but is cut off by 3 blasts from the short boy's jetpack. Those 3 blasts ended up hitting you, Beast Boy and Raven. You landed behind the Boy Wonder, leaving him to face the HIVE alone.
“Gee, scrum-buffer.” the jetpack boy jeered, lowering himself to the ground. “Sure hope your fancy plan includes getting fried!”
“You’ll just have to find out the hard way.” you hear him say. You watch him stand in a fighting position, beckoning them to fight. However instead of fighting, the three villains stood with a smile on their face. Then, one by one, they hit the ground between them and Robin. You were confused at first, but then realized in horror that they had created a crack in the asphalt, it getting bigger with each hit. The crack traveled up towards Robin and the area around him crumbled. A look of fear set in his face as he fell with the asphalt into the ground.
“Robin!” you yelled, running up towards the hole with Beast Boy and Raven. Through the crumbling hole you saw a stream of dark, murky sewer water. Water, you realized. You turned to the other two Titans.
“There’s water down there. I’ll go get Robin, you two go back to the Tower.” Before they could reply, you dove into the hole, landing into the water.
“Aquagirl!” Beast Boy yelled, but you were gone.
.
The cold water shocked your body, but you forced yourself to shake it off. You floated on the surface of the water, looking for any signs of Robin. When you didn’t see anyone, you dove back underwater and took a deep breath (yes, you can breathe underwater). You shoot through the water, swimming as fast as you can. Up ahead, you saw blurs of red, yellow, and green. It was Robin. You swam up to him and grabbed onto his unconscious body. Then with all your strength, you pulled him out of the water and onto the concrete surface of the sewer.
You laid Robin on his back and started to inspect him. You check for his heart rate by pressing two fingers against the area under his jaw. It was beating, but very slowly. You placed your hands on his chest and started pumping. After 30 seconds, nothing was happening. Tilting his head back, you pinched his nose and took a deep breath. You gave mouth to mouth once, then twice, then-
Robin’s eyes opened while you were giving the third. He jerked his head up and crashed his forehead into yours.
“Owwww” you whine, rubbing your hand on your forehead. Robin backed up from you, holding his lips.
“Hey! why did you-” He was about to finish his sentence but started coughing up water. You roll your eyes.
“Woah, calm down Robin, I’m not trying to make a move on you. The only move I made was saving you from drowning.”
“Oh- I’m sorry,” he says, his masked eyes staring at you apologetically.
You waved your hand. “Don’t worry about it, you had a pretty bad fall.”
“What happened to the others? Where are they? Where are we?” He asked, frantically reaching for his T-communicator, only to realize that his whole belt was missing.
“Oh man, your belt must’ve fallen off when you fell. Last time I checked, Raven and Beast Boy were injured, but fine. We’re currently in a sewer, I’m not sure if Starfire and Cyborg are ok, but maybe we can check.” you pulled out your own T-communicator and flipped it open. Water gushed out and formed a puddle under your hand. You both stared at it as you flipped the communicator closed and slid it back into your belt.
“We need to get back to the others, before the HIVE strikes again,” Robin says, standing up. He doubles over, falling to his knees, clutching his abdomen.
“You’re hurt. You need to rest before we find the other Titans,” you say, sitting next to him. “Here, I can help.” You beckon him to let go of his chest and you sit down with you, which he reluctantly does. You summon a bubble of the murky water and allow it to soak into his shirt. You concentrated, and the water began to glow blue.
“Hmmm… I only feel a rib fracture… this may take a while…” you mutter, hovering your hands over his chest. You were focusing so much on healing Robin’s wound, you didn’t notice the frown on his face, more stern than usual.
“Something on your mind, Robin?” you asked, looking up from your work. He furrowed his eyebrows and stared at the ground.
“It’s just that…” he began. “I really thought that I could take on the HIVE, you know? But they took me out so easily; they took all of us out so easily. How am I supposed to be a leader if I get hurt so easily, if I let all my teammates get hurt-” his rant is cut off by your finger being shoved in front of his mouth. You both stare at each other in awkward silence.
“When I was a kid, I knew all about you and your adventures,” you began, staring at the stream of water flowing next to you. “You were the boy wonder. The Hero of Gotham. The Sidekick. But now look at you; you’re the leader of a whole team of superheroes, who trust you and are here for you, Robin. We know the dangers, and hey, if I would be a superhero on any team, I’m glad I’m on yours.”
He gave you a small smile. “Thank you Aquagirl,” he said.
You nodded and smiled back. “Anytime, Robin.” You looked at his chest again. “How do you feel?”
“I feel great, both inside and out.” he said, standing up with ease. “I think it's time to find the other titans.”
“Great idea, and I know just how to get out of here.” You stretch out your arm and the ground starts to rumble. A giant geyser shoots up from the stream and punches a hole in the roof of the sewer, allowing the setting sun to peek through. You grabbed Robin’s waist and jumped into the water, another smaller geyser pushing you up and out of the sewer.
“Ugh, gross! I’m definitely taking a shower after this,” you say, looking back at the sewer you jumped out of.
“Ok, let’s go find the others,” Robin says, heading in the direction of the Tower, which was peaking out in the distance. “And, I think it’s time to come up with a plan.”
.
You finally get closer to the Tower when you notice something.
“Ummm Robin?” you say. “Doesn’t the tower usually look like a T?” You both stare at the tower, its original shape now being built upon to look like a ‘H’. The HIVE… you thought. You and Robin eventually find the rest of your friends, who were all arguing on the beach. You were about to announce your presence but Robin stopped you, putting his arm in front of you.
“We need to control our emotions,” you hear Raven say.
“Or What?!” Cyborg yells. “Our bad vibes will keep you from meditating??”
“I wish Robin were here..” Starfire mumbles. You see the slightest tinge of pink dust across Robin’s cheeks.
“Well he’s NOT! And neither is Aquagirl!” Cyborg continues to yell. “Don't you guys get it?! They won, we lost! IT'S OVER!!”
Beast Boy looked at him. “Then are the Teen Titan’s finished?” Robin looks at you and nods, you nod back. The two of you step forwards.
“We’re not,” Robin says. The other four Titans turn in shock to see you and Robin, both seemingly fine, standing before them.
“Not if I can help it,” he said, arms crossed.
“Told’ya I’d get him back.” you said. “Now who wants to hear our plan?”
You waited on the roof as Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire infiltrated the Tower. You sat on a ledge of the (hideous) HIVE add-ons, swinging your legs as Robin stood next to you, staring out into the distance.
“You ready, bird boy?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.
He smirked. “With you here, I’m more than ready.” He jumped down from the ledge, leaving you flustered above him.
Suddenly, The three villains come tumbling onto the roof and crash into each other, much more uncoordinated than they had seemed earlier today. The belt the pink haired girl had most likely stolen from Robin’s wardrobe goes flying, and Robin catches it midair.
“Sorry to interrupt your victory celebration,” Robin says, clicking his belt back on around his waist. “But like I said, this isn’t over.” The five of you join him, looming above the HIVE.
“It’s just getting started,” Cyborg said.
The trio of villains quickly recovered.
“Attack pattern alpha!” The pink haired girl yelled, sending waves of magic in your direction. You all jumped out of the way, splitting up.
You saw the large guy swing at Beast Boy, so you rushed in to help him. You summoned a long tendril of water from the ocean and used it like a third arm, with whipping the villain in the face. He turns towards you and grabs your wrist, but with a swift kick in the stomach he goes flying across the roof. You see Raven approach him, so you go to assist in taking down the other two.
Soon, the HIVE laid defeated at your feet. The smaller boy was holding a transmitter device.
"Cram it. I'm calling Slade." He groaned. Slade? You thought. Robin lifted the boy by his green jumpsuit.
"Who is Slade?" Robin asked quite aggressively. The boy scoffed.
"Wouldn't you like to know barf-brain?"
.
After you dealt with the villains, you finally came in the Tower after a long day. You flopped on the couch as the other Titans inspected the damage the HIVE had caused in the tower, which apparently, wasn't much. Beast Boy crouched at his music collection, head in his hands.
"My tunes! They've been… alphabetized!" He whined. "How am I ever going to find anything?"
Raven came out of her room holding one of her cloaks. "They went into my room. No one should ever go into my room," she said coldly.
"Someone has disposed of all of our blue furry food!" Starfire gasped. Cyborg lifted the whole couch like he did earlier today.
"You gotta be kidding me! The whole place gets cleaned and I still can't find the-" his rant is stopped by Robin, who points at the coffee table. There, the remote lay in plain sight.
"Ha!" He cheered, flopping down on the couch next to you and flipping through channels.
"Maybe we should let the HIVE take over the tower every once in a while, I think this place needed a good clean," you joke, still strewn across the couch.
"I guess we really oughta be training for battles, tracking down clues, and trying to figure out who Slade is, huh?" Cyborg said, looking at Robin.
"We will. But right now, I'm just happy to be part of the team." He looks at you while saying that and you smile.
"Me too"
#butterknife's x reader series#dick grayson x reader#dc imagine#dick grayson#dc#teen titans x reader#teen titans 2003#teen titans cyborg#raven teen titans#teen titans go#cyborg#victor stone#vic stone#robin#robin x reader#starfire#koriand'r#x y/n#x reader#beast boy x reader#gar logan#beast boy
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Meeting and Dating Al Capone
(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- Let’s pretend that our monochromatic gangster was transferred to the Museum of Natural History after the whole Kahmunrah fiasco for the sake of this story.
- You worked in the restoration department, taking care of all the artifacts in the museum; though you’d always worked during the day. When the new shipment of exhibit material arrived, you were the one unboxing it, which means you were the one to first see the gangster in all his; at the time non living, glory.
- It was a few days after you’d done so that you’d lost track of time and accidentally stayed in your office after closing. Once you’d noticed, you quickly packed everything up and headed towards the actual museum part of the building, in which you found the organized chaos that was a night at the museum.
- The Neanderthals are the first to see you, creating quite the commotion as you hesitate at the entrance of the hall that led to your room. Napoleon is next, greeting you with a “bonjour madame” just as Larry turns and spots you.
- Initially, you were sure that you were dreaming but the the look on Larry’s face when he first saw you told you otherwise.
“Larry! Who’s this?” Teddy asked chipperly though he was ignored as Larry approached you, asking what you were doing “here”.
- You stuttered out a “I was working downstairs ...lost track of time” as your voice trailed off. You stepped into the main room, your eyes moving upstairs where you found hundreds of the exhibits standing, walking and interacting.
- As Larry walked towards you, your eyes finally fell on the monochromatic gangster that was sitting relatively close to you. Your heart raced a bit as he scowled at you; despite his hostile demeanor you couldn’t deny that he was handsome.
- By the end of the night, (and the tour, explanation and a few thank you’s from the more vocal artifacts that you’d worked on) you decided that you’d like to start working nights more often.
- Whenever you did, you made your rounds, getting to know all the exhibits on a more personal level. That being said: you always kept away from Capone, he seemed unsocial and somewhat scared you; especially with the way he strutted around with his men and a scowl on his face.
- Finally, you had no other choice but to come into contact with him. He was on the other side of a hall that had no other way out so you swallowed and continued walking, moving slightly out of his way and meeting his eyes as you passed. You nodded and gave him a “Mr. Capone”, causing him to turn a bit and stare at you as you walked. Oh, he liked you.
- The next night, he approached you himself, well, he’d more so been purposefully standing in your usual route as you went to walk it. He called out a greeting as he leaned against a wall you had to pass and you nearly stumbled out of sheer surprise. Your heart raced as he moved to follow you after you greeted and passed him.
- He drilled you with a few questions, about you and about the museum and so on. You figured he was just trying to get more information on the place or that he was bored so you thought nothing of it. Just before you were forced to excuse yourself, you shyly confessed that he’d always interested you, and though he was used to people finding him interesting, the idea of you finding him interesting left his heart racing. And just like that, you’d excused yourself before he could say anything else.
- A few days later, you’d approached him yourself and he couldn’t have been prouder. You timidly asked if you could ask him a few questions and once you had, you’d gotten the ball rolling. Soon enough, he was rambunctiously and passionately telling you a story as though the two of you were old friends.
- Well, now you’re a part of “the family” whether you like it or not. He doesn’t like someone? He’ll scare them off. He wants you somewhere? You best get walking. He sees you? You join him by his side for the rest of the night. Oftentimes, “the boys” are stationed outside your office while he sits perched on your table, watching what you’re doing or cleaning his gun nearby.
- You’re sort of dating before you’re actually dating. He makes the two of you a thing; especially in other peoples eyes, before you even realize what he’s been doing; though you probably don’t find out about that.
- Your real relationship starts one night as he’s sitting in your office, his chin resting on his clasped hands as he watches you. He asks about your love life, teasing you with some of his comments and the way he moves closer to you as he speaks.
“So you ain’t dating anybody, and you don’t like anybody?” He grins down at you as leans against the table by your side.
“Well ...I do like someone but... it’s a bit complicated.” You say, both hoping he takes the hint yet not wanting him to at the same time. He nods with a small smile, obviously understanding.
“I think it’s worth it to give it a shot doll.” He says and you look down at the table with a small smile before his hands are on your jaw and he’s tilting your face up in a kiss.
- The kiss is heated, his lips crushing against yours, his arms bringing you in as close as he can, squeezing you against him. It’s enough to make you weak in the knees and when he pulls away, you’re almost in a daze.
“How about that shot?” He asks you quietly and you smile up at him.
- And just like that, you’re a slightly out of the ordinary moll.
- He’s incredibly touchy with you; he loves having his hands on you. He may be a tough guy with a harsh reputation but you’re his woman and he’s proud of that.
- His arm around your shoulders or his hand gripping your arm, keeping you close to him. He likes having you right next to him whenever he can.
- Sitting together with his hand on your knee.
- Pecks on the lips, cheeks and forehead/top of the head.
- He likes when you kiss him on the cheek. He doesn’t even care if it messes with his “image”; a proper gangster shows that he loves his girl.
- Rough, breathtaking kisses.
- Loving kisses. He’s a hard man but he’s got a soft spot for you.
- Kissing and tracing his scars.
- Getting picked up and spun around in hugs.
- You usually cuddle while you’re sitting together, oftentimes with you nestled under his arm and against side.
- He’s a pet name fiend; he probably calls you them more than your real name. Baby, doll, honey, angel, babyface, etc; they’re all the most common ones.
- He likes when you fuss over him: cup his face in your hands, flutter around him busily setting things up for him, act all worried when he “gets hurt”. It’s the motherly, housewife attitude that he lives for.
- Straightening out his tie and hat for him; though he almost always seems to look picture perfect.
- Wearing his coat around you. He likes how attracted to him you are when he’s in just his vest with his dress shirt sleeves all rolled up.
- Get ready for the most proud and amused smile to form on his face whenever you “speak his language”. He thinks it’s adorable, hearing you adopt his slang or even just hearing you try to tease him about his accent.
- If you like to think that you were there for the whole Kahmunrah thing, then you should know that he’d be side eyeing everyone suspiciously whenever their eyes fell on you; specifically Kahmunrah since he’d probably show a little interest in you. That may or may not have been the reason that he was eager to get the tablet for himself.
- Sitting in his lap. He’ll hold onto your hip or wrap an arm around you whenever you do.
- Shoulder rubs; both giving and receiving. He’ll stand behind you and knead at the knots of tension, smiling a bit as you lean into his touch.
- He’s a little hard to sneak out of the museum, considering the fact that he’s in monochrome, so you most likely just stick to staying there, unless you can sneak inside alleyways and/or your car when leaving the building.
- Everyday, by the time you arrive at the museum, he’ll already be waiting for you somewhat menacingly in the lobby. It’s less menacing for everyone around you when he brings you into a hug and pecks your lips.
- He may or may not have threatened people; or made offers that people can’t refuse, to go buy him things for you; particularly during special occasions. …Poor Larry.
- Sitting with him as he cleans his gun. Occasionally, he’ll hand it over to you and let you give it a try; or just let you hold it. He thinks it looks funny in your arms.
- Playing card games with each other.
- Swing/slow dancing together; usually when you’re alone. You’ll bring a radio/your phone into work with you and listen to oldies with him sometimes.
- He may or may not be able to consume food but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He’ll set up a whole ass table and candles so that the two of you can have dinner together some nights.
- He likes when you read or just talk to him as he cleans his gun or smokes a cigar or something. Your voice is one of the most soothing things he’s ever heard.
- He does pretty much everything you ask. He thinks your interests are cute and he likes giving his girl all that he can.
- He’s sort of resentful that he didn’t meet you in the good ol’ days when he could really spoil you. Every now and again he’ll say something like “I woulda filled your fingers with diamonds if I knew you back then” and you’ll just reassure him that it would have been unnecessary either way.
- If he was really transferred to the museum then we can assume that there’s a whole 1920′s/Al Capone exhibit set up somewhere so it might be possible for him to have you wear a chain or ring of his; at least when you’re with him. And boy does he like seeing it on you.
- Getting bragged to. He likes telling you about all he’s done and hearing you give him praise.
- Telling him about his future accomplishments and having to break it to him that he was pinched for tax evasion.
- He loves whenever you get all dressed up. Seeing you in a dress and heels makes his heart race.
- You’re one of the few people he genuinely listens to. Larry/ the others are quite thankful.
- Always having bodyguards.
- He definitely has a bit of a temper so you try your best to take care of that and keep him calm.
- He always immediately tries to find out what’s wrong whenever you’re upset. His voice is quiet and gentle but there’s a hint of intimidation and the trembling of anger in his tone. He’ll stand/kneel in front of you or sit beside you and take you by the arms, trying to pull the name of whoever made you feel so bad from your lips. He’s rough around the edges but he certainly cares deeply for you.
- He’s pretty possessive of you. You’re his girl and his girl alone and everybody; including you, should know that.
- Because of his possessiveness, he’ll occasionally try to order you around like he does with his men. You just have to stand your ground and he’ll learn that you won’t be told what to do.
- Jealousy, so much jealousy. He tries to deny that he is, always trying to argue that he just gets a bad vibe from whoever he’s jealous of until he can’t anymore After that, he’ll just exclaim something along the lines of “Well, you’re my girl! I’m allowed to be.”.
- Overprotective. He was a bit of a bad guy himself so he knows how dangerous the world can be; and he’s used to the traditional housewife type of women who can’t really defend themselves. He always runs through a list of things you “have to do” when you’re preparing to leave the museum, and whenever you’re with him he’ll be on the offensive: making threats and quite literally pushing people away from you and/or out of your way.
- There’s going to be quite a few fights in your relationship given his personality. He’s got a bit of a hair trigger temper so he may snap on you every once in a while or just do something that causes a problem.
- Whenever you go to storm off, he’ll give a “hey doll, you know I was only playing.” and/or a “Come on honey, I’m sorry, alright?” but you rarely forgive him until around the next day; or so, when he snakes his way into your good graces with his sweet words and the sneaky, slow weaving of his arms around you.
- A good few “I love you’s”, he does love you and he isn’t ashamed of it, so why wouldn’t he let you know?
- He really wants to marry you but that’s not an easy feat, now is it? Regardless, he’s gonna have you as his woman for as long as he can.
#al capone imagine#al capone headcanons#al capone imagines#al capone headcanon#al capone night at the museum#night at the museum imagine#night at the museum headcanon#night at the museum imagines#night at the museum headcanons#battle at the smithsonian imagine#battle at the smithsonian headcanons#battle at the smithsonian imagines#battle at the smithsonian headcanon
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Being Fake Soulmates with Dr. Chilton (Part 6)
<- Part 5
Frederick Chilton x Reader | The Good Place crossover
Final chapter! Warning: The Good Place spoilers, and a timeline that makes perfect sense because Jeremy Bearimy, baby.
2,800 words
“No way. It’s too dangerous!”
“I thought you said we were in this together?” Chilton quirked a brow, eliciting a petulant grumble. You crossed your arms.
“Or maybe you think I’m expendable, so you’re willing to take risks with my life. Afterlife. Whatever.”
Frederick Chilton, who was not, as originally advertised, your soulmate, nonetheless clasped your hand with gentle tenderness. I would never do anything to hurt you is what a normal person would say in that moment, and perhaps his eyes said it, somewhere deep in their searching pools of green. But Dr. Chilton had a repressed way about him, tending toward overly clinical just stating the facts (or the sarcasm). Anything but genuine, vulnerable, sentimentality.
He guided you by your hand to sit down beside him on the baroque loveseat in one of his many living rooms, studies, and salons. After you settled yourself on the velvet cushion, he leaned his shoulder against yours in that quiet way he showed affection.
“After reviewing the town records,” he said, “I believe we may be the only two humans in the neighborhood. Some of the residents are far too dull—Chidi Anagonye, the moral philosophy professor who spent his life writing a single manuscript, Jianyu the silent monk—while others are too perfect—Glen, that one who is constantly volunteering, Tahani, the philanthropist. Real people have flaws, secrets, hobbies. I can only be certain of myself and you.”
“How’d you figure out I’m real?”
“I didn’t. I simply refuse to accept the alternative,” he said with a sad smile, and you began to think Dr. Chilton was sentimental after all.
***
Their voices were muffled even with your ear pressed to the door of Michael’s office—not that it mattered much what they were talking about. You were just waiting for the signal, and at that moment, it came. Their footsteps and voices grew louder as Frederick and Michael approached, and the door handle clicked.
“—which is why cannibalism loses more good-person points than defenestration but fewer than chewing loudly on a crowded bus.”
“Fascinating. I never thought about it that way,” said Chilton, looking genuinely disturbed.
You flattened yourself against the wall next to the door, thinking thin thoughts as the pair exited the office. A tall houseplant barely disguised your presence, and if Michael had any kind of peripheral vision, he would see you standing there plain as day.
But Dr. Chilton spoke animatedly, fixing him with a challenging laser-stare as he asked a probing follow-up question. Locked in Chilton’s eyes, Michael failed to notice the movement just behind his left shoulder as you slipped through the closing door before it could latch shut.
Safe.
Michael’s office was quiet and filled you with serenity in much the same way a teddy bear is filled with stuffing: forcefully and by no will of your own. Like the welcome room with its happy green plants and happy green words on the wall assuring you everything is fine, the office peeled your defenses away. Cream-colored walls yawned out around the perimeter, punctuated with bright windows, a portrait of Doug Forcett (a stoner from the 1970s who guessed, on a mushroom trip, how the afterlife really worked), and various artifacts of humanity enshrined like museum pieces, despite seeming perfectly mundane.
At the top of the room was a large mahogany desk.
Yesterday, Chilton watched Michael put away files in the desk that he wouldn’t let him look at. Chilton was certain they were the key to unraveling the mystery, so he suggested working together—he would distract Michael while you sneaked in to find the files. It was risky, but it might have been your only chance of discovering what was going on, and if there was a way to escape.
You began poking through the desk and found stacks of papers in an unreadable alphabet. The only thing you could read were lyrics to a genuinely terrible song Michael was writing titled “Love Train to the Cosmos.”
The last drawer wouldn’t budge.
Yanking the handle didn’t work. Banging on the side with your fist failed to unstick it. It was locked. Locked drawers were suspicious. The answers had to be in there.
You eyed a mountain of paperclips lovingly displayed on a pedestal labeled “Human Things.” Snatching two off the top, you unbent and re-bent the stiff metal wire, and inserted it into the lock. Faint clicks sounded as you turned and finessed the paperclip, feeling each pin in the tumbler slide into place. Then you gently turned it, and—pop. The drawer opened.
A single manila folder stamped TOP SECRET in threatening red letters rested inside, as if waiting to be found. You picked it up and opened it, and your breath caught. They were reports on “The Good Place.” The Good Place in quotation marks. Reports about you.
A pleasant bing sounded.
Janet materialized in front of the desk. For once, she was not wearing a cheery smile.
***
Frederick Chilton had always been a selfish man. Any opportunity that could advance his career and put him in the spotlight, he would take it no matter who it hurt. “Unorthodox therapy,” he called it in his private chats with Dr. Lecter. They bonded over their shared interest in unorthodox research before he learned Dr. Lecter was a cannibal. That would have been a clue to anybody else that it was time to change his ways, but Dr. Chilton spent the rest of his years just as selfish and petty—more so, even, as his disfiguring injuries gave him more reason for spite.
He could never accept himself as he was.
By the time he died, Chilton was an intolerable asshole who paid back the world’s cruelty with his chronic foul moods and acerbic sarcasm. He kept everyone at a distance.
And yet, here, in death, he found himself worrying over someone else.
The sun was shining in the ever-blue sky, dappled by lush green foliage before reaching the two men as they strolled the neighborhood below. Michael was built like a sapling with longer legs than he knew what to do with, making Chilton nearly jog to keep pace. He had a warm smile and an outgoing demeanor—always flattering Chilton’s ego and asking for his guidance. But something malignant hid behind those smiling eyes, and Chilton’s mind kept rushing back to you, hoping you were OK.
He hoped that you were safe. Not that the plan was going smoothly. That you were safe.
There was a difference, and Dr. Chilton noticed right away that his twitchy nervousness was not wrought of self-preservation. It was a new type of panic—worse than fear for himself, which he never thought possible considering the amount of terror he had experienced on his own behalf.
To distract himself, Chilton threw himself into the role of Michael’s assistant, focusing on his task of supposedly identifying psychological issues causing problems with the neighborhood.
“Our interviews should go in alphabetical order, under the pretense of a survey—a sort of afterlife census—to avoid suspicion. It should be feasible, with only three hundred residents—”
“We know,” Michael said coolly. His voice dropped from the usual friendly, flattering demeanor, slipping off like a mask.
“You know how you are going to handle the interviews? It is imperative the subjects do not suspect they are being studied.” Chilton swallowed, knowing full well that he was talking to the real Michael for the first time.
“Don’t play dumb.” Michael smiled an entirely different type of smile, twisted and clever with no warmth in it. “We’ve been watching you, Dr. Chilton. We knew you would figure it out eventually. It was only a matter of time before you saw through a psychiatric study.”
Chilton’s interest piqued at the same time his blood went cold. He wet his lips. “Is that what all this is, then?”
The pair came to a stone bridge that arched gracefully over a reflection pool. Michael stopped midway across, leaned one of his long, pointed elbows on the railing, and cocked his head at Chilton.
“You haven’t figured it all out yet? That’s disappointing. You humans really are so dense.” His tone was so mean that Chilton took an unconscious step back. Michael only laughed and told him there was no point in running away. “But I think you’ll want to hear what I have to offer,” he promised.
Most of what you had been told about the afterlife was true, Michael explained. There was a real good place, and there was a real bad place where bad people were tortured for all eternity. But the bad place had a problem: it was boring! Humans get used to physical pain after the first few centuries, no matter how creative the punishment.
“Once you’ve flattened a thousand penises, you’ve flattened them all. I’m trying to do something new here. Innovate!” said Michael with an energetic swoop of his hand. “Emotional torture can cause the same level of discomfort, but in a more sustainable and (more importantly) entertaining way. That’s what this neighborhood is for—to study you humans and find out what makes you miserable.”
And then he offered Dr. Chilton something that grabbed his attention. The opportunity to design bad place neighborhoods.
“You are asking me to help implement psychological torture?” Chilton turned over each word cautiously.
“Oh,” Michael scoffed, “Don’t tell me you’re concerned about the ethics? Doctor, I’ve read your file.”
Chilton winced. He had done truly amoral things in the name of discovery—things it made him sick to be reminded of. Strange, though. In the past, he would have been proud to be treated as a peer by a psychopath. Not ashamed.
“Think of it, the glory, the prestige. You would be designing the afterlife for billions of souls. You will be remembered throughout eternity as the man who reformed the bad place!”
“And my soulmate?”
Chilton blurted it without thinking. It sounded so childish and naive, and sure enough, Michael shook his head and had a long chuckle at his expense.
“There’s no such thing! I thought you knew,” Michael slapped his knee. “I made it up so you would torture each other! But once again, I underestimated the human libido. You people all think with your genitals, it’s—it’s gross. Humans are gross.” He made a face. “That’s why I need your help to design a better system. With your understanding of the human mind, we can make condemned souls miserable for thousands of years.”
Chilton couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for this plan, and Michael frowned.
“If it makes you feel any better, consider this the humane option. The alternative is going back to scooping eyeballs out with melon ballers and replacing them with live bees. What do you say, doctor? Join my team.” Michael extended a hand, and Chilton eyeballed it.
“Can my soulmate—”
“Not a soulmate.”
“—come with me?”
“This offer is only open to you.”
“So they will be tortured? Alone? For eternity? In a system I help design?”
“Nothing you can do will change that. They are going to be tortured—the only person you can save is yourself, if you decide to help me.”
Frederick’s brow knit together. He thought about refusing. He really did. Abandoning you seemed unthinkable, especially after your promise to each other to stick together. But he was a selfish creature, and choosing to be punished wouldn’t protect you. If he was lucky, by teaming up with Michael, he could design a more comfortable torture for you one day.
“Maybe this will help make up your mind,” Michael said. “Hannibal Lecter.”
“Lecter?”
“He’s here. In the bad place. So far, he has been especially resistant to traditional torture. I thought you might have a personal interest in taking a crack at him?”
***
On a floating, room-sized projection screen, Frederick Chilton shook Michael’s hand. Your head fell forward, shoulders slumping. The screen flicked off and dissipated into the office air.
“This is the 764th time he has failed,” said Janet, giving a sympathetic simulation of a sigh. “We were sure he was going to make the right decision this time.”
You shook your head. “Fame and glory? Revenge? He’ll never refuse those. Trust me—he died because of them and still never learned his lesson.”
“That is what we’re afraid of. Some people never pass their tests. Fun fact!” she perked up, “Hannibal Lecter’s test is working at a Burger King where he can only cook Impossible Whoppers, and his 19-year-old manager calls him pee-paw. He gets reset every time he eats a customer. His longest record is twelve hours.”
When Janet found you snooping in Michael’s desk, you expected to be dragged away, never to see Frederick again. Instead, she explained everything to you—the truth.
A long time ago, the bad place was exactly how Michael described it—a place where souls were sent to have their orifices filled with spiders for eternity. Then he decided to try something new. Originally, he paired you with Dr. Chilton hoping you would drive each other crazy. But no matter what happened, you kept falling in love. You kept supporting each other, and taking care of each other. The same happened with his other human test subjects—they kept improving and becoming better people than they were on Earth. Eventually, Michael changed, too.
He redesigned the bad place to be a test—a chance for human souls to earn their way into the good place. At the end of each test, you either pass and go to the good place, or your memories are erased and you start over again.
“So, what happens to me now?”
“You passed. You can go to the good place now, and spend the rest of eternity in paradise. The real one.”
“And Frederick? He’ll be alone?”
Janet nodded.
“Put me back in. Reset me, and make me his soulmate again.”
“Are you sure?” Janet asked.
“I’m not going without him.”
“He would leave you behind. You just saw that.”
“That wasn’t fair. Anyone would accept that deal. I would accept that deal!”
“No. You wouldn’t,” Janet said. “You passed your test a long time ago.”
For a while, a heavy silence fell between you as you processed this. Finally, you thought of the only question worth asking. “How many times have we had this conversation?”
“762.”
“Well then,” you said. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“I do. But you retain a vague sense of your memories from previous tests. At a subconscious level, you might realize you’re tired of this.”
You smiled. A big, genuine one that balled your cheeks and creased the corners of your eyes. “That’s not how I feel at all. I think I love him more every time.”
Janet nodded, but gave one last warning before erasing your memories again. “If he never passes, you could be stuck here forever.”
“Stuck falling in love with that insecure jerk over and over again for thousands of years? Sounds like heaven to me.”
“I thought you might say that.”
***
The first day, you really wanted to punch his pretentious snobby face for thinking he was so much better than you.
The first time you laid eyes on Dr. Frederick Chilton, he was waiting behind a mahogany desk with an ancient hardcover book in his hands. Not reading it—waiting, posed deliberately to be discovered that way, and give the impression of intellectualism.
“This is your soulmate,” said Michael, introducing you.
Chilton took a step back after shaking your hand and looked you up and down critically, as if he were appraising livestock. And right away, you knew there had been a terrible mistake. Who the fork did he think he—
Fork. Fork! Why couldn’t you say fork?!
***
Bright light streamed in through the open bedroom window. The weather was always perfect here, except when some glitch made it rain caviar and jelly beans. Or that time Frederick had a vivid nightmare, and organs began falling from the sky. Every day, something horrible seemed to go wrong in the good place. Things that challenged you and pushed your soulmate to his limits.
But most mornings were like this. Quiet. A time just for the two of you.
Your fingers lightly stroked his chest, delving into the soft hairs that rose and fell with his steady breathing. You pressed a soft kiss to his skin, then another, tracing a line of them lower, over a jagged, raised line down his abdomen. His scars let you know he was waking up. This was the good place—he didn’t have to let them show. Usually, he chose to appear as a younger version of himself, before all the indelible trauma. But on peaceful mornings like this, he would let them show just so you could soothe them. He never thought he would be that comfortable with anyone. That he could trust anyone so much.
Every day, you both knew you could overcome anything, so long as you were together.
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Our Little Secret Chapter 1
“The childhood friends, where one of them kills someone to protect the other, and they must take that secret to their grave”
It’s a normal day for the Skeppy and Bad, when something goes wrong, and that something will haunt the pair for as long as they live to see the day their actions get consequences.
(TW for mild violence and minor character death)
Ao3 Version
It was Wednesday, the middle of winter. The sun was high in the sky, but clouds were coming in, and it looked like it was going to start snowing soon. Currently, 13 year old Skeppy was bored in class, he wanted to play with his best friend, Bad, who was 16, but he was not only in a different grade than him, but he was homeschooled. Trying to figure out what to do, Skeppy gets the absolute best idea. He stands up aggressively, waving his hand in the air to get the teacher’s attention, who just sighs as she calls on him.
“Can I go to the bathroom! Can I can I!”
Deep fucking, sigh.
“Yes, Skeppy, but make it quick.”
“Got it!”
With permission to leave the class, Skeppy gets up and runs out, causing some of his classmates to giggle.
Skeppy runs through the hall, past the bathrooms, and past the principal’s office. When no one’s looking, he runs out of the school building and away. His intention is to go to Bad’s house and bug him. He’s done this before, this is nothing new. The only thing different is that it’s snowing right now, and there’s white particles all around him.
It doesn’t take too long before he makes it, and he sneaks to the back of the house and up the tree in their backyard to get to the second floor window, which happens to be the window to Bad’s room. He knocks aggressively on the window until he hears a loud sigh come from inside, and the curtains open up to reveal an annoyed looking bad. He opens the window, though.
“Skeppy, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school right now?”
“Yeah, but school got so fucking boring, and I want to hang out with you!”
“Skeppy, I’m doing schoolwork right now, I can’t hang out with you.”
Skeppy pouts. “Pleeeeaaaasssseeeeee?”
“No.”
“But Baaaaaaaaaddddd I’m booooooorrrrreeeeeed.”
“Then go back to school.”
“But I hate it there.”
“I’m busy, and you shouldn’t be here.”
Skeppy pouts. “You’re no fun.”
“I'm just trying to prevent you from getting in trouble, you know you could get suspended this time, right?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t give a singular shit, schools boring and I want to be here with you.”
“Skeppy-“
“Please Bad, just let me stay with you for a little bit, I won’t get in your way.”
Bad sighs. “Fine, but just for a little bit, then you leave and go back to school, got it?”
Skeppy perks up. “Got it!”
Bad steps out of the way and let’s Skeppy crawl inside, onto his bed. Skeppy looks around, he really likes Bad’s room. He’s got a pretty nice sized bed, with black and red striped sheets and coverings. He has various stuffed animals, teddy bears and rabbits, his favorite one being the big one that always sits on his pillow when he isn’t asleep in bed. He’s got a computer desk and a chair to it, and on it are various books and sketchbooks, along with a laptop Bad mainly uses for schooling, but sometimes to play games with Skeppy on when he’s over.
Bad goes back to his chair and turns towards the laptop, hopping back on and returning to the work he was currently doing. Skeppy lays down on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. He’s bored still, and wants to do something with Bad, but he doesn’t know what. His plan was to go to Bad’s house, and that was sort of it, he didn’t think ahead of that, like that they would do, or when he’d go back to school. He’s kind of tiny brained like that.
But Skeppy does get an idea! He quickly gets off the bed and over to Bad, shaking his shoulder.
“Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad-“
Bad sighs. “What?”
“I wanna go somewhere.”
“What? Where?”
“You know that abandoned park behind the forest in your backyard? I wanna go there I wanna go there!”
Bad furrows his eyebrows. “Skeppy, it’s dangerous back there and you know it.”
“Bad, it’s not that big of a deal, you do realize that, right? What are you, a pussy?”
“I’m not- I’m just looking out for you.”
“Well it’s either you go with me, or I go alone.”
“Oh you or so not going alone.”
“So you’ll go with me?”
Bad sighs heavily. “Fine.”
Skeppy cheers, causing Bad to roll his eyes. “But only for half an hour, then we leave.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever, let’s go.”
Skeppy heads towards the window, carefully crawling out and onto the tree outside. Bad frowns, he hates having to sneak out, but his parents would kill him if they found out not only was Skeppy over, but that they were leaving in the middle of schooling to go to an abandoned park.
Skeppy and Bad walk through the woods, this isn’t the first time they’ve done this, but Bad was hoping the last time would’ve been the last, he doesn’t like coming through here. It’s dark, and scary, and there’s snow everywhere. They could slip, or fall in a ditch, or a bear could come out and eat them, or-
Bad’s train of thought is cut off by Skeppy taking his hand. Looking over, he sees the other looking at him with sympathy, like he knows the other is panicking but wanting to reassure him it’s all going to be okay. Bad takes a deep breath, and nods.
The snow feels like it’s getting worse, falling down harder and faster, like it’s turning into a snow storm. But as Bad watches Skeppy trudge onwards, he doesn’t seem to care one bit. Bad is honestly kind of worried though, he’s dressed for the weather, but Skeppy isn’t. Why wasn’t he? He knew it was going to get bad, but yet here he is in sweats and a t-shirt. He’s such a muffin head sometimes it’s truly annoying.
Finally, they make it to the park, and as expected, everything is covered in snow. Skeppy frowns.
“Everything is completely coated in snow, you can’t get on anything!”
“What were you expecting when it was storming on the way over?”
“I don’t know, not this!”
Skeppy just pouts and sits down, criss cross on the floor, causing Bad to frown.
“Skeppy, please get up, you’re going to catch a cold.”
“I don’t care, I wanted to play on the playground, and now it’s all ruined.”
“Then let’s just go home already.”
“But I don’t wanna g-“ Skeppy freezes.
“What?” Bad looks at him confused, before turning around and freezes up as well.
Right there, standing behind them, is a grown man, looking scruffed up, like he hasn’t slept in days. He looks pissed off, who knows if it’s at the world, or directly at the two teenagers, but either way, he’s out for something.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?”
“I- We-“
Before Skeppy could reply, the guy starts charging at them, and Bad quickly moved backwards, falling on his ass though as he trips on the snow, but the guy just goes past him and towards the younger, grabbing Skeppy by the collar of his shirt and picking him up.
“What the fuck are you doing in my territory!”
Skeppy has pure fear in his eyes, looking up at the man holding him up.
“I- I didn’t mean- I- We were just- Bad- I- I-“
Skeppy’ s eyes start tearing up, and the man’s grip tightens.
Bad watches from the sidelines, his heart beating a mile a second. Oh god, he’s going to hurt him, he’s going to hurt Skeppy, he’s going to kill him- Bad needs to do something fast, and now. Quickly, Bad feels through the snow, trying to find something, anything, he could use as a weapon. Suddenly though, his hands touch something metal, he picks it up, which is difficult to do with how heavy it is, and… A gosh darn pipe? I know this is an abandoned park but holy muffin. Bad is brought out of his thoughts though as the man continues to yell at Skeppy, looking like he’s about to throw a punch.
Quickly, Bad manages to get up, holding the pipe with two hands, and without a second thought, he slams the pipe into the man’s skull. A loud crack sound echoes throughout the park as the man drops Skeppy, falling to the floor. Skeppy frantically moves backwards, crawling. He’s breaking heavily. He looks up at Bad, and the other looks back, and the look in his eyes, Bad won’t be able to ever forget it. The fear, so much fear, all because of him. He’s not scared of the man, scared of the metal pipe, he’s scared of him.
Bad carefully moves forward, which causes Skeppy to flinch and Bad to freeze.
“Skeppy- I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I- I didn’t want you to get hurt, I- I- I- I had no other choice, and it was the only thing nearby, and I- I-“
Bad feels himself tear up, gosh, he’s the bad guy here and he’s still the one about to cry? He feels pathetic. Bad just killed a man, he’s a murderer, he’s got blood on his hands now, he’s never going to be able to get away with this. He’s going to go to prison for manslaughter and he’s going to die there, he’s going to get beat up or shanked or- Bad is startled by someone wrapping their arms around him. When did the tears start flowing this badly?
“I know, I know… It’s okay, you did what you thought you had to, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to be okay…”
“But…”
“Nobody has to know, okay? Let’s just- Leave, go home, and never speak of this again. Never tell anyone.”
“We’re going to get caught Skeppy, there’s no way-“
“We aren’t going to speak a single word to anybody, okay? This is going to our graves.”
“I… Okay…”
Skeppy sighs. “Come on.”
And with that, Skeppy moves away, takes Bad’s gloved hand, and leads him away. As they leave, Bad just looks back at the crime scene and thinks.
This secret is going to be kept to their graves…
But can it be?
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No Hugs Please
@summer-writes I hope this angst is what you needed. I have the prompt bolded below, but here it is for everyone else: Never trust a hug, it’s just a way to hide your face. (I changed the wording a bit just to go with what I wrote but for the most part it’s the same)
tag list: @summer-writes, @willowbleedsonpaper, @firewhisky-kisses
This was my first time writing flashbacks, so I hope y’all like it :))
Staring up at the starry ceiling you couldn’t help but laugh at your situation. You’d been hurt in the battle and while you knew that you’d live, you still did not understand why your thoughts constantly returned to him. Maybe it was the fact that somewhere in being moved by your fellow Hufflepuffs to the Great Hall to be healed you had been placed where the Slytherin table used to be, exactly where he would sit almost every day the 7 years that you studied together. And yet, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t rid your thoughts of him. I mean, he was the one who left you, who took a hold of your heart and crushed it to pieces, who made false promises the whole time you were together.
Suddenly, the Great Hall went away and instead you were in the big, open grassy field, surrounded by fairy lights placed in little mason jars, sitting on top of the red plaid blanket that you recognized as your mothers. You knew exactly when you were: the last happy summer you had with Theo.
He won’t stop grabbing your waist, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, the one position he seemed to be in every time he was with you. His arms slowly caressed your waist causing a shiver to run down your spine and goosebumps to appear on your arms. Oh he knew exactly what he was doing to you, the hot air coming from his laughs informing you of such.
You turned and ran your hair through his curly hair, scratching and pulling in some places, “Is your plan to make me fall asleep here under the stars?”
“Well,” he chuckled, “if it means I get to have you in my arms then yes.”
You started to press small kisses on his shoulder leading towards his collar bone, “You know my parents are okay with you and I sharing a bed mi amor. So if you just want to hold me, we can do that inside…”
You turned and once again you were back in the Great Hall. At some point in remembering that night, you had started to cry. Only realizing it after feeling the hot, salty tears roll down the side of your hitting your ear.
You hoped then, that that was the only memory you would relive, but life is a bitch and even close to death, it won’t give you any satisfaction.
Closing your eyes for a second, you opened them to find yourself in the Room of Requirement. You had followed Theo that night after months of him distancing from you, no longer letting you touch him, no longer holding onto you the way he did that warm summer night.
You could hear whispers, it was hard to point out but you knew one of them was Theo’s. Quietly and quickly, you walked over to the pillar closest to the Room before sneaking inside. Finally you could hear whoever it was that was talking.
“Well,” the voice paused, “did the family let you in?”
You heard some shuffling that sounded like a person fidgeting in their seat. “Ya… I spent the whole summer there,” Theo’s voice broke the silence, “They even included me in their bloody wards so we’ll be able to get in and out with no problems.”
You stood there, not quite understanding what Theo meant, until you remembered how your father had decided to add Theo to the security wards so that the two of you could go to Diagon Alley with ease. Not being able to stop yourself, you gasped and while you covered your mouth, it seemed as though the sound had already been heard.
A chair scraping the floor caught your attention and slow footsteps made their way to your hiding space. Then, a ball of light appeared in front of you and you looked up finding yourself face to face with a certain pair of ice-blue eyes… Malfoy. He grabbed you by the wrist, pulling you along to the sitting area and forced you down into a chair. Without a word, he turned to Theo and nodded, then left.
The silence between the two of you was deafening until you decided to pose the one question on your mind, “Did any of it matter?”
He looked up at you startled, his eyes reminding you of those of a hurt animal, “It did… I mean, maybe not at first, but it did. You became my world.”
“So what, you just used me to gain access to my parents,” your voice getting louder as you went along, “Oh don’t you dare look at me like that, I know where their loyalties have lied… and now it seems as though I know where yours lie.”
You stood up with a start, staring at Theo as he slowly began to break down in front you. If it weren’t for all the anger and hate you felt toward him in that very moment, you would have faltered then and there. Turning around, you went to take your first step away from Theo… away from your relationship… when a hand reached out and pulled you in by your wrist. He had caught you by surprise and as such you found yourself in Theo’s embrace one last time. His hands trying to grasp every part of your body that he had access to and his head hidden in the crook of your neck, his lips pressing sloppy, wet kisses as a way to get you to relax.
Your body screamed at you to push him away, yet even in his desperation Theo was rather strong. You could only succeed in pulling him away to arms length, “Teddy… Teddy, no.”
At your words his heartbreak seemed to worsen and he started to whimper, “Please… please let me hug you, just one last time.”
“No Teddy, no more hugs,” you demanded, “I can never trust your hugs… never trust your hugs, it’s just a way for you hide your face.”
You opened your eyes again to find your friends sitting close by your bed. Some of them held onto your hands, others had their heads rested on top of the covers.
As you sat up, you saw the looks in their eyes of despair and suffering and you couldn’t help but croak out, “No hugs please, I can’t trust any hugs.”
#theo thirst#theodore nott#theodore nott x reader#theodore nott imagine#theodore nott x y/n#harry potter imagine#harry potter x reader
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Brother Dearest Pt 40
Three days and the negatives were returned to you on a joint trip with the catering crew who were purchasing some more supplies in Alberta to have the best and some spares in case of emergency for the big day to go seamlessly. Already in long sheets of continued copies the images with the descriptions had been set aside to be cut later today while the bindings were being readied for when the images were cut. Lights and garlands were already being assembled through the cathedral and barn with stands for where the flowers would be secured. Tables were quadruple checked for spacing and locations through the barn you met James in the task to end with an amusing first tasting from the caterers for a lovely dinner for two finished off with a miniature sample cake that would be replicated larger for your wedding day.
Smiles and bashful stolen kisses led to a mock honeymoon evening once he got you home, bathed and rubbed down lovingly. Morning came and with it the beginning of another round of work in the larger manor, eventually you hoped to move in but until that big day it would be used to house the Brocks and Father Thomas while Professor Randolph would stay in your cabin along with Erik and Edie. Beds and supplies were loaded into the manor to have it guest ready for all the arrivals. Two weeks and in the middle of walking out of the house for another day arms looped around you with Dot and her cousin tugging you to the waiting car for an in town spa day to get your nails done, hair trimmed and a first try for the braided bun style helping to distract you from the hectic day following. Everyone was arriving and could only add to the growing momentum of the week would give way hopefully with ample loving people to add to the efforts to get everything done.
.
“Where’s our Marigold?!” The echoes through the main floor of the cabin opening your eyes a moment before sighing and settling back into James’ tightening arms keeping you against his chest with an irritated grumble. Louder the noise grew spoiling the late morning in you had hoped to have having timed their promised departure time clearly having been moved up to get here sooner. Thundering footsteps sounded up the steps and doors were opened until over the pair of you several bodies scrambled to dish out hugs and animated greetings to goad you both out of bed and to get dressed.
Alone and on your feet they left you to smooth your hands over your face in their race out as you said, “I’m up, I’ll find my pants.”
Their cheers faded and with a smirk your shirtless fiancé eased closer to you smoothing his hands around your middle lowering your hands. Warm and loving his lips found yours drawing you into his chest to guide you into the bathroom he locked the door for a long break before joining the collection of Brocks downstairs who pulled you into excited hugs. The smile you would hold split across your face hearing Mamma Brock saying, “Sorry Pop couldn’t make it, as we can’t risk the cameras.”
“Oh that’s fine.”
“But he will be watching,” Gina added with a nod.
Ambrose asked, “Where’s your cousin and aunt?”
“They’re coming a bit later with one of the band members, he had to make a trip to Alberta he’s gonna pick them up on the way back.” Mamma Brock’s focus turned to Norma to get her off her feet and comfortable while you claimed hold of Teddy to help Eddie join the gaggle of relatives to locate the manor that they would unpack their things into. They weren’t gone very long and returned with Father Thomas who was admiring the yard and garden around the cabin and came inside to travel to the church. Though to your shock you smirked seeing Elliot at his side sharing his own adoration of your property and home.
His smile crept wider in your accepting the Father’s greeting and he accepted your gentle handshake patting his hand on the back of yours saying, “This is such a lovely home.”
“Thank you, you flew in early?”
Father Thomas moved past you catching sight of Margaret to greet the infant and lowly Elliot said, “Used the BiFrost, hope you don’t mind. I am not trusting the planes available, hours trapped in their smoke filled tuna cans.”
“Oh no, no problem, is the big H good with, that?”
Softly he chuckled saying, “Heimdall is a giant caramel candy. Come on, even he won’t miss this day. This is historic, last time you were bound before physical essences were settled upon we get to watch the predestined crowning.”
“Please don’t make the wedding seem like some pre historic runes etched into a great ruin somewhere.”
“They’re on Asgard,” he said earning a chuckle inducing groan from you in a turn to show him to his room.
“I’ll show you your room.”
“I did mean it, this is a lovely home.”
“I wasn’t doubting that,” you chuckled replying in the turn down the side hall he was taking the first room on the right. “But you should see the manor the guys were hiding from us.”
“Heimdall gave me a visual tour. Seems perfect for when you have more children.” Onto the bed he settled his suitcase and turned post inspecting turn of the room to return with you to the group. Soothingly saying, “You are so very precious to us. We won’t allow anything to spoil your day. Now, let’s go and publicly welcome the newest Pear to the brood.”
“And here I thought finding out my dad was actually Jewish and let me be raised Catholic was the most difficult loose end for a wedding to be planned for me. Never would have guessed alien Queen might trump that.”
“Oh you are not an alien,” he said luring your eyes to him again, “Aliens have hooved tentacles, three heads and a form of communication involving the release of bodily gasses and interpretive dancing.”
“Wow,” you said in a flat sarcastic tone.
“Not even green, they turn every color but green which is quite the insult of a color for someone to turn in their realm.” He looked your face over saying, “They however would always take compliment on knowing you borrow the misused mortal term to label yourself in opposition to their race.”
“There you are Bunny, you can ride with us, along with your Professor Elliot.” Gina’s Husband said earning a nod from the man at your side who was pleased to see the town on the ride over and namely the church with telling stained glass murals recognized from the foretelling runes none could translate until now.
“How is the book coming?” rippled around next in the bed of the truck you had been squeezed into.
And you answered, “They’ve started binding them, this part is the longest.”
Elliot said, “Well I’ve planned on ordering a copy of my own when it comes out and have called in the news to the Barnard Professor phone tree for those on the Spring and Summer course duties who will no doubt pass on to the others in no time.”
“It’s just a copy of the same ones I took at school.”
Gina said, “You are gonna have a book! Not the same!”
Ambrose, “Not at all! Everyone in our block wants a Bunny book.”
“It’s eight bucks.”
Gina’s husband said, “Plenty of time to save for that. Two copies are going in the town library I can bet you that.”
Ambrose’s husband said, “And even in the Public Library you love if we have to sneak copies ourselves and stash them in the art shelves.”
“Oh I can just imagine those headlines when they are found. Not a thievery but cluttering the shelves of the Public Library with picture books.”
Gina, “You live in that library, the Librarian alone would find a spot for your book after signing her copy.”
Ambrose asked seeing the outside of the church, “That the church?”
You said, “Yes, you should see the inside.”
As soon as the cars were parked the family all poured out of the vehicles and Victor led the way through the front doors with Father Thomas beside him sharing about the church room uses until you got to the cathedral that dropped jaws. For an added surprise also a bit eager to have arrived early Erik and Edie followed the town murmurs and were dropped off here after a stop at the cabin to leave their bags there. Pleased for his preparedness with a thermos and flask of holy water on his person, around the baptismal stand you all encircled. Against James’ side you leaned with view of your niece being blessed and named while Teddy watched on Victor’s hip more than a bit confused.
“I baptize thee, Marigold Dove Pear,” The Father managed to get to before Teddy cut in.
“Small tub, we need more tub.”
Victor chuckled with the others and Victor tried to hushedly simplify that this was a special tradition for babies in the family after they’re born. “Keeps you safe.”
Of course that led to a halfway logical conclusion from the boy that bedtime baths were some form of protection and then had him asking where the magical soap was for her protecting bubbles, as he had never had a bath he could remember without bubbles. Ambrose’s husband took him on a stroll through the church in search of some magic soap with the excited other kids who just wanted to look around now that the pictures and everything was done leaving you giggling in James’ hold to his agreeing chuckles.
Father Thomas however when your giggles ceased drew your eye saying with a smile, “What better time to have a quick run through. Have you got your wedding license yet?”
James glanced at the Judge who snuck in saying, “Got it right here, managed to get the both of them their request form last week and this came in last night.”
The Priest smiled saying, “Good, very good,” accepting the folded license he added to the front cover of his bible. “Ok, so now bridal party? Full run through just to dust things off.” Everyone lined up and nicely Victor sat Norma down by the Brocks to let her rest her feet again while the Father nodded his head knowing Victor and Dawn were your two chosen witnesses.
The rest of the family split to fill the seats you gestured to, “This side’s for family,” Your eyes fell on Edie and Erik saying, “If you’ll join us, guess we can do the whole walk up.”
Father Thomas chuckled guiding James to his spot near the steps of the alter and turned to go with the rest of you to the doors at the other end of the hall where he said, “I go in first. Chosen children to scuffle their way down,” spreading smirks through the group in your stolen glance to James at the other end of the hall trying to ignore his urge to force this along and sign the license and be at least legally married already. “Then Victor and Dawn as Witnesses, then?”
You said, “Dot and David,” the pair nodded and linked up with Dot’s cousin and Erik next at your naming them with Gina and Ambrose next beside their husbands, all already on the verge of crying. You murmured teasingly, “No blubbering or none of us will get through this or the actual ceremony.” Luring their grins out and the Father nodded as you said, “And Eddie and my aunt are both walking me down.” You confirmed with a glance at her she answered with an agreeing nod she still wanted to.
Right behind the Father the lot of you made your way on more of a casual stroll back to the alter where two of the women adjusting flowers moved the traditional kneeling stools into place for you both the Father nodded in thanks, “Ah, yes, thank you. Brother and Aunt lift veil and move to their seats in the front,” he said taking your hand to guide you up to James’ side as the others filled up the front row of the family side of the pews. “The both of you would go up to the stools and kneel,” his head turned to Gina and Ambrose saying, “Two lovely scriptures have been given to Gina and Ambrose, there is the first song between them, the pair of you stand and Hallelujah to follow. I read, you kneel again.” he said pausing with a smile he struggled not to show, “Let’s you rest your feet for my main speech. Which I do believe won’t be a bit too long winded for our special guests unfamiliar with our ceremonies.”
Victor said, “They’ll survive the evening,” earning a few chuckles in return.
Father Thomas says, “Now the both of you face the congregation, and Bridal Party comes out on your sides.” Bridesmaids on your side came into place with the Groomsmen down the steps and in a sort of circle open where the Father would stand as Eddie confirmed for Edie she could remain in her seat beside him. He turned to the empty spot watching James’ hand fold around your hand to calm your shared nerves.
“James and Jaqiearae you have come together in this church so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love. In the presence of the church’s minister and this community. God has abundantly blessed love. He’s consecrated both of you. He now enriches and strengthens you by the sacred sacrament. So that you can assume the duties of marriage in mutual and lasting fidelity. And so I ask both of you now to state your intentions.
James, Jaqiearae, have you come here freely and without reservation? To give yourselves to each other in the sacrament of marriage? Will you say I Do?”
His brows rose and you both chuckled repeating, “I do.”
“Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives? Will you say I Will?”
Both say, “I will”
“Will you accept children lovingly from God, bring them up according to the law of our God and of our community? Will you say I Will?”
Both say, “I will.”
“It is your intention then to enter into marriage. Turn to each other, with your still joined hands, and declare your intentions before God.”
“Now come the names, um, I forgot to ask, what is your middle name James?”
Victor smirked in James’ pausing anxious grin luring your curious grin out that split into an awkward smile at his answering, “Pluto,” clearing his throat after echoed by a loud laugh from Eddie.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie said to the Father in James’ look at him in his second laugh.
James, “What’s so funny about my middle name?”
Eddie shook his head, “Oh there’s nothing funny, you just match is all.”
He looked at you and you turned your head back from a glance away and you flashed him a quick grin, “Mine’s Persephone.” Causing his smile to split wider along with those from the crowd who understood while Elliot his hid smile behind his curled fist over his mouth to keep from making any noise from excitement.
“I, James Pluto Howlett, take you Jaqiearae Persephone Pear to be my wife.
I promise to be truthful.
In good times, and in bad.
In sickness and in health.
I will love you and I will honor you.
All the days of my life.”
He smiled and repeated each line and listened to you take your turns with the same vows simply reversing the names.
“My sister and my brother you have just declared your consent. Before God and before the church, may our Lord in his goodness strengthen that consent and fill you now both with his blessings. What God joins together let no men ever sever. Amen. Amen is repeated by congregation and couple. Now, rings,”
He turned his head and you said to Erik, “We have a tray for you for that day.”
James nodded saying easing his grin out, “Yes, the rings are at home.”
Father Thomas nodded and turned miming accepting the rings from Erik and turning to the eldest of girls from the Brocks who held up her hands miming a second tray, “I take the rings to this angel’s tray, bless the rings, then turn, and offer them to the couple.” He turned around again. “James says, Jaqiearae take this ring. As a sign of my love and faithfulness. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Eases ring on then she repeats the same and then I turn, we congratulate the couple then begin the Prayers of the Faithful. Loving couple turn again to kneel.”
He motioned his hand and Eddie helped Edie to her feet to say, “Brother and Aunt bring up the sacred wedding lasso that will be draped over your shoulders. Now I give the Euchratic Prayer, the rosary is removed, you return to your seats. Couple stands, facing the crowd for an Our Father. We embrace one another after this, James and Jaqi, you go down to embrace your family and then return for your own personal communion. After this I inform the congregation that those willing are welcome for congregations or blessings with the remainder unwilling to receive it are welcome to remain in their seats.”
His eyes focused on you, “I do believe that King George and President Truman would find than an acceptable out to remain seated.”
“Either way it’d be rude for them to just storm out.” You said making him chuckle.
“Yes, then everyone back in their seats, the both of you go to pray to the Virgin and leave the offering of flowers and then return here, I speak to you all again offering a prayer and then I introduce the both of you, and Jaqi you are taking the Howlett name?”
“Keeping both, actually.”
He smirked and nodded saying, “Good, we welcome you, then you lead the congregation out to the reception, which will be-.”
James, “In the barn.” He said and that began the trip to the reception hall.
.
Two days, just two days out and in a sea of pots of flowers inside a greenhouse you eyed your choice of flowers for your bouquets. Yours being blue roses and blue and white calla lilies paired with the white rose and blue orchids for your bridal party, each girl got bundles of forget me nots and daisies the following day would be cut and assembled to be fresh for the ceremony. Those would be first and the rest of the lilies and roses in bright colors were to be added to their white counterparts through the barn seating arrangements that James was keeping himself distracted to perfect how everything was lined up.
First off the filming crew took the long drive and came to set up the cameras in the sides of the cathedral well out of the way from where others would be. A group of attendants from both King George’s security and the security team for President Truman. Who both arrived and got the full rundown on the ceremony including a mention you were certain to give them both of the communion portion they were able to return and hand over the schedule to know when they could work their ways in and out of the city to return to their return flight back to Ottowa.
Off on your own under the night sky you sat alone on the roof staring off at the stars with your mind locked down from focus on the rough day ahead. A telling scent of cocoa turned your head and with a grin James was seen standing from his spot kneeling on the roof he strolled across to sit down beside you, mugs and wrapped grilled cheeses in hand. “Someone ate all the deli meat we had.”
“That’d be Timmy.” You said accepting your helping and the second mug.
“Ah,” he replied and eased his eyes over your face saying, “Big day’s going to be lovely.”
You turned your head and sighed, “You know what’s difficult about having a Catholic wedding?” His smile spread as you said, “Having it be a Catholic wedding. Up, down, up down, then there’s singing that most of the guys coming probably won’t know. Does anyone in the town actually remember what a full catholic wedding is? I’m surprised Father Thomas does with all the eloping going around Brooklyn. Now I’ve got you saddled to this.”
Lowly he chuckled and replied, “I love you and this ceremony is nowhere near as long as the weddings I grew up attending. I love you,” he repeated scooting a bit closer to you, “Your mother wanted you to have a good Catholic wedding and to be an upstanding woman in town. I want that for you, to honor her, and your family. I don’t care how many steps it takes, been six years since we met, I can go half an hour at take mass to marry you. One day, just one they can all tag in on then we get three days, you, me and that honeymoon cabin. Cuddled up in bed for mornings and we can fish and swim and laze about in the sun and warm grass.”
“Three days?”
He chuckled and said, “We can make it five, then for a time at least the whole world lets up, for a little bit.”
“We’re going to promise in front of the world to have babies, on tv, there will be people betting I’m feet up grunting nine months from tomorrow.”
That had him laugh at your shrug and lift of the mug and he said, “Well we’ll just have to bet against them then won’t we, drive them crazy and wait six years for it.”
You giggled in his stolen kiss to your temple in your lean into his side triggering his arm easing around your middle, “We are not waiting six years. Gina’s been married six years and she’s got-,”
“What she’s got, and we are not pushing babies,” he said locking his eyes on yours in your eyes locking on his face through a tilt of your head backwards, “No forced babies, no expectations. This is our marriage, not a check list. Babies arrive when they mean to Teddy is proof of that enough that one day they can just pop up like a thunder storm.”
“I still don’t want to wait six years, I’d be 27.”
He sighed and said, “Women don’t have to rush into this nowadays, women survive longer and are being nourished to survive childbirth, however, if you’re worried about being taken as a spinster,” that made you giggle and roll your eyes, “We won’t wait six years.”
“I suppose it’s a bit odd to be worried on getting pregnant when I can get shot in the chest and heal right off. Getting pregnant shouldn’t be hard. Though labor might be puzzling. I mean what happens if the baby is halfway out and my body starts healing itself already?”
That had him chuckle in your calming bite of your grilled cheese, “I highly doubt that would happen. Baby’s gonna grow inside of you, be half you, it’s not like a bullet, if anything your body would get the baby safely out and then you heal.”
“If it does get stuck, and the Doc has to do a cesarean,”
His head tilted to catch your eye, “You mean cut you?”
You nodded and said, “I mean, I should heal, if, the cut would, be safer, for the baby…”
He simply sighed and said, “Doc will make sure you both make it through safely. For now, we’re getting married tomorrow. We can talk about how we’re going to sleep tomorrow night, did you want to sleep apart?”
“Doubt I could sleep if they try to shove you in another bed somewhere, the kids have already taken up your old bed, they want to stay here because the windows show too much blue in their room.” That had him chuckle. “I think they just like the animal heads.” You said taking another bite of your grilled cheese.
“Either way the parents could use a night off, and I could always use a blindfold if you like.”
“How is that supposed to work?”
“Vic can come and pull me out in the morning.” He said and took a sip and bite while you chewed your mouthful.
Pt 41
#The Rehearsals#Brocks Arrive#Professor Elliot Randolph#James Howlett x Reader OC#Victor Creed x Norma Jeane#Eddie Brock x OC#Baptism#Tour of the Church and Barn#Nighttime talks and worries
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A Climb Chapter Two
Superman catches you again this time he follows through then delivers you to Clark.
Masterlist
Chapter One
Warnings:Adult situations +18, Slight Smut, Spanking ,Slight Daddy kink
A Climb Chapter Two
was two weeks later and you'd all but forgotten about your little interaction with the man of steel, well forgot repressed one of the two. You found yourself on a job with Clark, a bog standard peice on the the air quality in down town and you decided a birds eye veiw of traffic would suffice for the image maybe if you could get a traffic jam? That would be ideal. You made your way through town with him.
"So I want to do a birds eye view of downtown traffic, I was thinking by the shopping quater, you know where the shitty new intersection is?" He have you a side glance confused
"Yeah we could get a helicopter or somthing?" he said giving you a side glance you shook your head
"Nah no need I can find somewhere" he frowned at you stopping taking hold of your arm making you stop and face him
"Really theres no balconies there tho how would you get it?" You chuckled at him patting his arm always the sweet worry wort.
"Dont you worry Im a good climber Im sure I will find a way" his grip tightedn on your arm and he shook his head
"Absolutly not! no you are not risking your life for a photo we will do something else" you frowned that sounded familiar but you didn't dwell on it to irritated.
"Hey whoa I can do it Ive done it before-"
"I said no! You better not its to dangerous" he sounded stern you'd never seen him like this before, sweet lovable Clark trying to put his foot down? hell you didn't think he had it in him.
"Im serious" you sighed at him knowing you probably wont get any where with him
"Fine I wont god I will do something else" you said still intending to do it just without him knowing going to walk on he tugged you back to him pointing an accusing finger in your face.
"You say that like I dont know your still gonna try... I mean it y/n...You-you do and your ass is mine." You frowned tilting your head to stare at him
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you disobey me on this and I'm gonna toast your ass your not climbing. You could fall and then what? No not going to happen" You took a step back blushing brightly at his words he gave you a look he was serious.
"What the fuck you sound just like the boyscout"
"Boyscout?" You scoffed tugging your arm free and walking around him
"Nevemind doesnt matter" he growled at your dismissal following you into the office.
Nothing else was mentioned that day but you was seething for two reasons one how dare he threaten you like that and two how dare your body get aroused over it....So you will admit you have a crush on the big teddy bear, well if you call being hoplessly in love with him a crush. You packed up your things up still in a temper as Clark came up behind you tall and brooding.
"Y/n I meant what I said earlier dont do it I will find out." You sighed then turned to him smileing bright
"Good night Clark see you tomorrow" then slipped away from him and out of the building. Once home you changed and headed out down towards the shopping quarter, it wasn't long befor you found yourself 12 stories up on one of the flat roofs laying on your front head behind the camara hanging over the edge taking photos of the manic traffic so focused on the task you didnt notice a certain hero landing behind you until.
"HOLY SHIT!" you jumped rolling over as someone tapped you with there foot, laying on your side you glared at him
"YOU? Again? Are you fucking mad?! What the hell you sneaking up on me for-Hey wait what are you doing?" The fire was sucked out of your second question as he just sighed hoisting you up one arm around your waist you wiggled and kicked out
"Hey let go! Put me down!" you tried beating on his abdomen but just hurt your own hands.
"What did I warn you last time?" You froze as he sat on a low brick wall taking you across his lap. You screeched finally realizing what he had planned.
"No! nonononono stop its for work! Please it was for work dont Spank me I'm sorry! Dont you dare touch me!!" you tried scrabbling away hissing and screeching like a banshee swaying between sounding scared and small to firey and livid , you was silenced momentarily by a swift slap on the backs of your thighs. You quickly tried to smother your back end with your hands
"Yes Clark told me to watch out for you tonight he also told me that he'd warned you against climbing." You frowned
"CLARK!? As in Kent? How the hell do you know him?!"
"I've been doing interviews for him and Lois for months" he explained casually...you had completely forgot about that
"Wait hold on You spoke to him? When? How the hell did you start talking about me? Did-did you tell him to-IT WAS YOU!! YOU TOLD HIM TO THREATEN TO SPANK ME?!?" He chuckled if only you knew
"Somthing like that yes...They have both told me about you in past interveiws, the photographer who is always jumping in head first I wasn't convinced until I found you on the crane. Clark wasnt happy when I let him know what you've been upto so I may have suggested a solution." You kicked out trying to twist away from him but he took it all in his stride.
"How dare you!? you are not my fucking keeper and neither is he!! I don't have to answer to either of you now let gooo!"
"You are not going anywhere until I have met out your punishment. And you want to hope that Clark doesnt decided to add to it he was very angry... He loves you ,you know" you froze turning to face him blushing your heart fluttering befor shaking your head
"Wh-what? Bullshit" he collected your hands in one holding them behind you
"Yes he does thats why he asked me to look out for you and after this I will be dropping you off to him, I'm sure he will have alot to say knowing just how naughty you have been" you squirmed around trying to break free from him only now realizing that he had captured your hands but to no avail.
"NOO! no please please don't do that"
"Do what? spank you or hand you over?"
"Both!" He sighed and tilted you forward striking your bottom his large hand covering it entirely you yelped loud as another spank was placed then another igniting a quick burn in the seat of your sweats quickly one after another was placed and you cried and yelped each time as the heat built very quickly yet you could feel your panties getting damp as each jolt of his palm forced you to clench making your clit throb below you. He was methodical and patient he took his time rubbing soothingly between spanks as he carefully brought your ass to a stinging throb. You whined low embarrassed as you could felt yourself heating up all over your nipples hard rubbing against your bra as you rocked forward with each well placed open palm on you bottom. It hurt burned even but not as much as it could have.
"I hope you feel ashamed of your self right now, I have never had to resort to this with anyone ever. Your just a naughty little brat!" his scolding made you groan, his words went straight to your clit that was straining against your wet panties you rubbed your thighs together slightly trying to ease your arousal. He paused pulling down your sweats you bucked harshly wriggling trying to throw him off but he just held tight tucking the waist band down your thigh's before peppering stinging hot slaps across your twitching thighs. you cried fat tears falling as it sunk in just how humiliating this was. He paid no mind concentrating on the task at hand trying to hold back his excitement as he glimpsed your damp panties leaving bright red hand prints all across your thighs and bottom painting it red. You withered under his palm kicking out and wailing as he blistered your ass efficiency finally giving in you mewled loud weeping slumped across his lap no longer trying to escape but just taking it crying your heart out.
"Pl-please I'm sorry I wont do it again please!" How could this have been your fantasy? being spanked until you truly cry with no hope of getting away, you covered your face partly in humiliation as even as the thoughts crossed your mind your walls were twitching rippling in on themselves throbbing hot and leaking even with your burning bruised bottom somewhat on display
"There not such a brat now with a hot bottom are you? are you going to behave now?"
"Y-yes pl-please stop it hurts pleeeeaasse!" you felt mortified as you begged feeling another small flood of arousal stick your panties to your puffy lips, wetting your clit making you moan into your hands you were going to cum. You gasped through your tears as the thought struck you. You couldn't, you held back clenching tight trying to stop the warmth coiling in your tummy a punishment in itself trying to hold back not wanting to humiliate your self like that in front of any one least of all him. What if he told Clark? he'd think you was a freak. He left one final heavy spank across the bottom curve of your swollen red cheeks almost catching your pussy making it twitch so close to cumming on him that you began crying almost hysterically. He pulled up your sweats tilting you up right in front of him still sobbing holding your face wiping your face trying to stop the tear gathering your bag he tucked his arm below your sore ass making you hiss."Hold on" was all the warning you got before he took of from the roof heading back to the residential side of town landing on the roof. Placing you on your feet handing you your bag and opened the fire escape that lead into the building.
"Number 14 and I will be out here watching, if I have to come in there then you will get another spanking" you whined looking up at him pathetically.
"P-please take me home- I d-don't want to-"
"Get in there now young lady!" you squeaked running through the door not wanting to argue and risk getting another ass whopping from him. Once inside you crept down the stairs you knew where Clark lived, you'd been here a few times for coffee or going threw photos with him for the articles. You sniffed wiping your nose and eyes trying to pull yourself together you sighed and knocked quietly on his door head down not entirely sure what to expect you didn't have long to dwell on it as he opened the door standing aside
"In" was all he said you shuffled in past him as he slammed the door shut you jumped whimpering feeling tears well again as you fidgeted in front of him.
"He told me already...Why? why did you disobey me?" you shrugged not looking up feeling ashamed that superman had aready told him what had happened. He lifted your face to look at him the crossed his arms
"Y/n I wont ask again" you avoided his eyes shifting from one foot to the other.
"I just wanted to get a good photo.... wasn't that high." he locked his jaw tilting his head to the side before snapping at you
"High enough!! and if you fell, you know Im glad I asked him to watch out for you! I was terrified when he told me he found you up a fucking crane. A crane? y/n, but I though that a near death experience and a threat from him would do it but no, you just go running off doing what you want." you looked up at him
"Clark stop I'm hurt and upset and don't need a lecture from you! the only reason I'm here is because he made me. quit yelling at me!!"
"I know that, and Im glad he seems to have left an impression because thats what you need!"
"And how do you know what I need? WHy do you care anyway? no one asked you to!! just butt out!!" you shouted stomping at him throwing your bag to the floor wiping your eyes,upset, frustrated aroused and still confused as fuck. He squared his shoulders
"No I will not but out!!" you gripped your hair just about read to cry again
"Why?!"
"Because I love you!" you gasped at him stepping back
"What?" you asked quietly shaking your head trying to back away he followed pulling you to him in a tight hug tucking you below his chin trapping you.
"I love you and I don't want to loose you, thats why I wont butt out, not any more, fuck sake I got superman to keep and eye out, I thought it'd be enough. Knowing that he was watching you, but its not. I want to be there, to look after you, protect you myself" you sniffled then wrapped your arms around him wetting his shirt with your silent tears shaking with your sobs everything was catching up to you, he sighed rubbing your back.
"I didn't mean to, I just wanted it to be good I was careful, I always am I promise"
"You were hanging off the side y/n thats not being careful" he scolded lightly hoisting you up getting you to wrap your legs around him you hissed as his hands settled on your ass he chuckled.
"Wow he did do a number on you huh? I can feel the heat through these bottoms" you flushed tucking your face into his neck.
"Claaarrk stop" you whined he just continued to his bed room taking you with him kissing your head.
"I'll let you off this time as he has done my job for me, but don't expect it again and Ive asked him to keep an eye out for you from now on" you nuzzled him as he laid down with you on his bed before pulling off your trainers and sweats you blushed trying to cover yourself not wanting him to see proof of you punishment he batted your hands away then whistled low
"Wow he really did lay into you..I can see why you came down he like he told you to...remind me to thank him." you pouted at him
"Nooo stooop it" rolling over hiding your face as he poked the underside of your cheeks peeking out from your panties. Before he leaned down placing a quick kiss on each making you jolt up he only pushed you back down trailing kisses up your back then sucked on the back of your neck you whined feeling his weight on top of you tilting your head to the side.
"Cl-clark what?-" he shushed you then started suckling lightly lathering your neck with his tongue and teeth you gasped rubbing your thighs together the feeling of his trousers on your hot skin made it sting in the best way your clit began throbbing you grinded it against the covers below you sighing, your not sure just how this happened but you didn't care in this moment choosing to indulge. He pulled back rocking lightly against you holding your hips still making you moan, spreading your legs trying to make him slip between them he did placing his knees at your thighs spreading them.
"And whats this?" you snapped out of it realizing your mistake trying to close your legs but it was to late as he moved a hand to your soaked panties, you tried dragging yourself from under him but he placed a solid hand to the curve of your back prodding at you, you arched keening as his fingers began to explore rubbing slow circles slowly building you up, you panted unable to stop rocking on him, coating your slit in your own arousal pulling his hand up before your face letting you see your own mess coating his fingers you turned away mortified he rolled beside you with a cheeky grin still waving his coated fingers in front of you.
"I wonder what caused this then? seems someone has a little secret" he wiped it off on the pillow by your face digging his fingers into your sore ass massaging a little making you moan
"Ah, I know maybe my little spitfire has just wanted to be tamed all along? I should have known, all the bratting and false bravado was just to get daddies attention... well now you have it, and you'll have to endure it" you tensed as his voice lowered as he whispered in your ear you shuddered before leaning in kissing him innocently at first but quickly taking your breath away as he cupped the back of your head tasting you it felt like he trying to devour you just as quick as it began he pulled back with a cheeky grin.
"Good night babe" he lied down on his side dragging you close holding you against him.
"Wh-what Clark hey don't- you can't go to sleep now?" he peeked an eye open at you
"Your not getting to cum tonight oh no after the stunt you pulled? or have you forgotten. Maybe tomorrow if you behave" you gaped at him slapping him lightly
"Noo thats not fair Clark you cant just leave me like this!" he gave a quick slap to your ass making you jolt against him
"Ouch!"
"Carry on you'll get another, now sleep we can talk in the morning" you pouted wriggling deeper into the covers
"Hey Clark... I-I love you to" you placed a quick kiss on his chest he just smiled hugging you closer.
"Good, now sleep"
#superman smut#superman x reader#superman x you#dc x y/n#dc x you#dc x reader#clark kent x y/n#clark kent x you#clark kent x reader#superman imagine#clark kent imagine
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swear to be overdramatic and true
Snow, is his first thought upon materialising behind the apple trees.
Harry Potter draws his wand and slips into view from his Apparition spot, stepping out into the wintry night. A fluffy white blanket has fallen over everything, the grass and the windowsills and the rooftop: the apple trees are all wearing hats.
Above his head, a square of warm, golden light falls from the window that overlooks the garden into the night. Harry’s heart stirs quietly at the sight.
He leaves no trace in the fresh snow on the ground as he makes his way around the cottage to the front door. Auror boots leave no footprints by design, erasing every step behind themselves immediately: by the time he’s slipped through the front door, no sign outside the cottage’s walls betrays he was ever gone.
Harry exhales.
He is extraordinarily lucky, and he knows it: he’s spent most of this mission waiting for something, anything, to go awry like it usually does, for one of the juniors to make a mistake, for the lot of them to walk into a trap, for him to spend the holidays at St. Mungo’s again. Even now that he’s here, looking around at his quiet home, at the enchanted fairy lights floating around the ceiling: it all seems a little too good to be trusted.
It isn’t even midnight yet. Harry bites back his smile for fear of jinxing it.
He slips out of his Auror gear and leaves it in the downstairs bathroom, memories of the mission quickly fading as he sneaks up the stairs in just his t-shirt and boxers. A stripe of gold glowing under James’ bedroom door disappears at the sound of Harry’s approaching footsteps: his eldest hastily pulls his duvet over his head when he pushes the door open.
“Evenin’”, Harry says softly into the room, and James’ scarlet head reluctantly reappears under the pillow, moonlight illuminating his sheepish face. “Not asleep yet?”
“Dad!”, James whispers, folding back the duvet. “You’re back!”
Harry is well aware that his surprise is – at least in part – feigned, but the sheer elation on his son’s face is real: he notices it with a quiet warmth unfurling in his chest.
“And you’re up past your bedtime, I believe.”
“I wanted to wait for you”, James says quickly.
Harry doesn’t bother reminding him that waiting is pointless: for all they knew, he may not have made it back before Boxing Day.
“Christmas Eve, with a little luck”, he told Ginny, hesitant to even voice it to the children.
He never makes promises for a reason. The let-down is so much more devastating when they get their hopes up.
Harry sighs. “Close your eyes. Father Christmas isn’t going to stop by here until all children are sound asleep.”
James rolls his eyes.
“It’s not like I believe in any of that stuff anymore – and Mum took the presents downstairs twenty minutes ago”, he adds, as though that settles the Father-Christmas-matter once and for all.
“Lily still believes it”, Harry reminds him. “Don’t go and ruin it for her, hm?”
“Fine”, James mutters, pulling his duvet back to his chin. “Love you, anyway.”
“Love you, too.”
Harry pulls James’ door shut as quietly as he can and continues down the dark hallway; won’t be able to sleep without this.
Lily is curled up in a mountain of blankets like a kitten, clutching her stuffed Crumple-Horned Snorkack firmly in her little arms. Her night-light is floating by the bed, painting her face in faint red and pink. A string of enchanted fairy lights is wrapped around her bedframe, too, cheerily twinkling in the dark.
Harry lets himself linger, just for a moment: brushes hair out of her slender face and watches her brows furrow slightly in her sleep. Far away in a dream somewhere, he knows. He could parade a real Crumple-Horned Snorkack through her bedroom and she likely wouldn’t wake, but he still tiptoes back to her door and throws one last glance over his shoulder before he leaves. Entirely too peaceful to be true, he wants to think, but stops himself.
Peaceful. Peaceful. Peaceful.
Al’s light is on, too: He’s holding his book to his chest with one arm, the other dangling off his bed in mid-air, mouth wide open as he sleeps. Harry carefully loosens the book from his grip, finds the bookmark on the wooden floor, and places it quietly on Al’s nightstand. He gently tucks both his arms back under the cover and runs his fingers lightly through Al’s unruly black hair, so much like his own.
Al shifts and mutters in his sleep. Harry waits until he has stilled, worried to wake him, and quietly backs out of the room only when Al has resumed snoring. Harry grins as he turns to leave, finally arriving at the last door.
A stripe of gold is falling out into the hallway from here, too: he pushes it open to find Ginny curled up in their king-sized bed, already in her pyjamas, but awake, her nose buried in a copy of Witch Weekly. She looks up at the sound of the door, smile ever more radiant in the half-dark and the glow of her bedside lamp.
“I thought I heard someone climb down the chimney”, she says, beaming at him as he climbs on the mattress next to her, resting his head on her shoulder.
“Hi”, she mutters, raking her fingers through his hair and down his shoulder. A tingle travels down Harry’s spine. “I can’t believe you made it.”
He closes his eyes at her touch, tension falling off him: two cold weeks without her are melting quickly in his memory. “Me neither, honestly.”
Harry spots a tower of presents in the armchair by the window. “Want any help with those?”, he asks, despite being far too content, far too comfortable now, to move.
Ginny hums quietly in response.
“In a bit. I think James was eavesdropping.”
“Oh, he was.”
She chuckles, flicking a page. “I thought it was too quiet. Always a bit fishy when they behave, isn’t it?”
And indeed, a peculiar quiet has got hold of the Potter family home: so strange and unprecedented in its completeness Harry cannot help but strain his ears every once in a while, listening intently for tip-toeing in the hallway, heated whispering: all the tell-tale signs his children have slipped out of their beds.
“I know you can’t sleep now”, she mutters after a few minutes of quiet, Harry’s head still on her shoulder. “Do you just want to hang out?”
She knows him too well, he thinks, some strange, wild gladness swelling in his chest.
It’s a part of coming home: letting go of the hyper-alertness that keeps him alive while he’s out there, of being constantly on edge. Sometimes, when he doesn’t get back until the early hours of the morning, he lies awake next to Ginny and can’t bring himself to shut off. He watches daylight creep over the apple trees through the window, waits for everyone else to wake up and ends up dozing off on the couch in the middle of the afternoon, more passing out from exhaustion than real sleep.
Ginny knows that’s part of the deal.
“Reading sounds good, actually”, he says, lifting his head off her shoulder regretfully to go find his book.
Teddy had, in recent months, taken to devouring adventure novels the size of bricks in a mere matter of days and then spending the weekly family dinners at the Burrow talking rapidly about little else. On one such Saturday evening, Harry had politely asked if Teddy would ever let him borrow one: the smile on Teddy’s face was absolutely brilliant, and Harry has been reading along with him ever since, his godson’s sheer enthusiasm, his joy at having someone to talk to after, impossibly infectious.
They flick through their respective pages in comfortable quiet, Ginny’s fingers drawing absent-minded circles on his thigh as she reads. A spark of warmth prickles at the back of his neck at every lazy scratch on her fingernail.
“I’m having an affair with Neville”, Ginny says as though announcing the weather.
Harry looks up from his novel, blinking at her.
“I thought I was having an affair with Neville”, he says, face plain.
“No, that was last week.”
“I see. Who am I sleeping with again?”
“Hermione. Says so right here on page 12.”
“I better give her a call, then”, he says, returning to his book.
The corners of Ginny’s mouth betray her: Harry grins over at her and she snickers into the magazine, her quiet laughter like waves rolling through his body, her cheek leaning against the top of his head. Warm, liquid bliss fills his chest: her small hand resumes caressing his thigh like she’s not even aware she’s doing it, though he doesn’t doubt she is. He draws in a slow, deep breath, too content to move or even focus much on anything except Ginny, least of all his book.
“You alright?”, Ginny asks after a while, not lifting her eyes off of a five-page article about the drummer of some girl band who’d been photographed snogging the bassist.
“Hm?”
“You haven’t turned your page in, like, ten minutes.”
“’M fine”, Harry mutters, forever startled that it’s truthful, and it is. “Wasn’t she dating some Newcomer Harpy?”, he adds, nodding towards the article.
“Hm-hm”, Ginny says. “Nothing interesting about a quiet, amicable breakup, though. That’s why ours are always really dramatic.”
Harry snorts. “Like I’d break up with you in public.”
“It’s adorable how you think I’m the dumpee in this scenario.”
Harry looks up in mock concern, bumping his foot into her leg. “You’re breaking up with me?”
Ginny hums as though deep in thought. “I guess I could loudly ask you for a divorce next time we want to get out of some horrible Ministry party. Might be fun.”
“Wish you’d had that idea last year”, Harry mutters darkly, remembering the lengthy Christmas feast they hadn’t been able to wriggle out of. He’d been shaking lametta out of his hair for hours after. “Alright, I’m down, but I’m taking the kids.”
Ginny pats his leg, unfazed. “Yeah, you wish.”
Harry smiles, slouching into her side – mission forgotten, peaceful, home. Ginny turns to look at him as his eyes flutter shut, exhaustion finally taking over.
All the way from the kitchen, they hear the enchanted garden gnome that lives inside their baby blue cuckoo’s clock – Luna’s moving-in present – announce “twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock!”.
Ginny presses a kiss to his temple. “Merry Christmas, babe.”
“Merry Christmas”, Harry mutters. “Love you.”
“You, too.” He feels the pads of Ginny’s fingers draw slow circles on his scalp, her palm brush over his jet-black hair. “Glad you’re back.”
He merely hums in response, too content to speak, not wanting the moment to end, this strange, deep peace that fills him.
They get to stay like that for a small eternity: Harry’s head on her shoulder, Ginny’s arm around him, warm limbs entangled.
Just as Harry is ready to doze off, Ginny gasps beside him.
“Listen”, she whispers, as Harry reluctantly opens his eyes.
And there it is: from outside their bedroom door comes the quiet tap-tap-tap of small feet on the hardwood floor, sneaking towards the stairs.
“I think we’ve got some Christmas elves on the loose”, Ginny whispers.
Harry grins at her, and she grins back, quietly conspiring.
“Wanna go catch them?”
They climb out of bed as quickly and quietly as they can, pressing their ears to the bedroom door. Ginny shakes her head and reaches for the doorknob.
“They’re lucky we love them so much.”
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Here’s my entry to the @pnatsecretsanta for 2020! @quarktrinity, I hope you enjoy! It’ll be crossposted to ao3, link will be in a reblog. Thank you for your patience!
Isabel: hey so
Isabel: when are u going to get here
Max: wat?
Max: its xmas ev
Isabel: you really need to get a new phone
Isabel: and remember? youre supposed to come to my place tonight, wait it out
Isabel: max?
Isabel: if you were spacing out again im going to kill you
Isabel: you WERE doing the face again now that i think about it
Max: u guys ned 2 mak imprtnt info cler. Y i spcd
Isabel: you need to listen! this time mr spender remembered to tell u and everything. youre not allowed to be mad at us this time
Isabel: in short, get ur butt over here before midnight. sneak out if u need to, thats what isaac does
Isabel: in long, if u dont santas gonna kill u
----
“Let me get this straight.” 11:30 P.M. December 24th, 20XX. Max sat in Ed’s room on a chair hastily drawn up, with a jacket pulled hastily over his pajamas and hat still jammed on his head, massaging his temples. “Santa’s real, he’s a spirit, and he hates all spectrals and is coming to kill us?”
“That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but yeah,” Isaac said, and Max shot him a glare. He could hear that smugness. “So like, there’s a lot of spirits that kinda grow from ideas humans have, right? I don’t know what’s up with Scrapdragon, but like, Muse came from the ideas around ancient Greek muses, like his name. They can be really off base but still have the same ideas- like Lucifer, Mr. Spender’s spirit, is just some lightbulb guy, but Lucifer does mean light and stuff, so they can just be along those lines. But like, a LOT of kids believe in Santa and think about him a lot, so there’ve been a few spirits that manifested around the idea of a guy who can get anywhere to deliver presents to good kids and punishments to bad ones, especially with stories like Krampus too.”
“But most spirits can’t interact with humans, so this guy mostly goes around to other spirits and ghosts and stuff,” Isabel said, distracted by her attempts to spin her umbrella like a top. “So he likes spirits a lot. And we kick a lot of spirit butt,” she punctuated this with a particular spirited spin of the umbrella, “so he hates us and comes to try to kill us every year. And because he can teleport, he can get inside the barrier. So gramps makes us all stay with him until sunrise every year so that all the adults can fight off santa and his reindeer so we don’t get put in a sack and teleported somewhere.”
Max groans and tries to fall backwards in his chair, but the chair doesn’t budge. “Your paint really isn’t good for drama,” Max informed Ed.
“Don’t be so dramatic then,” Ed snickered. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Says you, You just stay at home all night. I have to sneak out! My dad’ll kill me if he finds out!”
“I just put a pillow in my blankets and it’s fine,” Isaac says with a shrug. “If your dad looks harder than that, we probably have a tool lying around that can wipe memories or something.”
“I don’t want to mind wipe my dad,” Max grumbled, but resigned himself to slumping grumpily in his chair to watch Ed play some punching game or whatever. Bad enough that his own baseball bat might want to eat him, and he was trapped in this town with no way out- now Christmas hated him too.
Isaac caught his eye and smiled sympathetically. “You get used to it,” he whispered.
“I thought I was used to it a month ago.”
Max jumped as a knock on the door sounded, glaring at Isabel’s laughter. The door opened without waiting for a response. Mr. Spender poked his head in through the door with a goofy grin. “Alright, kids! You all ready for this year’s Christmas night?”
Ed didn’t even look away from his video game, waving lazily. “We could use some snacks. That’d be nice.”
“Yeah, where are the snacks, old man? You want us to starve?” Isabel waved her umbrella at him like a grumpy old woman might a cane.
“You’re well fed enough already. I made sure of that.” It spoke wonders to how used to this existence Max had become that Mr. Spender knocking politely had scared him, but Isabel’s grandpa floating through the wall didn’t. The man’s bulk and imperious gaze still caused him some anxiety, though, and he had to consciously remind himself that he’s a punk, he’s cool, and he doesn’t respect anyone’s authority, even a scary ghost’s. Yeah, totally.
The atmosphere of the room quickly shifted, and Isabel’s eyes dropped. “Yeah, I was just joking. Sorry, Grandpa.”
“Joke or not, this night is too much effort to make light of. My students and I are putting ourselves at risk for you,” Mr. Guerra said, looming over the room, “so only vocalize a need if you need it.”
Isabel glowered at the carpet. “Alright, Grandpa…”
“So. I will ask again. Are you all prepared? Midnight strikes soon.”
“We are, sir,” Isaac said. Max fought not to pull a face at Isaac’s please pay attention to me, authority figure tone, but for once it was helpful, so whatever. He could let it slide.
Mr. Guerra eyed Isaac. “...good. We’ll get you once the sun begins to rise.” And with that, he turned away and slid down through the floor. Max could already hear him barking at the pupils below.
Mr. Spender grimaced. “Well… good! Everything’s all set then.”
Isabel grumbled, picking at the carpet.
“...trust me,” Mr. Spender said, forcing audibly fake cheer into his voice, “This isn’t a hassle at all. You guys getting stuffed into a sack- now, that would be quite the kerfuffle!”
They all stared as Mr. Spender slowly deflated. “...sure,” Max said. “Uh, we’ll be good, stay up here, it’s fine.”
“Great.” Mr. Spender nodded, stared awkwardly for a moment, and stepped out the door. “Well, Merry Christmas, children!” He shut the door behind him. Max listened with the others as his footsteps hurried down the hall to the stairwell.
Silence reigned for a few minutes, a distinctly uncomfortable experience for Max. It was almost impossible not to ramble, and he was reaching his breaking point and about to open the floodgates of inane and overly verbose chatter when Ed, thankfully, took point.
“That sucked,” he said simply, and Isabel groaned and fell back.
“I hate when he does that!” Isabel laid her umbrella by her side and waved her hands in the air exasperatedly. “It’s like he has no in between and I’m always either The Best And He’s So Disappointed In Me For Not Being Perfect or A Helpless Kid He Needs To Do Everything For! He always gets like this tonight!”
Ed paused his game, and reached around to pat her on the knee. “I mean, we could prove him wrong. We beat up spirits all the time, how hard could this be?”
“Okay, hold up, hand on,” Max said. “No? I- this is a terrible idea, you just got finished telling me about how if I wasn’t here I’d be killed by Santa, and now you want to go out there and fight Santa?”
“Well, not Santa,” Ed said. “Duh. He mostly just sends his reindeer to do everything and hangs out on rooftops.”
“And no offence Max, but uh…” Isaac scratched the back of his head.
“You’d totally get killed if you were on your own.” Isabel flipped herself upright. “All you got is that dinky bat, and magnet powers. You can’t even do a spec shot, dude, you’d get thrown in a sack in no time. We’d be fine.”
Max crossed his arms. “Alright, screw you too.”
“But other than that… that sounds like it could be pretty fun.” Isabel grinned. “Show the old man and his big dumb deer who’s boss. Maybe then he’ll stop coming to Mayview every year.”
“That would be pretty nice actually.” Isaac was clearly thinking hard- he had his broody face on. “I would like to stop having to sneak out every year. Sooner or later my parents will notice.”
Max shuddered. “Actually, yeah, Isaac has a point. I don’t want to die to Rudolph or anything, but if we keep having to do this, I’ll die to my dad, which is way worse honestly.”
“Your dad’s a teddy bear,” Isabel said, and rolled her eyes. “Stop complaining.”
“You haven’t seen him when I fail a test!”
“So are we going or what?” Isabel was already pulling her jacket back on, tucking her umbrella firmly under her arm. Ed bounced on the balls of his feet with a grin, already eyeing up the window and painting himself a rope.
Max looked at Isaac, who shrugged and got to his feet. Max sighed, and stood up, regretfully leaving his scooter on the floor. “Yeah, alright. We’re going.”
Well, Max was regretting this. He was regretting this so much. He tromped through the snowy woods, eternally grateful for his boots. “Why in the world do we have to fight the spirits of Christmas in the woods? Why can’t we do it in town, or like, on the road at least? The roads we salted. The roads wouldn’t be as cold.”
“Cuz we’d get caught, dummy,” Isabel snorted. Or maybe it was a sniffle. “Either someone from the dojo would hear us and yell at us and get in the way before we can prove anything, or someone in town would yell at us and call the cops or something.”
“Maybe having people nearby to help isn’t a bad thing? You can’t just say that after saying that I’m the most likely person to die!”
“You came out here anyway,” Isaac pointed out, and looked all too unaffected by Max’s glare.
“I hate you. I hate you with everything in my being you- you chump elf.”
Isabel laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this place looks pretty good, huh?” She stopped, looking around the snowy clearing they’d come into and turning in place. She nodded, satisfied. “There’s room to fight here, and we could come up with some pretty solid traps. Isaac wouldn’t have to worry too much about blasting a bunch of trees.”
“Looks pretty good!” Ed pulled off a mitten with his teeth and dug his paint brush out of his pocket. “What’re you thinkin, Izzy? Tripwire? Net?”
“Let’s go net,” Isaac said. “They can fly.”
“Plus, last time you tripped Isaac, remember?” Isabel elbowed Ed in the side. “Max and I are pretty fast, but Isaac needs some help.”
“Please. I can jump higher than your house is tall.”
“But you still fell just flat on your face,” she cooed. Isaac grumbled, cursing her just loud enough for Isabel to overhear, but she just batted her eyes and paid him no mind. “Okay, so,” she said, looking up at the sky through the hole in the canopy, “we probably only have a few more minutes before one of the reindeer finds us-”
And that’s when a dark shape, faster than cheetah and twice as forceful, barrelled into Max. And off he went, hanging by the hood of his jacket on a wicked sharp antler prong, into the sky and away to the sound of jingling bells.
----
Things were quiet this year, Richard reflected. It was honestly a relief- maybe the spirit had finally given up. Probably too much to hope for, but, Christmas miracles and all. In any case, there seemed to be plenty of time to get the kids some mugs of hot cocoa and cookies to wait out the night with.
“Need any help balancing those?” Day asked, and Richard felt his mood become momentarily strained.
“Actually, that would be nice, if you think you could.” The tray of mugs and cookies he was balancing was quite the challenge, after all. Day reached up and somehow grabbed the plates of cookies perfectly- Spender could swear he saw her eyes flash for a moment, smart woman- and left him to balance the four mugs. A much easier task now.
“I really thought things would be more eventful, with how much Francisco was fussing over it, but everything’s pretty quiet, isn’t it?” Day smiled and followed Richard’s footsteps to the stairs.
“Well, usually there’s more cause for it, but the spirits seem to be laying low this year. Not an unwelcome reprieve in the slightest, but I do worry about Max… if this isn’t the new status quo, I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”
“He’s a- well, he seems like a really smart kid,” Day reassured him. “I think he’ll make sure to be careful next year too!”
“I hope so. He does seem resourceful, but… he can be reckless.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said, before stopping with a small frown on her face. “They’re being pretty quiet…”
Spender listened for a moment himself. “Hm, they are… mayhaps they went to bed early?”
“That doesn’t sound like them.”
“No,” he said, dread creeping into his heart. “It doesn’t.”
He set the tray of cookies on the floor. He approached Ed’s room. He knocked.
He opened the door.
Richard’s lips thinned into a grim line as he surveyed the dark room. “They’re gone.”
------
Max screamed for his life as he was lifted faster than he could process into the sky. It was a clear, starry night, and they all looked like streaks as his captor circled through the sky, closer and closer to the top of the dome before colliding headfirst into it. Max didn’t have any more air in his lungs to scream as he was jostled loose and began to fall down, down- only to be caught again, this time like a sack of potatoes on the spirit’s back. He was overwhelmed by the sound of silver bells as he caught his breath, eyes screwed tightly shut.
Eventually, his lungs rallied to his call, and he was able to take in an unpleasant few gulps of animal-scented air. Max cracked his eyes open a peek- and immediately shut them again. Too high. He was way, way too high up. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest, and the wind burned his face and the tips of his ears.
Hold on.
“My hat,” he wheezed reaching one hand up to grope the top of his head. “My hat’s gone!”
“Soon that will be of no matter.”
Max screamed- even he was getting fed up with his own screams at this point, but instinct didn’t seem to be on the same page.
“Quiet,” the rumbling voice said, and the spirit turned to look at Max. “Your sounds irritate me.”
The spirit that held Max on its back was by far the biggest deer of any Max had ever seen. It was shaggy and majestic, even as its fur was electric yellow, and its huge rack of knife-like antlers shivered as if they were made of candle flame. Its many eyes blinked, and it beared serrated teeth- a stark contrast to the many silver bells that seemed a part of its pelt. Max looked away, avoiding its cruel gaze, to see three pairs of legs, hooves thundering over empty air. And below him, seven more enormous shapes were blazing their way towards the distant forest clearing, led by an eerie red light. “Oh no, oooooh no, no no no no no no…”
“But yes, child. At last you have been retrieved, and soon your friends will be as well. Then, you can all face your punishment.” The spirit laughed cruelly. “I am Dasher, and I was simply the herald.”
“So you’re just, you’re just Dasher? Like from the poem? One of those things down there is…” Jeez, this was surreal. “...Donner? And, Vixen?”
“Many tremble in fear before those names. It would do you right to show some respect.”
“What? No, nobody does! You guys are like, goofy little stop motion dolls, man, how’d you guys end up looking like this?”
“Our powers are untold by your human poems-”
“Aren’t you guys based on the poems?!”
Dasher snorted and tossed his head in anger. “That is an egregious oversimplification-”
“I thought your name was Dasher, not Dictionary.”
The spirit cried out in frustration, and Max felt something in him settle a bit better. Poking things with words, he could do that. Just don’t look down. “So, uh,” he began, shifting a bit so it was less like he was thrown over Dasher and more like he was riding him, “why am I not in a sack yet?”
“Our pilot is attending to his annual business in Mayview,” Dasher growled. “It is we who have the ability to fight and fly- so it is we who collect naughty children. Once your compatriots have been obtained, then we may return to our stations.”
“Wow,” Max drawled. “I can’t believe Santa needs his reindeer to deal with three preteens.”
“You do have a teenager within your ranks. That does provide some extra challenge.”
“Whoa, wait, really?”
“Yes. He cannot fully be counted as a child by our pilot any longer- he has aged enough to become a teenager. It is not he that we seek.”
“Wow, that’s weirdly arbitrary and nitpicky.” Max was so going to tease Isaac about this later. If he didn’t, well, get thrown into a sack and… baked into a pie? Eaten alive? Thrown into a dungeon? Whatever. Try to be positive.
“If you take issue, you may air your complaints to our pilot.”
“Taking it straight to the manager, alright.” Max stared at his hands, balled in bright yellow fur, and took a deep breath as he relaxed them. He wasn’t going to fall, he was certain Dasher wouldn’t allow him, channel a Karen- and he released the fur, balancing on the spirit’s back with only his legs. Before he could lose his nerve, he swung his backpack off his shoulder and grabbed his bat. Okay, weapon acquired. Just… what to do with it.
Dasher huffed. “Puny weapon. Even with the power of an enslaved spirit, you cannot defeat me. Especially not with a spirit as weak as that one.”
“Ugh, not you too,” Max grumbled. At least this thing wasn’t getting aggressive. “I’m kinda tired of being called the weak one, it’s getting old.”
“It would have been better, then, if you had kept your power to yourself, and not bothered the true denizens of this world, as the other child does.”
“Other child-? You know what, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I do not care. Now let me think.” Max re-gripped Dasher tightly, this time grabbing the reigns, and looked around. Man, of course Max got magnet powers in the place where there’s no tall buildings anywhere- it would be great if they could pass by a skyscraper or two for Max to attach himself to. But alas… then, his eyes caught a gleam, a dark silhouette against the colorful lights of Mayview.
A transmission tower in the woods. And they were heading right for it. Max shrugged his backpack back on to his shoulder and gripped his bat as tight as he could.
“Thinking will get you nowhere, child.”
“Yeah, but it’ll keep me quiet,” Max mumbled.
“True,” Dasher said. And started to turn back towards the clearing.
“No!” Max yelped, holding his bat out desperately- he knew the tower was too distant still, but he put all his will into the bat, trying to extend its power as far as he can-
Dasher lurched beneath him with a confused cry, the bells jangled, and Max’s focus was broken with a shout. Immediately, Dasher steadied beneath him.
“Child, if you do that again I will throw you off into the ground-”
“What- I don’t even know what I did-” Max’s breath caught as he realized what happened. The bells. They were metal, and he had what was definitely a terrible idea. But it was his only idea.
Quickly, before Dasher could retaliate, Max activated his bat. Dasher howled with rage as all the bells in his body strained in the direction of the magnetic center, and Max laughed with panic.
“RELEASE ME AT ONCE-”
“No,” Max said, filled with thrill and panic, and directed Dasher back towards the clearing. The spirit barrelled towards it at supernatural speeds, a furious scream echoing through the night as he crashed into the snow like a comet. Max tumbled off of the spirit’s back, and the bat’s angle changed wildly, forcing Dasher in mad circles.
The other seven deer spirits, crowded in the woods, were as thrown into chaos as Isabel, Ed, and Isaac were, but Ed recovered fastest. “Max!” He crowed, head popping out of the snow. “You’re alive!”
“Somehow!” Max laughed, voice squeaky with panic. “For now!” In the corner of his eye, he noticed another spirit- a large one that was on fucking fire, so must be either Comet or Blitzen- and quickly swung his bat around to point at it. Dasher was forced to charge full speed into the other spirit, which dissolved into a wisp with a cry of shock.
Isabel whooped. “I can’t believe it! Magnet powers are good for something!”
“Serves you right!” He felt about to shake apart, and still dizzy from the crash, but spinning Dasher around like a top was easy enough- and the other jingling spirits were drawn in too. It was a glorious explosion of color, sound, and christmas spirits as one by one they melted each other away into whisps. Finally, only Dasher stood in the snow, puffing furious, cloudy breaths into the air.
“You will pay,” Dasher hissed. “Naughty children. You will not escape your punishment, this I swear to you.”
“Whatever you say, bub,” Ed chirped, and raised his scythe above his head.
“Wait!”
Max and the others turned back to look just in time to watch an arrow streak through the night and imbed itself in Dasher’s forehead. “No, no,” he groaned, watching Isabel’s face light up with glee.
Agent Day and Mr. Spender ran into the clearing, both panting and exhausted. “Thank goodness we found you,” Agent Day breathed, hands on her knees. “We were so worried that you were taken…”
“But I saw Dasher fall from the sky!” Spender’s chest heaved, and he swayed with effort, but he somehow managed to stay upright. “I’m so glad you’re all alright, even Dasher alone is quite the challenge to combat…”
“Nah, we got all of them.” Isabel grinned and punched her palm. “Max was able to yank ‘em around by the bells with his bat, and he got em all to poof each other. It was really easy to hit ‘em when they were all clumped up, too.”
“You- you really beat them all? Where are their tools?!”
“Right here, Mr. Spender!” Isaac called, arms full of a few rocks and sticks. “They’re, uh, not much to look at, but…”
“Amazing! Wonderful job, all of you- these will be great for the club’s stores!”
“But you shouldn’t have snuck out. We were so worried about you, and you’re glad we found you! Your grandfather is worried sick!” Agent Day wrung her hands together, cane stuck in the snow.
“Yes, he’s… not happy,” Spender admitted. “But, surely he’ll be proud when he finds out what you’ve accomplished?”
“Probably not,” Isabel sighed, sticking her hands in her pockets.
“...probably not.” Spender came over to put a hand on her shoulder. “But, for what it’s worth, I am.” Isabel looked up at him, then threw her arms around him. Spender smiled softly and hugged her in return.
“This is great,” Max groaned. “But I’m being crushed by a flippin’ reindeer, so can I get some help?”
Oblivious to Max’s irritation, Dasher continued licking Max’s hair life the reindeer he resembled. “You’re not so bad, I suppose. Resourceful child.”
“It always happens to me.”
“The arrow will at least last the night,” Agent Day said thoughtfully. “It should be safe for you to go home, in that case- you too, I think, Isaac! Since all the others are gone, after all… Maybe Dasher can take you home!”
“Nooooo!”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Ms. Day,” Spender said. “You could perhaps take Isaac and Ed back to the dojo, and I can take Isaac back to his home…?”
“Yes sir!” Day smiled. “Merry Christmas, Max, Isaac,” she said. “I hope you get back undetected.”
“Thank you, Ms. Day,” Isaac said. “You too.”
“You guys suck,” Max grumbled.
----
It took a bit for Max to wrangle Dasher into taking him home, but under Day’s spell, the spirit was a fairly easygoing ride. As Max climbed back in through his window to his undisturbed bed, he heard the spirit settle on the roof to keep watch for the sunrise. And, taking comfort in not being discovered and in the knowledge that next year, when he’s a teen, he won’t have to worry about any of this, Max changed back into his pajamas, settled into bed, and slipped into a deep sleep.
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Cost of Freedom (42/52)
Summary: In which Heiji confronts a tail, and Saguru refuses to leave the precinct without the full case notes in his possession.
A/N: 2020 has been a year you guys. I’m not even going to try to explain everything that’s added to this taking forever. Just, it’s here now. Cool. It’s 4am. I’m going to sleep.
[Chapter List]
--
Someone is following him.
Nervousness fills him as he moves, because someone is following him and trying to figure out which of the three are his suspect is difficult. Either paranoia is filling him up, swelling in his stomach like a sickness – something he’ll feel stupid about later – or they’ve slipped up somehow and revealed themselves.
Except, Heiji isn’t so sure what’s been done to five themselves away. If it’s anything then… it must be the website, right?
They’d clicked into it and set off some sort of… alert?
Heiji shudders. What kind of organisation are they working with, if even looking on a website can tip them off?
Moving forwards, Heiji turns, cuts a corner nearer to his house. If it were a normal day, he’d head left and down the road to his own house. Instead, he turns right.
As he turns, he takes a moment to glance over his shoulder to the three still following behind him. The pair of teenagers follow behind too. The businessman, however, keeps walking straight.
Heiji shudders.
He watches from the corner of his eye as the businessman keeps moving, walking straight, swinging his briefcase until the wall between them obscures all vision of him.
“Oh, fuck me…” Heiji mutters under his breath. His heart feels like it’s going to burst from his chest. And he’s still got two more following him to worry about. He wonders if this is how Kudo has felt the entire time, since he’d been free but not, how he feels knowing that everyone he walks past could be after him,
If this is the way his paranoia feels, Heiji wonders how Kudo can even sleep at all. He feels faintly, like he’ll never sleep again. He turns right, into another side street that’s more obscured from view, brows furrowing as he walks.
Perhaps he’s setting himself up as he starts heading to this route, but it’s the only way to know for certain, if he’s being followed. The side street leads to a dead end – unless they know, like Heiji does, that there’s a small hole in one of the neighbourhood fences.
An unknown detail, Heiji knows, unless you’ve spent the entirety of your childhood looking for lost pets and learning the neighbourhood down to even the smallest rock.
They follow. Heiji tenses.
His gaze sweeps around for something that could be used to protect himself. Something long, something that could resemble a bokken. He’s trained for years at kendo, so even if something happens here, he can at least try to protect himself.
He untenses himself from panicked into a different sort of tension. Readying himself on adrenaline for a fight. There are some old construction materials here, a plank of wood that he heads towards. Covertly, of course, so as not to raise suspicion–
“Hattori.”
Heiji jumps, pivoting as he does to look at the two girls. And oh, for fucks sake. The voice is familiar…
“Are th’ two of ya completely insane?” He hisses to the disguised selves of Kuroba and Nakamori Aoko. “Ya don’t jus’ sneak up on a guy like tha’.”
-
It’s difficult to consider what exactly they’re supposed to do next.
Ran follows after Saguru, waits for him to quit moving as they leave the department behind. That was a bust, she supposes, but they’ll find another way around things. They just need to figure out a… way to do that.
“We need the case files,” Saguru says, when they’re outside of the offices, leading Ran into a small alcove, pausing as he glances up and down the corridor. “We’re not going to be able to find Kudo-kun without them.”
Pressing her lips together, Ran glances away. She’s not sure how they’re supposed to get them if they’ve been taken off the case, if they don’t have the access to them anymore. There’s no way, it seems almost as if it’s… out of their hands now. They’ll just have to use the information they’ve got on hand to figure things out.
“They won’t give them to us.” Ran says. “You know that.”
Saguru pauses, nods. Taking a moment to think, he’s entirely quiet, until:
“We need to take them.”
“We can’t!” Ran is uncertain if it’s fear, or nervousness that leads to her moving forward, tugging on his sleeve so he’s properly looking at her. There’s a… there should be a limit, shouldn’t there? “Inspector Nakamori already said–”
“The inspector is still reeling from his daughter choosing KID over him,” Saguru says. His brows furrow, a frown flashing across his features. “Which… should have been expected, honestly. Even as KID, Kuroba showed her more attention.”
He pauses, glances away again for the moment.
“They’re…” Saguru sighs. “They’re both in danger. Kudo-kun’s case… they’re a part of it now too. More of my friends are in danger, and I… We need those files because we need to find them, to give them the evidence we found.”
Ran falters, feels her shoulders drop.
“I don’t want them to get hurt anymore than they already have,” Saguru continues. “If we can help them by breaking a few rules, then shouldn’t we?”
“It shouldn’t work like that,” Ran says, although she knows like each other time he’s made a point like this, she’ll cave.
“But it does,” Saguru says. “Come on, all I need is an open terminal.”
Ran sighs. And then, she nods her head. “I think there was one just around the corner.”
“Let’s go then.” Saguru says, leading the way. Ran follows behind him. “Something tells me we don’t have much time.”
-
Kazuha arrives to the shrine with a feeling of trepidation curdling in her stomach, acid rising up her throat. She shouldn’t have left Heiji, she should have stayed, but he’s always been stubborn and she understands why he told her to go. She just…
Sometimes she wishes she’d never gotten involved. That she’d been smarter before all this, when Heiji had started going on his weekend trips from Osaka to catch on that they were to visit Shinichi. Then, maybe she wouldn’t need to be so worried about Heiji.
She can’t change it thought, can’t go back and so instead, she hides her motorbike among overgrown plant life, focuses on sweeping away as much evidence of her being here as possible.
Shinichi doesn’t come out to see if it’s her, and Kazuha wouldn’t expect him too. Instead, she focuses on getting this done as quickly as she can while still being efficient, before heading up towards the shrine.
It always makes her sad to think about how this place was vibrant once. Without weeds and ivy growing up along the side of the building, nettles interweaving the wooden staircase up into the building, almost as if trying to devour the place.
People used to pray here, but she doesn’t know for what. She wonders if they should start praying for safety. She closes her eyes at the door and prays, in particular, for the omamori she’d gifted Heiji with when they were children, to keep him safe.
If he needs that.
She really hopes he doesn’t.
Her prayer finished, she steps inside, and goes in search for Shinichi. He’s not in the reception area, but she finds him further inside, in on of the side rooms they’d set up for a sleeping area.
“Shinichi-kun?”
She can’t keep the alarm from her voice. Shinichi sits, his knees up to his chest, nose pressed against the fabric of his jeans, hands brought up into his hair. His breath comes in sharp inhales, and she can see from the way that he’s shaking, that it’s panic.
Kazuha steps inside.
“I’m comin’ in,” Kazuha says, as she comes closer. She gets a small noise, affirming, but not much else. Not that she’d expect more from him, not that she’d want to hear gasping words. “I’m gonna sit next to ya, okay?”
A staggered nod – Kazuha takes it as permission, and sits, her back pressed against the wall, own arms holding her legs as she takes a moment to consider the best way to help.
Panic attacks aren’t a stranger to her, haven’t been since she was a child. Hands gripped around the edges of her blankets, around teddy bears and Heiji, her knuckles going white from the tightness of it all.
All it had taken was her father getting injured in a confrontation with a suspect at work, and she’d been terrified for him each day when he’d gone to work. The way it had felt difficult to breathe…
“Breathe in with me Shinichi,” she says, keeping her voice low, trying to make her words softer, less of the usual harshness in her accent. “I’m gonna count from five and you breathe in, okay?”
Shinichi nods.
Kazuha counts – this is the point where she usually shuts her eyes, but she can’t. She keeps her gaze on Shinichi, monitoring, trying to make sure he’s okay. Instead, she soothes herself by counting things designed to soothe herself.
“Five.”
Kazuha is safe, somewhere that’s unknown.
“Four.”
Shinichi is also safe, even if his body is flooding with adrenaline, his breathing staggered and harsh.
“Three.”
They’re in a shrine that has almost become one with nature, on the brink of society and it feels like no one will ever find them here, like even if they let their guards down accidentally, it’d be alright.
“Two.”
Heiji is saf–
“One.”
Heiji is…
Now she does close her eyes. Focuses on counting and keeps to it. She doesn’t want to think anymore, lest she join in with her own panic.
It must work, because eventually, Shinichi’s breathing becomes less uneven, deeper. She can feel when he stops shaking, the way he slumps back slightly against the wall – not relaxed, but better.
“…It was her.” Shinichi says. “Vermouth.”
Kazuha frowns, trying to piece things together. Shinichi hasn’t mentioned Vermouth before, not until yesterday, when he’d claimed she was Sharon Vineyard. She doesn’t see where she fits into things.
“Vermouth,” Shinichi continues, breath hitching. “She killed those people. I… spoke to her in Kyoto.”
Kazuha’s blood turns to slush, a mixture between horrified ice, and overwhelmingly hot rage, anger on Shinichi’s behalf. To be stood in front of… to have to talk to the person responsible for everything he’d been blamed for…
“She…”
“We’d met before.” His voice settles, miserable. “…Three times before. Although… now I know who she is… we’ve probably met more often than that…”
“An’ she killed those people?” Kazuha asks, words soft.
“…Yes.” Shinichi says. “Because of me.”
“It’s not your fault–”
“It is,” Shinichi says. He turns to look at her now, miserable, like the world is weighing him down. He is Atlas, and Vermouth is the person who has placed the weight of the world down onto his shoulders. When he reaches his hand up to his neck, scratching, Kazuha leans forward and slowly takes his hand. “She did it for me.”
“Did ya ask her to?”
“Of course not.” His tone is vehement, horrified. “I would never–”
“Then it wasn’t for you,” Kazuha says, gently. “That’s just an excuse. She’s th’ guilty one, not you.”
“She did it,” Shinichi says, shuddering, “so that the organisation would frame me, instead of killing me. I would’ve never… She’d have faked my death.”
“That’s still not your fault,” Kazuha says. At his weak expression, she leans forward, hand on his shoulder. “It isn’t.”
“It feels like it is,” Shinichi whispers. “If I’d backed off when she told me too…”
“Then more people would have died,” Kazuha says, firmly. “You just wouldn’t have known about it.”
Shinichi sighs. He lifts his hands up to his neck, before pausing. “Where’s Hattori?”
-
Saguru finds an abandoned computer terminal and Ran is instructed to keep watch.
“Just act like we’re meant to be here,” he says. “I’ve been down here often enough to be recognised – they won’t second guess us.”
Ran bites her lip.
She doesn’t ask why this department is different to theft, why they won’t kick them out. Instead, she trusts that Saguru isn’t too tired, too injured to know what he’s doing. Even if it feels like they’re painting large targets on their backs, she trusts him.
He kept her safe, and she’ll do the same for him. She makes the promise to herself. As her brain blocks out the generic noise of the precinct, her ears focusing on the way Saguru’s fingers clack at the keyboard, she promises that she won’t let anyone else get hurt for her sake again.
The silence is almost overbearing as her promise settles on her shoulders.
“We’re going to need everything,” Saguru mutters under his breath, and Ran is pretty sure that it’s not an invitation for them to converse but simply a reminder to himself to be thorough.
Ran sighs.
“We don’t need everything,” she says, regardless of whether it was intended for her or not. “I’ve got some evidence at home for Shinichi’s case–”
“I’m going to get everything, just in case,” Saguru says, cutting her off. His voice is firm. “Or there might be things that they didn’t necessarily give you. Like the video interviews, the transcripts. Everything regarding what happened with Kuroba and Aoko-san yesterday.”
Another sigh.
“How long do you think this will take?” Ran asks, quietly.
“Hopefully,” Saguru says, fingertips faltering at the computer, forehead crinkling into a frown. “…It doesn’t extend into time that we don’t have.”
“Alright,” Ran says, quietly. She doesn’t mention how that’s not an answer. “And we’re what… we can’t be printing all this off, can we?”
“I’ve got a USB stick; I’m going to copy them over.” Saguru says. “The only issue is trying to make it so the system won’t flag the fact I’m copying all of these files over.”
Ran pauses.
“I don’t think I want to ask how you know how to do all of this,” she says, after a moment.
“Understandable,” Saguru says.
Ran pulls her attention away from him, surveying the room instead. They’ve found an area outside of theft, so as to avoid Inspector Nakamori’s attention, but it’s still busy.
There’s an influx of people moving in and out of the department. Some carrying case folders, others carrying mugs of coffee. Most monitors have the bright white LEDs of a case report being written up, although from this distance, it’s impossible to read the writing on the screen.
She glances out around the room instead, mouth open partly, as she fiddles with her hands. Mostly, there’s just an influx of police officers she’s never met before. And then–
Short, bobbed hair.
And a butterfly tattoo.
Ran frowns. She doesn’t know why she feels unsettled, but a coldness runs down her spine as she glances back to Saguru.
“Which department is this again?” She asks quietly.
“Organised crime,” Saguru says offhandedly. He pauses for a moment, gaze flickering up to her. “Why?”
“I think our case might be being investigated in her too,” Ran says quietly. “The waitress from yesterday, I think she’d have been called in as a witness, right?”
Saguru pauses.
“Oh,” he says. “That’s not good.”
“We need to go before she notices us,” Ran says.
“Else they’ll link…” He trails off, body going tense. “Alright this might not be… the full files but it’s enough. Give me one more minute.”
Ran wants to refuse him.
A minute, she wants to say, feels like a lifetime when placed under pressure. It feels like an eternity stretched out into a large expanse of nothingness where an impending disaster is right on the horizon but all you can do is stand and watch as it moves in slow motion.
Ran wants to refuse him, to say they don’t have a minute. But she doesn’t.
Instead, she watches as Saguru pulls out a USB stick and inserts it into the computer, loading it up and mass copying over files. She keeps an eye on the waitress across the room, trying to remain subtle.
“Almost–” The computer works quickly enough, but for a moment, as her gaze flickers back to the screen, it seems as if the process will remain at 78% completion.
Ran glances back to the waitress and waits, her lips pressed together in a firm line.
“Done,” Saguru says. “Let’s go.”
He yanks the USB from the drive, before logging off from the computer. Then, he pushes his chair out, lips pressed in a tight line.
“Let’s go,” Saguru says, as he pushes up, letting out a small hiss as he does. His pain relief must be wearing off.
Ran lets her attention remain on the waitress for one last second – she doesn’t seem to have noticed her, is messaging on her phone – before focusing on the door.
“Let’s never do anything like this again,” Ran says weakly.
Saguru lets out a small laugh.
-
“For the record,” Kuroba says as he focuses on Heiji, his voice pitched high in a melodic lilt, feminine and very much keeping up the disguise. “Walking straight up to you somewhere crowded would have been much more suspicious.”
Nakamori nods beside him but remains quiet.
Heiji understands it, but his heart rate isn’t getting the memo. The paranoia they’ve instilled in him has adrenaline rushing through his blood, has him waiting for the moment something bad occurs.
It doesn’t. Heiji stays stood where he is, his fight-or-flight sense betraying him as two more associates on the run stand calmly in front of him.
They must be insane. Heiji officially rules that they’re not sane. The pair of them are completely and utterly insane and it’s only moderately terrifying.
“I get tha’,” Heiji says after a moment, “but still.”
“He does have a point,” Nakamori says, nodding her head. “It doesn’t help with all the paranoia. Especially on a case like Kudo-kun’s.”
Heiji’s gaze flickers from Kuroba to Nakamori before settling back on the thief. His nervousness shifts into something hot, something boiling in his blood as a flood of anger rushes through him.
“You told her about the case?” He hisses.
“She broke me out of hospital,” Kuroba says with a shrug. “Including police custody. I think Aoko deserves to know about the case.”
“It’s dangerous!” Heiji protests.
“I’ve gathered that,” Nakamori says, dryly. “Since I was almost killed by a sniper.”
Heiji glances between them both. The anger fizzles out slightly as he considers. “They were aiming at you and not KID?”
Nakamori shakes her head. “I doubt it was that.”
“I gave Aoko my gas mask during the heist,” Kaito says. “I needed her help with my escape plan – they must have been shooting for the mask. We reckon it’d have been easier to shoot at a mask through all the tear gas.”
“All things we can explain fully,” Nakamori says, crossing her arms, “in a group. We’d like you to take us to Kudo-kun, please.”
Heiji looks between them both, before offering a small sigh. “…I don’t have a spare bike, if ya can get one that you can follow me on withou’ drawing attention to you, then I guess so.”
“I’m very good at acquiring things without a trace,” Kuroba says, a brightness to his tone. Beside him, Nakamori rolls her eyes, shaking her head, exasperated.
“Give us a few hours,” Nakamori says, more calmly. She levels Heiji with an even look, determined, unwavering. “We’ll find something.”
Heiji’s brows furrow slightly, before he nods. “Take the Hanshin expressway out of the city – route 13. Down th’ Daini Keihan road there’s a turnin’ that leads to Katano, takes about half an hour – there’s a small dirt path off the track, I’ll meet ya there and we’ll head out after tha’.”
“It’s almost four now…” Nakamori says, quietly, frowning.
“Eight p.m.,” Kuroba says. “We’ll be there for eight. Allow us half an hour past that and if we’re not there by then, we’ll contact you if we can.”
Well… that sounds ominous.
Still, Heiji nods. “…Alrigh’, I’ll let them know.”
-
The phone call interrupts them both, saving Kazuha from answering with whatever half-hearted, scrambled excuse she could think up. She’s glad, really for two reasons.
The first, obviously, because of the relief that floods through her seeing Heiji’s caller I.D. pop up on her phone screen, the image of him frowning down at her when they’d been studying together for their midterms before, telling her to get off her phone.
The second reason being that she doesn’t need to come up with a lie. Kazuha’s not bad at mistruths – not when the situation depends on it, at least – but lying to an ex-detective, to anyone with the skills to read people down to the faintest verbal tic?
Yeah, Kazuha doesn’t fancy her chances.
“One moment,” Kazuha says, as she presses answer. Shinichi raises an eyebrow at her, but otherwise remains quiet.
Kazuha waits.
“We were bein’ followed,” Heiji says by way of greeting, “but not by anyone tha’ wants to kill us or anythin’.”
“You do realise,” Kazuha says after a moment, “that this isn’t comforting if you don’t offer me more information, right? You do know that?”
“Ahou,” Heiji hisses, before continuing, “of course I know tha’. You just didn’t let me finish. Let Kudo know Kuroba and his girlfriend are here, and he’ll see them soon.”
Kazuha pauses for a moment, processing. “What time will you get here?”
“About nine,” Heiji says. “We’ll have to leave ‘em to get caught up, we can’t stay tha’ long.”
Kazuha nods to herself. “Okay, I’ll see if I can scrounge up some extra blankets for ‘em.”
“Later,” Heiji says, as he hangs up.
Shinichi’s watching her quietly as she puts her phone away, contemplating. The tension in his shoulders has eased slightly, the ram-rod straightness of his spine easing in, not quite a slouch but something more natural, comfier.
“They broke out of the hospital and headed straight to Hattori,” he says.
“Seems like it.”
There’s a moment where Shinichi simply breathes, relaxed, before the previous tensions returns tenfold, his brows furrowing.
“What if they were followed?” He asks. “They came straight here, they’re linking Hattori–”
“We’re…” Kazuha can’t deny that it’s something worrying to consider, but she shakes her head. “They wouldn’t risk something like that. They’re on the run too.”
It seems she’s said the right thing, like Shinichi simply needed to be reminded, because he settles again without any further issue, offering a short nod.
“…Right,” Shinichi says, quietly, voice mostly a whisper. “Right. You’re right.”
Kazuha pushes up from the floor. “They won’t be here for a couple hours, so are you gonna help me search for some blankets, or what?”
#yes you know what this means - shits about to go down#DCMK#Kuroba Kaito#Kudo Shinichi#Hattori Heiji#Toyama Kazuha#Mouri Ran#Nakamori Aoko#Hakuba Saguru#KaiAo#Detective Conan#Fic: Cost of Freedom#mywriting
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aaa okay so looked at the rules and could you do their idol crush admitting that they’re their type but with yuto, wooseok and kino? 🥺
HELLO, I FINALLY DID IT, SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT.It’s almost 4AM here and I wanted to get this out in case I become unproductive again when I wake up. I was halfway through Kino’s part when I realized the reader should be gender-neutral, oops. It’s too late for me to edit it again right now, so it’s gonna stay like that. I’ll take care next time, tho.
WARNINGS: none. WORD COUNT: 842, 971, 632.
—
Yuto
“Yuto-ya,” Hui called from his spot on his tiny couch in Yuto’s studio. It’s one of his rare days-off, but he isn’t in the mood to go into the city, and staying in the dorm is too boring since everyone else is busy with their other stuff. So he just decided to tag along with Yuto to his studio and listen to him make some songs. He might even sneak in a nap or two since he hasn’t been sleeping well later—but all thoughts of sleep fly out the window as soon as he sees on his phone a newly uploaded video starring you, known in Pentagon as Yuto’s crush. “Yuto-ya, come here!” he says, tossing the stuffed teddy bear at the boy sitting by the computers.
The toy hits Yuto square in the head and he jumps, turning the seat around in confusion. “What is it, hyung?”
Hui turns the phone so the screen is visible to Yuto. “Isn’t this Y/N?”
A quick glance and, yes, it’s you. Yuto likes to think he can find you in a crowd, no matter how many hairstyle changes you gave or how much you try to blend in with your clothes, but that just comes off kind of creepy. He has watched a lot of your interviews; and you have a lot of them, being a big figure in a famous idol group. He’s just so captivated by your range, your stage presence… It just gets him breathless whenever he sees you perform.
Your group is in the middle of a comeback right now, and Yuto has been religiously keeping up with any promotional material for your group that’s been coming up, but he’s just been super focused on his music today that the only thing that shocked him out of the haze was the teddy bear thrown at his head. Yuto stares at the tiny phone screen for a second longer before getting off the office chair and squishing beside Hui on the couch that isn’t really made for someone of his size.
The video continues playing as his leader turns up the volume. Your group is sat on swivel bar chairs in a white studio set. Gosh, you look radiant, as always. The pleasantries are over and the topic has gone to the announcement your company made about being able to date openly. Yuto isn’t lying that there was a tiny spark of hope that lit up inside him when he first heard of the news. But of course, that was just wishful thinking, since he doesn’t think you actually know him anyway. Sure, you may have heard of Pentagon the group, but there isn’t as big a chance of you taking an interest in him.
Being seated on the farthest chair from the hosts, your answer is saved for last. The other members of your group dodged the question by saying they weren’t really looking to date anyone or dropping names like J.Seph from KARD or Vernon from Seventeen being their ideal type of guy. You take a second or two more to think about your answer and say, “I’d like to get to know Yuto from Pentagon more.”
“Oooohhh,” the hosts exclaim. “He’s one of the rappers isn’t he?” one of them asks.
“Yes,” you say politely, smiling. Yuto isn’t sure if you’re actually red in the face or if that’s just the blush on your cheeks. “I really like the flow of his raps, and his voice is really nice.”
“Ahh, so you’re saying you like tall guys, yes?” the other host teases.
You laugh, slightly embarrassed. “I guess? I don’t really have a type, but Yuto was the first person to pop into my head who I am really interested in and would like to get to know.”
The hosts nod in approval, and your group members seated around you slap you playfully for admitting something like that.
Hui releases a high-pitched siren sound and playfully slaps Yuto playfully on the arm with his free hand. “Do you hear that, Yuto? Seems they like you, too. I wonder if we can go to one of their recordings for this comeback, hmm… Or maybe if our comebacks coincide you can talk to them then, huh?...” Hui continues to rattle off possibilities of Yuto getting into contact with you.
Meanwhile Yuto is still staring at the screen, frozen. The video continues to play, but he isn’t registering anything. Did you really just say, out loud, with a mic on, that you want to get to know him more? Like, he isn’t hallucinating that? Those words really came out of your mouth?
His chest is tight. It burns, but it’s also light. Yuto can’t put into words the feeling. Your sentiments are intangible, and there weren’t even any promises of actually going through with meeting up or exchanging numbers…
But it made him giddy. Indescribably happy.
He lets slip the tiniest of smiles as he continues watching the video and Hui mutters to himself about possible get-togethers with your groups.
Kino
It’s been a habit of Kino lately to listen to podcasts when he gets back to the dorm, as a way to unwind after a busy day. Not because he listens to them (although he does find time to listen and pay attention some other time), but the sound of amicable voices in the sometimes empty dorm is a comforting presence.
One of the podcasts he’s been listening to lately is called Ladies’ Room. His sister told him to listen to one of the episodes, and he found the discussions fun and educational, so he decided to just follow it and he’s updated with the latest one. So when a notification pops up on his phone about a new episode with a special guest, he immediately blasted it on his Bluetooth speaker.
“Hey, guys! This is Soo Ri and you’re listening to Ladies’ Room,” the host’s voice, like a droplet of water falling into a crystal clear puddle, slithers out from the speaker. “Today, we’re talking about love and relationships with a very special guest… idol-slash-actor-slash model, Y/N!”
“Hello, everybody!” you say, in a sweet cadence like a breeze rustling windchimes.
Kino almost drops the container of microwavable tteokkbokki he’s holding and looks at his phone, scandalized, as if it personally offended him. Obviously, it wouldn’t be a stretch for you to guest in podcasts, and even less of a stretch for you to guest-host this particular podcast, but Kino is still surprised. He can’t deny that it feels nice to know that he found you so unexpectedly.
Kino can’t remember when he started taking an interest on you. There was just one time when everytime he turned on the TV he would see your face—in a commercial, a variety show, a drama, that he finally decided to check you out. And from the first music video he clicked, he was hooked on you. Your way with words, your voice, your personality all just made him really want to know you more.
He doesn’t call it a crush, although to Yuto and Wooseok, the only two other people who know about his fanaticism, it comes off that way in droves. He shakes his head and finally unfreezes, putting the tteokbokki in the microwave to heat up. His ears automatically pick up the conversation.
“I know you must be really annoyed and fed up by questions like these, since I watch a lot of your interviews and the hosts ask about it a lot,” Soo Ri begins. “But what’s your stance on ideal types—like your ideal guy, or girl—and do you have one yourself?”
“Aahh, yeah, I do get questions like that sometimes, but they’re in different contexts, so I don’t really mind them.” Kino thinks that’s a polite answer and mentally claps. He hears you take a deep breath before saying, “I don’t think having an ideal type is realistic, though. I mean, that’s what ‘ideal’ means: it’s your idea of perfection, the best. I guess it could be like a blueprint for what you want in a partner, but I don’t think it’s possible for you to be able to tick off all those boxes.”
“Oh, yeah, I get what you’re saying. That’s a really good point.”
“As for my ideal type…” You hum, seeming deep in thought, but not enough to cause dead air. “It’s not really an ‘ideal’ type,” Kino can almost hear the air quotation marks when you said the word and it makes him smile, “but Kino from Pentagon has a lot of the qualities I like in someone.”
By now, Kino had taken his food from the microwave and taken a bite. He freezes with a mouth stuffed with tteokbokki. The spicy soup stinging his lips assures him that he is definitely awake and definitely not dreaming. Did she just—?
“Yeah,” he hears, desperately trying to tune back into the conversation. “He has a very bubbly and fun personality. He’s humble and loves his members and his fans. He’s also very good at what he does—I’ve listened to some of his stuff on SoundCloud, and they’re really good,” you say, and Kino thinks he should probably start chewing before he chokes on the rice cakes. “I mean, his dancing is excellent, his voice is so nice, and he’s also super cute.”
At this, you and Soo Ri both laugh conspiratorially, as if sharing a secret only between you two, as if this podcast isn’t going to be uploaded somewhere anyone who has access to the Internet can listen to, somewhere Kino can access at a moment’s notice.
Kino’s sure his face is as red as the tteokbokki soup right now. Literally no one can see because he’s the only one in the kitchen, but his face is on fire. He continues chewing and stuffing the rice cake strips into his mouth as he spirals into a crisis. His idol crush actually likes him back? He doesn’t think you actually like him, but you did say that there’s some aspects of him you like. That’s kind of similar, right? Right?
The whine comes out garbled from his full mouth. On one hand, he feels way lighter, bouncier, more energetic at knowing that the idol he likes knows about his existence and that she actually likes things about him and openly talked about it on a podcast, oh my goodness is this really real, like no one is messing with me right now?
So Kino sits there, lost in thought as he continues spearing food with his chopsticks, thinking. About how to reach you, maybe get your number, maybe propose a tiny collaboration? Maybe? About how he’s going to act in front of you in the off-chance that you do meet, as you and Soo Ri continue chatting in the background.
Wooseok
He can’t help stealing glances at you—you look really good in this comeback, and it takes everything for Wooseok to not be too conspicuous and focus on the interview that coincidentally has Pentagon and your group as guests. He’d like to think it’s a dream, but really, it feels more like a nightmare because he’s seated right next to you and his members literally won’t stop looking back and giving him mischievous smiles, or turning their chairs towards your group and making small talk, trying to drag him into the conversation and he feels like a fool because he seems incapable of replying with more than two-syllable words.
And it somehow gets worse during the segments. Not that the hosts are bad—they’re really good hosts. It’s just that there’s a segment where they read selected fan mail, so they would all have to answer it because they don’t really want to disappoint the fans by deflecting. The first few were harmless: what food they like eating during summer, if you were an animal what would you be? But then it went from zero to 100 real quick as the third question is read by your group’s leader, “Which idol is your ideal type?”
Everyone can’t help but make exclamations, oohs and ahs as they think of an appropriate answer. The hosts are gracious and give everyone ten seconds or so to come up with their answers before coaxing out some people’s. Eventually the line snaked to you and you timidly replied, “Wooseok-sunbae,” while avoiding his eyes.
If Wooseok could see himself in a mirror, he would see his eyes bug out and threatening to pop from their sockets, mouth desperately pursing to prevent the huge smile forming on his face. He doesn’t know how to react—what should he do, Cube didn’t train them for this. He needs help and Shinwon keeps slapping his thigh and arm like that isn’t the most obvious thing to do when they’re being filmed.
He can tell you’re embarrassed. You’re facing the hosts, your back to Wooseok, though he’s assuming your face is super red right now, and it’s not because of the blush. He kind of just wants this to be over so you can have a reprieve, but the hosts (being hosts), ask you to elaborate.
“Um, he’s a really great rapper, and he seems really caring,” you say softly. “I watched a program with him once taking care of his cats, and I thought it was really cute.” Wooseok recalls that show and his chest loosens slightly at the mention of it, touched that you remember that tiny segment he did. He really loves his cat, and he’s not gonna admit it, but he likes that your takeaway from the program is that he looks cute playing with tiny animals.
“Ooh, yes, we love guys who are nice to animals,” one of the hosts says, and turns directly to Wooseok. “Wooseok-sshi, since she mentioned you, we’ll leave you for last, okay? So we can properly build up the hype for the viewers back at home.” The boy nods; at least this gives him time to think of nice things to say to you amidst the flurry of thoughts running through his head at the moment.
He imagines talking to you after filming is over and exchanging numbers. He imagines hanging out with you if you have any free time. He imagines maybe doing a small collaboration with you, wishes it were possible. The images he conjures up make him smile, even if he is still kind of embarrassed—he was never one of the cucumber-cool members of the group—but he decides that since you threw yourself off the boat, he might as well throw himself off and join you.
#pentagon#Anonymous#pentagon yuto#pentagon kino#pentagon hyunggu#pentagon wooseok#yuto#kino#hyunggu#wooseok#pentagon yuto scenario#pentagon kino scenario#pentagon hyunggu scenario#pentagon wooseok scenario#adachi yuto#kang kino#kang hyunggu#jung wooseok#yuto scenario#kino scenario#hyunggu scenario#wooseok scenario#pentagon scenarios#universe net#uninet#pentagon imagine#fic: yuto#fic: kino#fic: wooseok#fic: not spicy
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Birds- Tenry/ Teddison Fic
Once, there was a woman that Teddy Altman loved, and was taken away from her. There was a man that she loved and lost too, but not before she had a chance to share her most secret story with him. Tenry/ Teddison. Teddy loved Henry so I decided to remember him, even though canon certainly won't.
Set right after Put Me In, Coach (season 8 episode 7). Rating is MT. Hope you enjoy!
read on ff.net- here read on AO3- here
*******
It is funny how liquor can give you courage.
Teddy knows she is not suddenly braver than she had been just a few hours ago, but she had had a few too many sips from the flask Grey brought to the field, and the substance (tequila, if she can guess, knowing the resident’s drink of choice) has worked like a magical drug.
She is not drunk, just a little light-headed, and she is smiling into the kiss as Henry’s fingertips strike her lower back gently beneath her blue baseball jersey shirt.
She has been meaning to tell him for a while now, meaning to poke around the one wound that never really healed properly, and as a doctor, she thinks never will. She never found the right time until today, the words almost rolling off of her tongue but then stopping just by her lips. Yet something about this night, this moment, feels somewhat final, and she is afraid that if she won’t speak tonight he will never know her story.
So she takes a deep breath and all the boldness she can master before breaking the kiss and whispering “Henry”.
He hums in response to hearing his own name, his eyes still close and his forehead leaning against hers, and she can feel him trying to catch his breath.
“There is something I need to tell you.” She opens her eyes as she feels the hand on her back stills and his warm body drifting just slightly away.
Teddy can see every thought that courses through her husband’s mind in his deep green eyes. He is afraid that their happy little marriage bubble has finally popped, and that something horrible is on its way, something that might break them.
“Is everything OK?” He asks, trying to hide the little tremor in his voice, in a manner of a man who is used to getting more bad news than good ones.
“Every single thing is perfect.” Teddy reassures him, as she wraps her arms around his neck and her fingers slide into the hair on the back of his head. “There is something I need to share with you, and I am afraid that if I won’t say it now, I might keep it inside of me for the rest of my life.”
Henry nods, before interlacing their fingers and sitting on the couch behind him.
“Not here” She whispers, pulling him up from the sofa. “Bedroom,” she orders “and take these off of us, slowly, please.” For some unknown reason, the idea of being naked as she unravels her truth makes her feel slightly more comfortable, like if they are both physically vulnerable , it will make her feel just a bit safer as she tells him the story she had never told to a living soul before.
The surgeon closes her eyes as her husband does exactly as she asked him to. He guides her to their bedroom, where he slowly puts her down on the bed, as if she was some kind of a delicate princess. Their shoes and coats were already long gone, abandoned somewhere near the door of their brand new apartment, yet he takes his sweet time getting her undressed, and if she hadn't been the one asking him to do exactly so, she would have called it agonizing.
First goes their shirts, then their pants and underwear, until they are both left lying in that bed, naked as the day they were born, nothing but their own skins between them, two souls wandering, clinging, desperate to be one.
He lies half on top of her, his head rested on her naked abdomen, and with every breath she takes she feels the weight of him grounding her, reassuring her that she is safe and loved in a world that has been so lonely and cruel to her for so many years.
Her hands start to wander down Henry’s body, and it is easier for her than to start speaking, for she knows that in the moment she will reopen that old scar, her blood will start shedding out of it.
“Teddy” there’s somewhat a warning to his voice. “If you want to talk before we do anything else, you need to keep those hands to yourself, otherwise we will do a lot of things that don’t involve much talking.” She smiles, as if she was a kid getting scolded for stealing a candy from the grocery store.
She feels his weight lifting off of her, then she hears him say “Come here” as he leans against the headboard.
Now her head is resetting on his chest, as he coaxes her “ Please, tell me what is troubling that genius mind of yours. Whatever it is, I promise you I can handle it.”
She feels his hands on her lower back again, painting an unknown pattern, and she frowns as she inquires “How is that a fair game? I wasn’t allowed to touch you but you get to have your way with me?”
“Because I want to make sure that you know I am here, holding you, no matter what.”
They lie there, in their little silent bubble, for what feels like a small forever, before she finds it in herself to talk about the best and the worst time of her life.
“Birds.” Teddy says softly, and a small smile is spreading across her face as the first tear rolls down her cheek. “That was the first thing I noticed when I first met Allison Robin Brown. I was looking down at a map as I was crossing the bicycle lane, and she was riding her bike, it was a too hot for the season fall day in 1998. I don’t even remember why I needed the map, I am a New York born and raised.”
The tears are rolling down her face now, full steam ahead, and there is no trace left of that smile that appeared just a minute ago. She knows he can feel her tears on his body, so she props herself up on her elbows, looking deep into those loving green eyes, and she prays silently that he will continue to look at her the same way after she is done with her story. That he will still see her the same way he always did, ever since the moment they met in the surgical wing elevator.
“I looked up and said ‘get those birds out of my way, Pollyanna’ and then I noticed the army boots she was wearing and her floral dress. A frown that turned into a smile as our glances met, a set of big brown eyes and a head full of curly, messy hair. And I have never felt that way before when I looked at someone for the first time. It was like I was punched straight in the stomach, like someone physically robbed the air out of my lounges.”
“This was the moment I fell in love with her, yet it took me so long to admit that to myself. And there hasn’t been a day since that I haven't thought, what would have happened if I had let myself love her, fully, unapologetically, just a day earlier.”
She goes silent then, and when she looks at him, she figures she had done it once more. This gorgeous man, lying naked in her bed, had fallen in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her, and it took her so long to admit to herself, and to him, that she had fallen for him too.
Yet he says nothing, gives her the so needed breathing room, because they both know tonight is not about their relationship, but about a relationship left buried in the ashes of a national tragedy. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. And when she asked me to move in with her and her girlfriend, Clair, just a few days later, I couldn’t bring myself to say no, even though there was a little green monster raising its ugly head inside of me every time I saw them acting like a couple.”
“So I pushed that emotion down, and I convinced myself that we were just best friends, and that I thought Clair was just not good enough for her. That was obviously the furthest thing away from the truth. Clair was a surgeon, just like me, and she was kind and funny. Practically the perfect girlfriend.”
She goes silent again, just for a minute. It's not like she has to recall those events, she remembers them as vividly as if they had happened just yesterday, and probably will remember them long after she forgets her own name.
She has met her fair share of people who lost their loved ones. She lost her own two parents, and she knows that memories of people you loved and lost fade. The sound of their voice, their smell, the color of their eyes. Time heals and earases. But not when it comes to Allison, never when it comes to Allison. Her regrets will never let her forget, even though forgetness might have numbed the pain pressing down on her chest, every minute of every hour of every day of every year since she had been taken away from her.
Henry gives her an encouraging nod, and she continues. “Until one night I just couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I was jealous. And not just jealous of them having the perfect relationship while I was single. I was jealous of Clair going to sleep every night and waking up every morning in the bed of the woman I love. Clair was pulling an all nighter at the hospital that night, and I had to down two glasses of wine before gathering the courage to talk to my best friend, if you can believe that.”
Teddy smiles, then she feels the salty taste of her own tears in her mouth.
“I was the one going to sleep in Allison’s arms that night, and when we were lying there in her bed after we had sex for the first time… The only equivalent I can think about to that feeling would be using heroine, or something of that sort. So for a long time after, I lied to myself it was just the rush of sneaking behind everyone’s backs, the rush of exploring my sexuallity, the rush I felt when she did all those things to my body I didn’t even know were possible. I was so good at self manipulating at that time that I almost had myself fooled. I never managed to get Allison to believe me though, and she had never pushed. She would whisper into my ear that she loved me, but I couldn’t admit just how much I loved her back, not out loud and not even to myself.”
“Because you see, Henry, my love for you is like a ship finally finding a harbor. You are my safe haven. You make me so happy, and you make me feel secure and content. And I love you, with all of my heart and all of my soul. But when I finally let everything that kept me chained go, and let myself really fall in love with Allison, I finally understood why they call it falling in love. I felt, and still feel my love for her with my whole body. I feel my love for her in every one of my 206 bones. It physically hurts, even as she was still alive.
“Loving Allison Robbin Brown was a constant rush of adrenaline in my veins. I loved her to such an extreme, that I felt as if I was facing death everyday, and everyday I was winning. It felt like a stream of electricity rushing through my veins every time I was around her. I have never loved anyone, man or a woman, to such extent, never before, and never ever since. We had this pillowtalk, on September 10th 2001, and we promised ourselves that we would tell Clair the next day, and that we will start a life of our own, together. And on September 11th, 2001, I went to the hospital, and she went to work at the south tower. And it was a perfectly normal day, until it wasn’t anymore. What’s funny, you know, is that I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. I had to get into the hospital early in that morning, and I didn’t want to wake her up and rob whatever was left of her sleeping hours.”
She notices her husband cries with her right now, big fat tears rolling down his eyes, and she loves him for that. She loves him for feeling everything so deeply, exactly as she does.
“I’m sorry.” He says, rubbing the tears away from his face with the back of his hands.
“Don’t be.” She pushes herself up his body, and places a soft kiss on Henry’s lips. “I want you to promise me you will never be sorry for whatever it is you are feeling.” She raises a brow, and waits for him to say the words she wants to hear.
“I promise.” He says, and she notices he still cries as she slides down the bed back to her place.
“So when the city heard that loud and awful noise of the metal and concrete monster finally giving in at 9:59 AM on that Tuesday, I felt my heart giving in with it. I felt numb, but at the very same time I felt everything. Sad and confused, and so angry I saw the world in a fire-like shade of red. And when I realized I will never see her again, I was ready to go and be with her. I was ready to take my own life, and some of me is still there. I left a part of myself in that crappy New York City apartment, standing in front of the sink, sleeping pills that I stole from the hospital in my hand, ready to join the love of my life. I never took a single pill.”
“Suddenly, I had this crazy idea. I had to stay alive and avenge Allison’s death in the best way I could think of.I went and enlisted, and I was on my way to training the next day. I didn’t even stick around to attend her funeral. I never looked back, and I promised myself that I would never step foot in the city that was supposed to be my home, but failed me so badly and took the person I loved the most, the city that robbed me from everything I had.”
Teddy climbs up the bed again, and presses her lips to Henry’s. “I carried the weight of this story alone for ten years, and on some days, it felt like I was carrying the weight of the whole entire world on my shoulders. Until today. Thank you for listening, and loving me for who I am.”
She kisses him again, a bit more fire this time. He places a hand on her shoulder to push her back, just a little bit, just enough to allow him to talk. “You made me promise I would stop apologizing, so I just say thank you. Thank you for trusting me enough to share this story. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for letting me love you.”
“Henry” she sobs. “Can you please make me feel something else other than the paralyzing pain in my chest?”
He nods, and then wraps her in his arms.
They both cry as they make love that night, and if a different name slips out of her lips as she comes, the name of a woman she loves, forever frozen in time, well, he doesn’t say a thing about it, and neither does she.
#grey's anatomy#teddy altman#henry burton#allison brown#grey's anatomy fanfic#teddison#tenry#tenry fic#teddy x henry#teddy x allison#my fics#angst#hurt and comfort
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Like, a summary of the plot and what happened in it? Or a retelling if you want to. I’m rlly curious. Oh this is rp Anon
for as far as we got up to before we stopped roleplaying it, the rp itself spanned over i think... 5 years. here’s a timeline with a brief description of what happens where.
i’m explaining the whole roleplay here, not just claus and giygas, and it’s also been a while (this was done over voice, not text) so bear with me.
i’ll add whatever doodles i had done of things that happened.
the rp takes place post-mother 3, like, immediately so. lucas wakes up once the world has been reset via the dragon and starts just, well, sadly going about his business. it’s only when -- i believe -- someone caught wind that someone was inside of the graveyard. when lucas went, it was actually claus, who had been brought back to life somehow after his death. they check to see if lucas’ wish fully came true, only to find that hinawa had not been brought back as well. (lucas wished for everything to return back to him... which included his brother and mother.)
soon after that, more strange sightings started. first was ninten, who promptly found ana being attacked by zombies in the graveyard. i don’t remember where lloyd came in. this is under the assumption that teddy had died at the end of mother 1. ninten has no clue how they got there, as they were just coming down mt. itoi from fighting giegue.
the earthbound crew was next; ness washing up from the beach, and honest to god i don’t remember where the other 3 appeared from. ness and co were taken from just after ness awakening to his powers in magicant.
the last person to appear out of nowhere was locria, of all people. not even they knew why or how they were alive.
that’s a lie, whoops. porky also was no longer in his weird orb thing or whatever. yeah, that spooks lucas and co. ness is confused as to why pokey is here too and why people are calling him porky. and why they’re so damn scared of him, of all things.
uhh.... blah blah, don’t remember stuff, probably a few weeks pass or whatever. yes, ness gets painfully homesick. no, they haven’t figured out a solution yet. they still don’t know how are why they all got here at all or why monsters are still appearing from everywhere.
i believe.... the next major plotpoint was that dr. andonuts managed to build/rebuild a replica time machine that the earthbound squad used to go and fight giygas fair and square, hoping that that’d set everything right again. they think they manage to defeat him, as he disappears at the end of the battle. they come back more or less safely.
very, very soon after they return claus starts to feel ill. like, really ill. in fact, he ends up shrieking in pain and ultimately shutting down without warning. i think dr. andonuts didn’t really find anything wrong with him, just that he overheated, but he couldn’t find a reason why.
once claus reawakens, he starts having weird thoughts, like a voice in the back of his head. strange deaths start to happen in tazmily, but nobody knows how or why. claus ultimately blames ninten and co for it, where ninten immediately lashes back out at him saying something really nasty, like “why should we trust you anyway? you worked under the enemy and served as their robot slave.” ninten, unfortunately, doesn’t even know why he said this and well, they kind of have a big fight. it would have ended poorly if ana hadn’t have stepped in when she did.eventually, claus starts to notice these weird things happening to himself. he tries to talk to lucas about it in his fear, but, well....
....yeah, that’s where this comic came from. claus literally shuts down without warning when he tries to say anything. ana even mentions soon enough that she feels a horrible evil energy radiating from claus and expresses her concern.
yadda yadda, again don’t remember these bits... i believe they do eventually realize that, somehow, giygas has taken shelter inside of claus. giygas is still weak of course, so he’s not able to do much other than slightly influence claus using his more mechanical parts.
for some wack ass reason, locria shows up. they tell lucas and co. off saying that they’re not here to cause any kind of issue, just mentioning that the only thing they hate more than them was giygas for destroying magicant. they offer to seal giygas away, and after much inner turmoil, claus agrees and inevitably gets stabbed with a needle to seal him away. the seal is then kept in osohe castle.
and for 4 years, it stays there. monsters still appear but are far less aggressive and don’t appear as often. claus doesn’t hear a peep from giygas during this time, and everyone typically spends their time just trying to find a way to get the mother 1 + 2 crew back to their proper timelines. they don’t succeed. (irrelevant to the plot, but ninten + ana get together as well as lucas + ness.)
during these years, giygas had been recovering his energy again. of course, it required far more to even try and sneak his power out from the seal, but inevitably he does. using claus’ self-doubt and self-loathing, giygas managed to influence him enough to pull the needle while he’s not thinking correctly. locria doesn’t sense the danger until it’s too late, and inevitably they fade back away.
giygas is now in complete control of claus. all claus can do is watch from the back of his mind as his own body does such unspeakable things.
after this, claus, the egg of light, and lloyd all go missing. it’s easy to assume why claus and the egg of light are missing (the egg contains all the information giygas wants after all), but nobody knew how or why lloyd went missing.
some time passes. giygas is eventually located and at first a small group goes to scout ahead while the others deal with another issue, probably all the monsters overrunning tazmily. ness is the first to find him, and ends up having to fight him alone -- which ends very, very poorly. ness gets sucked back into (earthbound’s) magicant, where giygas manages to completely shatter his mind into pieces, rendering the boy completely emotionless and unable to do anything by himself.
everyone else arrives later on, and there’s a huge fight between everyone and giygas, who is now puppeteering ness. it only ends when everyone realizes they need to retreat, as most of everyone takes near-fatal damage in the fight. i believe ninten and poo manage to teleport everyone back, where lucas realizes in horror that they left ness behind. or something. they left someone behind. lucas learns how to use teleport here, since everyone else is far too exhausted to do it again. when they come back, giygas and ness are gone.
more time passes. still, nobody knows where giygas, ness, or lloyd are. lucas at this point is uh... not feeling too hot, and tensions are at an all-time high. during this time there’s a scene where giygas and ness are taking residence in whatever the heck lab is in mother 3 (sorry it’s been a while), and lloyd shows up, presenting the egg of light to giygas. giygas realizes he doesn’t know how to pull the information out of the egg and just shoves it off onto ness to hold onto for a while.
oh yeah, i forgot something related to porky happened here. i don’t remember how it ended, but giygas encountered porky here, who reveals that he has done the unthinkable -- he’s gone back in time to literally steal his younger self’s body so that he’s far more flexible again.
that’s more important than it sounds. because, using the egg of light’s power, queen maria manages to reach the depths of ness’ mind still somehow tucked away and rotting and guides him back to his robot body to help him fix all of this.
eventually giygas figures he needs to seek out the guardian of the egg of light, who happens to be kumatora. he more or less just shows up on their doorstep and threatens to kill everyone if she doesn’t. he nearly does, too, because kumatora doesn’t know how to open the egg either, but in her distress as duster is beginning to die away from giygas’ attacks, she manages to get it open somehow. giygas ultimately releases duster to grab the egg, leaving him still alive, albeit barely.
i don’t remember how, but one of the robot bodies that dr. andonuts made shows up and shoves the puppet ness away from everyone, stopping him from killing them all. giygas commands puppet ness to get rid of it, and the two duke it out for a while, before the robot casts a really high level of starstorm and just absolutely knocks puppet ness the fuck out. the robot then walks over, grabs the hat that puppet ness dropped, and sticks it on his head, signifying that he’s ness’ mind taking residence there.
giygas decides he needs to take measures into his own hands and tries to dip into the robot’s mind again like he had done with ness before to try and squish out that dying light. it’s here that he finds that it’s maria herself that is protecting ness, and giygas simply cowers in fear and despair from her. robot ness is able to deliver the final blow on him, knocking giygas right back into the deep recesses of claus’ mind. ness is able to merge back into his proper body.
surprisingly, this is the part where i start remembering less... even though it’s the most recent stuff that happened. i think there was another little time skip? not too big of one, though. during this time, more and more chimeras start appearing and attacking tazmily rather than just all the random beings being overly aggressive. ness and lucas go out somewhere in the mountains together, only for the two of them to end up stuck in moonside somehow.
ness and lucas get separated here, but using that one dude from earthbound who fucking died in moonside’s guidance, lucas manages to find ness and get them both out of moonside.
except, when they return, nobody can see ness. and... there’s another ness still in tazmily? we’ll call them ghost!ness and other!ness. yeah, there’s a lot of nesses in this rp. lucas doesn’t quite trust other!ness, believing that it’s some sort of moonside trick and he’s there to hurt everyone. but of course, nobody believes lucas that ghost!ness is even there or exists.
eventually, after ninten and ana figure out that they can see ghost!ness, they use the method of a pop quiz and find out that ghost!ness is the fake one after all. it’s far too late, though, because ghost!ness drags the whole gang straight into moonside together, revealing himself to actually be moonside!ness, the new manimani that porky made using giygas’ power he’d captured long ago.
and.... that’s about as far as we got. we stopped right when everyone entered moonside and never returned to the roleplay.
if you have any further questions or want specifications for stuff, just ask? i’m happy to talk about it, haha. i hope at least most things made sense.
#long post#hrngh#idk how to tag this#oh but i managed to recover it all. i was being dramatic i only lost 914 words#but this still ended up being nearly 2k#anonymous
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We Fell In Love In October: Part Three: The End
Summary: Billy and Teddi celebrate Halloween in 1986.
A/N: Happy Halloween everyone! The end of the mini series is here! This was a bit more fluffy than I had intended, but is that really a bad thing? Hope you enjoy!
“Will you quit unbuttoning your shirt?” Teddi asked with a huff. “He doesn’t have it unbuttoned in the movie, Billy.” She reached forward and buttoned up the remaining buttons on Billy’s dark blue plaid shirt. Billy was pouting down at her.
“If I button them all I look like a fucking dork,” He argued. He turned to look at himself in the full length mirror that sat in their bedroom, adjusting his red jacket with a frown.
Teddi had gone to goodwill once a week for the last two months until she finally found all of the pieces for their costumes. Billy had finally caved and agreed to be Jack and Wendy Torrence from The Shining. Considering the incident with the mindflayer had made Billy go full Overlook, Teddi thought it would be a funny choice (plus, she had actually hit him with a baseball bat).
Billy and Teddi stood side by side, looking back at their reflections. They looked older, Teddi realized. Like somehow they were peering into their futures. “...We look like we should own a farm.” Billy muttered.
Teddi let out a snort, softly elbowing him in the side. “We’d make pretty hot farmers.” she joked.
“Obviously.” the doorbell rang. Teddi hurried out to the front door, and Billy could hear her greeting all of the trick or treaters and complimenting each of their costumes as she handed out candy. Billy picked up his flask, stashing it in the pocket inside his jacket and heading out to meet her.
He would have been perfectly happy lounging out on the couch with a stack of horror movies, ordering a pizza and handing out candy. But there was a Halloween festival in town that Teddi had been looking forward to all month. So he agreed to wear the couples costume and pig out on funnel cake and caramel apples.
Billy didn’t miss the girl with short, golden brown hair dressed as Madonna at the door. He didn’t need to see Teddi’s face to know the girl reminded her of El. The group of kids thanked Teddi and ran off. Teddi shut the door, turning back with a glazed over look in her eyes. She quickly smiled when she saw Billy watching her.
“You can always call her when you get home, you know.” he said, wrapping an arm around her.
“I know...maybe. I don’t wanna annoy her,” Billy knew that wasn’t possible. “We should head out before the trick or treaters start to pick up.” she suggested. Maybe it was time for them to take a trip up to visit the Byers. Maybe he could call Joyce and surprise Teddi. Tell her they were going somewhere else entirely.
The pair headed out to the Camaro and Billy flicked on the radio. He groaned when Teddi’s Halloween mixtape came on, the Monster Mash playing loudly. She giggled beside him, running her fingers through his curls, tucking some behind his ear and laying her head on his shoulder. “It’s one night, Hargrove.” she reminded him.
The Halloween festival was bigger than Billy had been expecting from a town like Hawkins. It reminded him a little of the boardwalk back in San Diego. The janky rides and colorful food stalls. He was hit with a wave of memories. All the dates he’d taken to the boardwalk to make himself look good. He liked to win whatever girl he was taking out that week lots of those cheap stuffed animals to impress her and help seal the deal when it came to fooling around in the back of the Camaro afterwards. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him a little homesick.
“Billy, look,” Teddi said, excitedly grabbing his hand and squeezing it. She was pointing over at a ride called Dante’s Inferno. It was some tacky dark ride that Billy guessed was supposed to be some sort of torture chamber in hell. It had two levels to it, and a large, red demon that grinned down evilly at anyone approaching the ride. “We totally have to go on that. It’s so lame.” she laughed.
It was lame. The car was almost too small for the two of them. It had ratty old green seats and grotesque faces carved into the sides of it. Billy guessed it was enough to probably scare some kids, but it all looked almost comical to him. Teddi linked her arm with his tightly as the car took off with a jolt. Billy looked over at her, smiling at the nervous but somehow still excited expression on her face.
Billy didn’t really understand much of what they saw inside. There was a track of loud, howling wind and evil laughter playing on loop. Every few feet a generic, “scary” animatronic would light up and go off as they passed. Billy reached over and tickled Teddi on the side a few times, timing it with the animatronic to scare her. She fell for it each time, squealing and jumping before slapping his hands away. “You’re such an asshole.” she laughed, trying to squirm away from him.
They were both laughing as they stumbled away from the ride. Billy slowed to a stop, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the scene in front of him. “...Isn’t that your boss?” he asked, looking over at Teddi. She frowned and looked over. There was Keith standing over by the ticket booth. He was dressed as Jason Voorhees, shifting nervously and looking around as if he were looking for someone.
“Yeah...huh. I can’t believe he’s he-...oh my god. Is that Cheryl?” she didn’t need to ask. It was definitely Cheryl Burns. She was dressed as the Queen of Hearts. Her strawberry blonde hair was swaying back and forth as she sauntered over to Keith, giving him a seductive smile that Billy was all too familiar with before running her hands up Keith’s chest.
Billy and Teddi looked over at each other, speechless. “...Am I finally going insane, or does Cheryl Burns have her leg wrapped around Keith and her tongue down his throat?” Teddi asked, blinking wildly.
“Well...to be fair he’s probably the only guy in town that she hasn’t slept with,” he said, attempting to joke. He was way too weirded out to find it funny. “Forget the Mind Flayer, that is the weirdest thing I’m ever gonna see,” he said with a shudder. “...How come you don’t kiss me like that in public?”
Teddi let out a loud scoff, rolling her eyes and glaring over at Billy. “Why don’t I kiss you like your ex girlfriend?”
“Technically she was never my girl-” Teddi cut him off by putting her hand over his mouth.
“Please don’t finish that sentence.” she groaned.
Billy wrapped his arm around Teddi and pulled her close, burying his face in her neck. “C’mon, Larsson. You’re not allowed to be pissed at me tonight. It’s our anniversary.” he said with a grin.
Teddi raised her eyebrow, trying her best not to smile. “Oh is it?”
“Of course. Two years ago today you fell in love with me at Tina’s Halloween party, remember?” he turned Teddi around to face him, smirking down at her as his hands rested on her lower back.
Teddi couldn’t fight her smile anymore. She wrapped her arms around Billy’s neck, grinning up at him. “Technically I fell in love with the kissing. It took me a little while to fall in love with the rest of you.” she teased. If you asked Teddi the moment she’d fallen in love with Billy she wouldn’t be able to tell you. It felt like she had woken up one morning and realized she was in love with him.
“Technicalities,” he scoffed. Billy leaned down to kiss her, his hand weaving its way up through her hair. It was longer than it had been when they met, and it was back to its natural sandy color. Teddi smiled against his lips, pressing herself closer to him.
“Maybe you’re right,” she sighed happily. “God, I hate how charming you can be sometimes.” that was a lie. Teddi linked her fingers with Billy’s pulling him over to the colorful and brightly lit food stalls. The smell of funnel cake batter and powdered sugar was making Teddi’s mouth water.
“I was thinking...maybe we should go on a road trip,” Billy suggested after they had purchased their dessert. Teddi ripped a chunk of dough that was almost too big for her mouth and ate it. “We’ve been talking about it for awhile.” he reminded her.
Teddi eyed him carefully while she munched on her funnel cake. “Yeah, but where do you wanna go?”
Billy shrugged, taking a bite for himself. He licked the powdered sugar off his fingers while he thought. “...You let me worry about that part,” he finally said. He’d never been very good at lying to Teddi. The more simple the lie was the better the chance he had at keeping her off his trail. “What do you say, Larsson?”
Teddi didn’t take long to think it over. She didn’t need to. The two of them had been talking about taking a nice, long road trip for over a year. It was long overdue. Time for just the two of them. “Just tell me when,” she said with a shrug and a smile.
Teddi ended up convincing Billy to go on a few more of the rides. Each one seemed even cheesier than the last. They ate fair food until they nearly got sick, and took turns sneaking drinks from Billy’s flask. Billy won Teddi a small army of those tacky, cheap stuffed animals from the game stalls. On the way back to the car she could barely keep the large pumpkin, dracula, little devil and a genuinely creepy looking teddy bear in her arms.
“Thanks for going, Billy.” she mumbled sleepily, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Any time, Weird Girl,” he didn’t think she heard him. Teddi was already asleep, most likely from a sugar crash after all the junk food. Hawkins was pretty quiet. All of the trick or treaters had gone home for the night, and the only people Billy saw out and about where a few costumed adults stumbling out of house parties.
He pulled into the driveway of their little house, where the pumpkins they had carved were still glowing on the porch and got out of the car. Billy opened Teddi’s door, reaching over her to undo her seatbelt and easily picking her up. All of her prizes fell out of her arms and onto the floor of the Camaro. Except the evil looking teddy bear, Billy noticed with a groan. “C’mon, Larsson. Bed time.” he mumbled, carrying her inside.
Teddi took a deep breath in as she woke up, squinting as she took in her surroundings. “I gotta make a phone call, okay? You gonna be alright getting yourself in bed?” he asked. She rubbed the backs of her eyes roughly and nodded before he set her down. Billy disappeared into the living room. Teddi was too dazed to hear what he was saying on the phone or wonder who he was talking to.
She made quick work of changing into her pajamas, leaving her costume in a pile on the floor before crawling back into bed and hugging the bear Billy had won for her close. She was asleep again by the time Billy made his way back into their bedroom. Joyce had picked up on the second ring. Billy could hear Will and El in the background talking animatedly about some movie they were watching. When he told her his plan, Joyce had been all for it. She told him they could stay in Johnathan’s room for as long as they wanted since he was away at school, and she promised to keep it a secret from Teddi.
If you asked Billy the moment he’d fallen in love with Teddi he wouldn’t be able to tell you. One minute she was driving him up the wall and the next he felt like he’d do anything to keep her happy...she still could drive him up the wall. There wouldn’t be any changing that.
Billy changed and slid into bed next to Teddi. He grimaced down at the black teddy bear in her arms, with its red eyes and fanged smile, and wrapped his arm around Teddi’s middle. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Happy Halloween, Teddi.”
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Controlling a marionette Part 2
Edited by: @blog-griffin-me <3 <3 <3
Summary: Robbie sleep like a rock through out the rest of the day and the night. Chase on the other hand did not.
After yesterday, Henrik looked much better. His hair and nails were cut, and Marvin must have used a spell of some kind because all the bruises and scratches on his face were gone. He was still skinner than a rail but at least he didn’t look like he was about to die.
He was wearing his usual doctor outfit and a surgeon's mask.
“Hey, doc. You doing alright?” Chase greeted.
“I’m doing better.” He pulls him into a small hug.
“You heading somewhere?”
“I’m going to introduce myself to this new doctor.” He growls a bit under his breath, letting go of him.
“Well good luck with that. Oh, by the way, have you seen Marvin?”
“I think he said he was going to a graveyard or something,” He said before disappearing up the stairwell.
Chase gulped. So he really was serious.
***
“Why are you being so cryptic?” Chase asked, following the magician around. He kept shoving books and other things Chase didn’t want to know about into his arms without explanation.
“I’m trying to explain just follow me.” They navigated the cemetery carefully, trying not to bump into or knock over any grave markers.
They stopped in front of one of the gravestones. Chase recognized the name on it.
“Robert McLoughlin.” They read in unison.
“Why are we stopping here? And will you tell me why we are here again?”
Marvin grabbed the book from the top of the stack Chase was carrying and opened to a ribbon bookmark. “Well you know with Henrik’s return and JJ’s appearance we’ll need more protection, right? Like a guardian of sorts.”
“And you plan to raise the dead to protect us.” Chase said, not liking how the dots connected.
“Attaboy!” Marvin cheered.
“Where do I even start.” He places the books on the ground.
“You can start by standing back, when I cast a spell.”
He steps back, slightly ducking behind a tombstone. “Why do you need so many books, if the spells in that one book?”
Marvin hums. “If this spell doesn’t work I can try one from one of the other books.”
Everything goes eerily quiet as he begins reading. His eyes glow, his long hair floated around. The wind blew harder, swirling around them, knocking Chase’s hat off and carrying it away.
Once he finished, everything settled down. There was a long silence, only broken by Marvin clapping his book shut and tossing it on the pile.
“Welp, next book it-” He didn’t finish. The ground rumbled, and a greyish purple hand shot out of the ground. Chase screeched, Marvin laughed.
Both of them backed up, the magician grabbing the others arm to keep him from bolting.
A second hand popped up and out crawled a small, almost child sized zombie. He was wearing a striped sweater, with long stretched out sleeves. In his hand he held a small, worn down teddy bear.
They were both dumbstruck.
“D-did you check how old Robert was when he died?” Chase questioned.
“I-it seems I didn’t…”
The zombie looked around, looking scared and timid. They both knew they couldn’t just leave him there and neither of them were going to put him back into the grave.
“This changes some things,” Marvin mumbled, keeping a nervous smile on this face.
“What are we going to do?”
“Take him with us, hope no one asks too many questions and hope Anti doesn’t try anything.” He half-sighs half-groans.
The zombie finial seemed to talk notice of them and jumped backwards, tripping over his own gravestone. He let out a wail, and started crying, triggering Chase’s parental instinct.
The father rushes forward. “Hey, hey, Robbie. It’ll be okay.” He pulls him up, patting his head.
The magician couldn’t help bursting into laughter. “One- one second ago you were terrified of that thing-” he pauses, trying to gain control of himself, “-and the next you’ve adopted it!” He wheezes.
He scoffs. “Please, I wasn’t terrified, just a bit startled. And I haven’t adopted him!”
“Please, that’s what they all say. You give him a nickname in the first three minutes of his existence.” He whips a tear from his eye.
“I give a lot of people a nickname in the first three seconds of their existence! You gave JJ’s his after only a minute and-a-half.”
“Come on, Jameson Jackson, JJ was just common sense.”
Robbie glanced between them multiple times during this this exchange. Clinging onto Chase.
“Okay this argument is stupid, let’s go home,” Marvin said, swooping up his books.
“Agreed, let’s go.”
***
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly depending on how you look at it, no one noticed or mentioned Robbie. Guess when you live with this group of weirdos nothing surprises you anymore.
The only person who even reacted to Robbie, besides JJ who just seemed very confused, was Henrik, and that had more to do with germaphobia than the fact that Chase had a zombie clinging to his arm. Speaking of Henrik-
“OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYE!!??” Marvin dumped his books on the floor and ran to explain the clear black eye the doctor had. “What- what did you do?”
“Calm down! I just got into a fight.” He attempted to brush it off, but Marvin wasn’t having it.
“Who did this! I’ll kill them!”
Robbie filenched and hid behind Chase. He gave the zombie a sympathetic look.
“Hey Marv, aren’t you overreacting a bit? I means he’s a full grown man.” As much as he worried about the doc, he knew how powerful he was.
“You stay out of this!” Marvin nearly hissed.
“It was Dr. Jack. He was in my chair, I shoved him, he punched me, it grew from there.”
“I knew it, we should’ve never trusted that little shit! Did he hurt you anywhere else?” He growls under his breath. “I swear I’ll kill him.”
“As much as much I’d love for you to kill that poor excuse for a doctor, he’s still one of us. And no he didn’t hurt me.” He grabbed onto the magicians waist before he could run off and do something stupid.
“Chase, go find a place for Robbie to stay. Henrik, you’re staying with me till I figure out how to fix that bruise.” Neither of them fought with him.
Chase supposed he could make a makeshift bed out of the bean bag he had and some blankets. He opened the door and jumped back in shock.
Jameson was standing there, snooping around. He jumps back as well, looking a little irritated.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I got a little turned around and walked into this room. I was trying to figure out whose room this was.” He grinned nervously, a second smaller slide appeared, simply reading: “Sorry.”
“It-it’s okay dude.”
Robbie stared blankly at the slides.
JJ stepped out, still looking embarrassed. Chase looked around, nothing seemed out of place so he pushed any suspicion he had aside.
He pulled out an old green bean bag and set it in the cleanest corner of his room. With a few blankets and a pillow it looked like a big nest. Robbie curled up into it and passed right out.
Chase chuckled to himself. If only his own kids would go to sleep that easily. Though he did worry, sense it was still the middle of the day, that tonight he’d have to deal with a fully charged zombie child, but that was a problem for future him.
He tried to make a mental note of where everyone was currently. Robbie was in his room. Greyson was in the kitchen and from what he knew Jameson was heading to his room. Dr. Jack was in the clinic, Henrik was with Marvin. Everyone was safely inside.
He knew that, no one would he stupid enough to leave the house at a time like this. Still there was a growing paranoia in the back of his head. Maybe he is just tired or hungry or just on edge with the appearance of two new egos and the reappearance of Henrik.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by the feeling of someone's eyes on him. He turns to see JJ standing behind him.
“Get lost again?” He asked jokingly.
He shook his head. “I feel like something bad is going to happen and soon. I want to stay around you.”
The hair on the back of his neck raised. “Well I’m sure there are better, stronger people you could stick around.”
He shakes his head again. “No I has to be you. I trust you.”
Any fear of mistrust he felt toward Jameson vanished in that insenint.
H̵̢̛̠͈̟͍̐̆̀͞ơ̸͕͙̳̙̣͙͇̜̞̈̈̐͢͠w̧̢̡̛̛̺͓͉̯̩̎̀͆̕ f̛̯̥̻̖̙̤̈̓̍́̅̾̅͞ȏ̬͈̠̺͈̣̂͆̆͐̀͢ͅọ̷̯̦̤̙̀́̔̅̑̈́͘̕͟l̷̖̟͎͇̳̯̩̫̇̏̔̽̆̽͠ͅį͇̙̹̪̫̼͔͕̈̏͗̿̒̉͋̾̚͞s̷̢̢̞͖̺̰̏͐͋͆̃̔̃͠͡͠h̷̙̥̣͈͙͚̾̿̄̇̚͘͞.̧̻̪̼̲̱̟̀̂̿̍̀͆
***
Robbie sleep like a rock through out the rest of the day and the night. Chase on the other hand did not.
Nightmares were a common thing among the septic household, but this one… Something about it stuck, like it wasn’t just a dream.
He was stuck in a very cold room, his arms chained above his head. The room was silent; deadly silent. Three figures stood in front of him.
Henrik, Dr. Septiceye, and… Anti, the cause of every nightmare the septics have ever had. Henrik’s kidnapper and the reason Greyson hasn’t gotten a full night's rest in three weeks.
Chase had only ever seen the demon once and he’s still not entirely sure it was real. He never mentioned that encounter with anyone else, still believing that he was hallucinating at the time.
The three of them stood there stock-still, like mannequins. They don’t breathe or blink or show any emotion on their faces.
He suddenly finds that his arms are free. Carefully and sneaks past them, none of them move or even to notice he’s there. Next he finds himself walking down a hallway covered in doors, It takes him a second but he recognizes the hallway. He’s at home.
Stumbling a bit he opens the door to his room, except it’s not his room. It’s completely black.
Something behind him shoved him down. He falls, but it doesn’t feel like falling, more like sinking through cold water. When he landed he found himself in a hallway bathed in red light.
“I remember this place.” He whispers.
There at the end of the hallway stood Anti, facing away from him and looking into the room at the end. His kids are in there, he doesn’t know how he knows that but he does.
“Carmelia! Samuel!” He calls, not sure what else to do.
The figure turns around, but there’s something different. His eye doesn’t glow nor does his body glitch. He looks sad like he doesn’t want to be doing this.
He stalks forward; Chase is frozen in place, but unlike the original encounter something changes. Anti falls to his knees looking disdained.
“J-jack?” Chase stutters. The man shakes his head and points the his left.
There's a dark room there that wasn’t there before. The red hallway disappears and he’s back in that room he started this nightmare in.
It sounds like there’s a fight happening somewhere in this room. He can faintly see the outline of two figures but he can’t make out any details.
There’s a loud grunt and something skids into his view. A dark blue button about the size of his eye. He swoops down to grab it without thinking.
As soon as it touches the palm of his hand he jolts up in bed. He’s in his room, Robbie curled up in the nest he made for him and the clocking reading three am.
The dream wasn’t even that scary, not scary compared the the dreams he usually had, he he couldn’t calm his heart beat or steady his breathing.
He was about to lie back down and try to go back to sleep when he noticed something warm in his hand.
A dark blue button.
#my fic#jacksepticeye#antisepticeye#chase brody#dr. schneeplestein#henrik von schneeplestein#dr. jack#dr. septiceye#marvin the magician#marvin the magnificent#jameson jackson#jackie boy man#jackie boyman#robbie the zombie#controlling a marionette
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