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ruthiswriting · 3 years

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heart line

mp100 | serirei, reigen arataka, serizawa katsuya, kageyama ‘mob’ shigeo, AU, 6k | on ao3

It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his.

(or: Reigen starts offering palm readings as a service, leading to Serizawa having to confront his feelings for his boss.)

this is pretty fluffy, only real tw is some self deprecating depression thoughts from seri.

One day, when he comes into work, Serizawa sees Reigen industriously spreading a new poster on the wall, next to the monthly specials.

“Oi, Serizawa,” Reigen says, head half turning, first in acknowledgment, then in focused interest. “Come help me finish putting up this poster— I can’t get the last corner. Or well, I could,” he allows, stepping away from the wall as Serizawa approaches, “but I don’t want to get the step ladder out of the storage closet, it’s always such a damn pain to dig it out. You had really good timing, you know…”

Serizawa comes in at the same time every day, so he hardly thinks it counts as good timing, but he doesn’t say anything. Reigen passes over a thumbtack that he’s been holding between his teeth— a terrible habit, one that always makes Serizawa’s stomach start doing awful twists when he sees him doing it— and Serizawa takes it, stepping to the wall.

The poster’s half up already, it’s really just this one corner that’s a bit awkward to get to behind one of Reigen’s potted plants. He smooths the corner out, hesitant, and carefully pushes the tack in.

“A little up,” Reigen directs from behind him, and even though Serizawa can’t see him he can feel the way Reigen’s head tilts to look under Serizawa’s stretched arm. “It needs to be straightened out— ah, the other side’s falling out, can you get that too? Serizawa! The bookshelf, watch it.”

After a few more tweaks, Serizawa finally manages to pin it to the wall in a way that satisfies Reigen. Serizawa runs two fingers over the slightly wrinkled corner— he can’t remember if it was already slightly bent, and he swallows nervously. But if Reigen notices, he doesn’t say anything, humming appreciatively. “Right. This’ll be good, people will walk in and see it with the monthly specials.” He stops, hands drumming on his hips. “Unless it should go on the far wall, while they’re sitting during the consultation? It works well as an add on, so maybe if they see it there it’ll drive more sales…”

Serizawa’s slowly processing the actual contents of the poster as Reigen hems and haws to himself. The center of the poster’s occupied with a giant stock photo hand, with arrows helpfully pointing to different creases and hills in the flat palm. A nauseating array of colors pinwheel around it, making it difficult to look away from once your gaze has drifted to it. PALM READINGS, the banner across the top screams out. LEARN ABOUT YOUR LIFE, LOVE, AND FORTUNE. Then, explosions of price points decorate the bottom.

Belatedly, he realizes he saw Reigen working on the poster yesterday during a slow hour in the office— slowly dragging together clip art in a way that he found appealing. Serizawa had avoided asking questions, since Reigen would then want his opinion on the poster, and Serizawa didn’t have the slightest clue about anything to do with design. Now, he could actually understand the poster for what it was.

“No, better to leave it here,” Reigen decides, bringing Serizawa out of his reverie. “Now, I’ve just got to add it to the website.” He sighs, scratching his cheek. “Damn builder’s always so tedious to fiddle with.”

“I didn’t know you could read palms, Reigen-san,” Serizawa says, still staring at the poster.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I read a couple articles about it over the weekend,” Reigen says, starting back to his desk. Then he half turns back, adding, “when you get to my level, it’s easy to pick up this kind of stuff, you know— it’s good to buff out your skills, too. Sort of…” He spins a hand in the air as he thinks. “Expanding your resume.”

Serizawa nods. This makes sense to him. To Serizawa, Reigen’s never had much of a recognizable aura— or really, he thinks privately, any recognizable ability at all. But he has a very long list of clients, successful exorcisms, and the attention of the most powerful psychic that Serizawa knows, besides maybe the president. Not to mention the entirety of CLAW’s former 7th Division’s admiration and respect. All of those people can’t be wrong, Serizawa reasons, so it must just be something that he’s missing. Serizawa misses a lot of things. And as Reigen’s repeatedly told him, his powers are just more spiritual, so him picking up a new ability with some light reading seems perfectly reasonable. “One of my classmates talk about learning coding a lot, since that’s good to have on a resume,” he says. “So it’s kind of like that, maybe.”

“Well,” Reigen pulls a face as he drops into his desk chair. “That’s a different kind of resume.” He swivels to his computer. “While I’m updating the website, Serizawa, can you look at the client list for the day?”

Serizawa hastens to look at the digital calendar that Reigen’s set up on his phone. “There’s a consultation in the morning, at ten,” he says. “Two massages in the afternoon… An exorcism at four.” Serizawa will be gone by then. Kageyama will be assisting with that exorcism— Reigen’s marked that on the calendar too, although Serizawa’s not sure Mob’s once looked at the calendar Reigen constantly refers to.

Reigen’s practically rattling the keyboard with the force of his typing. “Plenty of down time today, then,” he said. “I’ll be able to get this set up no problem.”

“Reigen-san,” Serizawa begins, awkward. “Should I…” Reigen’s stopped his punitive typing to stare at him, which always makes Serizawa’s words begin to stutter. He clears his throat and tries again. “To better assist the clients. Should I learn about palmistry, too?”

He doesn’t know why he asks. Most of the questions he asks feel pointless as soon as he says them, and this one’s ridiculousness is heightened by the way Reigen frowns. “If you want to,” he says, tone implying he’s not sure why Serizawa would. “I was planning on handling it, since it’s mostly interfacing with the clients, and you’re still getting comfortable there, but I wouldn’t stop you.”

Serizawa can’t stop the way his shoulders sink, and hurriedly, Reigen adds, “you’re doing fine, Serizawa— I’m glad you’ve got the initiative to ask about it. But I know you’re busy with your studies, so I didn’t want to take up your time unnecessarily. You’re already a great asset to the business.”

Again, Serizawa wants to protest, to say that really he should be doing so much more for Reigen than brewing tea and exorcising stray ghosts. But he shouldn’t argue with his boss, so he just nods, swallowing all of his words.

It only takes a few days for someone to take Reigen up on new special— a jittery looking college student with spectacles twice the size of her eyes. She comes about a necklace that she inherited from her recently deceased grandmother. Serizawa can’t see anything on it, and Reigen smoothly steps in to handle it. As he shreds rock salt over it and kept up a stream of gentle questions about her grandmother, the girl’s eyes roams over the wall, and she asks about the palm reading. Within seconds, Reigen has the lights dimmed, incense candles in Serizawa’s hands that are apparently his responsibility to light.

Reigen sits on the edge of his seat, face serious as he looks down into her upturned palm. She watches him with wide eyes. “It’s not so much that your palms determine your fate,” he explains to her, voice taking on a knowing, mystic quality. “It’s more that they’re a microcosm of reality… The big’s encapsulated in the small.” He draws one of his fingers along a crease in her fingers, barely a ghosting pressure.

As Serizawa struggles with the candles, the match in his hand finally catches, and the light blooms across her face. The beginning of a blush is striping across her nose.

“This is your head line,” Reigen says. Then his finger moves across another web. “Your heart line. Your fate line. And your life line.” For this last designation, his finger curves across the base of her thumb and comes to rest against her wrist.

“The life line,” she says, eyes wide. “I heard once that if you have a short life line, that means that you’ll die young.”

Discreetly, Serizawa peeks at his own palm, but he can’t track what any of the mess of creases are supposed to be when transposed onto his own hand. “Not necessarily,” Reigen says, shaking his head. “Your life line has more to do with your vitality. If it’s short or shallow, that’s not necessarily bad, but it might mean you need to make a change.” Reigen’s mouth draws into a frown. “…Have you been feeling disconnected from the people around you?”

“That’s exactly it,” she says, voice a relieved rush. “It’s been so hard, ever my grandmother died…”

The conversation streams on past Serizawa. He watches as Reigen gives her advice, her hand still resting comfortably between Reigen’s long fingers.

The palm readings only happen occasionally, but Reigen seems satisfied enough with their performance— like he said, it’s a nice add on. But on days when someone asks for one, they cling to Serizawa’s mind the entire train ride to his night classes.

Regardless of Serizawa’s perception of Reigen’s aura, he proves himself as a natural when he sits down with a client for a palm reading. No matter what he says, they always gasp in shock at how accurately Reigen’s pinned down their life with just a few sentences. Then, he’s immediately pinwheeling into advice on how best to fix their relationships, their jobs, their life.

He doesn’t like it. The idea that, just by looking at his hands, someone can accurately judge everything inside of him. Reigen never says anything bad about the clients, of course, but he’s sure that he has to see it. All of Serizawa’s mistakes are surely reflected in the creases of his hand— and he’s made a lot of mistakes.

Serizawa spends a lot of time staring at his hands on the train. They’re square in shape, with short, blocked off fingers, and a tangled mess of lines and mounds— what Reigen calls the bumps of flesh on the client’s hands. He doesn’t know what any of it means. He doesn’t think it could be anything good.

The train rumbles under his feet, and hurriedly Serizawa tucks his free hand under his armpit. Like if it hand is out of his sight, the obsessive thought might be too. It doesn’t stop his eyes from ghosting over everyone else’s hands, that all surely say much better things about them than Serizawa’s.

He’s not doing a good job of not thinking about the hands.

Mainly, he keeps thinking about Reigen’s, which doesn’t bode well for Serizawa’s attempts at professionalism.

Serizawa realized fairly early on that his feelings for Reigen exceeded the typical respect one should have for an employer. It even went past the gratitude that one should have for someone who saved Serizawa’s life— because genuinely, Serizawa thinks that Reigen saved his life by giving him this job, when Serizawa didn’t even have a high school education or any practical experience beyond being a reformed terrorist. Even if Serizawa’s managed to stop referring to every manual of business practice as inarguable law, enough of them reiterated the extreme inappropriateness of workplace relationships that Serizawa figured it was a rule he should stick with. Their cautions at power imbalances, lack of professionalism, and the inevitability of messy breakups bang around in Serizawa’s mind every time he looks at Reigen.

Of course, it’s not like Reigen would want anything to do with Serizawa even without these restrictions. Reigen’s a good, helpful person, and he saw that Serizawa was in a bad spot, and wanted to do something about it. That was all. So, it’s up to Serizawa to draw a professional boundary. If he maintains a distance, that’s better for both of them— Reigen won’t have to deal with Serizawa’s messy, inappropriate feelings, and Serizawa won’t get hurt.

But the palm readings make that so much harder than necessary.

Reigen has nice hands, and he takes full advantage of them in every moment. They accent every word that Reigen ever speaks, making his case for him before he’s even begun a sentence. And when Reigen’s hands are making an energetic arc across the room, Serizawa keeps finding his mind going back to the dim office— the candles flickering in the dark, the sweet heady scent of incense. Reigen’s hands comfortably enveloping his hands.

Not his hands, really. It’s only Serizawa’s hands in his flushed, distracted imagination. He wishes, very desperately, that Reigen wasn’t so dedicated to the atmosphere of his services, but if he’s being honest with himself, Serizawa probably would have the same problem if Reigen conducted palmistry under the boring office lights.

It’s just Serizawa’s embarrassing personal problem. It’s something he has to deal with on his own. Another misguided crush on his employer— except he’s so sure that Reigen would let him down gently it burns.

It’s a slow day in the office when Reigen says, tone casual, “Serizawa, let me read your palm.”

Serizawa’s pen jags across the paper. He’s doing homework, which he always feels guilty for, even though Reigen’s repeatedly told him it’s fine, even offering to help him with any assignments he’s having trouble with. Now, he’s punished for slacking on the job by way of an unfortunate ink splatter obscuring a section of his notes. Serizawa feels a static charge draw up around his ears, and he takes a deep breath as he settles the pen against the page. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Serizawa says.

“Why not?” Reigen’s half out of his chair before he’s distracted by a loose set of papers about to escape his desk. He pins them down with a half full mug of tea, then continues his circuit around the desk. “We don’t have a client until later this afternoon, and it’ll be fun— enlightening, even. It’s a good team building exercise.”

He’s pretty sure Reigen just wants to put off the paperwork that he’s been complaining about the whole morning. It’s given him too much time to let his eyes drift across the room and watch Serizawa, probably monitoring any possible mistakes in his work. The palmistry poster’s right behind Serizawa’s head at his desk, so maybe that’s what made him think of it. Regardless, Serizawa does not want Reigen to be enlightened by anything about Serizawa. He clenches his hands into fists and sticks them under the desk, like maybe Reigen will forget about it if he can’t see them.

All the excuses collecting in his brain don’t make it to his mouth in time, and Reigen’s leaning against Serizawa’s desk. “Come on, Serizawa,” he entreats him, voice wheedling. “Don’t you ever unwind? It’s not bad to have a little fun when it’s slow.”

Serizawa can’t think of something less fun than his crush learning all of his secret and not-so-secret inadequacies while holding his hand. Plus, he’s sure that there’s something better both of them could be doing— that’s another thing the self help books harp on, that you can always find something to do to improve your workplace. But he’s not good at telling Reigen no. And so, in a matter of seconds, Reigen’s setting up the office as Serizawa watches, arms locked at his side.

“You don’t have to waste the incense candles,” Serizawa mumbles as Reigen energetically lights a match.

“It’s not a waste,” Reigen says firmly. “Anyway, I do my best readings when there’s a proper atmosphere.”

Since there’s no way to get out of this, besides maybe running straight out of the office and never coming back, Serizawa sits down at the table where Reigen always ushers their clients and waits. Reigen draws the blinds shut and then sits across from him, wiggling forward in his chair.

Reigen’s thighs sandwich the low table between them, pressing close enough for their knees to touch. Even though he’d dreaded the low lighting before, Serizawa’s abruptly grateful for the fact that Reigen can’t see the way his face heats in the dark.

And then, Reigen’s hands are taking his.

His hands are cool, maybe even a little clammy. They rest calmly against Serizawa’s over-hot skin, and Serizawa’s sure Reigen can feel the way that his pulse is rampaging in his wrist. Even before the palm reading’s begun, Serizawa’s hands apparently have the ability to betray him. He tries to swallow his nerves, again, force it all down. He can control himself, even if he’s feeling scared and lovesick. He’s not the person that he used to be.

Serizawa’s reminding himself of all of this, when Reigen says, very seriously, voice a low murmur, “you’ve got nice hands, you know.”

“What?” Serizawa blurts. “No, I don’t.” And then he flinches, immediately berating himself for contradicting Reigen.

Reigen’s eyebrows rise up, vanishing under his bangs. “Sure you do,” he says, insistent. And then, he turns Serizawa’s palm flat, running one electric finger around the circumference. “Square palm— short fingers. You’ve got earth hands. Means you’re reliable, Serizawa.”

Even though his brain is buzzing with this much prolonged contact— Serizawa’s not exactly had a lot of people spend extended time touching his hands, much less Reigen touching his hands— this sentence manages to drag him a little closer to reality again. Reigen just meant that comment in the context of palmistry, of course. He’s probably said similar things to his clients, even if Serizawa can’t exactly remember him saying them in this moment. He breathes.

After waiting long enough to realize that Serizawa’s not going to say anything in response, Reigen returns to tracing the lines of his hands. “Look here,” he murmurs, moving one finger down the center of his palm. “You’ve got a pretty pronounced fate line.”

And Serizawa knows, immediately, that that can’t be right. He’s heard enough of Reigen’s explanations to his clients to have learned that a deep fate line means you have control over your life— that outside actors don’t control your fate. Serizawa can’t think of something less likely to be applied to him. He feels his face sink, watching Reigen’s hand move, back and forth, over his own.

Reigen’s lying to him. He probably doesn’t mean it in a bad way. He probably wants to boost Serizawa’s abysmal self image, because Reigen’s good hearted like that. But it stings that he’d tell Serizawa falsehoods just to make him feel better, against something that demonstrably isn’t true. It calls into question every other good thing Reigen’s said about him.

“Aren’t you going to ask what that means?” Reigen’s eyes move up to look at Serizawa, burning holes in him.

Serizawa sucks in a breath that ghosts over his teeth. “Reigen-san…” He swallows, throat clicking. Every noise he makes suddenly feels so loud and over important when they sitting this close, without even the hum of fluorescent lights to drown it out. “I don’t really know if that makes sense, from what I’ve heard you say to the clients.”

Reigen’s eyebrows work together. “Your fate line can change over the course of your life, you know,” he says slowly. “Just like how you can change. It’s just a reflection of you.”

Serizawa lets his hand drop— it’s only Reigen’s interlaced fingers against the back of his hand that keeps his hand from knocking against the table. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I don’t know, if I’ve changed enough to justify that.”

“You’ve made a lot of changes,” Reigen says, still insistently not letting go of his hand. His fingers interlace into a cradle, and Serizawa can feel the press of Reigen’s index finger on one knuckle. “You’re taking classes. You chose to leave a harmful situation, when it would’ve been easier to stay. You’re working here. Serizawa, you’re the one that’s taking charge of your life now.”

But even that’s a falsehood. Serizawa knows, deep in his bones, that he never would have left CLAW on his own. He never would have been able to see past the circumference of his umbrella and his own starry infatuation. The only reason he was able to leave at all was because of Kageyama, forcing him out of the fantasy he was living in, and Reigen, offering him a lifeline when Serizawa was sitting in the absolute rubble of his fake life.

“Serizawa.” Reigen’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Are you really going to doubt an expert spiritualist such as myself?”

“N— no, I didn’t mean—“

“Then accept it. You’re the only one in charge of your life. Let’s look at something else more interesting,” Reigen says, immediately shifting gears and ending the conversational thread. “Your heart line, it looks like it’s pretty—“

And this is something that Serizawa absolutely cannot handle. He yanks his hand out of Reigen’s before he can stop himself. “Reigen-san,” he said, voice climbing an octave. “I don’t know if that’s— appropriate.”

“Eh?” Reigen’s blinking at him.

“I mean,” he pulls his arms back, keeping whatever incriminating information is inscribed on his hands safely hidden. “Isn’t it bad to discuss… Relationships, in the workplace?”

Reigen tilts his head like Serizawa’s said something foreign. “It’s perfectly normal,” he says. “I help Mob with his relationships all the time.”

That’s obviously completely different, Serizawa wants to say, but the words won’t come. Suddenly, he’s seized with the idea— Reigen already knows exactly what he’s thinking and feeling. There’s probably a specific triangle of flesh on Serizawa’s hand that communicates, this person is in love with their superior, and Reigen’s seen it and knows. Serizawa feels the redness climbing all over his face. He can’t stop himself from looking down, palm turning up as he tries to find whatever betrayed him.

And immediately, Reigen’s grabbed his hand again. Serizawa feels his brain misfiring as Reigen yanks it closer. “Look,” Reigen says, eager. “Yours begins below your index finger, from the edge of your palm.” He indicates it, and Serizawa desperately wishes his heart would stop jackhammering in response. His pulse is loud enough to hurt his head, so surely Reigen can feel it pounding in his grip. “Means you’ve got a giving heart, Serizawa. It’s pretty short, so you’re introverted… But deep, so relationships are definitely important to you.”

“Aren’t they important to everyone?” Serizawa asks, floundering for any type of purchase in this conversation.

“Not necessarily,” Reigen says. “I mean, think about it— you’ve definitely met people who’ve put more work into relationships than others, haven’t you? But you value the people around you, so your hands reflect that. Maybe even…” His hand traces a crease, and he wiggles an eyebrow at Serizawa. “Value of a specific person? Someone you have in mind?”

Bone deep shame makes itself known from within Serizawa’s marrow. His fingers automatically curl inward, in an attempt to hide, and suddenly, without realizing, he’s holding the tips of Reigen’s fingers under his.

He expects Reigen to pull back, automatic, but Reigen doesn’t move at all. All Reigen does is go still, not meeting Serizawa’s eyes all of the sudden. His nose dips forward to look down at their hands, hovering above the table. It’s like he’s shy. Reigen is never shy.

“It’s a good thing, you know,” he says. “You’d be a good partner.”

He’s staring down at their hands, resting against the table, still not moving to pull his fingers away, or even to spread open Serizawa’s hand to continue his relentless assault of kind words. It’s like he’s perfectly content to rest there, long fingers trapped in Serizawa’s grip, which is probably too tight and not at all pleasant. Serizawa keeps waiting and waiting for Reigen to pull away, but he doesn’t.

Then, suddenly, the door to the office buzzes, signifying a walk in client. Reigen pinwheels away so dramatically he almost falls off his chair. A little pop of psychic energy spreads out from Serizawa’s feet, lifting everything in the office just an inch off the ground before it drops again. Serizawa stands, frantic, looking for something to do as Reigen hurriedly draws open the blinds.

It’s too late, though. The unexpected customer’s standing in the entrance, staring at both of them. “Um,” he begins, phone held lamely up. “I saw the sign outside, and I was wondering if I could ask about getting some spirit tags…”

Reigen recovers admirably, immediately pivoting into welcoming the customer and acting like it’s perfectly normal for both of them to sit around in the dark with only candles to see by. Serizawa guesses it’s not totally unreasonable— it is a psychic business, after all. You’d only know it was strange if you were a regular customer, and this man isn’t.

The only thing that betrays it as odd is the red blush that’s spread all over Reigen’s face, even staining his ears. It couldn’t be because of Serizawa, of course— it’s just that a customer caught him off guard. It has to be that.

Serizawa stares at the back of Reigen’s flushed neck, and wonders.

The rest of the day is tense.

It’s not exactly like Serizawa and Reigen sit side by side all day, but Reigen normally will get up and come see what Serizawa’s doing. He’ll hang over him as he supervises his work, or offer suggestions on whatever homework assignment he’s working on. In general, Reigen seems to dislike sitting still for long hours. He tends to pace about as he verbally puzzles through work problems to Serizawa, or Mob, or, probably, to an empty room. But after the palm reading, Reigen stays firmly confined to his desk, not saying anything at all as he still fidgets. Even when a client comes for an exorcism and he has to get up, Reigen maintains an exaggeratedly respectful distance between him and Serizawa.

The palm reading plays on repeat in Serizawa’s head, offering new mistakes for Serizawa to fixate on each time. The more they sit in silence, the more Serizawa’s completely sure that Reigen knows exactly how he feels. Why else would he suddenly become so shy? He wishes, fervently, that he’d just managed to keep it to act normally. Maybe if he hadn’t made such a fuss about the whole thing he wouldn’t have made Reigen uncomfortable. Now it’s even more obvious to Reigen where his feelings lie. It must disgust him, to have to deal with Serizawa’s sad, misaimed emotions— pathetically clinging to any basic kindness shown to him.

The whole afternoon, Reigen’s ears stay red as he works at his computer, only stealing glances at Serizawa when he thinks Serizawa can’t see.

He has to say something. He has to to apologize to Reigen for making everything so awkward. Maybe if he promises that he can control his feelings, that it won’t get in the way, things could go back to normal. Serizawa wishes the earth would swallow him whole. But it won’t— not without Serizawa splitting the earth open himself, at least. But if Serizawa wants to have any chance of reintegrating into normal society he has to deal with his feelings in an adult way.

Of course, Reigen beats him to bringing it up, as Serizawa’s dragging up the nerve to say something at the end of the day. He’s just stood, closing his laptop as he says, “Serizawa,” and pauses immediately, scratching the back of his neck. “You know, when you mentioned inappropriate workplace relationships—“

“I promise it won’t get in the way of anything,” Serizawa says in an explosive rush. “Please don’t fire me.”

Reigen stares at him, one hand still resting on the back of his neck. This is a look that Serizawa’s unfortunately gotten to know quite well. It’s the look that Reigen gives him when he’s said something unexpected. Serizawa’s begun to mentally mark it as a sign as conversational failure. “Pardon?”

Serizawa was really desperately hoping that Reigen wouldn’t make him actually say it, but that was looking less and less likely. “When you read my palm,” he stammers out, clutching onto the edge of his desk for dear life. “I know maybe not everything you saw was— appropriate, or maybe it showed something it shouldn’t, but I promise I won’t let it get in the way of working here. I can maintain professional boundaries, and… And…”

His voice trails as he dares to look back into Reigen’s face. It’s completely red again, naked surprise totally dominating his features. His hand’s gripping the back of his chair, like it’s stuck there. Reigen very rarely holds still, but in this moment, he’s completely frozen in place. By shock.

Abruptly, Serizawa realizes he was wrong. Reigen hadn’t seen his feelings in the surface of his fingers. But if he didn’t know about it before, he definitely, definitely knows about it now.

For a split second, Serizawa’s certain the office will collapse around them— his powers going rampant one last time to spare him this complete embarrassment. But all that happens is the furniture trembles, once. Serizawa supposes, under the part of his brain that’s screaming for death, that it shows he’s made good progress on controlling his powers.

He stands robotically. “I should go,” he says.

“No— no,” Reigen suddenly blurts, and he unsticks himself from behind the desk, racing across the office after Serizawa. “Serizawa, wait—”

Serizawa trips over his chair in his rush to leave, which gives Reigen the time to grab his arm before he reaches the door. It would be very easy to pull free and continue his frantic path onto the street and into the horizon, but the feeling of Reigen’s fingers digging into the side of his arm totally arrests Serizawa. He freezes, staring down into Reigen’s still beet-red face.

Reigen’s face is twitching in some kind of worrisome motion— he really looks like he’s about to have some kind of seizure, especially when his complexion is still so totally red. But finally, he manages to speak. “Our heart lines might not be so different, you know,” he says, voice wobbling just a little from— nerves? That can’t be right. Unless Reigen’s so totally disgusted by him that he’s nervous to be around him, now. But he’s holding on so tightly. Like he doesn’t want Serizawa to go.

Serizawa’s eyes slide away, not wanting to look at Reigen dead on, but then Reigen tugs his arm, insistent, trying to get his attention again. “Obviously, the qualities that we have, and the ways that we love— hypothetically— are very different,” Reigen says, voice gaining volume. “But, maybe similar things are revealed if you look closely. Just… A little closer.”

And then he doesn’t say anything, staring wide eyed at Serizawa. He’s clearly waiting for something, as Serizawa’s brain shudders to put the pieces together past every instinct that’s screaming at him to escape. Serizawa can’t conceive of a person being more different from him than Reigen. Any kind of similarity seems like too much to imagine. A similarity of the heart line? Maybe, Reigen has some of the good qualities he’s superimposed onto Serizawa, and that’s what he means. Or maybe— maybe—

Before he can stop himself, Serizawa’s hand slides up to grab the one that Reigen’s got on his arms. This time Reigen’s hand is damp with sweat. So is Serizawa’s, and he can’t imagine that it’s a pleasant experience for Reigen. Still, Reigen spreads his fingers, interlacing Serizawa’s fingers with his as they fall to the side.

“Just a little closer,” Reigen says again, voice almost a whisper as he steps into Serizawa’s personal space. The gap between their bodies narrows, and then vanishes, Reigen’s torso pressing against Serizawa’s.

It seems, impossibly, to be what Reigen wants. So before he can stop himself, Serizawa dips his head and kisses Reigen.

Reigen’s body leans up and into Serizawa, his free hand reaching up to touch his face. Underneath the fireworks happening behind Serizawa’s eyelids, there’s a moment of terror at Reigen touching his face— like he’ll find some patchy place where Serizawa missed shaving, or the pockmarked memory of an acne scar, and abruptly snap out of whatever insanity’s fallen over him. But Reigen touches his cheek gently, so, so, gently, and the fingers encircling Serizawa’s only tighten.

He’s sure, from any objective standpoint, it’s not a very good kiss— Serizawa’s never kissed anyone before, so his skills are probably awful. But it also means it’s the best he’s ever had. He never wants to come up for air.

Eventually, though, their faces break apart. Reigen’s face is still twitching a little, but now it’s up into an almost manic smile. Serizawa’s starting to wonder if the blush across Reigen’s face will ever subside. “This is,” Reigen begins, and then stops.

Reigen’s words rarely stop, and the silence stretches on for a few uninterrupted seconds until Serizawa realizes that genuinely, Reigen’s lost for words. A laugh threatens to break loose from Serizawa’s chest, but he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s laughing at Reigen. He only wants to express that whatever Reigen’s feeling, Serizawa understands. Completely and totally. It’s something he feels confident of when typically, Serizawa feels confident of nothing. So he just smiles, hoping that maybe, Reigen will understand too.

“I should have gotten into palmistry earlier,” Reigen says finally, and at that Serizawa can’t suppress his laugh. “Clearly I should screw around reading articles on the weekend more.”

“This wasn’t the reason you learned about palmistry,” Serizawa says, laugh still making his voice shake.

“Hell no,” Reigen snorts. “I just wanted to find another way to make a quick buck.” Then, immediately, he adds, “and also help our clients find out important truths about themselves, and the universe, of course—”

“While making a quick buck,” Serizawa says. It feels too joking, too disrespectful, but then, Serizawa’s just kissed Reigen. Reigen’s kissed him back. Worrying about professionalism seems suddenly pointless.

Reigen raises an eyebrow at him. “Sassy. Just don’t say that to the clients, Serizawa.”

His hand’s still clinging to Serizawa, gently swinging between them. Impulsively, Serizawa brings the hand up to his mouth, kissing the knuckles. Reigen’s breath pulls in, and Serizawa feels his face heat. He suddenly realizes that really, he has no idea what Reigen expects from this. They could be on completely different pages, Serizawa could be moving too fast, he could be doing everything all wrong.

But Reigen’s smiling at him. It’s a smile that he hasn’t seen before— totally unlike the dazzling grins that he gives his clients, and everyone he’s trying to convince to believe him. It feels different. The other smiles, Serizawa realizes, are something that Reigen puts on, in the same way that he puts on his tie in the morning. This one is real. This one is for Serizawa.

There’s a part of his stomach that’s still telling him this whole thing is a bad idea. Every chapter on workplace relationships he’s taken careful notes on is flashing on the back of his eyelids when he blinks. But, more and more, Serizawa’s realized that Spirits and Such is far from a typical office environment. Serizawa’s not a typical employee, and Reigen— wonderful, strange, perfect, Reigen— is not a typical boss.

When they walk out of the office, Reigen’s still holding his hand. Serizawa hopes, impossibly, that he never stops.

#reigen arataka #serizawa katsuya #serirei #mob psycho 100 #oneshot #fanfic

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 3 years

Text

selfie | jjk | 2

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: Is this a rom-com, slice-of-life drama with unsolicited social commentary about gender stereotypes, idol music, and the meaningless meaning of the word, “adult”? Yes. But also, Jeon Jungkook shouldn’t be in love with his hyung’s little sister and he is. Shit.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; mentions of depression, anxiety, loneliness; fluff, but also frustrating because flirt already, sheesh; loons-to-lovers; non-idol!AU - oppa’s bestfriend!Jungkook x SHINee fangirl!reader

happy lunar new year!! year of the ox - jk’s lucky year <3

–

previous episode.

2. in which the two loons getting somewhere, only for more misunderstandings to happen.

Is this too much?

You stared at the picture and the message. Jeon Jungkook once again. Sending a picture of himself at the gym. It was a while since the last one, so his hair was slightly longer now. Was he growing it out? Oh well, none of your business. You sent your usual reply.

You sighed and went back to your journal, only to have your phone aggressively sing ‘3 PM’ from the Animal Crossing New Leaf OST. Directly asking for a video call this time. You thinned your mouth into a line and closed your journal, sliding it out of frame before accepting the call.

Jungkook’s big brown eye filled up the screen, directly on the camera.

“Why don’t you respond like a normal person?”

“Why don’t you start conversations off like a normal person?” you shot back, placing a hand on your cheek and leaning against it. There was stationery scattered all around you, but your journal was behind the charging stand.

Jungkook withdrew his eyeball, frowning. You could see his entire face now, his long black hair tied up into a silly sprout on top of his head. He was still wearing the dark gray sweatshirt from the photo, but he seemed to be in his apartment. All you could see was the wall.

“What about the pic though? Is it too much?”

“Too much what?” you responded irritably.

He waved his hand, shaking the phone with his movement. “You know… Too, ‘Hey I work out and am attractive, pay attention to me’ much?”

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re not even looking at the camera. Or wearing a sleeveless shirt.”

He blinked at you. “Should I?”

You rolled your eyes. “No, those are things not to do. Picture is fine,” you added, shifting some pens away so you could rest your head on your forearms.

“Oh.”

He looked uneasy for a second before the camera jostled around as he scurried to a different part of the room. You puffed your cheeks and closed your eyes, not wanting to get motion sick.

“I’ve been playing Persona 5!” Jungkook said cheerfully, making you open your eyes to see him directing the camera at his television where the Persona music was merrily playing. “Just finished Sakura Futaba’s Palace.” He switched the camera back as you smiled and gave him a thumbs up.

“Nice.”

Jungkook seemed to spy your deflated form on your desk.

“What’s wrong?”

You breathed out. “Nothing.”

He frowned. “Doesn’t seem like nothing.”

You shrugged. “Just thinking.” Your eyes flickered to him, smirking a little. “You wouldn’t know about that, I suspect.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes. Other than that, he didn’t react to your remark.

“Thinking about what?” he asked, leaning back into his gray couch. His long hair flared out, sprout blooming against the cushions.

Your eyes shifted to the pens all over your desk. To your tablet, where you had been practicing digital drawing for a little while now. Just little drawings of cute animals, no people yet. To your journal, where you had been writing your diary entry.

“Lonely.”

You said the word without thinking. It was the title of your diary entry. You hadn’t meant to say it, but it was the only thing on your mind right now. Your eyes flickered back to Jungkook, who was watching you carefully. You sighed, feeling the need to explain yourself.

“All my friends are busy with school and their jobs. Oppa is always at work or with his girlfriend. Parents are always working.”

You could feel the distance between you and your high school friends. They were chasing your dreams and you were chasing nothing at all. You weren’t distant from your brother, but you were respectful of how much time he wanted to spend with his girlfriend. She might become his future wife someday, after all. Would you have a future husband one day? You wondered what he would be like.

You shook your head and shrugged. “But I did it to myself by taking a gap year, so it can’t be helped.”

“It’s okay to feel lonely.”

Slowly, your gaze shifted back to Jungkook. He was getting up from the couch, holding the phone up as he walked to what looked like the kitchen.

“I mean, you can’t help what you feel, right?” he said as he set the phone in a cupboard and went to the fridge. “Feeling lonely isn’t some kind of crime, so you don’t need to lock it away or anything.”

Jungkook picked up a take-out container and opened it, stiffing the contents. He seemed to be debating if it was edible or not. How long had that been there? You wanted to ask but then again, you didn’t want to know. Jungkook shrugged and dumped the mysterious contents into a bowl.

“I’ll talk to you whenever you want.”

You scoffed. “Why would you do that?”

Jungkook placed the bowl in the microwave and set the timer. The machine hummed as he turned around.

“To prevent you from feeling lonely.”

A butterfly danced in your chest.

You chuckled. “Why would I want to feel annoyed instead of lonely?”

Jungkook shrugged, taking out some chopsticks. “At least you have someone to be annoyed at instead of being alone?”

Two butterflies danced in your chest.

You huffed and rested your cheek on your forearms.

“Have you been talking to your Confidants?”

“What?”

“In Persona 5.”

“Who?”

You slapped your forehead. “Listen up, you monkey…”

“I’m an ox in the zodiac.”

“I mean your monkey gameplay…”

You began to explain the importance of Confidants in Persona to Jungkook.

That’s how you ended up in video calls with Jeon Jungkook several times a week.

He would usually start the call by sending a selfie, to which you would respond with your usual question mark. He was going to university for graphic design and worked at an electronics store part time. You, on the hand, were doing nothing. Well, not nothing, because you were clumsily learning digital art, but unless you were showering, you were always by your phone. Checking idol social media, especially SHINee. Sometimes your brother and his girlfriend asked you to accompany them to dinner, but you always declined, because being the third wheel was weird.

Also, watching your brother in love was weird.

Bleh.

“They always make out in front of me,” you were telling Jungkook as he asked why you weren’t at dinner earlier with your brother and his friends. Your brother had taken his girlfriend, of course. “It’s weird.”

Jungkook winced. “Yeah, I get what you mean. But I was there.”

“So what?”

Jungkook raised his hands. He was in his bed, rolling around in gray sheets. “Maybe you care?”

“I’d like to be spared watching oppa’s PDA, thanks.”

As usual, you were at your desk. This time your tablet was in front of you. You pushed the pen around, indecisively drawing lines and undoing your last action, twisting your mouth to one side, not really looking at Jungkook. He wasn’t doing anything of note, anyway.

“You don’t like PDA?”

You shrugged. “It’s whatever. I don’t really care.”

“What are you drawing?”

“Nothing good,” you sighed, putting down the tablet pen. The little cat character looked back at you, its expression the same bored and dispassionate face you usually had. You hadn’t really decided on a color for it yet. Maybe gray. That’s how you usually felt, anyway. You knew the collar color was going to be aqua though. A nod to your SHINee obsession.

“Show me.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

You looked up to Jungkook’s smile. There was a radiance about it. You felt the two butterflies dancing in your ribcage once again, fluttering, fluttering. His two front teeth where just ever so slightly too large for his mouth. It was endearing, like seeing a bunny. You looked back down at the little cat you created. Maybe you would make a bunny for Jungkook.

Pfft.

Why would you do that?

You laughed, confusing Jungkook as you placed your hand over your mouth, eyes squinting as you chortled to yourself, trying to imagine Jungkook as a silly little bunny. Probably one that worked out too much and drank banana milk every day. Probably loved to take selfies too. A cool bunny who wrote sunglasses sometimes and was probably altruistic and interesting.

Not like you.

Your laughter died down, eyes on the cat. You picked a cat to represent you because it was lazy and didn’t do much. Spent all day sleeping and staring outside, but never actually trying. Curious about things, but never committing.

“What’s so funny?” Jungkook asked, lifting the camera and holding it above him. You saw his long black hair flare out around his head. He was casually handsome, the kind of attractive that didn’t need much to be that way.

That’s weird. Why would you think something like that?

“Your face,” you replied, missing the usual bite you usually had behind your words. “You need a trim.”

He raised his eyebrow, pursing his lips. “You don’t like long hair?”

You pointed at the phone even though he probably couldn’t tell what you were pointing at. “The ends of your hair are splitting. It’s not going to grow well at this rate.”

“Are you a secret barber or something?”

“I’m a human being who cuts her own hair,” you replied impassively, sitting back in your chair.

Jungkook looked surprised. “Really? Since when?”

“Since the last time oppa attempted to cut my hair in high school.” You cringed at the memory.

Jungkook looked apologetic and ready to burst out laughing at the same time. “He tried his best.”

“He did not,” you retorted, remembering the botched bangs and blunt shoulder length cut. It was horrible. You went to the salon afterward and had it trimmed into a short pixie cut, because you would rather be bald than look like an overgrown coconut.

“The pixie cut was cool though.”

“Eh.” You shrugged. “Too hard to cut it by myself. Need some length to hide my mistakes.”

“Your hair always looks nice though. A little messy.”

You touched the top of your head self-consciously. Maybe you should start brushing it before accepting his calls. You didn’t really brush it that often because, well, who was going to see you? You basically only brushed it when you noticed a tangle.

Jungkook was smiling at you. His dark brown eyes seemed sparkly because of the overhead lights in his bedroom. The butterflies in your ribcage circled each other, looping round and round. You made a disgruntled face, reaching up read the current time at the top of your phone.

“Don’t you have class early tomorrow? Go to sleep.”

And then you pressed the end call button.

For some reason, relief and disappointment washed over you. Relief because there was a palpitating anxiousness you felt when you looked too directly into Jungkook’s eyes. Disappointment because maybe you shouldn’t have hung up so abruptly. That was a little rude.

You noticed you had a text. From Jeon Jungkook.

Good night.

Jungkook placed his phone beside him after he sent the text. He thought about sending a selfie too, but maybe that was too much. She had just seen him seconds before, anyway.

Why had she hung up like that?

He smiled as he remembered her laugh. He liked her laugh a lot. She hid it behind her hands and her eyes always squinted when she did so, nearly making them disappear. It looked a little bit like a cat when it was purring in satisfaction. Jungkook wondered what made her laugh like that. It must have been a thought, because he could see her face changing as she observed him. When she stopped laughing, her face was different too, becoming introspective.

She looked pretty today too.

Her hair a little messy, combed through with her fingers. That’s how it looked best, he thought. She had a natural prettiness, the kind that needed no help to be that way. Every action she did seemed cute, from the way she held her pen, to the way she twisted her mouth to one side when she was working on something, to the way she touched the top of her head, lips parting in thought.

If she wanted to be a model, she probably could.

At least, Jungkook wanted to take her picture.

He frowned a little. He’d been consistently sending her selfies before calling her and she always responded with a question mark. Maybe she wasn’t used to taking selfies? Or maybe, and what was more likely, she probably didn’t even care about them.

Jungkook exhaled, flopping to his side. Should he give up? But then he remembered her face right before she looked at the time. It was like she was staring at the screen, at his face. And for a split second, he swore he saw her upper lip upturn a bit, shyness in her gaze, a bit of pink flushing her cheeks. Was it just the lightning or something? His mind playing tricks on him?

“Bleh.”

Jungkook made a weird noise and plopped his face into his pillow.

Jungkook stopped calling you.

You wondered why. You had been kind of rude to him last time. Maybe he was mad at you? Maybe he wanted an apology? But you weren’t really sure what to apologize for. And it was weird to call without a purpose, right? And besides.

You didn’t really need to apologize to Jeon Jungkook.

He wasn’t even really your friend. He was your older brother’s friend.

You chewed on your lip, staring at the last picture he sent you. He wasn’t your friend. He was… well, what was he trying to do? Why was he talking to you? Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was nosy. You did say you followed his art Instagram, so maybe he was enthralled with the idea of knowing he had a fan or something?

But you weren’t a fan, per se.

Well, a little bit. He was really talented.

But not that much!

Because Jeon Jungkook was kind of annoying. He still hadn’t returned Persona 5 to your brother. Not that your older brother noticed, at all. He never finished Persona 5 and it was mostly your game now, with how many hours you had sunk into it. Jungkook hadn’t even known about Confidants until you told him. Hmph. Didn’t he look up game guides? Well, he should. Confidants were really important to the game. They helped you with useful abilities during boss fights by developing relationships with the other characters.

You stared at the last selfie Jungkook had sent you.

You kind of wished he was looking at the camera.

Maybe you needed a Confidant. You certainly didn’t really know how to develop relationships with anyone, except maybe your older brother. But that was because he was your brother and familial responsibility. Well. Not true. Your brother was really nice to you.

That’s why you folded his underwear for him, even to this day.

Sigh.

Jungkook did like SHINee though.

At least that was one thing in common, right?

next episode: 3. in which only a major event can bring these two loons back together – SHINee is back!

masterpost

#jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x you

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0idril0 · 3 years

Note

May I request based on the reblog about ‘new normal’ you just did a much later Nico & Clint, maybe Nico trying to do art again or school or cook or something and struggling ??

Nico’s head was pounding as he laid the last lines on the paper in front of him, teeth grinding as he forced his eyes to focus. For just a few more minutes.

Please.

“F-Fuckin’ finally...” he slammed the color pencil down, scrubbing his aching hand against his eyes until colors swirled behind the lids. The drawing was already imprinted in his head, a wolf head that he hoped resembled Clint’s, surrounded by a multitude of wild flowers. It was more frilly than what he usually did, he tended to gravitate towards reds and blacks and more forgiving mediums, working around the continued seizures and poor eyesight. But it felt important for what he was trying to portray.

His mate surrounded by softness and love in the form that Clint said looked beastly and terrifying.

He didn’t know when Clint had started to think of his wolf form that way, but he hoped it was before they had ever met. Clint had let slip more than a month before that he was scared of being around Sorina and Evans new baby, worried he might slip a little and scar the baby for life.

Nico had immediately told him that it was a ridiculous thought, but the doubt and hesitancy that colored his face when he’d turned back towards the the group of people gathered around the new bundle was enough to send a lance through Nico’s heart.

And the worst part was he didn’t know what to say. He’d never been good with words, and now with the brain damage, he was even worse. And there was only so many ways to kiss sense into a stubborn werewolf.

But maybe he could show him. Clint’s wolf had always been a source of comfort for him, his beautiful russet fur the softest pillow, the warmth he emitted a constant comfort when he’d been too emaciated to regulate his own body heat. A gentle crutch when Nico needed help but couldn’t tolerate human touch.

And the man himself had the biggest and kindest heart of anyone he’d ever met. The fact that Clint thought any part of him could be a danger to his niece was horrifying.

“Uuuuugh....” Nico scrubbed at his eyes again before scratching at his short beard, an attempt at hiding the scars that still spotted his cheeks from deep ulcers that had had difficulty healing. “It’s g-gonna have to do...”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, like it was going to help him focus at all, he scrutinized his work. Before Martin he would have said it was still a work in progress..... but now? It was one of the better things he’d done in a while. He’d moved away from realism when he’d been able to pick up a pencil again, the migraines hadn’t been worth the fight, and paint was more forgiving.

The color pencil was smudged at the corners, the lines shaky in areas where a crisp finish would have made the piece stand out, but the wolfs face was Clint’s, highlighted with yellows like he was basking in the sun, a delicate blue butterfly contrasting with his red fur and half lidded green eyes beautifully.

It was his mate. A giant, gentle, protector of a man that hadn’t moved for 20 minutes when that stupid butterfly had landed on him at last years Fourth of July party.

He felt his mouth twitch at the memory, pulling at some of the scars on his mouth and cheek. His Mate was ridiculous.

Nico could hear Clint’s rumbling snore from his drafting table, the wolf had been running in the woods for hours today and had returned a few hours ago soaking wet and panting. When he’d returned he’d stuck his head into the sunroom where Nico was, lupine grin smug as he’d tried to sneak around to see the drawing Nico had kept from him for over a month now.

Nico hadn’t been able to help his snicker when he’d shoved at his over sized head, scratching in the spot Clint loved as he did so, “Go dry-dry off, I’ll s-show you when I’m done.” Clint’s tail has wagged so hard Nico had been able to hear the thump through the cabin walls, but his wine was truly pitiful when he’d slunked out and flopped onto the porch to bask in the sunlight. The sunny happiness Nico could feel through their bond betrayed Clint’s attempt to guilt him into a sneak peak, and Nico hoped it would be worth it now.

Daniel’s cane was propped up against his desk and Nico rubbed a thumb over the silver handle as he picked it up, using the object just like Daniel had for years before he’d died. Nico had found it tucked in the back of the shop when he’d finally been able to return and had swapped for the heirloom as soon as he was able to ditch the walker.

The initial thunk against the hardwood has Clint’s ears twitching as he comes out, a high pitched yawn following it as Nico shuffled further onto the porch.

“H-h-hey Honeyb-b-bear....”

Clint rolled onto his back at Nico’s greeting, legs and paws stretching to full effect as Clint yawned loudly and rumbled his own wolfy greeting back, squinted eyes finding Nico as his tail swished against the hard wood. “Sugar..” Nico heard the echo in his head, and snickered around a grin at the nearly 300 lbs wolf at his feet. Clint’s tongue rolled out of his mouth in a lupine laugh and Nico couldn’t keep his own smile down, even as broken and ugly as he thought it was now.

“Come-onnn, y—ou goof, you wannned to see -this right?” Nico shook the paper in his hand, backing up like he was going to go inside.

Clint’s jaw snapped shut as his head whipped towards Nico, eyes wide in question now. Really??? Nico could read the question clear as day on his face and grinned. “I c-could change my mind...”

He made to take a step back and Clint whined, stretching, this time muscles and bones popping as he morphed back into his human form. Where there’d been a ridiculously large wolf now lay an extremely large, naked man, toned muscles stretched to full effect as he reached for Nico, making grabby hands as he whined again with his human throat.

“Babbbbbyyyyy.... come back??? Show me here??”

Clint’s teasing grin and wink did nothing to help the burning blush that was creeping across his face and neck, headache forgotten as he swallowed heavily at the sight in front of him.

“Fine-“ His voice came out a squeak, and he cleared his throat, scowling at Clint’s snort of laughter. “-Fine, you’ll have—help me s-stand up...”

Clint’s grumbling turned deeper as he turned towards Nico, grin mischievous, “Like I would pass up the opportunity to get my hands on you...”

Nico grinned at Clint’s joke, knowing the wolf wouldn’t touch him without his permission, skin heating at the thought of Clint’s hands against him today. He loved Clints hands, long solid fingers and thick padded palms that had sooth so much and given him so much pleasure in the past few years.

He groaned as he slid down to the porch, using the bannister and accepting Clint’s hand against the small of his back as support, knowing the werewolf’s strength would be more than enough to catch him even from the awkward angle. His hip protested bending and Clint’s thumb rubbed small circles into his back when he settled heavily on the porch.

“Fuuuuck....” he groaned loudly, careful to keep the drawing turned away from Clint’s prying eyes as he flopped dramatically onto Clint’s bare chest.

Clint grunted around a laugh as Nico landed, sun warmed arms wrapping around him as he maneuvered Nico closer. “Hi Sugar....” Clint nibbled on Nico’s neck and snuggled closer. “You finished that drawin’ you’ve been teasin’ me with??”

Nico smiled as he felt the nerves that had been fluttering in his stomach settle in Clint’s calm presence, and he brought his scarred hand up to tangle in Clint’s hair.

“T-told you, surprise.....” He leaned into the kiss in his cheek, grinning. “Hardly- surprise-you get to s-see it...”

Clint chuffed, and Nico could feel the grin spread across his mates face. “I know but I’m about to explode over here, lemme seeeeee-“ he squeezed Nico and rocked him, the fingers pressed into Nico’s skin vibrating with excitement.

Nico took a deep breath, turning to press a gentle kiss to Clint’s curved mouth. The wolf melted, kissing Nico back gently until he pulled away, his green, dilated eyes following Nico’s as he backed up.

“Love you.” Nico turned more, scratching at Clint’s scalp until the low rumble vibrated the chest he leaned on. “Wa-wha-wanted you to see, h-how....” Nico growled, words stuck in his throat, and Clint kissed against his jaw, mimicking a deep breath, and Nico followed suit, unclenching his jaw to continue. “S-so, I-I drew it.”

Nico flipped back, holding the drawing above them, against the blue sky, puffy clouds the perfect backdrop to the tranquil drawing. He heard Clint’s breath catch; rumble stilling as the wolf froze.

Slowly Clint lifted one of his hands from Nico’s stomach, the other keeping Nico pressed firmly against him. “Darlin’, what... what is this??”

Nico could hear the wetness in Clint’s voice, the thin wobble that meant the wolf was getting emotional.

“You-been strugglinn-since Elena was born, scared you’ll hurt her...” Nico swallowed, “but this.... Love, you wouldn’t budge... you’re gentle, an kind..... hate for y-you,-for fear to keep—y-you, from holding her, only t-thing I’ve gotten from being held—by you is love.”

Clint was trembling behind him and Nico bit his lip, doubt working its way back into his mind until Clint started to sit up, Clint’s body doing the work so Nico stayed glued to his chest, arm pulling Nico’s hips flush against his as he re maneuvered their legs. Clint had reburied his face into Nico’s hair, and he heard the wet snuffle as Clint took in his scent, his mates thick arms holding him close. “Darlin’.... I don’t..... I love you...thank you....”

Nico leaned back against Clint, setting the drawing aside so he could catch hold of one of Clint’s hands, the other tangled in the blonde hair as he rubbed a thumb along a delicate ear. “Love you t-too, Honeybear....”

Nico brought Clint’s hand up and kissed along the long digits, heart full as Clint wrapped him further into his arms. Knowing his mate had understood him.

#clinco #nico series #recovery #art #brain damage #stuttering #I’m sorry #it’s not really whump #but Nico is trying so hard #and Clint is his flirtatious self #nudity mention #no touch aversion #Nico’s getting better slowly #probably 4 years after #and I forgot how to do read more #oops

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itsamejin · 4 years

Text

this love || yoongi angst

Summary: A story through the years detailing your relationship with Yoongi and all the ups and downs that came with dating an idol.

Warning: cursing, sexually suggestive content

Genre: angst, fluff, idol!yoongi, artist!yn

Pairing: Yoongi x female!reader

Premise: Based on the song ‘This Love’ by Taylor Swift. Reader is an artist.

Commission Request: @minyoongail

Word Count: 7,681 words

—

You met Yoongi when he was just a trainee, ready to take on the world and bursting with energy to get on stage. He had visions of grandeur- him living in a beautiful mansion, wearing name-brand jewelry, cruising in rare sports vehicles. When times were simpler, he’d promise that you’d be there with him, indulging in the glitz and glamour that came with his fame. He’d be an idol and you’d be his muse. Yet under all those pretenses, under all those empty promises, he was just Yoongi.

He was a guy who walked in and out of your life as easily as ocean tides come and go on the shore. He taught you how to fall in love, fall out of it, and rekindle it all the same. It was a sort of beautiful asphyxiation, being wrapped up in his lifestyle and learning to accept the consequences that came with dating a celebrity.

You wonder even now as you search his name on the internet, if you had any regrets. After all, you lost too much to be with him.

—

April 2013

A first meeting meant everything to you, especially when it came to your clients. You didn’t accept jobs from weirdos who didn’t respect your craft and you definitely hated impatient ones who badgered you to finish your pieces as quick as possible.

Big Hit was a happy medium and had hired you as a contract employee after reviewing your portfolio. Although the style of work they wanted from you was not at all what you specialized in, you were happy that they treated you like an actual employee and not some sort of machine. Plus, the pay was good.

You were asked to work on some cute animal characters for an upcoming boy group that you weren’t terribly familiar with, maybe stumbled on a vlog of theirs that you forgot about. You were intrigued by the slew of trainees that sat in front of you, their palms clenched out of anxiousness.

“I’m [Y/N], one of the digital artists that will be working with you guys from now on,” you introduce yourself politely to the seven bright-eyed boys in front of you.

You were in a room with other staff members, discussing the concept of the “Hip Hop Monsters” your graphics team was working on. This was a planned project lasting over a span of years and would eventually result in collectors edition items. It made you giddy just thinking of the royalties you’d earn from it all.

“I’d like it if the animals took after us,” one of the boys suggested shyly, slightly intimidated by the large number of corporate employees there were in the room for something that seemed so trivial. “I think our fans would like the characters more if they kind of resembled our personalities and stuff...”

You nod along to his suggestions, staring at his jersey to notice that the member who spoke up was Rap Monster. It was cute how they all wore clothes with their names on them. That’s one way to attract attention, you suppose.

“Any other suggestions you guys have for us?” you ask, jotting down notes and making rough sketches as they talk amongst themselves.

“I’d like it if,” a somewhat husky voice starts and you can’t help but stare into the guy’s eyes as he speaks, “my character was a turtle.”

You burst out into a fit of laughter along with the other staff members. He had said it with such a straight face and with so little enthusiasm, yet you could tell from his slight blush that he was serious. He was cute in the way that he wasn’t trying to be.

“You resemble one,” you grin at him, drawing out a small turtle with a cute beanie on your iPad, like the one he wore in front of you. You show it to him. “Something like this?”

“Exactly that!”

He breaks out into a gummy smile, one so bright that it hurt your heart to stare at him for too long. Now you were the one left flustered. He realizes how enthusiastic he was and got embarrassed once again, scratching the back of his head to avoid eye-contact.

“S-sorry, for shouting. It looks good.”

You bite your lip from forming too big of a grin. You still had to remain professional after all.

“You’re welcome,” you smirk slightly as he goes back to trying to look cool. You can’t help but doodle his name on your iPad even as the other members shared ideas for their own animals.

Suga, Suga, Suga.

You smile to yourself. It does have a ring to it.

—

June 2013

Yoongi sees you in the hallways sometimes and wants to say hi, but he can’t because other people are watching. Though, that isn’t the only reason.

He tells himself every day that he’ll muster up the courage to go talk to you, but every time he sees your face his legs turn to jelly. Yoongi was busy with debut stages recently, but he found some free time in his schedule to approach you.

Yoongi was never the shy type, more reserved if anything else, but you had something that enamored him- intrigued him. He wanted to know who you were other than the cute girl he was stuck in meetings with from time to time.

As you sat there on your desk, Yoongi lingered in an area nearby. He would give you his number today and if things didn’t work out then that would be that. There was no need to be all shy about this; it’s not like this is his first time asking someone out.

He strides over to you with feigned confidence and you look up after a minute, not noticing how his shadow loomed over you. He sees that you’re working on realistic portraits of the members and not the cutesy characters he usually sees you drawing.

“Hi,” he says curtly, trying to seem disinterested though he was the one that approached you first.

“Hello,” you smile up at him.

Suga.

“You draw really cool stuff,” he says to break the awkward tension. “You should show it to the CEO. I’m sure we’d have cooler concepts for our albums with your work.”

You look up at him, a happy glint in your eyes. He was complimenting you, although avoiding eye contact to seem a little less nervous than he really was.

“Well, I’m just a contract worker so I don’t think I really have the authority to start up new projects out of nowhere,” you say with a smile on your face at how flustered he looks. “I feel like you’re here to ask me for something. Am I right?”

He looks away for a split second, coughing to alleviate his nerves. He was a grown man for fuck’s sake, why was this so difficult?

“I was actually wondering if you could come give me some opinions about some art that I drew,” he lies through his teeth, just trying to find a way to get you in a more private area than the corporate floor teaming with watchful gazes. “I’ve been trying to start a new hobby.”

You chuckle slightly, seeing right through his words. You stand up to amuse him.

“I’d be happy to.”

He leads you to a studio filled with whacky knick-knacks and dim lighting, not necessarily the best place to draw. You know by now that he just said those things as an excuse to be alone with you.

“So where’s this masterpiece?” you tease slightly at his nervous expression. How did a guy who looked so deadpan have such a giddy personality?

“Well actually,” he starts off, palms already sweaty. “I-It’s not here right now, but I think I left it at the dorms. Maybe if we exchange phone numbers I can text it to you.”

He tried to appear nonchalant, but his hands moved as if he was doing a public speaking presentation. Yoongi thought he was doing great, though growing a little more nervous at how you were giggling.

“You know, Suga,” you start teasingly, “My number is in the company directory. Feel free to text me anytime.”

Yoongi slightly cringes hearing his stage name. He loves it, don’t get him wrong, but he didn't like hearing it come from you. He didn’t like the unfamiliar aspect that came with using his stage name- like you two only went by professional terms.

“Call me Yoongi,” he says with genuine confidence this time. “I like it better when my friends call me Yoongi.”

You nod, relieved that you could finally know this cute guy’s name. Truth be told, you were snooping around his conversations with other people to figure it out.

“So we’re friends?”

Yoongi nods, sitting down in his rolling chair.

“I’d like to be,” he grins, patting the sofa, hoping you’d take a seat with him.

And you do.

—

Present

It’s hard to work efficiently when you’re no longer in a corporate space. There’s no boss to check up on your progress nor is there a nosy coworker trying to see what you’re doing from the corner of their eye. You missed the hustle and bustle of an office floor, but it was nice exploring your creativity through freelance work.

You tap your digital pen onto the table repeatedly, looking at the reference image over and over again. It was a sick joke played by the universe to have been commissioned to draw your ex-boyfriend’s idol group, but you couldn’t refuse the hundreds of dollars the ecstatic fangirl was willing to give you. Truth be told, she might have offered too much pay, but you took up her offer anyway. Money is money.

Yet a face you’ve touched so often, a person you’d been with for years felt so unfamiliar to you. It wasn’t like you were drawing him realistically either. The client wanted anime-style figures that resembled them, looked enough like the boys to display it as her Twitter header. In the end, it’s still too difficult to draw. The rest of the members were lined up and sketched perfectly, but there was a blank area where Yoongi’s face should’ve been.

Your wrists hurt from the constant drawing and erasing so you set it down to massage your hand from cramping. In moments like these, you hated your job.

Ting.

A message notification popped up on your phone that laid beside your iPad. You usually left it silent when you were working, but you opened yourself up to distractions when drawing this particular piece. Whoever thought it was a good idea to specialize in celebrity artwork? You pick up your phone and smiled softly at the text.

hey, can I come over?

—

March 2014

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Yoongi, happy birthday to you~~”

You cheer on with the rest of the boys in their cramped dorm. Somehow you had gotten close enough with them to be at this level of comfort, sitting crisscrossed and shoulders touching with Jungkook and Seokjin. Yoongi blows out the candles and claps his hands, a little sad that another year passed by so quickly. He kept glancing at you who was focused on cutting the cake like the perfectionist you were.

He couldn’t help but feel like time was running out, like if he didn’t confess to you now then it would never happen. Yoongi took off the beanie he wore and ruffled his hair. He was feeling anxious all of a sudden.

“Dude don’t do that your dandruff is gonna get everywhere,” Hoseok whines. “The cake is gonna be decorated with your dead skin cells.”

“Go wash your hands,” Jin commands and Yoongi could only roll his eyes.

“Relax, I don’t even think we’re gonna have cake anytime soon when this slow-poke is taking forever to cut.”

He flicks your forehead as you glare up at him.

“I could so easily throw this in your face, but I choose not to,” you stick your tongue out at him and he scoffs.

“I’d like to see you try.”

All the members groan out of annoyance.

“Oh my god they’re having a lovers quarrel again,” Jimin yawned. “Aren’t you guys sick of arguing?”

Yoongi freezes at his words. Lover’s quarrel. That was a nice way to put it.

“They’ll stop arguing when Yoongi finally-”

Taehyung was cut off as Yoongi swipes three fingers worth of frosting from the cake and lathers it all over Taehyung’s face.

“You talk too much,” Yoongi shakes his head and soon chaos descended. Cake flew in places it shouldn’t have and ended when Namjoon knocked over a glass of water, managing to break it on the floor tiles. In the end, no one got cake.

Yoongi and you were laughing amongst yourselves at the kitchen sink, washing off some of the bits that got onto your shirts.

“I’m so sorry about your cake,” you say through your chuckles. “I’ll make it up to you some time.”

Yoongi only smiles.

“Yeah, you can treat me on a date,” he replies a little too boldly. You look at him in shock, not quite processing his words.

“A date?”

He nods.

“We should go out sometime.”

You purse your lips to prevent the huge grin about to be displayed on your face.

“We should.”

—

Present

It was subtle, the way it all started. You trace over the features you drew so far, only getting to his eyes. Yoongi and you were innocent lovers for a while, keeping your trysts a secret from everyone in the company except his managers and the members. A few of your friends knew, but none of them knew BTS well enough to be all that surprised. It wasn’t all that rare to go out with a celebrity in your line of work.

You almost miss those days when he was unrecognizable. After your friends realized who he was after he hit it big globally, you felt like a secret of yours was displayed to them. Your love was supposed to be private, but his fame left very little room for privacy. You missed when you were the only one that knew of him and maybe it’s selfish to think that way, but you were past the point of being selfish.

You text back.

yeah, can't wait to see you

—

Jan. 2015

Yoongi lays you down on the couch gently. His hands caressing your sides underneath the thin material of your shirt as he pulls you in closer to his kisses. This felt different from other nights, different in that there was nothing around to stop what would come next.

He pulls away from you slightly, panting from the lack of oxygen.

“Are you sure?” he asks, drawing circles on your hip with his thumb. He was only supposed to come over to help you unpack some stuff for your new apartment and here you were, pinned on the couch and sweating from the close contact.

You nod back in response, not finding the right words to get him to continue. He pulls your shirt over your head, peppering kisses on your neck and atop your breasts. He fixates on your neck languidly, biting as he sees fits.

There was a pause as you felt him press up against you and you knew then that there was no making it to the bed. You would have your first time with him on this newly moved-in couch.

The clothes dropped to the ground as his touches get more impatient, more desperate. It all passes by like a blur and you could only remember the pleasure that came with his long fingers, the satisfaction you felt when he was inside you. The climax of it all made you realize that you loved him, truly and without regret. He holds you in his arms when you come undone, flashing a satiated smile as you look up at him. It’s like the stars were in his eyes.

“How do you feel?” you ask him, worried he was already drowsy. You didn’t want to have to sleep on the couch naked.

“Satisfied,” he says with a smile on his face.

You can’t help but swoon, his eyes fixated on you. At least for now, he was yours He wasn’t Suga, a rapper. He was Yoongi, your boyfriend.

It didn't matter to you that he was struggling to make a name for himself in this cut-throat idol industry or that he would spend countless nights cursing as one of his numerous tracks get rejected. None of that was in your mind. Only he swam through your thoughts. Only him.

“I love you,” he sighs out. He was the first to say it.

“I love you too,” you reply back and he holds you tight against him.

He’s nuzzling himself in your hair, his chest pressed up against you so his heartbeat can synch with yours. He loves this, can’t get enough of it. He catches your lips and once again you are whisked in the pleasure of it all. This is it. This is what love is.

—

Present

The piece is finally finished and you send it off to your client, hoping she doesn’t ask for revisions because you can’t handle another second of drawing his stupid face. His soft skin, his tiny moles, his gummy smile...

It's not like you hate him. It’s just... a certain contempt lingers after a breakup from a long-term relationship. It’s the type of resentment that can’t really be explained. You don’t want to see him, but you catch yourself watching his videos on Youtube. You don’t want to think about him, but you hope he thinks about you. You don’t see yourself ever getting back together with him, but you don’t have his phone number blocked.

It’s a sort of paradox you catch yourself in and you wonder if you could ever get out of it. Will Yoongi ever escape your mind?

can't wait to see u too babe

—

Aug. 2016

Yoongi hugs you from behind, his face scrunched at the nape of your neck where several marks were made from last night’s events. Your eyes stayed focus on the TV in front of you, still impressed by your own ability to afford one in your bedroom at your salary.

“BTS' SUGA drops new music video for his song and mixtape Agust D...”

The news anchor drones on and you could barely hear her through the sounds of Yoongi’s soft snores. His hold on you grew tighter as he hears his stage name from an unfamiliar voice and it makes you giggle slightly at how different the edgy music video being displayed was from the same person wrapping you in his arms so tightly.

“Babe, wake up. I have work to do,” you whisper into his hair and he only shakes his head back in response.

“No,” he mutters, pulling you into him closer. You roll your eyes, managing to pry off one of his hands as you sit up on the bed.

“Don’t you have studio stuff to do today?” you ask him, searching for a shirt to wear.

He shakes his head as his eyes start to flutter open. You both reeked of alcohol since you opened a bottle of wine last night to celebrate the release of his first solo work. He was proud of it and you were proud of him.

“Can you turn that off, I’m getting a migraine,” he whines, covering his head with a pillow. You opted to wear Yoongi’s shirt instead of your own since you couldn’t be bothered to walk to the other side of the bed to find it. You smiled at his laying figure, cooped in a fetal-like position. He was still naked, but you were with him long enough to no longer be phased by that sort of thing.

“From one bottle of wine?” you tease slightly. “I think you’re losing your touch, Agust D.”

You chuckle as he throws the pillow on top of his head towards you.

“Don’t call me that,” he pouts, “It feels like you’re making fun of me.”

You stand up from where you were, stretching out your back as you make your way to the door.

“That’s because I am,” you smirk, “You know you’re saved on my phone as Sugar?”

He gives you a glare.

“It’s Suga,” he says, attempting to add some intimidation to his voice. It doesn’t work because all you do is stick your tongue out at him.

“Whatever sugar.”

He chuckles lightly and watches the silhouette of your figure exit his view. Yoongi can’t help but mindlessly follow after you.

As you exit towards the kitchen, you can’t help but hear the television from the bedroom.

“Suga has recently been caught up in a dating scandal with Suran, the solo artist, who sang with him in a song...”

Your head snaps up from those words, your skin crawling with goosebumps. You make it into the kitchen but with a heavy heart and no appetite.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, passing by you to pour himself some water.

“Nothing,” you say, though you sounded bitter. He caught on quite quickly. You were jealous again.

Yoongi heaves out a deep sigh and sets the glass of water down. He comes over to your angry figure and gives you a soft hug, laying his head on top of yours as if to comfort you. You try to pull away but he keeps you close.

“I’ll tell them to drop the rumors, okay?,” he says, genuinely enough to make you believe him. “I don’t want us to fight so early in the morning.”

“You promise?”

He pulls away.

“I promise,” he says, brushing a hair away from your face. “Let’s not think about those rumors right now. You and me both know they’re not true.”

You were never one to forget so easily.

—

It was around 2016 when you had stopped working at Big Hit. They halted the Hip Hop Monster brand and your contract was expiring with them anyway. You went from living a kush office life to struggling freelance worker in a matter of a second. It also meant that Yoongi and you would be spending less time together. His busy schedules couldn’t permit him to stay with you longer than a few hours and his presence slowly started to disappear from his side of the bed.

It was like a sinking ship, what you had with him. The pain starts off slow, unnoticeable. You’ll still laugh and keep up appearances as time passes, but you could tell there was an ominous atmosphere that wasn’t initially there in the relationship. Your screams start to grow silent as more problems start to stack on top of each other. It’s then when you hit the iceberg. It’s then when it all starts to fall apart.

He was still good for you, you convinced yourself, even as the currents swept you out under your feet.

—

Dec. 2016

“What the fuck do you mean you’re not coming?” you yell through your phone. You were sitting on the floor of your living room, holiday decorations strewn around the apartment. He promised he’d come spend a day off of his winter promotions to be with you.

“You know how hectic the end of the year gets with promotions,” he says in quiet hushes. “I can’t do anything about it. This is my job.”

You suck in your cheeks to prevent yourself from yelling. From the sound of it, he was in public.

“Yoongi, I called out of talking to a really high-paying client,” you say through gritted teeth. “And I still came home. Why am I the only one making sacrifices?”

He sighed at the other end. He didn’t have the patience to deal with you today.

“Look, can you stop being so fucking needy. I don’t need this right now.”

He couldn’t tell from the phone call, but your heart broke at the word. Needy. He thought that you were needy.

“I’m already stressed out as it is,” he continues through the phone. “I don’t need you up my ass all the time.”

“I’m not gonna wait for you,” you reply, tears threatening to spill over. “I’m going to sleep and you’re gonna get rid of all the shit you have in my apartment. I’m sick of you, Yoongi.”

He scoffs.

“I’m sick of you too.”

Yoongi hangs up, about ready to hit the wall when Jimin comes to calm him down. Small things that were never meant to be taken seriously built up until it was ready to crash down.

When Yoongi comes at night to visit you, he sees that you’re asleep on the couch. He sits next to you, pulling you into his arms.

“I’m sorry baby,” he whispers quietly. “I’ll do better.”

You nuzzled closer to him, comforted by words you forget the next day. Even when you woke up with a bad neck and Yoongi snoring onto your skin, you couldn’t find a way to stay mad at him. You knew, deep down, that some way or the other you’re gonna find yourself arguing about the same thing next week.

—

Present

Junghoon comes to pick you up. Junghoon, your boyfriend.

He’s a little uptight and too stern for his own good, but has a good heart and a knack of giving great gifts. You met him from working in the same industry, a 3D graphics designer for several video game companies. He was a new addition to your life, your relationship only about three months old.

You were warming up to him slowly, thankful for finally having a consistent presence in your life. He always made time for you, never used work as an excuse, and didn’t act cold just for the sake of acting cold. Junghoon was sweet in the way that Yoongi used to be when he wasn’t such a massive celebrity.

It was a relief to have someone like Junghoon in your life that didn’t walk in and out of your door without much of a thought to even say goodbye. Your life with him has been a tad bit dull, but you don’t mind all that much. Junghoon’s made you feel secure in ways that Yoongi couldn’t.

—

May 2017

“Your boyfriend is winning a whole ass award across the world and you’re having ramen with me?” Chaerin sighs. It’s typical for a best friend to judge the actions of the other.

“Yeah and?” you reply snarkily, swirling your chopstick around to find the perfect clump of noodles. “I’m not the top social artist according to Billboard, what’s it have to do with me?”

She rolls her eyes at you.

“I don’t know, you could at least watch him win the award?” she suggests. “The live stream is literally happening right now. Your boyfriend is making history and you don’t even care!”

You look at the clock on the restaurant wall. It was nearing 2 o’clock and your client meeting would be starting soon. You were in high demand as a graphic artist recently and as far as you were concerned, that was the only thing on your mind at the moment. You stare back into your bowl, suddenly losing your appetite.

“The apartment is lonely without him,” you admit sadly.

He bought one for himself and had you move in. ‘It’s easier to not get noticed by the tabloids,’ he convinced you. The modern sleekness of his penthouse was a nice change to your lifestyle, but you missed the comfiness of your small studio apartment. It was often too cold when he wasn’t around.

“You could watch it with me?” Chaerin suggested. “Yoongi’s probably so sad that his own girlfriend doesn’t even want to watch him win such a major award.”

You bite down on your chopstick harshly.

“Well he didn't even want me to come with him so I don’t wanna hear anymore about him from you.”

Chaerin squinted her eyes in your direction.

“Well I mean I get where he’s coming from. He’s still an idol, [Y/N],” she scolds. “It would be a massive risk to take you with him.”

You shook your head disapprovingly, pushing the bowl away from you.

“I’m not an idiot, Chae. It’s not like I was asking to be on the red carpet with him, I just wanted to be there waiting in the hotel room after the show. Two nights ago he suddenly backs out and says I shouldn’t come.”

Chaerin’s jaw dropped out of shock. That wasn’t what she was expecting at all.

“Did he say why?”

You stare down at your nails, your heart growing heavy as a long pause of silence takes place. It would be better to be honest, right? You shouldn’t have to pretend like everything’s okay when it clearly isn’t.

“He said he wants space,” you say, careful not to get choked up. “So I’m giving it to him.”

You clutch your thigh instinctively, remembering how Yoongi had brought that up with you just nights before. You two weren’t happy and that he needed to figure himself out before the relationship gets any worse. It’s just a break or whatever bullshit he spouted.

She scoffs.

“What is wrong with you two?” she asks, genuinely concerned. “You are not the type of person to take a break in a relationship.”

You stare bitterly into the reflection of your soup.

“I just don’t think I’ve been happy for a while,” you reply, taking a sip of your water that was left untouched for a better half of the night. “I don’t think he is either.”

—

Sept. 2017

The break lasted for months and you wondered if it was really even a break at all. It felt more like a break up if you were honest. He’d text once in a while and video call you when he was free but other than that it felt like he became a stranger, just another celebrity billboard you walked past on your way to a client’s workplace.

You’d draw sketches of him countlessly, in fear you’d forget how his face looked in real life and not through a low-quality screen. You etched every baby hair, every small blemish he’d hide with makeup. It was your method of not forgetting who the real Yoongi was because honestly, you didn’t know anymore. You didn’t know him.

Trrrringggg.

The sound of your doorbell could be heard all throughout your apartment. You stood up from where you sat on the bed, leaving the sketchbook of his face on the comforter. You weren’t expecting any visitors, but surely enough, Yoongi stood in front of you with a lopsided grin on his face.

“Hey.”

You let him in, not uttering a single word. He looks different now. His hair was black, thank god, but his face was a little softer than you were used to. You remember him being so paranoid about turning bald just a few years ago and here he was, no bald spots to be found. He looked healthy.

“It’s been a while,” you respond, hugging your arms close to your chest, uncomfortable that he was in your presence. It was his apartment technically, but you lived in it more than he did. He opted to stay in the dorm ever since he issued that idiotic break.

“I miss you,” he says in a lowly voice and you almost believe him. Almost.

You scoff.

“It seems like you’ve been having fun without me though,” you say through gritted teeth. “I thought you still wanted space?”

He shakes his head and brings his hand to touch your arm.

“No,” he swallows his saliva. “I miss you.”

You could feel his sincerity, but you can’t help but not trust him. He’s been viciously cold to you, but you find yourself pulling him closer anyway.

“Don’t ever do that again,” you threaten. “It’ll really be over then, Yoongi.”

He sighs into your hair. He loves you. He does. But he doesn’t know why it’s so hard to express it.

“I promise [Y/N]. I won’t leave.”

—

Aug. 2018

He buys you flowers, your favorite kind. It’s a small gesture, but it has you jumping into his arms all the same. It shows that he still cares somewhat. It’s been a while since he’s last shown it.

He holds you closely, appreciating the softness of your body and how you curl perfectly into him.

“I want to stay like this,” you say mindlessly, just relishing in his presence.

You’re not mad at him today and he’s not frustrated with you. It’s a high point in your relationship.

“Me too.”

His words are simple but it warms your heart nonetheless. Yoongi looks at you with twinkling eyes and for a moment you think that this could last forever and that it will last forever. You kiss him slowly and he reciprocates.

It reminds you of your first time, slow and careful- like you were the last person he’d ever want to hurt.

His love, although painful at times, was good to you when you needed it to be.

—

July 2019

Yoongi’s gone again. He’s on tour, as usual, and not giving you any updates. You were getting sick of it. The constant waiting, the constant insecurities that ate you up inside. You weren’t built to endure this kind of torture.

Suga. Suga. Suga.

It rolls off the tongue but it feels disgusting coming out of your mouth. His stage name, a persona. He starts to resemble that name more and more as the days go by. You hear it so much now that it no longer registers as an actual word.

You call him.

He doesn’t pick up.

Again.

No answer.

You’re about ready to throw the phone at the wall until a soft ring was heard from the small device. You take the call immediately, smiling as if you passed the hardest difficulty of a video game. The grin would soon be wiped away, though.

“Why’d you call?” he grumbles from the other line, loud music blasting in the background.

“Why weren’t you picking up?” You sound bitter. You don’t care.

“I’m out right now,” he says, exasperation laced in his voice. “I’m not in the mood to talk.”

Clearly, he just wasn’t in the mood to talk to you. Yoongi was at a party or a club or wherever he could possibly be in the streets of Shizuoka at 10 p.m.

You just wanted to chat, check on him as a good girlfriend would. He’s been complaining that you haven’t been in a while. You thought this was what he wanted- for you to care.

“I just wanted to see if you were doing okay,” you sigh. “How’d the concert go?”

“Good,” he says, clearly distracted. “Some of us snuck out of the hotel rooms to let loose for a bit.”

You nod as if he could see you.

“So you’re partying?”

You could hear him laugh at the other end, but it wasn’t from your comment. Someone else was making him laugh. Someone with a light and dainty voice, whiny as she got closer to Yoongi.

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that,” he says, clearly distracted. “Listen I’ll call you back, okay?”

You feel a lump stuck in your throat. There are no words left to say. The foreign girl on the other end giggled harder at whatever Yoongi was saying and it felt like you were invading their privacy- as if she was his girlfriend and you were nothing. You hung up, your mouth feeling dry as the tears poured down.

You see a text from Yoongi just a few seconds into your wallowing. You sniffle as you read it.

don’t misunderstand. nothing’s happening rn i'm just having a bit of fun.

This time you really threw your phone at the wall.

You go to your iPad that’s sitting untouched on your desk. You open your drawing app and just let the anger in the stylus take you from there. You draw a rough sketch of a couple on the edge of a beachside cliff. The woman seems to be falling into the water as if she was pushed. The guy’s hand reaches out to her, but you can’t really tell if he was trying to grab her or if he was the one that let her go in the first place.

As the tears spilled onto the cool surface of the iPad, you sob harder. Nothing could be fixed and everything still felt broken. It was meaningless, sleeping in his bed and wearing his clothes when he was all the way in Japan snuggling up to girls that were probably much prettier and much more willing to understand his lifestyle.

You look around the penthouse he had bought for the two of you, beautiful wide panel windows and modern furniture. It mostly looks empty, everything nice and tidy as if no one lived here. It had such a stark contrast to that of his old life when he shared rooms with other members and had no place to really put his keyboard except the studio. You smiled at the memory of you all hovering around the small coffee table in the cramped living room eating ramen.

Maybe it was your fault for falling behind, for letting the world around you build up and not follow in Yoongi’s tracks.

—

Present

You guess it was then when the relationship had passed a point of no return. When everything that felt right had started to feel incredibly wrong. You tolerated his presence rather than bask in it. You heard him speak but couldn’t bother to listen. Maybe you were petty, but more than anything you were angry.

You were angry that he could break you that badly and you would still forgive him for it.

You stare over at Junghoon who’s cooking you up something on the stove. This is what you needed.

—

Nov. 2019

Yoongi was back from some big-name award show that you didn’t watch. You heard he won Artist of the Year or whatever, the accolades that he’s collected no longer having meaning as the days pass. Why be happy for him when he himself showed no signs of excitement? This was routine. He expected the awards at this point.

You walked towards him. Yoongi looked angry, though you have no idea why.

“Hey, I made dinner to celebrate,” you tell him. Yoongi’s sitting on the couch, scrolling through the congratulatory messages he received from other industry stars. He looked like he needed to get something off his chest.

“I’m not hungry,” he mutters. “Just leave it.”

“Are you sure?”

He scoffs. It was a simple question.

“Not in the mood.”

You give him a pointed look and sit next to him.

“Why are you never in the mood for anything?” you ask him. “It’s just food Yoongi. I just want to eat with you.”

You don’t see it properly but he rolls his eyes.

“Just drop it okay? Today’s a good day, I don’t need you to ruin it.”

You suck in your cheeks.

“Ruin?”

Yoongi sighs heavily.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he starts, facing you. “Why do you have to be so dramatic over everything.”

You grit your teeth.

“Dramatic?” your voice quivers. “I didn’t know feeling hurt was being dramatic.”

His gaze softens and he touches your arm lightly.

“Sorry, I didn't mean it like that.”

You shake your head, feeling your eyes dampen at his words.

“I hate your apologies, Yoongi,” you say in a hushed tone. “They don’t mean anything anymore.”

He’s shocked, not really sure how to respond. You were never one to confront him, especially when he was angry. Instead, he holds your hand softly. He was terrible at comforting people.

“Yoongi are you really sorry?” you ask abruptly. It was a question you’ve been meaning to ask for years now.

His grip on you tightened and you can’t quite read his expression, but you can tell that it’s not a positive response. He looks conflicted and he shouldn’t have to be if he really was. You force him to let go of you.

“I am,” he says, knowing he answered a little too late for his words to not seem suspicious.

“I don’t think you are,” you reply sadly. “You say sorry more than you-”

say I love you.

He doesn’t let you finish the sentence because he knows. He knows what you’re trying to say.

“I am,” he says with more sincerity, but he looks at you with an unreadable expression. “I just don’t think it’s enough at this point.”

“What’s not enough?”

You were confused. Is he still talking about whether he's apologetic or not? Or is it something entirely different?

“I do love you,” he says with a certain conviction in his voice, “and I always will, but it feels like nothing’s working out.”

Yoongi doesn’t look at you and focuses on the leather of the fancy couch. He doesn’t say anything but you know what this means. He’s about to stand up, but you grab onto his wrist.

“This is your apartment,” you say before he could say anything to break your heart even further. “I’ll leave.”

“[Y/N], no,” he says. “You don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m just gonna stay over at the dorm. I just...”

Your eyes get blurry from the tears. Even now it felt like he was looking down at you. Nowhere to go. It was like he pitied you.

“...need to go clear my mind,” he finishes the sentence, standing up to grab his coat.

You shake your head and stand in front of him. He’s usually like this. A coward. A bumbling fool who would rather avoid problems than face them head on.

“I need you to stay, Yoongi,” you cry out. “I need you to actually stay for once and comfort me.”

He looks at you, mouth open but no words come out. He smiles sadly and walks toward you, kissing your cheek.

“I don’t think I can do that anymore, [Y/N],” he says and you watch him leave as easily as he walked in.

It’s not like he ever comforted you in the first place.

—

The break up happened silently over a late-night phone call a few days after he disappeared on you. You packed up your things, stayed over at Chaerin’s house, and braced yourself for what was to come. It should’ve happened sooner, you admit, but your heart still sinks when he speaks.

“I just don’t think either of us is willing to try anymore,” he says solemnly. “We’ve been on and off for the past few years and I don’t think it’s healthy for either of us to continue.”

You agree, just wanting the call to end quickly so you wouldn’t have to hear his voice any longer. It hurt to have to listen to him rationalize breaking your heart.

“I don’t think we should be together anymore, [Y/N],” he says, not even a tiny bit choked up. “I think we’ve... outgrown each other.”

You knew what Yoongi really meant. He’s outgrown you.

“I think so too,” you say rigidly. Short and simple. You left nothing to be desired. “Let’s break up.”

Yoongi looks at his phone, slightly disappointed. He wished you would fight back, maybe rekindle something in him that he’s lost over the years. Yet you were silent on the line and he just had to accept it- that there was nothing left to be saved.

“Take care, okay?” he says softly because in the end he still cares- he just doesn’t want to anymore.

“I will,” you reply, ultimately hanging up the phone. You collapse onto a bed unfamiliar to you. Yoongi would no longer sleep beside you, no longer reach over to hug your side and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. He was gone and you had to accept that maybe he was never yours in the first place.

His last words replay in your mind.

Take care.

That was the most concern he’s ever shown you in the past few weeks. You almost scoff at the absurdity of it all. You don’t notice how truly broken you were until the tears start streaming down your face. You see the image of him through blurry eyes and you wonder how you could let Yoongi leave such a permanent scar on your heart.

—

Present

“Do you like your eggs runny or no?”

Junghoon asks as you approach his figure. You hug him from behind and smile at his warmth. Safe.

“Just a little runny,” you reply.

He smiles and nods, turning off the heat and grabbing some seasoning from your cupboard. You detach yourself from him when you realized what he was grabbing.

“Babe that’s not salt. That’s-”

Sugar.

You stop yourself from saying it and Junghoon looks at you with concern. He chuckles at your stoic state and ruffles your hair.

“Cat got your tongue or what?” he asks, grabbing the right container this time. “Maybe I should’ve asked if you like your eggs sweet instead, huh?”

“I’ve never tried that combination before,” you say teasingly. “Why don’t you test it out for us.”

He clicks his tongue at you and splashes some salt on your face.

“I’ll pour sugar all over you if that’s what you really want.”

You laugh half-heartedly. A simple word shouldn’t affect you this much but you find yourself get more teary-eyed as it repeats in your head. It wasn’t fair to Junghoon that you were thinking of your ex in his presence. It wasn’t fair to you either.

You feel a vibration from your pocket and you pull it out to serve as a distraction from your wallowing thoughts. It’s a text.

From Sugar.

—

A/N: This was so hard to write because my mind has just been empty these days but I’m so glad it’s done now >_< Thank you to @minyoongail for requesting this story. I’ve been bumping to the Taylor Swift song now because of this commissions T^T I recommend you all to listen to it. I tried to write this in a different style from my other works so I hope this is still readable for you all LOL

I’m closing commissions temporarily to focus on the ones I have now and to also start writing my own stuff. Let me know how you feel about this, I appreciate all types of comments and criticisms <3 Look forward to Part 2!

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goldeneyedgirl · 4 years

Text

Part 2 of MCU/Twilight verse

“That MCU crossover I’m writing that actually hasn’t mentioned the MCU at all yet.”

Alt 7: Found Family

Rating: T for swearing

Words: 2,551

Summary: Twilight X MCU crossover. The Snap doesn’t just kill humans. What happens next?

Notes: Is this even Whump-y enough to count to Whumptober? I don’t know, everyone’s grieving. I made myself watch Endgame again and I found something useful. I know it probably feels like I wiped out a lot of characters, but there’s method to my madness. I’m desperately resisting the urge to make some obvious corrections to the MCU, and I’m pretty sure the last two chapters are going to be needlessly self-indulgent. And yes, I need a title.

Part One here

two. survivors

What happens next?

It’s a good question, and one Alice used to be able to answer. Her predictions have… well, they haven’t stopped, but there are less. Maybe she’s not saying everything but he doesn’t press.

They stay in Forks. It’s the easiest option, really. They have resources at the Forks house - all of Jasper’s computers, Rose’s cars, Carlisle’s medication stash. And for, now, it makes sense to keep up the masquerade - the orphaned Cullen kids, in that big old house.

And Seth Clearwater. Neither of them have made more than polite inquiries about the Quileute reservation, because what can they do, really? They weren’t allowed on the land, and nothing they offer will be accepted. Seth doesn’t want to talk about it either, so they just… don’t. Not yet.

The first announcements and news reports are hard to listen to - half of all living creatures. Humans, animals, plants, sea-life… just gone. Then there are the people who survived, but died in the aftermath; the patients in surgery with the dust of their surgeons sinking into their chest cavity, the passengers on an airplane, the school bus with no driver. The news plays on, listing losses and catastrophes until he loudly asks if Seth wants to play Xbox instead.

Alice goes with them, and sits crosslegged on a recliner, watching them.

“Carlisle would have liked that,” she says suddenly, when Emmett realises the error in picking a war game - should have opted for a racing game instead.

“Liked what?” he asks, as he gets up to change the disc. Seth doesn’t say anything, playing with the recliner buttons instead.

“‘Half of all living creatures’,” she quotes. She’s been wearing one of Jasper’s t-shirts under her cardigan, and the scent of his brother is fading the longer she wears it. “Carlisle would have appreciated that. That the universe thought we were living creatures. Might have convinced Edward that we weren’t total monsters, either.”

Seth looks up at her, confused. “Why wouldn’t you be living creatures?” he asks, concentrating at the recliner tips him right back.

“We don’t breathe or age or change,” Alice says, a smirk playing around her face as Seth yelps when the entire chair begins to tip, but luckily it doesn’t fall.

“But you eat,” Seth accepts the controller Emmett passes him. “And you’ve got families. That means you still count.”

“I wish we didn’t.” Emmett doesn’t realise he’s said those words aloud until he realises Seth and Alice are both staring at him. He wants to explain that if they didn’t count, then there wouldn’t be five vases lined up on the mantel (three empty) full of dust. That he wouldn’t be sitting here playing Xbox with Seth Clearwater, and Alice wouldn’t be wearing leggings and her husband’s t-shirt, looking brittle and tired. That he wouldn’t go into their room every night, and bury his face in Rose’s clothes to keep himself from going insane.

But he doesn’t need to. They both understand - Alice sits with Seth when the boy sniffles and tries to hide it; Emmett hears Alice padding around Jasper’s office, having a conversation with thin air, questions asked to silence. If there was some loophole they could grab with both hands and exploit, he knows he and Alice and Seth would take it, humanity and life and all those upright and moral things be damned.

“Just what everyone needs,” Alice muses, leaning back and stretching like a cat. “A world where humans and animals were cut in half but the vampires weren’t.”

And she’s right. That would be a mess. The fucking end of times.

“That would be a cool movie,” Seth says absently, focused on the screen and forcing Emmett’s car off the road and into a ravine.

Alice watches them play for awhile before getting up. A few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door and low voices. Charlie Swan, with Carlisle’s phone. Emmett lets Seth win a second race, focused on the conversation Alice is having - why it took Charlie so damn long to bring the phone, how they’re holding up; his irritation at the delay it took to get Carlisle’s phone is tempered when he hears the genuine concern Charlie has for Alice. He doesn’t know much about Bella’s father, but he seems like a good guy.

Not that Alice needs to act the part - she looks broken. Most of the time he feels like he’s seeing a part of her that he shouldn’t be seeing, that the loss and grief that becomes her is somehow shameful to witness; it’d be less awkward to see her naked than to see her twisting Jasper’s t-shirt in her hands with that glassy look of hopelessness she tries to hide.

Alice feels the same about him; that Emmett without Rose is devoid of that joie de vivre, that endless good humour, the extra joke. He feels tired in his bones, deflated, and distracted with the space in his chest that Rose used to fill. He feels like an old man, when he was never finished being a young man, never made it to middle-age.

But they are trying. Especially with Seth in the house - he’s taken over the bedroom that Esme planned to give to Bella, mostly because it didn’t stink of vampires as much as any other room; and neither of them wanted to dismantle Esme’s studio or Carlisle’s office. It wasn’t really much - a mattress and boxspring, a dresser and desk. Alice had given him a laptop to use, and found some new bedding for him, and occasionally even remembered that a fourteen year old boy shouldn’t be eating pizza six nights a week, and probably needed more boundaries than they were giving him. But Alice isn’t maternal, and her attempts at forcing vegetables and a bedtime on Seth usually get forgotten within a day or two.

Charlie Swan leaves, and he listens as Alice puts Carlisle’s phone into his vase, and then he focuses on the game so that Seth doesn’t think he’s letting him win because of pity or anything.

—

It’s not until late summer than people start bothering them. Parents of classmates who suddenly don’t have any children of their own to worry over. Colleagues and acquaintances who feel some kind of lingering responsibility. Busy-bodies, usually a part of some self-aggrandising self-appointed community group butting into everyone’s grief.

Alice ignores the early attempts to interfere, to crack open both the metaphorical and literal door for anyone who isn’t Charlie Swan. She’s taken to doing the oddest tasks, but Emmett doesn’t ask. At the moment, she’s painting every single door in the house with a swirling pattern of flowers that is tiny and detailed and fills up the day. Esme would have a conniption if she saw her lovely doors like this (he remembers when Alice and Jasper first arrived, and her art projects ran afoul of Esme - she had apologised and channeled that manic energy into embroidery instead; there’s a pair of unspeakably ugly curtains hanging in the Vermont house from one panicked week when Jasper went off with Peter and Charlotte).

Then the harassment starts - both her and him, since he’s apparently considered her ‘guardian’. Alice hangs up the phone numerous times wordlessly before being so outstandingly rude to Mrs Newton that both he and Seth stare at her before Emmett remembers he’s actually supposed to be in charge - as far as the rest of the town knows, at least - and calls to deter any more visits or phone calls or casseroles because Alice isn’t well and the disruptions are upsetting her.

If Carlisle or Esme were here, they’d think to send Mrs Newton flowers or something as an apology, but they aren’t, and no one can get Alice to apologise when she doesn’t want to, and Seth confided in him that she’s crying when he’s hiding in the garage and Seth is totally at a loss over what to do about a crying girl that isn’t Leah, so maybe they’ll just leave it at that. Give the town something new to gossip about.

But it does spark sudden realisation in both Cullens about a topic that has been long forgotten - school. Alice and Emmett have both graduated, but Seth had not. Seth had another four glorious years in high school, even if the Res school is down to double digits of enrolments, and probably won’t even run every weekday.

Seth whines and begs and negotiates until Alice stamps her foot and demands to know what Sue Clearwater would say and that makes Seth all small and miserable, and Alice hates herself and Emmett solves the problem by making a large donation through one of their anonymous charities to the Res school so that Seth can at least do online learning, and apparently that’s a huge deal that is on the local news, and that makes Alice and Seth laugh because only Emmett would stop a teenage boy’s whining by revolutionising a tribe’s educational provisions with a cheque large enough to sustain a small city for a year.

But it’s good help - it means the children who suddenly have no parents and have to raise siblings can still study; it means that half-empty classrooms don’t necessarily mean half-empty classes; it also means that other tribes with larger losses and no way of schooling are invited to join them.

That’s one good thing they’ve managed.

He also fixed the backdoor as good as new, so it should be two, but he’s pretty sure that doesn’t count now that Alice has painted flowers blooming and dying all over it.

At some point they both bully Seth into going home again, to get his own stuff - clothes and bedding and photos and all those things you look for when you’re in a house that isn’t yours. He yells at them, they yell at him, and he storms off. But now there’s a photo of him with his parents and sister on his dresser, and a bunch of books crowding his desk, and the world’s most beat-up DS under his pillow. There are more photos, somewhere - Emmett knows that because Alice knows where they are and then one day there are two framed photos joining the vases on the mantle - one of Sue and Harry Clearwater on their wedding day, and one of Leah laughing. Neither of them knows what happened to Sue or Leah precisely on that day, but Seth doesn’t bring the ashes with him, so they don’t ask.

Summer folds into fall, and what’s left of Esme’s gardens wither up. Charlie Swan checks on them every few weeks, sounding tired. There’s a lot of work for him right now - mostly community and social issues, like scared and orphaned children hiding, people struggling with money, grief, religion. There’s been some shortages of food, since there’s less being grown, less people to process and package and ship it, and a little town hours outside of Seattle is not a priority to whomever is deciding where to send a milk delivery.

They order Seth’s food from high-end places online that deliver them quickly and quietly; Alice starts choosing long-life and bulk items, and no one needs to ask because it’s obvious things will get worse before they get better. Seth holds a pretty intense grudge against the powdered strawberry milk, though.

But food shortages are the least of their worries, as Alice uses the dining room wall to start taking nonsensical notes, and Emmett’s heard enough stories to know that losing a mate can be… well, he’s not having much fun, but the very last thing he needs is to wrangle Alice if she’s lost her mind. Dead or not, he knows he could never lay a hand on her even if she did go nuts out of love for his family, out of respect for Jasper, and out of this funny bond they’ve somehow formed, being the last ones left.

The notes turn into lists, lists of everyone they’ve ever known, in her swirling handwriting. Even people they know are gone, like Bella, goes on the list.

Then she starts striking out names, like she’s slashing with a knife - Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rosalie, Edward, Bella, Charlie, Sue, Leah, Sam, Jacob, Paul… Slash, slash, slash.

Then it starts getting interesting. Peter and Charlotte are gone, but so are half the goddamned Volturi (Alice smirks as she crosses out Caius, Jane, Alec, Dimitri because imagining Aro on his throne with grief-mad Marcus and only the minions is a pretty picture indeed). Carmen and Tanya have survived, but Kate, Irina, and Eleazer are gone. Garrett is alive, but Randall and Mary aren’t. J Jenks didn’t make it either, which makes things… difficult.

Alice scowls darkly as she scratches out Maria’s name, and Emmett wonders if it’s because she didn’t get to do the honours of destroying the Mexican harpy herself. Or because wherever Jasper is now, so is Maria, and Alice is left behind.

Finally, she is done, and the list is nearly balanced in living and dead. Alice’s left eye twitches, and whatever she’s thinking she doesn’t say as she stands up.

“Alaska and then Mexico, then,” she says to him, and he gives her the Look that he gives her and Edward and Jasper every time one of them forgets that not everyone has a gift and some of them have to use their words.

“We need to check on Carmen and Tanya; I think they need us,” Alice explains, still examining the list. “I saw that we need to go. And then we’re going down to Mexico.”

“Maria’s dead,” he gestures at her list, and Seth wanders in stuffing his face with Pringles, and turns white at the sight of Esme’s freshly defaced walls; evidently Motherly Wrath is something universal across all of the species.

“Maria’s dead, and left behind a bunch of fresh newborns,” Alice sounds tired. “There’s no one left for clean up, Em, no one who knows. And it will be bad if we don’t step in soon.”

There might be something cathartic in that for Alice, undoing Maria’s life’s work. Maria’s lands weren’t exactly in the wealthiest or most populated lands these days - Jasper kept a secret map that wasn’t at all a secret - and if going down there and taking off a few heads saves a mother or father or child, then maybe it’s worth the hassle.

“Fine. Alaska and Mexico,” he agrees, and Seth cheers.

“Road-trip!” he declares around a mouthful of chips. Alice rolls her eyes.

“I’ll make you up a passport,” she says, not even bothering to argue with the younger boy that he’ll be joining them. “We’ll take the Jeep, Em - Rose just finished it.”

The words hang in the air for a second, and he nods in agreement. There might be something in that, taking the last gift-gesture-offering Rose ever did for him on their End-of-the-World Road Trip. Alice can rip the heads off newborns, he can drive around in the SUV his wife carefully and lovingly put together just to please him, and maybe he’ll buy Seth a beer in Tijuana.

Closest thing they’ll ever get to therapy, he supposes.

#my fic: jar of hearts #alice cullen #emmett cullen #seth clearwater #twilight fic #i should check the jalice prompts again for ch 3 #but is this crossovery enough for a crossover?#like we're aggressively not talking about the avengers yet #we'll get there #i promise the roadtrip isn't just an excuse to run into captain america buying a milkshake or something #there is plot and purpose #we are above that sort of cloying and anemic meet cute #in this fic at least #others not so much

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comradekatara · 4 years

Note

Do you have any modern Zukka headcannons? Thanks for your hot awesome takes all the time

i’ve gone over some of these points before, so some of y’all may recognize the continuity of the atlahsaucu (atla highschool au cinematic universe). this is a long one, and it’s *gasps* chronological…

they first meet in junior year art class. sokka resents how well zuko can draw and paint seemingly without any effort whatsoever, meanwhile sokka tries really hard and all his art comes out like disgusting little blobs on the canvas. zuko resents sokka for being cool and hot. how dare he.

one day, they get a bit carried away, and sokka and suki start making out in the middle of the hallway. zuko, whose locker they are directly on top of and who has class at this very moment, is not amused, and he, politely as he can, coughs and request that they move out of the way. sokka merely holds up a finger as to say “one moment please” which enrages zuko (justly, tbh) and he yells, “what the fuck?!”

sokka’s like “man what’s your fucking problem why are you such an asshole and so good at art” and zuko’s just like “????” and “what in gods name are you talking about????” and the yelling causes a scene which lands them in detention. sokka has never gotten detention before (though he has gotten several warnings in the past, but it’s kinda hard to be mad at the guy whose girlfriend just died for being distracted in class) and he’s freaking out that this is gonna go on his record and he’ll never get into stanford or mit or princeton or– meanwhile zuko is just asleep at his desk.

once zuko wakes up, sokka, bored out of his mind, jokingly proposes that they sneak out through the vents and make a break for it, but zuko, either not understanding that sokka is joking or not caring that sokka is joking (it’s unclear which) is like “yeah we’d just have to be quiet.” sokka, who has now decided that zuko is batshit crazy, but has also decided that he is living on the wild side, a real bad boy rebel who’ll never make ivy league because he got detention that one time, is like “yeah okay” just because he spent a lot of time entertaining this hypothetical and now he’s deathly curious to see if it’ll work.

amazingly enough, it does. adrenaline carries them outside the building and into freedom as they run as far as their legs will carry them until sokka stops to panic that he is now a certified delinquent, and delinquents don’t get scholarships, and if he doesn’t go to a good school then he’ll never get a good job, and if he doesn’t get a good job then how is he gonna support gran gran?????? and zuko’s just like “wait, hold up.”

zuko admits that he fully thought sokka was some type of meathead jock who makes out with his girlfriend in the hallways and thinks he’s too cool for school and sokka’s like “she’s not my girlfriend and also what.” zuko is confused as to why he would make out with someone in the hallway if she wasn’t even his girlfriend. he also realizes that he doesn’t actually know his name. so sokka explains that yeah they’re in love and spend every waking moment together but no she’s not his girlfriend; he doesn’t do relationships and neither does she. and also he introduces himself.

and it takes zuko a moment because he’s really bad with names and faces and putting faces to names and, people, in general, but then he’s like “oh my god you’re that sokka.” and sokka’s just like “yeah i’m pretty sure my name’s not that common???” but zuko is just like “i think my sister is planning to murder you someday.” and sokka just slaps his forehead. of course art class asshole is related to debate class asshole.

only zuko’s not really an asshole he’s kinda just a weirdo. a quiet little freak who paints good. sokka can vibe with that. especially after zuko assures him that none of this will go on any sort of record whatsoever because bumi is old, and batshit, and senile, and clearly doesn’t give a fuck. sokka laughs, and this leads into them talking shit about everyone they both hate, which they realize are all the same people, somehow. seeing their own petty bitterness mirrored back at them, they realize that they’re kind of both snobs, but in a fun way.

they walk through town until it gets dark out, and then they go their separate ways. but next monday they sit together in art class, and their teacher yells at them to stop whispering. sokka is just drawing little triangles across the page because he’s just come from trig and he’s very sleepy and doesn’t really feel like feeling inadequate right now. but zuko’s like, “what are you drawing?” and sokka looks at the page of triangles he was unconsciously doodling and scoffs and says in an affect, “can’t you tell? it’s a cubist take on degas.” and this is the funniest shit to zuko. but of course he then gets yelled at for laughing.

they’re friends after that; they just are. sokka invites zuko to lunch with his friends, at which point zuko meets toph and suki, who are, of course, the fucking coolest.

azula sees zuko talk to sokka or suki occasionally in the halls and demands to know what it is they’re talking about. zuko’s like “i dont….. remember?” but azula is certain that they are only friends with him as a means of getting to her, because they desire to crush her. zuko’s like “i don’t even think they know your name.” indeed, they do not. but sokka does stop calling her “debate asshole” in favor of “zuko’s sister,” so that’s something.

the first time zuko goes to sokka’s house, it is because sokka insists on showing him both back to the future movies. (there is no third one it does not exist.) for reasons unknown to him, zuko is terrified. he wears his favorite sweater that day. it is near-identical to all his other sweaters. he doesn’t understand the first one at all. the second one he remarks “oh that was kind of like hamlet.” that makes sokka really happy. at some point zuko goes to get a glass of water and sokka yells from the couch to bring him back a popsicle from the freezer while he’s at it. zuko complies, but he takes it just before katara goes to get one. he nonchalantly tells her that it was the last one, and she makes a very big show of throwing the box out. she fumes all night that sokka let that rude little bitch into her house. sokka pays her no mind.

mai and zuko are still together at this point, and because mai is dropping hints big enough to pierce through even zuko’s thick skull that she’s feeling left behind in favor of zuko’s new friends, he asks them if it’s cool that she join them for stuff. they’re all like “yeah of course” and mai pretends not to care. they all like mai, especially toph, but all agree that her relationship with zuko is super weird. toph and mai become super tight, and it’s clear as day to toph that mai is in love with ty lee, even if mai is not fully aware of this fact herself. suki, who has been secretly hooking up with ty lee this whole time (don’t worry, sokka knows, and he high-fives her whenever she brags about it), is just like “oh noooooo……” toph insists to mai that she dump zuko, and without mentioning ty lee once, is able to convince her of it just by reminding her that zuko is a super inattentive boyfriend and she deserves better. she does. zuko feels sort of…relieved? he doesn’t know why. he loves mai. he really does. but it’s also like a weight has been taken off his shoulders.

zuko doesn’t really know what to do about the fact that his sister is serial-killer level obsessed with sokka, other than try to ignore it. azula is always attempting to pry information out of him because they seem to be, at the very least, casual acquaintances so he must have some leverage by now, right??? she is never allowed to know that he knows where sokka lives, because he is afraid that one night sokka will simply find her hiding in the bushes with binoculars searching for any sign of academic struggle. sokka is blissfully unaware to most of these shenanigans. to him, she is like a buzzing fly occasionally hovering around his face.

that summer, they divide their time between working on college applications and going to the park together to just sit and read. it’s literally the most fun zuko can ever remember having.

english was always sokka’s worst subject because he is terrible at organizing his thoughts coherently and always ends up going on little tangents about the origins of butter churning or digital watches in a paper that was supposed to be about sense & sensibility, but his teachers are usually charmed enough by him that they see his essays as a fun challenge instead of a giant red X. but pakku loathes sokka. and he loathes his sister, whom he had taught the previous year. sokka complains to katara about it, and she just goes on a rant about how horrible and boring and bitter and raggedy he is. but sokka, who, unlike katara, desperately wants to be liked by everyone, feels the need to prove himself.

he goes to the best english student he knows. “hey, you’re really good at english, right?” he asks zuko, to which zuko responds, “i should hope so. it is my first language.” it is unclear whether or not zuko is being facetious or just very perplexed, but sokka laughs anyway. he pleads for zuko to “tutor him” and zuko’s like “but you have all A’s?” he agrees anyway, of course. zuko spends a lot of time on jstor, so he know how to write good. he helps sokka outline his essays in a way that works for him, but mostly it’s just an excuse for them to hang out and eat snacks. at this point, katara likes him and does not mind the fact that he is in her house, eating her food. she walks past the kitchen to be like “what u guys up to? oh, nerd shit?”

sokka and mai accept to the same college, and zuko isn’t sure why he feels so weird about that. they’re gonna be in completely parts of the country, only sokka and mai will see each other all the time, especially because they’re bound to be in some of the same classes together, knowing them, and that’s just weird. like, yeah, they’re friends, and yes, he might be semi-aware of the fact that they hang out without him, like, all the time, but this is different. this is weird. zuko asks mai if she thinks it’s weird and she just raises one eyebrow and goes, “no???” and zuko’s like “oh..okay..”

they don’t see each other all that much in those four years, but they’re always taking pictures of ridiculous passages from the books they’re currently reading and sending them to each other, because they just can’t kick the habit. they both learn a lot in college. sokka takes as many classes as humanly possible. zuko changes his major a lot. toph doesn’t go to school there, but she moves in with sokka once she graduates. zuko learns a lot about himself.

once sokka graduates, he and toph decide to get an apartment in a different city. sokka asks zuko what his plans are once he graduates and zuko’s like “bruh, like i’ve ever planned for anything in my life” so when sokka’s like “wanna be our third roommate” it’s a no-brainer.

sokka picks zuko up from the train station, and zuko is just so overwhelmed by the casual thoughtfulness of the gesture that he instinctively just kisses him, in the middle of the station. zuko is mortified for a brief moment but then sokka is just like “cool.” (sokka later inwardly laments saying “cool.” who says that?? what, is he abed from community???)

sokka tells zuko “just fyi, i don’t do relationships” and zuko is like “yeah, i know, you say that literally every day” but then toph slaps him (”sorryyyyy that was an accident” “no it wasn’t!”) and tells him to get his shit together. so sokka goes to zuko and says, “this may sound insane, but i think i’m afraid that if i love someone, they’ll die” and zuko’s like “oh. i’m afraid of that too.” and that makes it somewhat easier.

ever since mai made them watch over the garden wall, they’ve really wanted frogs so that they could name them after the discarded jason funderburker names. they get their frog terrarium and it’s glorious.

zuko has always wanted a cat, but he knows how sokka feels about cats so he does not bring it up. but one day, as he’s walking down the street, he stumbles across a little black kitten in the cold, shivering, limping, and missing one ear. he drops whatever it is he’s doing at the moment to bundle it up in his scarf and take it to the nearest vet clinic. the kitten is so indebted to him that he physically does not have the willpower to let it go anywhere else but home with him.

it really doesn’t take much convincing at all for sokka to agree to keep jiji (yes, zuko is just incapable of not naming his pets after fictional characters) especially because toph threatens to kill herself if he doesn’t. sokka is just like “woah there calm down you guys. we can keep the cat.” and theyre like “yay sokka youre the best!!!” and he’s just like “oh my god did you think i was gonna make you get rid of this tiny kitten with only one ear.”

zuko has a face for telemarketing. he also does some freelance writing. toph gives sokka very sound legal advice in regards to how to patent all the weird yet supremely useful inventions he keeps stumbling onto. after all, after tim cook offered him $$$ in exchange for that microchip he designed, he sort of doesn’t need a steady job. toph is really good at bullshitting rich people so she makes way more money than she should with those creepy statues of hers. they recognize how unstable their sources of income are, but sokka is really good with finances, so it works out somehow. when katara comes to visit them she complains that sokka has joined the 1% and is hoarding his wealth like the capitalist swine he is. sokka’s just like “katara did you only come visit me because you need money?” and katara’s like “well i won’t lie, so – yes.”

sokka eventually convinces zuko to go to grad school. naturally, zuko thrives there. sometimes zuko will wake up at 3 am and sokka will very intently find him writing the word “nihil” in a notebook and sokka’s like “what’s up” and zuko’s like “NOTHING.” and then proceeds to be like “don’t you see??? there’s no declension!!! everything makes sense now!!!!!!!!!” and rambles on and on incoherently. sokka’s like “oh god i just realized this is how i sound to everyone all the time.”

sokka takes zuko to the worst plays he can find, and then they sit in a 24 hour diner while zuko rants about everything wrong with said play. sometimes he even takes notes. this becomes a weekly tradition.

zuko reads sokka’s shelved manuscript on the history of cartography and helps him whittle it down to only 400 pages. he’s not a very harsh editor, but he did cut the thing by 150%, so that’s a start.

zuko teaches sokka how to paint.

#this has been in our askbox for over two weeks so sorry about THAT #but it happened to coincide with zukkaweek so i think thats fun for us #sokka #zuko #sokkaxzuko #modern au #asks #anon

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Division of Labor (3/?)

Summary:

“The past years, we have noticed a lot of our fresh high school graduates knew nothing about responsibilities that await them outside high school and even college. Many students do not master budgeting, taxes, household planning, loans and we hope to raise a generation who can navigate the adult world without the consequences of bad decisions they are bound to make going in blindly…”

Paradis High school starts a program incorporating adulting into their curriculum and Hange and Levi are paired together.

Note: From request of @a-golden-hearted-snk-fan. See this link for the request

Other Chapters: 1 2

Link to cross-postings: AO3

It turned out Hange did think the housing plan through.

"It's a rent to own contract...so after paying this certain amount of rent… within a number of years… we can own the house basically," Hange explained. Her preparation was evident in the wad of papers she had carelessly spread out on the table in front of Levi.

At first glance, Levi could not make sense of what those papers were. Eventually, by carefully scanning through the therefore, herewiths, in the events, the interest rates and percentages, Levi figured out they were contracts and manuals full of buying and renting policies of one particular real estate company.

Levi looked out the glass window of the booth of the quiet diner they had chosen to work in. He had tried to use the mechanical movements of the crowds on a commute home to at least help clear his mind enough to make sense of how exactly a rent-to-own contract worked. Levi was sure Hange was at least attempting to explain everything about the buying policies of the real estate company in layman's terms. Although Levi was somewhat impressed by the dedication Hange put into it, as soon as she started to talk about the policies and agreements beyond ‘we get to own the house after a while,’ Levi ended up spacing out. The prospect of spending, even if it was fake money, caused him enough unnecessary stress.

He turned his attention to the two flour sacks who were propped by the window of the diner booth they occupied. He had purposefully turned their ugly faces towards the window at the small possibility that Shadis, Erwin or even Zeke were amongst the crowds of people walking through the crowds and into the subway station. A testament to their determination not to waste any unnecessary funds or worse, flunk the program

"If we catch you in public not holding your baby, you pay babysitting dues or you fail." Shadis had said in homeroom class that morning.

After some discussion as a class and with some confirmation from Erwin, the whole class came to the understanding that if they went out separately, they were in no obligation to take their babies with them. It could always be assumed after all, that their partner had their baby with them. Being in public with their partner meant someone had to have the baby with them or they risk pay necessary dues. At any rate, they found solace in the fact that if they were going to look like idiots holding brown sacks with shabbily drawn faces on them, they at least had someone to look like an idiot with.

Levi looked back at Hange to see that she had not stopped talking. Levi was not too surprised, having the disinterested equivalent of a resting bitch face, he had to master the art of looking like he cared to get past most classes.

“Where did you get these anyway?” Levi asked, interrupting the tirade of his partner. The answer to that question would at least be something he would be able to understand.

“The procedures manual and their company policies are available online.” Hange answered matter-of-factly. Levi noted how quickly she recovered from having her explanation of policy and business jargon interrupted.

As Levi looked once again through highlighted lines and messy scrawls, he felt embarrassed that he was not even halfway done with the design they had discussed the night before. He slowly brought out his folder where he had at least begun to draw the floor plan from the link Hange had sent him the night before.

“How has the floor plan been Levi?” Hange cocked her head to one side. Levi could not tell if she was provoking him or if she was genuinely curious about the progress of his work. Regardless, the way that she sifted through the papers under her, while looking pointedly at the roughly drawn floor plan on his hands had Levi self conscious.

It was Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours since she had bombarded him with messages. Less than 24 hours since she dropped a pdf file of the floor plan and went MIA, Levi guessed it was to prepare all the documents which Hange had just laid out in front of him that morning. As he compared his own progress to hers, he also became aware of one more reality, their first outputs were due tomorrow. Begrudgingly Levi had to admit, despite her naivete and overenthusiasm, Hange had a better sense of urgency than he did.

“I planned everything out already. I just need to outline it.” Levi said, trying at least not to sound as defensive as he felt.

“But can you do it alone? I didn’t sleep at all last night to get this done.” Hange looked more concerned than anything else.”

As Levi looked back at a skeleton of a housing plan that lay in front of him, he started to understand her concern. The house they had selected was huge and designing would take hours if he actually wanted to put thought into it.

“I mean even if we take out the 1800 from our budget of 3600 dollars a month, we still have to consider furniture and it might take you a while to come out with the pricing right? I guess we could leave out 1000 dollars for that….”

Furniture? Levi had stopped listening at ‘furniture.’ Somehow Levi had assumed that it would have been fully furnished when they bought it and they just had to rearrange furniture. “We’re buying an unfurnished house?” Levi had hoped Hange was pulling his leg.

Hange knitted her brows in confusion. “Did I say anything about a furnished house?”

Division of Labor

“There are two methods of accounting used in modern day society: cost accounting and accrual accounting or as I’d like to call them: an idiot’s sorry excuse for accounting and actual accounting.” Zeke wrote the two terms on the board and plopped himself on the teacher’s desk. “Really though, why the hell do people still use cost accounting in modern society, it’s fucking stupid, barbaric, might as well go back to bartering…”

Levi had no idea what either of them were. As he looked around at his classmates, they looked as lost as he was about the mini rant that Zeke gave about the two accounting methods he had failed to define.

After a few minutes of ranting, Zeke finally noticed the blank faces of his students. “Okay Social Experiment.” Zeke cocked his head to the side. “Actually, let’s call it an IQ Test. Jean stand up.”

“Yes sir!” Jean followed way too enthusiastically.

“You got the investment banker occupation so ideally you should be the most knowledgeable on money among everyone in the room,” Zeke continued. “You have zero dollars and I gave you 100 dollars right now. How much do you have?”

“100 dollars sir,” Jean answered.

“That’s a smart boy.” Zeke slapped his desk so hard, Armin and Eren jumped, having sat so close to the teacher’s desk. “Okay, so if I lent you 100 dollars, how much do you have?”

“100 dollars.”

“So, you’re gonna run away with my money? No plans of paying me back?”

Jean tensed up in confusion. “No sir. I’ll be paying you back.”

“Then is it your money?"

“It’s with me sir… So I think…” Jean paused for a second. “So it’s your money sir?”

“Tell me. The money is with you after all. Is it your money or my money?”

“It’s my money sir!” Jean answered too quickly, probably without even thinking.

“I lent you the money. I expect it back so it’s mine. Calling my money your money is practically stealing Kirschtein. I can call a lawyer on you.” Zeke narrowed his eyes at Jean for a few seconds before shrugging in defeat. “But you’re not a criminal. You’re just an idiot who relies on outdated accounting methods. Don’t take that with you when you become an actual financial advisor. Sit down. I’m calling someone else.” Zeke turned back to the class list on the teacher’s table. “Okay, anyone in this list with a finance related position...” Zeke’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked through the list. He looked at the class with a cat-like grin, his eyes focusing on one boy in the front row. “In my almost sixteen years of knowing you, I did not expect you to be suitable but it looks like you’re the only one in this list other than Jean with an accounting related occupation.”

“Really? It’s accounting related?” Eren had never been one to be good at Math. Everyone in the class agreed and as their professor hinted at his assigned occupation, many began to whisper, possibly theorizing as to what Eren had gotten.

They did not have to theorize for long though, within seconds, Zeke continued to discuss. “Okay Eren, let’s discuss your field of expertise --- insurance.”

Eren slowly nodded in return. It was a nod which everyone in the room had understood at first glance. Insurance was not Eren’s field of expertise.

Zeke did not seem to care though. “Case study time! I have 3000 dollars. Eren the insurance salesman sells me $200 dollars a month worth of insurance and I buy one years worth of prepaid insurance. By the end of this month, how much worth of assets do I have left?”

“By assets, you mean money?”

“Check a fucking dictionary.”

Eren sat down for a second. From his seat, Levi could hear some whispers from Mikasa and some clicks of a digital keyboard, or possibly a calculator.

“600 dollars.”

“Final answer?”

“Yes. Final Answer.” Eren seemed so sure of his answer.

From seeing Zeke’s face at the answer, Levi could not help but think, maybe phrasing it as a question was the better option for Eren.

“This is why your generation is so shit at saving. With this type of attitude, you‘re all gonna get into some shity Ponzi scheme with yourself and some sad saps who actually pitied you enough to lend you money without assessing your credit rating that’s just gonna continue riding on some endless cycle until you all go to jail or declare bankruptcy.” Zeke ranted again as he punched the buttons of the projector, turning it on. “ Scratch that. At this rate, none of you would probably even know how to declare bankruptcy.”

Accounting 101 . Those two words flashed on the screen, the contrast of black words in a default font to the white background of a hastily made powerpoint only getting clearer as the projector whirred to life.

“The amount of debt you can get into in the real world will fuck up your life. So to simulate the real world consequences of unpaid debt, we decided to make your fake debt by the end of the year one of the main determinants of your final grade. And we will be using real accounting to determine your debt. Any questions before we start?”

It was Sasha who raised her hand from the back of the classroom.

“Yes?” Zeke asked with shoddily hidden annoyance.

“So which one is cost and which one is accrual again, Sir?”

Division of Labor

"I told you. I'll handle the accounting," Hange said. "We can make this work." Her words were not at all assuring.

It was Wednesday afternoon. They had submitted their selection for their house that afternoon in class so that meant no more takebacks. Their house plans were due midnight and Levi was not even halfway done. To add insult to injury, Levi was still reeling from Zeke’s lecture just a few hours ago.

Initially, Hange had suggested they buy the furniture in installments. The prospect of buying in installments though became all the more terrifying with the accounting system Zeke had introduced to them that day and the weight of a negative balance sheet on their grades.

As soon as you buy something and enter into debt, the money owed is not yours anymore. Levi shuddered as those words echoed in his head. He narrowed his eyes at Hange. "Really Hange? Can we? After deciding to spend half your salary each month on an unfinished 3 bedroom house?" Levi asked as he gestured to their next tall order that stretched over two aisles. They were in the baby's section in the supermarket.

It was their third round around that aisle, trying to look for a brand of diaper and a brand of formula that would not cost them a total of 400 dollars a month.

“I mean, we still have 800 dollars on groceries if we put our furniture installments budget at 1000 dollars a month,” Hange explained. “So if we spend 400 dollars on baby stuff, we should have 400 left.”

“400 dollars for a month’s worth of meals for a family of four.” Levi clarified. “There must be something here we could choose not to spend on.” Or maybe we could find a cheaper place to buy things in. Levi thought back to the supermarket nearer to his house and made a mental note to check it. The output was due on Friday anyway.

"Hey, Armin and Annie are here too!" Hange said enthusiastically.

Too enthusiastically. Levi clarified to himself. That was not at all good news. If other groups were going to that supermarket, that must mean they think they have the financial leeway to spend there, That could also possibly mean he and Hange had somehow fucked up financially as a pair, struggling to make ends meet. Armin was a studious student with a good head on his shoulders and he chose to shop in a more expensive supermarket. Are we spending too much?

"Let's ask Armin…" Levi did not need to finish his sentence. By the time, he looked to his side, where Hange stood or at least was supposed to be standing, the latter was already on her way to the blond boy..

Levi did not waste anytime. As Hange chatted up Armin, Levi made a few rounds through the two aisles again, his phone calculator on hand.

Just in case. Levi told himself. Just in case they had miscalculated the minimum expense of 400 dollars.

Division of Labor

Hange had a long talk with Armin. By that point, Levi had lost count of the number of rounds he had made around the aisle. He had stopped counting at five. He had done his research on discounts and made some fake accounts and the expense still clocked at $390 dollars.

By the time he and Hange called it quits, the sun was setting. Hange seemed lost in thought and she had been that way since she had finished her conversation with Armin. Levi decided to take over keeping both sacks for the night. He made a small detour to the grocery store nearest to his flat. It was smaller, a little dirtier but it meant a little more room for spending and a bigger chance of saving his grade and graduating. Begrudgingly, sanitation became the least of Levi's issues.

He wrote out all the prices of the important items they had seen in the grocery store. When he got home, he made sure to write them all on a google sheet complete with weight, quantity and prices and sent the link to Hange through an instant message. For some reason, he felt a twinge of disappointment when all he received was a heart react in return.

Of course, Hange still had a lot of things to calculate. Even as they separated less than an hour ago, she had seemed distracted. Levi guessed Armin had told her something game breaking about the accounting process.

What did Armin tell you? You need any help?

Will explain soon. Send the meal plan and house design by 9 pls.

Levi managed to submit the meal plan by nine. He had copied and pasted from some random family cooking website, changing a few ingredients to fit what he thought would be cheaper options. He did not need to think too much of it either. He lived a life many would consider the complete opposite of excess and as a result, had mastered the art of improvisation when it came to food.

His main problem lay with the floor plan of the house. Hange had agreed to handle worrying about the expenses. That was one problem out of his plate.

Even with the money problem out of his hands, Levi found himself working until late anyway. Or not working… Levi was only reminded of his lack of productivity when his phone lit up with a notification.

11:00pm

Hange Zoe

Where??????

Levi only realized then that he had gotten a little carried away with the problem of where to put the washing machine.

Division of Labor

It was a genius idea.

That Wednesday night, only a few hours before the house plan was due, Levi had had fifty tabs open from German and Japanese house designers showing bathrooms and laundry room designs highlighting the novelty and practicality of putting the washing machine in the bathroom. Levi had spent hours pondering the logistics of making it work for the house design Hange had sent him only for her to shoot down the idea an hour before the housing plan was due.

They rented an American style house with a bathroom in every bedroom and the impracticality had dawned on him particularly when it was fifteen minutes to 12am and they were still arguing in chat over how to design the house. In the end, Hange had gotten her way, having brought up the issue of accounting furniture and the fact that they probably did not even have the financial leeway to pay for a washing machine anyway.

Having to deal with the disappointment of losing the opportunity to design the house the way he wanted to and having his unfinished design shipped off to Erwin’s email, with little regard for the effort he had put into the intricacy of both the toilets and the laundry room, Levi was a little pissed. He also considered the fact that he had respected the effort and detail Hange had put into choosing a house and had allowed her to submit a potentially overpriced and unfurnished house as their final product.

And she could not even reciprocate the respect for his whims.

Levi decided then to take a break from it all. It was a silent agreement on both ends. Or there was no need for an agreement anyway. They had finished their deliverables for the week by Thursday.

Everyone had ended up cramming theirs anyway and Levi found himself walking home alone and spending his time outside school hours bingeing whatever was new on Netflix.

By Monday, Levi had not expected to do much. Their breakdown of responsibilities was due Friday, 12am on Thursday to be exact according to the file that Erwin had sent. It was a one page paper with a few questions that just needed answering. They could easily start on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Levi wanted to spend at least just his Monday, peacefully, not considering the program which has been plaguing the start of their junior year since Shadis’ announcement just a week ago. He allowed himself to clear his mind, making sure to just note on his phone to start on the next output by Wednesday. Hange would probably remind him anyway.

He had deluded himself well into thinking the adulting program was limited to those once a week outputs. An announcement was made to meet in the kitchen after lunch for home economics class. His mood that Monday had him living in complete denial of what could actually go on in a school kitchen and for some reason, Levi imagined having a lecture in the kitchen was a completely normal expectation, even with the reminder to bring aprons and gloves. Maybe we just need to put them in lockers or something.

As the students filed in though, some of them panicked and that was when Levi figured out that something was not right. The counters were all lined up with ingredients. Some of the students had recognized the ingredients. Levi looked to Hange to see that she was blank on what the hell the pattern was behind the types of ingredients set out.

There were the essentials--- flour, sugar, eggs. There were exotic ingredients Levi could not even name or pronounce.

“Cardamom, Star Anise, Rose water. What the hell?” It was Jean speaking from behind Levi.

“I’m glad you see the pattern. I’m assuming that means you’ll all do well?” Erwin waited while the rest of the class filed into the room before he raised his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “Today we’ll be having a pop quiz just to make sure you all know what you’re writing when you make the meal plans. In the tables assigned to you, you will see the ingredients for one of the meals you put in your meal plan. Please use them accordingly to make a full course meal from what you had submitted.”

Levi could not remember for the life of him what the hell he had put in that meal plan a week back

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

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minamimotonagi · 3 years

Text

An Equation Called “Love”

Nagi is starting off her college days at Realground college. She wouldn't have expected her first day to become a major plot-twist to her life.

(Warning: This fan-fiction may contain spoilers for the first 'The World Ends With You' game and may contain 'NEO The World Ends With You' spoilers up until the demo. If you don't want spoilers for either of those two sources, you are reading at your own discretion.

This is the Safe For Work version of this fan-fiction.

This fan-fiction is wholly interpretations of how they would interact.)

Originally posted to ArchiveOfOurOwn account ZettaCute.

Chapter 1: Realground College

The woman with medium length purple hair half tied into twin tails held up by green ribbons rushed out the door. It was her first day of college today. The badges in her itabag made small clashing metal noises as she ran with a piece of toast in her mouth to the building.

Huff... Huff...

There she had ended up after a ten minute rush. She didn't want to be late for the first day.

This was it. Realground College.

Chapter 2: First Class, Introduction To Animation

Nagi whispered motivational speech to herself, inspired by what her favourite character would usually say. She was more than likely imagining him cheering her on in her head at this point.

The college building she entered had a huge doorway which until she looked up, didn't even seem to have a top to it. Its exterior and interior were like nothing she had ever seen before. Exterior-wise, it was fashioned to be intricate. An eye-pleaser. Interior wise, the building was spacious. Filled with many new students getting ready for their first day of either college or their course.

"Lord of the educational system, accept my power!" Nagi exclaimed. Her anime badges jingled with her pointing pose, legs spread wide as if she had just asked to be taken on an adventure quest. The tutor in front of her blankly stared at the purple haired woman.

"Um... What's your name... Ma'am...?" The tutor asked in surprise at the interaction. He scratched at his bald head which was covered by an old-fashioned cap on the top.

"Villainess Nagi of the special ward of Tokyo, Shibuya!" She announced eccentrically. Some heads had already turned towards the bizarre woman.

"...Nagi, right?" He replied after an awkward silence, most likely him trying to figure out what our protagonist, Nagi, had just said. The man pointed to a door to Nagi's right on the other side of the room. "Your classroom." He handed her a planner.

Nagi made her way to the classroom labelled "Animation Studio", shocked to have a dark man go past her and almost knock the plushie key ring off her bag. She stumbled, regaining her balance from the surprise. She sighed when she looked back at the man who had almost took her off her feet. He had mid-length dark brown hair and a dully coloured outfit. He was dark, too. Nagi took out her phone to look at pictures of her anime husbando before her college day started. Was there really someone that perfect out there? She didn't have enough time left to catch up with him. Class would start in a few minutes. Internally she prayed to see that man once again. She needed proof that it wasn't just a mistake from him flashing by her.

The classroom was filled with at least twenty animation students getting ready for their first day. The desks were unit separated work tables with desktop computers installed into them. Nagi sat herself down to a seat, got her equipment out and made herself comfortable. She put a small plushie of her husbando in her work space leaned against the computer 's box which stood next to the monitor. The only other thing on her desk that was already placed there before she came apart from the computer was a drawing tablet, a necessary piece of equipment for an animation student. She was ready for this course! Of course, since she lived in Japan, drawing hot anime men was perfectly acceptable for this course. And she could cope with drawing other things too. At least she got to admire her favourite things, created by her own hands this time.

Fingers clicked in-front of Nagi's zoned out face. Tan fingers. Nagi took a pause.

"-You!" She exclaimed, getting up just to pose and point at this man. It was him! The one who knocked her a little.

"...Zetta weird." The tall tan man replied. Nagi could see it now. This man looked feral.

He was hot.

"I bestow you everything and will even sacrifice my life to you, (CHARACTER NAME)!" Nagi replied back.

... ......

There was awkward silence between the two. Hell, not just between the two. Between the whole room.

"...Who are you, hectopascal?" The man asked, adjusting his wonky lanyard so it's mathematically in place.

"The beautiful villainess known as Nagi of the special ward of Tokyo, Shibuya!" She added an extended emphasis on Shibuya's pronunciation.

"I don't give a digit about the other garbage, Nagi." He replied. "This is my latest masterpiece of a college entry: name's Sho Minamimoto. Call me Minamimoto."

"Almighty lord Minamimoto..." Nagi said with a bit of a higher pitched fangirling noise near to the end of her sentence.

"That's right!" Minamimoto folded his arms proudly.

"That's too loud! Shush!" Said the Animation tutor who had just entered the classroom. "To your seats, please."

Minamimoto sat down at the unit next to Nagi. Most likely, he was originally going to ask if he could sit there. Given the way Nagi had responded, there wasn't any harm for him to take the available seat next to her.

First animation class of the course was an introduction to the course. Nagi looked over to Minamimoto briefly. He rolled his eyes at the screen. It was as if he had listened to this lecture many times before. Nagi brought back her attention to the projector screen in front of her that the tutor was pointing to, reading out and explaining what they would do for the courses projects. Nothing seemed too difficult yet. Nagi felt like this course wasn't going to eat at her easily. She felt ready to take it on. A hot man sitting next to her made it an even better start to the course. She was ready to create art and animation of hot anime men!

Chapter 3: Lunch Break

When it was lunch break after a two hour introduction lecture which had a small fifteen minute break in-between it, Nagi put her equipment and plushie away. She picked up her bag to leave. As she was about to leave, Minamimoto put a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to him. He scratched his head and begun to speak to her.

"Want to crunch some factors?" Minamimoto asked her. Nagi pointed her finger to her mouth, thinking.

"Get lunch?" She asked, making sure that was what he meant. Minamimoto nodded his head.

Nagi and Minamimoto made their way to the cafeteria to get lunch together. They walked side by side, looking like a couple to most people they passed due to Nagi's itabag. Of course they weren't one... Yet. Nagi had her eyes set on this man if he was single. She paused as they were walking.

"Zetta slow." Minamimoto rolled his eyes. "My stomachs ready to crunch some factors." He complained.

"...Sorry." Nagi put on a nervous fake smile. She caught up. Continuing to walk along side the tan man. Minamimoto was looking at her, waiting for her to finish what she was going to say. "Um... Never-mind." She hesitated from saying what she was going to say. Minamimoto shrugged to himself. He kept on walking until they reached the cafeteria counter.

Minamimoto looked at the menu hungrily. He almost drooled at the sweet desserts. Nagi was too busy watching her new friend's reaction to the sweet treats to look at the menu just yet. As he was about to turn around to her, she brought her attention to the menu. She didn't want to make it obvious she had been watching him for a bit. She put a hand on her chin, uttered out a hmm and tried to decide what to have for lunch. She went with a regular enough curry rice that was hard for anyone to mess up. After eyeing a very sweet looking dessert, Minamimoto knew what he wanted.

"You're only having afters?" Nagi asked after ordering a simple curry rice for herself.

"I could crunch some food times two." Minamimoto replied, ordering himself a regular slightly sweet meal and a sickly sweet dessert. Nagi went bleh in an imitation under her breath. Especially when she realised he had also ordered a caramel macchiato with that. It was a fancy cafeteria for a college but that was overboard on sugar levels.

The two ate their meals at an available table with only two chairs assigned to it. They chatted to each other during eating their lunch. While chatting, Nagi took an available moment to ask Minamimoto what she wanted to ask him earlier.

After an amount of awkward stuttering, she finally managed to get it out.

"So," She laughed nervously, eyes turning to look to the side while eyelids drooped on the furthest sides. A timorous smile on her face. "Almighty lord Minamimoto, are you single?" She bit her lip after asking that question, her nervous expression not swept away.

"I have zero equal integers. I'm a single digit." Minamimoto replied. "Why did you want to know the answer to that equation?" He finished speaking.

Nagi rubbed her hand behind her purple hair nervously. She moved her hand so it was playing with the front lengths of her hair. She finally found an appropriate excuse of an answer. It was a slightly slow thought process due to the situation.

"You look like you're popular." Nagi told him.

"Zetta popular." Minamimoto responded. "But you need to recalculate if you think I'm that zetta popular enough to have a equal integer." He was just finishing the last bite of the dessert he had recently moved on to. He was quick at engulfing all of that sweet content down. Nagi nodded, continuing on the conversation like she hadn't asked a question she needed answered. Yes! Her crush was single. His quirky math loving personality only added to her attraction for him. It would be possible for her to also get used to his sweet tooth for food.

[Notes -

equal integer = a romantic partner]

Chapter 4: Fight

[Notes -

Spoiler: No, this isn't angsty. Not an actual spoiler but a heads-up for people who aren't a fan of reading angst to not worry. I don't like writing angst that much so you're safe. LOL.]

After they had eaten, it was time to head back to class. They had filled in their decent length of free time with conversation.

As they walked back to the Animation Studio, some guys ganged up around Nagi. The weirdos threw out insults at the short woman who was cowering in fear. Minamimoto came up to them. He beat them up, wiping a small mark of blood off his face when he was done with them. Nagi was in shock at how he had responded to her being ganged up on. In shock but thankful. He was like an anime or game protagonist. She heavily digged it.

"You zetta sons of digits!" He spat. "Leave my coprime integer alone!"

Unfortunately for Minamimoto, a tutor walked into the scene. It was the same old man from earlier. The tutor saw the unconscious students laying on the floor. He shook his head at Minamimoto. He was in deep shit for heavily beating up the students who tried ganging up on Nagi.

"Come with me, Mr. Minamimoto." The tutor said in a stern voice. Minamimoto looked down in shame, expression hard to read thanks to his hat. Nagi followed after. The tutor hadn't realised she followed them all the way to the student support room. He sat Minamimoto down, sighed and sat Nagi down to a chair too.

The tutor laid down paperwork on the table in front of Minamimoto. It was about having a valid reason to not be expulsed from what Nagi could see. She wanted to scream at that moment. Her new friend was about to be kicked out first day?

Nagi couldn't let that happen. Especially not when Minamimoto had a valid reason to not be kicked out. It was an act of defense. Not self defense, but defending a friend who couldn't fend herself at that moment.

"You should head back to class, Miss Nagi." Requested the tutor. She shook head.

"No!" She exclaimed. "Almighty lord Minamimoto didn't do anything wrong!" She had an angry expression on her face. She needed to prove his actions were justified.

"Nagi, it's okay." Minamimoto sighed. "My third time being out my vector about the course." The tutor sighed listening into their conversation, waiting for the moment he could speak.

"Your third time beating people up." The tutor said in a fed up tone. "Before you even begun creating those crap pile trash heaps."

"Trash heaps?" Nagi sounded confused.

"My garbage heaps are masterpieces." A grimace appeared on Minamimoto's face as he replied with that. Was it just Nagi or did Minamimoto's speech go normal for a second? There were no mathematical references thrown into his speech. This was getting weirdly interesting. The tutor let out a long sigh at the tall tanned man. Most likely not the first time he had this talk.

What had been a normal conversation turned into a full on argument between Minamimoto and the tutor. Another tutor came over to Nagi, instructing her to go back to class and informing her that her new friend would be fine. She headed back to the Animation Studio.

[Notes -

Coprime integer - friend In this work, Minamimoto refers to relationship partners as "equal integers." A "coprime integer" in his definition is a platonic friend.]

Chapter 5: Second Class, Concept Designs

In class, Nagi apologized for being so late. She explained why Minamimoto wasn't back. The tutor sighed, saying again? under her breath. She gave Nagi an explanation not to get too involved with Minamimoto's drama. She didn't want her new student to fall behind due to an old one who kept failing his course acting up.

It was Nagi's first time in her new course getting to use the computer equipped on her unit to create some art in this course. The instructions were to draw whatever the student desired to as long as it was an original character design. After the computer power on which wasn't in bad timing, the purple haired woman begun to boot up the art program and begun drawing an anime character concept design. As Nagi was about to get her plushie out of her bag, she realised something. It wasn't there. She let out a horrible scream.

"Gyahhh!" She caterwauled.

"...Miss Nagi?" The tutor said in a questioning tone. She looked almost as astonished as Nagi did. That was loud.

"My bag!" Nagi cried. "It's not here!" Tears were rolling down the small woman's face.

A tall figure with dark brown medium length hair walked in the room. Nagi turned her attention to the man. He had a purple bag held over his back like a potato sack.

"Yo, zeptograms."

It looked like a scene that came out of a game. Nagi hiccupped and went over to him.

"Almighty lord Minamimoto, is that my bag?" Her sobbing had punctuated her speech. "Thank you so much, I owe you my life and my soul." She was filled with gratitude, falling to the floor and bowing for him. Minamimoto pulled her up by her wrist. He put her itabag on her available arm. Nagi had gone flushed. Minamimoto had already let go of her and was back in his seat before she snapped back into the situation. She shook her head, returning to her desk unit to continue the work set.

The tutor came over to explain to Minamimoto what to do. She seemed to be struggling to get him to understand he needed to make a character design. He was being told to try not drawing a trash heap. Or to at least make it into some sort of creature.

"You could make it mathematically related?" Nagi suggested as she worked on her own piece.

"She's right, Minamimoto." The tutor sighed in relief. "Try designing a character that's mathematically related." Minamimoto's eyes got slightly bigger how like a cats would thinking about it. "Try that idea out." The tutor said before leaving off to help out another student.

Minamimoto was in full concentration mode on the screen now. Nagi smiled. She continued with her own work. Her character was starting to come together. Man, did he look handsome. She was almost drooling at the screen at this point.

It was a fun first hands on experience for the course. The tutor did have to come over to Minamimoto a few times to make sure he wasn't getting side tracked with equations and trash heaps. He had been shouted at a few times during that class. Other than that happening, it was enjoyable.

To Be Continued...

#shonagi #neo twewy spoilers #twewy spoilers #minamimoto #nagi #fanfiction #fan fiction #part 1 #sho minamimoto

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pikapeppa · 4 years

Text

Abelas/Lavellan modern AU: Competent Professional

Chapter 2 of Inadvisable (professor Solas AU) is up on AO3!

In which Athera Lavellan starts her new research coordinator job with Professor Abelas on the wrong right foot.

Adorable art by my elf-lusting partner in crime @elbenherzart!

~3000 words; read on AO3 instead.

- ATHERA -

Athera ran all the way from the apartment to the University of Orlais. Thankfully, it was only a twenty-minute walk, and by running she was able to cut the travel time almost in half. Still, showing up at her new job all sweaty and out of breath had not exactly been her plan.

She skidded to a stop in front of the history building and paused and to catch her breath. When she was no longer huffing and puffing like a bronto, she straightened up and smoothed back her hair. “Okay,” she muttered to herself. “You can do this. You’re a competent professional woman. They hired you for a reason.” No matter that she’d never actually worked as a research coordinator before.

Sure, she’d done all the duties of a research coordinator during the last couple years of working in Professor Kenric’s lab at Kirkwall University, but technically she’d still been a research assistant and not the coordinator, even if Kenric’s actual coordinator had been useless most of the time.

Athera squared her shoulders. I’m done with that, she told herself. I’m the coordinator now. She would be taking her new job super seriously, and she wasn’t going to be forcing any of the research assistants to do her work for her.

“You’ll be the best research coordinator Professor Abelas has ever had,” she told herself quietly. She quickly checked her watch — two minutes to spare, thank the Creators — and thus boosted, she made her way up the stairs and into the history building.

She headed down the east wing, following the shiny new signs for the Ancient Elvhen Studies program. The program was relatively new at the University of Orlais, having only been established about five years ago. Even in that short time, it had become both famous and controversial. The Ancient Elvhen Studies program was technically part of U of O’s history department, but even that placement had been something of a controversy since the program encapsulated a range of disciplines including history, art, literature, and even traditional healing.

When the University of Arlathan had finally agreed to collaborate with U of O, the Dean had originally wanted the program to be part of the school of fine arts. But Athera had heard that Professor Solas, Nare’s new supervisor, had insisted that they be situated in the department of history, and had refused to work at U of O unless the placement was made.

Athera had also heard that Professor Solas had a reputation for being… mercurial, for lack of a better word. Aside from his impressive credentials and his famous fresco work, there was shockingly little personal information about him on the internet. Student reviews fluctuated between compliments like ‘he knows the answer to everything even though he’s an arts prof’ and complaints such as ‘he never gives an A’, studded with a few scathing reports that he could be a downright asshole when people asked questions that he thought were stupid.

But Professor Solas wasn’t the one that Athera was worried about. Professor Abelas, the program’s director and the head professor of literature and history, was the one that Athera would be directly answering to, and he was the one that she most wanted to impress.

She still remembered their phone interview with a certain amount of trepidation. She was pretty sure she hadn’t said anything stupid, and she’d made sure to not talk too fast so she didn’t sound nervous, but Abelas’s tone still sounded faintly disapproving the whole time.

Maybe that’s just how he always sounds, she thought. She hoped that he didn’t always sound that way, since it wouldn’t exactly be fun to work with someone who always sounded slightly disappointed with everything she said.

In any case, it was sure to be an interesting job.

A minute later, she was facing the door to the Ancient Elvhen Studies lab. She took a deep breath — you’ve got this, you’re a competent professional, she told herself — then pushed open the door.

The lab space was pretty standard university fare: a main area with a large meeting table, filing cabinets and heavily laden bookshelves around the edges of the wall, a couple of impressively tidy common-workspace desks, and a small kitchenette. Two short hallways branched off of the main room toward the east and west, and there were three people sitting at the meeting table: two elves, and to Athera’s surprise, a dwarf.

They looked up at Athera’s entry. Athera smiled and tried not to look awkward. “Hi there,” she said. “I’m Athera, the new research coordinator.”

The petite elven woman hopped up from her seat. “Oh, another Dalish, how lovely!” she chirped. “Andaran atishan! Come on in, Professor Abelas will be expecting you, he’s just in his office.” She hurried around the table with her hand outstretched. “I’m Merrill, and this is Tamlen and Dagna. I’m in the fourth year of my PhD, and Tamlen is – oh, but listen to me babbling!” She patted her cheeks nervously. “You two should introduce yourselves!”

Tamlen chuckled and nodded a greeting to Athera. “Nice to meet you. I’m a part-time research assistant, doing my undergrad the rest of the time.”

Dagna waved cheerily to her. “I’m a PhD student too. Second year.”

Athera was already feeling more relaxed; they all seemed so nice. “Nice to meet all of you,” she said. “Are you Abelas’s students?”

Tamlen smirked, and Dagna let out a tinkling laugh. “Oh no, Professor Abelas doesn’t supervise students. Solas is our supervisor.”

Athera raised her eyebrows. “Abelas doesn’t supervise students?”

Merrill shook her head. “No. Too busy teaching and being the director, he says.”

Athera raised an eyebrow. “But he’s a tenured professor. How can he be tenured and not supervise students?”

Merrill, Dagna and Tamlen exchanged glances, and Merrill replied. “We don’t really know, to be honest. Professor Abelas runs the department and Professor Solas does the supervisor duties.”

Athera frowned. “That’s… really weird.”

“It has been working well since this program began,” a deep male voice said.

A hard stone dropped into Athera’s gut. Damn, she thought. She looked up at the east hallway to see a tall elven man standing there with his arms folded.

He was surprisingly built for an academic, with broad muscular shoulders that his tweed blazer didn’t quite manage to hide. An impeccable white braid coursed down his back — probably the style in Arlathan, Athera thought, since it certainly wasn’t a look she’d ever seen in Orlais — and he was very handsome.

Or he would be, if he wasn’t scowling at her. Unfortunately for Athera, his expression was just as disapproving as his smooth voice.

She swallowed hard. You’re a professional woman, she told herself. Even if you insulted his management style right in front of him. She offered him what she hoped was a professional smile. “You must be Abelas,” she said, and she took a step toward him. “I’m Athera, the research coordinator.”

“It is Professor Abelas,” he said. “Come this way. I will orient you to the lab.” He unfolded his arms and raised his eyebrows at Merrill, Dagna and Tamlen. “You have introduced yourselves?”

“Yes, professor,” Tamlen said.

Abelas nodded, then gestured for Athera to follow him and headed for the west hallway without stopping to check that she was following.

Damn and double damn, Athera thought gloomily. She forced herself not to look at Merrill and the others as she followed Abelas down the west hallway.

He gestured at a few closed doors. “These are graduate student offices,” he said brusquely. “A meeting room here for interviewing research participants. That room is the private library, including hard copies of research articles from the past ten years that are awaiting digitization and proper indexing.” He shot her a hard look. “Managing that will be one of your duties.”

“I’m aware,” she said, a bit more sharply than she intended.

His frown deepened slightly, and Athera forced herself to relax. “I’ll make that a priority,” she said in a softer tone.

He nodded, then pointed at a polished oak door at the end of the hall. “Professor Solas’s office is there.” He gestured for her to exit the hallway, and she obediently headed back down the hall toward the east hallway instead, with Abelas — sorry, Professor Abelas — at her back.

She tried to think of something intelligent to say, some sort of question that would make it clear that she knew her duties here, but her tongue was tied with awkwardness. Professor Abelas was so silent and stern, and his height was kind of intimidating, making her feel as though he was towering over her as he followed her down the hall.

When they were in the east hallway once more, he broke the tense silence. “More graduate student offices here. An archive of Elvhen artifacts is in this room, which is kept locked at all times.” He pursed his lips before going on. “I will give you a key by the end of the week. In the meantime, you will ask me if you require access to that room.”

Athera frowned slightly. Why was he reluctant to give her access to the artifact room? She would need free access to all of these rooms if he wanted her to do her job properly.

“My office is at the end of this hall,” he said. He gestured for her to follow him. “You should check with me before making any significant changes to the way things are run here.”

“I understand,” she said cautiously. She followed him into his office, which – unsurprisingly – was spotlessly clean and tidy. Austere, almost.

He sidled around his desk and pointed to a large whiteboard calendar on the wall, which was meticulously colour-coded. “Professor Solas and I have a shared calendar here. Our teaching schedules and monthly meetings are updated here, so you will know where we are at all times.”

“Why don’t you use an online calendar?” she asked.

His pale eyebrows rose slightly. “Excuse me?”

“An online calendar,” she said. “So you can share it between you and update it on your, um, on your phones…?” She trailed off at the deepening of his frown.

“Professor Solas and I have a system that has worked for over a decade,” he said. “We will continue to do it this way.”

She pressed her lips together, then nodded. If he wanted to live in the Exalted Age and use a whiteboard calendar, that was his prerogative.

He rested his fingertips lightly on his desk. “The students similarly use a whiteboard calendar to coordinate the use of the meeting room and other resources.”

Athera raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, that just makes no sense. That has to change.”

Abelas recoiled slightly, but Athera pressed on. “Students’ schedules are changing all the time. With exams and deadlines, a shared online calendar only makes sense so they can input any changes immediately and have notifs — uh, notifications — to alert everyone to the changes. I’ll set that up immediately.”

“I did not give you leave to make such a change,” he said sharply.

“It’s a simple change that will streamline everyone’s schedules and increase the efficiency of your lab,” Athera insisted.

“That’s not how things are done here,” he retorted.

His tone was hard, and he was scowling at her now. The look on his face was making her heart race, but she inhaled slowly through her nose to keep her calm.

You’re a competent professional, she told herself. You might not have a fancy PhD and a post-doc and an entire lab under your belt, but you’re a professional too, damn it.

She boldly lifted her chin. “You hired me to manage the research projects in your lab and to take over a number of your administrative duties. Isn’t that right?”

He folded his arms. “That was indeed the job description.”

“If that’s my job, why don’t you trust me to do it?”

“You lack experience,” he said, to her surprise and dismay. “And besides, hiring you was not my choice. Professor Solas insisted that I required… assistance.”

Athera recoiled slightly at this. “Well, I’m not here to be your assistant,” she said firmly. “I’m not here to just do what you tell me. I’ll evaluate the way your lab is managed, and when I’m finished doing that, I’ll tell you how I think things should change.”

He glared at her. His unusual golden eyes were practically sparking now, his long elegant fingers tense on the surface of his desk, and Athera forced herself to breathe through her anxiety as she stared into his eyes.

He finally grunted and sat in his chair. “Fine. But you will change nothing without consulting me first.”

She exhaled slowly. “I’ll check everything with you for the first two weeks. You should let me use my judgment after that.”

He narrowed his golden eyes. “You are making a great number of demands considering that it is your first day here.”

And you’re being an ass, considering that it’s my first day, she thought belligerently, but she kept that salty thought to herself. “I’m just trying to do my job,” she said evenly. “A job that you hired me for, whether you wanted to or not.” She gave him a knowing look. “I’m going to make your life easier, you know.”

“That remains to be seen,” he said. He reached for his mouse and started clicking around on his computer. “I look forward to the results of your… evaluation.”

His tone was dripping with disdain. What in the Void was his problem with her?

“I’ll get to work, then,” she said. She shifted her bag on her shoulder, then realized something: she needed someplace to put her things, and to, well, do her job.

“Where’s my office?” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “An oversight. Here.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a key, then held it out to her.

She approached the desk and held out her hand, and Abelas placed the key in her palm. “The office next to this one is yours,” he said.

Of course it is, she thought glumly. Of course her office had to be right next to the grumpy director’s.

“Thank you,” she said. She took a step back, then toyed idly with the key for a moment. This whole meeting had been unfortunately antagonistic so far, and Athera didn’t want to leave it on such a sour note.

She decided to try to lighten the mood a bit. “If we’re going to be neighbours, I hope you don’t mind music,” she said.

A crease appeared between his brows. “Excuse me?”

“Music,” she said. “I listen to music all the time. It helps me to think. I, um, hope you don’t mind.”

His frown deepened. “What sort of music?”

“Dance music, mostly,” Athera said. “Pop, too, though I like more of the indie stuff.”

“Dance and pop music,” he repeated.

He was staring at her now as though she’d grown qunari horns. She could feel her face prickling with discomfort. Why had she even bothered trying to lighten the mood with him? He clearly didn’t have a humorous bone in his body.

She tried for a smile. “I’ll keep the volume down for now.”

“That would be for the best,” he said.

She nodded and awkwardly backed out of his office. “Thanks for the orientation, Abelas. Professor Abelas,” she said hastily.

He nodded. Already his eyes were on his computer screen, and Athera blew out a breath as she started unlocking her new office door.

“Athera,” he called.

For some reason, a shiver traced down her spine at the sound of her name in his voice. She’d never heard her name before in an Arlathani accent, with the soft vowels and the gently rolled r.

She swallowed hard and poked her head back in his office. “Yes?”

“Close the door behind you,” he said.

His eyes were still on his monitor. Athera frowned at his bluntness, then pulled his door shut without replying.

Ass, she thought. She opened her office and put her bag on the desk next to the computer, then draped her coat over the chair and trudged down the hall back to the main area.

Merrill and Dagna were still there, and their faces were sympathetic. “Don’t worry,” Dagna said soothingly. “His bark is much worse than his bite.”

“I cried on my first day here,” Merrill confided. “During my whole first week, actually. I have an extra box of tissues in my desk if you need them.”

Athera chuckled. “Thanks, but I’m okay. I’m just going to jump right in and get to work.”

Merrill beamed at her. “That’s the spirit! And it really is exciting to work here. The artifacts they have in the back room are just amazing! I’m doing my thesis on one of them, actually, on the broken eluvian that was found in the Brecilian forest ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons that the professors came to Orlais, you know, so they could work with U of O on the eluvian project — oh, but you probably know that already…”

“I do,” Athera said. “But I’m just as interested as you are, so you can tell me all about it.”

Merrill did a little hop. “Wonderful! Well, it was shattered, as you know, and I was actually part of the archeological party who went out to the forest two years ago to recover more of the pieces! Creators, I tell you, it was such an amazing trip…”

Merrill chattered on cheerfully about the eluvian, and Athera listened with one ear, but the rest of her mind was on Abelas and his bad attitude. The way he spoke to her was so unkind, like he thought she was just here to mess everything up. And the way he frowned at her with that scowl on his annoyingly handsome face, like she wasn’t qualified to make any changes to his precious lab…

He’ll see, she thought stubbornly. He’ll see how much more smoothly things will run here once I’ve gotten settled in. Athera was a competent professional woman, after all. She was absolutely qualified to do this job, and in no time, she’d learn the way the lab was run and she’d make it so efficient that Abelas would be sorry he ever doubted her.

I’ll show him, she thought. She was going to make this lab the most efficiently run place in the department of history, and Abelas wouldn’t remember what his life was like without her.

#abelas #abelas/lavellan #abelas x lavellan #abellan #professor solas au #inadvisable #pikapeppa writes #elbenherzart

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theories-just-for-funzies · 4 years

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“What’s the very worst thing you can do to your very best friends? Tell them your darkest secret, because if you tell them, and they decide they’d rather not know... You can’t take it back. You can’t unsay it. Once you’ve opened your heart, you can’t close it again.”

This is the second post I’m making about BBC Sherlock S4 (or anything about any fandom, really). You can find the first one here, the topic is almost the same. I’m really slow in writing down my theories in a way that is comprehensible by others, so I’m sorry if i don’t have a lot for the moment. Read this with the knowledge that I firmly believe in TJLC as explained by Rebekah on YouTube, and that S4 is not real as we see it, but is telling us what we need to know before they release S5 (or the special if that’ll come first) through unusual ways, TJLC style.

I think here Culverton smith is mirroring the writers, and his friends are the viewers. During the whole scene we have TONS of mirrored shots in the windows, most of it infact. In all of the previous seasons mirrors and character shots in mirrors were there to signal “hey this character is currently mirroring this other thing”, so idk it might be even this time??

Faith when she’s still drugged and tries to remember something about the conference, the first shot of her that we see, she’s in a mirror, even the desk reflect her image. Wander which part of the audience Faith is mirroring? Yeah, you guessed it. The tjlc fandom. The ones that analyze things. The ones that are questioning.

And the nurses? Idk, I’ve never seen a nurse that’s just putting an IV wearing a mask (unless under special circumstances of course), it never happens even when you’re taking blood samples, it just doesn’t ring right to me. So, who are the nurses? They’re people working for Culverton, they know what’s happening, they know what the solution is and what it does, they know how to administrate it, but they leave the room in the moment of confession. The nurses are mirroring BBC Sherlock’s crew.

If you’ve never worked on a set let me tell you: nobody, apart from the smallest possible amount of selected people, knows the whole picture, they can’t risk it, usually it’s just the writers, the producers, and most f the times the main actor; everyone else just knows the smallest informations to do their single job of adjusting the lights or hair for that single scene just like it’s written in their schedule.

So the crew knows partially what they’re doing, but they can’t speak, because their mouth is covered.

I’m thinking this is exactly the reason of S4. S4 is the memory drug. Everything made sense till now, tjlc was more and more evident, it was extremely obvious to everyone that johnlock was an actual thing, i mean just look at the sign of three, MY MOM THOUGHT THEY WERE CANONICALLY IN LOVE BEFORE I EVEN DID (at the time the fandom wasn’t the greatest so I avoided pretty much anything that wasn’t fan fictions or fan art, and just thought it was queer bait). Everything was super clever and well made. And then S4 came. A cheap Hollywood movie where nothing made sense and with john and sherlock great platonic friendship. And it was the last season so how could you not except what they already gave you and still want more, right?

Wrong. S4 is either complete bullshit or a distortion of what actually happens.

Culverton say that he can’t say his darkest secret because he can’t take it back, yet he does tell, and he does take it back.

The show does say that sherlock and john love each other (and are still pining) but S4 takes that back. You want the distorted version? Ok. Sherlock does explicitly says the words “i love you” in S4 to Molly in a physical mirror, a character’s mirror for John, whose description of the coffin perfectly fits John. The show does say that the writers aren’t stupid and aren’t making a tv show that’s just a blockbuster action movie, with cheap Hollywood effects and made up physic laws. Yet S4 takes that back.

The whole thing they kept saying in earlier seasons about “making history of television” and “making unprecedented things”? What unprecedented things? That was extreamely cheap cinematic, with really poor writings and a rip off of James Bond and classic horror movies. Nothing about S4 was memorable or relevant.

They already said everything they had to say (for the moment) but then they couldn’t leave the public waiting for another 6 years before S5 with all that hope and knowledge. Especially considering the fandom suspected even the phone\heart metaphor before ASiB even aired. Leave those people with the tiniest hope and you’d find your plans stripped naked for everyone to see in less than half of that hiatus. That’s really not Moffat style, he needs to give you hope, rip your heart open, surprise you leaving you gasping, only then he can make another plot twist and make everything super beautiful again and making you crying because it’s too many emotions.

So they said their things before S4, the fans that were still not sold on johnlock or didn’t want it canon were the friends who would rather not know, they went on with the brain washing of S4, and said “ok, we’re done here, nothing else to see, the show is finished, good night”. But just as with Faith’s story you can reconstruct if not all, part of what happened; because i don’t know if you noticed, but S4 doesn’t have a lot of plot holes, it is one single gigantic plot hole.

But what happens if they kill everyone just like Culverton Smith said? What happens if they make S4 so bad and destroy everything they said up until now with the show itself? What happens if the same people that were able to decode everything suddenly lost any faith because they were let down so much they just let the fandom die, and there was no one left to analyze what they were actually saying?

Everyone would forget all about TJLC and about how clever of a show it was. They would erase the whole show from people’s memories, letting it pass by like any other show that’s there to fill your Sunday evening.

Also there’s another thing that doesn’t sit right with me, although i don’t have any proof backing this up and am not sure of what I’m saying, it’s basically just speculation, but still. TD12 package:

obviously this drug doesn’t exist, the only thing i came across with that name is a percussion sound module, you’re welcome to make your own theories with this informations since i know absolutely nothing about music technology and am not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to music theories or clues.

I presume TD12 it’s something along the line of saline solution, since Sherlock made that replacement himself later in the episde, my research (because i also have no knowledge about medical stuff) told me that saline solution has en expiration time of roughly 2 years. On the package we see that the expiration’s date is October 2018, so counting back, assuming Culverton got the drug shortly before doing his speach, the scene takes place somewhere around October 2016. Wander what happened in October 2016?

On BBC Sherlock official YouTube channel they release just one video: Sherlock Series 4 release date. Now. You might say I’m looking a little to much into it, but if you go check the release dates of the other YouTube videos you would see that they usually don’t post just one video per month, that’s the only one around that time period. Idk if you ask me it’s a lot of strange coincidences.

Anyway, in the scene he then says “these drip feeds will keep the drug in your blood streams at exactly the right levels. Nothing that is happening to you now will stay with you for more than a few minutes. I’m afraid that some of the memories you’ve had up to this point might also be... corrupted.”.

So the victims starting now, will continue to take the drug for the next idk 30 minutes???? But apparently some of the events preceding that moment can be “corrupted”. Translated: everything starting from October 2016 is fucked up because of the drug, not only that, but also some things from before that. I’m guessing the “drips” would be the little occasional posts or news??

Might I add the information that in December 2018 the escape room Sherlock the game is now opened? Like, i know it’s not October, maybe I’m just looking where i want to look, but... I genuinely don’t know, that’s why I’m sharing things, so that people with a more objective point of view can come and say to me “hey you’re not making any sense, what the fuck are you talking about”.

And overall, I’m not native English speaker, but I don’t think you say “corrupted” when talking about human memories. It sounds more something used in the context of digital memories, usually it’s files that gets corrupted, not human brain memories.

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abstractanalogue · 3 years

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Capratone, The Asteroids & The Metronoids (for Beginners)

Tracks & Traces #13: I’ve been planning to write about the music of Capratone, The Asteroids and The Metronoids for sometime and have finally gotten around to it (somehow its been almost 3 years since the last T&T). The link between these bands is Andrew Lyster (now living in Brussels) and as I will explain, he kindly answered some of my questions for this hybrid Tracks & Traces. Since originally publishing this piece Richie Kelly of Capratone has also similarly added valuable information I would never have been able to share otherwise. Usually I just depend on my memory, the records, press cuttings and any surviving notes I took from the times but as I got deeper into the story there were too many question marks about line-ups (pre-Capratone), the issue of a possible ‘lost’ Capratone album and don’t even get me started about The Metronoids! At time of writing most of this music is hard if not impossible to find streaming online and I couldn’t even locate any band photos or videos either. Which is all the more reason to write a piece to mark their existence and hopefully spark a revival of interest. When I was putting the finishing touches to the article I did discover there is now at least some music from The Asteroids on YouTube. Not long after I originally shared this piece, Joss Moorkens of Capratone sent me two band photos, the first line-up (L-R: Fiachra, Joss, Andrew) and as a four piece with Richie Kelly (below).

I first saw Andrew Lyster play (vocals/guitar) when I caught The World of Pugh in a venue I only went to once, Dillinger’s. Like many things from those days it’s long gone but it was a bar with a small stage (up some stairs?) somewhere off Dublin’s Capel St. (18/3/94). As I totally forgot who was in the rest of the band I’ll let Andrew take up the story.

“The World of Pugh was the first group where I wrote songs. I think it started around 1993. Originally it was Keith Swan on drums and a fellow called Brian McEleney on bass. Then in 1994 I brought some songs in and Brian took off to be replaced by Niall Brown (who was also the singer and guitar player for The Moustaches). Niall played bass for World of Pugh in the form where we had songs and did gigs.”

I’m sure someone like Joss Moorkens (then drumming with Tucker Suite) had told me about TWOP and the name had struck me (there was a very cool hand drawn flyer for the gig). They played bottom of the bill with Tucker Suite, Budge and Schroeder’s Cat, all part of a very exciting little scene at the time. Less than two weeks later I happened to see TWOP again on a bill with The Moustaches at a house party on Middle Abbey Street. The Moustaches, who sadly never released anything, were also part of this same scene (in my mind anyway). As I recall, this latter show was on the second or third floor of a semi derelict space in which a friend of both bands was living as a caretaker. Andrew has now told me that he and Keith Swan actually lived there and it was where TWOP rehearsed. I remember sitting on an old mattress and really enjoying the atmosphere (a cymbal was tied to a rafter). I do remember that TWOP had a real sense of humour on stage with some crowd involvement going on. They never had any releases but might well have recorded something (I’ve also heard tell of an unreleased album by The Moustaches!). This would be the last time I saw them play, perhaps it was even their last show? It would be another year before I would see Andrew onstage again.

While researching this piece I did find an Irish band family tree which shows that Andrew, Joss, Fiachra Lennon and Brian Gough were in a band called Mudshark (1991-92), which was not actually their first band. Again, Andrew gave me some more information which I thought was worth sharing and clarifying about these early days.

“Brian Gough (later in Mexican Pets) had been in an even earlier band than Mudshark with me called The Foots. This band only played one gig in a pub in Dun Laoghaire in 1991. Our friends had to listen to the music from the street because they were too young to get in. After The Foots broke up I think Brian went on to another group called Harvey, and then Tucker Suite with Greg Barrett (later in Joan of Arse) on bass initially. Greg then did Schnorbitz with Joss, and had a cool band called Giraffe Running.”

Andrew’s next band would be Capratone (vocals/guitar) along with Joss on Drums and Fiachra on bass. Regarding song-writing Andrew told me, “For the most part I would write the songs and we would try to make them better by all writing our own parts through rehearsals. One or two were group written from stuff that happened in rehearsal.” I first saw them in another venue off Capel St. supporting Schroeder’s Cat at Behan’s Bar (previously The Fox & Pheasant) (3/4/95) and again just ten days later at The Plough with (surprise surprise) The Moustaches and Schroeder’s Cat. I would get to see this line-up play quite often on local bills until Sept ‘97 (more on this later). I recall they also played a short tour around Ireland with US band The Make-Up (April ‘97).

In early ‘96 they tried to record an album with producer Marc Carolan. Andrew told me it was to be called, “Le Plus Roll, because we felt our music was more Roll than Rock. I can’t pin down the exact date of the recording, but my guess is that it was in 1996. We had 2 days in a studio somewhere in Rathgar. It was a 24 track ADAT studio. I think it had a Soundcraft desk. The highlight equipment-wise was an incredible Ampeg bass stack that belonged to some professional band. Its sound was so authoritative and great that by the end of the long first day’s recording, when I had crawled into bed, I was woken up a couple of times by LOUD auditory hallucinations of Fiachra’s P Bass blasting through that thing. Marc, and the three of us all worked really hard for the two days, we did manage to record and mix all the songs we came in with, but I think the short time-frame worked against us capturing the right aesthetic. The means of production were expensive to rent and we couldn’t afford to record even in a project studio like that for more than a day or two.”

Luckily, one of the songs, ‘Homeward’, ended up on the Irish band compilation album, Zip Up Your Boots For The Showbands (1996). I always loved this intricate and explosive song and a whole album like this would have been quite something. The only place online you can hear it now is on a radio show I made for Dublin Digital Radio about bands that played in Dublin’s Attic venue. I must point out the musicianship of Capratone, it may not have been so obvious in the more noisy Tucker Suite but Joss was such an amazing and distinct drummer and both Fiachra and he so easily locked together. They created a lot of space for Andrew’s vocals and guitar for these catchy and very inventive songs to really flow.

At some point in late 1996 Richie Kelly joined (on right in pic) on guitar and they played as a four piece. At some other point Andrew left but as the band continued things must have been going really well musically. According to my notes the last two times I saw Capratone play was at the start of September ‘97, supporting The Sewing Room and Luggage at Dublin’s Mean Fiddler and then a headline show in The Funnel venue at the end of the same month. This doesn’t mean they stopped playing of course but for whatever reasons I didn’t see them again. Things don’t stay static, I did get really into electronic dance music and clubbing the following year but continued to see guitar bands as well but gigs would clash, allegiances, circumstances and tastes change, choices have to be made.

At some point this second line-up hooked up with Dublin label Folkrum Records (run by Dan Watson) and they recorded a mini album, The Art of Go, which was released in early 2000 (CD only) and produced by Simon Kenny aka Si Schroeder. At that stage Joss and Fiachra were still in the line-up with Richie and Eric Sexton (on guitar). I wasn’t sure if any of Andrew’s songs survived after his time with the band (on the Capratone page of the old Folkrum website he only gets thanked for the name) so I needed to ask him about it, “I didn’t write anything on the LP called The Art of Go. There was a strange overlapping series of line-ups in Capratone but when I left I think Richie Kelly (who was a recently arrived guitar player joining the original 3 piece) took on the song-writing job. As far as I know those Art Of Go tunes were all of his making. Richie went on to make a few attempts at recording subsequent line-ups of Capratone.” According to Joss’ short biog of the band on Last.fm, by the end of Capratone the line-up had changed completely from the original one.

Since I published this piece Richie Kelly has been in touch and has kindly provided more detail about joining the band and how his role and the line-up evolved. “I saw Capratone in 1996 and was blown away. Even before the show ended, I wanted to join but that seemed unlikely. It turned out that Andrew’s song-writing was taking a new direction and he had decided to add a second guitarist. We were connected through an extended friend group and apparently word had gotten to him that I was as enamoured with The Beach Boys as he was. We bumped into each other and started talking music and I must have auditioned and joined the band shortly thereafter. At some point I brought a song to the band and we added it to our set (with my vocals). I started contributing more so when Andrew decided to stop playing, we just continued. We added Eric Sexton, a friend and former bandmate. The Art of Go was recorded by Simon Kenny with basic tracking done over a weekend at a large room in Joss’ father’s business. Simon and I continued vocals and overdubs at his flat in Donnybrook.”

Surprisingly none of this music has made it onto YouTube or anywhere else online that I could find. It can be bought on Discogs, which is how I got my hands on it about two years ago. In my opinion it works really well as an EP, with a few really engaging tracks but with some filler too. The best for me would be ‘Clozer’ which sounds like a lost classic and musically is a more full bodied version of the band heard on ‘Homeward’. ‘Free Jazz’ is pleasingly upbeat and cruises along on Beach Boy vibes. They do sound quite American (Pavement and bands of that ilk) at times (as did Capratone mark 1) but this was very much the sound and influence of the times, everything still comes down to the quality of the song-writing. The band broke up a good while later, sometime in 2003 without anymore releases. At some stage Richie Kelly moved to Brooklyn, New York and started a similar sounding band there but with more brass, Sport of Kings. He even re-recorded ‘Free Jazz’ and made a video for it. The influence of Brian Wilson is clear on this song in particular, they cleverly re-use The Beach Boy’s ‘Cool, cool water” line in the song (also present in the original version). Apart from some positive reviews of their only EP, Logic House (2011), there is little sign of the band online either but at least you can check out their excellent video for ‘Free Jazz’ (see below). I did find just one image of Capratone at this time on the Folkrum website, which I have enlarged below. Richie is the golf club carrying member.

In my original piece I wasn’t sure what happened to Capratone next so Richie can take up the story, “The Art of Go attracted the interest of Shifty Disco, who released all of the Elephant 6 stuff in the UK. We set about making a full length for them which we were calling Aviation High. Simon Kenny was initially set to record but was so busy with other projects, I asked Andrew to do it and he agreed. Drum and bass tracking took place in a studio in Dublin. Andrew and I indulged our love of tinkering at his family home while recording my parts and mixing. The result is a pretty high fidelity Capratone record. Shifty Disco preferred the super compressed Capratone of the previous record and passed. We trudged along with some line-up changes after that. The most stable line-up though was myself, Cian Synnot on drums, Fiachra McCarthy on guitar and Michael Stevens (of Groom and many other excellent bands) on bass. As Joss said, no original members were left by the end of Capratone. I believe we kept the name simply because we couldn’t come up with a new one, apparently I have a problem naming things. When I ended up opening music studios and practice spaces in Brooklyn after moving there, I asked Joss if I could use the name of his label Scientific Laboratories because I loved it so much and couldn't think of an alternative.”

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I think it’s well worth including here what happened with Richie’s next band Sport of Kings. “My love of fidelity only increased as the years continued except my focus switched from The Beach Boys to Steely Dan. I because obsessed with doing an indie rock version of their music and Sport of Kings took that direction. The initial line-up was drums, bass guitars and Fender Rhodes and then we added a horn section and a drummer from NYU’s Jazz Program who were incredible and took things to a whole different level.”

“After our Logic House EP, we made a full record (15 songs to be called Queer Theorem) with Michael Leonhart of Steely Dan as producer and occasional synth/horns/vocals contributor. This was essentially a dream come true for me. Initial tracking was done by me at a studio in Brooklyn and painstaking overdubbing, vocals and mixing was done by myself and Michael at his mixing room in the city. Ironically, we recorded yet another version of ‘Free Jazz’ with Michael. I’m not sure why I keep rerecording it but it might have something to do with Andrew and I finding out Brian Wilson used to record ‘Proud Mary’ every time he went into a new studio to check the sonics. I think I now have 4 completed versions!”

“I put an enormous amount of effort into Queer Theorem but it took so long that by the time it was ready, many band members were so in demand by big artists that they had little time to give. Keeping a 7-piece band of amazing musicians afloat proved too difficult and I disbanded the group rather than trying to recruit new musicians. I had also taken that level of fidelity to its conclusion and I returned to looser music after moving to Portland, OR.”

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The next ‘band’ Andrew founded was solo project The Asteroids. I don’t think he ever presented it live but there was just one release, an exquisite three track 10″/CD, Moonlight Music For Beginners, which was released on Joss Moorkens’ Scientific Laboratories label in 2000 (the same year as The Art of Go). You can listen to what has to be my favourite song, ‘Nine Lives’ at link below (the other two songs can helpfully be found on the same channel and I’ve linked them here). According to the sleeve notes it took two years to record, with I assume Andrew playing all the instruments and doing the programming etc. I was sure to pick this up on vinyl at the time and have cherished it since. The amazing paintings on front and back were by the artist Niamh McGrath.

‘Nine Lives’ is so laid back, rich in instrumentation but for me it’s all about Andrew’s vocals (Alan Kelly of The Last Post also provides additional backing vocals). The lyrics prove to be the real earworm for me, “Who is the man, who has done this to you?” with an unexpected lyrical twist at the end. The song has somehow burrowed its way into my consciousness and over the past 20 years has been liable to play in my head at any time. ‘Return Of The Moonlightman’ is more sparse and based again around the vocal arrangement, a second deeper voice (John Parkinson) enters the fray about halfway and it goes to another level with a lovely gradual close. ‘The Great Escape’ is dominated by a really warm organ sound that pulls you along. This one in particular reminds me of Brian Wilson, one of Andrew’s touchstone influences. It’s one of those releases which has dated really well in my opinion and is pretty much unknown I think (I don’t know how many were pressed or sold). There was so much promised with this release and frankly it’s something of a shame it was not followed up at the time. If Andrew had been signed or whatever then things might have happened differently but like all of the bands I’ve written about in this series, we’re lucky to have what we have and the music will last forever. You can still find it for sale on Discogs and it can be played and purchased on iTunes and Tidal. There was one other song from this period, ‘Lunar Doo Wop’, released on a compilation CD included free with the first Foggy Notions magazine. I vaguely remember it but can no longer find my copy (the title tells us all we need to know!).

Sometime in 2005 or later I bumped into Andrew and he gave me a CD from his latest group The Metronoids. It was a two track disc in a plastic wallet (no cover artwork or personnel details) called Petroleum. Today this doesn’t even exist on Discogs never mind anywhere else! Until I asked Andrew about it I wasn’t sure if this had simply been a promo but he told me there was artwork etc. The reason I probably never saw it for sale is that I left Dublin in 2005. For a bit more information I had to dig into the data on the CD itself and found that the track names are simply ‘Petroleum 1 & 2′ and for what it’s worth the genre on iTunes comes up as Blues (not sure how this gets assigned). It’s a pleasant listen (the more spirited second track is my favourite) but it surprised me very much to find it was all drums/percussion and obviously nothing like what he’d done before. This would be the only release under the name, which I imagine is pretty rare to come across.

I obviously had to get Andrew to explain The Metronoids to me, “This was a project I really enjoyed. Done in 2004/5 with Joss and Marc Hayes (drummer from The Moustaches, Boxes). It was always a real pleasure to be in a room with those two guys. I think we did a handful of rehearsals and one recording session. The idea was drum improv within premeditated structures. All three of us played drums. I think I got the notion to do a project that required a different kind of listening from my love of the CD called Guitar Solo by Annette Krebs.”

I wasn’t aware of this at the time but Andrew, Joss and Fiachra briefly reunited as The Lamps in 2005 but as far as I know while there were some live gigs there were no releases. Since then Andrew has told me he is currently working on two new music projects, “One with Fiachra Lennon is called Fig/Astro, it started in 2018, we should be finished an LP this year. He wrote a bunch of instrumental tracks and sent them to me. At his request I turned the instrumentals into songs, and the productions are evolving from there with both of us working on it via WeTransfer. He is a real natural musician so the songs have a very solid foundation. It was refreshing to write songs this way from track to song, rather than from song to track as I had always done previously. My own LP has been in the pipeline since 2009 when I wrote a load of songs and set out to record them in-the-box. Some of the songs went through over 20 productions. Working on a finite group of productions over a long period, under the microscope of Digital Audio Workstation has really allowed me to discover how to do my own thing. The work on this solo album takes a lot of focus.”

After Capratone Joss would go on to play with Joan of Arse and The Dudley Corporation and guest on many other releases, most of these can be found on his impressive Discogs entry. When I was doing my research for this piece I was excited to find an old Souncloud page for The Asteroids I never knew existed, it has two unreleased tracks which date from about 2014 but Andrew said the music since then has been become more abstract. Fiachra meanwhile has a bulging Soundcloud page full of his own demos that is very worth exploring too. Both of them are also on Twitter, The Asteroids and Fiachra. It will have been a long time coming but I’m looking forward to the next new releases from both these artists.

Sometimes the best things take time.

Stephen Rennicks

#capratone #the asteroids #the metronoids #andrew lyster #fiachra lennon #joss moorkens #richie kelly #folkrum records #the art of go #moonlight music for beginners #sport of kings #the world of pugh #dublin #music #1990s #2000s

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Not Nineteen Forever (19) (Branjie/Scyvie/Ninex) - Ortega

a/n: hi pals! so this was probs one of my top 3 fav chapters to write out of the whole fic. it’s got so many things that i just love, and i so hope u will love it too. i should probs make it clear that this isn’t the end of the fic! it’s going to have 21 chapters, so there’s two more to come after this (omg only 2????? bitch wtf???? WTF???). thank u guys for all the love my ask box gets flooded with after every chapter, i’m always so so excited when i see it so thank u so much, i really appreciate it!! here we go with n19f19 xoxo

please note: this fic contains young adults often behaving in irresponsible/unadvisable ways with regards to alcohol, drugs and sex. if you are someone who feels as if they could be heavily influenced by fic and incorporate what happens in the plot into ur own life, pls steer clear!

summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree.

last chapter: there were confessions of love in a karaoke bar.

this chapter: a month on from the events of last chapter and with final exams and dissertations looming, Brooke thinks she can avoid Vanessa until graduation without having to confront anything that’s happened between them. this proves difficult when she’s trapped in the library with her.

***

Brooke was fine. She was more than fine, actually, she was good. She was calm, serene, fucking zen. If it wasn’t for the dissertation she had to hand in a week from now she would have ascended to Buddha-like status, doling out study tips to her friends like proverbs.

Brooke had always been good at exams. She’d been a straight-A student back in Canada, the whole process of revision coming naturally to her. She’d bought designated ringbinders for every subject, poring over textbooks and copying information out in messy cursive until she’d filled her whole refill pad. When she’d walked into the big assembly hall on exam day, she didn’t get the usual churning of her stomach or shaky hands that her friends had always described. It was almost as if the hall reminded her of taking ballet exams when she was a girl- she knew what to do, she had all the information in her head somewhere, and all that was required of her was to think and write.

Essays, however, had never come easy, which was a shame as they essentially formed the basis of Brooke’s degree. There wasn’t the fast-paced element to essays as there were to exams, and lengthy deadlines gave Brooke time to overthink, redraft, panic, delete, then do the whole process over again. She’d never fully got the hang of them; add in the fact a different tutor marked what she’d written every time and her grades were practically a lottery. She knew this element would follow her throughout her career- writing, fashion design, God even her ballet exams from years ago- it was all a form of art, and art was subjective. She knew there were designers out there that were universally respected, but none were universally liked. Nothing was universally liked. In an exam, there was a set of right or wrong answers, but essays were open to interpretation. An interpretation that her degree classification depended on.

Stretching and feeling her spine bump against the hard plastic chair, Brooke let out a huge breath. She could still see her Mum’s face if she remembered hard enough, when she’d told her her very first mark on her very first uni assignment back in first year; the way the woman’s face had faltered a little but forced a smile and a congratulations. It was the first mark below 70% Brooke could remember in a long time, and her Mum’s disappointment still stung. Brooke was currently sitting on a 2:1, but only just. Her dissertation was going to cement what degree she received and Christ, Brooke would be lying if she said the pressure wasn’t getting to her ever so slightly. It was at the stage where she was taking a beta blocker each morning before spending most of the day in the library. Sometimes she’d take another in the afternoon if she felt herself starting to panic. Maybe that was the reason she was so chill.

Looking at her laptop and the block of black text against white digital paper, she rubbed her eyes and glanced through the huge floor-to-ceiling pane of glass to her left. Her own sleepy face gazed back at her, the view rendered invisible due to the pitch black outside. Brooke didn’t dare look at the time, but she knew it had to be late if it was this dark at the end of April. Casting her eyes to Nina, she couldn’t help but give a snort of a laugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brooke asked, looking at the exploded rainbow of colour-coded flash cards that were strewn across the girl’s desk and spilling out onto the floor. There were scribbly neon post-it notes stuck all over her laptop screen and Nina probably had half the library stacked up in high-rise tower blocks on her desk. A quick glance at her screen showed Brooke that Nina had roughly sixty tabs open.

“My goddamn best.”

Brooke let out another laugh as Nina gestured helplessly at the mess in front of her. “Jesus Christ, Brooke, how the hell am I going to be a teacher if I’m this disorganised?”

Brooke gave a little shrug and raised her eyebrows. “I dread to think what your classroom desk is going to be like.”

“Probably going to accidentally kill a child on my first day. Nudge over a big pile of papers on my desk, boof. Dead,” Nina giggled, then let out a huge laugh and instantly clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. The action made Brooke laugh out loud too until the pair were having a silent laughing fit in the exact place they weren’t supposed to be making any noise.

To be fair, the top floor was pretty empty given the late hour they were there. The few people that were left were already packing up their things and leaving, laptops shut in a manner of resignation. The yellow strobe lights that hung above gave the whole place a clinical glow, and the patterns on the fuzzy green carpet all seemed to merge into one. As Brooke ran a hand through her hair and was about to check the time on her phone, loud chimes rang out over the speakers built into the ceiling.

“Would all students please be aware that the library will be closing in ten minutes, that’s ten minutes. Thank you.”

Brooke almost jumped out of her skin. She blinked, then looked at the four numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. “Nina. No way is it almost midnight.”

“God. I’m not even surprised anymore. At this point it feels like we live here,” Nina groaned, cracking her back in a way that made Brooke wince then rolling her shoulders. “I guess we should head back to the flat.”

Brooke’s ears pricked as she heard a commotion from the other end of the floor. It sounded like a thunder of footsteps and a hissed argument. Turning slowly, Brooke’s heart sank as she saw exactly who she’d hoped she’d be able to avoid until graduation day.

Silky and Vanessa were standing at the printer a mere two sets of desks away from her and Nina. Silky seemed to be printing something out and insisting she wouldn’t be long as Vanessa tapped her heel against the carpeted floor impatiently, her Converse almost wearing a hole in the floor. Despite the late hour her makeup was still perfectly applied, and her hair was half hanging loose over her shoulders and half swept up into a haphazard topknot. Brooke pictured Vanessa growing frustrated at her desk, fretting over some form of past paper and tearing her hands through her hair, tugging her brown locks up and securing them with a hair tie. Brooke hoped she wasn’t too stressed about her finals. She remembered that when they were together Vanessa had had some form of big essay due, and she’d sat up in bed exhaling and worrying, typing furiously with her long nails crashing against the keyboard of her laptop like angry waves. Brooke had quietly brought her tea, wordlessly pressed a kiss to her temple, and Vanessa had cast her a soft smile that had made Brooke’s heart set alight.

Just then Silky looked across the room, saw her, and began to wave. Fuck. Brooke watched as Vanessa cast her gaze over to where she sat. Her eyes widened when she laid them on Brooke and she tilted her head to the sky, barely hiding a gigantic roll of her eyes as she followed Silky over to Brooke and Nina. Brooke had in the time it took for the girls to reach their desk to decide how she wanted to play this. It was a tough decision. Because in the month-and-a-bit since their dalliance in the hot tub, and an even shorter time since her crying meltdown to Scarlet in the Swan toilets, Brooke had developed a hard, harsh exoskeleton for herself that involved channeling all the love and regret she felt for Vanessa into venom, poison and dislike. If Vanessa wanted to be petty and unkind and rude to her, then fuck it. Brooke would be the exact same back. She’d tried it out already- responding to thinly-veiled barbs in the groupchat, ignoring her if they saw each other. Brooke didn’t want to act that way, didn’t want to do any of it, but she forced herself to do it in the way a small child had to be forced to eat vegetables; it was what was good for her. Good for them both. It was better that Vanessa hated her. She’d tried loving her and look where the fuck that had ended up.

The issue was, the frosty behaviour she’d return to Vanessa was uncontrollable. She knew it was causing vibes and tension in the group, splitting them all up and causing cracks and fractures in a time where they were meant to be closer than ever. Yvie had had words with her, as had Nina. It hadn’t got them anywhere. Brooke had tried to reach out to Vanessa, offered her so many olive branches that Vanessa had just started beating Brooke black and blue with them. Brooke knew it was for the best if she acted like the complete bitch that Vanessa thought she was.

“Hey, sisters! What you both doin’ here so late?” Silky asked cheerfully as she reached the girls. Brooke stuck a smile on her face, tried not to look at Vanessa and then failed. Her thick eyelashes were cast to the floor as she scuffed the carpet with her shoe. Brooke felt a stab at her heart. Luckily, Nina took over.

“Christ, I was just saying to Brooke it feels like we’ve moved in here. My diss is due on Friday and I’m stressed out of my mind. What’re you guys up to?”

Silky waved a thick stack of paper at Nina as if she was showing her evidence. “We were down on floor one but the janitor’s chucking people out. I needed some readings and figured he’d get up here last, so I just came to the top floor to use the printer.”

“Yeah, and we’re done now, so let’s go. I need to pee before we leave,” Vanessa muttered to her flatmate, her voice dull as she still didn’t tear her gaze from the floor.

Nina’s cheerful smile faltered. Silky, to her credit, looked embarrassed by Vanessa’s sulky behaviour. To Brooke’s dismay, Nina shoved all of her index cards onto her laptop keyboard and slammed it closed. “Well, hey! We were just leaving. We’ll come with you.”

Vanessa’s face twisted into one of discomfort. “Nah, Nina, really, it’s fine. I’m gonna head to the bathroom anyway-”

“We can wait for you! It’s no big deal!”

Brooke’s heart sank. Great. An excruciating walk back outside with the girl that hated her most in the world. Just as she was about to bullshit a reason why they couldn’t, Silky enthusiastically agreed. Brooke watched Vanessa bite her lip in frustration, give a forced fake smile and nod. They were both united in the fact that it was a situation neither of them wanted to be in. It was the closest Brooke had felt to Vanessa in a while.

Nina and Silky filled the silence on their way to the library toilets. They were only beside the lifts so not that far away, but every step felt as if it lasted a million years. Finally, mercifully, the girls came to the toilets and Vanessa ducked inside. As they waited, Brooke just wished and hoped she’d be quick so the awkward situation would be over sooner rather than later. One minute turned into two, and Silky became impatient. Brooke watched as she wrenched open the door and yelled inside.

“VANJ, C’MON! THE PLACE IS CLOSING SOON!” she shouted into the room, muttering under her breath something about Vanessa having a bladder like the Hindenburg. Brooke tried to be patient and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Looking back into the floor of the library, she was alarmed to find it completely empty, void of people. It could have been that she was startled, but she gave a shout into the bathroom too.

“Vanjie, hurry up! Jesus!”

At this point Vanessa was standing blasting her hands with air from the dryer. She shouted something back at Brooke that Brooke couldn’t hear over the air jets, but she could hazard a guess as to what it was. Finally, Vanessa stormed out.

“Fuck me, will you girls hop off my dick? Can I not pee in peace without you rushing me along? We’ve got ages! It’s fine!”

And then everything was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Brooke gave an involuntary cry of fear, felt someone grab her hand. Looking down at her interlocked fingers and then up to who it was connected to, she was shocked to see Vanessa, her face illuminated in the green fire escape sign and completely petrified. All at once she seemed to realise what she’d done and dropped Brooke’s hand like it was made of hot metal. Nina had fallen silent, her expression one of shock, and Silky was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Fuck,” Brooke found herself saying. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, they’ll just be turning off the lights before they lock up. Let’s just hurry up and get the lift,” Silky reassured them, but Brooke didn’t miss the worried frown that was set on her face as the four of them walked quickly. Vanessa reached the button first, scrabbled at it with her fingers. The little white light that usually illuminated the panel didn’t turn on.

“Oh my God this can’t be happening,” Nina whispered, her voice panicked and fast. Silky rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but the frown on her face was deepening. Reaching out, she pressed the same button firmly, jamming it into its little metal pad. Nothing. The girls stood in silence for only a few seconds, listening for the metal whirrs and clunks that the lift usually made on its way up or down the building. Nothing came.

“Stairs,” Vanessa said simply, her voice full of worry as she suddenly dashed in the direction of the stairwell. The three other girls followed and all pretence of remaining calm and walking was truly out the window as their trainers squeaked over the linoleum, feet thumping harshly against the steps as they tore down flight after flight. Brooke’s pulse was speeding so fast she thought she would have a heart attack, and the bones of her feet began to hurt more with every step she launched herself down two-at-a-time. Breathless and frantic, they finally reached the bottom floor, Vanessa crashing through the double doors at the bottom of the stairwell and speeding across the lobby to the main entrance. Brooke was hot on her heels, her heart now painful in her chest and her breath coming in thick, uncomfortable wheezes. Any hope she’d had sank to the floor with her gut as Vanessa pounded the automatic doors and almost wrenched the fire door off its hinges in an attempt to get out. It was to no avail.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Nina repeated, her hands flying to her face as it blanched in fear.

“Fucking shit- HELLO? HELLO? WE’RE STILL IN HERE!” Silky yelled at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” Brooke said, hearing the shake in her own voice as her eyes darted around the huge, dark building frantically.

“No shit, really? I’m having a fuckin’ whale of a time, personally,” Vanessa hissed, casting a glare her way before going back to shaking the doorhandles in a futile attempt to open them. Brooke felt her face curl up in a sneer, all the fear she’d felt previously moved into a convenient little box and replaced with all-consuming anger.

“Ugh, JESUS, Vanessa, of course, of fucking course, we’re literally locked in a uni building with no way out and you choose to start picking a fight with me. Big fucking-”

“ENOUGH!” Nina shouted, Brooke taken aback. She had known Nina for almost three years now, and in that time she’d never heard her shout. Well, she’d heard her shout with happiness or joy or fear, but never anger like this. She felt like one of her primary school kids as Nina continued. “Both of you just shut the fuck up for one fucking minute! Can we at least just find a way out of here before you start a fucking domestic?”

“I’ll take the cafe,” Silky said decisively, shouting to the others as she ran in the opposite direction. “Nina go right, Brooke and Vanjie go left.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes, looking again at Vanessa whose gaze mirrored Brooke’s. Relenting and not wanting to risk another telling-off from Nina, Brooke obediently tore off in the direction Silky had told her to go. She weaved her way through desks and bookshelves, checking every window only to find them all locked. As she was losing hope, the dull, green light of a fire escape sign caught her eye. Brooke sighed with relief as she tore towards it. This was surely a guaranteed way out. Reaching the tall door, Brooke slammed her hands on the cold, metal bar that lay across it, pushed down, and waited for the cold night air to hit her face and calm down her panic.

Nothing.

Brooke frowned, trying again and pushing harder at the bar. This time she got her shoulder involved, leaning all her weight against it. It didn’t so much as budge.

“We’re outta luck. They’re all locked from the outside.”

Brooke turned to see Vanessa walking purposefully towards her. Her tone was frustrated, but not towards her at least. Brooke felt relieved. She was beginning to regret snapping at Vanessa earlier, even if she was meant to dislike her. She wondered if she felt as scared as she did. Brooke thought about how Vanessa always hid her fear, remembered the time they watched some shit, gory horror movie at hers when they were together. Brooke had flinched and squealed and buried her face in Vanessa’s hoodie every two seconds while Vanessa had laughed at her, told her it was all fine and fake, but Brooke could feel Vanessa’s heart beat fast in her chest and her stomach muscles tensing every time a new horrific sight appeared on screen.

Vanessa leant against the bar that Brooke had tried, punctuating it with an angry kick of her foot. “That shit’s illegal, you know. Locking a fire door. We could sue fuck outta them.”

Brooke couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Yeah I’m sure we, twentysomething students with collectively hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt, have both the resources and the influence to sue the university. They’d shit themselves.”

She watched as Vanessa looked at her, a glare about to appear in her dark eyes, then disappearing as she allowed herself a small smile and a single snort of laughter. There was a pause of silence. Brooke decided to fill it. “Let’s find the girls, maybe they found a way out.”

As they passed by the floor-to-ceiling windows again, Vanessa suddenly gasped and tore off to bang on the glass. Brooke followed her eyeline and was overjoyed to find what looked to be a janitor, finishing up and walking away from the building. She joined Vanessa and pounded her fists against the window, shouting randomly if only just to make a noise. Her hope began to die, however, when instead of noticing the absolute cacophony of noise the girls created, the man simply got further and further away. Brooke watched as he got his phone out, a long earphone cord attached to it. She slumped against the glass and let out a helpless moan.

“Fucking shit bitch ass motherfucker!” Vanessa hissed in anger, pounding on the glass with her knuckles one last time. Brooke watched as she took a step back from the window, flexed her fingers and gave a hiss.

“You okay?” Brooke found herself asking. She could already feel herself frowning in concern as Vanessa nodded briskly, shaking her hand out and sticking the knuckle of one finger in her mouth.

“Fine. Just got a lil’ over-enthusiastic, cut my finger,” she spoke around her knuckle. Brooke felt a pang at her heart. She took a step towards Vanessa.

“Let’s see?”

Vanessa gave another laugh, harsher and more sardonic than her first had been. “It’s fine, Brooke, I don’t need you to kiss it better.”

Brooke held her hands up, unable to help the way her eyebrows flew up her face. “Okay, I’ll just go fuck myself!“

“Yeah, do that,” Vanessa muttered quietly, sitting on a desk beside the window and pulling her legs up to cross them. Brooke, in lieu of snapping back at the girl she’d once called her friend but had never called her girlfriend, did the same. They sat in a hostile silence, thoughts running around Brooke’s mind as to what she could do or say. So many options flooded her head that it was hard to see any of them clearly for what they were. It turned out she didn’t need to give any of them that much thought, however, as Nina and Silky soon appeared from the other end of the building.

“Oh, good! You’ve not killed each other,” Nina said brightly upon her return. Brooke snuck a quick look at Vanessa, then rolled her eyes.

“Guess you’re as shit out of luck as we are?” Silky asked, her voice quieter than usual by at least a few dozen decibels.

“Can you believe they locked the fire doors? Fuck them, man, imagine there was a real fire?” Vanessa spat bitterly. Nina sighed heavily and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“We could try calling someone?”

Brooke frowned. “Who could we call?”

“The police?” Nina said immediately, her naivety causing the others to burst out laughing.

“And say what?! Hey listen, we know you’ve got murderers to catch but we’re locked in a uni building, could you bring round a big battering ram and knock the door down?” Brooke laughed, not missing the way Vanessa laughed in response and feeling a twinkle of pride light up in her heart.

“Well, could the fire brigade get us out?” Nina suggested, Silky groaning and pulling her hands down her face.

“Nina, you need to lower your expectations of what an emergency is. Four dumb uni students trapped in the library is not gonna be considered an emergency. We’re not in danger, we’re all breathing, and none of us have been set alight. That counts the big three out immediately.”

“What about a locksmith?” Vanessa shrugged. Brooke screwed up her face.

“Ah, for those locks that automatic doors have on them,” Silky deadpanned. Brooke laughed at the comment, clearly a little too loudly because Vanessa was back scowling at her again.

“Hey, they do so have locks, bitch.”

“I don’t think you can ask a locksmith to open a house that isn’t yours,” Nina frowned. Brooke raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

“I love my house, the university library.”

“Shut up! You knew what I meant,” Nina protested, as the other girls gave a laugh again.

“Surely there’ll be some phone number online for the janitor or something?” Brooke thought suddenly, Silky quickly taking out her phone to check. There was a moment of silence as the girls held their breath in hope. Finally, Silky let out an overjoyed cry.

“Cleaning supervisor main area- based in central library! Yes ladies! We’re fucking outta here!”

Brooke smiled so hard that her face hurt as Silky held her phone to her ear. Thank God. The nightmare was over, she could go back to her flat and not be literally trapped in a building with her ex. She would soon be-

The four girls jumped as a faint ringing of a phone could be heard from out in the lobby. For the hundredth time that night, Brooke felt her heart sink.

“I don’t really know what we expected from that,” Vanessa sighed, looking every inch the kicked puppy.

It was quickly decided that their last hope were the girls who weren’t in the library, although this went down the drain fast as it was discovered that Yvie was over at Scarlet’s flat and they were both asleep, neither Akeria nor Monet were picking up, and Plastique had gone home to revise.

“What about Monique, Vanj? Could we try her?” Nina asked. Brooke was confused at the way Vanessa’s face twisted in discomfort, a little line setting deep on her forehead.

“Nah, she, uh…she won’t pick up,” she said simply, Nina nodding quickly and neglecting to ask any more about it. It didn’t stop Brooke from being intrigued.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, then? We can’t just spend the night here,” Silky’s voice was disbelieving. Brooke gave a resigned shrug.

“Silk, I don’t think there’s any alternative. It’s only a few hours, the place’ll open up again at six. We can go upstairs and sleep in those little pods they have for group projects. Then by the time we wake up again, it’ll be morning and we can all go back to the flat,” Brooke explained calmly, although inside she still had a lot of anxiety rattling about and the dark of the library wasn’t helping.

The girls reluctantly agreed that it was probably the only thing that was left for them to do. In nervous silence they climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Silky immediately set up camp in one of the pods, stretching herself out along the seats that had once been cushioned but had been flattened by hundreds and thousands of sets of bums over the years. Nina took one and set her laptop back up again, arguing that she’d actually been on a pretty good streak before she’d had to pack up and wanted to see if she could churn out another thousand words before she went to sleep. Brooke peeled off from the girls and took her own pod, her tall body unable to fully fit along the seats. As she attempted to sleep, one thing kept stopping her as it usually seemed to around this time of day. She sighed, tossed and turned as she thought about Vanessa. It had all gone so badly wrong. The more she tried to get her off her mind, the more memories she was reminded of. Hurting Vanessa was easier than loving her; snapping at her and being snarky made Brooke feel bad and a bit of a bitch, but loving her and torturing herself for what an idiot she’d been made her feel ten times worse, as if her heart had been removed from its sheath in her ribcage and been stomped on, kicked about, stabbed with a blunt knife and dragged through broken glass. Any attempt to sleep was futile. Brooke’s eyes hurt with fatigue as she sat up, rubbed them and stretched. She would go and see if Nina was still awake, maybe sit up and annoy her for a while.

As she crossed the floor she noticed a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Vanessa was sitting on the floor by the window, her legs crossed and eating a packet of crisps she’d managed to procure from somewhere. Brooke thought she looked so tiny compared to the huge pane of glass and the world that sat outside of it. Now that the lights were off, Brooke could see every detail that lay beyond the window- the soft yellow glow of the streetlights that faintly illuminated the park beside the library, the pink and white marshmallow cherry blossom trees that lined each path. A memory shot through Brooke’s mind like a lightning bolt- the eight of them in second year after their exams had all finished, having a barbecue in the park as the sun beat down and frazzled them all to a crisp, the smell of sausages and weed carried on the light breeze and the warmth in Brooke’s heart as Vanessa had teased her about something, the girls all laughing at Brooke’s embarrassment and protests.

God, they’d all been so happy.

Without really knowing what her plan was, Brooke walked over to where Vanessa was sitting and sat down cautiously beside her. The other girl looked at her, as if she was deciding whether to glare or smile. She ended up doing neither.

“Can’t sleep either?” Brooke chose as her opener, immediately regretting it for the cheesy line from a film it was. Vanessa gave a sarcastic chuckle, gestured around her.

“Apparently,” she said simply, Brooke looking at the carpet and kicking herself. There was a moment where the cogs in her brain whirred quickly, trying to come up with something else to say. Vanessa surprised her by speaking again. “I ain’t been sleeping too good lately anyway, though, so. I guess it don’t matter.”

“Me neither,” Brooke felt something click inside her, a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins as she spoke again. “Vanessa, we need to talk.”

Vanessa kept her eyes trained on the pane of glass in front of her. “We are talking.”

“God, Ness, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” Brooke sighed, her face pleading. Vanessa’s head snapped round to face her and her eyes were what could only be described as murderous.

“Hard? Don’t fucking dare talk to me about hard,” she said, slowly and carefully and causing Brooke’s heart to frost over in fear. “This year has been shit, absolute shit, the shittest year of my life. You broke my heart- no, fuck that. You broke me. I had to take my goddamn feelings and put them all back together again, start from scratch while you swanned about absolutely fine. I am having to fight to get my average up because of the days I spent in my flat crying instead of going to lectures. Do you have any idea, Brooke, what this has been like for me?”

Brooke was silent as Vanessa continued relentlessly. “And then I finally got myself to a place where, hey, maybe I could be friends with you again! Then what happened? All the old feelings came back, didn’t they, and then we fucking…slept with each other and-”

“Hey, no,” Brooke jumped in, frowning and unable to listen to what was to come. “Don’t try to pin that on me, Vanessa, that was all you. It wasn’t me that fucking…straddled you in the hot tub and stripped off and talked about the sex I was having with other girls, was it?”

“Oh, no! You’re right. You’re correct,” Vanessa smiled sarcastically, soon getting replaced with a scowl. “You only got with me incredibly intensely in front of seven of our closest friends, who knew all the shit that’s gone down between us and watched like a fucking soap opera.”

“Well I didn’t hear you complaining at the time!” Brooke bit back, causing Vanessa to fall silent and play with a thread of her ripped jeans. Brooke let out a breath she’d been holding, took in a huge gulp of air. “Look, this is…this is off to a bad start.”

Brooke watched Vanessa’s throat move as she swallowed, her eyes cast downwards. Brooke was good at holding in her feelings, bottling them up like her life depended on it. She was terrified of feeling too much. She had no idea how this conversation was meant to start, but she knew she had to have it.

“Vanessa, I am sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, I am. I’m sorry for going about everything the wrong way. I’d never…done anything like this before, never properly seen anyone like I was seeing you, so I didn’t know how to behave. And fuck, maybe I was leading you on, and I’m sorry for that too. I just didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I thought I knew what I wanted but then I just…didn’t any more. I’m sorry for hurting you. I didn’t realise how much you liked me until it was too late,” Brooke cut herself off, sighing and feeling a bubble of sadness rise up in her throat. “Fuck, I’m trying to put it all the way I want it but nothing’s coming out right.”

Vanessa was looking at her, she knew it, but Brooke’s gaze had dropped to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest. There was so much she wanted to say to Vanessa but none of the sentences she constructed in her head seemed to be sufficient.

“That night. You said that you missed me,” Vanessa’s voice was soft and small as she spoke, stripped from all the venom it had held before. “Did you mean it?”

Brooke jumped in instantly. “Yes.”

Vanessa was now looking at the floor, picking at her shoelace. “And did you mean…as a friend, or…just the sex, or…”

Brooke took a deep breath. I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. The words were so close to coming out, but she stopped them. Now wasn’t the right time, nowhere near the right time. She tried to think about what the perfect response would be, sighed, scrapped it, and decided to just simply speak. “I miss you as…everything. I miss you as whatever you want to be to me. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. I just miss you for all that you are, the person you are. I miss us,” Brooke paused, realised her last remark was slightly risky. “Interpret that…however you want.”

Brooke snuck a gaze at Vanessa. A thought struck her as memories ran round her mind, and now she had started talking it seemed she couldn’t stop. “Do you remember after we…after lazerquest. Yvie’s birthday. We met up and we spoke about things and you said something. That whatever happens, we’d be friends always. Do you remember?”

Vanessa gave a little laugh. “You can wear a set of armbands in a current, don’t mean you won’t drown.”

She saw Brooke’s confused look, shot her a bashful smile. “I never expected to…end up feeling so strongly for you at the start. Didn’t expect to get as crazy about you as I got. Man…I wish you could turn feelings off.”

Brooke felt herself frown, a deep regret settling in the pit of her stomach. “I wish that too.”

She didn’t miss the brief look of surprise that flashed across Vanessa’s face. In the lull in conversation that followed, Vanessa wordlessly pushed the packet of crisps towards Brooke. She took one. Chilli heatwave wasn’t her favourite flavour, but it was a peace offering, and she’d take what she could get.

"So I stopped sleeping with Monique,” Vanessa commented, shrugging a little. Brooke blinked, almost choked on her crisp as she raced to get a reply out.

“Uh, yeah, I did notice you were a bit weird about things when Nina said you should call her.”

Vanessa pushed some hair out of her face, puffed her cheeks up with air and blew out harshly. “Monet kinda told me…she was catching feelings, and obviously I wasn’t there for that. So I said to her we shouldn’t keep going.”

Brooke felt a little twinge of pain for Monique. The poor girl had a crush and was just caught in the crossfire. “And how did she take it?”

Vanessa stared through the glass, her gaze steadfast. “I could tell she was sad. Disappointed. She didn’t start cryin’ or nothing, but…God, I still felt bad. I liked her, you know, she was a great girl. Maybe there’s a parallel universe where she took my heart and patched it all up again and we ended up together but…that’s not what it was for me. And the more she said she understood and that she hoped I’d find happiness, the worse I felt for having to tell her I wanted something different.”

Brooke nodded. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew the feeling all too well, but she didn’t want to interrupt her. Vanessa turned her head slowly, finally making eye contact with Brooke, and her eyes were the softest they’d been in a while. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is…I know now what it must have been like for you to break it off with me. And yeah, it completely fuckin’ wrecked me but…you did what you had to do. So…I forgive you, Brooke Lynn.”

Brooke couldn’t quite believe Vanessa was in front of her saying all this. Instinctively she wanted to launch herself forward and hug her, thanking her for her change of heart. Just as she’d convinced herself she was almost going to do it, Vanessa spoke again. Her voice held a slightly more steely note to it now. “But I don’t forgive you for kissing me or for that night in the hot tub. That really fucked with me.”

Brooke fought the urge to snap a childish you started it at her and instead said a soft okay. She also fought the urge to reach out and place a hand on top of Vanessa’s. The building was still pitch black and silent and the girls had reached a conversational purgatory. Vanessa had forgiven her for some of her mistakes at least. This was the closure Brooke had wanted. Despite herself, she found herself opening her mouth. There was so much still unresolved.

“You must kind of hate me for that."

Vanessa snorted, tilted her head to the sky. "I do and I don’t.”

A small silence. Brooke knew what she wanted to say, knew what topic she wanted to breach, but it meant plunging head first into the icy chill of the great unknown, and as much as she wanted to talk about it she was terrified of doing so.

“Is that because part of you loves me?”

It was out before Brooke knew it. Vanessa had frozen, her body unmoving with her head still positioned towards the ceiling like a terrifying Exorcist yoga pose. Brooke could immediately predict it, could practically hear it- Vanessa’s quick, sarcastic response, don’t flatter yourself, her getting up and thundering away to another part of the building in some angry game of hide and seek. She couldn’t face any of those options, so Brooke continued talking. “I was in the bathroom at the same time. In the next stall along from you and the girls. I heard you say that you never got to tell me. Did you mean it?”

“Why are you asking me this, Brooke? Is it to add insult to injury? Is it not enough knowing that the girl you broke it off with can still come crawling back into bed with you so easily, you have to rub salt into the wound by getting me to fucking…” Brooke heard Vanessa take a big deep, shaky breath, felt the tears prick at the corners of her own eyes. “…admit that I’m in love with you, yes, okay? I love you. What’s the reason?”

“Because I…fuck,” Brooke jumped in then immediately stopped. She felt her jaw wire itself shut, almost paralysed with fear. She didn’t know if she could verbalise everything she was feeling. “I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

“No shit, Miss Marple,” Vanessa quipped bitterly, her eyes back looking at the carpet and avoiding Brooke’s gaze. The lack of eye contact helped Brooke. She carried on.

“You know, I used to lie in bed before I went to sleep and rehearse what I would say to you to tell you I liked you,” Brooke gave a laugh, remembering when things were more simple. “Except none of it worked out that way. And now I’ve actually got a second chance at it, I’m almost too frightened to say it. I completely fucked it with you, Vanessa. You’re an absolute one of a kind person. Your smile just makes me happy whether or not it’s directed at me. The love and loyalty you have for your friends makes me proud of you. You’re so determined and hard working and you’re smashing your degree. And you’re kind. You see the good in everyone and you’re not afraid to feel and tell the world all about it. All these things that I just…love about you. It took me being away from you and making the biggest mistake of my life, and that night when we were together like everything was back to normal, it took all of that to make me realise that I’m…fuck..”

Brooke almost hadn’t realised she was crying until a sob bubbled up in her throat, almost choking her. It was almost like her body’s survival mechanism, trying to save her from the potential rejection she might face once the words were out.

Fuck it.

“I’m in love with you. I love you so much that it scares me. It scares me more than being fucking…trapped in the library in the pitch black with no way out,” Brooke let out a hybrid of a laugh and a sob. By now, Vanessa had lifted her gaze to look at Brooke, and Brooke had shifted hers so she could protect herself from Vanessa’s reaction. “Because I don’t want to hurt you again, and you deserve better than someone like me.”

“Then don’t,” Vanessa said quietly.

“What?” Brooke whispered, confused. She tugged the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and jammed them under her eyes, used them to stop the tears from escaping.

“You said you don’t want to hurt me again. Then don’t,” Vanessa repeated patiently. Brooke blinked. She had no idea what that meant, so she went with the knowledge she had at hand.

“I love you, and you love me,” Brooke said softly, finally meeting Vanessa’s eyes. “Can we…do something with that information?”

Vanessa let out a loud blast of a laugh, making Brooke giggle even though she didn’t know what was funny. “God, that’s the most Brooke Lynn Hytes way of asking me out ever. Can we do something with that information.”

Vanessa’s smile was infectious. It lit up Brooke’s heart and she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss her gently, to make Vanessa hers properly this time. As her smile faded though, Brooke felt her hope fade too. Vanessa let out a world-weary sigh. “Brooke, I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this all over again.”

Brooke’s heart dropped to the floor and shattered. She wanted to say something, fill the silence and reassure her, but nothing came out. She had opened up, and it had all been for nothing. This was her karma- she had broken Vanessa’s heart and now here was Vanessa breaking hers. She felt crushed. Lacking the energy to do it properly, she nodded her head once, the action small and probably barely noticeable.

It was so quiet that Brooke could hear Vanessa swallow beside her, hear her breathing deeply to calm herself down before she spoke. “You never hear it in the movies but sometimes…sometimes love isn’t enough, you know, sometimes you need to put yourself first, and sometimes the person you love ain’t necessarily the one who ends up making you happiest.”

Brooke felt her chest grow tight, felt ashamed as her head hung to the floor. She saw two tears fall from her eyes and drop onto the carpet, making identical, miniscule ponds.

“But then also,” Vanessa continued, the but aspect causing Brooke’s heart to dip and soar upwards as if it was on a rollercoaster. “I love you for a reason, don’t I? The way that you say shit that’s all sarcastic and funny. The way you make me laugh. The way you’re always blunt and truthful, and when you say nice things to me it feels like you’re just saying a fact. The way you got this childish, immature streak to you that makes everything feel like an adventure when I’m with you. You listen in the best way, ‘cause you never try an’ force advice down anyone’s throat. You’re always so concerned about everyone you care for and want them to be happy…and even though you ain’t good at expressin’ it, I know you have feelings and I know they scare you. You’re like a fuckin…model, you’re so beautiful and perfect. So that’s as simple as it has to be, right?”

Brooke looked up and saw tears in Vanessa’s own eyes. All the honesty was so raw and painful, like burnt or grazed skin, and it hurt and stung as if it was real. It was real. Brooke hid a sob, took a deep breath. “I don’t, uh. I don’t know where we take this.”

“I want to be with you. I want to love and be loved, feel my heart fuckin’…burst like it’s made of confetti,” Vanessa continued, letting out what could have been a sob or a laugh. “But I want to be happy. I don’t want to be hurt again. I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too,” Brooke nodded, feeling the tracks the tears were making down her face. She sighed, the pain in her heart too heavy for her to carry. “Fuck, maybe we’re just not meant for each other, maybe we got our chance already. Maybe nothing should come of this-”

“But, fuck, I love you, Brooke! And you love me,” Vanessa sighed in exasperation, her mascara collecting under her eyes as her own tears continued to fall. “And that…that means something.”

“I love you,” Brooke repeated, in case it counted for anything. It meant the world to her. Vanessa gave a sad smile, reached out and took Brooke’s hand and laced their fingers together. She squeezed Brooke’s hand twice, and the simple gesture made Brooke hopeful that everything was going to be okay.

“Shit, I waited so long to hear you say that and now it’s like…” Vanessa began sadly, trailing off. Brooke didn’t push her to finish her sentence. Instead, she squeezed her hand like Vanessa had done with hers. The action seemed to work as a prompt, because she spoke again, tilting her head with curiosity. “What do you want outta all this?”

Brooke knew immediately. “I want you. I want us to be us again.”

Vanessa let out a soft sigh, paused. “Okay, well. I don’t know what I want right now, Brooke. An’ it’s gonna be hard to start again. So you’re gonna need to give me time to decide.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for you. You can take all the time you need,” Brooke reassured her instantly. “I’ll still be here.”

Vanessa’s hand shifted in her own. Brooke watched as she frowned a little, cast her gaze her way again. "You mean that?”

“I mean it. Whatever you decide. Whether we’re worth an extra chance or not. I’ll wait for you.”

A small smile crept onto Vanessa’s face as Brooke waited for her reply. “That’s the most romantic shit anyone ever said to me.”

“Well, it’s just the truth,” Brooke muttered, feeling her cheeks grow hot and glad that the dark room would hide her pink blush. Then, getting an idea and feeling a little spark of that childishness and immaturity Vanessa seemed to love so much, Brooke let go of Vanessa’s hand and held out her other one for her to shake. The other girl looked at her, a funny, confused smile on her face as she took her hand and shook it obediently.

“Hey. I’m Brooke Lynn,” she began, trying to suppress her smile as she spoke. Vanessa giggled, falling back a little then leaning forward.

“What are you…”

“Starting again. What’s your name, beautiful?” Brooke teased, all the darkness somehow bursting into colour as Vanessa laughed beside her, swatting her on her arm with her hand. She hadn’t seen this Vanessa in so long; happy, laughing, cheerful and playful. Brooke could’ve cried with how much she’d missed her.

“This is some dumbass shit, you know that?” Vanessa giggled, but Brooke could see the blush on her own cheeks illuminated by the streetlamps outside. Vanessa appeared to see her expectant face, laughed a resigned laugh and indulged her. “Nice to meet you, Brooke. I’m Vanjie. Well, Vanessa, but everyone calls me Vanjie.”

“Can I call you Vanessa? It’s pretty. It suits you.”

Vanessa laughed again, making Brooke give a chuckle too. “Bitch! You never flirted with me this hard the first time.”

“Well the first time we were friends, so I couldn’t flirt with you. Not properly like I wanted to anyway,” Brooke laughed, taking a Dorito and throwing it at her playfully. Vanessa squealed, toppling herself out of the way. “You, on the other hand, flirted all the time.”

“I’m a flirtatious person! You shouldn’t have taken that shit personal,” Vanessa protested, attempting to look offended but unable to wipe the smile off her face.

“So Vanessa,” Brooke carried on, trying to stop herself smiling as she carried on with the charade. “What are you studying?”

They carried on like that all through the night, being silly and getting to know each other again right from the very beginning. They had missed out on so much conversation over the past few months that it was actually nice to catch up, to re-establish herself in Vanessa’s life. She was looking at graduate jobs in events management for after uni and thinking of moving home to save money. For a fleeting moment Brooke almost suggested that they move in together but she was glad she had the sense not to verbalise that, a thought that was perhaps better bottled up and saved for another time. After all, Vanessa hadn’t even decided if she wanted to be with Brooke or not yet. Brooke had to cling on to the hope that maybe she would, because she had nothing else. Well, that was a lie. She had Vanessa’s smile and her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes when Brooke made a deadpan comment. She had the way Vanessa opened up to her, told her how scared she was of trying to navigate the world on her own after she graduated. She had the way that Vanessa shuffled close to her when the sun eventually began to rise, its glow a burnt orange ombre into a soft yellow which faded into the gentle blue of the morning sky. She had the way Vanessa’s head fit perfectly into the crook of her neck as, worn out and exhausted, she closed her eyes and dozed off in Brooke’s tentative arms.

Most of all, she had the fact that Vanessa loved her, and Brooke loved her back. And even though it hadn’t been the movie scene confession Brooke had been expecting, that fact, the sunrise, and Vanessa sleeping softly against her chest was enough for her for the moment.

#rpdr fanfiction #not nineteen forever #n19f #ortega #branjie #scyvie #ninex #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #college au #university au #nina west #silky nutmeg ganache #s11

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badboy-mysweetboy · 5 years

Text

What the hell is a commission?

Sweet Peax fem! reader

This has been stuck in my head forever, and I don't know why... it started as a drabble then it just took off my guy. Random Tags: @missmarrinette @the-gargoyle-queen @xserpentlife @theangriestpea @sweetpeaxreader @sweetpea-fvck

Really an eviction?

That’s no coincidence. I’m going to Major McMoy about this bullshit. Grabbing my skateboard and slamming my trailer door, I speed down to City Hall. The streets are damp from the ongoing rain this past few weeks, shoving people out of my way I kick up my old board before the concrete stairs.

Running up the familiar hallway to her office, shutting the door behind me our eyes meet.

“Y/n? What are you doing here?” McCoy's voice rung out, gulping, setting my hand down on the chair. My tongue darting out dampening my bottom lip before speaking up, “How much is the debt and next year of rent for the trailer park?”

Her eyes widened momentarily, “I-Uh, Why are you asking, Y/n?” With raising eyebrows she caught on, with a small smile, McCoy turned as her finger pounded on the keys. “It’s about $50,000, but I already have an offer and-”

I interrupted, “No, the Lodges want to pay for your silence, but if that’s what it’s going to take.” She looked a bit taken back before I continued, “I know about you and Mr. Sheriff, I’m the only one. That’s a bigger bomb, so give me 1 week. Deal?”

“A week? That’s literally impossibl-”

“I’ve done it for Pop’s and I’ve done it for the White Wyrm, please Sierra do me a solid. I’ve never come in short. Not once.” Now crossing my arms as the Major looked between me and the red number on the document. softly she nodded as a smirk took over my face, “See ya next Friday, and remember ‘Tell the Lodges to piss off til then’, I’ll be here. 3:45pm sharp. And no telling anyone about this like the last times.” With another short nod, my feet took off as my board glided against the polished halls of City Hall. Men in suits yelling and a few women flipping me off.

The neon lights of the city blurred as my feet vibrated on the board that speed down the streets I call home. Pulling my shitty, old phone from my jean pocket. Scrolling threw contacts stopping for a moment to see the top message,

~Sweet Pea<3~

I’ll be home in a few days, this job fuckin blows. Love and miss you baby <3

Smiling softly at the last message he sent me I kept scrolling. A familiar contact name popped up on the screen, “Ok hello, Mrs. Wealthy.” Hitting the green phone putting it to my ear.

“Mrs. Lodge, Hello...”

It’s been over 97 hours of my hand dancing on pages and canvases, and days melted into songs that have played over 20 times. The darkening of my eyes and increased amount of caffeine and candy is taking its fuzzy toll. My palms dug into my eyes then dragged over my face as I pull paints and inks from their places. Once again dragging the brush across the cloth of the Lodge daughter and other various things requested, “It’s almost like she knew.” It was strange but she and another buyer made up 45k while I had the other 5 in savings.

Standing with stretching hands and popping back, I grab my empty cans of energy cans and toss them in the trash bag among the others. Taking the 6 pack of Monsters off the counter and to the mess I’ve called home for too long. The music drowned out the sound of a familiar bike and the front door trying to open, turning to see the chair in front of the door budging. Moving it and opening the door I was meet with the other artist Serpent, Jug.

“What do you want?” I growled as he shifted awkwardly, clearing his voice he sarcastically responded. “Ya know, Fp misses his favorite bartender, and Toni is all alone with drunk Fangs. What have you been doing?” Rubbing the now darker e/c eyes, with Sweet Pea’s black and white flannel that well could be a dress. “Studying Jug, you probably don’t know what it’ like being stupid. But it sucks. Tell your father that I’ll be back at work on Saturday. Goodbye Jug.” Shutting the and replacing the chair.

Back in the crouched position, I presumed the strokes of ink and oils as the next several hours melted into lost time.

Blinking madly the last stroke met the page and “Fucking finally! Yes! WooHoo!” Grabbing the hairdryer and drying it my eyes met the digital clock that read

3:21 pm Friday.

Placing the last painting in my portfolio and grabbing my board. Taking off on my board once again, to Pops. Stopping at the same black van Mrs, Lodge’s profile could be seen, while handing her one of the two portfolios in my hand. Opening the backpack it was all there, looking up met with a smile. As she held out a painting of her daughter, “Beautiful as always, Y/n.” Nodding, making my way into the diner the other costumer was sitting with her son.

Walking to the booth she smiled up at me, then her son turned. “ Hello Archie, Mrs. Andrews here’s your piece. If I may, I need to go.” She slowly unzipped it revealing a portrait of her son, a big gleaming smile turned to me. “What is that, mom? Y/n?” Archie looked between us when her mom handed me an envelope, “Remember what I said over the phone, bye!” Winking at the two before running out, “I have 10 minutes to get to McCoy, come on baby don’t let me down.” Dropping my board and skating down the well-known streets, rain fell from the sky making the wheels spin faster as my old converse pounded against the floor pushing me towards my destination.

Beating against my chest hurt as my lungs burned, running up 3 floors and bursting into Major McCoy’s Office. “I’m here, Not late! Y/n present! Now here.” Inhaling deeply looking up to see Mr. Lodge’s anger-filled face. “I’m not saying this again Hiram, the buyer shows tomorrow, if they don’t show. The trailer park is yours till then. Get The Hell Out- oh Y/n here for Josie? She’ll be here in a few, just sit down till then.” Her demeanor changed as I dragged myself to a chair as Hiram stormed out. Lazily raising the bag in the air. “It’s there, all 50k. Until we see another day. Hey rain looks like melted dimands and- what am I talking about?”

Worry was painted all over McCoy’s face as she glided over to me, placing her hand on my forehead it felt nice and warm. “You’re sick, y/n. When was the last time you slept-”

McCoy’s POV..(whaaaattttt? lol ) transitions to 3rd POV

“Oh Y/n.” I mumbled softly as her dark eyes fell shut and her breathing shallowed, grabbing the backpack and putting it all where it needs to be, “Once again Y/n you saved the day, only if your Sweet Pea knew.” and signed off the eviction. Pulling a blanket from the closet and draping it onto y/n’s sick form. Walking back to my desk I rang up Sherif Keller “Hello babe, I need you to go down to the trailer park and tell em’ that the park was paid for. They live rent-free for the next year.” Smiling as he asked who, “An anonymous buyer but not Lodge, make sure they know that.” Looking at the shivering form across the room, “Love you, see you later. Bye-bye.” Placing the phone on the receiver and calling another well-known number.

“Mayor McCoy?” The gruff voice came from the other side, “ FP I need you to come to my office, please. Now.” Hanging back up, and walk up to her form once again. Placing my hand on her forehand, my hand almost stung at the touch. “Damn girl, what did you do?”

Soon Fp showed up and immediately noticed y/n, “What happened?” He kneeled next to her cupping her face, turning to face me. “I’m taking her home, Sweet Pea won’t be happy,” he grumbled bridal style carrying her, “Just make sure she gets well, she deserves it.�� With a raised eyebrow he shrugged it off and put y/n on the front of his bike making sure she doesn’t fall off, with of course her precious board bunji corded to the back of the bike.

Stopping in front of her and Sp’s trailer, Fp slowly took Y/n from the bike to her home. Sighing he walked into her home and placed her on the bed before his phone rang, “Yes?” Fp ran out of the trailer to his own.

Sweet Pea’s bike was rolled into park as Keller was giving the news.

“People of the trailer park community it brings me joy to tell you this, an anonymous buyer has saved you all from eviction and paying rent for a year. This buyer wishes to stay anonymous but let it be known it was no a Lodge, so celebrate!” Before he turned to his car passing Sp who had a shocked expression.

Smiling he dashed into his trailer to find a mess of art supplies and trash bags filled with candy wrappers and energy drink cans. Smiling went from worried within seconds, “Y/n? Baby? I’m home! Where are you?” He walked through the trailer finding her under a blanket shivering fast asleep, quickly coming to her aid he shook tried to shake her awake but received a grunt. Putting y/n under all the blankets he could find he went to find some medicine for when she woke up. Then he got a call from Fp.

Cheers were heard from miles around as every Serpent partied and drank in The Serpent King’s trailer about staying in their homes and not paying rent for a year. The detective couple went to demand who bought the park as Major McCoy kept her promise before Fp joined them in asking.

(Back to McCoy POV)

The four stood in front of me with demanding looks; the 2 Jones, Betty, and Sp. “They made me promise not to tell a soul and-” The writer spoke up,” But this is a good thing, they should be proud. We just want to know Major McCoy, the people want to know and plus-” He ranted before I got tired of the secret and him just pushing my goddamn buttons. “Fine, you want to know who bought your debts and rent for a year and save Pop’s twice and even saved the White Wyrm from the Lodges?” I snapped and they all nodded. “Y/n L/n, she bought them all plus other things but those were the most expensive.”

Seeing their faces was all the same. All Shocked for sure. Sweet Pea’s eye’s widened, I continued, “She came up with $50,000 in a week due to commissions and paid it off today about 25 minutes ago, now I suggest someone goes and tends to her, I bet 50k that she was awake for about 168 hours and has a terrible fever. If that’s all get out of my office.”

“What the hell is a commission?” Sweet Pea asked as Fp repeated ‘50k’ like it was the only word he knew. “She sold art Sweet Pea, that’s why her hands probably hurt.” They all left rethinking what just happened.

The three walked into the serpent’s trailer while Betty went to pick up stuff for y/n’s fever. Sweet Pea was able to get her into the shower as the other 2 hung out in the living room area. Jug observed the table with thrown sketches out of the way and paint cups filled with brushes. “She came up with 50k by art? Wow, she is talented for what I can tell.” Placing a sketch of Sweet Pea down looking at the garbage bags. Fp’s hands were in his hair, “50k- $50,000 dollars. She saved our asses and we didn’t even know-” Fp mumbled and his son answered, “she didn’t want us to know, Why?”

“Why? Because the serpents are my family. And family saves their ass no matter the cost, and I don’t want a single dollar from you or I’ll shove my sick ass foot up your ass, kapish?” Y/n’s now way deeper voice answered Jug as she made her way to the kitchen for some water.

Y/n POV

Drinking the water, Sweet Pea’s arms wrapped around me as his chin rested on my shoulder. “You’ll get sick babe.” I yawned as his grip got tighter, “I don’t care and how long since you’ve slept?” The trailer door opened as Betty walked through with a grocery bag full of things, “I thought I said no buying shit, and probably 170 hours Sp. Now I love you all but I’m going to bed night, I’ll be at work at 4 Fp, Come on Sweet Pea. Bed Time.” I grumbled as the rest chuckled, “No you will not come in tomorrow and Betty, darling I don’t care what you have to do but make y/n take her medicine. Goodnight everyone and-” Fp stood and walked over after telling Betty something, I don’t know, I was in a bone crushin hug. “Thank you y/n for everything, you’re a true serpent through and through. Love ya kid, now sleep.” Before stepping out Betty held out NightQuil, being so tired I just twisted off the cap and took a gulp.

“Nasty, now goodnight.” Turning and before I could walk Pea picked me up and placed me on our bed. Getting underneath every single blanket, he kicked off his shoes and pulled me into his chest. His hands danced in my hair and within seconds I was lulled to sleep to Sp’s voice.

Sweet Pea that night made a vow to give himself that small, velvet box in his underwear drawer will be given to her and he will cherish her till the end.

#Sweet Pea #Sweet Pea x reader #sweet pea imagine #riverdale #riverdale imagine #fluff #random as hell #riverdale fluff #jordan connor x reader #jordan connor

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goth-girlfriend · 3 years

Note

Heyy could I get a matchup please? I’m a pansexual non binary person excepting and loving to all, I have short black hair and I am 5’1. Tbh I’m more interested in the 1A boys but I do love all the pro hero’s and the villains too. I can be shy at first but once you get to know me I can be very chaotic and alt. I’m very open minded and understanding no matter what your situation is and I am very patient, I rarely get angry. I also do a lot of art from pairing to potter and photography, I love to try new things. I also love your work so much and I hope your doing well 💕

Thank you! 🥰 It means a lot! I hope your doing week in this time ☺️💙 sorry it took over a month 😅 but! I’ll make it up to you! And! The other four waiting....and the few in my inbox! Well! I hope you like it!

✨✨✨✨🤍✨✨✨✨🤍✨✨✨✨

✨Denki✨

Kaminari, you wouldn’t think five inches is enough for him to look down and bully you about your height. But...honestly? You couldn’t be mad at it considering it’s what made your friendship with the blonde bloom.

Then again, when you first met him you were kind of a wreck and didn’t have the guts to tell him, “I’m not an arm rest stop leaning on my shoulder.” Instead you let it be, fidgeting fingers and looking ahead until her smiled brightly at you, “SHORT FRIENDS ARE GREAT!” he looked down at you eyes closed, “I should keep you around more.”

Well, after that you were adopted by, THE BAKUSQUAD! Bakugo not really caring, but when Kirishima and Denki followed him around he always made sure to grab you and drag you with them, because “I WAS SCARED AND PANICKED! I DIDN’T WANNA BE ALONE!”

So, for the first and second week he treated you like a quiet kid, mostly starting conversation until you got into a comfortable groove, and he almost died seeing how you really turned out. YOU started to bully him, when he entered his short circuit, the jokes you made, but still, you took care of him making sure he didn’t get into trouble or hurt. At times you’d become a bit impulsive and your chaotic side came out.

“MOVE! IM GONNA DO IT!” You screamed “Y/n! NO! I LIKE YOU BETTER ALIVE!” He screamed. Silence, you moved your head, trying to pull back, but no luck, your eyes moved in panic looking at Denki, his own eyes wide before he started laughing. You tried to move your head regretting it instantly. Your right hand came up, forefinger and thumb pulling at your tongue that was now stuck to the pole you had made victim to your weird antics. “mm thuck.”

you have great goofy moments together, but the moment he hears Bakugo screaming and silence, and then he hears you screaming? Hah, no. All relations are canceled/expired/rejected/blocked/denied/gone. He likes being alive, and right now, you were a threat to his life, so “Oh, uh yeah I got a thing to do in the other ro-“ RUN

he’s more than great full to have you around, your patient with him when he just can’t do something but he’s determined to. Like the month he dragged you of the dorms every night, because “IM GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS HAUNTED HOUSE WITHOUT SCREAMING.” The haunted house opened the first of October, and ended on Halloween, it was terrible, at one point he passed out, another frothed at the mouth, his screams were priceless, he clung to you more than a few times crying about being scared. Decked a few jump scare people, and at least twice went into Pikachu self defense mode and electrocuted the groups of workers around the two of you at least twice. Honestly, you were surprised they let you both keep coming back. But the last day, he managed to only let out squeaks and squeeze your arm and hands but he did it. Thirty one long nights of walking the same halls, jump scares, and voids, mesmerizing the right way of the maze, you mad wit out fine, he was only slightly shook.

Art? Denki doesn’t get it, claimed he can’t draw to save his life and when you watched him try you believed him, BUT THE COMPLETE AND UTTER SHOCK WHEN YOU FOUND OUT HE WAS BASICALLY AN ART MAJOR WHEN HE SHORT CIRCUITED..... you started saving his drawings and sketches, and then you’d show him and he’d be impressed, but completely denies that he ever did it. “Nope, you got the wrong guy, you’ve seen me, I can’t draw a circle.” But he loves to watch you paint, and take photos, but don’t take him to wildlife sets with you. He will get hired of waiting for birds and throw himself on the grass and start sighing loudly and rolling around, “Nothings coming y/n!” “MAYBE IF YOU SHUT UP THE BIRDS WOULDNT FLY AWAY LIKE ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!” Silence, you can definitely feel him staring you, “Well that’s just rude.... you scared off the only bird that was actually here.” Pottery? He watched you, and he wanted to try, the first time he ended up slinging clay everywhere, second he can’t keep his hands still enough, the third time you took pity and ended up like the cheesiest movie scene, but, you were behind him guiding his hands, he became a flustered mess and crushed the almost pot when you spoke to him and he felt your breath on his shoulder. He was blushing and flustered and then started apologizing for ruining the pot... in the end you both together did make a lopsided pot, it now sits in your room, home to your shared black prince succulent. When you brought it home he made anyone who would listen come see his first pot and new child.

⚡️✨✨⚡️⚡️✨⚡️⚡️⚡️✨⚡️⚡️✨✨⚡️

“Y/n?” You heard knocking and groaned getting up off your bed to open your door.

“I brought someone else to meet prince...” the look you gave him was one of ‘Are you sERIOUS?’

You closed your door a bit to look at the digital clock that was hanging just above your desk, 1:37 in the morning...

“It couldn’t wait till sun up?” You asked eyes kinda squinty as the hall light started to flood into your room now that you opened the door wider to let whoever in.

“It’s important everyone knows my new son!” He stepped in and you moved and plopped onto your desk chair.

“Alright, but be careful, you bruised one of his petals last time.” You stretched and looked at your abandoned school work, you looked at it reading the question you had struggled on, and by some miracle, being half groggy and half awake, you read it and the answer came to you. You started to write it down before you forgot. And you were so proud of yourself, until you heard the feminine voice.

“Kaminari, you’re an idiot.” And then a slightly muffled laugh.

You didn’t have a problem with Jiro, in fact you liked her as a friend, she was nice, had good taste in music, bullied Denki with you sometimes, friendly and you’ve never seen her angry or get snobbish with anyone. She was laid back and cool.

But, one thing you didn’t like, was the fact she was slowly becoming the center of Denki’s flirting. Jealous? Nahh....well....no.... maybe a little? Nope, nah that’s not it.......okay yeah.

“Y/n Chan! Jiro is bullying me.” He came and shook you by your shoulders pulling you from staring at your school work.

You turned your head to look up at him. “What?” You asked.

“She called me an idiot.” He pouted and closed his eyes.

You laughed and dropped a hand onto his head, after he kneeled to plead you defend him, “Oh Denki, if you want me to disagree it’s gonna be a long night.”

He pouted at your words but sighed in defeat, until the next words came, “So (y/n), if Denki’s son is in your room does that make you the mother of his son?”

You looked at Jiro a faint blush tinting your cheeks as you registered what she said. You gave a few quiet laughs but before you could say anything Denki became a stuttering flustered mess. Catching both of you and pulling you both out of the conversation that almost started.

“Well! (Y/n)! Well go! A Princess does need her beauty sleep!” He winked at you as he left in a hurry, Jiro just quirked a brow before she told you good night and you returned it as she left. You yawned and got back into bed, before your phone buzzed and you cursed, but the blush on your cheeks wirsned at the flirty text you’d gotten from Denki, you’d think you’d gotten used to it already, but maybe the feelings you thought you’d pushed away never really left the surface.

‘Good night princess 😉 Don’t forget to dream about me 💛’

Cringe yes, but that’s literally the best flirting line he has. Apparently getting comfortable with Denki meant he was comfortable flirting with you 24/7, no hesitation. And you enjoyed the attention and flirted back with him, but things kinda changed when Jiro started to give him attention too.

******

“Mornin’ babe,” you yawned at Denki’s greeting and gave a wave and small smile as you walked to a table and plopped down. You didn’t get much sleep, you finished your homework so now you had the weekend free, but what were you going to do? You stared at the empty table in front of you thinking about nothing, head empty, until Mina came and sat across from you, “So babe huh? Is it official!” She whisper screamed.

“Pfft, just about as official as me being All Might.” You had a small smile, small but genuine. “Boooooooo.” She pouted, “I have my own theories but I really want to tell you this one, soooo! Bakusquad girls day! But... just you and I. Get ready let’s go!”

So, after deciding you’d buy something to eat instead of cooking you got ready and then both you and Mina set off to talk theories and what’s really going on in her head. “So, I think he wants something serious but since you guys joke so much I think he thinks he’s in the friend zone and don’t even deny it I know you like him, I’ve seen the way you smile at all his stupid jokes even I don’t laugh at all of them and I try to be nice. Plus the way you loook a Jiro is enough to show your jealous but he doesn’t see that, I’m pretty sure he thinks you just don’t like her humor or something, but from what I’ve seen your good friends with her when Denki isn’t around so that lets me believe your jealous of his attention going to someone else. Soooo, what do you say? What do you think? And I think he’s trying with Jiro because you guys kinda have similar personalities and hair cuts? Well not really but you know? When your in love you call broccoli Midoriya and a grenade Bakugo but that’s a different story, so? What do you think?” You just stared at her, the takoyaki had with your toothpick just to far from your lips as you wondered if she was right. A shot smile pulled at your lips as you looked down and closed your eyes to let out a sigh, “Well, I won’t say your wrong, I’ve done lot of things but being in denial has never been one of them. I’m not going to confess or anything but I do have one question.” You looked at Mina through the corner of your eyes while your face was still pointed to the ground. “Yes!” She cheered and nodded looking at you with a big smile, “If this is about a plan I’ve got it all figured out so don’t worry!”

You shook your head and faced her completely, “Nope! Keep the plan well use it later but, if I do something about this Denki thing you have to so something about tape boy.” Mina became flustered at your words but nodded, “well, your first lady she smacked you back causing you to slightly choke on the Takoyaki you’d finally started to eat, after catching your breath and wondering around for a bit you both talked it out and it’s go time.

****

The next morning you started the plan (titled by Mina) “Seducing Pikachu” Taking a deep breath you readied yourself to take your flirting next level, he called you babe you had to call him daddy, he gave you a hug you pulled his face down to peck his cheek, he draped an arm over your shoulders you had snuggle closer and hug his waist, he tried to tease you by taking your hand you can’t pull away, in stead you interlock fingers and squeeze, if he leaned into your ear to whisper something you can’t push him away. And we’re you ready? No, in fact you felt queasy, and like you had to bathroom, but with a shove from Mina you entered the kitchen and like usual “Good morning babe!” And the usual flirty wink, but this time instead of getting flustered or yawing you locked eye contact and with everything you had, “Mornin Daddy.” You smiled at him and walked to the fridge to try and occupy yourself. In the background you heard Mineta screaming about the name daddy. You looked at Denki with the same smile after grabbing a juice and he was flustered, red cheeks and it looked like his hair had fluffed up a bit. It’s working! You waved at him and walked to the common room and sat down on one edge and looked at the tv, it was playing some show about volleyball. Jiro came and sat across from you on the other sofa joining you and a few others in watching this show, right now, the only empty seats are the spot next to you on the love seat, or the two seats beside Jiro. He sat by you and was strangely quiet, oh gave him a smile when he turned to look a you, he smiled and looked at the tv, after an hour or two your hands began fiddling with the juice in your lap and you felt a tug at your hand, you felt Denki place his hand on yours usually you’d pull away and punch his shoulder, but this time. You didn’t take your eyes of the tv when your intertwined your fingers and squeezed his hand. You brought your other hand and squeezed his hand between both of yours and snuggled closer to his side and laid your head against his shoulder, he tensed a bit then relaxed quickly. He laid his head on yours and you eyed Mina real quick, you gave you a thumbs up and you motioned to Sero with your eyes and she stopped and pouted. After another hour you started to get up and pull away from Denki. You felt a hand pull at yours and you looked at Denki, “Where are you going?” You titled your head, “Gonna go buy lunch maybe.” He looked up at you still holding your hand, “Don’t leave me.” He said, “Come with me then.” You gave his arm a tug and without second thought he jumped up outside you were cool, but inside, you were going ballistic, inside you were nothing like usual, you were honestly so surprised that this plan was working, with your attention he didn’t even pay attention to Jiro,,,, were you really jealous?

Getting to a ramen place you both sat down and filled our sheets with your orders, casually sitting in silence your phone dinged, “So.... did he confess? Or do women really have to do all the work, 🙄, Sero didn’t understand what I meant until I- never mind, how’s it going?”

You smiled at the message and shook your head.

Denki being curious why you were smiling tried to peek, “Mina is trying to confess to Sero and she says he’s an idiot.” You smiled and turned to Denki explaining before he could see.

“Yeah, I didn’t wanna say anything sometimes Sero isn’t the smartest.”

You felt a smile pulling at your lips, “Yeah, I know someone else who is just the same.” You propped your elbows on the table and placed your chin on your palms. He did the same and pushed his cheeks so they looked chubby against his palms.

“Kaminari,” you called his name in a chirpy tune with a smile, he closed his eyes and smiled before he said your name in the same way.

****

“How good are you at noticing small things?” I asked and tilted my head. “Hmmm, did you grow out your hair?” His head tilted, and he smiled.

“No? It’s been this short for a while.” I dropped my arms flat against the table palms up, “try again.”

“Yooouuuu,,,, are wearing contacts?” He asked. “I’m not blind.”

“Yoouuuuu.....are trying a different Boba?” “No... well yes, but not what I’m talking about......try one more time and I’ll give you a hint if you can’t guess.”

He nodded and squinted at me looking like he was concentrating hard.

“I know!” He took my hands in his and squeezed them, I felt my heart start to race, “You’re fingers are cold, the tips are turning reddish.”

I smiled and looked away and licked my top lip trying to not laugh, “That wasn’t it but a good guess.”

“Then what is it?” He asked pouting.

“Close your eyes.” I said and waved a hand, he nodded and then closed them, I placed my finger tips on the left side of his jaw and tried to pull him closer, after getting him halfway across the table I leaned forward and lightly pressed my lips against his cheek.

I pulled away, and moved my hand away from his jaw.

“I...so think you should try again, I didn’t get the hint.” He looked away with a bush slowly becoming prominent on his cheek.

I smiled and shook my head, silence fell over us as I shifted around, “Another hint huh?”

“Maybe just one... or two... or a few....” he still didn’t look at me hands now fiddling together.

“You know, for a flirt you sure do get nervous when someone actually makes a move on you.”

“Heh, yeah.” He was smiling but not looking at me, “Sooo, when?”

“Do you remember the day, you got sick and made me baby you for a whole week? It was that Thursday, you feel asleep on my chest, and I held you and had to pull the blanket off, I realized then, how much I cared about you, and how much I’m willing to do to make sure you’re okay. I realized how much I love your terrible jokes and cheesy pick up lines, your warm hugs and the face times late into the night, and the movie nights passing out at three in the morning and rushing to class when we woke up late. Holing your hand when you were scared, and bullying Bakugo, honestly, I wouldn’t wanna die at the hands of Bakugo with anyone else. I’m not saying I love you or anything, but if this is what falling for someone feels like...I don’t not like it, especially when it’s you.” I looked out the window we sat by and could feel his stare, I looked at him through the corner of my eye.

“I wouldn’t want to be murdered with anyone else.” He held his hand out and I tilted my head to look at him, I took placed my hand on his and he smiled, before he shifted his fingers and closed them around mine. I smiled and closed my fingers squeezing his hand.

“So? Are you going to ask?” He said.

I felt my brows furrow, “Ask?”

“Ask me to be your boyfriend.” His smile widened.

“You’re supposed to ask me!” I scolded and shook our hands.

He tucked his head between his shoulders, “okay okay, fine.... now you’re going to wait because you yelled at me.”

***

“Y/n!” I turned to look for the person who called my name, “yeah?” I asked and pulled my blanket tighter, the Christmas season was here and I was freezing on the sofa.

“Come look! The snows falling again! And the it’s pretty on the blossoms that are still around.”

“Fine.” I grumbled and stood up, I walked to the second floor windows and looked out. Sero, Denki, Kirishima and Bakugo were all outside, I could hear Katsuki screaming at them while the ran around dropping things on the floor.

They all stopped and moved away as Bakugo screamed at them and took off his gloves, it looked like he was grumbling something until Denki slung an arm I’ve this shoulders, Bakugo brought up his hand causing sparks and Denki to smile nervously before patting his shoulder and moving his arm off.

Mina tapped on the window and they looked at us, we waved when three of the four waved. Denki turned to Bakugo and with a simple blast a chain reaction started and lit up a circle, inside the circle were the words made in very sparse but still pretty blossoms, “will u be mine?” Your phone began to ring and you answered it.

“So, after two months of non official dating, will you be mine?”

You smiled, “Yes, Kaminari, yes.” You swallowed and over the phone you heard cheering and watched to em high five minus Bakugo who was pulling his gloves back on. That night, you spent under the blue keys you two piled high, his head on your chest, and you kissed his head running your fingers through his hair, “I love listening to your heart, it’s pretty, like you.” Your take his face in your hands and kiss his lips or forehead, and eventually would change spots, still cuddling to keep the warmth and love between you while the rest of the world was slipping into sleep or madness.

✨🤍🖤🤍🤍💙🤍🤍🖤🤍✨

I hope you have a good day, and remember to stay hydrated 💙

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