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chenziee · 1 year

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Princess Monster

For @cosmicatta!! All credits for this AU and Monkey D. Ola go to her! (Please check out her amazing art and fics <33)

There is going to be a short lawlu extra tomorrow (hopefully, I'm gonna be AFK most of the day) because I have no self-control and I am also not sorry at all :)

Side note: happy birthday Luffy, my one and only sun! Here, have Ola's birth as your gift! I'm gonna try to throw something together for his birthday specifically but uhh who knows ahahah

PLEASE NOTE that this story contains MPREG (you're welcome to use your imagination on who's actually pregnant tho ahaha)

[ Read on AO3 | Extra | Ko-Fi ]

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Sanji wasn’t sure what he had expected when Luffy burst into the kitchen one afternoon with Law in tow. He had expected something—after all, Luffy being late for lunch was never without reason—but that ‘something’ sure as hell wasn’t what actually came out of his captain’s mouth.

“We’re having a baby!”

Dead silence settled over the kitchen as everyone present stared at Luffy with an open mouth.

“I’m sorry, who is having what?” Usopp finally asked, his voice a pitch higher than usual.

“Me and Torao. We’re having a baby,” Luffy replied matter-of-factly as he settled into a chair, grabbing for the whole chicken in the middle of the table.

Sanji automatically swatted him, “Hands off, that’s for Nami-san, Robin-chan, and Ikkaku-chan. Are you actually for real?”

“You’re mean,” Luffy whined, chewing on a slab of sea king meat unhappily, his eyes still fixated on the chicken. “But yeah? Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Because the Captain—You—You know…” Penguin tried, waving his hands around vaguely and obviously looking for words.

“My head already hurts…” Torao muttered, dropping into his designated chair next to Luffy, throwing his arm around the back on Luffy’s own chair.

“Well, considering Torao isn’t trying to murder Luffy right now, I guess it’s not just in Luffy’s head,” Zoro laughed, earning himself a glare from both Luffy and Torao—one of those way more threatening than the other—but he didn’t pay them any mind. Instead he raised his mug in a toast. “Congrats.”

That seemed to break the spell that had both of the crews in a stupor. Suddenly, everyone was cheering and congratulating their captains on the happy news, asking a million questions and already making plans for a celebration.

There was Franky crying his eyes out, Bepo hanging onto Law and rubbing his face against him, Penguin and Shachi fighting over who was going to be the godfather—as if the Straw Hats would let them hog that role all to themselves—Chopper so happy he didn’t know what to do with himself, and of course, Robin enveloping Luffy in a warm hug with a happy smile on her face.

Sanji wanted to feel jealous. He would be, very much so in fact, under any other circumstances.

However, right now…

Right now he had more pressing issues on his mind.

Exchanging a look with Nami and Usopp, all three of them nodded, a mutual understanding between them.

Sanji needed a cigarette.

—————

It was that very same night that Sanji found himself in the kitchen once more. This time, however, the atmosphere was much calmer… and also much more serious. The silence that hung over the room was almost oppressing, the unspoken tension felt by everyone present.

Sanji carefully placed a cocktail glass in front of Nami, who only muttered her thanks in a voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.

Usopp seemed to not even have it in himself to protest the unfair treatment or demand his own from where he was lying slumped over the table, his eyes staring off into space and fixed on an empty spot on the wall. Sanji could understand the sentiment.

With a sigh, Sanji pulled out a chair and sat down, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it, taking a long drag. He wondered… how many chances to enjoy a smoke in peace did he have left?

It was only minutes later that Usopp finally broke the silence in a completely lifeless voice, not even bothering to unglue his face from the table. “What are we gonna do?”

“Pray,” Sanji replied, watching the smoke rise to the ceiling. Really, what else was there for them?

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them okay?” Usopp continued, gesturing with his hand as if to stress his words while still keeping his head on the table. “But can you imagine? A person, a human person who is half Luffy and half Torao? That’s not going to be a human person, it’s going to be the thing that will finally sink the Sunny.”

“Tell me about it…” Sanji mumbled. “If that baby eats as much as Luffy does? Do you have any idea what it’s like feeding one Luffy?”

“Not to mention the cost of feeding one Luffy.” Nami nodded in agreement as she rubbed the bridge of her nose; no doubt already worrying about their already strained finances.

Usopp groaned. “Even just picturing their personality is giving me a headache. We are so fucked guys.”

Suddenly, Nami slammed her glass on the table, startling both Sanji and Usopp and making both their heads turn to stare at her. She was silent for a moment longer, her eyes closed but her posture firm. It was obvious she had come to a conclusion in her mind and was about to assume command of their meeting.

Ah, Sanji loved her when she was decisive like this too…

“Listen, you two,” she said once she finally opened her eyes and gave them both a serious look. “We need to stop panicking. What is our advantage?”

“Uhm.” Usopp frowned, taken aback. “That we’re three adults against one monster of a baby?”

Nami rolled her eyes. “That we’ll be there from day one. We can be positive role models and neutralise the awful influence of their parents and their freak-genes.”

“I see. Avert the worst case scenario with positive reinforcement training,” Usopp hummed as he rubbed at his chin thoughtfully.

“Don’t talk about the kid like they’re a dog.” Sanji lit up a new cigarette before he wondered out loud, “But Nami-san, can the three of us do it? We’re up against Luffy.”

Nami heaved a deep sigh, resting her cheek against her palm as she sipped on her drink. “Well, what other choice do we have? We can’t just will the problem away and we can’t possibly… I don’t know, edit their bloodline element to not be a Luffy and Torao child.”

Sanji winced, not wanting to even think about any genetic modifications. He had had more than enough of that at three years old for the rest of his damn life. He’d rather have the kid eat twice as much as Luffy and be twice as picky as Law than anything even close to that.

(No, Sanji would never let that umeboshi fight they had on their way to Punk Hazard all those years ago go, thank you very much.)

“So, Nami… what’s the plan? Once they’re born, do we just make sure to feed them a normal person amount and teach them not to say or do creepy shit while Luffy, Torao, and Robin are right there?” Usopp asked.

Nami grubbed at her temple and sighed. “Something like that. We still have a few months, we can work on the actual plan during that time…”

“Here’s hoping,” Usopp groaned, slumping back on the table. “Man, kids are exhausting…”

Taking a drag of his cigarette, Sanji couldn’t help but agree with Usopp. He was so tired already and they only found out about it today.

Sanji honestly dreaded the day they were born.

—————

Sanji sighed, running his hands through his hair. He wanted a cigarette but Chopper had made him promise to stop smoking. He supposed he could at least go outside for air but that would mean leaving and what if something happened while he was gone? He had to be there, he had to stay in this room with everyone so that they could help if needed. Or be there once they can meet their newest crewmember.

And no, Sanji wasn’t nervous. Not at all. He knew nothing would go wrong and everything would be fine. He was perfectly fine—

“Can you stop pacing around like you’re the goddamned father, Curly?”

“Shut the fuck up, Marimo,” Sanji snapped, baring his teeth at the man who dared call himself his boyfriend but instead was still the same asshole he was when they first met. Why did Sanji tolerate him anyway?

Zoro rolled his eyes, leaning forward to grab Sanji’s hand and pulling him closer—closer until Sanji was basically standing between the swordsman’s legs with his arms wrapped loosely around Sanji’s slowly growing stomach, his presence solid and grounding and suddenly, Sanji felt like he could breathe easier. Ah… Yes, this was why.

Sanji took a deep breath as his shoulders sagged and his whole body relaxed, focusing on the warmth of Zoro’s body against his own instead of his thoughts.

“It’s fine, Chopper’s there,” Zoro said, his voice steady and firm.

“I know. Sorry,” Sanji muttered back. All of a sudden, he felt like the idiot, getting all worked up for nothing. It wasn’t like worrying would help in any way, was it?

“Thank god, the pacing was making me nervous,” Shachi noted with laughter that sounded way too strained to be amused.

Yeah, they were all nervous weren’t they?

Sanji wished it would end already. The wait was the worst.

Suddenly, as if answering his thoughts, the lock clicked and the door to the infirmary creaked.

Everyone’s heads immediately snapped to stare as the door slowly opened, holding their breaths and not moving a muscle, their hearts beating a mile per second in their throats—at least, that was what Sanji’s heart was doing. But considering even the Marimo froze completely against him, he was sure they were all in the same boat.

It felt like hours before Chopper came into view behind the door, looking completely spent. Tears were glistening in his eyes as he looked up, his gaze taking in all the Straw Hats and Hearts that were packed into the waiting room.

Sanji gulped heavily, watching with wide eyes as Chopper started crying—at the same time as his mouth split into the widest, happiest smile Sanji had ever seen on the little reindeer.

“It—” Chopper started but then stopped as he choked on his own words. “It’s a girl. They–they’re–everyone’s doing great.”

Silence settled over the room for a moment as the information slowly sank in. But then…

“WHOO-HOO!!”

Loud cheers erupted around the room as the invisible weight they had been carrying around lifted. Sanji laughed in relief, his lips stretching into a smile. One of his hands automatically came to rest over Zoro’s arm around his stomach, squeezing lightly.

He heard Zoro huff in response, the man only hugging him closer in a wordless gesture that they both understood but neither addressed.

“Shut the fuck up!” someone finally snapped from inside the infirmary when it seemed like the cries and excitement wasn’t about to end anytime soon.

And, as if by magic, everyone went quiet, some even going so far as to slap their hands over their mouths. There were only several muttered ‘sorry, Captain’ and ‘sorry, Torao’s to be heard before the thin film of Law’s room appeared—and only a split second later, the door to the infirmary slammed shut again by itself.

“Well, I guess they really are fine…” Usopp mumbled after a moment.

“So uh. Can we meet her or?” Uni asked uncertainly.

“Who’s going to ask them though?” Penguin asked back, shooting a look at Uni, then the door, then finally at everyone else in the room.

A moment of silence passed before everyone echoed, “Bepo.”

“Why me?” the bear whined.

“Because he’s not going to kill you,” Shachi explained helpfully, which only earned him an unhappy frown from Bepo.

“Stop bullying my bear!” Law snapped from the inside of the infirmary.

“It’s fine~! Come see her!” Luffy called, completely ignoring Law.

The two crews exchanged glances, all of them hesitating to move at first but then Ikkaku sighed and got up. “Cowards,” she shot with a smirk before reaching for the door handle, opening the door and walking inside like nothing was wrong.

“Now she acts all cocky but when it was just the Captain threatening us…” Clione grumbled only to receive general hums of agreement.

But, with the spell broken, everyone slowly shuffled into the infirmary to meet the 'Pirate Princeling (gender neutral)', as Big News Morgans had dubbed her.

Was that going to be 'Pirate Princess' now?

Sanji took a deep breath, preparing himself—he wasn’t even sure what for. He didn’t fight it when Zoro grabbed his hand to pull him inside the room with everyone.

By the time they got there, a crowd was already gathered around the bed, all of them cooing and giggling as they greeted their youngest crew member, everyone pushing at each other to get the better view. It was so crowded in fact, that Sanji couldn’t see a thing.

“My, she is quite adorable,” Robin whilpered, a soft smile on her face.

“Yeah, thank god she looks nothing like the Captain,” Shachi mumbled—unfortunately for him, not quiet enough for the parents to not hear him, as proven by the swift kick he received in response, as well as Luffy’s laughter.

Nami sighed. “How the hell are you both so full of energy? I feel like I’m more exhausted than the two of you combined and I was just waiting out there, not giving birth or watching my partner do that…” she groaned as she rubbed at her face tiredly while everyone else nodded.

“Eh, it wasn’t that bad,” Luffy said with a cute little frown before he glanced at Law. “Right?”

“Yeah, we’ve had worse in a fight than this.” Law shrugged, making everyone exchange a glance.

“You’re both freaks,” Usopp decided before his tone completely changed, turning into the sweetest, most obnoxious voice Sanji had ever heard. “Little Ola, are you hearing this? Your dads are freaks. At least you are cute.”

Sanji bit back a snort. He had to wonder whatever had happened to ‘this kid will be a monster!’ which had been the only thing that Sanji had heard from the sniper in regards to the child since they were told she was on the way. Just how easy was Usopp to sell?

Because Sanji, as happy as he was for his captain and for Torao, still remembered and dreaded what she was going to grow up into. A bottomless pit who ate nothing but tuna-mayo onigiri? Did she have any idea how much work that was going to be?

No. No way Sanji was weak enough to just ignore that.

“Sanji-kun, stop hanging out in the back and come look!” Nami said, waving him over almost… excitedly.

Ah, Sanji really was left alone with his fears, wasn’t he? But he could forgive Nami at least.

“Yes, Nami-san!” he called, his lips curling into a wide smile as he skipped over to their navigator’s side.

“So whipped,” Zoro said with badly suppressed amusement.

Sanji clicked his tongue, reminding himself they were currently in the infirmary with a newborn baby, and that Chopper would cry if they started fighting. Settling to only shooting his so-called boyfriend the dirtiest glare he could manage, Sanji quickly turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

Making his way through the huddle of people, he took in the sight that was the patient’s bed. Luffy and Torao were both sitting on it as if they had just come out for tea and cookies—Luffy was sitting cross-legged on the covers, grinning like the idiot he was with his chin resting against Law’s knee where he had it pulled up. Law let him; he himself played absentmindedly with Luffy’s fingers but he also looked almost bored and ready to get up and leave, just to get some peace and quiet.

If Sanji didn’t know what they had been doing in here up until a few minutes ago, he would have thought they had just walked in on them playing cards with Chopper.

Truly freaks of nature, the both of them.

Sanji huffed, his eyes dropping to where Ikkaku was now cradling the kid in her arms.

He studied her tiny face, round and red, the shape of it so close to Luffy’s that he startled. She looked so comfortable all bundled up in her blanket, resting against the crook of Ikakku’s elbow, her tiny fist curled around Hakugan’s little finger and holding it close. She looked so fragile…

Ah.

He got it now.

And he didn’t care how much she was going to eat anymore.

“So your name is Ola?” Sanji asked as a soft smile pulled on his lips. Placing his right hand over his heart, Sanji bowed deeply. “It’s a pleasure, Princess.”

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deathbyvalentine · 1 year

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Mattias Scripts

(MATTIAS and his three sisters, GABRIELLA, KATERINA and TANYA, sit around a table. The women are in constant contact with each other, stealing food from each other’s plates, plaiting hair, pinching, preening. MATTIAS sits apart, gesturing to the waiter for a refill.)

G: So, did you go raiding or not? M: I did, yes. K: Kill anyone? M: No, what do you take me for? K: Sorry, it’s just - M: I’m still not a fighter. G: So what did you actually do? M: Went with the ship, helped take the slaves to safety, Broke some chains. You know there’s useful stuff to do without a sword in hand, right? G: Okay, we get it, yada yada. Didn’t you go Tanya? T: Hm? Oh, yes. Though my ship was mostly focused on the naval battle. M: Were we all there? G: No, I was at home, obviously. Can you imagine our dads getting in the middle of that fight? They raised some funds though, made room for some refugees. Might have been a bit premature considering… All of them: Kahraman.

MATTIAS sighs and drains his glass. Kahraman is obviously a topic they have exhausted,

G: How are you coping with… M: You can say his name. I’m not that fragile. G: Look, I don’t know do I? Haven’t been married. K: Never will be with that face.

Brief uproar. When everyone is settled again -

M: I just keep thinking of how much he would have wanted to be there. It was like there was a space where he should have been. Next to me, the entire time. I sound quite mad, don’t I? K: Only a little. M: I just want him not to be dead. T: But he is. And you have to find some way of being okay with M: I’ll never be okay with it. T: fine, some way of accepting it. K: Too much mourning, not enough celebrating going on here.

GABRIELLA collars a waiter and orders a round of shots, to the general protestations of the others.

G: We’re gonna drink and talk about him, okay? If you can’t face it sober, then we’ll face it drunk. And we need to discuss setting you up with somebody. How many lovers do you have now? M: None. K: Absolutely unacceptable. M: I do have some dates scheduled. G: Who? M: A Freeborn, newly joined, determined to spend her earnings on a date with me. And a dawn - K: Oh sweet labyrinth not again. What is it with you and Dawn? M: Look, they’re all very dashing - G: That’s a terrible excuse. T: You can’t lecture him too much Gab. Remember that Wintermarker when you were seventeen? G: That was different. He was very Courageous and Virtuous. M: And smelly.

G: When are you setting off again? M: Oh, a few hours. We want to be on the go before the sunset comes.

G: That’s not too far away now. K: It’s later than you think.

M: I’m in no hurry, and I’m paying them, we’ll be fine.

K: I’m just anxious for you is all. I know what your timekeeping is like.

M: What exactly is that supposed to mean? G: You were late for your own birth!

M: How could that be my fault? G: Setting a trend is all.

K: I can help carry your stuff so you’re not doing it yourself. You and your puny arms…

M: Why are we all insulting me again? K: Sibling privilege.

G: Have you even packed? M: Yes, I’ve packed.

G: Forgotten anything? M: How would I know if I had? That’s what forgetting is. K: Don’t get smart Mat, it doesn’t suit you. M: Can I drink my tea in peace?

G: Fine. I’ll get the bill.

#script #drama #empire #larp

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sky-berrie · 3 years

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Goodnight - Damian

Summary: Damian pays you a visit at night ft. the one bed trope.

It was a typical eerie night in Gotham and as usual, you spent it alone in your room. You were completely engrossed in the murder documentary streaming on your laptop, the game of Tetris on your cell phone, and the barbeque potato chips you were shoving into your mouth. You were so unaware of your surroundings that you jumped right out of your seat and yelped when you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“Relax, Y/N,” said Damian, casually. “It is only me.” He was dressed in his Robin uniform. It was clean which meant that he was probably unharmed.

You scowled at him as your felt your heart beat wildly against your ribcage. Your eyes traveled to the open window. You were certain that you had secured the latch, added the anti-lift bar and activated the alarm not twenty minutes ago. Your newfound interest in murder mysteries kept you awake a night, so you amped up your security to give yourself some peace of mind. It should have been impossible for anyone to break in, but here Damian was, standing inside your apartment bedroom.

“Stop abusing your power like that,” you scolded.

“Stop leaving yourself vulnerable,” he countered, without missing a beat.

“I didn’t! Did you not see the steel bar and alarm?” you said with indignation. You had to wonder how he managed to slip in. In another life, he could be a magician, you thought.

“Indeed, I did notice,” he said. “It is quite the cute little system you have.” His smirk was as condescending as ever.

You rolled your eyes and huffed. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of getting a big reaction out of you.

Damian’s expression softened. “I am glad that you installed that, though. Now I do not have to worry so much about you when I am away.”

You had no idea how to formulate a response to a comment that was not an insult or sarcasm. You awkwardly changed the subject instead, “So… you need something or…?”

Damian looked at you expectantly as if he was waiting for you to continue. “Do not end your sentence with a conjunction,” he chastised you. “Proper grammar is imperative for effective communication.” You rolled your eyes again. Sometimes he was insufferable.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. And sometimes he was almost sweet.

His gloved finger gently tipped your face upwards so he could inspect it thoroughly. You found his concern rather considerate until he opened his mouth again. Damian’s face contorted into an expression of disgust before he said, “You are beginning to look like Drake.” Although Tim was very attractive, you knew how Damian felt about his adoptive brother. His statement was not to be mistaken as a compliment.

You pulled away and rolled your eyes again. “Got it. You came here to annoy me. Mission accomplished. You ready to leave now?” You pointed to the window.

“I am being serious, Y/N, you look unwell…” He looked around your desk space with a horrified expression. “And I can see why. When was the last time you slept?”

“Uh,” you blew a raspberry as you thought about it. “Yester…today?” you said, but it came out as a question. Damian looked unimpressed. “No, today. Definitely today,” you stated with more confidence.

You could tell Damian didn’t buy it. “What day is it today?” he challenged.

Your eyes roamed around the room in search of clues. The date and time weren’t visible on your electronics. You took a stab in the dark. “Saturday.”

Damian crossed his arms over his chest. “It is Sunday night.”

“Oh…” you pursed your lips sheepishly. Sometimes the days blurred together.

“That is it,” he said with finality. He closed your laptop. “You are banned from watching murder mysteries videos at night.” He went for your phone next. He raised it up for you to see your game of Tetris disappearing as he powered it off. “I am confiscating your phone every evening from now on.”

“What?” you whined, lunging out for your phone. Damian tucked it away and out of reach in the inner pocket of his uniform.

“You are getting time limits. Blue light disrupts your circadian rhythm - no laptop or phone after 10 pm.” He grabbed the crinkly chip bag. “And these, well, you really should not eat these ever. Do you know how much sodium is in this bag? Your arteries will know.” He tossed the half-empty bag into the trash can beside your desk.

“No!” You protested. He had no right to order you around.

“Yes,” he asserted. You watched him fluff up your pillows, tuck the sheets firmly under the mattress, and smooth out the bed spread. “You are going to bed now. Get in.” He lifted the covers for you.

“Yeah, no thanks,” you chuckled humourlessly. You just wanted to finish watching the unsolved mystery of the Gruesome Gotham Murders of 1902 and be so terrified that you can’t sleep for the next three days.

“Y/N,” he said sternly, indicating that he wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

“Fine,” you grumbled. You knew Damian was stubborn and wouldn’t take no for an answer. You figured that you would get in bed to appease him and get rid of him, then you could resume watching your video.

You stomped extra loudly across your room to make a point. You huffed loudly as you crawled into bed. He pulled the covers up to your chin and tucked you in as if you were a little kid.

“Good night,” said Damian.

“Yeah, bye,” you replied impatiently.

Your eyes following Damian as he flicked off your lamp. Once your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you realized that Damian was taking off his Robin uniform. He stripped down to his undershirt and hung the tunic over the back of your chair before sitting down. “What are you doing?” you asked, raising yourself up on your forearms.

“I am going to stay,” he said, like it was the most normal sentence in the entire world.

“Um, come again?”

“I know you are afraid to go to sleep, so I will stay and make sure you feel safe… even though it is self inflicted fear and I ought to leave you so you learn your lesson. I do not know why you insist on watching murder mysteries knowing that you are going to be frightened.”

“While that’s a very nice offer, it’s also super unnecessary. I’m okay,” you lied. You couldn’t let him stay overnight in your chair just because you had an overactive imagination.

Damian raised a hand to silence your argument. “It is not up for debate. I will stay right here and you will get some sleep.”

“But you need to sleep, too,” you reasoned.

Damian shrugged. “I will make do here.”

Your throat was suddenly dry as you prepared to make a compromise. “You could… sleep… here… in my bed?” You prayed that he wasn’t repulsed by your invitation to share your bed. You and Damian were just friends but somewhere along the way your feelings changed. You caught yourself noticing things about him that you found attractive… like the way his eyes were so expressive and always told you what he was thinking… or how he carried himself with strength and confidence, even if it could be annoying sometimes.

You held your breath in anticipation. The last thing you wanted was to scare him off. “Okay,” he casually accepted. While you were relieved that he wasn’t mortified by the thought of sharing your bed, you were a nervous wreck now.

You shuffled over to the very edge of your twin sized bed to make room for Damian. As he lay down, the side of his warm arm brushed against yours. You skittishly scooted away but tumbled out of bed.

Damian peered over the edge of the bed and his brows knit together in confusion. “What on earth are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” you said, too quickly to sound normal. You tittered nervously as you climbed back under the covers. This time you lay on your side and faced away from him to put some distance between you two and to hide your embarrassment.

“Come closer, Y/N. I do not want you to fall off again.”

You shifted infinitesimally closer.

“Closer,” instructed Damian.

You inched towards him but left a good distance separating you two.

“There’s plenty of space here,” he encouraged.

You quickly came up with an excuse. “I toss and turn in my sleep. I don’t want to hurt you by accident.”

Damian let out a hearty laugh.

“What?” you asked with indignance. You rolled over onto your back so you could see him.

“Nothing,” he denied, stifling his mirth.

“Tell me,” you demanded.

“The thought of you, in your footie pajamas, thinking that you could injure a highly skilled assassin, is quite comical. Don’t flatter yourself. Now, come here and go to sleep.” Damian patted the empty space beside him.

This time you listened and moved towards the centre of the bed. You were so close to Damian that you could feel the heat radiating off his skin. The warmth was drawing you even closer to him but you reprimanded yourself and forced yourself to remain eerily still to avoid another accidental contact. Damian turned his head and you felt his eyes on you. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Y-yeah,” you squeaked. You bit you lip anxiously. Your hand played with a loose thread on the blanket.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” you said, this time more confidently although you weren’t fooling him.

“You need not be afraid of the dark, Y/N, especially when I am here.”

You knew that already. You always felt safe when you were with Damian, even before you knew he was Robin. There was something comforting about his self-assurance that made situations less scary. But that’s not what was making you jittery.

“Why do you bother watching murder mysteries? They always overlook clues and never investigate thoroughly. Besides, you have a real detective right here,” Damian said, with a tone of umbrage.

You shrugged and tilted your head. “They’re fun,” was your simple answer.

Damian cocked an eyebrow. “Being so petrified that you cannot sleep alone is fun?”

“I don’t know. I guess I admire you for being Robin.” You don’t know why you said that. You really shouldn’t be feeding his ego. It’s big enough as it is. You kept talking, against your better judgement. “Watching you solve mysteries and fight for justice got me interested in true crime.”

Damian only hummed in response. He was quiet for a while and you thought that maybe he had drifted to off to sleep. Finally, he said, “Would you like to know who committed the Gruesome Gotham Murders of 1902?”

You gasped and turned on your side to face him. You were only a few inches away from him now, but you didn’t even register his proximity. Your anxiety was long forgotten and replaced by curiosity. “You know who did it?”

“Of course,” he confirmed.

“How?” you breathed with skepticism. The case had been undertaken by several of the most high-profile detectives and private investigators over the decades and none were able to solve it. In fact, no new leads had been uncovered in the last eighty years.

Damian rolled his eyes. “Batman and Robin are, without a doubt, the best detective duo in history. Not to mention, that case was child’s play.”

You scoffed. “I don’t believe you. Show me some proof,” you said, calling his bluff.

“Very well, then. I will show you the file the next time you visit the manor.”

“If you’ve solved it, why don’t you tell the authorities then?”

“We have. It is connected to several active cases so the GCPD is not able to release any information to the public yet.”

You scrutinized his face, looking for any signs of a fib. He didn’t waver under your intense stare, but then again, he was accustomed to the batglare so your measly glare was probably ineffective. You decided to trust him. “Who did it?”

Damian turned on his side as well and propped up his head with his arm so that he could look down at you. He pretended to think about it, building up the suspense. “If you go to sleep now, I’ll tell you tomorrow morning,” he said, almost playfully.

“What?” you exclaimed.

“Better get to sleep right away,” he warned.

You couldn’t believe he would tease you like this. There was no way you’d be able to sleep knowing that the answer to the city’s most enigmatic mystery was lying right beside you. You huffed angrily and flopped back down onto your mattress.

Damian let out a deep laugh in response. You grabbed a spare pillow and tried to whack him, but he anticipated your attack and caught it. “Damian Wayne, you are the absolute worst.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

#damian wayne #damian wayne imagine #batboys imagine #batboys #damian wayne x reader #damian wayne x y/n #batfam #batfam imagine #batfam x reader #batfam x y/n #robinchicklets

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aetheternity · 3 years

Text

Hard pass (Levi x reader)

(Enjoy a beautiful pic of chubby cheeked Levi)

Synopsis: Levi is forced out of his comfy dorm room and in a strange twist of events right into your arms at a college party.

"No."

"But I haven't even finished the question yet.." Hange sighed

"You want me to come to one of these pointless weekend parties that you go to almost every Saturday." Levi responded, fingers clicking quickly against his laptops keyboard.

"Come on Levi, if I got forced into going you have to come too." Erwin said with exasperation thick in his tone.

"How did you stupidly end up saying yes?" Levi questioned looking up from his laptop with a small raise of his brow.

Erwin shook his head almost in shame. "Hange offered to purchase that book I've wanted all semester. The one I couldn't find for any cheaper than 350." He shrugged, "Speaking of which how do you plan on paying for it?"

"Don't worry about that. Worry about the party we're all going to have so much fun at tonight."

"I said no." Levi grunted

"Oh come on!" Hange's voice echoed in the small dorm room.

"What else are you going to be doing? You know besides staring at a screen all night and cleaning Mike's side of the room?"

Mike was an over all good roommate despite his cluttered space. Levi had known him his entire almost three years of college and after a while they'd become friends. Though Levi still sometimes found himself cleaning up after Mike because he just couldn't stand the growing clothes pile on the other side of the room.

"So what?" Levi shrugged rereading the same paragraph again because Hange kept distracting him.

"So?! Do you really wanna sit in here on a Saturday night again instead of going to get some pussy like Mike is probably doing?"

"That's so inappropriate Hange." Erwin commented

"Take the stick out of your ass we're all grownups here." Hange replied shooting Erwin a weak stare which Erwin reciprocated. "Come on! What'd I have to do to get you to come?"

Levi rubbed his eyelids. He knew this would pretty much be his night if he didn't go but parties definitely weren't his thing. Though somehow this might be mildly worse.

"One fucking hour. No more no less." He finally agreed

"YES!" Hange screamed so loud it could probably be heard in the building next door.

"Look who else stupidly ended up saying yes." Erwin smirked

"Shut up, I just want to be able to work in silence sometime tonight.

"Sure sure."

"Get ready! We'll be waiting downstairs!" Hange bounced

~ ~ ~ ~

It took Levi about thirty minutes to get ready. His attire comprised of a dark red shirt, black dress pants and a black jacket hung over his shoulder. He hopped into Hange's car ignoring the groans of how this was a party not a funeral and how him and Erwin sucked at having fun.

He hadn't even entered the front door yet and he was already praying for this hour to be quick. He didn't technically have to rush back to his paper since he was ahead of schedule for all of his classes. But he still hated to leave an unfinished paper just lying around. Even if only for an hour.

The drive was surprisingly (and thankfully) pretty short. Though Levi was surprised when they headed into a dorm building. Hange took the lead as they climbed up the stairs though the higher they got the worse the smell got.

Erwin coughed fanning his face, "God that is an ungodly odor." And Levi quickly followed suit wrinkling his nose.

"Can't have a party without it." Hange replied with a small laugh.

"Disgusting." Levi responded

"You can definitely have a party without weed." Erwin groaned

"Your stuffy book meetings are parties Erwin."

Levi almost wanted to laugh at this but he kept his composure. They finally rounded a corner coming up to a door where a guy and a girl were outstretched on the floor. Both of whom had drinks in their hands. They both greeted Hange and Hange quickly greeted them back.

"Alright boys. Time to party." She delighted

The booming music that Levi could hear out in the hallway went from mildly obnoxious to instantly pounding. Levi hated it. He might have to find a way to sneak out before the hour was up. Though at the moment Hange was pulling both him and Erwin by their collars as if she was scared either of them would make a run for it.

"You guys hungry?!" She asked "Let's go get some chips!"

It felt like the farther in you went the worse the godforsaken music sounded. And in such a small dorm. How was everyone not deaf? Somehow though it looked like almost everyone was ignoring the music. There were people on the floor making out, people talking, a guy laying in the sink with a lampshade over his head..

And throughout all of it Hange was getting greeted left and right. It was honestly weird seeing as Levi had never seen Hange with anyone other than him and Erwin. They finally reached the snack table where Hange quickly shoved the bowl of chips into Levi's hands.

Levi grumbled but Hange just smiled, "Come on guys, Loosen up this is your first party after all!" She sighed, loudly rubbing both of their backs.

Levi wordless handed the chip bowl to Erwin. "I've been to parties." Erwin replied, taking a chip and slowly chewing it.

"Your fifteenth birthday is not what I'm talking about." She huffed, "You guys are totally missing out on what makes college fun!"

"Watching people shove their tongues into each other's mouths and get drunk in a room that is far too hot and too crowded while music bumps obnoxiously over every word you say so you have to lose your voice screaming?"

"Yes! Isn't that great?!" Erwin and Levi simultaneously groaned over Hange's enthusiasm. "Here, come on have a beer!" She handed both boys a bottle. Levi stared at it plainly, that is until a voice shakes him from his gaze.

"Hey Hange!" This voice is much sweeter. So much more comforting to hear than the agitating speaker. He looked up in time to freeze in his place. His eyes transfixed on the person currently in front of him.

"Y/N! Hey, I didn't know you were coming out tonight."

"Yeah, my roommate forced me. She said I've been too stressed lately." Her smile was bright under all the strobe lights. Everything about her felt bright from her eyes to the shimmer of her hair. Was her hair shimmering? Maybe it was Levi's imagination.

Y/N? Was that what Hange called her? What a pretty name for such a pretty girl.. How could Hange know someone like you?

"You remember Erwin right?" Hange asked, which temporarily shook Levi from his thoughts.

Erwin stuck out his hand, "Hi again Y/N." Erwin knew you too??

"Hey! Erwin, let me guess you still haven't found that impressively old book full of research from like 1853?" Their hands stayed together for a minute longer than Levi would've liked.

"Incorrect, the only reason I'm here is because I found it."

She nodded her smile still warm and giving Levi a warmth that spread through his abdomen like a flame. "Sorry, I'm a little off my radar tonight. I'm the designated deliverer. Deliever because I'm just walking my drunk friends a couple floors down later."

Hange gave a brief laugh, "Where is Sasha by the way?"

Y/N searched for a second. "I'm hoping she's across the hall because I've been trying to escape all this noise all night."

"Oh! Right by the way this is Levi!"

Y/N's gaze turned from Hange to Levi and she stretched out her hand. "Oh hi Levi." She said

"H-H-Hi.." Levi said, hand shaking as he placed it in her's. She giggled and Levi swore he felt her thumb rub the back of his hand.

"Well, I better go look for Sasha. I can't go back to our room till she's with me. Come across the hall later I'll probably still be there."

"Sure, sounds good!" Hange replied

Y/N smiled, "Nice to see you again Erwin, Bye Levi."

Levi could've sworn up and down that Y/N had said his name differently. She had to have right? Her tone was so sultry.. the words ran through Levi's brain replying over and over. Shivers coursing up and down his spine-

"I can't tell if Levi looks red from the strobe lights or if he's flushed." Levi turned at Erwin's words cupping his face before grunting at how hot he felt.

Oh no..

"I can't believe you have crush on my friend!"

Levi felt his face grow even hotter. "I don't! Sh-shut up." He outwardly huffed over how pathetic he was being. His heart felt so heavy in his chest

"OH MY GOD SO CUTE!!" Surprisingly enough Hange caught the attention of a few people. "THIS'LL BE GREAT! I CAN BE YOUR WINGMAN!"

"Shut the fuck up Hange!" Levi practically growled. Erwin nodded to the people staring at them. "Shut up.. I-I don't have a crush on her.."

Hange finally stopped bouncing and weirdly fell silent as she stood staring at her best friend. "Fine, let's go across the hall then."

Levi's heart instantly fluttered. "But we just got here?" Erwin said, seemingly questioning his own weird reluctance to go across the hall when he definitely hated it here as much as Levi.

"No real reason. I mean. It's just that it's quieter over there. Everyone over there is just drinking and talking." Hange responded already walking towards the door. Levi felt his feet move without his consent practically bumping into Hange's back as he hurried out behind her. Erwin quickly following.

Hange knocked twice on the door across the hall. And the three of them walked in. And Levi didn't even realize how much of a relief it was to be here until the smell hit his noise and the peaceful chatter hit his ears.

Hange huffed but Levi barely noticed, his eyes scanning the room for Y/N.

"It's so quiet here. I'm not fond of this I might go back across the hall and you guys can stay here."

Erwin immediately protested, "We don't know anyone here."

"Yeah, but I didn't even get to enjoy the music!" Hange pouted stomping slightly like a child.

"You forced us to come now you have to stay with us." Erwin replied, "Besides-" he looked at Levi who was staring at three slightly cracked doors. "This could be way better."

"Soooooooo!" Hange smirked, elbowing Levi's shoulder.

Levi immediately tended up at the feeling. His gaze steely and cold. "What?"

"How are you gonna ask out Y/N?"

Levi's face betrayed him, turning a deep red at the spur of the moment question. "I'm not asking shit."

"Oh come on! I did not bring you two to this party for absolutely nothing exciting to happen."

"If you like her you should tell her Levi." Erwin replied honestly

Levi scowled, "I don't.."

"Yeah ok so let's pretend you're not talking out of your ass." Hange says, leading both boys over to the couch. "Nevermind we can't cause you're talking out of your ass."

"Tch."

"Is she even here?" Erwin asked

Levi did a quick look around once more just as you were coming out of the bedroom. A loud sigh falling off your lips.

"Hey!" She smiled "Didn't expect to see you guys so soon again."

"Oh yeah well, we just couldn't wait to see you again." Hange remarked ignoring the daggers Levi was sending her. "Come sit with us." Hange offers.

Y/N moves closer to sit between Hange and Erwin until Hange places a hand on her back. "No no no, you don't wanna sit here.. Erwin just let one rip. The whole room is gonna smell soon." She waved her hand in front of her nose and Erwin glared at her. "Sit next to Levi!" She offered

A part of Levi was genuinely thinking about how much Hange would sell for on Amazon while another part of him was relieved for the small plop of the seat next to him as you sat down. The way you reached forward to grab the tea cup you'd placed on the table.

It was easier now to see your curves and as much as Levi tried to hide his staring he couldn't help it. His eyes raking over every inch of your body he could see. Luckily you weren't paying attention to the way the tips of his ears grew redder by the second.

"You put her to sleep in someone else's room?" Hange laughed

"Well I think they're ordering another pizza so she's probably gonna wake up when she smells that."

And your smell.. Levi couldn't tell if it was your hair or your body but your smell was intoxicating right now. So mellow and sweet yet strong and vibrant.

"Uggghhh good cause I'm starving!"

Y/N laughed, "Ah I remember when I had to hear something like that every morning."

"That English class was way too early in the morning and you know it!" Hange laughed. Erwin had turned to his phone clearly more relaxed by the atmosphere.

"So, Levi what's your major?" Y/N suddenly turned to ask.

Levi blinked, then opened his mouth only to shut it again. His eyes were practically bulging and he felt like his face would melt off.

"He's business law." Hange helped clearly also holding in a laugh as Levi could only nod quietly.

"Oh. You know I know someone whose in-

"Y/N.. Where's my bed.." All four of you turned at once as a brown haired girl stumbled around in the space. "My bed.." she repeated staggering around.

"Ooo ok, you want you want your bed?" Y/N stood grabbing hold of the girl's waist. She giggled in delight and Y/N rubbed her back with a grin. "I'm gonna take Sasha downstairs."

"Are you going to come back?" Erwin asked and Levi was relieved in a way because he definitely wouldn't be able to get the words out.

"Mm, I don't think so. I'll see if she goes down easy then I might." She shrugged and Sasha giggled again. "Alright, time for bed." She chirped leading the girl in her arms out and soon far away from Levi's view.

He felt his stomach twist. Silently wishing he knew what being held like that by you felt like.

#levi x reader #levi x y/n #Levi x You #attack on titan #snk levi #snk season 4 #levi ackerman x reader #levi aot #hange zöe #snk erwin

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syms-things-5 · 3 years

Text

Touch & Go - Chapter Four

Previous Chapter HERE

Story Summary Ten months after leaving Boston, Sarah’s starting over again in Nashua. A new apartment, a new hospital, and closer to her parents, she’s finally finding some peace following her ill-advised affair with her best friend’s brother. But Sarah should have known it would only be a matter of time before the past catches up with her.

Warnings Strong language and stressful situations

Word Count 5,250

Tagged @ppal3 @patzammit

Chapter Four

Why does everything take longer when you’re in a rush?

It was worse than bad luck that the traffic was moving at a snail’s pace when Chris and Sarah finally joined the I-95. There was no logical reason for the traffic being this heavy at this time of the night. Sarah googled for information on traffic accidents or roadblocks up ahead but nothing immediately came up that would explain the slowness. Must just be trying to cause Sarah even more stress than she was already under.

“You didn’t need to drive me back, you know.” Sarah protested for the tenth time since they left the hotel. Chris had counted. “I got myself here. I can get myself home again.”

“With what train, Sarah? It’s midnight, it’s cold, and I doubt there’s any flights either. Besides, this car can do 90 in no time if the traffic would just go to fuckin’ hell.” Chris called out as he finally moved into the outside lane, a little more space clearing up ahead of them. It provided a brief moment where she could forget worrying about Noah.

“What is it they say about men who brag about their cars?”

Chris chewed on the inside of his cheek. If that even was an accurate trend - and he didn’t believe it to be one – then Sarah should know more than most that he was bucking it. When he glanced at her to his side and saw her subtly wipe away a tear, he decided better of reminding her of that fact right now. She probably needed to vent a little, he thought, and he had only just managed to convince her he was going to drive her all the way back home to Maine without physically dragging her away from the hotel. She clearly needed something to take her mind off things. Hell, he wouldn’t even mind if she cried a bit more, as ill-equipped as he was to soothe a crying woman. There was a clean tissue lying around somewhere in the glove compartment, he remembered, and possibly a candy bar he’d forgotten about. That was about the extent of his skills.

“You know, Shanna looked into driving lessons.” He offered a change of subject following a few uncomfortable minutes of silence.

“Really?” Sarah asked, surprised and rightfully so.

“Yeh. She had four or five lessons, I think. Then the instructor fired her.”

Sarah turned to look at him face-on with a look of astonishment. He slowly nodded his head back at her knowing she would understand perfectly. Sarah laughed and Chris knew she was imagining all of the myriad ways that could have gone down. Truthfully, any one of them could have been feasible where Shanna was concerned.

Shanna had had six lessons as it goes but the instructor - with over thirty years of teaching experience and the recipient of a local award for services to the community – described her as “unteachable”. Lisa had attempted several times to convince him to take her back by offering to pay over the odds for his time. At one point, it looked like Chris was going to have to face-time his grandson as a sweetener (“It’s not a bribe!” Lisa would argue after both Scott and Chris had mocked her plan) but it didn’t get that far. It transpired that Shanna really was that bad.

“I never thought I’d see the day she learned to drive.” Sarah said.

“Yeh well now you definitely won’t.” He chuckled. “God, could you imagine her in charge of a vehicle?!”

“She doesn’t need to drive for her job, does she?”

“No, but she had this big thing about being independent after…” He trailed off and Sarah knew what he was getting at. He cleared his throat and trained his eye back on the road in front of them. “She just decided to fix a couple of things in her life, I guess. She joined Carly on that cookery course she was doing as well, and put up a shelf in the apartment.”

“I thought Carly had finished that course?”

“She did but she took it again back in March so she could come first in the class.” Chris rolled his eyes at the memory of trying to understand Carly’s reasoning for such a thing. “You know, listing all of my family’s weird quirks like this really isn’t helping me work through my issues.”

Sarah smiled broadly at him from his side; a smile he could practically feel on his cheek. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You love them more than life itself. You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She turned to look out of the passenger side window and caught Chris’ fond glance at her in the reflection. She was right, of course, he wouldn’t have it any other way, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t also leave him completely dumbfounded sometimes. Most of the time, actually.

Sarah felt the car switch up a gear. It had gone pitch black outside in next to no time and she realised they were far out of the city. There was a single light lit up every few hundred yards or so along the highway. The only reasonable light she could see was coming from the central console inside Chris’ car, the make of which she had no clue about. It was different to the one he’d had before.

He’d switched off the iPad screen in the middle of the dashboard and dimmed the other lights in case she wanted to take a short nap except she was now more awake than ever before. She’d only end up thinking about Noah even if she did close her eyes and she felt like she wanted to talk about anything – literally, anything – else. It was probably a good idea that Chris was with her after all.

She didn’t enjoy cars the same way other people did but as she glanced from one switch to the next to the next, this seemed pretty swanky by anyone’s standards. The seats were comfortable as well. If she asked him about it, he’d probably happily fill an hour or so of the journey. Maybe she’d keep that idea in her back pocket for later.

“I always thought you would stay in New York, you know?” He said quietly when he realised she hadn’t managed to fall asleep. “It seemed like the next logical step. Why Nashua?”

Sarah pondered that question for a second. Why Nashua indeed. “There was an opening and it was ideal. It’s a really nice hospital and a really nice team. The area’s great, too. Lots of bars and restaurants and big open spaces. You’d like it.”

“Guess I’ll have to visit sometime.” He smiled. “You should try and get some rest, you know.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But I just keep thinking about him. What he must look like lying there. Mom’s probably beside herself, too. Plus, you’d be bored just staring at the road in front of you. Least I can do is try and keep you company.”

“We’re not that far away, it’ll be fine.” He said, clocking the milometer. “Wanna play ‘20 Questions’?”

She looked puzzled. “You hate that game.”

“No, not “hate”. That’s a strong word.”

“Last time I heard that idea floated around, you said, and I quote, you would rather stick pins in your eyes.”

“That’s ‘cos Scott gets his names confused. Y’know, he thinks he’s thinking of one guy and you tell him who it is only for him to tell you that you’re wrong. It’s annoying. I don’t think I’ve ever played that game and not had a massive argument about it afterwards.” He griped.

“We might argue?”

“We wouldn’t argue.” He said, confidently. “We’re too similar. We’d probably end up thinking of the same person.”

“I wouldn’t choose Tom Brady.”

“Oh ha ha.” He rolled his eyes. “I can think of other people besides Brady.”

“Can you?”

He paused and she saw him purse his lips for comedic effect. “Tom Brady’s Mom?”

Sarah laughed and leaned her head back on the head rest. She was relaxed a little more and the weird nervous feeling she had felt when she was trying to put him off driving her all the way back to Maine had long since passed. The car was a little warmer, too, and she noticed he had slyly upped the temperature of the seat warmers in a probable attempt to help lull her to sleep for a couple of hours.

It worked. The last thing she remembered was seeing the outline of his profile. His lashes were longer than she remembered and as her eyes grew a little heavier, she saw a familiar soft smile reach his eyes.

“What the hell?” Chris said to himself, surveying line after line of parked cars crammed in next to each other. A couple of vehicles had been parked on the sidewalk just across the road from the hospital, evidence of there being no other available spaces.

Sarah was jolted awake by his sudden exclamation. The temperature in the car was a little cooler which she was thankful for as she blinked her eyes open, rubbing them to remove any sleep from the corners. She yawned widely and immediately recognised the vast building they were now casing.

“You can just let me out here if you like?” She asked, stifling another yawn. She stretched her arms out in front of her to get some feeling back into her shoulders and upper back. She was feeling a little stiff from having slept in a car seat but was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t feel much worse. At some point while she was asleep, Chris had covered her lap with a soft, green hoodie he kept in the car.

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ll find somewhere.” He said, feigning encouragement so he didn’t have to ditch Sarah on the side of the road. “Are all of these cars for the ER, do you think? That’s crazy. Why do people have accidents this late? It’s so friggin’ inconsiderate.”

Sarah smiled at him but ultimately kept her mouth closed. As if by pure luck in that moment, he spotted someone pulling out of a space just ahead of where they were dawdling along. The good luck was well overdue. She thought she heard him whisper ‘boom’ underneath his breath. If she hadn’t been sat next to him in the car, he likely would have finger-gunned the situation.

Within minutes she had darted through the lower ground floor towards the elevators, barely stopping to thank the Receptionist for letting her know where her parents were. Chris was following closely behind her. The Receptionist did a double take thinking she recognised him but ultimately shrugged that thought off to tiredness.

Sarah couldn’t remember the last time she had been in this particular hospital but most buildings followed the same kind of layout, it was almost second nature to her now. As was the careful run across the shiny, buffed floors that she had perfected from having attended multiple emergency situations over the years. It proved a little more difficult for Chris, his sneakers catching every few feet or so. She really was an impressive individual, he thought to himself as he trailed her down the long corridors.

As the elevator went up to the 4th floor, she found out she had been wrong earlier on: this was in fact the slowest part of their journey.

“Ward 9, she said. Should be this way.” Chris did a full a 360 spin as he speed-read the direction boards in front of them.

His heart was nearly beating out of his chest but not because of the 400m sprint it felt like he had just undertaken. The pressure was visibly etched all over Sarah’s face, that feeling of being so close yet so far from her parents, and Chris could feel every single intake of her short breaths.

As they rounded the final corner, they saw the dim light emanating from under the door to Noah’s room. Just hours ago, it felt like it would take forever to get here. Sarah had all but stopped as they slowly approached and Chris tenderly placed his arm on the back of her shoulder, trying to encourage her forward these last few feet.

“It’s going to be OK.” He spoke in the lowest, most soothing tone he could manage while equally trying to conceal his increasing tiredness. “I’m right here.”

She gave him a look of gratitude but didn’t say anything. For the first time since they’d reconnected, she allowed him to see her tears and without thinking, he ran his thumb under her left eye to catch it before it made its way down her cheek.

Opening the door to the room, Sarah was greeted by the presence of her mother asleep in an armchair place at the foot of Noah’s bed. One of the window blinds was still open letting the beginnings of the sunrise hit the opposite wall. It looked almost surreal and it was a few moments before Sarah could focus on her Dad. When she did, when Chris did as well, it wasn’t exactly what they were expecting.

Noah didn’t appear to be connected to too many tubes, which surprised Chris. You hear the word “coma” and you sort of assume the worst. Instead, the catheter that was presumably keeping him sedated was connected to him via the back of his hand, and there was what looked like a narrow oxygen line entering through his nose. He seemed so peaceful and the machines were so quiet, only emitting a beep every half a minute or so, you could be forgiven for thinking he had simply fallen asleep. He still had a bit of colour to his cheeks as well. He didn’t look seriously ill. He wasn’t at all how Chris had expected him to be.

“Sarah.” Jocelyn breathed out, unfolding her legs from underneath her and throwing her coat over the back of her chair. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

She reached out for Sarah’s arm and the pair of them hugged tightly. Sarah was whispering comforting things to her, telling her it was going to be alright, and Chris considered backing out of the room to give them some much-needed privacy. He wasn’t supposed to be here at this moment, he realised. He’d done his part now and as hard as it would be to leave her, leave them all, he didn’t want to cause a new problem by being a third wheel.

“Oh my gosh, Chris, hello.” Jocelyn said, almost breathless in disbelief when she registered his presence stood awkwardly in the doorway. “How are you?”

“Um, yeh, I’m good, thanks.” He took moved a foot back into the room. “More to the point, how are you?”

The minor distraction in having Jocelyn’s attention focussed on Chris allowed Sarah to get closer to Noah. Chris rubbed his hand up and down Jocelyn’s arm in a move to comfort her. Lisa instilled in all of her children a rule of never turning up to a place as a guest without bringing a small offering or gift of some kind and now he was kicking himself for passing straight by the gas station as they left the Interstate. Not that he would have been able to find anything useful but a bottle of water would have been better than nothing. He couldn’t see that she had brought much with her and no doubt there would have been a rush to get him here in the first place.

“Holding up, I guess. Nothing else we can do at the moment unfortunately.” She said, reservedly. She turned around to see what Sarah was doing besides Noah’s bed.

Chris followed her line of sight and caught Sarah checking his med report held in the metal binder that clipped onto the side of the bed railing.

“His notes aren’t saying much.” Sarah wondered out loud as she scanned a couple of the pages. A page unfolded and Chris caught a look of…something flash across her eyes. “Do they know what’s up exactly?”

“No, not really, honey.”

“Well, did you ask them?” Sarah turned to face Jocelyn.

Chris was well aware of the issues Sarah had with her mother from time to time, but he deathly hoped she wasn’t going to start anything now, in here of all places.

“It’s only been a few hours. Maybe they’re still waiting for the test results?” Chris offered. Hopefully one of the words he just said would be useful to one of them.

Jocelyn smiled gratefully at him and Sarah looked at them stood side by side, abruptly aware that to most people this kind of thing was completely new territory. Chris’ hand tentatively brushed Jocelyn’s shoulder and Sarah recognised the wariness in his eyes. Yet again, he was right, she thought; it wasn’t the right thing to ask her at this time. There were more important things to focus on. Her mother looked like she was dead on her feet and her eyes were red raw from crying. She needed emotional support. She didn’t need the third degree.

“Yeh, that’s probably it.” Sarah agreed, nodding her head gently and clipping the binder back on the side of Noah’s bed. “Alright, so hopefully they’ll be able to figure some stuff out soon and we’ll know what’s what. We can go from there. When was the last time you ate anything, Mom?”

Chris’ eyes widened. He looked like he had just thought of the best idea. “I think we passed an all-night McDonald’s a few minutes back down the road so let me go see what they have. I’ll grab us some coffees as well.” He looked almost relieved.

“Oh no, Chris, not at all. There’s an all-night canteen upstairs, I’m sure we can find something there. I could do with the walk to tell you the truth.” Jocelyn replied as she glanced down around the floor to see where she’d dropped her handbag.

“No, definitely not.” Chris insisted. “You’re not telling me that you wouldn’t enjoy some chicken tenders and barbecue sauce right about now?”

Jocelyn giggled. An actual giggle. Sarah couldn’t remember the last time she heard that sound come out of her mother. Chris clearly had magical powers, she mused, and when he returned over half an hour later, carrying two brown paper bags that filled the room with the unmistakeable salty yet delightful smell only fast food could provide, she had never been surer. He was an angel.

Sarah and Chris retreated into a small, plain-looking family room across the corridor as Jocelyn took a phone call from a friend, Diana. That would likely take a while, Sarah thought. Diana had a rather unique skill of managing to turn every conversation, every minute issue, into something about her. It never failed to wind Sarah up and Chris made a mental note to ask her about it when he saw her fail to hide an eye roll as Jocelyn answered her phone. Jocelyn being the kind, reliable friend that she always was would inevitably spend more time making her feel better and Sarah would add it to her list of reasons to make zero effort with the woman at the next family gathering.

“So,” Chris finally asked as he wiped a spot of ketchup away from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “What do you think’s going on with your Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on. I know you didn’t buy my bullshit earlier about them waiting for test results. You don’t put someone into a coma without having a basic suspicion of what might be going on. Even I know that.”

Sarah rubbed a hand loosely at the back of her neck and contemplated how to answer the question. It was true that she had gone along with what he had said because sometimes not everyone views illnesses and injuries the same way that she does, and sometimes she forgets that. Not everyone will know the signs to look out for in the medical reports and often families will accept the soft answers given to them by the professionals. She was one such professional and she theorised that families could be placed into one of three camps. They could be persistent and demanding answers every single minute that passed by and if you couldn’t give it to them, they’d like to speak to someone who could. Sometimes, they would simply ask you to do the best job possible for their loved ones, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be standing beside you the entire time and looking over your shoulder at every single note you wrote down or every single tweak you made to a tube.

The third camp was the favourite. Jocelyn belonged in this camp for sure. Jocelyn was far too sweet and patient to bother quizzing the doctors for more information, and they would have no doubt been grateful for the time to simply get on and figure out what to do in relative peace.

“Something with his heart, most likely.” She posited. “His brain activity is pretty regular and the machine is keeping his breathing even.”

“Fuck, Sarah.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “Is it really that bad?”

“For something like this, to put a patient under, it’s usually one or the other.”

“Yeh, but…fuck.” He leaned back until his head connected to the wall behind his chair with a dull thud. He stared up at the florescent strip-lights lining the ceiling. Of all the things to ruin a supposedly relaxing mood, florescent lighting had to be up there with the worst of things invented.

“Yeh. Fuck.” Sarah said to herself before downing what was left of her hot coffee. She didn’t care much that it almost burned the back of her mouth.

It had just gone 6.30 in the morning and about twenty minutes prior to sitting down alongside Chris in an empty, cold room, Sarah had had her suspicions confirmed. A nurse had come to check Noah’s blood pressure and there was the tell-tale pursing of the lips and a soft sigh that only she would recognise as a fellow nurse. A sigh that said things did not look how they should or how they had hoped. A sigh that, to those in the know, failed to hide visible disappointment.

It wasn’t that they were unsure of what was going on with Noah, it was that they had decided to keep him as comfortable as possible because they knew things were only heading one way.

“How long do you think they’ll keep him under?”

Chris turned his head to face her. Maybe her stoicism in these situations was helping her get through it all now. She seemed calm. Was it calm? There was definitely something serene and rather still about her right now. A little too still. It was…odd. If he hadn’t been sat so close to her, he would have worried she’d stopped breathing. He wasn’t sure if he preferred this to crying.

“I’m not sure. They’ll need to make a decision soon.” She replied, monotone.

There was a painting of a beach and some waves on the opposite wall. It was one of those commonly reproduced prints that adorned nearly every hospital waiting room in the country; attractive enough in pastel shades that looked nice hanging up but dull enough so as not to draw critical attention when you were trying to figure out how long your loved one might have left on Earth. Up until now, Sarah had hated them with a passion and was glad that St Joseph’s was trying to reverse the trend of purchasing them in bulk, but in this very moment she considered trying to understand it for the first time.

The family room was quieter than she had ever experienced a room to be before. She could barely sense Chris sat in the chair next to her, his arm occasionally brushing hers as he reached for another couple of fries. She couldn’t remember the last time she heard her own heartbeat. It sounded extraordinarily loud to her. Maybe Chris could hear it, too.

She felt every pulse in her body and wondered how many she might have left. She wondered if she would make it to retirement or perhaps grow even older. Maybe she’d be one of the lucky few who celebrated their own centenary. Maybe she’d get hit by a car one day on the way to work and everything would be over in a flash.

Life was a fucking joke.

“Sarah? Are you OK?” Chris worried. Sarah turned to him like she had only just realised he was there. Chris really wished she was crying. He had never seen that look on her before, on anyone in fact, and he didn’t know what to say except to uneasily repeat his question.

“Are you alright?”

“Sorry.” She blinked. “Sorry. I was just…”

She paused.

“That painting is fucking awful.”

Chris wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to say but that would likely be at the very bottom of his list. He looked ahead of where they were sat and spied the offending piece with pale yellow sand and even paler blue water. There was what looked like an oak tree at the side which made no sense given the location. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Yeh,” He chuckled. “It’s certainly a choice.”

“They have them everywhere. In every hospital. I must have seen, like, a hundred versions of the same painting all through college and I’ve always thought it was dumb. Such a pointless waste of paper and paint. I mean, the artist probably has talent, right? Yet they choose to paint this.” Sarah held her hand out like she was instructing him on something. “What is the fucking point of this?”

Chris enjoyed art as much as the next guy but he was stumped. He’d never really considered it that deeply because he rarely acknowledged this kind of art in the first place. It wasn’t his cup of tea.

“I don’t know.” He answered, half shrugging. “I don’t think it’s meant to mean anything. It’s just there because if it wasn’t there, the room would look even emptier. And I guess that would be worse than if a painting was there, even a painting as banal as this one.”

“It’s such a waste, though.” She mused.

“Maybe they’ve done other stuff that’s better?”

“But they might not get known for it. People go through life being underestimated and people will assume they’re incapable of anything else. They could bring so much to the world but never get the chance. That’s kinda sad, don’t you think?”

“Yeh, but art is objective. You think of all the people who have been sat in this very room staring at the same painting hour after hour, it might be comforting to them. Some people might really like and appreciate it, and then he’s done his job. He’s put something of value out there.” He offered.

She continued looking ahead at the painting hanging in front of them. The more Chris stared at it, the more it lost its meaning. It’s plain-ness almost took you out of your head and out of whatever messes were currently going on inside and he pondered whether that was the point of it after all. You didn’t really have to think anything about it if you chose not to.

That growing feeling of futility stayed with Sarah long into the afternoon. Jocelyn refused to leave Noah’s bedside despite Sarah’s many protestations to the contrary. Chris had also decided he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon even though it had been over 24 hours since he last saw a bed or a shower of some kind. Sarah found him crashed out across a weak looking sofa and left him there for a couple of hours. The ward was quiet; it was unlikely that he would be disturbed.

In contrast, she felt oddly awake. Caffeine was a godsend at times like this. Even the shite she was now holding in her hands courtesy of the nearby vending machine was doing some good.

“You really need to go home, dude.” Sarah said, when she accidentally-on-purpose disturbed Chris by nudging his foot as she sat down on the end of the sofa he was lying across. He looked a little dopey from his nap, his hair a little mussed up, and Sarah had a brief, awkward flashback she tried to blink away.

He lazily stretched his arms up above his head before rubbing both of his eyes with the backs of his hands. “How long was I out for?”

“A couple of hours. I just didn’t want you to think you had to stay any longer if you wanted to head back home. People are probably wondering where you are.”

“Oh don’t worry, it’s not the first time I’ve gone incommunicado. I’ll send them a message later on or whatever.” He slowly twisted his body to sit upright and ended up brushing the side of Sarah’s leg.

“Um, do you think you could keep this quiet? Just in case anyone asks? I’m not 100% sure what we’re dealing with here just yet and I’d rather keep it on the downlow until we know. If that’s OK? I hate to ask you for yet another favour, and-”

“-Of course.” He placed his hand gently on her knee. “You don’t even need to worry about that. I was never going to say anything.”

She smiled softly at him and he returned the sentiment before smoothly tucking her hair behind her ear.

There was a lot she wanted to say to him but “thanks” wasn’t going to cut it somehow. If you’d told her 48 hours ago that, her father aside, she’d be sat here with him like this, she would have assumed you’d smoked something funny. Audrey would have a field day with it.

And that was the first time she had thought of her friend since she saw her the day before.

“Oh fucking hell.” Sarah closed her eyes and leaned forward, gripping both of her hands to the edge of her seat.

“What?” Chris said, panicked that he’d over-stepped a line.

“Audrey will be going mad wondering where I’ve been.”

“Do you maybe wanna call her now?”

“I should but I’m not sure I can face it just yet. She’s not exactly casual when it comes to things like this and she’ll have so many questions. Ugh.” She placed her head in her hands.

“Honestly, I think you’re worrying too much about her. Probably because you’re over tired as well. One mention of Noah and she’ll totally understand.” He reasoned.

She turned her head in her hands to face him.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just really glad you’re here.”

“Well, remember that feeling because I’m going to offer to take you and Jocelyn home for a few hours then I’ve got dibs on mowing the lawn. Apparently, your Dad is super proud of their garden so it’s one small thing I can take off your mom’s list.” He smiled at her.

“I don’t think I deserve you, you know. You’ve done do much for me.”

He leaned forward until they were both matched in their positions.

“I think we’re about even now.”

#Chris Evans #Chris Evans fic #Chris fic #fanfiction #Touch & Go #Fractured #Sarah Bernette #chris evans x original female character #Evans fic #fanfic

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ironmandeficiency · 4 years

Text

beach please

pairing: rex / reader / cody

word count: 6166

summary: once the war ended, you retreated to scarif for much-needed time to recenter yourself. rex and cody worry when you don’t answer your comms for days and leave coruscant to find you, fearing the worst. turns out you’ve just been drinking and partying, now sporting two new tattoos.

a/n: the self-created duke of scarif is jimmy buffett & i was inspired by his song “margaritaville” & “beach please” by kevin fowler.

canon changes: everyone listened to fives abt the chips & palps was discovered to be a sith lord. the clones were given human rights, a generously low locked-in rent if they lived on coruscant, and as much back pay as the republic could afford (not much but better than nothing).

“master y/l/n, there’s still so much to be done-”

“and you can have someone else do it. you must not be capable of recognizing the importance of reevaluating the way we interpret the code, or else this conversation wouldn’t be occurring.”

obi-wan blanched at the barely tamed fury radiating from your force signature. this was the second time in less than a year that he felt something so raging from your force signature, the time before this meeting being the aftermath of umbara. before the nightmare that was the siege on the shadow planet, it had been decades since you were angry enough about something to raise your voice to the council. it took a very great transgression to ignite your anger into something scathing and this meeting was doing exactly that.

the council was meeting to discuss the senate’s plans to have the jedi spearhead efforts to repair the galaxy and quell the revolts in areas that still wanted to continue the war. palpatine was manipulating both sides and if it weren’t for fives and kix, the republic would have been none the wiser when chancellor palpatine executed the order to have the clones murder their jedi.

“how are we going to guide the galaxy through the changing times if we’re unable to reevaluate our own beliefs and how the war impacted them? so many of our padawans were raised in this war, far different than how they should have been brought up.” your mind drifted to ahsoka and late-night conversations spent trying to make sense of the reality of war and how she’d been nothing but a soldier since she left the temple at fourteen. “the senate is not our responsibility nor our lead authority. we were their pawns once and despite seeing the consequences on geonosis, we let ourselves get wrapped in politics. think of what we lost because of it.”

eeth koth was deeply disturbed by your entire demeanor as well as the words spilling from your lips. if there was ever a jedi that made you want to leave the order, he’d be it. douchebag. “our duty is to the galaxy, to maintain peace! you can’t expect us to sit back and do nothing when people are struggling!”

obi-wan shared your sentiment but strived for more unity than polarization within the meeting. “but aren’t we struggling just as much as the rest of the galaxy? time must be allotted for us to heal the wounds of war before we’ll be able to successfully help others that are suffering, if that’s what’s agreed upon.” a few jedi nodded their agreement, masters plo and gallia among them. shaak looks close to being convinced but seems to still be hesitant to comment on her opinion.

“in order to help the galaxy, we must help ourselves. our emotions must be looked into with more than just the intent to throw them away at a moment’s notice. knowing why we feel the things we do can help us with far more than just our connection to the force.”

this was an idea that obi-wan has spent many years struggling with but it took the end of the war to guide him into believing that emotions aren’t the enemy, it’s how they’re utilized that counts. he explained this concept to his fellow council members and it was a sentiment you agreed with immensely.

saese scoffs at the mere idea of doing more with emotions besides dispelling them into the force. “that sounds a lot like allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement, master kenobi, something your lineage is quite popular for-” oh he crossed the line. saese was not about to talk shit about your creche mate and closest friend or his lineage and get away with it.

“no need to pardon my language, master, but it sounds a lot like you’re allowing your own emotional shortcomings and the bantha fodder you call intelligence to cloud your judgement.”

even mace was stunned at the verbal jab that came from your seat. kit had been mid-drink and it took him several seconds to recover from the way he choked on his water. you were normally calm and collected, a voice of reason amid the chaos. this time, however, you were at your limit. this was your cue to leave.

mace spoke up as you neared the door. “y/l/n, where do you think you’re going?”

“i’m going to heal and allow myself to enjoy the peace we gave nearly everything to obtain. if you want to join me, feel free to let me know.”

your robes billowed out behind you as the council meeting dissolved into chaos. you were convinced that if your seat was close enough to master yoda’s that you’d be sporting a few new gimer stick bruises. thank the force for the little things.

later that evening, you boarded your personal ship and set the coordinates for scarif. that was the perfect place to go as a jedi that didn’t want to be found by anyone that they didn’t fully trust. who would think to find a monk on a planet filled with booze, sex, and other carnal pleasures? a few comms were sent telling the recipients that you were going on vacation and to call if you were needed, giving them a new private commlink and vague hints at where you’d be.

scarif, here i come.

“she hasn’t commed us in nearly a week! what reason is there to not worry?”

“rex, she would have called us if there was something wrong.”

“you know as well as i do that there are still radical seppies trying to keep the war going. the kidnapping of a jedi would surely be cause to fight!”

cody sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. he conceded that you ignoring their comms was highly unusual, yes, but you weren’t the type to throw yourself heedlessly into danger like some of the other jetti they knew (cough cough, skywalker and kenobi). “no one in their right mind is going to think to look for a jedi on scarif, the place is too carefree and without a permanent stuck up its shebs.”

rex knew there was a valid point to the statement. he vaguely recollects general kenobi’s mild yet humorous complaints about the “uncivilized, booze-blooded” inhabitants of the beach planet. general skywalker’s only problem with scarif, it seems, was the fact there was sand nearly everywhere, the drunks and constant parties posing no issue to the younger jedi. the reason for his disdain of sand was never expanded upon.

“i’m still going to look for her, feel free to come with.” they were free men who had no one to report to, no one telling them where they could go or when to eat and sleep, so of course rex was going to look for you. with this newfound freedom cody and rex moved into a middle-level apartment together, nothing too fancy but quite a contrast to their former living spaces under the gar.

rex chose to join the police force on coruscant and quickly climbed the ranks, excelling in every task thrown at him. he was a force to be reckoned with, crime rates dropping rapidly within his first month.

cody hasn’t made a new career choice yet, the commander still trying to find his own path. he had tried his hand on the police force but he quickly realized it wasn’t his cup of tea and left rex to it. he’s helping with groceries and other living costs with his back pay despite rex’s protests for him to put it to better use (what better use is there for credits than helping you survive day to day? that’s what they’re made for).

they were given a ship by general skywalker -anakin, rex’s mind supplied; he had corrected them many times about not using the rank- that the man had modified himself because he “wouldn’t want any friends of mine flying around the galaxy in a piece of junk.” apparently any sort of ship/speeder/droid/anything not built and/or modified by the man was inferior in nearly every imaginable way. it was a kind and meaningful gesture that anakin was willing to go to such lengths to protect them, no matter how unnecessary. the war was over after all, there was no need to have blaster attachments on their civilian speeder.

“like i’m gonna leave you to your own devices, di’kut. of course i’m going with.”

“you better hurry and pack, i’m planning on leaving no later than 1800.”

sitting in the reclined beach chair with two margaritas, you haven’t enjoyed yourself this much in a long time. the togrutan brother and sister you met soon after your arrival had become dear friends in your two months on scarif, the three of you becoming a trio commonly seen hitting the best parties all over the planet. miek wasn’t as much of a party animal in comparison to his sister briel who was known for her wild drunken antics.

you had been there and lived in your small ship for a total of two days before they offered you a place with them. no one lived alone on scarif, they said, and it would be wrong to let you continue to be deprived of the peace the waters brought when it was lulling you to sleep.

meeting the duke of scarif during your first week planetside was quite an exhilarating experience, to put it briefly. duke buffett was an older man with hair as white as the sands he loved to party on day and night, one hand perpetually occupied by a drink and a guitar strapped to his back. he was known to play and sing during the parties he attended, his carefree attitude evident in his voice.

although no one would have guessed by looking at him, he was a fierce conservationist who would either have his guards fight anyone caught littering or, if drunk enough, would fight them himself. you’ve held him back a time or two when he clearly wasn’t in shape to do said fighting and helped ease the situation back to a fun normal.

now you weren’t a heavy drinker by any means, but your tolerance was better than most because of your connection to the force. this made you a favorite drinking buddy to many of the planet’s permanent inhabitants and tourists. of these numbers was the duke himself whom you would sometimes humor by opening drinks with your lightsaber. it was a splendid game that won you diplomatic immunity (apparently he can do that) on the planet after two weeks of jedi party tricks and fight-preventing.

time had become even more of a social construct than you had believed it to be before the war. there were parties going on at all hours of the day and night and the concept of solitude was forgotten. everyone here extended a hand to each other, friend or not-yet friend (there were no strangers on scarif, just friends you haven’t made yet). what little pain felt was carried by all until it was so faint that it seemed to heal itself. the waters healed, you had no doubt in your mind.

the sun was high in the sky when the ship landed next to yours behind your current residence. you were, of course, not home to know where it landed but you did see said ship flying overhead as you relaxed on a blanket next to briel and miek. maybe they were lost, but you had confidence that someone on the island would help them in what they need. this was the way of scarif, after all.

you were distracted by the drinks in both of your hands, alternating sips between the two. you were outfitted in a flowy summer dress that had ridden up a smidge too high while you were lounging on a reclined beach chair. briel was rubbing - lotion? sunscreen? - something on your exposed thighs as you relaxed, enjoying the way the breeze felt on the moisturized skin.

this was the best decision you’ve ever made, coming to scarif. eventually you were going to leave, yeah, but that was a problem for future you. for now, you were going to enjoy the endless sunshine and copious amounts of alcohol that aided in your relaxation.

they had seen the docking bay protruding into the sky like a gundark among loth-cats and decided instantly that you weren’t going to be there. you had told them ages ago that the vibes (you used that word a lot to describe force things to them) that came from industrial buildings bothered you terribly. something along the lines of wearing on your psyche, if they remembered correctly. instead, they flew a little lower than they probably should have to search the ground for where you landed your ship.

it took longer than they would have liked it to, but your ship was eventually found behind a medium-sized hut not too far from one of the many beaches. cody found just the right angle to land next to it and not hurt either shuttle, not trusting rex to touch the controls (his vod was a terrible pilot).

both men decided that even if scarif was a peaceful planet, they still didn’t know what to expect, so they equipped themselves with their blasters and lower armor before leaving their ship. first order of business: check to see if you were in your ship. if you weren’t, they could cross that bridge when they got there.

just as they were beginning to open the ramp, a man emerged from the hut and began to storm their way. he was togrutan, with yellow skin and lavender stripes on his lekku and montrals.

“hey! you two! what’s your business with that shuttle?” he sounded like he was ready to fight them about the ship, which worried the brothers, but he slowed his advance when he noticed the two blasters pointed in his direction. good, this guy wasn’t a complete di’kut.

cody was the first to lower his weapon, quick to take the diplomatic approach. rex followed suit but didn’t soften the intimidating stare he threw at the man. there was a reason your ship was there and they were going to stop at nothing to find out why. “we’re looking for a friend of ours, she hasn’t answered our comms in over a week and we were worried, it isn’t like her to not reply. last we talked to her she was here on scarif.”

the togrutan paused for a moment, inspecting the appearances of the men (clones, his mind told him, the telltale armor and near identical faces hiding nothing) in front of him.

the blond had an air of confidence about him, an almost dangerous sort of confidence. his armor was painted with a shade of blue that was pleasantly similar to the waters he just returned from, pieces of it chipped from what he supposed were rough times in battle. his jaw was set, hand hovering above where he holstered his weapon seconds before.

he didn’t appear to be bloodthirsty, just protective; who he wanted to protect, however, was still a mystery. there was a passion in his eyes that wasn’t even mildly held back. he seemed to be skilled in channeling that passion into his every thought, every action. with a note to himself to not get on this man’s bad side, he switched his focus on the blond’s companion.

miek’s gaze shifted to the other clone and quickly decided that he liked this one better. there was an extremely intimidating scar along the side of his face, yet this one seemed far less willing to shoot him on sight. he still has a grit and presence about him that told miek that this one wouldn’t hesitate to fuck your shit up if need be, but he had tact (thank the stars one of the clones had a sense of discretion).

he could tell that this one had some sort of authority over the blond, clearly serving as a high percentage of the other’s common sense. miek’s mind, after analyzing the men thoroughly, gives names for the men before they introduce themselves. “you must be the famed rex and cody! come, i’ll take you to the shoreline!”

he gestured for them to follow him and was genuinely shocked when instead of doing as he suggested, he was tackled to the ground. miek spit away everything that had gotten into his mouth, unable to move when one of the men pinned him down. this was officially miek’s worst day in over a decade.

he caught a glimpse of marigold stripes on leg armor just over his shoulder, confirming the identity of the man on top of him as rex. “how do you know our names?!” rex’s voice sent a shiver down miek’s spine (the blaster against his back also helped in that), and the togrutan reaffirmed his choice in his favorite clone: not rex.

“i’ve heard stories about you two! from y/n! i’m assuming you’re here about y/n, right?” the blaster was removed from his back and a little bit of the weight was taken off him. he must be saying something right. “she’s been staying with my sister and i, and i promise you she’s perfectly safe!” rex moves his weight completely off him now, allowing miek to stand back up but not move more than a few feet away from him.

“where is she?” cody’s voice was hauntingly low, nothing about him betraying his tension except for the hard glare felt like lasers. he had the same desire, same yearning to protect someone - that someone miek now knew was you - and it burned brighter than a hundred suns.

“last i saw her was thirty minutes ago on the shore with briel, my sister. i can take you to them if you would kindly not threaten to shoot me again. my name is miek, and i would say it was a pleasure to meet you both but then i’d be making myself a liar.” he had no idea where that bit of snark at the end came from but it seemed to sway the clones to his favor. why it did, he had no clue, but at least he wasn’t getting shot.

they walked silently for a few minutes, the two troopers beginning to slightly admire the view while keeping eyes on miek. it was a beautiful planet, there was no denying that. you were surely enjoying yourself in the sunshine, always finding a little bit of time to bask in the nature of whatever planet you ended up on during the war.

it was strange to cody, not feeling eyes on him as he walked with rex on the beach. when he would accompany general ke- obi-wan on trips to the temple or into the streets of coruscant, he constantly felt the eyes of many on him. they would be expressing curiosity, shock, disdain, or something in between, and cody could feel every bit of it. here, it seemed, no one cared that he was a clone. no one was leering at him for walking too close to them or for just breathing the same air as them. cody was blissfully able to blend with the people here and he loved it.

he was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when miek had come to a stop in front of a small cluster of reclinable chairs. a large umbrella provided the area with a patch of shade and a smidge of reprieve from the sun’s blistering heat.

“see? she’s perfectly fine.” miek’s voice broke their precious silence. “i’m assuming you both can find your own way back to your ship, so i’ll be headed off.” miek left them quite quickly and rex guessed (with a bit more amusement than was warranted) that it was because he nearly shot the man on more than one occasion minutes earlier.

“cody! rex! when did you two get here?”

a familiar voice drew their attention and it took them a second longer than it should have for them to realize that yes, you were the one lounging in front of them as if it’s all you’ve ever done in your life. you were extremely relaxed and your posture conveyed your state perfectly, two margaritas perched in loose hands, both half-empty. an ivory summer dress flowed loosely around you, the front hiked a bit too high for the men to keep their imaginations under control. that wasn’t even acknowledging the neckline of your dress (or lack thereof) that made their throats a bit dry and minds slip into the gutter.

rex and cody cleared their heads after indulging the images for a second, the latter clearing his throat before replying, “just a few minutes ago. you haven’t answered our comms in over a week. rex had the idea to come and visit to see how you were doing, so here we are.”

that was really sweet of them to check up on you, you thought with a smile. you felt a bit guilty about not answering their comms. normally you were careful to reply to theirs and every other message you received soon after getting it, but as stated earlier, time has become a social construct that didn’t really matter while on scarif. you gestured for them to sit, and they took the open chair to your left. they didn’t bother laying back, just sitting shoulder to shoulder in the same chair with their eyes on you.

offering them both half-drank margaritas was a subconscious action on your part that surprised you. what shocked you even more was the fact they accepted the drinks with soft, fond smiles. kriff you missed them, how you’ve been able to go this long without seeing them was beyond you.

you smiled warmly as you introduced your boys to briel, who was smirking a bit too widely than would be deemed safe (you didn’t notice this, seeing as you were too busy drinking in the sight of your boys and the way the sunlight made their eyes glow). her eyes drifted to your thighs as she put in very little effort to hide a laugh. dark clone trooper eyes decided to see what was so amusing to the togruta, and they choked on whatever words they were contemplating.

on your thighs were rex and cody, left and right respectively. or, more accurately, on your thighs were six-inch tattoos of rex and cody.

both men were in quite show-offy poses, appearing to have the intent to make them look like pin-ups. the lower half of their armor was equipped but they were shirtless, faint details of scars and sweat appearing to glisten in imaginary sunlight.

cody’s face was set in a smolder the likes of which would send half the women in the galaxy into puddles at the commander’s feet. his dc-15a was held aloft in his right hand while his left arm was holding his helmet in place in the crook of his hip. his left foot was stepping on a small heap of droids which brought his knee up a bit, and he was facing the inked rex on the opposite thigh.

rex’s wild smile could catch the soggiest piece of kindling alight with the allure and charm it held. his eyes were sparkling with a pleasant mirth not often seen in the man. both hands wielded his trusted dc-17’s, the right blaster pointed at the droids under cody’s foot while the left was pointed in the air, blaster bolts coming out of both. his helmet was under his right foot, jaig eyes almost peering into your soul and welding marks visible from his customization of the phase 2 helmet.

commander and captain are both beginning to flush at the art in front of them. they were flattered to see drawings of themselves look so dashing, and seeing it on your body roused feelings they had spent years repressing. their biggest question now was whether their likenesses on your body translated into something more on your end.

“nice to finally meet my friend’s muses,” briel quips, “it’s hard to get her to talk about something that isn’t you two when she’s plastered.” she pauses a moment, thinking of her next words and chuckling to herself. “she’s barely spent three consecutive days completely sober since she got here, which means that you two are almost all she talks about.”

this deepened the heat in their cheeks as you playfully swatted at briel’s shoulder. “that is not true!” a moment of silence. “wait, what day is it? that miiiight make a difference.”

rex chortles at the admission. “glad to see you enjoying yourself, cyare. but kix would be enraged to hear that you’ve been drinking nearly every day for two months, and we can’t exactly blame him.” he grinned as he took an experimental sip of the drink you gave him. it was stronger than he expected, but it had an underlying sweetness not often found in margaritas. he liked it.

sitting up, your dress covered your ink as you expertly drank from the margarita in cody’s hand while he still held it. the commander sent you a soft glare, wondering why you didn’t just get a new drink but enjoying the moment nonetheless. “kix shmix, his face isn’t on my thigh so i don’t really care what he has to say right now.” you lean toward cody and rex before whispering, “you didn’t bring him, did you?”

all three of them guffawed at the question, you joining their laughter solely because of how happy the joy radiating from your boys’ force signatures made you.

calling them your boys had become second nature after mere months of fighting beside them. you spent an inane amount of time with them during planning and actual combat, and were just as much their general as their actual generals were (despite you not carrying the honorific). any free time was spent with one or the other if available, but if they were both occupied you would make your way toward the barracks and join a few games of sabacc.

there were nights you’d spend in the barracks with either battalion (depends on which group you were assigned to at the time) and be welcomed there as if you were a fellow clone. they taught you to play sabacc and you enjoyed playing with them despite the fact you had the most rotten luck with the game.

winning didn’t carry any weight when you were able to spend time with rex and cody, shamelessly basking in the way they always seemed to have some sort of physical contact with you every moment possible. when rex and/or cody returned from whatever responsibilities held them earlier, the men were quick to relinquish them a seat next to you with a sly grin.

their vode noticed the affection shared for the jedi on sabacc night number two and didn’t hesitate to spread word of it around to the rest of their battalions and beyond. on the nights you accompanied them on trips to 79’s, men under rex and cody both (read: fives and boil) made sure that the rest of their brothers and the occasional civvie knew that you three were off-limits to anyone but each other. you were their jetti & they were your captain and commander, no one would get between that even if it wasn’t decided among those in question.

“nah, he’s kept his head in his work. he just got his civvie medical license, started his own private practice on naboo.” rex was extremely happy for his brother, although it was strange to not see him nearly every day. it took a while before he was used to the lack of vode around him at all moments, but cody has been a massive help with that transition.

cody nodded before adding onto his brother’s statement. “and besides, we’re not that cruel, cyar’ika.” you grinned at the endearing tone, choosing that moment to snag another drink from the glass in cody’s hand. he swatted at your hand gently but didn’t put up a fight otherwise, just smiling at how carefree you’d become.

during their comms you did sound at peace, and the times where you’d appear via hologram to him your posture was less rigid than it was during wartime. scarif was good for you, cody knew this. the knowledge of your happiness, however, couldn’t prevent selfish thoughts from returning to the front of his mind. thoughts of you leaving scarif with him and rex, lighting up their apartment better than the sun with nothing but a smile were pipe dreams he indulged in when nightmares of war caught up to him.

“y’know,” you began, “no one would ever tell me what that word really meant.” the men froze, trying to play it off. they were saved only by the fact you kept talking. “none of the men ever gave me a straight answer, just saying that it was something you say to someone you trusted. i even asked duchess satine about it when i was on mandalore. she asked who was using the word and when i told her it was you two, she just grinned like a tooka with a rat tail hanging from its mouth.”

duchess satine was most definitely going to be receiving a gift in the near future.

briel chose that moment to speak for the first time in a while, crossing her arms behind her head. “i’ve never been to mandalore nor heard a lick of what i’m guessing is its native language, but you’d have to be a fool to not guess its meaning by now.” her words were directed at you but they made the men sputter.

“what is that supposed to mean, brie?”

“seriously? please tell me you’re kidding.”

briel was absolutely incredulous. how could a member of the highly revered jedi order, known for the wisdom of its members, not read between the lines? they were giving her plenty to work with in terms of evidence of their affections that they weren’t hiding very well, how did you not know?!

silence followed her words and she came to the startling realization that you were, in fact, not kidding. “look at them, these two adore you! they followed you here like stray tookas when you didn’t comm them enough.” the men didn’t even bother looking offended as they were called out by the togruta. they were scared you’d be disgruntled at the blatant show of care for you but briel wasn’t done. “sithspit y/n, you got tattoos of them because you said you missed them so much!”

hold on, rewind, what did she just say?!

“you… missed us?” rex’s voice was softer than anyone had heard it be in a long time. part of him aches to throw his drink over his shoulder and take you into his arms with no regard to the outside world, yet he restrains himself. this could very well be a trap, an illusion or extremely detailed dream the likes of which he’s never experienced.

then again, how would that explain his mind creating a taste for something he’s never had before?

he concluded that this was indeed real, and he very well could do exactly as his heart desires if he let go for just a moment, just long enough for the contents of his glass to seep into the sand and his calloused hands to roam your exposed skin.

but he also remembers long talks with his ori’vod about their mutual affections for you. how selfish and uncaring it would be for him to try and keep you to himself after spending so many nights lamenting with cody about the way you made them both feel more human. the way you tethered them to sanity when the war threatened to dispose of what little control they had over themselves or their fates, the softness of your fingers intertwined with theirs whenever you had the chance. both men would contemplate the way you’d taste as you downed several shots at 79’s or cups of the contraband moonshine brewed by the men, wondering how much would be the alcohol and how much would be you and wishing that they could find out.

it would be a betrayal far greater and even more despicable than that of palpatine and the republic, and rex didn’t think he could handle losing the respect of his ori’vod no matter what was given in return. not even you.

the togruta woman officially lost the last speck of patience she held for the clueless, lovesick trio, groaning that she gave up as she left them to their own devices.

you were confused. why would you not miss them? did those years of fighting next to them and caring about them and loving them not translate to the idea of missing them when they were gone? yeah you were a little tipsy when you got your tattoos, but that didn’t change the facts as to why you got them: you wanted cody and rex by your side and moments spent without them were moments spent unhappy. they were your boys, the two reasons you kept fighting in that cursed war instead of returning to the temple with your tail between your legs at the first sign of combat.

cody downed his margarita with a solid gulp before taking your right hand in both of his, face twisted almost identically to his brother’s while processing the information you presented. he marveled in the familiar grooves and calluses from battle that were beginning to soften, thoroughly enjoying the fact he didn’t have to hide anything from you or the rest of the galaxy about the love - cody was sure now that this was indeed love - he held for you and you alone.

“is that true, cyar’ika?” cody’s voice was sickeningly hopeful. he’s never allowed himself to hope, knowing that diving too deep into desire could lead to consequences tantamount to death. hearing you stumble over your words as you admitted to loving him, loving him and rex both in the same capacity, cracked the last mask of stoicism he had in his reserves. his mouth was smiling but his eyes were wet, and anyone who didn’t know him would think the man was karking mad.

you weren’t as focused on your boys as you would have been any other moment, too busy trying to figure out what you said for cody to ask about and oh. holy shit, i said all of that out loud. then, a brief moment of clarity. i said every bit of that, but they’re not leaving. they’re instead moving closer, taking my hands in theirs and then- “have i ever lied to either of you?” your heart once again overpowered your brain, taking over your vocal chords and bringing voice to your thoughts.

rex nestled his glass into the sand before going to his knees in front of you, eyes sparkling from both the scarif sun and unshed tears. “you could never, ner’jetti.” he rested his chin on your knee not blocked by cody, his subconscious deciding to nuzzle his head into the hand that had come up to his face.

within seconds, the clunky armor had taken to the sand. they didn’t startle at the sudden exposure to just their bottom blacks because they could feel the soft humming of the force around them, knowing that it was merely you making them more comfortable. you were pulling them toward you and into your reclined chair, rex’s chin in one hand and cody’s hands in the other. they were quick to take a hint, immediately moving to either side of you to lay on their sides, facing their jetti with soft smiles.

rex made quick work of wrapping an arm around your waist, face burying itself into the crook of your neck as best he could. he inhaled your scent, the familiar ozone that came with the force mingling wonderfully with scarif’s ocean water and the tropical drinks you’ve been keeping yourself busy with.

cody tangled one hand into your hair, fingers softly moving as he rested his other arm slightly above his brother’s. the hand touching your waist softly stroked your side as he let his eyes drift closed, the force wrapped around him like a blanket of protection.

no one spoke of love in the hours you spent wrapped in each other’s arms in that uncomfortable-for-three-people chair. the admissions and conveyance of all the love held between the three of you was saved for the privacy of their ship. cody and rex worshiped you and you did the same for them, no one allowing there to be a single doubt as to where your hearts belong.

#star wars reader insert #star wars fanfic #star wars imagines #star wars the clone wars #star wars #captain rex #captain rex x reader #captain rex imagines #commander cody #commander cody x reader #commander cody imagine #captain rex x reader x commander cody #poly rex x reader x cody #commander cody x reader x captain rex #beach please #this is fluffy as hell #i refuse to ship him with qui-gon #ct-7567 #cc-2224

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jaskiersvalley · 4 years

Note

Ummmm so I am IN LOVE with your Geralt whump and it’s literally giving me life during this pandemic so like THANK YOU.

I come bearing more Geralt whump for you! Along with a side of angry Jaskier, some comfort and some fluff to boot. Hope you’re keeping safe and well in this pandemic!

Something wasn’t right about the contract. There shouldn’t have been a kikimora so deep into inhabited lands. For one, there weren’t any sufficiently murky bogs for the creature to actually live in. Then there was the issue of nobody having actually borne witness to it or encountered a tragedy with it. Not ever sheep were going missing. But, the advert was there on the noticeboard, calling for a witcher to deal with the creature. Money was low, Geralt and Jaskier couldn’t afford to be picky so the notice was plucked off the board and they made their way to the castle that had put out the contract.

There was far too much excitement in the courtyard at their approach. In fact, everyone seemed to spring into action as they were shown to the Great Hall.

“Witcher!” The count looked so pleased, he even smiled at Geralt. “We have a kikimora for you to kill. Do it well and we’ll even double the original pay.”

The amount of coin in question was more than Geralt would usually earn in half a year. All that for one single kikimora. Even more unusual, he and Jaskier were given a room, a comfortable one at that. They were to rest up and then go to the inner ward in the morning. The one request was that Geralt be ready to hunt straight from the meeting.

It was one of the best nights of sleep Geralt had ever had. The niggling feeling of something being off was so easy to ignore when Jaskier looked so happy. Food, bath, comfort as they both needed and rarely got to indulge in. In the morning, a servant intercepted them, apologetic as Geralt had ever seen anyone around a witcher and asked for Jaskier to accompany him.

“You’ve seen a kikimora a thousand times before, go,” Geralt said, urging Jaskier to go to his fans. A little longer in the laps of luxury while Geralt saw to the kikimora would be good for him. And at least he would be safe in the castle.

He was led to the doors to the inner ward and gestured through. Stepping out into daylight, the doors clanged shut behind him and he was out on the grounds, alone.

Meanwhile, Jaskier had been led through the castle, higher up and to the inner ramparts. They were crowded with nobility and rich merchants, all peering into the inner ward with excitement. A cheer went up and Jaskier was shown to a gap he could see from. Geralt had stepped into what could only be described as an arena from where Jaskier stood. It had been cleared of everything, a perfect battle ground. With a creak, the metal grates of a gate opened up at the far end of the inner ward and Jaskier watched as a kikimora lumbered out. He didn’t have to be a monster expert to know it was sickly, dried out and hungry. Obviously it had been kept in appalling conditions, for the sole purpose of entertainment for the upper echelons.

There was no choice for Geralt. It was kill or be killed. He draw a sword and walked up to the hissing, swaying creature. Jaskier knew Geralt, knew that there was going to be no theatrics, no show. In one deft step to the side and swing of his sword, the kikimora fell to the ground, head almost completely severed.

All the cheering stopped. The show and entertainment that had been anticipated was just a dream. Slowly, the ‘boos’ started and built into a raging, baying howl. They were going to have to leave and quickly. Jaskier pushed his way through the angry crowd and hurried back to their room, intent on packing up as hurriedly as he could. By the time Geralt was back, everything would be ready for travel.

It took longer for Geralt to return than anticipated and Jaskier was getting impatient. Finally, the door clicked quietly and Geralt stepped through, head bowed. A pouch of coin was thrown onto the bed without a word.

“Geralt!” Jaskier almost sighed his name in relief at seeing him. Silver hair hung in Geralt’s face but, as he moved, Jaskier swore he caught sight of eyes that weren’t their usual white and gold. It made no sense, there had been no need to take potions, especially not something like cat. In fact, Jaskier was quite sure they were low on potions and possibly didn’t even have any. “Geralt?”

When there was no response to his question, Jaskier reached out and gripped Geralt by the chin, turning his face to look at him. There were no potions at work and Jaskier gasped, hand reaching up to brush over the swollen, bruised skin. Geralt’s eye was red with burst vessels from where something had struck him.

“What the hell happened?” Jaskier asked, horrified. The kikimora hadn’t put up a fight, hadn’t even got beyond looking funny at Geralt before it died.

“Doesn’t matter. Got paid.” Geralt tried to step around Jaskier, doing his best to hide a limp. “Let’s go.”

There was no way they were going anywhere when Geralt was in such a state. Hands on hips, Jaskier pressed his lips into a firm line and watched as Geralt reached for a bag and his breath caught before he pushed through the pain.

“Put that down.” When Geralt refused to listen, Jaskier marched up to him. “You put that down this instant, get out of your armour and let me take a look. I need an inventory before I take me next step.”

In testament either to how much Geralt trusted him or how badly he was hurting, Geralt let the bag drop from his shoulder and let Jaskier help him out of his armour. Bruises, welts, skin split under strikes began to reveal themselves and Jaskier’s hands shook with rage.

“Fucking entitled bastards,” he cursed. A hand swept over bruised, likely cracked ribs. It looked like somehow had take a metal chain to Geralt and tried to whip it around him. “They’ll be so sorry they tried this ploy.”

He struggled to imagine what could have happened once he left. Whether the angry mob had swarmed the inner ward to take their fury out on Geralt. Or maybe Geralt had been summoned to the Great Hall and a select few of the count’s inner circle had been granted the alleged privilege. Though that would mean Geralt hadn’t fought back. Then again, this was Geralt, of course he wouldn’t have fought back. Probably had convinced himself he deserved it too.

Down to his smalls, Geralt let Jaskier do as he pleased, too tired to protest anything. Even when Jaskier gently bullied him into bed and told him to rest, meditate and take it easy.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. It wasn’t often that Jaskier openly wore a weapon but he pulled his sword from his pack and strapped it against his hip. Marching out, Jaskier set off on a warpath.

In less time than anticipated, he was back and was pleasantly surprised to see Geralt was exactly where he left him, eyes closed and seemingly at peace. It was all a ploy, Jaskier knew he wouldn’t relax, not when alone in a castle that hurt him so badly.

“We have three days here, everything is at our disposal. Nobody will bother us. Food, bath, creature comforts, I talk to someone and it will happen.”

Gingerly, Jaskier sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked through Geralt’s hair, holding back a wince when his eyes opened. One was still a deep, blood red, likely would be for a couple of days before Geralt healed. It was just as well they had a few days in a protected space. If the masses saw Geralt as he was, no doubt there would be more tall tales about witchers.

Softly, Jaskier began to hum, lulling Geralt to sleep.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” he promised, one hand on his sword’s hilt, the other in Geralt’s hair. The soft murmur Jaskier got in return could have been a ‘thanks’ or a hum of sceptical amusement, it didn’t matter. What was important was that Geralt got his rest and dignity.

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #geralt whump #the witcher #tldr: nobility as scum and trick geralt

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cno-inbminor · 4 years

Text

domus (epilogue)

a/n: alright, we’re trying this ONE more time before i give up for the week. seems like tumblr tags are having an issue! but anyways, some anons in the past asked for a sort of epilogue/bonus scenes so i wrote down a few as a birthday present to you all. thank you for all the love given over these months!! stay safe, healthy, hydrated and rested.

wc: ~2.4k // part of the domus universe

First date:

“Where are you taking me?” You ask with a grin creeping onto your face. Your eyes capture the blur of the buildings, accustomed to the warm hand laying on your thigh. The appendages squeeze your flesh in a teasing manner, causing you to look over at the man behind the steering wheel. There’s a ghost of a smirk gracing his complexion, and you imagine there’s a twinkle in his gaze behind his sunglasses.

“Do I have to remind you about what a ‘surprise’ means?” He replies and you want to smack him across the arm.

“It’s our first official date, and the only clue I have is the 2 bento boxes by my feet. Are we going on a picnic?”

“Not quite. Be patient,” Keiji playfully scolds, causing you to huff and pout for a bit.

You’re still only 70% sure when he shows off his parallel parking skills, turning the wheel with one hand and another on the back of your seat. It’s slightly concerning how much you miss his touch, but perhaps it’s somewhat resolved when he walks around the front to open your door and offer a hand. You place a wrapped bento in his free hand and grab the other one for yourself, letting him drag you for a block or two.

The surroundings become more and more familiar until you finally spot the large characters on the wall of the building. You send Keiji a curious look and he just sends you a soft smile, walking around the border, through some back alleyway that you didn’t realize existed, until you’re within the walls of your high school. The nostalgia crashes over you, almost having you feel out of place for not being in uniform. But minutes later, when Keiji whips a key out of nowhere and unlocks one of the many side entrances, leading you up the stairs, you find yourselves on the roof.

Zephyrs whip around your figures until Keiji tugs on your hand towards the direction of the wall, the slight overhang of the structure providing some shade and recluse from the sun. He sits against the concrete and dutifully unwraps the meal he so nicely made this time, and you can’t help but lean over and peck him on the cheek. It’s full of delight and unbridled affection, so much so that Keiji can’t fight the slight blush rushing to his cheeks.

You hum around the food in satisfaction (because of course, Keiji is also a decent cook, it’s not fair for someone to be so good at so many things!), munching for a few minutes before asking, “Why here of all places?”

Keiji’s eyebrows furrow somewhat before the wrinkles smooth out. “I’d always wanted to have a meal with you out here when we were still in high school – but there was never a good way or time to ask, and I didn’t want to weird you out.”

“I would’ve said yes, you know?”

“Now I do,” he chuckles. “Eat up, you’ve had a long week.”

Keiji takes you on a mini-tour of sorts, pointing out the classroom he was in and where he sat. He still remembered where Konoha’s desk was, and though Bokuto wasn’t in the same year, he could still tell you which seat was the ace’s. The two of you exchange more stories about your years here, calmly walking down the stairs until he takes you to the gym. The squeaking of sneakers and yells of teenage boys become louder and louder, but before Keiji can push back the flap of the door screen, you tug on his hand.

“Are we allowed? I feel like we’re intruding.”

“Coach knows I’m here – how else did you think I got a key?”

He brings you in before you can protest again, making sure to stay out of sight until there’s a quick water break. Only then does Keiji make his presence known, politely greeting his old coach and exchanging laughs and smiles. He makes sure to introduce you and you quickly bow, unable to contain the smile when Keiji regards you as his girlfriend. The coach makes some small indication that you seemed familiar, and then introducing Keiji to the team. Some of their eyes light up when they hear about him being the setter during the reign of Bokuto Kotarou. It’s endearing, watching your boyfriend meld back into an element of the past that he so fondly misses.

About ten minutes later, the two of you wave goodbye and leave the premises, but not before Keiji makes a cheeky suggestion to go back to his former senior classroom and make out on his old desk. You ignore the flare that ignites in your gut and attempt to hide your fluster with a roll of your eyes. Instead, he pulls you into a secluded corner and crowds over your, leaving you nowhere to run.

But when his lips meet yours and his hands grasp your waist, you can’t imagine having it any other way for a first date.

First night sleeping in bed together

It’s a bit of an accident, if you’re honest. Usually, you’re always able to make it back to your own apartment. But then after the movie was finished and you were two wine glasses in, the alcohol in combination with the shit Friday at work depleted you of all energy. Keiji, ever the doting boyfriend, picked up on your lethargy pretty quickly. He stands from the couch and merely smiles when you whine at the loss of body heat, and with little trouble, carries you bridal style to his bedroom.

“I can take the futon, mmk? He whispers as he makes room for your body, setting you down gently on his mattress. Memories stir of your impromptu visit two years ago as he tucks you in. Despite your best efforts, a wide yawn creeps past your lips as you snuggle into his pillow, letting his scent wash over you.

“Sleep with me,” you murmur, patting the empty space next to you. Keiji can’t help the flutter of his heartbeat at your invitation.

“Are you sure?”

“You’re being silly. We’re dating now, the futon is a no-no,” you sleepily chide. Keiji looks down at himself to make sure he’s wearing clothes that’s comfortable enough to sleep in, then at you for confirmation again. When you’re still wiggling your fingers on his grey sheets, he succumbs to his desires and slides underneath the layers.

Keiji lays on his side facing you, struggling to hear anything over the pounding in his ribcage. You have a hand bent up near your face and the other in front of your chest, quiet breaths leaving your body. He mimics your posture and returns the small grin you give him, brushing away the strands that look slightly displaced.

The calmness that eases into his chest is a feeling he’ll never get tired of. It’s exactly what he’s dreamed of experiencing for the last few years, the serenity in falling asleep next to the person you love. He feels incredibly lucky to be here, in this time, with you of all people. In fact, he hadn’t felt that tired earlier, but exhaustion was quickly approaching him. Before Keiji can fully pass out, he makes sure to intertwine his fingers with your free, upturned ones, squeezing slightly as a gesture of affection.

And when you tighten yours in reply, Keiji closes his eyes in peace.

When Keiji confesses just how long he’s been in love with you

Your first year dating with Keiji simply flies by, and it feels like time won’t slow down soon. Initially he wanted to take you to some fancy sushi restaurant for your anniversary, but when you showed up at his apartment the night before listing all the ways your interim manager was being completely asinine, he figured you just needed something a little more comfortable and calming the next day. So he settles for taking you to your favorite ramen restaurant, the same one he ordered from for you three years ago. It’s small yet intimate – after all, you’re more than wise to understand the significance of this establishment and what it means for the two of you.

You’re quiet on the way home, a little too quiet if Keiji is being honest. Even though you’re just looking ahead of you, there’s a faraway, pensive curtain over your gaze. You’re not holding his hand as tightly as you usually do, and Keiji’s worried that he did something wrong. Maybe he was supposed to take you somewhere nicer, pamper you like the royalty you are, buy roses, gift some jewelry—

“Do you want some ice cream, Keiji?” You ask, ripping him from his mental spiral and pointing a thumb at an ice cream stand.

“Sure,” he nods, and to his dismay, when he fishes out the correct bills, you’ve already ordered and paid.

“Don’t give me that look,” you gently scold after thanking the worker and handing him his cup. “You paid for dinner.”

“It’s our anniversary, I should be paying for everything.”

“Not because you want to?”

“I want to as well, but—”

“And I wanted to pay for the ice cream, Keiji,” you chuckle, proving your point. “I appreciate the gesture though. Come on, there’s a park over there. Let’s go sit at the bench.”

It’s easy to fall into the small talk again, though you seem to think about your answers more. There’s a weight to your words, a carefulness that seems foreign to how candid you usually are with him. The worry returns and sneaks through his veins – he wants nothing more than to just blurt it out, but that’s pushing you and he shouldn’t do that—

“Keiji, you’ll be honest with me, right? You’ll tell me the truth no matter what?” You inquire abruptly, voice timid and hesitant.

Keiji shifts his body to face you better, ready to give you his full attention. Your questions alarm him a little though. “Of course.”

“Okay,” you say, chewing your bottom lip. “Are…areyoutiredofmeyet?”

As soon as the words are rushed out, you’re looking at anything but him. It’s impossible to hide from his stare of disbelief. Things just have been going so well, you couldn’t help the insecurity that was becoming known again. Yes, you’ve healed from the events of breaking up with Kuroo – but that didn’t mean there was a big, glaring scar across the heart on your sleeve. In times like these, it sucked the light out of you and you just needed some validation.

“Look at me,” he gently prods. You’re defiant, shaking your head. But as you always do, you surrender to his touch, succumbing to the pressure that of his hand against your cheek. It’s soft in its cradle, his thumb tenderly caressing over your cheekbone.

“What makes you think that I’m getting tired of you?”

When you show signs of defiance, Keiji leans in closer until his forehead rests against yours, but remains quiet. He wants to give you time, but also let you know that an answer is imperative.

“It’s…nothing specific, really. Just some lingering fear,” you mutter and wring your hands. “It’s happened before, so I guess I wanna make sure that I don’t mess up again or something.”

He shakes his head, mentally listing all the ways he can make you feel more secure in this relationship as time goes on. Keiji figured this was going to happen at some point, but he’d rather it didn’t. The last thing he wanted you to ever think was that he didn’t love you enough – even after all these years, he only feels that his love has reached immeasurable amounts, and it still continues to grow every day.

“I’ve loved you all these years, and I feel like that at the end, we still haven’t spent enough time together. I don’t think you realize how much I want eternity with you,” he whispers, fingers moving to brush your hair away. “You’re everything I want, and I can’t imagine this with anyone else.”

A watery chuckle leaves you. “You’ve really picked up some flowery language from work, haven’t you?”

“The shoujo manga department is just down the hall, I guess I’m bound to pick up something,” he jokes back. “Doesn’t detract from the fact that I mean every word though.”

“…I’m gonna seek validation, alright? It’s inevitable.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m gonna ask you things like, ‘Do you love me?’ or ‘Are you bored of me?’, and I’ll just need a yes or no most times.”

“Well, I’m hoping that I’ll be good enough so that you won’t even have to ask. But okay, I can do that.”

You surge forward and wrap him in your arms. “Thank you, Keiji.”

“Of course. You ready to head back?”

You let him drag you up by the hand, nodding in affirmation. Things are comfortably serene for the first few minutes – Keiji notices that your eyes seem more alive and brighter, a definite contrast to what they were before. But you’re gnawing on your bottom lip again, what’s on your mind now?

“So…um, what was that thing about loving me for years?” Math might’ve not been your strong suit, but you’ve only been together for a year and years is clearly plural…

“Ah, I guess I can’t hide it anymore,” Keiji sighs, though it’s more lighthearted than anything. “I started liking you my first year of high school, and then realized I might love you sometime during my third year. Hasn’t changed since.”

“…so even in the years when I was dating Tetsurou?”

His smile morphs into something gentler and more bittersweet. “More subdued since I accepted we might never be anything more than friends, but then everything happened and you unexpectedly called me to ask if I had dinner yet…I didn’t want to sway you in your decision, but I just wanted to show how much I’ve treasured you all this time, nothing more.”

“Sorry for making you wait,” you apologize with a pout and a squeeze of his hand.

“You don’t need to apologize – I consider it more to be lucky than anything. Incredibly, ridiculously, unnervingly lucky.”

“Well, I hope we have more lucky years ahead of us.”

#akaashi keiji #akaashi x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #akaashi fluff #haikyuu fluff #akaashi x you #akaashi x y/n #hq #edit: OH FINALLY tags

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spield · 4 years

Text

the sun and the moons - decades after

Notes: This is probably (most likely) isn’t what people expect when they asked for a suns and the moons sequel/follow-up for the infinite universes anthology. But this has been in my drafts ever since Naruto got sick in the first one. Summary: Sakura’s life with the Uchiha family is a storied one, but we must remember that she loved Naruto first, as he had loved her. And in his deathbed, he requests to see her.

Long, long after, Naruto’s the one who departs the world of the living first.

As Sakura steps into the main house of the Senju, she tries to recall a time passed. The old house remains unchanged, its floors polished clean even as grief seeps into its planks, leaking from the room where Naruto’s life force flickers.

Who would’ve thought they’d get here?

Here, with Sakura, old, with her bones creaking and eyes milky green? Her back bent but not wavering, covered by the crest of this house’s old rival?

At a distance, she hears the sobs of little ones, mourning. Mourning, in a time of peace. That alone is a privilege, she thinks, one that she and Naruto paid - kicked, fought, and broke their hearts- for. And will pay again and again if asked.

“Sakura-chan.”

Hinata’s soft voice rings true like bells as she steps out of her husband’s room. She, too, is older. Still beautiful, with her fading raven hair and kind eyes. At her side is a cane, she’s never fully recovered from her last childbirth no matter how hard Sakura tried.

Here, away from the sun and the moon, only the lanterns paint and touch the two women of Naruto’s life. From the East, his childhood love stands and in the West, his wife of six decades.

When Hinata wrote Sakura, saying that Naruto asks of her, she almost said no, knowing the pain the woman must be in learning that in her husband’s time of death - he asks for another?

What of their years together? What of their children?

But, oh, the rose-tinted glasses of an old loss can blind even the most reverent of men. And so, Sakura came. (because, she also knows the desire, the desperation, to give someone she loves everything on their death bed — Itachi asked for an illusion, Madara asked for a goodbye— she can’t bear the thought of wondering what Shisui and Sasuke will ask of her. Her soul might just fly if they ever leave her. Her moons, her loves.)

Hinata steps aside and her voice breaks, “He asks for you.”

When Sakura thought about death in her younger years, she always envisioned a fall in battle. It was a time of war, that is to say, it was also a time of grandeur, bravery, and spinning of legends. She always thought it’d be with Naruto.

He and her, protecting the Senju down to their very last breath.

In these thoughts, Naruto always goes last. Seeing Sakura to her crossing, arms around her broken body, bright blue eyes against the blue, blue sky. His smile, strained, promising to follow soon after.

It’s morbid, but it’s all the romanticism they allowed themselves then.

But then, here they are.

The only thing that remains true from those thoughts are Naruto’s eyes, still. Blue, blue as the oceans and as bright as his heart. His sun-lit hair is pale against his pillows, and yet, so, so, bright still.

“Sakura-chan,” he calls, squinting in her direction.

Across him, Sakura steps closer, her feet not as light and quick as in their youth. Much of it spent chasing children and grandchildren she never thought she’d have.

Soon, she reaches his side and takes his withered hand. “Hello, Naruto.”

Naruto smiles, deep lines of grief and happiness etched on his face and for a moment, they are young again. All the pain and responsibilities off their backs like water against a duck’s. “How are you?”

It startles a laugh from Sakura, the very unimportant question of her well-being. “Old. Old and tired,” she laughs, “Why make me take this trip, you idiot.”

The question hangs like Hinata’s cloaked chakra outside the paper thin walls. Away, but not quite. Not even the most selfless of love can drag her away from this. Not even when it hurts.

“I can’t leave without saying goodbye,” Naruto whispers, “And we have so many stories we haven’t told.”

This, this is not a last confession. Nor is it a time for whispered regrets. In the light of the candles understands what this is. A conversation, a goodbye. A last catch-up with a dear friend, and this makes emotion ball up in her throat that all she could do is nod.

For hours, she makes herself comfortable on a cushion beside her old love’s bed and they talk.

They talk not of their past together, but of the lives they built apart. They skip the politics, the clans, the responsibilities, and speak of things they would’ve spoke of if they’d remained close.

Naruto confesses how he fell in love with is wife - “by the moon, Naruto, really?” “Hinata thought it was romantic!” - and he asks how she fell in love with hers - “fire-blown glass? that’s... romantic, I guess?” “oh, shut up, Naruto, Sasuke worked hard on it.” “yeah, sure, can’t imagine him blowing up smoke up--” - and so much more.

Sakura could feel the bijuu’s chakra leaking out of Naruto, volatile and poisonous, as the night deepens. But Naruto pushes it back with a wince, buying himself more time. He turns incredibly cheeky as the candles burn through.

“You’re daughter, Sarada...”

Sakura rolls her eyes, “Yes, what about my lovely daughter?”

Naruto smiles, eyes warmed with fondness. “Boruto’s fond of her. Seems like an Uzumaki trait, huh?”

Something rattles in Sakura’s lungs as she laughs, chuckles at the image painted by her old friend.

Boruto might be his father’s carbon copy, but he doesn’t have his flair for honest, earnest conversations. He might have a great deal of a harder time winning her daughter’s heart, but he could - if Sakura’s right about Sarada’s eyes.

(now, if only her husbands will stop glaring at the poor boy...)

“So it seems.”

Naruto sighs, sinks back to his pillows with a pondering smiles. His voice is raspy from use, quality brittle, the exhaustion catching up to him. “Who would’ve thought?”

Beside him, on his bedside table is a photo of his family. He and Hinata only had two, despite of trying for more. Boruto, with his eyes as blue as his father’s and hair as gold as the sun, and Himawari, with her mother’s hair and her mother’s eyes with a hurricane for a heart.

In another life, they could’ve been hers. Theirs.

But as Sakura holds his hand, eyes tracing the lines on his face, she finds not an ounce of regret.

Good. Because it has no place here. No space for if’s and if only’s, or promises for a second life. No. They won’t insult themselves and the people they love for it.

Finally, as she feels his control waver, and eyes wandering, she lets go, and stands, her old bones creaking audibly.

“Were you happy?” Naruto asks, old, wiser, and still so, so kind.

Sakura smiles, “Were you?”

Naruto falls back to his pillows with a smile, his eyes flickering to the door where Hinata’s shadow stands unwavering, “I am.”

This time, when Sakura walks out of the door, she doesn’t weep.

Hinata looks up at the opening of the shoji door, protest ready to spill from her lips. The jutsu wavers, and her ears ring with the songs of cicadas. She didn’t want to intrude, perhaps, but it’s more of she didn’t want to hear.

Sakura stands beside her kneeling figure and sighs, sinking to her knees.

The two hold hands in solidarity as they feel the man they love, albeit in different ways, and whispers words of gratitude. Sakura, for letting her see him again, and Hinata for granting him this wish.

But, as Sakura stands up and pushes away Hinata’s surprisingly strong hands that beg for her to stay with her husband, she hopes that the matriarch understands and remembers that at the end it is this:

Sakura may be Naruto’s first love, maybe his greatest love, but it wasn’t her he spent his life with.

It was her, Hinata, who spent decades by his side, ruling the clan with dignity and grace. It was Hinata who saw him transformed into a boy-leader into a man, it was Hinata who bore him children, who love him—

It was Hinata who stayed.

It was Hinata he built a life with.

At the end of all things, it’s her he loved the longest and it’s her he wants on his deathbed.

Sakura understands that, and with the way flowers bloom on her fellow kunoichi’s cheeks as she enters her husband’s room again, Hinata also do.

“Are you ready to go?”, her youngest husband asks when she steps out of the gates. Behind him, Shisui waits in a carriage, their third son sitting in front.

With the bright lights of the Senju compound behind her, Sakura nods and takes Sasuke’s hand, “Yes. Let’s go home.”

End Notes: Hearts are golden but reblogs and comments will be much more appreciated!

#infinite universes #the sun and the moons #decades after #uchisaku #narusaku #naruhina #older characters #mentioned death of Madara #mentioned death of Itachi #Sasusaku #Shisuisaku

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commander-orca · 3 years

Text

Wait for me — children of the whales fanfiction

Tags: Rochalizo x Suoh, Suoh x Rochalizo, Parrot Soul, Princeshipping, fluff, a teaspoon of angst, jealousy, repressed desires, forbidden relationship, healthy dynamics, look at them they love each other so much, mention of friends to lovers, lovers to established

Walking away from the plight of the heavy sun to go through the dark, pleasantly quiet corridor felt, as Suoh went down the plainly carved stone stairs, much like a tranquil descent to a new, underground world. A world which for a few moments did not belong to the Mud Whale and made who he was slip his mind, freed of roles and of everything. Almost an indistinguishable relief alongside the long passageway of adjacent dwellings, the door to their little house had been left ajar. Only this door invoked in him feelings of calmness; which was new, as it had not always been the case with his coming home late at night, his muscles sore, head still full of the daily tasks and no joyous inconvenience to come and stop those thoughts from running. He was glad that had come to change. No, he thought to himself, eyes catching the loveliest sight of the day, he felt beyond grateful. Peeking through the small gap, he could see the small silhouette of a boy who sat on the one-sized bed, his back turned. He lay there quietly, slightly bent forwar and so focused, Suoh imagined fondly he was reading.

His hair hung forward loose, nonchalantly and his tight black long-sleeved shirt had lifted up to his backbone, baring his lumbars. This was also hard to spot but he could make out, in the dim bistre light of the bedroom which reflected the muffled clarity escaping the window through the thin brown curtains, the streak of sand which stuck to the upper half of his high baggy pants. Suoh kept watching for a little while more, almost upset that he would have to disturb this scene of utter domestical delight. He wanted to stay forever and watch him just be, breathing unawarely and enjoying his peace, his defensive walls low and no one to impress nor to fight against. He couldn’t figure exactly what it was about this monotonous sight which was so touching and made his heart throb a little in his chest, but it was at times like these where he acknowledged his luck the most and contemplated how the past hardships and terrors had in the end been worth paying the price. Trailing eyes a last time on Rochalizo’s precious back, he announced himself by pushing the door open and uttering a single:

“Hello!”

Before he even talked, Rochalizo turned around swiftly, mildly panicked. It seemed Suoh had assumed wrong as a pen dropped from his hand and he rushed to cover a piece of paper.

“You- You’re back already!”, he blurted out in embarrassement, cheeks red.

Suoh, who had already moved to the entrance’s cupboard and was hanging his apron on a hanger, stopped in track, returning a curious look.

“Were you busy...? Do you want me to come back later?”

“No no, I wasn’t, I wasn’t”, protested the other, a bit awkwardly as he shoved the piece of paper and pen in his large pants’ pockets.

Rochalizo looped around on the bed until he was facing him. Suoh noticed he had little ink spots on his face, just under the two loveable moles.

“Are you dumb?”, said the other, still a bit bewildered, “This is your house, I can’t throw you out. Nonsense, Suoh!”

The young chief chuckled, removing his coat on hanging it on another hanger. The door craked as he closed it and creaked again as he locked it, so that it wouldn’t reopen on itself.

“I know! I just think it’s nice to enjoy some intimacy alone. From time to time, even our own spaces don’t feel like the ideal place and there are too few in my opinion to only allow people to be themselves in those same spaces”.

Rochalizo didn’t reply immediately, reflecting on the words. Then, he sighed, shrugging as he lay back on the bed headboard. Cracking a match, he lit up a few candles.

“You don’t have to give a deep meaning to everything, y’know. Anyway, how was it? We didn’t meet at all today”.

Smiling all the while, Suoh arranged the flower pots he had brought back from the infirmary, kneeled to pick up the water can stocked in the corner of the room and proceeded to water the plants. The heat had been barely tolerable for humans, as it had been for them; the plants drank the entirety of the container until their thirst reached satietion. He was finding it hard to reply; the words were snarling in his mind and his limp mouth hardly followed.

“I am exhausted”, Suoh admitted, gratting his fingers on the desk, his back facing Rochalizo.

He felt often uneasy avowing to his tiredness. His efforts didn’t have much of an impact and he systematically came back with the feeling he could have done more.

“What about you? I thought you were helping with the festivities tonight?”

“Yes, I was supposed to, however...”

His face took on another few shades of red and he struggled a moment to find his words, in vain, which led him to renounce.

“Although you say you are exhausted, you’re still up on your feet”, bluntly remarked Rochalizo, but he added then, in a softer tone, patting the empty space on the bed besides him, “Come here. Let me take care of you”.

The moment these words were uttered, the young chief felt a wave of relief and relaxation travel through his body. He turned around and smiled. He didn’t need much to wind down and ease his hurting body and mind. And despite his personal motto which consisted of enjoying the present moment as much as possible, he had found himself awaiting for this moment all day. Carefully settling on the bed, Suoh watched as he started putting weight on the mattress and caused Rochalizo to slip a little closer to him. Comfortably sat, he peered at the short distance between them.

The thought of placing his head on his shoulder crossed his mind, and as they had often done so these days, it wasn’t much of a bold thing anymore. The candlelights flickered, illuminating the nearest objects in a halo and left all other places in the almost darkness. Being still in the dark made Suoh feel like he wanted to be closer and so, he was about to act on his wish, but Rochalizo was faster. He suddenly felt this warm and most welcomed load on his shoulder. It wasn’t him uniquely pressing his cheek, it was him falling back with his cheek and jawline and upper neck and with such good faith, trusting Suoh enough to bear the heaviness.

Suoh’s heart jumped happily and kept pounding fast nonetheless a long while afterwards. In this position, he earned a closeup of the Prince’s thick blond and ginger eyelashes which tremulated faintly as he breathed. Suoh’s head fell on top of Rochalizo’s, his nose buried in the thin mass of hair. His scalp felt warm and soft and seemed like an inevitable invitation to sound sleep. Grasping gently Rochalizo’s opposite hand in his, he brought it about a few inches down his own opposite shoulder, making the Prince turn from the side until the top of his chest was touching half of his. Rochalizo warpped his arms around him tightly and emitted a small sound. In this atmosphere, the troubles of the day melted away. It was only them, entangled into each other’s embrace and breathing the soft scent of their hairs.

These displays of affection were in no way inherently romantic, as they were merely relying on each other to regain the lost energy throughtout the day. But somehow, Suoh wished that they were and were that only. Romantic. Rochalizo’s friendship was eternally precious to him and in no way he desired risking altering it in any fashion. He would not bear to lose it for the sake of love and attraction. But that was straying far from the point, for there was little need to worry about this; that love was reciprocated.

He had known from the day they were, just them two, studying maps in the deserted meeting room, which ambiance that night, felt close to the one they were in right now; candles on desks, tables and on the floor surrounding them, an almost complete obscurity. But what made tonight different was the special guest which had added on this special night: wine. A full jar of wine disposed between the two as they faced each other. Suoh’s first time drinking it. The first sips had tasted bitter and too rich, but despite being in good company, the matters at hand could get tiresome as well as convoluted and so, he had drank more each passing minute, accompanying the Prince in the premices of drunken eloquence and joy. Spread out on the pavement, the space between them had grown thinr and thiner, until even the wine jar had been tossed aside and they were chatting about everything but maps, in drunken silliness.

Those were the days Suoh remembered thinking highly of the Prince, admitting easily that he was a really pretty person and whose odd temper quick to anger, his straightforward words and kindness he hid behind pretend-mercy were traits he actually appreciated or found amusing. And amusing Rochalizo was too, which had led them to get closer, regardless of their numerous interactions due to both their political positions. Because they simply liked being around each other and because Suoh lacked opportunities to laugh and that meant he had felt good in his presence.

And so, from then, everything had speeded up. The wine, the jokes and how they leaned in into each other to laugh, the playful teasings, the brave compliments which made you feel warm in your body and that physical promiscuity which had you gazing at their lips or noticing eyes looking a little too low on your face, everything had guided to the foreseeable unfolding of them kissing. The important percentage of alcohol they were under had prevented things from going any further and had certainly collapsed at some point since it was how they had woken up.

But Suoh had had to tell the cruel truth; he couldn’t be Rochalizo’s lover. The law which conducted the leader of the Mud Whale’s personal life were strict. The dire incidents which had occured in the distant past had been caused by a few determined factors: a lack of monitoring of the chief’s powers and left unchecked, their strong temper and arrogance, bonds too close with their family and finally, the disturbance of a lover who had come between the leader and its responsabilities.

The kiss they had shared had not meant nothing and Suoh had been made well aware of that as he had looked into Rochalizo’s eyes, accidentally - according to the Prince - filled with tears. The view had brought Suoh close to crying too. This, as he had realised had been the first time he had wished something deeply for himself and the more he had looked, the more he had felt his previous convictions on the verge of crumbling down. He had never really questioned the laws, thinking the perennity of their people came first. Each reconsidering of the laws hurt. For a moment, he had forgotten who he was and to whom his loyalty went. His desire to go against the rules had clashed so hard with his desire to protect his people his mind hurt as if both feelings fought with nails and teeth.

Rochalizo’s pride hadn’t allowed him to be shedding tears, therefore anger had taken over. He had shouted at Suoh, bared his fists at him, insulted him. In those terrible words, he had said Suoh had been playing him and ultimately had fulfilled his desire to mock and ridicule him, along with the rest of that cursed ship. Suoh had seen through his anger; it was obvious, they were both in pain and striving to find a way to cope with the sadness. They had calmed down and apologised but the emptiness remained. Eventually, Suoh had told him:

“We are not a cursed boat. We are only wary of the mistakes of our kin. But since the Empire’s attacks, our rules have softened or have changed. A new era has come for the Mud Whale and when we’ll settle in new lands, I will pass the title of leader to Ohni. I don’t think I’ll be suited anymore”.

“I thought you weren’t serious”, had replied Rochalizo, afraid to hope.

Suoh hadn’t answered that question but the look in his eyes was so solemn, the Prince understood it was futile to mistrust those words. He had shaken and Suoh had reached out to take both his hands in his.

“Wait for me”, he had said.

And that had been the last of their talk.

Had they not been on the brink of finding a new home, lands which would reshape the whole system they had adhered to until now, the young leader would have yielded to despair. However, they were moving at a fast space, navigating towards unhabited islands. This was why he was wiling to wait. This was how he was able to wake up in the morning and hope and greet Rochalizo naturally. Of course, he got excited, imagining the life of his people in the new lands and prayed that for their sake, they would all arrive very soon. But he had never had a personal hope to look forward to and the perspective was exhilarating.

Frank with himself, because at some point of another you needed to be, Suoh felt at times like he wasn’t in position to complain about his situation. His people loved him and he loved them and asking for more could be seen as borderline selfish and greedy, at least, how he saw it. Also, Rochalizo and him and known each other for several months, a period of time which was little compared to the separation or impossibilties for certain lovers to be together.

It was surely only puppy love, and teenagers’ hearts changed so fast and yearned for many others in a short timeframe. And yet to dismiss it so rationaly and harshly would have bee wrong; Suoh couldn’t help advocating in favour of this idea. The idea that, in spite of this love being “puppy love”, as some liked to call it, it couldn’t be reduced to to this only. It could never encompass the variety of feelings and affections he felt. And even so, if it really was just that, - because who knows, there too few chances of this being last and true love (considering the right and true kind of love could be found in only one person) - couldn’t he also get the chance to experience love, as silly and as immature as it could turn out to be?

He deemed this as a just judgement. However if the day they landed never came, there was no knowing as to how he would act... He preferred to avoid that thought for the time being.

And as for now... They were still waiting.

Rochalizo’s faint voice crept up to his ear, warm and meek.

“Your skin smells good...”

Suoh’s grin lightened up his entire face and he positioned more comfortably against the pillows, laying down a little more backwards, bringing the Prince along.

“You too... You smell like clementines and honey”.

He could feel him smile against his skin which made Suoh even happier. Silence fell back on the room again and they stayed in each other’s arms, eyes closed, content. After some time, his neck a bit sore from the position, Suoh lowered his head away from the Prince and crashed on the pillow. Rochalizo shifted and replaced his head on Suoh’s chest as Suoh’s arms wrapped gently but narrowly around his middle. A few minutes later, they shifted again, Rochalizo climbing up the other’s body and as he moved, Suoh stared at him longingly.

To be this beautiful... That couldn’t possibly be a human sight.

Next thing, he was leaning in and peppering a few kisses on his cheeks. Rochalizo jumped a bit, but did not retreat; his cheeks aflamed, lowered down his face, allowing a wider access. The Prince bit his lips, probably thinking that if “this” felt pleasurable, so much more could feel heavenly. Could... A snarky smile carved his lips.

“Say Suoh, kissing like this, that’s a weird way to be friends, don’t you think?”

That comment earned a giggle from the young chief. His fingers brushed against a strand of a ginger strand of hair behind his ear.

“That would be okay, since I already do those things with a lot of other friends”, he said, half teasing, half stating, leaving his remark open for interpretation.

“Take that back!”, vociferated Rochalizo, obviously taking this as teasing and he rushed to give him kicks in the stomach with his knee.

Wailing in pain, Suoh raised his own as well as his hands in an attempt to protect his assailed stomach.

“Ouch... Ah... Please stop, I take it back... I take it back!”

Rochalizo grined and, making sure he hadn’t really hurt Suoh - he was right to check in, he could be pretty sensitive - he lay down again to give him a hug. Suoh’s hand found his way to his hair and began stroking it slowly. Curling the hair through his fingers, he was reminded of the times he thought his hair was naturally this curly. Arosing again, Rochalizo’s voice sounded suddenly a lot more troubled.

“I know you already do all this with the others but... There’s a difference... Isn’t it? We do those things with another kind of intent... Don’t we?”

“Undeniably”, assured Suoh, holding him a bit more tighter.

He knew that was a topic that had often been brought on the table, for they had different perspectives on what it meant to be friends and where to draw the line between those and lovers. Suoh’s upfront affections resulted in his borders being looser than Rochalizo’s whereas the latter preferably saved most of his gentle touches for lovers, enforcing a clear division. This rarely manifested in fights, but rather in the form of jealousy. Not much could be done to counteract it, except giving reassurance and affection.

“It IS different. I am crazy about you. And tired of waiting too for the simple joy of kissing you in public”, he confessed.

The covers were clenched around them as Rochalizo hid his face under them, overwhelmed by embarrassement. A muffled sound emerged which sounded much like “how can you say things like that that easily”. Suoh smiled, but he rapidly added, more gravely.

“I’m sorry, it would’ve been best for you if I had been born in Amonlogia”.

Emerging from the sheets, the scarlet red face of the Prince, crushed between his cerulean fingers looked as though he was about to go a little bonkers. The long soft groan he was uttering was enough proof. Moving his head up to the ceiling as his fingers squashed their way down his face, he sighed, trying to regain his composure, stil trying to recover from the tenderness of this small speech.

“L-Look, I think you should be just a tiny bit ashamed of what you gab about sometimes, alright? In- In any case, I... What are you saying? I wouldn’t want you to be from Amonlogia! At all!”

Kneeling next to Suoh’s head and forcing their eye contact, he grasped the tip of the other’s chin and locked eyes with him. The threat in his gaze was subtle, it blended together with strong feelings of love, fear and sadness. Suoh’s breath hitched.

“It is because you are not from this damned place that I like you”

They had uttered those words before, but never as passionately as the context in this moment implied they were. Suoh’s gaze filled with immediate steadfast affection. Rochalizo’s voice trembled.

“Who knows who you could have turned out to be, in this country of mine? Your morals, your kindness, I... Everything... You must not wish to be someone else or to have been from elsewhere. This island and you... You and this island, you feed on each other’s benevolence, blossom when you can exchange acts of charity. I understand that both of you are tied to each other and that I can’t enjoy the sight of one without thanking the other. It is because you are from here, that you have lived peacefully here... That you are... Well... I think you are fine that way”.

Suoh did not know when he had began to smile but he could not stop. Rochalizo was right. The character of unfairness that was of the rules was a heavy burden to bear, but if it meant they had found each other and lived according to healthy values, it could not be so bad. However, he didn’t quite understand anymore if the point of his rhetoric was to alleviate the pain of the Mud Whale’s regulation or if he was simply praising him. He was too tired to ponder either way and not able to keep the conversation going but, went through the care of signifying how powerfully he felt the same with a look.

As the young chief was gradually dozing off, Rochalizo’s voice filled the silence once again at some point.

“You know I believe in what I just said, but on the other hand... Isn’t it hilarious how I’m the biggest danger to your people now?”

The mention of danger combined with the topic of his people was enough to get Suoh to focus a little more.

“I’m a bit proud of that, if I must say”, carried on Rochalizo’s voice, helding palavers arrogantly, “I’m immensely powerful. Just us walking as lovers could apparently turn you mad and, done in a snap, you’d mess up the whole political system and forget your people even exist! Just because of me!”

The other shook his head, a small laugh coming out of his sigh. Such senselessness and a joke a bit too dark for his taste. But nonetheless, he didn’t reproached it to the other. And how it had been described was a bit entertaining.

“I know... That rule isn’t right, it’s only bound to make leaders transgress it... But...”, he added, “I’m glad you’re my little chaos enabler!”

Rochalizo’s expression turned even more presumptuous.

“Chaos enabler will suffice”.

“But you still are a bit small”.

The Prince growled, offended. His hands slipped to Suoh’s belly in order to tickle him to death.

“Not as small as your monkey-brain!”, he exclaimed, as an evilly satisfied smile stretched his lips, hearing Suoh begging for him to stop between bits of laughter.

Getting his steady breathing back, the young chief hid his face an instant behind the back of his hand, relaxing a moment, burrowed into the thick pillow up to his ears. Through the fabric, he heard Rochalizo’s voice keep the conversation.

“Don’t you think it’s strange though, this sort of abstinence they make you and made the previous mayors go through?”

While Suoh loved Rochalizo’s talks and thought he often made very good points, he still hoped to get some rest somehow. Perhaps a few more chats and he would ask for him to let him sleep, albeit he could not pretend not to be interested. Especially since those matters affected them as a pair. Furthermore, yes, undoubtedly most of these were jokes, however he knew the Prince find it difficult to speak plainly and instead, was far likelier to turn to backdoor policies.

“It is similar to those stories of people being restrained by forbidden love... The issue about this is that they are made total strangers to themselves by society and hate what they are supposed to love while also fearing it. And they can’t talk about it. It becomes a taboo and it kills them from the inside. They even get scared touching others, as if they’d become incontrollable”.

Suoh nodded, approving with virulence.

“I don’t like those stories. Keeping things silent doesn’t solve anything - if it doesn’t exacerbate the issue in the first place. Don’t fret, we are still going to talk about it. And we can still touch. I’m not afraid of any of us...”

Rochalizo simply smiled, although he now looked all the most embarrassed after spending just a few seconds deep in thoughts.

“B-by abstinence what I meant was... U-um, not just... Intercourse. I was including many other things! I’d just like to kiss and... Have others know”.

“Of course, but that would be okay, we are teenagers after all,”, Suoh replied, chuckling.

-Do you think they know?

-It’s hard to keep a secret here, but...

-Oh I know, you all are filthy town-gossipers...

-They possibly have light suspicions, but I don’t suppose so”, mumbled the other, as he couldn’t refrain a huge yawn.

They spent another few minutes not talking. Rochalizo now lay back on top of Suoh’s chest. Apart from the candles, whose flames had devoured a fairly good portion of the wax, there wasn’t a single other light outside. Nightime encompassed the Mud Whale, pitch black and not a single star visible through the mass of dark clouds. But most shocking was this silence, so defeaningly profound. To Rochalizo’s heart, it felt quite lonely and unconsciously omnious, accustomed as he was to the noise and the traffic flow of his urban hometown. But it was also in a sense, soothingly liberating, as this worry of avoiding intrusive eyes dissipated. In this moment, they could have been the only citizens of this island. The only people in the world.

“I don’t think I’ll ever grow used to this place”, he said, in a low voice, nostalgic for something he couldn’t understand, “We would usually hear people. Tonight, they’re all on the opposite side on the ship, busy with party preparations. Wanna go, Suoh?”

Getting no answer, the Prince shifted until his eyes fell on the sight of Suoh sleeping soundly. Feeling tenderly amused, he extended his arm to brush away the little strands of hair fallen of the beautiful face.

“Look at us! I talk inapropriately too much, and you couldn’t tell me you’d soon collapse...”

He carefully got out of bed, landing on his tiptoes. Getting close again, on the white, momentarily non-frowning forehead, he lay a soft hand. Only displays of affection which could also be those of friends for the time being, they had said and agreed to. As time moved slowly, it also grew short on his patience, but, gazing at the sight of his lovely flame, all thoughts of frustration evaporated into thin air and all he could feel was pride. Love. And the hopeful certitude that waiting was, in spite of his disastrous existence being filled with lifelong ruinous choices, the best choice he had ever made.

OoOoO

When Suoh woke up, the calm he had come home to could no longer be found. Rubbing his eyes lazily and wiping up the little drool on his lip, he approached the window and pulled the dusty curtains open. A cold breeze blowed in his face and he breathed in long and slow, charging his lungs in fresh air again. Having leaned onto both his elbows on the edge of the window, he could hear and see more of the gleeful turmoil which was bubbling in the streets. The alleys overflowed with flower ornaments and white ivy, golden sparkles and confettis had been scattered on the ground, stomped by children who ran by, laughing. If he squinted, he could make out the hot lights of a huge bonfire, he assumed, as the rest was hidden by another few houses, trailing rays of lights along some facades. Screams of joy and general excitement stirred up from that peculiar spot of the island. But, as a smile crept up to Suoh’s mouth, a loud boom made him jump and almost had him falling out the window. Grasping the ledge fearfully, his eyes followed a trail of red light rise high in the sky and explode. Upon that sight, Suoh automatically crouched under the window, securing himself behind the wall. As no immediate threat nor any screams followed, he got up on his feet again to look outside, searching for the bits of whatever had just blown up before his eyes.

“What the hell?!?!?!”, exclaimed a loud, authoritative voice below him.

A voice he only knew too well. Suoh bent forward at the window, looking for him, his heart compressed in his chest. If he had been hurt, if even the slightiest thing had happened to him he-

“What the hell, seriously! I told them to wait! The bastards!”

The young chief’s eyes finally found Rochalizo. He stood in a nearby garden discussing vehemently with Kuchiba. He did not seem hurt, nor did Kuchiba and the scenery around them did not show signs of damage. Another trail of light rose up in a sizzling sound this time, and Suoh followed it, less afraid now but nonetheless crouching a bit, only keeping his eye at the right level to witness the explosion. As it did, the trail parted in several other golden petals, looking much like a rose. The remains silently fell back on the village, fading out into the air.

“I’m gonna kill them! I’m gonna kill them!”

Suoh repositioned on the edge, looking down at him, not comprehending in the least what was going on. The Prince finally took notice of him and covered his mouth in shocked guilt.

“I’m so sorry Suoh”, he cried from afar, “Did I wake you up? Well, I guess you can’t sleep with all this racket!”

The other nodded awkwardly, waving his hand vaguely.

“What was that?!”, he shouted in response.

Rochalizo looked angry again. He swelled his cheeks, as if trying his best not to start cursing.

“That was... Well... I... I told them to wait until you woke up to light them up. But hopefully or not, you woke up just in time!”

Kuchiba shook his head in major disaprovement and folded his arms. Rochalizo smiled pretentiously at him, then redirected his attention on Suoh:

“I was coming to wake you up and bring you along, but it seems”, he winced through another smile, “I was outstripped and I no longer have to deal with the moral dilemma about letting you sleep or not.

-But what are them?

-Come down quickly! I’m meeting with you halfway from here! If we don’t hurry those idiots will run through the last of my stock!”

OoOoO

They ran through the sparkly streets, shining of the hot lights of torches on wood staffs. Rochalizo’s hair fluttered before his eyes in a fiery haze and his hand which held Suoh’s tightly, not letting go, was warm and spongy. The young chief’s breath ran short, despite them having ran just a few dozens of meters, but he didn’t want to stop running, ever. In this instant, his heart beat fast and running through the night with the one he wished most to be with made him ecstatic, the lights bordering the path as though they were casting their blessing upon their wild adventure.

“Look Suoh!”, screamed Rochalizo, as they were reaching the central place in which gathered the general crowd.

He pointed at something Suoh missed but he then caught sight of the shimmering explosion of another of those sparkly fires, An emerald one, shaped in the form of a palm tree.

“I don’t understand, but that’s beautiful”, Suoh said, huddling against Rochalizo’s arm.

“They’re fireworks. I found them in my stuff and your people went mad with excitement. And... I wanted you to see them...”

Rochalizo gazed at him silently, his tender eyes expressing a childlike excitement as well as admirative affection, lots of it. Suoh returned the gaze. They walked together hand in hand to the central place, tacking between the people who drank festive beverages, ate, sang along with those playing local instruments, talked with spice and joy. Pointing at a spot lifted up above the crowd, Suoh guided towards the edge of an old passageway which stairs had broke. They sat there, nestling against each other, watching the festivities for a moment. To the left, a group of people danced to a contry dance song, some on their own or with friends, bouncing their heads and arms to the rythm, some of them, much closer to where they had settled, danced in pairs with lovers, exchanging when the tempo slowed down, a few hugs and kisses. Rochalizo’s eyes were fixed on them, insistant. When the other asked him what he was thinking of, he gave that answer:

“Oh... Sorry, I’ve spaced out”, he said, seeking to look more cheerful, but Suoh had grasped the envy and jealousy in his eyes and those feelings somewhat stuck to his face, even as he put in some good-will.

Suoh gave him a little nudge, not buying that excuse. He knew him too well.

“Do you want to dance?”, he inquired, offering his hand.

Uneasy, the Prince shifted a bit awkwardly. But it didn’t take long for him to make up his mind and he accepted timidly. Walking through the crowd anew, they took place for the following dance, one of Rochalizo’s hand on Suoh’s shoulder and one of Suoh’s around his waist. Starting to dance, the young chief realised his partner wouldn’t know how to follow the rythm of this one and because it was swift and vigorous, they were rapidly lost and were giggling at each other’s bad synchronisation and clumsiness, trying many times but ending up failing and shouting a few “we suck!” and “this is so hard!” at each other through the loud music. The next dance played slower than the previous ones, calmer, which in consequence had many single people leaving. Rochalizo’s hands had come to rest around Suoh’s neck up to his elbows and Suoh’s hands had slipped around his hips. They stood so close to each other it had become hard to breathe and to even pay attention to the music. And how could they?, when the other’s face reflected the lights of the bonfire and was flushed from the exercise and stamina.

However, as he looked outside of their carefree bubble, Suoh could feel his stomach form knots, being under the most unpleasant impression that all eyes were upon them, silently judging or wondering. And he noticed that Rochalizo felt it too, as his hands clutched slightly at his white tunic. Their bodies seemed suddenly heavy and not much moveable to keep up with the music, as relaxed as it was.

“Rochalizo, I...

-Yeah...

-Do you want to go get a drink instead? I’m sorry.

-No, no, of course. Don’t apologise”, the Prince shrugged, wincing awkwardly but with resignation.

But even hearing those words hurt Suoh. It was sad that they couldn’t dance and have a good time like the others did, but he feared on top of that Rochalizo’s feelings. He never wanted him to believe he was ashamed of him, he thought, as the other dragged him to the drinks stalls. They bought fizzy drinks and moved to a place more hidden from the public eye. Suoh opened his mouth to apologise again, but Rochalizo silenced him with a look.

“Don’t, it’s not necessary. Can I... Can I show you something?”

Suoh blinked a few times and nodded, smiling in wait. The Prince searched for something in his pockets, going through both of them. His face took on a scary air when he thought he had lost whatever he was looking for, but he found it, as he checked twice. His entire face blushed, even his ears - and Suoh didn’t know that was possible - as he handed him a small piece of paper. The paper he had been writing on earlier. Suoh unfolded it slowly, watching Rochalizo as he turned his head away. On the sheet, there were only few small words, but reading them, it made his heart burst with joy. A joy so strong he did not know how to exteriorise it.

Suoh’s hands gave small wrinkles to it, trembling in excitement, but took care as not to tear it. Biting his lips, he closed the piece of paper, replaying the moment he had read it for the first time again and again. Those words, “I love you”. Rochalizo hid his head in his palms, still looking away, talking fast and a lot as if trying to fill the silence which overwhelmed him with uneasiness.

“I’m so sorry, this isn’t fancy of anything and I... I could’ve done something much better. I didn’t want to leave behind something big that could expose you and... I just... I just wanted to say it now and not wait a long time again, but I couldn’t make myself say it... I...-

He was suddenly cut by the weight of someone throwing himself in his arms. Arms strongly wrapping around him and a small face, buried into his shoulder, and then, he felt something wet rolling down his shoulder. Suoh moved back, eyelashes filled with tears and his cheeks wet. The glee in his eyes was so dizzying Rochalizo got almost knocked down. It was an otherwordly vision.

“I love you! I love you”, exclaimed Suoh, sniffing and pressing his hands to his beloved’s upper arms.

Suoh smiled through the tears. In this situation, he felt the need to touch him and he did, cupping his cheeks into his hands and pressing their foreheads together. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him for hours and cherish him, maybe even biting those lips. Rochalizo’s eyes were also on his mouth.

Suoh sighed, this could not go on like this. It hurt both of them. An end must be put to this, but yet, there were still no close in landing to new lands... On a whim, Suoh, took hold of Rochalizo’s hand and dragged him back to the crowd, where people still danced and partied and sang.

“What are you doing?”, the other said, squeezing his hand, puzzled.

“I told you to wait for me and you have...”, he began, searching for his words in the middle of a sea of people and lights, feeling strongly unrational.

“But I’m afraid”, Suoh continued, shaking his head slowly, “I’ve come to realise it is cruel of me to ask you that and by the way... I cannot wait for you any longer...”

Rochalizo’s eyes flickered, unsure of what this meant and if he should be bracing himself for a heartache too great for him to handle. Suoh’s eyes were still sad and gave away some clues, he had made a decision and he didn’t like what he had just decided on, his hair flapping around him miserably.

“What are you trying to say...?”

His chest tightened all the more and suddenly he didn’t want an answer although he had just asked. He wanted to stay in the miserable state of doubt because nothing would hurt more if Suoh chose to leave him.

But once again, unexpectedly, Suoh crashed into his arms, scooting closer and they made eyecontact in a fuzzy mess of feelings of love mixed with excrutiating uncertainty. Suoh’s face leaned towards Rochalizo until they were a few inches apart of each other, their noses brushing and they breathed the same air. Rochalizo’s rested both his hands on the other’s cheeks. Suoh could feel them this time, more than a sole impression, he was certain everyone had stopped to watch them, because he was hearing every sound of the island slowly fade away into inaudibleness, one by one, until he could not hear anything else but the buzzing sound in his own ears. The stress was building in his chest but mightier was the adrenaline he experienced for being this close to Rochalizo and on top of that, where everyone could see them, proudly unhidden. He had had enough and he had enough. They had showed many times they cared about each other, but at the same time, had never really dared. It was high time he caught up with time and that they loved, loved each other in any way they could imagine and put to into acts.

Rochalizo’s lips came closer tentatively, glinting in saliva and swollen, as his hands clutched at Suoh’s hair, almost desperate for affection. Suoh looked at them, probing how much he had desired to kiss him and have everyone know and how many times he had resisted. No more of that. Closing the gap between them, he met with Rochalizo’s mouth and kissed his lips passionately, pouring all his love into the ways he moved against him. And almost simultaneously, the other kissed back with an unmatched urgence and fever. Their mouths were sealed for a long time and for the Gods knew how long, they could not part from each other. It was when the sound of a glass shattering to the ground reached their ears that they both came to stop, both looking in the same direction, meeting the crowd’s eyes.

From the many people which composed it, every face expressed either shock, disapprouval or happiness. They endured the silence, not moving, waiting for whatever punishment would be ordered. But then a voice rose up from the crowd, loud and clear, overjoyed.

“Hell yeah! You go, Suoh!”

Followed by one, then ten, fifty and finally, perhaps half the crowd, hundreds of cries of joy elevated, cheering for them. People clapped, shouted in support, jumped in excitement for them, threw fists in the air, looked all “I knew it”. Some just stood where they were, smiling warmly at them in silent approbation. Oh, there were others, way less supportive but it did not matter now. It was truly something to be acclaimed by hundreds of souls, almost an entire island for what you were, to be declared defensible and worthy of acceptance. Suoh found himself lost in the cries of the crowd, submerged by overall what you could call love, the love of a family who didn’t delude itself and embraced what he chose at core and made him feel alive. Turning to Rochalizo, he gave him a long loving look which the prince reciprocated, grabbing and holding his hand in his. It would be fine in the end.

#cotw #knk #Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau #Kujira no Kora #children of the Whales #children of the whale #les enfants de la baleine #suoh #suou #rochalizo #rohalito #cotw fanfiction

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parkertech · 4 years

Text

Tattoos & Tears — CHAPTER 4

a/n: on everybody's 18th birthday, they get a tattoo of their soulmate written on their wrist. for you, it's your best friend who you thought you got over. who even has a girlfriend of his own.

warnings: swearing, mentions of drinking, jealousy, angst

———————————————————————

MJ was rudely awoken by the morning sun blinding her eyes. She mentally cussed it out in her head, before checking the time. She groaned at the realization that she had to get ready, and turned over patting Peter’s shoulder.

“Pete...wake up...” she whispered. It was Peter’s turn to groan, and he buried his face in his pillow, his eyes still closed. MJ giggled at how much of a couch potato he was being, before running her hand through his hair.

“It’s 7:00 Peter...come ooonn...” He only groaned even louder in protest. He could feel MJ’s body heat, and instead of it being comforting, he found it the opposite. He scooted slightly away from her, and sighed feeling the cool mattress under his skin.

“I don’t wannaaaa...the days gonna be full of boring lessons, and boring teachers, and boring people...”

“Yeah, everyone’s basically boring.” MJ replied. She jumped out of Peter’s bed, grabbing an outfit she left in his closet. “Well, besides your friends, of course.” Peter hummed and nodded in response while MJ left his room to his bathroom to take a shower.

With MJ’s last sentence, he was reminded of all his friends. MJ, Ned, Betty, Y/N...

Wait, Y/N!

He shot up from his bed, realizing he had a big priority on his hand today. All the memories of last night came back, and he mentally cursed himself all over again.

Okay, he needed a plan. That was his thing, that’s how he got MJ as his girlfriend. And that worked out. Even though he technically couldn’t check any of those things off...

Peter started making the list mentally. Okay, step one. Apologize for being a dick. Even if he wasn’t secretly sorry. It was Brad Davis for crying out loud! But that still didn’t mean he controlled you. Step two, basically be your bitch. That would soften you up a bit. Hand her the homework if she needs it, give her notes for the day, etcetera, etcetera. And if all else fails and you’re still mad at him, step 3. Leave her alone.

But what if he doesn’t want to?

No no, not about you, Peter.

If you were really mad, you would just need space to soften up. Then he’d try again. Peter took a breath, letting his plan sink in, before getting ready for the day.

MJ beat Peter to school, when she realized she was going to be late if she waited for him. As she was taking out all her textbooks and notes for her next class, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. She turned around, only to be cornered by Peter himself, who had a bright smile on his face.

“Hey, you.” He said cheery. MJ couldn’t stop the matching smile that came across his face.

“Hey to you, too.” Peter chuckled a bit before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her lips. MJ’s cheeks immediately flared up, and she could tell she was blushing. There was a slight fire in her that she couldn’t put out if she tried.

But Peter didn’t feel it.

He was expecting the butterflies, and the flushed cheeks, but he felt nothing. The only thing he felt was a slight discomfort, as he pulled away with a confused look. He could hear tingling, and knew it was his spider sense.

“What’s wrong?” MJ asked. Usually he would continue his affection, but apparently today was different. Peter turned to look down a hall, and his spider sense turned off once he saw you.

Except you weren’t alone.

There you were, leaning against your locker with a bright smile on your face, laughing at something Brad Davis said. He had a casual arm leaning against the locker above you, and he was slightly towering over you. Peter also took in your appearance. You were hearing a white, long sleeve scoop neckline shirt, along with a dark blue denim skirt that stopped in the middle of your thighs. You had soft, yet gentle makeup on your face, and your hair was a little more neater today.

You were dressed to impress someone.

And that someone was Brad.

Peter grit his teeth a little, before turning back to MJ.

“Nothing, just thought my spider senses sensed danger.” MJ nods with an ‘oh’ face, before turning back around and continuing rummaging through her locker. Peter took this chance to look back up at you. Brad was now smiling at you, and he could see his eyes trail up and down your body. Peter’s chest grew tight, and he felt that familiar jealousy from last night, all because he was checking you out.

Jesus, why was he being so weird?

He knew it was a problem if he could address it himself. MJ shut her locker, and grabbed his hand. Peter took the hint, and walked her to her History class, but his eyes never left the not -so-subtle flirting Brad was doing. And he could tell you enjoyed it.

But little did Peter know, he was far from right.

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Peter looking at you. You knew you needed some kind of way to distract yourself. Plus, you needed to keep your lie going. You killed two birds with one stone, and pretended to be interested in Brad. You felt a little bad, honestly. Brad didn’t deserve to be lied to of such a thing, and it made you feel more guilty when you could tell he was into you.

It was easy to pretend to have the same feelings. You giggled at all his jokes, even if they weren’t that funny, maybe touched his bicep a bit, but that was it. The only thing motivating you was imagining it was Peter. You heard the bell rung, and turn to your locker grabbing one last book.

“That’s us. Do you wanna walk to class together?” See, if this were really Peter, you’d be a stuttering, blushy mess. But it isn’t, so you’re not. Brad smiles at your offer before nodding.

“Yeah, maybe we could also sit next to each other?” Brad really was too naive for his own good...you wanted to sit with Peter, but he was probably sitting in between MJ and Ned by now.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Brad waited until you locked your locker before walking down the sea of students to your class. It was silent except for his little comments, but it was a kind of peaceful silence. As promised, you and Brad took a seat in the middle next to each other.

Peter was occupied talking to Ned about his new Millennium Falcon LEGO set, until you walked in the room. With Brad. God, why is he always there?

He practically glared daggers at him, and he pulled a seat next to you. Of course, he was sitting next to you now. He only temporarily moved his eyes when the teacher came in to start the lesson. He stole occasional glances, and when the teacher assigned partners for a new project, guess who volunteered to be your partner?

“Okay, so we can continue doing this at my house?” You asked Brad. Peter growled a little. You just started talking to him and he’s already going to your house? Great.

MJ spotted his tense stance, and gently put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched a little, but nonetheless played it off.

The bell finally rung after what felt like an eternity, and MJ telling him to wait for her was the only thing stopping him from speeding away in annoyance. Him, MJ, Betty, and Ned, all sat in a table, across from each other. He expected you to sit next to them per usual, but he didn’t see any sign of you.

“Guys, do any of you see Y/N?” He asks. Betty’s eyes widen a little at the mention of your name, but she plays it off by looking around. She spots you a few tables down, and points.

“There she is.” He looked where Betty pointed. You had one of your notebooks open, writing away to it. Peter didn’t realize it, but he was admiring how your tongue poked out a little when you were very concentrated, and when you brushed your hair behind your ear because it was getting in the way. It showed more of your face, and for some reason that made his heart swell. As quick as the view was memorable, it became trashed the second Brad came into view. You looked up at him and smiled for what felt like the hundredth time that day. When Brad sat down next to you, he notice he had two trays of food, and handed one to you.

Get a load of this fucker.

Peter was full on fuming now. He could tell you were having fun with him, and it just made the anger in him rise even more. He knew the rest of the day wasn’t gonna be good if he kept seeing you two like this. Most of the lunch period was spent looking and glaring at you and Brad. Peter rarely payed any attention to his friends’ conversations, and only responded with one worded sentences. MJ noticed him being off, because she notices everything, and thought he was having a bad day. Maybe it was just this once. She decided to give him space. If something was wrong, he would tell her. She was certain of that.

“I’ll be right back.” He mumbled to his friend group. Betty and MJ eyed him, and Betty’s eyes widened when she realized he was walking to you.

Does he know? Did he somehow figure it out? Shit shit shit shit!

Peter sat across from you, which snatched your attention from Brad to him. You smiled at him while Brad just gave him a weird glance.

“Hey, Peter! What’s up?” He furrowed his eyebrows at how friendly you were being. Were you really going to act like last night didn’t happen? Or was he making it a big deal when it really wasn’t?

“Can I talk to you? In private?” He glared at Brad a bit, and it was very noticeable. You were about to call him out on it, before Brad intervened.

“It’s cool, I’ll just throw away our trash and let you guys talk, okay?” You nodded as Brad took your tray full of trash and his own, going over to the trash bin.

“So what did you wanna talk about?”

“I wanted to say sorry...for how I acted yesterday...” Peter’s aggressive demeanor was quickly turned into a shy one just by standing across from you.

“Oh, that? It’s okay, I was just in a snippy mood. Probably because of the alcohol.” It was easier to sugarcoat it instead of telling the truth. Eventually he’d wonder why you were so mad and figure it out. Peter wasn’t stupid, just not that observant.

“No, I feel like it was my fault mostly. I mean I’m the one that brought it up, even though I know I can’t control your love life, I’m sorry about that too, and I-“

“Peter I said I forgive you. It’s okay.” You stopped him mid rambling and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. His palms suddenly became sweaty and he placed them on his thighs instead of in front of him on the table.

“Okay. Cool. Yeah.” You nodded and he awkwardly nodded back, before going back to his seat. He joined in MJ’s conversation a little unwillingly, while Betty took her chance to sit in front of you this time.

“What was he talking about?” She whispered. You shot your head up from your notes and furrowed your eyebrows.

“What?”

“He doesn’t know, right? About your tattoo.” Your eyes widened and you looked around, making sure no one heard you.

“Betty! Ssh! Don’t say it so loud! No, he doesn’t. He was just talking to me.” Betty sat there staring at you for a few seconds before asking another question.

“When are you gonna tell him?” You scoffed and shrugged before turning back to her.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I have to. The tattoo is probably wrong anyways.” Betty furrowed her eyebrows.

“I’m sorry, why are you acting like it’s not a big deal?”

“Maybe because it’s not. A flaw could’ve happened, who knows.” Betty glared at you, obviously annoyed. How did you go from having a full on panic attack to acting like it’s nothing?

“Really? So being in love with him isn’t a big deal?” You clenched your jaw, just wanting her to stop. You didn’t want to think about anything of last night, and Betty wasn’t really helping.

“I was drunk, okay?” But you meant it.

“I don’t think you would have a full on breakdown about that, even if you were drunk.”

“Betty, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay? I’m hanging out with Brad, and I think I might actually be into him. I don’t want a stupid fucking tattoo to ruin that for me!” Betty was way more confused now. But she didn’t have the energy to argue. She rolled her eyes a little, putting her hands up in defense, before leaving the table and going back to Ned.

When school hours were over, Brad went over to your house as planned. MJ went over to Peter’s house as usual, except he wasn’t as enthusiastic about it. He’d rather be alone. With you.

That was all that was on his mind. You, you, you. He mentally scolded himself, constantly repeating that he had a girlfriend to focus on instead. To get his mind off of you, he decided to go through a Star Wars marathon with MJ. He ignored her protests and stayed silent, which was unlike him. He’d banter to her saying it’s overhated, but he didn’t have the energy today.

The distraction didn’t work, though. He knew literally every line, what was going to happen, yadda yadda yadda. It just made him more bored. Peter looked down at MJ spooned up beside him, her eyes closed and her breathing slow. He carefully and cautiously moved out of his place between the couch and her, and didn’t waste any time to put on his red and black spandex and jump out the window.

When Peter started patrol, it was near sundown. When he checked his phone, it was 12 in the morning. He knew MJ would be up by now, and the thought of that annoyed him. He didn’t know why, but now he kind of found the thought of hanging around MJ really negatively. It’s not her as a person, it’s hanging out with her as her boyfriend. As Peter stared at his bedroom window, his thoughts ran wild.

Did he want to break up with MJ?

Peter knew the answer but wanted to try and prove himself wrong. He knew he couldn’t. But he didn’t want to hurt MJ. Sure, breakups happen, but someone gets hurt. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. Especially someone as good as MJ. The thought of it made his eyes water. Peter pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes shut and groaning a little.

“Peter, is everything okay with you?” He heard his new A.I.—E.D.I.T.H. ask. He figured out a way to transfer E.D.I.T.H. to his suit, since the glasses Tony gave him were a bit too big. He never threw them out, of course. He wanted to keep some part of him, besides the suits he made for him.

“Yeah, everything’s fine, E.D.I.T.H.” He knew based off his annoyed and upset tone he was far from right.

“Your heart rate hasn’t been picking up whenever you’re around Michelle.” E.D.I.T.H. stated. Great, he was trying to doubt himself and here goes a computer who literally knows everything. “Is everything okay between you two? I don’t see you argue.” That last word made his mind flashback to yesterday. When he was on your fire escape. It made his heart clench in the worst way possible.

As if the poor boy hadn’t been thinking enough, he went deeper into his mindset. And the deeper he went, the more and more you came up. He saw your smile, how bright and happy it was. He heard your laugh echo in his head, remembering the corny science pun he told you that made him laugh too. He kept getting flashes of you looking at him, of him spending time with you at your place, and how every time you were around you made him smile. He felt that tingle in his stomach, and his hands getting clammy under his suit, and hearing his heart beat in his ear drums. All of this was obvious signs of nervousness.

Peter also thought about MJ. But her smile wasn’t that bright. Her smile didn’t make him mimic it. Her laugh didn’t have as much power as yours did. He saw their moments together, but MJ being replaced with you. He felt his heart tug painfully, instead of any nervousness, and all of a sudden the lightbulb in his head clicked.

“Peter?” E.D.I.T.H. called his name one last time. Peter’s voice cracked as he finally replied to her.

“No, E.D.I.T.H. Everything is not okay between me and MJ...”

———————————————————————

a/n: hehehe that cliffhanger

Taglist 🏷 (requests are open!)

@marvel4geeks @ladykxxx08 @chloecreatesfictions @joyleenl @witchything @pluckypete @yourneighbourhoodclown @whatareyouhidingpeter @elamvlfoy @trumpettay

#peter parker #peter parker imagines #peter parker x reader #spider-man #spider-man far from home #spider-man homecoming #spider man far from home imagine #spider man homecoming imagine #tom holland #peter parker x you #spider man x reader #spider man x you #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x reader

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out-of-jams · 4 years

Text

Enfer || kth

↠ Enfer ↞ Enfer, the ironically named club, was well known for helping to bring together those of the living with the dead, well, undead. And your best friend had convinced you to try it out, to potentially find a partner amongst the sophisticated group of the otherworldly elite. You’d been open to it.

But never would you have imagined meeting him.

Warnings/Genre: Supernatural. Drabble. Sugar daddy!Taehyung. Vampire!Taehyung. Human!Reader. References to blood drinking. Light fluff. Strangers to lovers (hinted at).

Word Count: 2k

A/N: This is dedicated to the lovely @kimtaehyunq Happy birthday hoe. I wanted to keep this as a surprise, but I suck. And don’t know how to hit “anon” in an ask box lmfao. Either way, congrats on becoming one year closer to death!

All of my works are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission.

| | Masterlist | |

The multicolored lights flashing above your head covered your silver hued dress with a curtain of mystery. And thankfully, the music blasting from the expensive speakers in the establishment wasn’t too loud--just enough to urge you to let loose. To swing your hips to the enticing beat pounding through your bones.

But you weren’t dancing, it wasn’t your thing. Not because you didn’t want to, but because you were bad at it. So there you stood, at the blue lit bar with a glass of long island iced tea clutched between your hands. You were still on your first drink since entering the club twenty minutes ago, if that was what you could even call the establishment.

The interior was fancy, sophisticated in a way that made you feel slightly out of place. That, paired with the numerous amounts of incredibly attractive people twisting on the dance floor and occupying the bar, or sitting in the plush booths lining the back wall. And if you squinted into the artificial fog filtering through the tiny holes in the dance floor, you’d just be able to make out your best friend.

Lisa moved like she was attempting to entice the gods themselves. With her blonde hair sticking to her sweat drenched face and black dress practically a second skin, she may as well have been Aphrodite in the flesh. Attracting the eyes of those who moved their bodies around her like magnets. The only thing that stopped any one of them from striking up a conversation with her was the luminescent red choker that she’d received at the door, tied into a ribbon around her neck.

Your hand came up to absentmindedly twist your fingers around your own choker, though yours was a bright green. And you looked away from your best friend just in time to catch the lingering gaze from a woman seated at one of the booths on the far side of the room. Even in the dim lighting you could see the deep seated red that left a ring around her iris’. They glowed, reflecting in the darkness like a cat.

You hastily looked away, cheeks heating in a deep flush. The ribbon around her neck had been colored a baby pink.

“Can I get you another one?”

Head snapping towards the direction of the bar, you glanced back at your empty glass and slid it onto the surface. The man standing on the opposite side leaned his elbows against the bar and raised a playful eyebrow at you. “Sure.”

His plump lips twitched into an eye-squinting smile and pulled a cute dimple into existence on his right cheek. The lights flashing above illuminated his soft looking face and silver hair in a way that suited him. And the red embroidered name tag pinned through his blue dress shirt read: Jimin. Made him stand out despite the black ribbon strung around his petite neck like an accessory. Which did nothing to hide the two permanent puncture wounds at the junction between his neck and shoulder. But he left them uncovered, showed them off proudly.

“First time?” Even his voice was sweet, like nectar. It was a good thing that Jimin was already spoken for, claimed, because you probably wouldn’t have been able to string together a coherent sentence with those knowing eyes of his weighing heavily on you.

“How could you tell?” You were grateful for the fact that the upbeat track starting up wasn’t loud enough to drown out your words. Force you to shout at the man who stood less than three feet away from you.

Jimin grinned, lips pulling back to reveal bright white teeth and a crooked front tooth. And one of his hands fluttered through the air nonchalantly as he set to making your new drink. “You have this innocent, scared look on your face. Like you’re just waiting for someone to come up and eat you or something.”

His last words were punctuated by a wink thrown in your direction, emphasized by the sound of clinking ice when he shook the cocktail mixer. You couldn’t help the pout that overtook your lips. “I’m not scared. I’ve just never...my best friend told me about this place and I figured that I might as well check it out.”

With a barely audible clank, your newly made drink was settled atop a napkin on the bar in front of you. Jimin leaned back onto the surface and nodded his head at the green ribbon tied comfortably around your neck. The one you’d been given at the door to symbolize what it was that you were looking for. “So you’re interested in finding a partner, then?”

Again, your hand lifted to play with the silk accessory without realizing it. It was brightly colored so that even the poorest-sighted humans that crowded the establishment could see it. And it sent up an even brighter beacon to the immortal beings that floated around like well dressed specters. Catching the eyes of every mundane within ten feet of them, what with their otherworldly beauty and magnetizing presence.

Enfer, the ironically named club, was well known for helping to bring together those of the living with the dead, well, undead. Vampires. They’d roamed the earth for longer than what was recorded and only as recently as ten years ago had they come to the light. Revealed themselves to the world. It’d been a shock at first. Had awoken mobs of churchgoers and those who were too afraid of the unknown to take to the streets in protest. To attempt to kill what was already dead.

Peace hadn’t settled until celebrities, world leaders, and those with power showed who they truly were. And it was still a work in progress, maintaining that balance between humans and vampires, but it was a lot better than it’d been years ago.

“I’m...open to the idea.” You cleared your dry throat with a sip from the sweet tasting alcoholic drink.

“Mm.” Jimin hummed around a grin, wiggling his eyebrows. “There’s nothing wrong with that. The life of a Bloodfeed isn’t for everyone, but those who embrace it, love it. Speaking from experience, of course.”

The word Bloodfeed brought another blush to your cheeks that you couldn’t blame on the alcohol. It was a topic that wasn’t commonly spoken of. Was frowned upon by human society. Because in the eyes of the mundane, to be a willing partner for a vampire to feed from was ‘disgusting.’ Viewed to be nothing other than a human willing to give up their blood in exchange for money.

But you knew that wasn’t the case. Lisa was one to more than a single vampire, unwilling to settle with just one of them. There were two types of Bloodfeed: those who chose to settle down with one vampire for the rest of their existence as partners, to be marked as theirs and to claim them in return. And those who refused to commit to just one, who bounced from vampire to vampire in order to chase the rush that being fed on brought.

Lisa liked the thrill, the freedom to flirt with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted. To bathe in the riches and gifts that those who she gave herself to gifted her. But she wasn’t just in it for the money. She truly cared about them, saw them as lifelong friends.

You’d never been fed from. Hell, you’d only met two vampires in your entire life. But the way Lisa’s eyes lit up when she spoke of her two favorite partners, the happiness that overtook her spoke volumes.

And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t hold an interest, a curiosity towards those who were both alive and not. To wonder what it felt like to have fangs pierce your skin. But you weren’t in it for the money, despite the fact that your ignored pile of bills and red numbers in your bank account may have stated otherwise.

Not all Bloodfeed to vampire relationships were romantic. Some were platonic even when they pledged themselves to the other for life. You weren’t sure which end of the spectrum you were looking for, but you knew that you wouldn’t settle for just anyone.

“That’ll be eighteen, sweetheart.” Jimin nodded at the alcoholic beverage that you absentmindedly brushed your fingertips against.

Your eyes widened at having almost forgotten that you had to pay for things. And your small handbag was placed against the bar as you rummaged through it for your wallet, squinting in the dim lighting.

“Put it on my tab, Jimin.” The voice, deep and melodic and beautiful, had your head snapping to your left in surprise.

How you hadn’t noticed him appearing into the empty space next to you was astounding. Your eyes were blown open and you knew that your mouth was parted in awe at the man towering above you, but you couldn’t help it. Because he was completely and utterly breathtaking.

Golden skin covered by a black turtleneck and matching blazer practically screamed money. His wavy dark hair was just long enough to messily cover his forehead, but short in the back. And when he tilted his head down to meet your eyes, you noticed the mole in the middle of his left cheek and another on the bottom of his nose.

His blinked down at you, irises ringed red with one monolid and one double. You must have looked stupid with the dazed way you gaped at him because his rose hued, cupid-bow shaped lips pulled up into a knowing smile. And the gold hoop earrings pierced through each of his lobes caught the flash of the overhead lights. Bathed him in a dim glow of blue.

“Hello.” His greeting passed his lips like liquid honey. A soul-wrenching baritone that caught and enticed you. Left you craving more. Especially when the scent of his subtle, husky cologne shortwired your senses.

The ribbon tied around his neck, like it belonged there, glimmered a soft pink.

“H-hi.” You mentally cursed yourself for stammering around your returned greeting. But it wasn’t your fault, not when he looked like that. Like he’d just stepped off a runway. With the magnetizing aura that surrounded his presence.

He smiled again, wider that time, enough to show off a cute box-shaped grin. To reveal his perfect white teeth and amusement-creased eyes. “What’s your name, little one?”

Either it was the petname that fell from his mouth, or the way he leaned an arm onto the bar and closer into your space that had you swallowing. Hard. Your tongue nervously wet your lips with a flash of pink. “Y/n.”

The man’s eyes glanced down at the green standing out against your skin before slowly catching your gaze again. His red eyes drew you in and refused to let go. Hypnotized you with the pure gentleness that shone in them. And his lips tasted your name upon them, murmured the syllables into the simmering air around you.

“I’m Taehyung.” His hand hung between you like an offering. Of what, you weren’t sure. But you didn’t hesitate to take it.

The warmth of his palm surprised you as his larger fingers enclosed around your smaller ones. And just when you thought he’d shake it and let go, he surprised you by lifting your hand to his lips to press a soft kiss on your skin. Taehyung’s eyes held yours, glittered with pleased amusement when you flushed for the umteenth time that night.

“Pleasure.” His breath fanned across the back of your hand.

“Same here.” If your words came out in a breathless whisper, he didn’t mention it. Just mesmerized you with that smile of his.

“Tell me about yourself, Y/n.” Taehyung didn’t drop your hand from his.

Just held onto it as he listened to the words that left your lips.

#bangtanarmynet #ficswithluv #btsbookclub #magicshopnet #taehyung #taehyung fic #jimin #bts fic

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only-here-for-jatp · 4 years

Text

Don’t Take My Spot!

A new Juke friendship fluffy one-shot posted in my This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Series. It features Hesitant!Luke, cuddle piles, and pillow fights.

It’s about 3 thousand words.

Read it on Ao3 Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881345

And also below.

It’d been a week since the show at the Orpheum where Julie saved the boys and gained the ability to touch them. She couldn’t really tell who was most excited about everything that had happened since then.

It could’ve been Carlos who immediately started bonding with the boys upon confirmation of their existence. Alex and him would watch tv shows together, sprawled out on the couch, and chatting even though Carlos still could not see or hear Alex. Reggie and Carlos would play video games and somehow the added competition of being able to mess with each other’s controllers without intervention added a level of difficulty to their racing games. Luke and Carlos engaged in some new pranks and Julie admittedly had been ready to kill both of them when she woke up to the sound of her least favorite song blaring through her alarm at 3 am on Saturday Morning.

Reggie was definitely in the running for the most excited since everybody agreed that with the new development it was time to tell Ray about the new additions to their family. Surprisingly enough, Ray took it in stride. He’d been a little suspicious once she started to get a good look at their faces, after all Rose hadn’t been the only Sunset Curve fan in the house. He figured his daughter would let him in when she was ready, and he’d been anxious to meet the boys himself. He took time to bond with all of them, but he had a huge soft spot for his eternal companion Reggie. To say Reggie was thrilled would be an understatement and it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate the two.

It could’ve been the band in general who was most thrilled about the new arrangement. They were tactile ghosts after all and preferred to have as much contact with each other as possible at all times. Now that they could add their additional band member to the list, there was rarely a moment when at least one ghost boy wasn’t touching her. They’d even started popping into school in the middle of the day just so they could be in contact and do whatever version of a nap ghosts were capable of. Luke had been the touchiest of all of them, but more than just being in contact with her for longer he would touch her differently than her other band mates. He’d play with her hands or hair or slide his hand across her back when he moved behind her at the piano or in the kitchen.

They still hadn’t addressed whatever was between them and besides their tight hug the night of the Orpheum they hadn’t been that close or… intimate. It wasn’t quite avoidance, more like hesitation on both sides. She knew that she was just as bad as he was, but somehow her brain still wondered if she’d imagined everything between them. Maybe he didn’t feel anything.

It didn’t really matter though, because she was just as excited as her boys to be able to reach out and touch them. She’d been so worried about them disappearing, it meant everything to her that she could reach out and physically reassure herself that they were here and okay. She loved the group hugs she could get before heading off to school or playing with Reggie’s hair as they sat and watched Luke and Alex’s antics, or being able to hold Alex’s hand when he was feeling anxious. She tried not to think about all the ways she could touch Luke, but when she had a bad day at school being able to lean on him, literally, went a long way to improving her day. Yeah, everyone was thrilled about the changes going on and the band had started Saturday Night Band Bonding. This week they were having a movie night, Julie was showing them some of the classics they’d missed since 1995. They’d put a projector in the studio and rearranged the furniture to make a mattress comfy pile in the center.

Alex had arguably claimed the center since he was the one who would be most invested in the movies and paying the most attention. Which brought protests from Reggie who settled on his left, but they were weak protests since he almost always fell asleep whenever they put on a movie. Julie ended up settled to Alex’s right, she’d seen all of these and was excited to watch her boys’ faces light up. Luke was running late for whatever reason, which was unfortunate for him since his friends had decided to take up most of the cuddly surfaces.

Luke poofed in and pouted at the sight. “Hey! Where’s my spot?”

The three just looked up at him and laughed. “Guess you shouldn’t have been late!”

Luke walked up to Reggie nudging him a little with his foot and giving him his best puppy eyes. Reggie stared into his face for a second before shaking his head and curling up deeper into his spot. “Not a chance dude.”

Luke started to walk over to Alex but was stopped short when Alex called out, “Has it ever worked before?” Luke sighed and turned his gaze to Julie. Alex chuckled at the obvious resignation. Both Reggie and Alex glanced over to Julie, interested to see how this was going to turn out.

“Molina, you won’t leave me without a spot, will you?” His voice was soft, and he was giving her a little grin. Trying to charm her, but also almost a little afraid of succeeding. “You won’t turn me away right Jules?”

Julie knew she was done for the second he turned his sights on her, but she thought she could make him work for it a little. However, at the soft sound of his nickname for her she gave in scooching down so he could sit at the top of the spot she claimed. It wasn’t a lot of space, but she gave him a small smirk and said “Take it or leave it.” She followed it up with a serious glare and added “Just don’t take my spot”.

His smile lit up the room as he sat cross-legged near her head. Alex and Reggie turned back to face the screen with small smiles since they knew, he would take whatever Julie would give him. Soon the movie started, and they all settled in for their marathon.

Julie felt a little jittery at first with the cute boy she had a crush on sitting so close to her, but as she became more engaged in the movie and how her band lit up at the sight of HSM she relaxed. At some point she needed to find a new spot in her soft things pile and ended up stretching her arms above her head. She’d momentarily forgotten Luke was there until her hands hit his knees and she blushed before pulling her hands back towards her head. That little touch had sent a surprisingly sharp shockwave through her and she was desperate to pretend she was nonchalant.

A few minutes passed before she even knew he realized what happened, but slowly his hands moved from his lap to toy with hair a little bit. Running his fingers through it. She could feel herself relaxing even as her heart tensed. It felt nice and it took everything in her to keep her gaze on the movie and not search out his eyes.

It was about halfway through the movie and his soft movements through her hair had lulled her into a sense of peace. Slowly his hands traveled from moving through her hair to toying with her fingertips and she felt her sharp intake of breath. She still stubbornly watched the screen as if, if she called attention to what he was doing she would spook him. Her heart was pounding, and she never knew she could feel so much in just her fingertips. He was tracing up and down her fingers to her palm and then moving her fingers around. She could feel the goosebumps moving up and down her arms. Hesitantly, she started moving her fingertips back as if it was her body’s natural response.

She kept on, getting slightly more confident as her fingers started pressing against his and tracing back as his hands got closer. She still hadn’t looked at him, but she swore she could tell exactly which smile he was using. At one point it was almost like their fingers were playfighting and she was working hard at stifling her giggles when suddenly his finger hooked onto one of her own. This time though, he didn’t let go. It was like a mini version of handholding and she could’ve sworn her blush was visible from space.

Slowly she glanced upwards only to be caught in his eyes. He’d been staring at her and his eyes were warm, filled with awe and light and maybe a little surprise. She watched his small smile spread and his hands moved to capture more of her fingers, never losing eye contact as he did so. She returned the smile with just as much awe and surprise, but also maybe a little nervousness. He seemed to sense it, smiling even bigger before turning his attention back to the movie. She glanced back at the movie and felt him gently pulling her hands into his lap and moving so there was no question anymore about whether or not they were holding hands.

They spent the rest of the movie like that until the lights came on to find the controller and put on the second movie. They both had jerked apart with sheepish smiles attempting to keep whatever just happened for themselves without their band mates finding out. As Julie got up to switch out the movie, she watched Luke’s smile turn into something more devious and she made sure to remind him- “Don’t take my spot.”

He just grinned at her and waited until her back was turned before scooching down a little and repositioning, so his legs were open in a V rather than crossed. Julie turned around and gave him a hard look, not buying his innocent act for a second. At the sight of her look he let out a low chuckle and responded, “Just getting more comfortable, is this okay?” She nodded and moved to lay back down in her spot except this time between his legs.

The lights went out and the movie started. She wondered if he would reach for her hands again, but she hadn’t put them back towards her hair. Should she move them up so they were more within his reach and available? But what if he didn’t grab them again? She started to squirm as her thoughts jumbled and she ended up rolling over to her side and using his leg as a pillow. It was… surprisingly comfortable. And she scooched a little bit up toward him so she could find a comfier spot on his leg for her head. She glanced at him briefly, discovering it was his turn to blush and stubbornly stare at the movie.

A silent giggle escaped her as she moved her hand to wrap around his leg, near her face. She was settled in quite comfortable with the new arrangement when she felt one of his hands back in her hair. This time she managed to keep her breathing steady although she could’ve sworn time stopped for a brief moment when he did that. He gently pushed a curl behind her ear before he traced his fingers down her back. Softly his fingers started tracing circles and rubbing up and down her back and she could feel the small hum in her chest as her body relaxed into his touch.

Somehow, she felt more than heard his small chuckle at her response and soon his other hand had found the one on his leg and was squeezing it in an attempt to convey how comfortable he found their arrangement too. Julie could tell he was gazing at her and she looked up to give him a small smile and a squeeze of his hand back before returning her attention to the movie.

As the movie progressed Julie scooched deeper and deeper into Luke. It was instinctual more than intentional, and she hadn’t realized just how close she’d gotten until her head was literally in his lap and he could nearly lean over and whisper comments about the movie in her ear. Which he did.

Luke marveled at his luck as the girl he adored kept moving closer and closer to him and slowly his hands had moved until they were clasped together at her waist, wrapping her up entirely with him. The movie was long forgotten as he soaked himself in her touch and the warmth building in his chest as he watched her go through all the emotions that were stirring inside him. He never wanted to let go of this beautiful magical girl that he couldn’t help but watch and admire.

His bandmates had been shooting him knowing glances and smiles ever since they caught him playing with her hair during the first movie. They would be teasing him so much later, but he figured holding this precious angel in his arms was well worth whatever was coming. As she scooched closer though, he started getting hints of jealousy in the boys’ eyes. They were so tactile, and it wasn’t fair that Luke was getting special Julie cuddles, he guessed. Since the start of the second movie the two had moved into their typical cuddle pile wrapping legs and arms around each other.

It was nearing the end of the movie when Julie started to drift off into sleep. She was warm and comfortable while wrapped in Luke’s arms and the weight of the world didn’t seem so heavy. A quick glance at her other bandmates revealed their cuddle pile and while she was perfectly content to be caged in by Luke, she still wanted all her boys. Slowly she reached out her arm so she could lightly tug on Alex’s shirt. He was just out of reach and that was all she could manage. Alex’s eyes quickly glanced down to the small hand gripping his shirt as if he might vanish and chuckled before shifting Reggie and his cuddle pile a little closer. Reggie reached out and grabbed Julie’s hand and placed it on Alex’s stomach while Alex reached out so he could be in contact with Julie.

Luke shot a grumpy pout at the two before hugging Julie tighter and whispering in her ear, teasing her lightly “Am I not enough for you Julie?” hearing the playfulness in his tone she shot him a sleepy look and said “jealous?” His eyes lit a little at that as he remembered Nick, but jealous of his brothers? Of his band? “Nah” he whispered back at her.

The movie ended soon after their little conversation and despite the fact that she was more asleep than awake Julie insisted on putting the third movie on. After a puppy dog look of her own the boys agreed and Luke stood up to put the movie on. He slowly shifted out from under Julie, melting a little at her grumbling protests. When he returned though he discovered Julie curled up into Alex’s side, his arm wrapped around her and her arm wrapped across Alex and Reggie.

He smiled at the sight of his three favorite people in the world all wrapped up in a contented ball of limbs and warmth. Sinking down into the spot Julie vacated, he scooched closer to curl up behind her, burying his head in her curls. At this point, he wasn’t even sure Julie was awake, but much to his surprise he discovered she was. At the feel of him behind her, she rolled over still wrapped in Alex’s arm but leaning into Luke and entangling her limbs in his.

Everything in him was happy. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so peaceful and content and a quick glance at his boys let him know they felt the same. Luke could feel Julie’s breath on his neck as she tucked her head under his, using one of his arms as a pillow. He let that hand reach out to Alex, wanting to be connected with his boys too. Alex’s arm stay curled around Julie’s front and Luke’s other arm went to wrap around her back. He traced circles there until Reggie’s fingers found his and they linked up still pressed against Julie’s back. The band was all connected like one big spider web.

They finished the remainder of the movie like that, frequently unable to tell where one of them ended and the other began. It was perfect they all thought until the end credits rolled and Julie’s eyes wrenched themselves open. She was glaring at Luke, but not with any real heat behind it. “Wait a second.” She exclaimed. “You stole my spot!”

Luke sputtered at the accusation, “But you- and cuddles- and really?” He was so busy attempting to explain how it really wasn’t his fault that he missed the pillow coming at it him until it hit him in the face. “Oh it’s on Molina.” A pillow fight ensued between Julie and Luke with him winning until Alex and Reggie came to her defense. It was quickly a free for all once again however, and probably would’ve continued on for much longer except Luke accidentally sent a pillow flying. It knocked all the DVD case off the table and narrowly missed the projector. Julie sighed. “This is why we can’t have nice things.” She managed to get out before collapsing into a fit of giggles. Luke looked sheepish at his error, tossing his weapon aside and lying beside Julie before dissolving into giggles himself. The other two soon joined and upon resuming their cuddle pile, Julie once again drifted back into sleep. They boys snuggled in closer, vowing to protect her and adore her as they settled in for the rest of the night.

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #juke #cuddles #pillow fight

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jawritter · 4 years

Text

Your Dean...

Request: Heyy! I'm sorry to be a bother. I was wondering if you can do a one-shot where the reader is prone to severe panic attacks and her husband Dean is the only one who knows how to calm her down? She gets a really bad attack but Dean for some reason ain't there, and no one is able to help her but eventually, he comes back and takes care of her. Sorry if this is a lot haha.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: Trigger Warning... Anxiety, Panic Attack, Angst, Some fluff. That’s about it I think.

Word Count: 1447

A/N: As always all mistakes are mine! Please don’t copy my work! Feedback his golden! I hope you all enjoy this one!!

Want more? Check out my Masterlist!!

****MASTERLIST******

It doesn’t start out hard and in your face, not always…

Usually, it’s a slow build over a course of days, sometimes hours, depending on what brought it on.

Not this time…

This time it felt like it hit you out of nowhere, and you didn’t even see it coming, not until it had already started to take hold of you.

The feeling like you’re being watched, paranoid over every little thing. That spine-tingling feeling that someone is following you, or watching you, judging you, and you know for a fact that no one is there.

The way your mind overplays things, making them out to be worse than what they are. Constantly playing over and over again like a broken record things that normal people wouldn’t even pay attention to, but you, it drives you crazy.

Every little mistake on a constant repeat in front of your mind’s eye, not letting you let it go…

Like this morning when you were in the gas station for a supply run. Dean would be home today, and he needed beer when he got home from a hunt because he liked to have it, and you knew it.

So as a good girlfriend you always try to be, your OCD says you must have beer at the bunker by the time Dean got home.

They had the counters cluttered, you set your purse down on the counter, in a hurry to get home before the storm hit and the rain started, and in your hurry, you knocked over a small display of candy bars onto the floor.

There was a line of people behind you…

They saw your clumsy moment…

That was all it took…

Your mind hyper-focused on that one moment, playing it over and over again. It wasn’t your fault really. They shouldn’t have had all that shit stacked up on the counter, but your mind wouldn’t let it go.

It just kept playing the way people stared at you as you fumbled and tried to pick up the candy that had fallen over.

Even though they weren’t really staring at you, your mind made you think that they were, because that’s how anxiety works. It takes a situation that’s small and just makes it seem like this unforgivable, insurmountable thing.

Everyone that was in there had probably forgotten all about you and the candy display by the time they got to their cars.

You though, you could feel judgment that wasn’t there.

You know the signs, you dealt with anxiety all your life.

You know what’s coming….

You need to get home to Dean… He’s your distraction… Your grounding… Your safe space… He knows how to pull you out of your head before it goes too far…

Your Dean…

When you finally made it home and walk through the doors of the bunker Dean still wasn't home…

You slip a level deeper into your spiral, this time you don’t even notice it, your mind still hyper-focused on what happened in the gas station. Your subconscious now mixing with the gut-wrenching questions on top of your own humiliations…

Where’s Dean?

He and Sam should have been home an hour ago?

Has something happened?

Are they hurt?

Did they get in a wreck?

Should you go look for them?

Taking a deep breath you shove it down and try to rationalize it…

They just ran into traffic or stopped for lunch. They’ll be home soon…

So you put away the supplies and go take a shower, trying to relax yourself and stave off what you know is coming.

Your heart rate feels higher than normal. Your hyper-focused state doesn’t allow you to see that it’s just stress and you’re doing it to yourself.

“Oh God, something is wrong with me. I’m going to die. I won’t ever see Dean again…”

Your Dean…

Just that simple thought causes your hands to shake and your chest to tighten around your lungs.

“There was so much I wanted to do, and now I won’t get to because I’m dying..”

“I wanted to see Dean one more time. Let him hold me one more time. See his smile. Feel his warmth… But my heart rate is up, and I’m going to die before he gets here… Now I won’t get to see him again…"

Your Dean…

You just wanted to see your Dean…

Your heart is now pounding in your ears as you try to dry yourself off and make your way to the bedroom you shared with Dean…

You feel a little dizzy.

“Oh, God… Is this it…”

“How will Dean find me?”

“On the floor in the hallway. On the floor of our bedroom… In our bed? Would he think you were just sleeping… Leaving your dead body there for hours?”

“Will he burn your body? Give you a hunter’s funeral?”.

“Will he do something stupid to try and get you back?”

Your chest grew tighter and tighter as your mind continued to reel. Your breaths felt like they were becoming harder and harder to take as you slid down the wall not three feet away from the door of your shared room.

Everything started to sound like it was underwater. Your world started swimming around you. Your vision is blurring as you start to lose consciousness.

You could hear a roaring sound like someone was yelling, but you couldn’t be sure everything sounded so far away…

Out of nowhere thick, strong arms wrapped around your shaking form and Dean’s cologne invaded your scenes…

Were you hallucinating?

Did you die?

Is this your Heaven… Dean shouldn’t be here… He should be alive…

"Y/N, sweetheart, breathe, you got to breathe for me okay? Breathe with me baby.”

You heard Dean take a deep breath, and you desperately wanted to do what he was telling you to do, but you couldn’t make your body do what your brain said you need to do.

Dean’s large hand came to the side of your face, making you look at him. His piercing green eyes invaded your vision, making you focus on him.

“Y/N/N, come on sweetheart, focus on me. It’s not real, whatever happened to you is not real. I’m real. I’m right here with you. You need to concentrate. I need you to breathe, baby girl.”

Dean was real. He was there… You weren’t imagining it… Your Dean was there… He was home…

You take a deep breath with him this time, your lungs burned in protest, but you did it; counting to five in your head before letting it go. Then again… Every breath becomes easier…

“That’s it, baby…That’s my girl… I gotcha just breathe," Dean’s deep voice vibrated through your body as he held it to his thick chest, his hands making a trail up and down your spine, calming you, grounding you like only your Dean could.

Slowly your world came back into focus after a long time of just sitting the hallway in Dean’s lap as he brought you back down from your panic attack. Probably the worst one you’ve had in a while.

Dean whispered comforting words to you until he was sure you were completely out of it before standing up with you in his arms like you weighed nothing at all, bringing you into your shared bedroom, and laying you down on his bed. Sliding in behind you, and wrapping his arms you, pulling you back to his chest, your head laying right over his heart. The sound of its steady rhythm helps to calm your own racing heart.

"That was the worst one I’ve seen you have since the night we got married, baby girl. What happened? Do you want to talk about it?” Dean asks as he plays with your hair, placing little butterfly kisses on your face, letting you know he was there, and that he loved you.

You thought back to that moment in the store when it all started to happen. When you knocked the candy display off the counter, but that really wasn’t what triggered it. You could see that now.

You’d been in your head for days, and you knew it. This hunt was a long one, and time away from Dean always was stressful, making your anxiety levels higher than normal.

“I really don’t know Dean… Guess I was just missing you… Got all in my own head… Blew little things out of proportion. You know me,” you tell him, and you nuzzle yourself into his neck, breathing him in and letting him feel all of you and wash it all away like only he could.

Your Dean…

Dean placed a chaste kiss to the top of your head and tucked the covers around the two of you tighter. Exhaustion was pulling at you, and he knew how much a panic attack on that level took it out of you.

“I’m right here sweet girl. I’m not going anywhere. I’m safe, you’re safe, I’ve got you, baby girl. I’ll always be here."

Dean started humming slightly, and everything faded to black as consciousness gave way to a peaceful sleep.

The first one in days.

Your Dean… Your world. He was home. You were safe. He was safe. Everything was right again…

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gofancyninjaworld · 3 years

Text

2020 in One-Punch Man. Part 1: Manga

How shall I describe this succinctly?

It's like ONE and Murata looked around them, saw a raging pandemic, massive disruption to all walks of life, uncertainty of when, if, or how it might affect them, took a massive drag of their cigarettes and said: “Fuck being conservative. Let's go wild. Fuck making our current arc a webcomic retread with fancier fights. Let's introduce more lore, let's have more characters interact in ways one would never have imagined, let's have characters do things that hadn't previously been thought of and make this really exciting.“

If you were holding onto the webcomic as your guide to what next, 2020 was not a good year for you.

723 pages in 24 updates (including revisions) changed the status quo ante in deliciously unanticipated ways!

Where we left off in 2019, we were following the webcomic pretty faithfully, with most manga-original elements being removed at a fast clip. Phoenixman was dead, the mercenaries had died a brutal death, the ninjas had been resurrected but had run off buck naked, Orochi was dead, G5 was very much destroyed, Drive Knight had appeared but had obligingly limped off, taking Nyan with him. The S-Class heroes were in trouble with the cadre exactly as expected and Saitama had met up with Flashy Flash. Tatsumaki had finally found Psykos. Yup, no real changes here.

2020, HAHA!

Awaken!

Throwing manga-specific elements away? As if! They took the great opportunity that preparing chapters for publication to critically review and revise the story so as to first, make it move at a faster pace and second, to be enriched. It’s meant that chapters for volume 22, 23, and 24 (to come) have been redrawn to accommodate the changes and we got the benefit of many of them between April and August of this year.

We started with Phoenixman’s fight with Child Emperor. It started innocuously enough with Phoenixman resurrecting, but then we got a much more interesting chunk of knowledge -- the existence of a metaphysical world modelled on one’s on psyche where the assault on Child Emperor’s sense of self took a much more existential nature.

From a purely physical battle (and some nifty cool info about the Subterraneans) to an otherworldy battle happening in parallel with the physical battle:

It ended up a very interesting examination of Child Emperor’s character and his relationships with other heroes, as well as telling us something else freaky about Saitama’s ability to be anywhere he damn well wants to be.

Ah, and Phoenixman lives. Albeit as a little chick (for now). He’ll probably be back, but not just yet.

The mercenaries were next. They didn’t die. Not because Amai Mask had a change of heart, but because Iaian listened to the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach and turned his team mates around to intervene just in time.

As you’d expect, trying to guide the mercenaries back to the safety of the surface has been an incredibly challenging ordeal for the disciples. It’s revealed much more about the way the disciples trust each other and lean on one another, and yet, when there was no option to do so, Iaian stepped up wonderfully to fight to save the mercenaries.

We’ve also learned something interesting about why mercenaries exist at all in a world supposedly at peace. I look forward to seeing where this plot might go next.

Elsewhere, we got to learn a little less about Puri Puri’s dancing and swimming lessons, but we got some really awesome nods to the mythical in Bakuma (the baku is a long-nosed creature formed out of all the bits left over after creation that eats dreams) and Electric Catfish Man’s sudden sense of doom is both reference to the way catfish are supposed to detect earthquakes and just damn cool.

A monsterised exploitative business man taking the form of a demonic dream-eating monster that consumes weaker monsters so as to exploit their abilities is so appropriate on many levels (and unreasonably hot!).

Yes, Waganma does make it to the surface, along with Saitama and Child Emperor. Saitama gets chased away by a Sekingar outraged that there’s a clueless hero just wandering aimlessly around. Child Emperor goes back underground and I loved to death Waganma being pierced with remorse as he realises that the hero is going to go risk his life anyway. He’s spoiled, but his keeping quiet came from a place of being a scared human being desperate to be saved (a surprising number of fans did not like that -- they preferred to think of him as a psychopathic monster incapable of remorse).

Orochi still has a date with a gloved fist, but he’s getting to live a little longer than he did before.

Overall the story is tighter and there’s a lot more interest as well as future plot hooks than there were. I’m interested in seeing how it gets tied up in the next volume sometime in 2021.

Reddit did not take it well. Summary of discourse:

sorry not sorry, I lost patience around the 500th whiny post

Advance!

What about the new chapters we got? Also here, ho ho ho, that status quo has gotten a good kicking!

Orochi came back. Not the most surprising surprise in the world, given how carelessly Saitama punched him. Also not surprising that he came back stronger; Phoenixman had wonderfully demonstrated that monsters can bounce back from near-death situations much stronger. But his form... such a disgusting, slimy, ever-shifting mass of tentacles and dragons, consuming all in its way led to the third craziest development: his fusion with Psykos to launch a new monster.

I’ll spare you the disgusting intermediate stages but the end result has been the birth of Psykos-Orochi and with that, what had been a total sweep for Tatsumaki turned into a much more dangerous enterprise where every mistake of hers got punished brutally.

Why is that only number three? Because Tatsumaki raised up the entire base to try to encompass the whole monster (and it turns out that she was thinking far too small -- the monster had actually eaten large sections of City Z) and Psykos-Orochi uses the space to launch a beam so powerful that it literally cuts off part of the Earth itself. It was a real I see it, but I don’t believe it moment.

if you didn’t spend a few seconds just staring in disbelief, you’re not paying attention. OMG. Boy is the Earth in trouble.

Why is that only the second craziest thing? Because of why this fusion monster was able to do as it did. ‘God’ doesn’t just go round looking like a semi-tangible being giving random homeless men magic powers. Yup, the Earth really in in trouble if some supernatural being is smushing monsters together to make a stronger one and then granting it extra powers. Just like that, the struggle has turned cosmic.

Tatsumaki trying to figure out how to fight back and save City Z from being swept away by a tsunami, save the heroes, and save the planet from further damage by the beams all at the same time was one of the most spectacular fights to date.

As I said earlier, this monster has presented Tatsumaki with a real fight where the slightest mistake on her part leads to severe punishment. She wound up in trouble when she underestimated how extensive the monster actually was and let up on twisting it too early, only to have it come right back and skewer her hands.

Thankfully, Genos came in and saved her from that pinch, then held the monster at bay long enough for Tatsumaki to finish saving the strike team so she could give the monster her undivided attention.

Which is a very tame way of saying that that was an incredible development in capability. That some of the fandom had trouble accepting (they suck). Watching their protests has been an exercise in special pleading. They have no trouble understanding how Murata uses scale...until it came to accepting the size of the explosion resulting from Genos smacking away Psyko-Orochi’s execution beam then it had to be a fisheye lens (visibly incorrect, but who’s talking facts here?). Have had no trouble understanding how Murata portrays escalation... until it came to accepting that Genos is strong then no, somehow the monster had to be weaker. Have had no trouble with the freeze frame language that Murata uses to portray things happening at great speed... until it came to accepting that Genos could move really, really fast. For some people, the new is only welcome when it confirms and validates preconceptions. Anyway, that’s my rant done!

the most unlikely of partnerships and they’re still going despite having taken a hell of a battering since this scene

Guess who’s back?

We’ve also been seeing more heroes come back to the fray. The emergence of the Tower of Doom acted as a clarion call to every hero around and able to move. Metal Bat sneaked out of hospital to come running back. Tank Top Master hitched a ride with Mumen Rider to go to City Z. He intended to stick around and save people, but seeing how much wider scale the fight was, he literally threw himself into battle.

Drive Knight decided he literally had to have a piece of the action, took up a ton of power from the nearest substation and came flying in to intercept a desperately escaping Psyko-Jet... ah, I didn’t say? Yes, the monster turned into a machine to run away once hard-pressed.

And we finally got to see what Blast actually looks like, courtesy of a flashback of Amai Mask’s. He definitely looks the part of a caped superhero and it’s little wonder he’s stuck in the imaginations of so many. But now I’m even more interested in seeing what his deal is and what is he’s like now

The one thing we know for sure will be happening is that Garou will not be denied his destiny. He’s coming. But what else is happening? Ah, that’s all in the air.

Bring on 2021!

#OPM #review #long #2020 #so much has happened #so much still to come #manga #Garou is coming BACK #13th #December #December 13th 2020 #so many incredible developments #Genos coming back far stronger than he's ever been and then hanging tough despite overdoing it #the unquestionable appearance of a meddling godlike entity #the Psykos-Orochi fusion and all its crazy permutations #the massive loss of life in Z-City: such an irony between heroes killing themselves to save a few individuals when mass death is all around #Not mentioned; Saitama Flash and their misadventures with Manako

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