#keep talking in that aloof and condescending tone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hungharrington · 1 year

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☁ — sweet talk !

summary: you're interested in your boyfriend's history- well, more like what he used to do that made the stories about king steve in bed spread like wildfire during school. you find out for yourself. fem!reader. 2k. minors DNI

Look, you love your regular ol’ Steve. Stevie. Steeb. He’s a sweetheart through and through — holds the door for you, holds your hand, gives kisses on your cheek, in your hair.

He’s a generous lover. Knows each little thing that makes you tick and just gives and gives to you. Answers your whimpers for more with a deeper grind of his hips, holds your hand as he buries his face between your thighs. He’s a giver.

But a small part of you, just a small part, has always wondered about King Steve.

You don’t want his sneering jabs and aloof disinterest — no, that’s all very much better off left in the past.

But the stories, the stories of how he left girls’ heads spinning, of the filthy fucks at bathrooms, all teasing and cocky King Steve, panty dropper.

You’re just a little bit— alright, marginally interested. Maybe decently interested.

So, you ask. It’s one of those games Steve likes to play sometimes at parties, the two of you begin as though you’re strangers. You’ll act coy, leaned against a wall with a low-cut shirt and a tight skirt and Steve puts on the moves.

It’s always the same stuff and it always makes you nervously giggle. A hand rested above your head against the wall so he can lean in low, whisper in your ear, something cheesy like, “I saw you from across the room and thought you looked so sexy,” that never fails to make you both break, spilling into laughter.

It’s one of the song and dances you two do, flirting like it’s your first time time meeting to keep things fresh. But tonight, when he cages you against the kitchen counter, hands planted on either side and he’s leaning in close, showering you compliments— you ask.

Your fingers tuck into his collar, keep him close, keep his lips ghosting the shell of your ear and whisper to him. “And what would King Steve say?”

You turn, just enough to see his face. The flush that climbs his cheeks as he considers it is glorious to see, but too his credit, he remains cool.

Steve’s eyes darken, rake over your expression and finds what he’s searching for. One of the hands on the counter shifts to cup your waist, dragging his thumb over the exposed skin tantalisingly.

“He would ask what colour your panties are,” Steve murmurs in your ear, voice somehow lower than before. The gravel in his tone shoots straight to your core. “And then ask you to prove it, in the bathroom.”

Before you even get a moment, his thumb dips into the waistband of your skirt, just an inch — and you suck in a breath instinctively. Steve chuckles and it has a condescending lilt to it. You’re nearly ashamed of how much it turns you on.

“So,” you reply, more breathy than intended. “Are you gonna take me to the bathroom then?”

Steve’s eyes light up and a pleased smirk plays on his lips — his hands wandering further from your waist, over your ass, toying with the edge of your skirt.

“Pretty girl like you?” He hums, the air of cockiness you know is King Steve beginning to take over. “No way, baby. I’d have you in the car.”

The way he says it, like he knows he’s already got you wrapped around his finger has heat crawling in your tummy, thighs squirming just a bit. The party is all but abandoned and you have to try your best to not look too eager on your way out. Steve’s wandering hand, which follows a line straight from your tummy down your thigh, doesn’t help in the least.

His hand is glued to your thigh, the entire drive home, the sweet caress of his thumb driving you crazy. Worse, Steve knows it — he takes his eyes off the empty road to watch your expression when he grazes closer to your hot cunt. Laughs a bit at the flutter of your lashes, the shuddering breath you take.

“Y’gonna let me fuck you properly when we back?” He asks, all smug, rolling his head in your direction. He doesn’t even give you time to respond, not that you can think of words at the moment.

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you?” He hums, his other hand draped lazily over the wheel. He squeezes your thigh, some murmur of ‘being good’ you can’t quite catch.

Despite his cool composure, you can the effect this whole act is having on him. His hips shift upwards for a moment, adjusting himself and clearing his throat. It thrills you more to know you’re both getting off on it.

You don’t make it inside once Steve kills the car’s ignition, parked in the shadow of his house. It’s dark out, a few streetlights here and there, but just light enough to see Steve. He smiles at the way you turn to him, looking for what’s happening next.

He puts his seat back just a bit, backing away from the wheel, and beckons you over. It’s an awkward clamber and when your knee knocks the gear stick and you whisper an “Ow”, only then does Steve break character for a moment.

“Shit, honey, y’alright?” He asks, pulling you into his lap, one hand travelling to your knee instantly. He gives a comforting rub. Concern knits his brows together. It hurts, but barely. You smirk and wind you arms around his neck.

“Wow, who knew King Steve was such a sweetheart.” You tease. You sink down, settling atop his thighs, and move to grind down against him but Steve’s hands are faster. His hands grip your hips, holding them tight in place, and you whine in retaliation before you think.

Steve huffs that cocky laugh, squeezes the flesh of your thighs, pawing back to grab at your ass. “Too needy, aren’t you? You’ll just have to wait, mhm.”

Then his lips are on your skin, on your neck, sucking and scraping. Steve knows all your sensitive spots, the way to play with your lobe to make you slick and whimper aloud. He’s merciless, nibbles and licks that make your tummy burn tighter and hotter — your hips move against his hold automatically, beginning to get desperate for friction.

“Stevie…” You rasp after a couple minutes. The air is just your heavy pants, Steve’s fervent motions, the sound of his hands scraping across the fabric of your clothes. His hands cup your ass, move to under your thighs, and he curls his fingers around the edge of your skirt and tugs it up just a bit.

“I know, baby.” He coos against your skin. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

You groan aloud softly, all his words travelling right to your cunt with a throb. You nod instantly, hoping, praying he’ll give you more. That he’ll let you kiss him.

“Let me have a kiss,” You pout, fingers curling into his hair, ready to tug his face up. Steve smiles at your words, despite his act, but he doesn’t show it. Doesn’t even move his face out. Just mumbles, “Nuh uh, baby. Not yet.” against your neck, breath hot, just to draw it all out.

While you still have a single coherent thought, you consider this the main difference between your Steve and this King Steve. King Steve is a fucking tease.

Your hips shift again, feeling his hardness beneath you. The desperation for some relief is building but Steve’s hands are already firm, holding you in place. He pulls back this time and fuck, if it isn’t a beautiful sight.

Lips pink and sheened with spit, cheeks a tad pink, eyes half-lidded in his lazy motions.

“Baby,” he begins, an annoyed drawl to his voice. “I’m taking care of you, yeah? Wait your turn.”

And before there room for protest, he’s back on you, lips pulling out every single sound from you he can. His hands move up to grope at your boobs, his fingers pinching at your nipples to make you whimper, then massaging it into pleasure to make you sigh. Your neck must be littered in hickies by this point.

It’s heaven. It’s torture. You grip his hair tighter as he works at a spot below your ear that forces little mewls out your throat and you try to contain your hips.

As Steve’s hands work downward, tracing the crease of your thighs inwards, you shudder and lean forward into him. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, still exposing your neck, and you can’t help how good it feels, you go a bit slack. Steve notices in a moment.

“Mmm, there you go.” He hums, voice low and still coated in smugness. “That’s it, just like that, huh?”

The dirty talk is making your head spin, making your cunt throb in want, your nipples tighten. You know the moment Steve’s fingers delve under your skirt, he’ll find a wet patch of slick.

His hands, however teasing, don’t venture under your skirt — and instead, he grips your hips again. This time, he pulls you closer and down, grinding up against at the same time. The pleasure burns hot and you moan lightly, fingers clenching in Steve’s hair and you find yourself chasing another grind instantly.

Steve doesn’t let you, hips still holding you in place. He sets the pace, a slow back and forth grind that pulls filthy noises from you. “That’s it, huh baby? That’s what you need, isn’t it? Taking what I give you, so good.”

His low voice, dripping in smugness, makes it hotter. Just a little mean. You force yourself to tug your head up, wanting more friction against him.

Despite the hardness in his jeans giving him away, he’s the most collected you’ve ever seen him for the situation. Eyes half-lidded, pink lips curled into a smirk, like he’s just observing you, not even partaking.

It’s all apart of King Steve; he gets you all hot and bothered, chest heaving and nails digging into his skin, while he looks cool as a cucumber. You let out a pathetic sounding noise, hips bucking against his hold.

“Oh, baby,” he crows, all faux-sympathetic, like he’s not grinding back up at you in that moment to make you mewl. Finally, one of his hands shift, pushing the fabric of your skirt up you thighs. Steve’s eyes gleam at the sight- sticky panties that are every bit of evidence of your arousal.

“Look at you,” He murmurs. You fight back every noise building in your throat, but they melt out when his thumb comes down to rub you through your panties. It’s a soft touch, a gentle stroke that’s nowhere near enough for you. Definitely on purpose.

You whine, arching against him and try to press forward, asking silently for more, more more. To your surprise, Steve doesn’t tease you, doesn’t draw this part out. His thumb presses against your clit, rubbing firm circles that he knows makes you fall apart — and your resounding moan is much louder than you’re expecting, barely managing to muffle it into his shoulder.

Steve chuckles at it, doesn’t let up his pace, adoring how your hips twitch against his touch — you want more and yet, this feels like so much. You feel delirious, feel flushed in every part of your body, feel your hole clench around nothing and whine aloud because of it.

“Too much f’you?” He asks cockily. “We haven’t even made it inside yet, baby. How are you gonna handle it then, hmm?”

How indeed.

now with a part two here.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve smut #steve harrington x reader smut #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x fem!reader smut #steve x reader #smut #stranger things smut #stranger things #howdy! <3 first post tehe #jay writes

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mossofbeast · 8 months

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Bite size Socks and Buskins ft. Diwa

Socks and Buskins

- theatrical theme unit

- trio (Sierra, José, and Frecil) producer Cherry

- Co-founded by José and Frecil

- Three "roles/characters" Queen(Sierra), King (José), and Jester (Frecil) (inspired by Oberion, Titania, and Puck from Midsummers night)

- Each song tells/contiunes a story (Written by José)

- Works on perception and comedy/tragedy hence the name

- Originally from sister Yumenosaki school in New York

- Supposed to avoid: Most units but especially: Fine, Switch, Ryuseitai, Eden, Crazy:B, UnDead, annnd Anzu (all Cherry's order)

José Diaz

- made leader, much to his dismay, by Frecil

- selective mute due to anxiety/speech issues, which is why being an idol + being able to sing and write is very important to him

- has a prosthetic for his forearm and foot

- is generally the one keeping the unit together. Very goodboy

- secret Valk fan (small crush on both Shu and Mika wtf get help)

- inferiority complex

- aloof, but easily flustered

- likes Sanrio a lot

- writes the songs with Frecil

- trying to be a good leader, but gets overshadowed by Cherry/Sierra

- you think he's the moon, but he's actually a sun

- has a star motif

Sierra Rivera

- this girl has some issues and she's making it your problem

- overly sweet to the point that it's sickly, she's condescending on purpose

- trouble maker, does things to either piss you off or love her

- starts fights for fun

- does have a hearing aid (more research will be done)

- tones down her sweet act around the juniors, but not much

- very outgoing, but also very double face

- she will talk about you behind your back and then play buddy-buddy with you

- doesn't want to be forgetten (plot)

- has a deal with Frecil

- step-sister with Frecil (their relationship is...complicated)

- another sun, but so bright it hurts

- broken heart motif

- choreographer of the group

Frederico "Frecil" Rivera

- eldest and most experienced of the trio, but shortest

- plays into a childish role to get you to underestimate them, knows more than they let on

- theater kid

- yes, they are in the vents, yes they are sleeping underneath your bed. You can't escape them

- is legally blind and uses a white cane, despite this they are incredibly reckless

- due to events in their third/senior year, they were held back

- already did their time in the light, now they're acting as a teacher to José and...Sierra, although their teaching methods is different. (José has soft love, Sierra tough love)

- Aka they're playing a supporting/defense role, does know how to work behind scenes.

- composes the songs for Socks and Buskins

- smells like..?? Petrichor for some reason?

- Sparrow motif

- did know OreRei

Producers

Aela "Cherry" Barbasdotter

- Heiress to a company in Germany

- Had grown up hopping between Germany and Japan

- is German and Japanese

- Despite being a rich kid, kinda grew "normally" compared to the other rich kids

- Is very much built and towers over Rinne and Kuro

- She knows how to box and is constantly looking to learn other fighting form

- Very stoic and doesn't trust others/overprotective to the point that it's stiffling

- Ceo of OuterGalaxies (Oc Idol Industry)

- Does soften up towards the youngins (Aira, maybe Kohaku.. Sora..deffo Sora)

- Is surprisingly good at making candies

- Doesn't like fighting, but will end them if she needs to (thx sierra)

- Yes, you're getting a background check. Yes she knows about you.

- have stolen cigarettes from people, especially when she's stressed

-cherry motif

Diwa García

- 2nd year student but uhh, how does school work?

- enroll in producer course on pure impulse/wasn't thought out

- extremely impulsive/reckless at times

- you think they would freeze when there's a fire, but you're wrong (isn't afraid of death)

- is very hard to scare and tends to be rather expressionless

- kinda like a jotoro situation where they think she's expressing their emotion, but they're really not?

- only when extremely flustered/confused does she express

- is studying you

- naive in the sense of people, but not in the sins of the world

- knows more then she let's on, let's say the dead don't keep their secrets

- trying to separate herself from her family's gifts

- is very easy to influence/tends to mimic the people she's studying

- has beef with Eichi

- can and will go guard dog for Tomoya/Anzu

- Produces Rab*its

- Makes knitted phone charms (with wards inside them) for Tomoya and Anzu

- this ends up with all the cast getting a charm from Diwa

-did meet Chiaki and Eichi when they were at the hospital.

-cat/death motif

-medium and trying to be normal

- missing their left pinkie

#enstars oc #enstar oc #ensemble oc #ensembles oc #aela barbasdotter #cherry #diwa garcía #frecil #frederico rivera #sierra rivera #idol oc #producer oc #idols oc #producers oc

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moonlightdancer26 · 2 years

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Can I ask why you often respond to harmless msgs that have well or neutral intentions so (for lack of a better word) aggressive? Is it because you’ve gotten hate before so you assume the worst of a anon? I’m not saying this to be mean I’m just wondering because it makes it really hard to talk to you about the characters and the books and that sucks because I genuinely value your opinion

Really? I always try my best to be careful with asks that don’t seem rude and seem to consist of genuine curiosity.

When I, as you say, aggressively respond to harmless msgs that have well or neutral intentions, it’s always for these three reasons.

Because:

The ask was not clear enough and so I thought that person was being rude or condescending.

I was already in a bad mood before I got the ask and seeing an annoyingly ambiguous ask (or for any other reason) just irritated me even more. I have a short temper and am moody 95% of the time, and that unfortunately can sometimes lead me to taking it out on someone. If the anon actually clarified and was nice, I guarantee you I will be nice—or try to be.

(This is the most likely case) I wasn’t actually trying to be rude, I’m absolutely horrible at passing tone indication through text and I can seem rude whenever I’m being sarcastic, I usually fix this by adding emojis, /gen or /s, or adding a “Have a nice day, anon!” at the end. So if you read something I wrote but without one of the two and think it can be considered aloof, keep in mind that it’s more than likely I myself have thought the same and decided to add something to fix it.

And really, dear—if you value my opinion oh-so much, then just… clarify. I promise you it is not that difficult.

And also, if you think it’s hard to talk to me through asks due to my… issue, or whatever you want to call it, just DM me and we can talk there. Asks are a lot of the times one-sided convos, so you can just privately message me and boom. Problem solved.

[Ah, my last two paragraphs seemed rude, didn’t they? I would like to say this is a perfect example of my last point—I am not trying to be rude at all, I’m advising you and using sarcasm whilst doing so. 🤷‍♀️]

So, my point is, even if I come off as cold and/or don’t seem nice to particular asks—just know that I do try. Have a nice day, anon! (🤔)

#ask #asks

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buntycake · 4 years

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Hey I really liked your writing so I decided to send in a prompt. What do you think the brothers would only reveal about themselves to MC after a long time of dating? Maybe a different side of their personalities or an embarrassing interest? Thank you for the hard work 💕

I’m glad you like my writing! I hope you enjoy this headcanon.

What the Brothers Reveal to You After Dating You for a Long Time

Pride:

Lucifer never seems to struggle. True, he has his fits of irritation as he tries to run Devildom while bringing Diavolo’s machinations to fruition. Even so, to an outsider he always seems to have a plan Z for everything.

The first time you saw him in a less than orderly state was when he called you to his office during one of his all-nighters. It was three in the morning and he had asked you to bring him a coffee spiked with poison. (This would have been alarming to you if you hadn't lived in Devildom for quite some time.)

Hunched over his desk and surrounded by paperwork, he looked exhausted. He didn’t even take the time to save his coffee like usual. It was gone in one gulp. When you asked what was keeping him up so late, he told you about Lord Diavolo's new idea. It had him ripping hair out he tried to figured out how to implement it.

Though he tried to shoo you away, you sat with him until 6 am, when he finally called it quits. This became a semiregular occurrence. (You talked him out of his all-nighters when you could.) Just your presence is enough to make the process of figuring out the impossible better.

When you're more settled in your relationship, he'll start asking for your advice and help. It's hard to believe that someone as persnickety as Lucifer would allow someone to do a job that he could do better, but he trusts you.

It's not always about work either. The conversations you two have about his relationship with his brothers are when Lucifer seems the most vulnerable. He wants to be close with them, but struggles. You are one of the few people he allows to know that.

Greed:

Mammon being completely serious is still an uncommon occurrence in your relationship. He has his more reserved moments, sure, but not bouncing off the walls is not the same as having that solemn, focused look in his eyes.

There are really two occasions when this side of him comes out. One, when he's in DEEP trouble with the witches. You'll know that his debt with the witches has become serious when he's pacing the length of his room and muttering a string of numbers and calculations you can't follow.

Two, when he's trying to comfort someone, most often you. (After all, his brothers aren’t the type to admit when they’re feeling down.) There was once you had gotten to ruminating about the past. Those memories had whirl winded into something ugly. All your past regrets and embarrassments built up and weighed down on you until you began to cry.

Luckily or unluckily, Mammon came barging into your room at that time. He was ranting about some new opportunity for making money. In your melancholy daze, it was hard to remember. You must have looked awful because the switch was immediate.

Mammon gathered you in his arms and rubbed your back until you calmed down enough to talk. At first, he seemed agitated since he thought one of the brothers had done something to upset you. However, as you explained what happened he settled down. He was silent as you spoke and his eyes never left your face as if he was trying to gather up your every word and reaction.

Mammon is surprisingly insightful when he wants to be. What he said to you after your rant was thoughtful and wise – completely unlike his typical persona. You knew the typical fun-loving demon had returned when he said, "Anyway, forget about all that stuff. You have the Great Mammon looking out for you now."

Envy:

Levi is extremely capable. Being an otaku shut-in, it's an aspect of him that isn't immediately apparent and that you've probably only seen glimpses of.

Levi's ability to keep up with all things otaku, while perhaps not impressive to anyone outside of the anime community, is a testament to his persistence. And no matter what normies think, Levi isn't without ambition.

It's actually a little while into your relationship that he brings up an old goal of his: creating an otaku podcast. He was timid as he began to explain his vision to you, but about an hour in it was clear that he knew EXACTLY what he wanted to do. He just needed a little nudge.

After many reassures, some words of affirmation, and a pretty drawn out planning session, he got to work. For the next couple of months, he was busy - completely hyper focused on this goal.

He reached out to some smaller creators in the otaku community to find others interested in making a podcast. The two of you went searching for a place and some equipment to rent out. There were many late nights with just the two of you drafting up some beginning podcast topics.

Levi was a nervous mess before the first recording. You sat in on the first one just to be a calming presence, but in the end, you don’t think he needed it. He had a BLAST. Everyone seemed to play off each other so well.

When the podcast came out, it was a modest success. Those that liked it were begging for more. He was practically vibrating from excitement and overflowing with new ideas after that.

Levi undoubtedly did most of the leg work, but he'll insist to his last breath that it was all because of your support. To him, he can jump any hurdle with you by his side.

Wrath:

Satan is disgustingly romantic. For all the rage he can store in his body, honeyed words and sweet sentiments take their place there, too. Blame it on all the romance books he's read over the millenniums.

This aspect of him was probably the clearest during your dates, where he’ll take you to some unknown, but beautiful place. Even as you take in the environmental or astronomical wonders that Devildom offers, his eyes can’t seem to part from your form. It’s as if your existence is even more surreal.

This sentiment bleeds into your daily life the longer you're together. Most notably when you start finding small notes everywhere.

In the morning you found a note on your dresser, scrawled in his neat cursive. It read, “Your smile is as refreshing as the morning dew.” The smile in question appeared on your lips and you could almost see Satan’s amused smile in your mind.

Another note that said, “Your curiosity is something to be admired and feared,” had you giggling in the middle of RAD’s hallways. You got a few odd stares for that.

Surprise, surprise, there were more in your backpack, textbooks, around your room, everywhere. Each contained a small snapshot of his feelings about you.

At the end of the day, you found him tucked away in the library with a book like usual. When you asked him why he hid all those notes, he simply said, "So, that you would have at least one happy moment each day.”

Lust:

Asmo takes pride in his appearance, but more than that, fashion and beauty are a defensive mechanism. If he looks less than perfect, then there might be merit in what people say about him. They might have good reason to hate or resent him.

When he's at his most beautiful, he can pass those reactions off as people being envious of his perfection. It may seem like a small thing, but it's a privilege to see him before all the primping and preening.

So, when you woke up after one of your rendezvouses and found him still in bed, you were surprised. Usually, he was already up and about, wrapped in one of his silk robes.

He always looked like he woke up fashionably messy. Hair that was perfectly mussed, robe that was draped lazily over his shoulders, and eyes that seemed dewy with sleep, but the smell of bathing oils and perfume always gave away his morning preparations.

Seeing him with bedhead, rubbing at his bleary eyes, and yawning out morning breath was surreal. You thought you were dreaming until he pulled you closer and nuzzled into your chest. His lack of pretense went unmentioned for cuddles and an extra thirty minutes of sleep.

Every time he does this, know that he's choosing to be vulnerable with you. And perhaps more importantly, that he's opening himself up to your criticisms. Ones that he can't/won't deflect and will take to heart.

Gluttony:

Beel is rarely angry. As the peacemaker of the brothers, he's often the one pacifying the others. It doesn't leave him much room to express his own anger.

More than that, Beel doesn't like to hold grudges. It makes him feel guilty. There's already so much animosity among his brothers already; he doesn’t want to add to it.

You were really worried the first time he came to vent to you. He had entered your room a bit solemnly and gathered you into his arms. Then, he’d asked your permission to disclose something to you.

At first, you thought he was sad. Beel had commonly shared moments where he felt sad or upset, but this quiet simmering anger was new to you.

He started off quietly. It was lucky his mouth was right by your ear or else you'd have never heard what he was muttering. The whole rant started off with him confessing how frustrated he was with Lucifer for still withholding information and not leaning on the brothers for help.

As you nodded and encouraged him to go on, he got more confident. The conversation drifted away from Lucifer, to his qualms with the rest of the brothers. All of them for condescending his intelligence on a daily basis, Mammon for always going through everyone’s things, Asmo for constantly stealing his cake, and so on.

Beel had completely cooled off by the end of his rant and was a tad bit embarrassed. However, as he gets more comfortable venting, he'll let you know about small things that irritated him that day. It becomes like a daily confessional ritual between the two of you.

Sloth:

Belphie is notably cynical. However, this gets toned down by his aloof, sleepy persona. As adorable and soft as he is, he harbors numerous negative opinions of the world.

He doesn't trust easily and often expects the worst of people - demons, humans, angels, it doesn't matter. To his credit, when he isn’t blinded by his temper, he’s often right in his assessments. However, for Beel's sake, he typically suppresses this response.

With you, he feels he can air out his grievances. The first of these occurrences happened after a post-nap in the attic. The two of you were curled around each other and he began to let his woes slip out into the space between the two of you.

He talked about everything from his brothers to the exchange program to even his reservations about you. The dichotomy of Belphie cuddled into you, surrounded by a mountain of pillows while lamenting the woes of the world was frankly jarring. But when he finished, he seemed to sink deeper into your embrace like a weight had lifted off his shoulders.

As he continues to talk to you about all his less than optimistic views, they become a sort of philosophical debate between the two of you. There’s something satisfying about throwing each other’s ideals around and deconstructing them. More appealing to Belphie is that the two of you can have these conversations without judging each other (too much) or forcing your morals down the other’s throat.

#obey me #obey me swd #obey me headcanons #obey me imagines #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me beelzebub #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #obey me gender neutral mc

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stopeatingwhales · 4 years

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talk tonight x noel gallagher

i’m back with another noel fic ;) i know the meaning behind the song is completely different to how this story is presenting it, but i’m changing it up so it can fit the storyline. i don’t know why i always write so much for noel BUT he deserves it <3

Paring: 90s noel gallagher x reader

Warnings: its just really fucking soft okay

Word count: 3.809

Requested by anon <3

༉‧₊˚✧

“Stop writing so many mopey songs!” Liam yelled, tossing the now wrinkled piece of paper at his brother, containing heartfelt lyrics to another one of Noel’s melancholic masterpieces. “We’re not a sad band, for fucks sakes!”

Sighing, Noel looked away from his sibling’s frustrated stares. Taking a hold of the paper, he unfolded it slowly, attempting to stretch out its unfortunate bruises: formed when gripped firmly in Liam’s palm as he skim read it atrociously. His eyes trailed from the top, all the way to the bottom of the page, examining the lyrics that messily peppered the sheet. He had spent hours, days, relentlessly trying to get the words right; it seemingly sounded better in his head rather than on the paper, his heartfelt remorse towards the amounts of paper he used - and eventually binned - ghosting his mind as he stared at the title of the song. Talk Tonight.

Usually, he would be skilfully speedy with writing such anthems, yet, with this song, he felt it contained more of him than anything else did - his bare heart, unexpectedly torn out of its ligaments, dusted on a random chopping board, framed for the entire world to see. The public would have no idea who it was about and why he had written it, but knowing the obsessive fans that queued for hours just to buy a 7” single, crammed gigantic concert halls, chanted back memorable lyrics, which were either written hurriedly, wanting to complete the song or were age old melodies, well thought out in his childhood bedroom - accompanied by Liam’s occasional interrupting with his rowdy complaints about their mother not allowing him to go out and mess around with his friends at the time. His fans may either be oblivious as to the meanings of the song, or they may be able to depict it as adroitly as a neurosurgeon figuring out the exact muscle which broke apart the spine. You never knew.

Noel stayed silent, not replying to Liam, leaving the standing sibling puzzled by his distanced expression. Expectedly, he assumed Noel would answer him, perhaps with a scolding, reminding him that he doesn’t write the songs, and that Noel’s the mastermind of it all, to which Liam would throw a hissy fit, storming out of the room in anger towards his repetitive comeback. Nevertheless, all that sounded in the room was a light hiss of wind escaping from the outdoors, seemingly into the small crack of the slightly opened window; you couldn’t tell whether it was shut or open. The fresh seeping air felt like it was intruder, like a fox deciding it was their place to rummage through your neighbours’ bins for a midnight snack, and after not managing to find anything, leaving all the bin bags ripped open, the trash every place imaginable in the adjacent front yard. “Noel?” Liam spoke, walking up to where his brother was sat, eventually inviting himself to sit next to him.

Liam’s words snapped Noel out of his ponder over what seemed to be anything imaginable. Blinking a couple times, he rubbed his right eye irritatingly, finally responding to his awaiting brother. “What?” he asked, folding up the paper once again, hiding it from Liam, as if he hadn’t already seen it previously. There was an element of secrecy in this song, something he found himself afraid to admit, even to the closest person to him.

Taking note of this, Liam slowly gained an idea of the reasoning behind his aloof body language. “Who’s it about?” he questioned, snatching the piece of paper out of his sibling’s grip, once again. As he opened the fold, he noticed Noel’s tense body again from the abrupt clutch of his work. He re-read the roughly written lyrics - some endings of the words resulted in being smudged due to the pen his brother was using - this time seeing the lines in a completely different light. Noel was calling out for someone, a hint of plead, offhand desperation, a simple crave for attention, all effortlessly foreshadowed in his words. This wasn’t an ordinary song; this was about someone, someone close to him.

“Who’s it about?” he repeated, his tone on the stretch between rough and soft, like a baby’s screeching, features soft yet voice ever so repulsive. Noel’s dry, lifeless responses began to agitate him, though he tried to hide it, his eyes trailing off to study the older brother’s distinctive features in a midst of the silence, always taking interest into his sibling’s prescence. He took note of his messily arranged mop hair-do, decorated lightly with significant stands sticking out freely; it was obvious that his attention being undivided towards his meaningful lyrics made him feel that he had no need to do himself for anyone else, along with the curved bridge of his nose, morphed in a delicate overlay of skin, a unique microcosm to who he really was. Both Gallagher brothers were pictured in the magazines as loud, condescending, boisterous teenagers from a poor, working class background, each one oblivious to the understanding of how to control (and handle) the spotlight - yet always wanted it to be on them. However, the way the world pictured Noel wasn’t fully correct: yes, there were times he was off of his head, drugged up in all sorts of class A drugs he seemingly was able to purchase from the insane sales their debut album, Definitely Maybe, had scored. Regardless, the world saw Noel as the twin of Liam: the same, when without a doubt both carried such idiosyncratic differences.

Once again, Noel kept quiet, engrossed between his many thoughts and ideations, not knowing whether to answer Liam or keep his silence. Noel felt the strong stare of his sibling being emitted onto his flesh, drawing himself two options: telling Liam and having him shut up about it, although he knew he wouldn’t, or keep his brother asking the same questions, his curiosity - and aggravation - increasing every millisecond as his quietness progressed on. “Is it someone I know?” the sibling asked, causing Noel to swivel his head instantly - locking eyes with him in surprise. Yes, Liam, it is.

Liam was quick to catch Noel's startled expression, immediately thinking of all the girls they had been friends with, or had been working with them within the past year. They didn’t have many girl-friends; when you’re front page on practically every entertainment article about how loud and tatty you usually were tended to result in hatred by the mass population of women. Regardless, there were enough girls to be friendly with; when you’re drunk in a pub at three in the morning searching for a passionate night with someone, it’s less likely you’re going to keep your eye out to not sleep with someone as attractive as the Gallaghers. “Is it Matilda?”

“No,”

“Evelyn?”

“No,”

“Nicole?”

“No! It’s Y/N!” Noel yelled, agitated by his brother's bombarded neediness to know.

“So not Nicole?”

“No,” he repeated, his mind beginning to despise the word after the countless amounts of it rushing off his tongue in the mass of a few seconds.

“Good, because I like Nicole,” Liam mumbled, gazing straight at the window, intently listening to the quiet sound of cars driving by on the road beside them.

Shocked, the older brother bunched his eyebrows together and squinted his eyes. “You have Patsy, Liam,”

“Yeah, but,” the younger brother began, before being caught in realisation. “Wait, Y/N?”

Sighing, Noel came to a conclusion that there was no way of escaping the situation. “Yes, her,” he replied, taking the song out of Liam’s palms. He had stared blankly at the sheet hundreds of times, lost in a dream, yet each time he felt as if he was reading it for the first. Every time his eyes laid upon the first few lines, his heart felt as if it was a balloon being punctured with a toothpick on accident, cascading out of a little child’s hand in the middle of the sidewalk, flying onto the road making it unable to get a hold of it again. The kid cries, but the mother tells him to get over it, you’ll get another soon, she says. Noel rarely spoke to Y/N, and when he did, he either stuttered or was too drunk to finish a sentence. She made his heart flutter, in the most endearing ways, receiving a small smile from the girl brightened his day to the fullest. Sometimes he wondered if he was in love with her, love at first sight when they first locked eyes in the recording studio, the band’s manager introducing them to the band as the recording assistant. She was the prettiest girl he had ever laid eyes upon.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Liam asked, wrapping an arm around Noel. “Or even, why haven’t you gone out with the girl yet? She’s single ain’t she?”

Noel nodded his head, staring down at his fingers as they cradled the sheet cautiously, hoping not to rip it in the slightest. “I was thinking of showing the song to her, since I have no fuckin’ clue how I’m supposed to tell her how I feel,” he added, pulling his hand up to chew on his nails - out of nervousness of the idea of presenting such a heart-wrenching song to her.

“Tell her tomorrow, show her the song after recording,” Liam suggested, slipping his top lip into his mouth, wondering what was battling his brother’s thoughts. He had never seen his brother so naive to how to talk to a girl, tell her he wants to go out for a drink with her, enjoy each other’s company as friends, not co-workers, for once. It was like the entire topic was something so new to the sibling - not even his brother could aid him with directions over what to do, exactly presenting a child the quadratic form, they would never be able to understand it.

A few long, impatient seconds whistled by in the room - the ambience tense yet soft, bubbled to the brim with thought. Liam didn’t want to say anything else, knowing his brother wouldn’t answer; he wanted to wait for a well thought out response, one that would make sense - unlike receiving flat-out no’s, which brought both boys off guard over the repetitiveness. “You think it's good enough?” Noel questioned, locking eyes with the opposing brother once again. Funnily enough, he knew the exact answer he was going to receive; he could hear it in the room, bouncing off of the walls, the exact words rolling off of Liam’s tongue. He knew him so well, he didn’t need a conformation of words as they fell off of his lips.

“Go for it,”

~~~

After another strenuous day of recording, bickering, and a sporadic storming out by the lead singer, they somehow managed to record two songs: Acquiesce and Headshrinker, both songs to be included in their first single release, Some Might Say, for their upcoming album. There was high anticipation for this forthcoming LP - tabloids had the topic stained on their lips, the matter embossed in their heads, it being the only thing they were able to talk about with a such excitement, almost exactly like the buzz the band received with their first album, due to it becoming the fastest selling debut LP in the UK charts. Everyone was shocked by their sudden appearance, and along with their rugged up, tough looks, you couldn’t take your eyes off of them. Unsurprisingly, the air in the room was filled with up to the brim in fog - all from the hundreds of joints that were scruffily wrapped up and burnt, all up to its butt to be chucked away in the dustbins. There were ashtrays decorated all around the room; some practically overflowing in dust, others merely sprinkled in ash it could almost present as unused and clean. Time felt distant; with the clock itching to strike hour 5, the atmosphere was left fussy, all five boys drained entirely from the ridiculous amounts of re-recordings they had to do, along with Guigsy being especially annoyed by a decision their label had made for an upcoming gig they seemingly had to start planning for. Bollocks, he shouts, slouching down in his seat, as Bonehead scoffs at his continuous childlike behaviour.

“Right well, I’m out,” Liam yells, his eyes immediately drifting onto Noel. Giving his sibling a nod, he grabs hold of his spliff again, his fingers softly entwining with the roughened fabric, inhaling sharply before exhaling out its poignant contents in front of Y/N’s face. “Bye, Y/N,” he adds, turning his head away and swaying out the door - trying to present a cool-like physique. The rest of the boys follow, except Noel. She laughs at him, whispering a short bye before carrying on with her previous activities. The boys were planning on going to the nearest bar to hang out, we deserve it after all our hard work and dedication to this shitting album, Liam would always repeat. Not like their lives aren’t situated with cigarettes, bars and alcohol practically everyday. I want to find a bird to sleep with. You have Patsy! Oh, yeah.

After everyone had left, it was only Noel and Y/N left in the space. Noel was sat in the recording room, playing around with the strings on one of his many Gibson’s, his fingers lightly tapping on the metal cords, attempting to settle another melody for another upcoming song he had thought about. He was always like this. He was the definition of the I’ll-see-you-guys-there type; he constantly had something to do beforehand. He carried such a creative mind, you never wanted to interrupt him when he was left in his element, you knew he was going to create something amazing - he always did. Y/N currently had her headphones on, her head slowly bopping to the sounds of the music she was playing as her eyes were focused on the controls. Every few seconds she would mess around with the controls, either boosting the bass or lowering the sound of the guitars, continuously finding something fun to do with the tunes. As the song she was listening to had come to a close, she clapped lightly to herself, accompanied with a wide grin plastering on her face. Listening to music was her favourite thing in the world to do; it repeatedly gained her such emotional satisfaction you’d envy it from afar.

His eyes drifted onto stare at Y/N. Every time he laid her eyes on her, he was perpetually enthralled. Enthralled by her presence, enthralled by how much dedication she can hold to one small, simple thing - she never seemed to get tired by anything, even by his younger brother’s whiney behaviour. She was most certainly the best one to speak to him whenever he was pissed, agitated or refusing to do as everyone was telling him to: whether it be because of an argument he had in the midst of recording about how the lyrics sounded, resulting in him storming out, or about a petty comment that was slipped out of their managers’ lips about how hard they are to work with, she consistently knew what to do. Her voice always held this calming tone, almost like she could never shout, get mad, even if she tried to. What made Noel inspired for his songs wasn’t the same, rapid rush of exhilaration that he’d gain as he was nearing finishing the song; it was the Oasis in her eyes that motivated him. She saw them as this power, this light that no one was able to obtain, Noel being the only one able to unlock the true colours behind it. The mastermind. Whatever she said, whatever followed off her tongue professedly felt like it came straight out of a book - no matter what conversation was occurring. Her words would repeat in his head until they became engraved and cherished, saved for another moment to remember. It would never leave his mind. He was constantly captivated by her, in the most desiring ways.

“What are you doing?” Noel asked, attempting to hold a conversation. His fingers were still messing around with the cords, this time his other arm resting on his lap instead of situated on the neck of the guitar. He watched her head lift up, switching her gaze from the controls to instantly lock eyes with Noel, a bright smile now glued onto her face.

“Just having a bit of a play with the controls,” she grinned. “And you, mister Noel?”

Laughing lightly at the tiny nickname he had received from her, his heart warmed by her blissful aura of everything he had wanted to see in a girl. She always carried optimism wherever she went, consistently held her head up high. “Figuring out something for a song,” he mumbled to her, to which she nodded her head slowly in reply, her eyes now staring at the guitar placed on his lap. Her eyes kept switching from to the nape of the instrument straight to its body, practically analysing everything that was on it. This carried on for a few seconds, the air mute until Noel decided to speak up with something he was anxious about bringing up. “I wanted to show you something,”

Building up enough courage, Noel placed his electric guitar on the stand next him, exiting the crammed recording room to quickly enter the lounging space. Y/N’s eyes never left his body; her curiosity stretched out in the masses towards the lanky boy’s withdrawn approach, striking her attention right away. The entire time he avoided locking eyes with her, trotting into the space quickly as he went to grab a random acoustic thrown on one of the couches in the room, knowing his nerves would reach a breaking point soon enough, for even thinking of creating contact with her enticing, sunlit orbs, filled with an itch of interest and consistent undivided attention, would cause him to shrivel back into the young Mancunian boy he once was, before stuttering slightly and rushing out of the room - danced in embarrassment. He had never come across a girl who was able to strike him in such a way his nervous system was at a risk of collapsing, the only songs he was able to write about people tended to either be his brother, or situations with friends - for it was never a girl, he was never like that.

Snatching the previous seat of the acoustic that was cradled in his arms, Noel pulled the instrument closely to his body - the wooden material now in contact with his clothed chest. Inhaling the air as if it were a spliff coiled with weed, he took deep breaths, counting down from the number five before speaking up again. “This one’s called Talk Tonight,” he echoed, before his fingers - as if magically casted a spell - automatically shifted places on the fretboard, beginning to strum the solemn notes, beautified with adoration. At this point, Y/N’s chair was completely swivelled, her gaze fixated exactly on Noel, her heart agape as she marvelled at the boy merely inches in front of her. The heavy strums were the only thing sounding in the room, settling on a peaceful, luscious tone, containing powers to set you in a stupor of harmony, reconciliation, sending you straight to sleep in just a few seconds. It had power to heal you, like an antidote adorning your skin, the pain at first making your face scrunch up in distress, then relaxing after a short while, pleasure washing over your veins to realise you were finally healed.

Once Noel began singing, he became a different person. His nerves were long gone - escaped from his mind, for all tension was now released from his body as his fingers swept across the strings freely. Without even looking at Noel, it was clear that the piece he was performing meant a lot to him, his vocal chords perfecting the notes in hilarity, infatuated by the idea that he was truly presenting it, in real life, to the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about for days on end. He was singing it like he had nothing left to lose, for he was unmasking a side to him he never dared to even think of letting escape; it all his thoughts, his feelings, pouring out in a short 3-minute song, pacified with emotion - it was impossible not to feel an attachment to the music. As he was nearing the last couple lines of the song, he lifted his stare from his instrument, looking to see if Y/N was watching him, and to his surprise, he was instantly met with her gaping at him. Their eyes were glued to one another’s, almost like they were afraid to blink, or do something to prevent not sharing the moment with each other - even if that meant having your eyes burn out of dehydration.

“I wanna talk tonight, Until the morning light, ‘Bout how you saved my life, I wanna talk tonight.”

After the song ended, there was immediate clapping from Y/N. It was the same, quiet clapping she bestowed earlier when she had finished listening to one of their demos by the control centre, but this time for Noel, and only him. “Was that for me?” she asked, her grin blaring out in her words. She knew it was, all from the beginning with his awkward walking to grab the guitar, yet she still asked anyways. Noel didn’t answer, looking away to stare at his free hand stroking the couch nimbly. He didn’t know what to say, slightly embarrassed yet glad he finally accomplished what he was trying to muster out for months. At first it was a quickened heartbeat as she walked past him, him being all flushed out with a simple doing, to not even knowing what to say when she asked him a question about his guitar riff he performed, to which he’d turn to look at Bonehead, asking him to reply a question he didn’t know the answer to. “Because if that’s the case, I feel the same way,” she added, knowing Noel’s head would turn almost immediately. And it did. He was met with her lips, brushing against his teasingly, their noses colliding together, on the verge of morphing into each other. He felt that he had finally found the one person who understood him best among anyone he knew; he felt as if she knew him more than he knew himself, without even communicating. It was a feeling so scarce and infrequent, he finally understood life for what it really was, for he would prefer dying in that exact moment than pulling away, having to endure the ache of realisation: realisation he would never have a moment so perfect ever again.

#noel gallagher x reader #noel gallagher #liam gallagher #oasis #oasis band #britpop #90s #nineties #imagines #band imagines #fluff #smut #angst #my writing

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celtics534 · 4 years

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Whatever it Takes

Covert Love Chapter 21

It’s finally over 😥! The final chapter of Covert Love is upon us. Y’all have been amazing with your love for this story and it makes me so happy! Thank you for all the encouragement and love 😁. I need to credit the amazing @thedistantdusk for all her help with this story! Literally the best person ever!!

This chapter title is based on Whatever it Takes by Imagine Dragons.

Read on: FF.net or AO3

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“ Hey, Prue. Long time no see .”

Harry’s entire body turned to ice at those words, at that voice. He’d know that voice anywhere. It was in all his dreams of the future, in every daydream his mind concocted, and it was the voice that made him feel safe with every word spoken. Except for those six words. Except for in this moment where he was tied up by a lunatic who had a crazy obsession with the love of his life (who happened to be the owner of the voice).

He tried to turn, to look at her, but the rope Prue had tied around him stopped him from turning more than ninety degrees. But even with that limited angle, Harry was able to see Ginny standing in the kitchen doorway, her palms out.

Prue’s shoulders tensed at the familiar voice. She spun around slowly, her eyes sharp as steel as she stared at the person. “ Well , I didn’t expect to see you here , my dear.”

Ginny’s laugh was humorless. “I could say the same for you, Prue.” She moved forward slowly, her gaze locked on Prue. “How about we catch up. I think we have a few things to talk about.”

The laughter that came out of Prue was manic, raising the hairs on his arm. “What is there to talk about, Ginevra? You were supposed to stay at my house. Actually.” Prue’s brow knit together. “How did you get here? France isn’t a short trip.”

France ! Harry’s mind faltered at the word. Prue had taken Ginny all the way to France! They hadn’t even spread their search past the United Kingdom. At the rate they had been going… Nope ! Harry needed to focus on what was going on right in front of him, not some what-if situation.

He took a deep breath, which wasn’t an easy task due to the gag shoved in his mouth. Ginny had moved to stand only a few meters away from him. She was so close he could almost touch her (if it weren’t for the rope pinning his arms to the back of the chair). Every part of him ached to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her. Of course, all the relief he felt at seeing her was numbed by the situation they were in. Yet all his body craved was a chance to hold her in his arms.

“So, care to tell me why you’re here in my brother’s house?” Ginny asked as if she were merely discussing the most recent rainfall. “I assume you have a reason for showing up uninvited to their lovely home.”

“Well, I had to meet this adorable niece you keep raving about!” Prue lofted Victoire a little higher in her arms, making the little girl whimper. “And of course I thought, why not having a cup of tea with the family while I was at it, but for some reason the moment I showed up everyone got rather tense. Including your little boy toy over there.” She jerked her chin at Harry.

“I can’t imagine why.” Ginny’s tone oozed sarcasm. “People tend to respond poorly to surprise visitors, Prue.”

Prue stared at Ginny for a few seconds before her lips curled into a condescending smile. “You may be right there, my friend. Next time I’ll have to remember to send an owl. But until then…” Prue twisted the blade in her hand ever so slightly, making it dig into Victoire’s skin a little more. “How about we all settle down for a lovely chat.”

“Should I go make that tea?” Ginny asked, her tone still level as if they were talking about morning broom traffic over Dublin. If Harry didn’t know Ginny as well as he did, he might have been fooled by her aloof attitude. But if there was one thing in this world Harry was proud to understand was Ginny Weasley. The way her fingers twitched every few seconds, the stiff way she stood, and the tension in her jaw… Ginny was nowhere near relaxed.

Ginny had told him stories about her tremendous acting skills. As a child, she’d used it to get an extra biscuit or get one of her brothers in trouble instead of herself, but Harry hadn’t yet been graced with a presentation of her skills. But as he watched her go toe to toe with Prue he decided she was as good as she’d claimed, maybe even better.

Prue’s head tilted to the side, as if considering Ginny’s offer. After a few moments, Prue shook her head. “Why don’t you take a seat beside your brother?” She jerked her chin to Bill. “Best seat in the house. You’ll be able to see everyone and everything .”

Again, if Harry wasn’t adept in watching Ginny he would have missed the way her neck tensed as she swallowed hard. “Oh? And what will I be privy to seeing?”

The wicked smile that turned Prue's lips made Harry's heart pound against his ribs. Her eyes fell onto him. "Something that should have happened a long time ago."

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Harry bit his tongue as the steel blade ripped into his leg. He refused to give her the satisfaction of showing how much pain he was in. Prue's cuts were precise and deep. Every swipe of her knife sent fire shooting through his body.

The first few cuts hadn’t been so bad, but after Prue’s twentieth slice Harry had given up keeping count. He’d closed his eyes after the tenth slash. At first he'd kept his gaze locked with Ginny, who was straight across from him, her arms and legs bound, but after the tears started falling silently down her cheeks Harry couldn’t look any more. She had tried to stay strong for him, but he saw her wince at every mark Prue made.

“You know,” Prue’s voice was higher than normal as she spoke somewhere to his left. The amusement was too clear in her tone. “This could all stop if you acknowledge your true calling, Ginny.”

Harry slowly opened his eyes to see Ginny’s pinched face, clearly trying to hold back any more tears. When she spoke, the tremble in her voice made Harry’s gut clench. “I don’t know what you mean, Prue. I’ve never known what you meant by that!”

Prue made a tisking noise with her tongue as she tapped the blade of the knife against the side of Harry’s chair. “I was afraid you’d say that.” Harry didn’t even see her hand move but rather felt the sting of the blade as the wound opened on his bicep. Prue let out a high pitched laugh that made every hair on Harry’s body stand on end. “ Whoops .”

Harry forced himself to breathe through the pain. He looked over at Ginny who looked ready to crawl her way to Prue to kill the woman. The way Ginny’s eyes burned with rage… Harry had never seen her emit such anger. He’d seen her angry a time or two, but this… this was a level of intensity that would make Harry cower if the look was direct at him.

“Prue.” Ginny’s voice had lost all its false serenity. Now her fury washed off her like tidal waves. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! So why don’t you stop this insanity!”

Prue just shook her head as she circled around Harry, like a bloodthirsty shark. She let the knife tip graze over Harry’s body as she went around. His shoulder, bicep, arm, thigh. An uncontrollable shiver ran down Harry’s spine every time the blade touched bare skin.

“I’m disappointed to hear you say that.” Prue stopped so she stood directly behind him. Harry watched the knife skim over his arm to hover over his neck. “And I’m sure boy wonder here is feeling… discouraged by your inability to grasp your true self.”

Harry stared at Ginny, willing her to look at him. There were so many things he needed to tell her. How this wasn’t her fault, how much he needed her to stay safe, how much he loved her… He prayed that she could understand all that just by looking him in the eye. But she didn’t take her gaze off Prue.

“I swear if you kill him -'' Ginny's jaw clenched as she pursed her lips so tightly together that the skin around them became impossibly white. Her chest was heaving as she struggled against her bounds. “Just take me instead. Forget about them… about him.”

He could feel Prue’s body as she stood stiffly behind him. Harry could imagine her staring at Ginny with that cold, calculating look. When she spoke her tone was that of a soothing parent, yet her words sent another round of shivers down Harry’s spine. “No, sweetie , you need to be taught a lesson and I think this is the only way.”

The tip of the blade dug into Harry’s skin. He sucked in a deep breath. Harry wasn’t afraid to die. No, in his line of work he’d accepted his death might come at a young age. But to die knowing Ginny would still be in danger… it made a claw seize his heart in a tight hold.

He could feel Prue’s fingers at the side of his neck as she started to let the blade slide along his skin millimeter by millimeter. Harry closed his eyes, wishing he’d been given more time. Time to fulfill his dreams with Ginny. The dreams of getting married, having children, growing old together and getting to watch their grandkids play as they sat on their back porch.

Then suddenly the pain lessened to nearly nothing. Harry briefly wondered if she’d somehow killed him instantly. But the logical part of him knew that was nearly impossible with a neck slash. Then the noise of a scuffle reached his ears. He opened his eyes to see the bloody knife laying on his lap while Ginny and Fleur wrestled with Prue.

He had no idea how the two women had escaped their binds but apparently while Prue had been busy with him, they’d been doing their own work. Ginny’s fist connected with Prue’s cheek bone, making the woman cry out in pain. Fleur had focused on Prue’s feet, knocking her to the ground.

Ginny followed Prue to the ground. Straddling her waist while her knuckles slammed into Prue’s nose, making blood gush instantly. Prue howled in rage and pain, however she didn’t give up easily. She kicked out, knocking Fleur away from the tussle.

Harry struggled against his binds. He needed to help Ginny. Fleur rushed over to him, grabbing the knife from his lap. “ Une seconde, chérie ,” she said before hurrying off to free Bill’s ties.

Normally, Harry would have been offended at Fleur’s choice to free Bill first. But he had to figure his appearance didn’t inspire confidence in being ready for a fight. Hell, without the adrenaline coursing through his system, Harry was almost certain he would have blacked out. He did a quick visual inspection of himself. His once-white shirt was now a dark red and his blue jeans now had darker stains tinting numerous spots. Yeah, he didn’t exude ready for combat .

Harry’s focus was divided between the two groups. To his left Fleur, sliced every braid on the binds that held Bill. To his right, Ginny had Prue pinned to the ground, both women fighting with a fury rarely seen even on a battlefield. For every punch Ginny landed, Prue claws marked Ginny’s skin.

Everything was moving so quickly that Harry’s mind could hardly keep up. One second, there were three strands of rope binding Bill, then there was nothing. At the same time, Prue’s right hook connected perfectly with Ginny’s temple, making the red head fall backwards. Ginny’s loss of balance was all Prue needed. She pushed Ginny off her, springing to her feet faster than Harry expected.

He could see the short lived debate in Prue’s eyes, to run or to fight. It wasn’t more than a second before her flight instincts took control. She bolted towards the kitchen, but Bill was hot on her heels. With a tackle that would have made a rugby player proud, Bill took Prue down to the hardwood floor.

That was when he noticed Fleur had begun to cut his ropes. She was already to the last knot before he’d noticed. Then he was free and on his feet. He reached into his back pocket where he kept a pair of muggle zip ties that he crafted into handcuffs. Bill had Prue face down into the floor, giving him easy access to her wrists.

Prue was screaming unintelligibly into the floor, her body wiggling under Bill, but he outweighed her by nearly five stone, making her struggle for escape practically pointless.

After Harry pulled the ties tight, he rose to his feet, Bill locked eyes with him. “I’ve got her.” his voice was like sandpaper, but his eyes were steady. “Go check on everyone.”

It took Harry a moment to think past the fact they’d caught Prue to remember that there were others in the room. He turned around to see if Ginny was still on the floor where Prue had knocked her, but she’d risen to stand beside Fleur. The two women were trying to comfort a crying Victoire, who had been tied next to her daddy when Prue had turned her focus onto Harry. Fleur pulled the little girl into her arms and held Vic to her chest. Harry could see Fleur trembling as she held her daughter close.

Ginny turned around and their eyes locked. Harry’s mind was completely empty, except of her. Of Ginny, who was the most incredible woman he’d ever met. His legs moved with no hesitation. He needed to get to her, to touch her. Within five long strides he was holding her face in his hands.

Her face had numerous cuts, darkened bruises, and a lip that was rapidly swelling, but she’d never looked more beautiful to Harry. “Are you okay?” His voice was just as rough as Bill’s, but at the moment he couldn’t care less about his scratchy throat. All that mattered was what he held in his hands.

Ginny smiled at him, that smile she saved only for him. “Never better.” She rose to her toes to lightly kiss him. For such a chaste peck, it said so much to Harry. In the two seconds their lips touched, Harry’s heart expanded two sizes with the love he felt for this woman. He leaned his forehead to hers as she said, “I don’t know if you know this, but punching someone is very therapeutic.”

It took a second for his tired mind to register her words, but once they had, Harry started laughing. Ginny joined him, her smile wide as she laughed too. To an outsider they might have looked insane, but Harry couldn’t care less. He was alright, Ginny was alright, and past that nothing else mattered. He kissed her again, letting his lips linger this time speaking against her smile. “I love you.”

Ginny ran a hand up the side of his neck before cupping his jaw. “Right back at you, darling. I think we need to take a little holiday. Have a chance to relax. Somewhere warm and where I can have my way with you whenever I want.”

Harry’s breath hitched as he nodded. “Oh that can definitely be arranged.” He kissed her one final time. “But first, we’ve got to introduce our friend over there to her new cell in Azkaban.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“So Prue was convicted of all accounts,” Jamieson greeted as he plopped a manila folder on Harry’s desk. “Five accounts of kidnapping including a minor, multiple accounts of torture, and of course the stalking.”

Harry picked up the file and quickly flicked it open to see Prue glaring at the camera, her scowl becoming more prominent with each second. Her nostrils flared as she stared down the photographer. “That was fast. A trial and conviction in three weeks. Did Tonks discover anything else that could be added to Prue’s sentence?”

After Prue’s final attempt at freeing Ginny, Tonks and her partner, Emmeline Vance, had dug into Prue’s background and financials. Harry hadn’t been allowed to help due to his removal from the case, and his forced medical leave. He’d been commanded to take three weeks’ leave, which for once hadn’t bothered him because Ginny had also been given time off from the Bats.

They had taken their medical leave to heart, deciding a trip away was the perfect remedy to heal their emotional wounds (because the St Mungo’s healers had easily healed their physical trauma). The Spanish coast they’d found had been secluded and ideal for them. They’d swum with dolphins, eaten a plethora of bananas grown right outside their casa’s window, and spent every night in bed together.

But none of that had been his favorite moment of their holiday. There had been one night that outshone the rest. Every time he thought about that evening a goofy grin split his face. The sunset on his back, Ginny’s hand in his, the waves creating the perfect melody as they crashed against the sand… the best moment of his life had been the instant Ginny has said —

“Potter?” Jamieson slapped his arm, bringing Harry out of his daydream.

“Hm? Oh sorry!” He cleared his throat. “What were you saying?”

Jamieson snorted. “Clearly you had a good medical leave based on that cat-ate-the-canary grin.” Harry could feel his cheeks heat as his boss continued. “Tonks was able to find Prue had offshore accounts. Apparently, before coming to Ireland she’d had a rather lucrative muggle business, which we discovered to have been committing tax fraud before she’d performed an insurance fraud that allowed her accounts to reach a level to somewhere in the high millions.”

Harry had not seen that coming. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Jamison popped the last letter. “The muggle police had been on her trail until she’d confounded them and disappeared to Ireland.”

“Okay so that’s where she gained her wealth, but what caused her to become obsessed with Ginny?”

“Ah.” Jamieson let the word out on a sigh, propping his hip on the side of Harry’s desk. “It turns out Canon had grown up in an abusive household. Her father was Tom Riddle.”

The name was familiar to Harry, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Remind me of who that is.”

“He was one of France’s most notorious killers. He ran one of Paris’ largest drug cartels. In his twenty-five year reign, he made over five hundred thousand in profit. But during that time he impregnated a young prostitute by the name of Estelle Canon. Based on the intel we’ve gathered through journals found at the homestead where Prue brought Ginny, Riddle sold Prue’s mother to a rival gang for access to their land. Riddle was trying to expand his empire out of Paris. But once Prue’s mother was gone, there was no one there to protect Prue from Riddle’s... more sinister behaviors and desires. ”

Harry’s gut clenched because he had a good idea of what Jamieson meant by desires , and even though he hated Prue, no one deserved to be abused like that. He let out a deep breath. “Okay, so she had a really bad childhood. But that doesn’t explain her fascination with Ginny.”

“Prue’s mother used to read her children’s books where a goddess was stuck on Earth. The goddess was said to be stuck in a human form until she discovered decency among humans. Prue somehow connected Ginny with the goddess in the tale.”

“Okay, I can get that on a crazy level, but why Ginny? Have we tried to get her to explain why she thought Ginny was this goddess?” Harry asked.

Jamieson snorted. “Of course! Vance has been to Azkaban everyday, but Prue refuses to speak. Anything we learn is going to be through her journals, which I’m surprised she even had. We’re planning on taking them to Ms Granger when she has some time.”

Harry nodded, he was no psychologist, so trying to understand why Prue kept a diary was a mystery to him, but maybe Granger could figure things out. “Well, I’m just glad it’s over.”

“You and me both, Potter. “Jamieson clapped a hand to his back. “You did good, minus the whole falling in love with your ward thing.”

Harry looked up into his boss’ amused eyes. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m pretty sure when you knew when assigning me the case that it’s nearly impossible not to fall in love with Ginny Weasley.”

Jamieson let out a bark of a laugh. “I’d never tell her, but that girl had me wrapped around her finger the first time Bill introduced us.”

“Oh and how easy it was,” an amused voice came from behind the two aurors, making them jump and turn to look at the woman they’d been talking about. Ginny was beaming at them as she moved closer.

Jamieson rolled his eyes before smiling at Ginny. “What are you doing here, Weasley?”

She pointed at Harry. “We have an appointment with my parents this evening and I refuse to let him claim some work -- thing -- as a distraction.” She met Harry’s eyes. “We’re in this together aren’t we, Potter?”

Harry could feel that goofy smile coming back. “You know I’d follow you anywhere, Love.”

Again, Jamieson rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to watch this. Potter, you’re free to go once you return that report to Tonks.” He pointed to the folder that he’d lefted on Harry’s desk. Then he was gone, moving across the bullpit to his office without so much as a farewell.

Ginny took Jamieson’s vacated spot, leaning slightly on the edge of his desk. “So how was the first day back?”

Harry shuffled the papers back into the folder, before rising from his chair. He stood in front of Ginny, his fingers moving to graze her hips “Not so bad, though… My mind did wander quite a bit.”

“Hmmm.” Ginny stood to her full height, still making her half a head shorter than him. “And what did your rambling thoughts focus on?”

He brought his hand to hers, threading their fingers before pulling their joined palms up to his lips. He kissed each knuckle until he reached her ring finger where two bands rested. The engagement ring they’d recovered from Prue’s house and the silver ring he’d slid there only a week ago. “How much I missed my wife and wished we were still in our little seaside casa where I could drag her off to bed whenever I wanted.”

Ginny pulled their interlocked fingers away from his face so she could replace it with her lips. She smiled against his mouth, “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about my handsome husband while going through Kennedy’s drills.”

Harry groaned quietly as she nipped at his bottom lip. “How upset would your parents be if we skived off tonight?”

She laughed, pressing a final peck to his lips before away.“Pretty angry, seeing as we’re already going over there to tell her we eloped. Best not to test Molly Weasley’s patience by cancelling.”

He sighed. “I know you're right. At least I think our parents will take it better than Sirius. He’s going to throw a fit that he wasn’t there to be my best man.”

“Don’t worry, love.” Ginny brought their joined hands to her lips before using them to pull him towards the exit. “I’ll protect you from our disgruntled parental figures.”

“I’ll be holding you to that, Ginny Potter.”

She sighed happily. “I love it when you call me that.”

“ Do you.” Harry stopped their movement to pull her into a small alcove near the muggle exit of the auror offices. He pressed her back so she leaned against the wall. “I’ll make sure to say it more often,” he said, leaning in to put his lips right next to her ear. “Mrs Potter.”

Ginny's hand came to knot in his already messy hair, drawing his lip away from her ear before kissing him. “At — this — rate — we’ll never — make — it.” Ginny said each word in between kissing him.

Harry was about to say he didn’t mind one bit, but Ginny cut his words off with a heated kiss that made his mind go blank. Right as he started to debate if he could get away with setting some privacy charms around their little niche, Ginny pulled away. Her hand slid back into his, their matching rings clinking happily together. She winked. “Remember that for later tonight.”

Then she pulled him out of their hideaway and towards the street where they could apparate back to their flat. Harry smiled as they stepped out into the rare Irish sunshine. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed all because of a covert mission. All because he’d fallen in love with Ginny Weasley.

#hinny #hinny fic #Harry Potter #Harry and Ginny #harry potter fanfiction #harry X ginny #harry potter fan fiction #Covert Love Chapter 21 #Covert Love Final Chapter

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black-streak · 4 years

Text

Waiting for the Worms - Mother

Part 9

So uh... Marinette's part kind of became too long and I'm going to have to extend it into part 10. Plus the tone of this to the rest is just so different that it seemed necessary to split it. Very Damian centric here. Warning all still apply.

Closed! List (Do y'all mind that I've hit you up four days in a row now?) : @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @miraculousdisapointment @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

Before the week ended, the boy approached her once more. This time it was after she had just finished up her Arabic lessons, the first time she'd seen him outside of that room.

"Why did she choose you?"

Marinette lifted her shoulders in a shrug and watched the frustrated twist of his lips as he attempted to stare her down. Her eyes occasionally jumped around the corridor, ensuring their privacy, but still refraining from answering.

"Are you mute?" The child demanded of her, "is that why you're with the language masters all the time? To learn to speak?"

Amusement coursed through her, shining from behind her eyes as she lifted a solitary finger to her lips, letting Damian determine her meaning. He didn't disappoint as an excited look came about him and he pressed further, hushing hus voice and moving in closer as though sharing a secret, which wasn't far off from the truth.

"The others aren't aware you can talk, are they? Of course not, dimwitted as they are," he took a condescending tone.

Letting an airy chuckle pass and offering a small smirk to let the other know he hit the nail on the head, she watched as the kid tried to appear composed while also preening under her obvious agreement with his insight. She couldn't help but wonder if this was his first experience with a willing audience. He couldn't be more than seven years old and yet already so cautious about allowing her to see how he enjoyed her attention.

"Well no matter, if they can't figure it out on their own, I see no need to inform them," Damian reassured her, hiding it as another jab at their peers. And after taking note of her appreciative nod, he disappeared the way he came.

...

Over the next few weeks, he showed up at random, venting out his annoyance with the trainers and masters, always under the guise that she couldn't tell anyone anyways without giving herself away, to which she only offered her quiet affirmations and acceptance.

Sometimes he asked questions, only to cut off and respond to himself that of course his companion couldn't answer, returning to his own conversation. It seemed to ease him that he never need worry over what she might say to him. Once in a blue moon he asked something she could answer without opening her mouth.

"Do you have a life outside of here?"

She tilted her head back and forty in contemplation before shaking a decided no. He seemed pleased with this. No competition for her attention, she supposed.

"How many languages do you actually speak then? Or are learning at least."

She contemplated if league dialect counted and decided it had to and also threw in guardian speak since she had been learning it beforehand, lifting up eight fingers. Damian's surprised look and appreciative hum lasted only a moment before his next barrage of insults to those who thought her mute started up once more.

While their talks only lasted about ten minutes tops and only every few days, the progress was enough to earn her Talia's praise in private, excited that the boy took to her so quickly. She also inquired as to Marinette's tactics but only received a shrug of her own and the quiet explanation that she simply listened.

…

After a particularly grueling training session where the two ended up switching targets midway through their own battles, taking both trainers off guard and downing them in record time, Talia decided to send them out for an extended mission together. Her reasoning that Jason obviously felt protective over the heir and the two worked well enough in tandem that it offered the perfect environment for furthering Damian's training, having only ever tagged along for small time missions in the past.

Later in the evening, she explained how the joint missions extended their trust and allowed more freedom for bonding to occur. How they could further plan for their escape if they knew how to work together outside of the city limits. Marinette meditated every second she could before the start of their new assignment.

The morning of, she collected Damian from the meeting point Talia gave them and led him into the larger group to make their way out of the caves. The mission went on for five days before they finally tracked down their targets. It took all of one night to end the mission, Marinette taking extra precautions to cover Damian's back at all times, landing killing blows to any that threatened the young life entrusted to her. By the end, the little one only took one life. A young woman who landed a lucky shot on Marinette. The boy's eyes widened in fear and struck blindly, slashing his katana across her torso, opening her up to the world before giving another wild slash to her neck. The second the woman dropped, he ran to her side, pressing on the wound and helping her back towards their hideout as the others cleaned out the last of the building.

As the sun rose, he helped to patch her up, yammering on about how stupid she was to allow herself to be hit like that. How ashamed she should be. How she should be better. Marinette saw the fear and worry and horror waring in his eyes, in the tense way he held his shoulders and shake in his hands. The guilty glances he tossed her, knowing she was distracted by protecting him. She ruffled his hair and offered a crooked grin at his huff of indignation. Neither slept that night, ready to return in the morning.

Damian refused missions without her after that.

…

After their return from their seventh successful mission, over two months later, Talia stopped showing up in the training room. No longer informed Damian where to meet up for missions, allowing the information to flow from the trainers down instead. She still told Marinette inner details in her rooms, but she could tell the woman cut off the child almost entirely. Knew they only saw one another during meetings with Ras.

Within another two weeks, Talia began to distance herself from Marinette in public even further. She was no longer seen as the pet project, but as a full fledged member who happened to run in this squadron. She stayed quiet on the manner, not willing to question her mentor on what she thought best when seen amongst the League. And with Marinette now understanding and speaking both arabic and league dialect fluently, she could spy on the others and gather information much easier without the silencing presence of their leader, all speaking more freely amongst themselves, still under the impression that she was not only mute but one of them now.

Damian seemed to grow more irritable by the day, sticking to her side like glue, quieter and on edge. Separation anxiety most likely. Talia had always retained a distant aloof relationship with her own kid, but he likely never expected her to quit checking up on him entirely, to no longer keep up with his progress and watch his training. She always let him know she hadn't forgotten him entirely, in her own way. Now, she hardly glanced his direction if they happened to enter the same room.

He lasted three weeks without Talia's watchful eye, before he broke down in his own manner.

Marinette heard a soft knock on her door before it creaked open, one green eye peeking in at her, in a silent question.

Sitting up in her bed, she tilted her head in consideration before nodding her acceptance. She observed as he slid into the room and shut the door behind him, hesitating only a moment in the doorway before marching over towards her and taking a seat, starting in on his usual tirade of random facts and observations. By now, she recognized this as a coping mechanism, his way of excusing his coming to her without outright stating that he just craved the company. A growing suspicion in the back of her mind told her that once he assured himself she wouldn't leave nor dismiss him, he might take to more quiet quality time. For now, he rambled endlessly. Eventually he tired himself out and left her alone once more.

Every other day, he made a reappearance to rant once more until he couldn't find anymore excuses to stay and left, tail practically tucked between his legs.

…

Two months more passed and Talia showed no sign of returning to Damian's life, Marinette finally decided to confront the woman.

"Oh Jason, surely you know I can't escape with you, right?"

Her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion at the question, before realizing her own stupidity. Why in the world would she train Marinette to take away Damian if she could do so, herself? As shock overtook her, arms wrapped gently around her shoulders, drawing her into the woman's embrace.

"It would put both of you at too high a risk. I need to stay here and throw them off your trail. To control the situation until you're both too far out of my father's reach. He can't know I have any attachment to either of you for this to work. You need to blend in, mean nothing to me so that everyone overlooks you. It doesn't matter if Damian clings to you, as long as no one else looks at you twice, you're still nobody. You'll slip out and everyone will just assume you died on a mission if they even think of you."

"Can't you meet with him in private? Like you do with me?" She pleaded with Talia, heart heavy knowing she would have to eventually leave another mentor behind. Knowing how Damian hurt for his mother.

"No Jason. He's too young. He won't understand. It's best if he comes to the decision to disown me. To no longer care about me, ao it hurts less in the long run. If he barely ever knew me and I simply disappeared, if he never truly knew my love to begin with, there's less to miss. Less of him to hurt in my absence. I know it's terrible and he feels abandoned, but think how much worse it would be if I showed him love now only to kick him out of the league to never be seen again? I can't add on to that pain."

She hated how much sense that made. Whether Damian knew it or not, his mother loved him so much and was willingly sacrificing her right as his mother so he could have a better life without her. That would never make the years of neglect and abuse okay, but at least she was setting him up to move on to something hopefully better. Marinette would do everything in her power to ensure that hope became a reality.

…

Three months into Talia's disappearing act, six since Damian first came to her in the training room all those months ago, he entered her room and sat without a word on the bed next to her, staring down at the floor. She waited patiently for him to find his words, but tensed upon seeing the tears well up in the corner of the child's eyes. She desperately wished to reach out to comfort him, but restrained herself, not sure how he'd take the action. Eventually, he spoke in a trembling lilt.

"Why am I never good enough?"

Sucking in a breath, she swallowed down the last of her reserve and murmured back, voice a gentle lull, if a little deep and gruff around the edges, "You are plenty enough."

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, wide and clear, "You…"

"You are so much more than you know and anyone who can't see that doesn't deserve you."

He hesitated a moment, "Even mother?"

"No one who pays so little attention and offers so little love deserves the title of mother," she stated, hating herself for the words, knowing how much Talia truly did love and care, but aiming to break his connection to her at the woman's own command.

"You've never spoken to me before," he accused.

"You seemed like you needed someone to listen. And you said it yourself, I couldn't very well pose as mute if I answered all of your questions," she eased.

"And when I came here?"

"You hardly gave an opportunity to speak up in the midst of all your ranting. You don't strike me as the type to appreciate being cut off either," she teased, earning a soft blush in return.

He sobered up after a moment, looking back down towards his feet, "So if she doesn't deserve the title of Mother, I have no one."

"How do you mean?"

"Well Ras hardly deserves the title of grandfather by your definition and it's not like I have a father. So I have no one."

"And what am I then, chopped liver?"

He startled up, shooting her a bewildered look, "What?"

"You've become my personal little leech, attending all of my missions, sharing my training with me, coming into my rooms at your leisure, and yet you have no one? That hurts me deep," she attempted a saddened look, not sure how it turned out with her older, masculine features and white lined scars scattering her skin. It startled a tiny laugh out of him, so she'd take it.

"You… you want me? You actually care?"

"Of course I do, Dami. You're the closest thing to family I've got."

"Family," his inquired, tone guarded, a slight twitch in his nose and uptilt in his chin, giving away his hopeful excitement at the word.

"Yours, if you'd have me."

"That would be," he cut himself off here, trying to control himself, to not appear too eager, "acceptable," he settled on.

"Good. You're well spoken for an eight year old."

"I'm seven," he corrected with a smug smile.

"Even more impressive then," she lilted, watching as he took that to be the end of that conversation, moving to leave, only to stop with a hand on the door.

"Jason?"

"Yes?"

"I'm glad you're my family."

#jasonette #maribat #ml x dc #WFTW #part 9 #if i get writers block im going to crash so bad i just know it #cross your fingers folks #and please tell me your thoughts i live off them

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oh-so-scenarios · 4 years

Text

Loose Ends | one

⇢ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀ ʟᴀsᴛɪɴɢ ɪᴍᴘʀᴇssɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ...ᴛᴏᴏ ʙᴀᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ sᴛɪᴄᴋ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴛᴏ sᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀᴜsᴇᴅ.

⇢ᴄᴇᴏ! ᴋɪᴍ ɴᴀᴍᴊᴏᴏɴ x ᴀᴅᴍɪɴ ᴀssɪsᴛᴀɴᴛ! ғᴇᴍᴀʟᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ, ᴇx-ғɪᴀɴᴄᴇs!ᴀᴜ, ᴀɴɢsᴛ, ᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇsᴛᴏʟᴏᴠᴇʀs

A/N: This one jumps right into things. First chapter is a bit...meh. but we gotta lay down the foundations first right? Not edited! (Word Count: 5K) Is this

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PRESENT

Y/N:

Egotistical. Cold. Detached. Aloof. Inconsiderate. Narrow-Minded. Rigid. Narcissistic. All negative personality traits you could think of. Throw some more out there. Unfriendly, Greedy and more. All those words could describe my bosses. My past bosses and probably my future bosses.

I’ve looked into the eyes of the coldest and most unbending people in the business industry. I stared them down, pulled a tight smile and flutter my eyelashes while speaking in a calm tone. That is my job. That is my career. Though I have only been doing this for 3 years, I live for it.

Secretary, CEO’s assistant, Executive Assistant; there are many names for what I do. Call it what you will, I make sure important people know what they have planned for the day. I make sure they don’t fall apart and they do what is required of them

I am the most requested worker from Trim Line, the hiring agency I work for. My contracts never exceed 6 months; I come in to fix things up, find and train a new secretary and see myself out. I’ve declined too many long term offers and though it’d be more stable to stay in one place ...I don’t want to.

“Accept it.” Ms. Kwon said. I glanced up from the open folder that laid on my desk. I looked back down and bit my lip. She stood in front of my smaller desk with her arms crossed. Her amber-brown hair was resting on her shoulders. She’d just cut it short a few days ago. It made her appear to be younger. Her face was lacking wrinkles and though she was 54 she looked no older than 35. She often brags about her skin routine, the one she refuses to share with anyone.

Everyone has come to the conclusion that it’s some expensive serum we couldn’t afford anyway.

Ms. Kwon is the CEO of Trim Line. she started the company 23 years ago and has been growing since. Trim Line provides qualified Lawyers, accounts, Secretaries and more. I am simply a secretary. I have refused all her offer to be trained in a different department. She believes I am limiting myself, but that’s fine with me.

My hard work over the last 3 years has made Ms. Kwon draw me under her wing. She often checks on me, and always recommends me to potential clients. I’m thankful for her support and the support of the company. I tell everyone that Trim Line is just the place to work if you have the skills but can’t seem to find a job.

Just be able to speak Korean and that’s enough. It doesn’t matter your gender or race, Trim Line will find work for you. The company was founded in South Korea but locations have been opened in Japan, China, and Taiwan. The growth of the company is something Ms. Kwon takes pride in. Her eyes twinkle and her chin raises up while she puts a hand over her heart.

She has a hard time believing she’s come so far. That’s why I appreciate her.

“It’s 8 months,” I answer, speaking like that statement justified my answer. She places a hand on my desk and leans on it a bit. She narrows her eyes and cocks her head.

“I don’t know why you keep battling me on this Y/n. Take the offer. The pay is good, the ability to network is there as well. It’s just two months longer than your regular contracts. I don’t see the problem.” She argues, glancing down at the folder again.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat, “This offer is...sketchy.” I always speak with her honestly.

“Everyone knows KM Publishing. They are on top of the world right now. All the books that come out of there are best sellers. Published in Korea, then translated for many countries. They practically came out of nowhere and took over the publishing industry.” I said.

Ms. Kwon took her hand off the desk and held her arms open as if her point was made, “Aren’t you supposed to be arguing against me, Y/n? Everything you said is correct! It’s a wonderful opportunity.”

I shook my head, “You know what else is correct, Ms. Kwon?”

Her eyes shift around the room as if waiting for someone else to answer. She shakes her head and shrugs. There was something childish about the action and I almost laughed at how childlike she looked at that moment.

“There isn’t much known about the CEO, but what is known--”

“--Yes, yes! I’ve heard it!” Ms. Kwon cuts me off, “I heard he’s awful.”

“Correction, he’s the worst,” I added sharply, “and it was Mina who said that! Mina, of all people!”

Mina is a co-worker of mine. She does her job well and isn’t a pushover. However, I remember hearing her experience with Mr. Kim of Moonchild Publishing. She met him in passing when working on as a lawyer for a smaller publisher.

“His aura is terrifying.” She’d said.

“He didn’t say a word but the look in his eyes was so demeaning. Like a father that sees his child as a failure.”

Mina looks for the best in people. She’s someone who has worked for some rude people but I’ve never heard her speak negatively of a person, let alone call some terrifying.

“But you’re tougher than Mina! That’s why I brought this offer to you!”

“How is anyone gonna improve if you bring all the tough jobs to me?” I muttered under my breath. I crossed my arms over my chest and almost glowered at Ms. Kwon. She brushed off my irate gaze and continued with her lecture.

“This isn’t one for someone who wants to grow Y/n. I need someone who is qualified and can deal with whatever stuck up, arrogant man is thrown her way. That’s you.” She points her manicured finger at me, before wagging it around the office.

“No one in this office has been able to work under such pressure. You’re the only secretary Mr. Jeon, CEO of JJK IT, hasn’t made cry.” She reminds me.

Oh right, Mr. Jeon. A young man whose brilliant idea brought him to a high status of power. The way his company has been overtaking the IT world is alarming. It makes me wonder just when it’ll become too close to a monopoly, because the short 3 months I was there showed the young man’s desire to expand.

His attitude was...condescending. He walked about looking down on those around him. He was the King and we were the lowly help. He was one of the most talkative CEOs I’ve worked for. He’d often grin at me, while his eyes racked up and down my body.

I never mentioned his attempting to wine and dine me to Ms. Kwon. He felt no shame in letting me know he was interested. Ugh. The more that I think about it, the more I realized how much I disliked Mr. Jeon.

Mixing personal desires into work is so unprofessional. I lost some respect for him, but there wasn’t much in the first place.

I pick up one of the papers from the folder and scanned it, finding what I wanted.

“Who put in the offer to the company? He did?” I ask, pressing my lips into a tight line.

“The Chairman of the company did. They need someone who can keep up with the CEO’s demands and fast-paced workday.” She explained. She peeks over at the paper in my head, her gaze flickering between my unmoving face and the printed words.

“The pay is exceptional.” She pokes at me.

I chuckle, “Ms. Kwon,” I almost sang in a warning manner.

“I want you to accept this offer Y/n. It’s not only good for you but also for the company. Moonchild Publishing has connections with production companies. You know a lot of their novels are being made into movies. In the 23 years of building Trim Line with my bare hands,” She pauses and sighs.

I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Here she goes!

“...I haven’t been able to break into the film world. Imagine if we Trim Line could provide agents, writers, and even graphic designers! This may be the step I need to get my foot into the door.” She pouts, fluttering her long eyelashes.

“Y/n, take the job ...for me.”

I close the folder and give Ms. Kwon an apologetic look, “I’m not taking the job.”

I TOOK THE damn job offer. Why! Why! Why?! It was probably Ms. Kwon’s begging. The way that a grown woman would follow me around the office with a sad look in her eyes for the last week. Sighing loudly in my presence and muttering sad phrases to herself, but of course loud enough for me to hear.

She was being over-dramatic, saying stuff like I was opening a massive door for her. The future and growth of the company were sitting on my shoulders.

No pressure!

Ugh, I just gave in, finding that my co-workers were pushing me to take the job. They didn’t want the offer pushed their way if Ms. Kwon got desperate. She’d result in sending someone who could at least manage with Mr. Kim or KM as he often goes by.

That’s how I found myself standing in the large elevator that had a gold interior. The elevator moved fast, taking me up to the 23rd floor where Mr. Kim would be found. I leaned against the wall, looking at the box of my things in that white office box I’d used too frequently. I looked down at my outfit, wondering what to wear tomorrow. My red flare pants came a bit higher up on me, like high rise jeans. I had on a plain black blouse with a black blazer.

My heels were a dull white but were concealed by the flare of my pants. My nails were nicely due, but not long enough to get in the way of my work. My hair was slicked back into a well put together ponytail. I kept the accessories to a minimum.

Another adventure is beginning. An 8-month adventure. This isn’t anything new to me. I was ready to come in and do my work. I know I am amazed at my job and no one can tell me otherwise. There were no butterflies, not nervous or worries. I am not here to befriend anyone or become the CEO’s favorite. I know my place and my purpose.

The elevator pings before the doors open to reveal a white hallway with a grey granite floor. The ceiling was lined with gold and the walls were so white I’d be afraid to touch there no matter how clean my hands were.

I picked up my book and stepped out of the elevator. I walked to my right because the left was a dead end. My heels clicked and echoed through the hall. Anyone would think it was vacant on this floor. The hallways were so wide, it made you feel small.

I turned the corner and could faintly hear the sound of a buzzing office. The sound of paper shuffling, keyboards clicking, and small conversation. I kept walking and saw a foggy glass door in front of me.

“Oh!” A small voice said. I turned my head to see a girl sitting at a large white desk. She stood up, giving me a full view of her small frame. I was so focused ahead that I hadn’t noticed the two items on either side of me. The desk where the quiet girl stood and across from her desk, two wooden double doors.

I looked forward again, staring at the fogging glass door that was on the wall adjacent to the wooden double doors.

“Ms. L/n?” The young woman said. I turned my head to look at her again, finally giving her my full attention. I walked towards the desk, showing her a small smile.

“So you already know of my arrival?” I ask, and follow it with a small giggle. I walk around so I’m behind the long white desk. There are two seats and two computers, on which the young woman was occupying.

“I’m Sana.” She stretches her arm out as I set my box on the floor beside what I presumed to be my seat. Her hair was so silky straight, I’d thought it was a wig. I shook her hand swiftly gently before bending down to take the top off my box. I started taking out the all-new planner I’d bought, as I always do with a new contract. I took out some folders and took out my phone that I’d carelessly thrown into the box.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Sana says, trying to stop the silence. I didn’t find the silence awkward, and frankly, I didn’t feel the need to speak to her. I don’t start my first day going around the office and learning everyone’s names.

I did at first, but I’d notice the friendships I made at each office would die over time.

“I heard you’re a pro at these types of things.” She kept talking even though I didn’t reply. Ugh, I already know what type of co-worker she will be.

“Mr. Kim--” I cut her off.

“--is in a meeting, I know,” I said, before digging through the box again. Sana must have forgotten I’d already asked her to email me Mr. Kim’s schedule two days ago. I already know what’s on the agenda for the next week, which leaves me prepared.

I kept rummaging through the box until I made it to the bottom where my ID badge was. I put it on over my head and kicked the box under the desk. I took a deep breath before plopping down in my seat.

I laid my hands on the desk and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath in and out. When I opened my eyes Sana was peering at me with her brows furrowed.

I opened up the new planner I had bought and was already filled with Mr. Kim’s schedule.

“Oh wow!” Sana gasped from beside me. She moved her chair closer, it is easier since there were wheels on both our chairs.

She stared at my planner, reading over everything, “You really are a pro at this!” The tone in her voice shows that she was doubtful. The way her eyes shined at my organization was kind of cute. She smiled widely as she looked at my face.

“I am so glad you’re here. I could tell Mr. Kim was getting frustrated with me.” She relaxed in her seat, her shoulders dropping in dejection.

I raised an eyebrow at her, “What exactly is your job? I didn’t know Mr. Kim had another secretary?”

She straightens up and puts both hands up. She shakes her head and hands in a ‘no’ fashion.

“I am not a secretary by any means.” She laughs awkwardly, “I am merely the receptionist. When clients come for appointments or authors come for interviews, I show them their way. I make appointments, I restock the staplers…” She trails off as if hearing herself and regretting her words.

“I just mean that I don’t have to deal with anything pertaining to Mr. Kim.” She says softly.

I nod and look back at the schedule, “The previous secretary?”

“Her last day was a few days ago, so I was attempting to handle Mr. Kim’s stuff. He was getting frustrated because my abilities were limited.” She pouted and turned her chair to face the front again.

I only nodded in response before taking my planner and rising from my seat. Sana watched me in curiosity, the question written all over her face. She was wondering where I was going. She probably didn’t want to face Mr. Kim along when he got back from his meeting.

As I pushed the heavy glass door open with my hip, I remember that I didn’t ask what Mr. Kim’s first name was. He goes by KM and a few said he accepts Kim J at times. But what is his first name? I didn’t do too much research on Mr. Kim as a person, cause that shouldn’t matter much.

I did more research into the company and its functions. Did I even look up a picture? I don’t remember. I’ve done this too many times to waste the effort of such trivial things. I stood in the middle of a big room with different cubicles and desks, people seated at all of them. Only some people noticed my presence, stopping to size me. The stares of the women turning sour and the men ogling.

My eyes move around the office, avoiding eye contact with any of those who were watching me. I finally notice the names of each employee on their desks and outside of their cubicle.

“Mr. Min,” I muttered looking back down at the planner. Mr. Min is supposed to have a sales report for the latest release. Mr. Kim will review it then proceed on the restock of the book. I started walking through the office, noticing the floor was carpet when I didn’t hear my heels clicking.

I walked past desks and wandering gazes to I came to the name I wanted to see.

‘Mr. Min -- Accountant” My joy was short-lived as I noticed the desk empty. My mouth fell into a frown and I looked around the office, checking if maybe he’d left his desk for only a moment. I was about to turn around to leave when I spotted a packet of paper on the further right corner of the desk. I stepped closer, noticing a pale blue sticky note with a message written.

Completed Sales Report for new Secretary. I smiled to myself, scooping up the packet and spinning around on my heels. I started out the way I came.

“Are you the new secretary?” Someone called out. My footsteps slowed to a stop and the office felt a lot quieter than before.

I spun towards the voice to notice a man in a white dress shirt with black slacks. He stood not too far from me. His hands were in his pocket while his eyes studied me. His tongue poked the inside of his cheek and his gaze was hot on me.

I stared back at him, bored. Ugh, at least try to not be oblivious.

“Yes, I am.” I hold the packet and the planner close to my chest. I take note of the other employees tuning in.

“I have to admit,” He smirks, “You’re the cutest one by far.” I scoff at the comment.

“That's what you stopped me for?” I ask, “How disappointing. If you’ll excuse me.”

“You seem so sure of yourself.” He calls out again, his tone harsher this time. I only took one step and stopped. I turn to face him again, listening as he continued his insults.

“I give you...a month.” He says, turning to his co-workers who giggled in agreement.

I look over my shoulder, “Give me 8 months instead. That’s how long my contract is.” I turn to face him again, looking him up and down with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Maybe the reason it’s so hard working for Mr. Kim because rather than focus on your work, you’re standing here eyeing me so intensely that I just might have to call HR.” The light and kind tone I used made the man’s confident smile drop, for it took him a moment to process my retort.

“It’s 10 am, I’ve only been here for such a short time. At least let me have lunch before you start your, what I am guessing is frequent, harassment.” The open mouths of those in the office weren’t of the only shock but of laughter. Some were clearly stunned by my words while others tried to keep their chuckles low.

I didn’t stay to watch the man gather his thoughts in an effort of a rebuttal. I had already wasted too much time. I headed towards that same glass door, pushing it open with my hip as I’d done before. Sana only looked up from the computer screen to acknowledge me. I walked right to the double doors.

“Is he back?” I asked over my shoulder. I could barely see Sana shake her head no. I made my way into the office, not spending too much time on the decor. I was too focused on my thoughts. The details of the rest of the day playing in my head.

I want everything to go smoothly. I place the packet on the walnut wood desk, peeling off the sticky note in the process.

I spend the next 30 minutes out at my desk with Sana. I’m making arrangements for dinner Mr. Kim suddenly emailed me about. The footer stating ‘sent from iPhone’ told me that his meeting went well. I also sent emails out to Mr. Kim’s driver, travel agent and more. They need to be familiar with me and I with them.

I am typing away at my computer, ignoring Sana’s gleeful humming. I’m sending out documents and sending things to the printer. I push myself away from the desk and stand up, heading back into the office area. The copy room has to be around here somewhere. Everyone can tell that I’m looking for something, but no one makes an effort to help.

Good.

I find the copy room, grabbing the sheets of paper I sent. I looked over them, making sure it’s how I wanted it to be. I hear whispers when some women entered the copy room. I sighed, already tired of the people here. My goodness, how many times has Mr. Kim gone through a secretary? Are they not used to it by now?

Or were they trying to feel me out? I grabbed my sheets of paper and strolled out the copy room, not giving them the chance to say whatever it was. I am not going to be joined into any cliques. I strolled through the office space and back out to the lobby to meet a panicked Sana standing up in her seat.

“What’s up?” I ask, my face scrunching up. Why did she look like that? Her eyes dart to the double doors and she fumbles with her fingers.

“Mr. Kim is in.” She says then nods towards the doors, “He would like to see you.” She swallows, looking like he’s asking for her instead of me.

I set the freshly printed papers on the desk and grab my planner with a pen. I straighten my blazer and hold my head up high.

I knock on the doors and hear a faint, “Come in.”

I push one door one and waltz in. He’s sitting in a chair at his desk, but with the back facing me. I didn’t notice the beautiful square windows that were behind his desk till now. Under the windows were some bookshelves. There were awards, books, and figurines. The walnut desk was complemented by the black spinning chair I was staring at the back of.

There were no pictures on his desk. It was cleaned off except for the report I placed down later. I could barely see the side of his arm that rested on the armrest of the chair. Was he looking out the window?

I stood there in silence, waiting for him to say something. Nothing. Did he not hear me come in? Ugh, I can already tell how this guy is going to be.

“You called for me?” I asked as kindly as I could. I shouldn’t get on his bad side so quickly. I’ll admit, he does have a commanding presence. The silence was heavy and almost disapproving. Now I used what mina was saying. I feel like I’m about to be scolded, though I haven’t done anything wrong.

“Did you make the reservation?” He asked.

“Yes, for 8 pm,” I answer, flipping the planner opened to today’s date.

“8 pm is too late.” He retorts in plainly.

“I’ll change it to 7 pm. Anything else?”

“You’re the one who put the report on my desk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t do it again. Don’t enter my office when I am not here unless you’re told to. I don’t want anyone snooping in here.” He almost spits.

He thinks I care enough to snoop? Anyways.

“Got it. Anything else, Mr. Kim?”

It’s silent again. I stand there, waiting. He’s gonna ask me to do something else isn’t he? I can tell he wants to say something. Say it. Say it so I can leave.

“Make calls to these authors in regards to their release dates. Get availability from each other them and schedule dates according.”

I wrote down the names and phone numbers as he called them out. I can’t say I'm surprised by his cold and detached personality. I’ve worked for businessmen and women like him. No hello, welcome to the company or it’s great to have you type of bullshit. He doesn’t care who does the job, he just wants the job done. That’s fine with me.

As I scribbled down the information, I heard a chair spin around. Oh, how kind of him to finally put his eyes on me!

I wrote the last phone number and closed the planner looking up to ask for further instruction. But I couldn’t speak as I looked up at the man seated.

He stared daggers at me, his eyes shuttered while his arm was propped on the armrest and his hand was on his chin. It was hard to tell what he was thinking or if he was thinking at all. All I could do was stare back in a gut-wrenching manner. It felt like my heart stopped for a few beats before accelerating to the point of concern. Was I about to have a heart attack?

My body was growing hot while my heart continued to pound in my ears. A shiver traveled up my spine and for a moment it felt like I lost all the strength in my legs.

I blinked a few times, thinking that the man in front of me would disappear if I looked away. I cleared my throat, moving my eyes to the way on my right. Though it felt like I was losing all control of my body, it wasn’t showing on the outside. Rather my heart and body were reacting on the inside.

But to any regular person, you’d just see me blink multiple times.

What is this? What is this thick and weighing quiet? Should I say something? Is he going to say something?

Mr. Kim gazed back at me with an unreadable expression. His eyes took in every corner of my face. My hair, my eyes, my nose, my lips and once again, he did the same thing. What is he thinking? His eyes move to down my body, all the way to my feet and back up to my face. I thought he was going to say something. Do something. Make a face of disgust or recognition. But worse, he looks away.

He leaned forward, taking the report in his hand. He sat in a crisp navy suit with his black hair slicked back and out of his face. He looked sharp and expensive. Not a hair out of place. He looked like a higher class man. The energy coming off him demanded attention and obedience.

What a scary man indeed.

I became aware of the fact that I was watching this man read in silence. He wasn’t going to dismiss me so I dismissed myself. I moved slowly, not trusting my legs to carry me out in one piece. I gripped onto the handle of the door for dear life, using it to steady myself. I flung the door open and zoomed out of the office.

I didn’t pay any mind to Sana concerned eyes as I strolled past the desk, down the white-walled hallway, and to the elevator. I pushed the button, my breathing became heavy as I waited, my eyes stinging so painfully small gasp left my lips.

I coughed, a choked sob coming up quickly after. The sob shook my chest and physically made me hunched over with my hand on my mouth. The elevator doors opened. I was glad to find it empty. I walked into, leaning against the wall while I caught my breath. I didn’t press a button so the doors closed, and the elevator stayed still.

I took in a shaky breath and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator started to descend and so did. I slid down the wall, a sob getting stuck in my throat as tears ran down my cheeks. My body felt like it was freezing over and I shivered violently. My throat suddenly felt dry and all composure was leaving me.

Joonie. Joon. Namjoon. Mr. Kim was Kim Namjoon. My old schoolmate, my childhood friend, my first love ...the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

A man I loved with all my heart and soul stared into my eyes like he was watching grass grow. Like I was a stranger. Maybe...maybe I am a stranger because that emotionless man in there couldn’t have been my Namjoon.

I clutched at the fabric of my shirt, sniffling, throwing my head back and closing my eyes.

Get it together Y/n! Get it together! You’re supposed to be collected one. You’re supposed to have your shit together. Don’t do this now, don’t do this here. You’re better than this!

The feelings of pain, bitterness, and regret were overwhelming. Sadness overtook me as memories of the past years replayed in my mind.

What right do I have to feel so sad? What right do I have to pity myself in such a way?

Everything fell apart 3 years ago, and it was my fault.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ❣

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think! I didn’t drag out the reunion cause that’s not the main point of the story!

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ungiftedmusings · 4 years

Text

each in his own way, shatters

tw: referenced canon suicide, death

[vulnerable]

wave wished he could honestly say that he had never doubted pang, that he always trusted his friend’s intentions were the best even when his actions were suspect. in some ways, in the ways that really counted most of the time - namely, when mind control was involved - wave trusted pang completely. but the truth was, as wave’s feelings towards pang rushed past the line dividing platonic love and romance, that level of trust became harder to maintain. it was a different level of vulnerability, one which had served to cause wave nothing but pain in the past, and he didn’t know how to get over that.

but then, seeing pang like this… it didn’t matter. if a chunk of the trust that should have been there was missing, it was irrelevant when pang was sobbing on the floor like he’d had his heart shattered by a four-story fall.

[unarmed]

wave had known that something was wrong when pang didn’t answer the third time he’d tried calling. far too many voicemail tones later, and wave admitted to himself that things may be even worse than he’d previously thought.

he’d tried to steel himself, tried everything he could think of to prepare. he refrained from getting into a fistfight with punn. he took the worm of doubt that wriggled its way into his mind and pushed it aside to deal with another day. he harnessed his nervous energy to mentally plan a personalized pep talk, should that be what pang needed, and reminded himself of how well his group pep talk had gone just the other day. padded with confidence and care, wave figured he was ready to face whatever it was that had gone wrong.

no amount of preparation could have readied wave to hear pang’s heart-wrenching shouts. the way his blood ran cold the second he heard the pain and knew immediately who it belonged to was like nothing wave had experienced before. wave wasn’t normally one for running, but he found himself sprinting at full speed before he even knew it. pang’s voice faded out and wave kept running, because he knew the silence didn’t mean things were okay.

[broken]

wave had seen pang cry before. once, when he’d been let down by every single one of his friends and, as a result, had failed to accomplish the goal he’d spent a year working towards. again when he’d first realized that korn really had betrayed them all. wave had seen pang worn out, exhausted, confused, hurt. that was nothing, nothing at all, compared to this.

pang had always worn his heart on his sleeve and wave had always thought he was strong for doing so. it was that stubborn sort of kindness that came so naturally to pang, and sometimes wave thought he ought to replace stubborn with stupid. with his feelings so exposed, there was no way for pang protect himself from the elements, from the pain and the brutality of the world.

wave always wondered how pang had managed to keep his heart whole. there had always been chips in it, cracks, but pang always seemed to mend them without too much trouble.

wave wondered what would happen if it was too far damaged to repair. would it remain on display, or would pang relent, and finally hide it away?

now he could see it, a heart broken to pieces, and for a second, he froze, as if his gears had come to a halt. was his own heart still beating, or had that faltered, too?

[fear]

seeing pang suffering this way, wave was afraid. afraid to do the wrong thing, afraid to do the right thing, afraid that there is no right thing, but he knew he needed to try. his throat had gone dry and he forgot how to speak.

could words make a shattered heart break further?

he knelt next to pang, but his hands couldn’t find their way to comforting. they were shaking and he thought they might do more damage than good. wave had forgotten how to touch. hands hovering as if casting a spell, wave wished someone would just tell him what to do.

[fragile]

a word came back and wave croaked out pang’s name. pang just curled further into himself, so wave tried again, more loudly this time. “pang! what happened?”

“go away,” pang’s voice was thin, wavering, choked off by sobs that wouldn’t stop. “i don’t— i can’t—“ pang broke off with a shuttering, pained cry, and wave realized he was just barely managing to hold all the damaged pieces of himself together. in a seemingly careless fashion, wave very deliberately began playing with pang’s hair.

“you don’t have to,” wave said quietly. “you don’t have to explain, but i’m not going to leave you.”

at this, pang cried harder, but he latched on to wave’s free hand as soon as it was offered.

[guilt]

“it’s my fault,” pang whispered, long after wave assumed - hoped - he had fallen asleep. when he looked, pang’s eyes were red, and wide-open, staring as if wave wasn’t even there.

“what is?” wave kept his voice mellow, measured. pang opened his mouth, then closed it, and wave brushed a hand over his forehead. “pang, can you tell me?” there were tear streaks staining nearly ever centimeter of pang’s face, but he was no longer crying. his eyes looked empty, and wave wondered where pang’s heart went.

“i killed them,” pang said, his voice hollow. “time and korn, i— they’re gone. and it’s my fault.”

[voids, vacuums]

and suddenly the air rushed out of wave’s lungs all at once, leaving only a hollow and aching vacuum. fear rung in his ears, along with defiance and hurt, and he pushed what was less relevant for the moment aside, shaking his head.

“no. no, pang, listen, i don’t know what happened but you can’t blame yourself.”

pang stared at wave, blinking voids completely dry, and smiled as his grip on wave’s hand tightened. “you don’t know,” he said, aloof, almost condescending. “nothing - you know nothing.”

“but you can tell me—“

“get out.” wave’s back straightened of its own accord, as if coming to attention. “leave me alone. do not touch me again.”

wave stood up. it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had no choice. he felt his feet carry him out the door, and tears began streaming down his own face. because of what had happened. because he hadn’t been there to help. because he couldn’t help now. because of pang’s words. because, after a split second of raw hurt, he recognized them for what they were.

do not touch me again - the void where pang’s heart used to be made one last attempt at protecting his friend.

[anger]

and wave was angry. not because of pang. because his friends were gone, and because he was shaken, but not surprised. the realization had his stomach turning. they were in high school, they were kids, and he was so sick and tired of adults making their lives hell.

with everything they’d been through, with everything they were still going through, something like this was bound to happen. wave loved pang and his optimism but among the gifted, pang was in the minority of those who would be really, genuinely caught off guard by this.

so yes. wave was angry. but not at himself. not the way pang was angry. wave knew from experience the way self loathing functioned. reckless, thoughtless destruction.

[distance]

so, wave took the protection for what it was. he left pang alone. he’d had to keep his distance from pang before, after the memory wipe, and it wasn’t any easier the second time around, especially now that he was on his own. but he didn’t want to be like channon and mr. pom, didn’t want to sacrifice happiness for temporary closeness.

wave had always been able to take a step back and look at problems from a distance - it had served him well in the past, and sometimes poorly, but right now he needed logic. and really, what more was logic than looking at an issue from the outside in? he needed that space, that safety, that comes with a particularly guarded heart - a battered and bruised one that was good at little but protecting itself. at the cost of every sense of being human that he’d obtained in the past few years, wave took a few large steps away from this problem, until he was just at the edge of it. he was just close enough to be involved, but far enough away that he could go unnoticed. close enough to watch as his best friend attempted to regain some semblance of control by stealing it out of his own friends’ hands, but distanced enough to maintain control over himself.

the days were long and lonely, but having control was his only hope, having power - it was his last resort. he’d bought himself time, time to develop his power, his potential, and wave didn’t know if it would be enough. but he had to try.

AO3

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duker42 · 5 years

Note

A misunderstanding happens where the social workers found out about Levi's past and thinks Marc is not safe so they take Marc away from them. Levi and his s/o were fighting them to get their son back. A couple days later they were so shocked to see that Marc ran away from from the center and came back to then, crying and says they're his real parents and he wouldn't want to be anywhere else :33

💜My Parents💜

Y/N’s frantic phone call caused Levi to drop everything and race home. He had called their lawyer on the way, demanding he meet him there as soon as possible.

His heart pounded in fear as he saw the non-descript government car in front of his house. This couldn’t be happening. He threw the car in park and flew into the house to find his wife red faced and arguing with a matronly woman in a horrid excuse for a business suit.

“I want to know exactly what is going on right now.” He demanded as he came up behind Y/N. He felt her sag a bit under his hand, relieved he was there are she continued to stare down the woman in front of her.

“Ah yes, you must be Levi Ackerman.” The ID badge said she was front the adoption center, social services.

“Yes, and you are?” He tried to keep his tone neutral, but it was so hard to play nice when he had heard what this woman was trying to do. He wanted to tear her apart verbally and throw her out of his house physically.

“Mary Jones. Mr. Ackerman some concerning information about you has come to light and we have been ordered to remove Marc from your home.” Her tone was condescending, as if she were some elite noble looking down on a peasant.

“What information? You have my background check from where the adoption papers went through.” He demanded, trying to keep the fear from his voice.

“The information is all here. Now, if you do not produce the child, I’m afraid I will have to have the deputy arrest you while we search the home for him.” Her voice was commanding, resolved that the armed man with a badge beside her would carry out the order, as ridiculous as it was.

Levi skimmed the papers and let out a harsh laugh. “This is bullshit and you know it!”

Y/N took the papers and read them. It was Levi’s criminal past, his arrests and convictions. All before he turned 18. They were supposed to be sealed and expunged.

“I haven’t even had a parking ticket in 15 years! I’m the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and respected member of the community. You mean to tell me that this.” He gestured to the papers in Y/N’s hands. “Means I’m unfit to be a father? Marc’s father?”

Her hard shell cracked slightly before she spoke. “I’m afraid that’s for a judge to decide, Mr. Ackerman. Now where is the boy?”

Marc cried as he was lead out of the house. Y/N had given him a hug that lasted for minutes, her body trembling with the effort to not cry. Levi was close to tears himself as he held his son and promised that he would fix this. That he would be back before he knew it.

They stood in the doorway of their now childless home and watched with breaking hearts as their son was taken back to the adoption center.

~~~~~

There had been a glitch in the system. An error that had allowed sealed records to become available. It wasn’t something that was supposed to happen.

Their family lawyer, Dot Pixis, said that this matter should be dealt with quickly. There was no basis to judge him on a record that was close to 17 years old and was supposed to be kept out of the background checks performed on him. He had been a minor and his record as an adult was spotless.

All they had to do was wait. But that was the problem. Levi had a hard time waiting for his son to be returned, waiting for his family to be complete again. He hated seeing the sad look on Y/N’s face. Hated knowing that it was because of his dark past that they were in this current situation.

He had wanted to fix it right away, but they had to wait for the court date. If couldn’t come soon enough. The day in the calendar seemed so far away even when in reality it was only three days.

The night before they were due in court, Y/N and Levi sat in silence. The normal sounds of their house were absent with Marc being gone. They tried to continue on like normal, but the joyful spark had been extinguished.

The ringing of the doorbell startled Y/N as she sat and thought about Marc. She was so worried about him in that adoption center. He had flourished so much under their roof, become outgoing and confident, where he had been withdrawn and aloof in that place.

“Mom!!!!!” She looked up to see Marc racing towards her with his arms outstretched. Levi following close behind him with a surprised look on his face.

“Marc! Oh baby! I’ve missed you so much! How did you get here?” Y/N asked as she held him close and closed her eyes in relief at feeing her son’s embrace again.

“I ran away! I can’t stand that place! You’re my parents and I want to be here. I don’t care what that stupid lady says!” Marc has tears in his eyes as he looked up and Y/N and then turned to Levi. “Don’t make me go back, dad. I belong with you and mom.”

Levi’s heart clenched as he sat down and took Marc’s hand. “Yes you do. You belong right here with us. But I have to let them know where you are, Marc. If I don’t and they find you here, you might never be able to come home.”

Marc cried but nodded his head. He understood that they could get in trouble, but he just wanted to be with his mom and dad. Surely he should get some say in the matter.

Levi took out his cell phone and called Mrs. Jones. She didn’t seem shocked that Marc was here, but she was very surprised that Levi had called her. She told him that she had thought they would have taken the boy and run with the resources they had.

“Our home is here. Marc deserves a life of happiness and joy, not the misery of being on the run. We will win and be a family again.” Levi said, holding onto Marc’s hand as he looked the boy in the eyes.

“Well....considering he has run away, ended up straight back at your house, you called right away and the court hearing is tomorrow I think it might be best if Marc stay there tonight. That way we make sure he is there tomorrow to tell the judge what he wants.” Mrs. Jones’s voice was warmer than they had ever heard it.

She knew that Marc belonged with them and knew the case would be lost. She had done some digging and the man she was talking to had gone from thug in a ruthless gang to becomes a pillar of the community. She had no doubt the judge would rule in his favor. At least that was going to be her own recommendation at tomorrow’s proceedings.

Yes, she had heard Marc when the boy had told her several times that they are “my parents!”

**All other stories in this AU are labeled as Modern AU -Levi Family**

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#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #levi ackerman #snk levi #levi aot #levi fanfiction #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi modern au #levi ackerman modern au #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin x reader #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader

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loucifieri · 6 years

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NDRV3 HPA AU characterization notes

(also added some additional details on their character designs :D) I already made a character guide of the kids here, but after writing a spontaneously updated fanfic about their school/dorm life, I now have a better grasp of how to portray them in this AU. More under the cut~

Family headcanons here

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The HPA AU comics I’ve been doing admittedly focused more on certain characters, so I’ve hardly thought about how to flesh out the others. To remedy that, I wrote a chatfic that revolved around them as a class and what started as something ‘just for fun’ turned into something a bit more serious, complete with plot and drama (which is strange for something in a chatfic format lol).

Kaede Akamatsu: The cheerful, charismatic and kind pianoholic who promotes friendship and cooperation, earning her the position of Class Representative. Selfless and empathetic to a fault, but can be quite pushy and bossy. Behind her confident facade, Kaede is insecure of not being able to live up to her responsibilities believing that all she’s ever good at is playing the piano, going by a ‘fake it til you make it’ attitude so as not to disappoint the people that relied on her ‘leadership.’ She has a tendency to be tactless towards people when very annoyed or under extreme stress.

Add: While not a very good cook, Kaede is an experienced baker.

Closest friend/s: Shuichi (childhood best friend), Rantaro, Kaito, Maki, Kirumi, Tenko (she is at least good friends with everyone in class tho)

Shuichi Saihara: The meek and soft-spoken detective in training who eventually fills the role of assistant class rep to Kaede. Cool-headed and intelligent, Shuichi shows promise of being proactive and responsible, but has difficulty in asserting himself due to confidence issues. He can be very emotional, prone to easily cry when overwhelmed by negative emotions. He also struggles with depression at times, although he tries to hide it as best he could. To people he is close with, Shuichi can be quite sassy and would joke about his ‘emo aesthetic.’

(When Shuichi wore his hat, his necktie is the standard red one)

Add: Shuichi is an avid fan of all things detective (looks up to Kyoko Kirigiri, has a sizable collection of Nancy Drew Books and Detective Conan Manga, retweets a lot of Sherlock Holmes quotes etc.)

Closest friend/s: Kaede (childhood best friend), Kaito, Maki, Kokichi, Kiibo

Kokichi Ouma: The self proclaimed supreme leader, he is a compulsive liar and prankster, fond of being disruptive and annoying towards his peers. While he tends to lie a lot, it’s not as outrageous and over the top (like in-game), and he would never push the buttons of anyone who was already distressed. Behind his outward unpleasantness, Kokichi cares a lot about his classmates, often calling them out on their bad habits (albeit it’s also in an unpleasant way) and looking out for them in his own unique way (which is subtle, at most). He dreads showing this side of him to class 79, as this was a sign of attachment on his part and this was only reserved to D.I.C.E members initially.

Add: Kokichi doesn’t know how to dance.

Closest friend/s: Rantaro, Shuichi

Maki Harukawa: The surly, unapproachable ‘assassin’ who is the walking definition of a tsundere. She dislikes socializing with her classmates, mostly because of her inability for small talk and difficulty to relate with her peer group as she spent most of her time dealing with children (in the orphanage). Maki is blunt but not unkind, and may be occasionally dismissive but (secretly) greatly appreciates those who reach out to her. Being emotional is Maki’s greatest pet peeve, making her great at compartmentalizing and repressing her emotions.

Add: Maki was physically conditioned and trained to be an assassin but it was for her to be Motion Capture stunt girl for an assassin-centric game. Has not killed anyone in real life, but physically can if desired.

Closest friend/s: Kaito, Shuichi, Kaede

Kaito Momota: The loud-mouthed and passionate astronaut who likes to give pep talks more than Kaede. Kaito pretty much keeps the class lively with his dumb antics. Despite his air of stupidity, he is quite street smart and a good judge of character. He has patriarchal views on gender roles, naturally irking most of his female peers. Additionally, he is hot-headed, stubborn and very competitive. True to his very upbeat and positive persona though, he dislikes showing weakness/ appearing weak. Kaito suffers from Tuberculosis, hence he coughs a lot.

Add: Kaito makes the best omelettes.

Closest friend/s: Maki, Shuichi, Kaede, Ryoma (one-sided)

Rantaro Amami: The lax and enigmatic adventurer who likes to meme, apart from traveling the world. Rantaro has a big brother vibe to him, but can be quite silly at times. He is fond of recounting experiences about his travels, often retelling them in a more imaginative version. Despite his nonchalant approach on everything, Rantaro is very particular on people’s perspective of him. He craves to be an important figure among his classmates, just like his central role on his siblings’ lives.

Add: Rantaro has a Youtube channel where he makes travel vlogs in the style of Bear Grylls’ Man VS Wild.

Closest friend/s: Tsumugi (middle school bestfriend), Kokichi, Kaede, Kiibo, Korekiyo

Kirumi Tojo: The responsible and mature maid with a strict adherence to her creed on selfless devotion. Kirumi is very capable of doing any (reasonable) task given to her, completing them with practiced efficiency. Taking her talent more seriously, she appears impassive and mechanical to her classmates. Her maid schtick is actually a conscious effort for her; beneath the carefully-maintained frigid and collected persona is a shy and anxious Kirumi with personal whims and ambitions. She has a sense of humor and would sometimes tease her classmates in some way or another (which always takes them by surprise). She can be quite condescending and judgmental when pushed to the limit.

Add: Kirumi is a closet bookworm, and has a collection of cheesy, young adult romance novels (may or may not own some raunchy ones).

Closest friend/s: Ryoma, Kaede

Korekiyo Shinguji: The studious and aloof anthropologist who revels in the beauty of humanity. Kiyo likes to observe people, mentally taking note of the intricacies of human nature, although this hobby of his isn’t taken kindly by some. Ambitious and resourceful, he spends a lot of time reading to further his knowledge. In turn, he is quite socially inept and often scares away any ‘potential friend’ with his intelligent ramblings. He is very close with his sickly older sister, but gets annoyed with her fussiness.

Add: He is a capable illustrator, often adding sketches on his journal of anthropological notes.

Closest friend/s: Rantaro, Gonta, Angie

Tsumugi Shirogane: The quirky cosplayer and talented seamstress with a habit of referencing popular and obscure pop culture stuff. Tsumugi is an avid fan of a lot media, from games to animes to TV shows, both western and japanese, often spending most of her time in her room to indulge in her fandoms. She also has a tendency to break the fourth wall and would reference the ‘NDRV3 canon universe.’ Tsumugi is quite insecure of her geeky side, and is a bag of nerves when under the spotlight. She is cowardly and unable to stand her ground, often playing for both sides in an argument in an effort to please both.

(the only one wearing the HPA uniform without modifications lol)

Add: She is a big fan of Junko Enoshima (a fashion blogger with her own brand of clothing).

Closest friend/s: Rantaro (middle school bestfriend)

Ryoma Hoshi: The stoic and detached Pro Tennis player who is very fond of felines. Ryoma likes to spend most of his time alone and would often disappear to god knows where. He is responsive when in conversation, talking in a melancholic tone. He is profound and insightful, open to giving advice freely to those in need. While very patient, he is vindictive and unforgiving to those who wronged him horribly. His whole family was murdered by a mafia group (leaving him with just the family cat) and he has since personally chased leads that will bring the perpetrators to justice. Despite his pursuit of the killers, he is not interested in delivering justice on his own and merely conducted his own investigation to aid law enforcement.

Add: Ryoma has a folder of cat game apps on his phone, his favorite in particular being Neko Atsume.

Closest friend/s: Kirumi, Gonta

Gonta Gokuhara: The gentle giant with a fascination on animals, particularly insects. Gonta is good-natured (very kind, polite and honest) but naive and childish. In spite of this, he cannot be easily tricked by Kokichi and would sometimes even join in on roasting him. He wants to be a gentleman and really tries his best to exhibit qualities of such. While not academically smart (being raised in the wild), he has extensive knowledge on flora and fauna. Gonta has bouts of self-doubt, believing himself to be incapable of anything. He can be very hard on himself and would do reckless things to prove himself.

Add: Contrary to most of his classmates’ impression on him, Gonta is not technologically challenged. He plays Overwatch in his free time (he mains Bastion).

Close friend/s: Ryoma, Korekiyo

Miu Iruma: The lewd and brash inventor with onion skin. Miu is outspoken and campy, often considered obnoxious by her classmates. She likes to make dirty jokes and projects an air of self-importance, but is also quick to deflate when reprimanded or talked back at. Being neglected her whole life, Miu wants attention, hence her over the top personality but this in turn made her a deplorable person. She spends most of her time building knickknacks to stave off the loneliness she feels. Over time, she does try to be less of a difficult person.

Add: Miu doesn’t know how to swim or ride a bike (but she can invent something that will keep her afloat on water and something that can keep her balanced on the bike).

Close friend/s: Kiibo

Kiibo Idabashi (not a Robot): The well-meaning and pacifistic Robotics Engineer that has a difficulty in relating with his fellow humans. Kiibo has lived a very sheltered life and has not been exposed to any social interaction with his age group prior to his enrollment at Hope’s Peak, making him quite stiff and robotic. He is very shy and apprehensive at speaking in class or called to recitation. He is also wimpy, but can get very defensive of his robotic creations.

Add: Kiibo missed out a lot on his childhood, so class 79 would often indulge him on what he was deprived of (like having pizza, playing tag and watching animated films).

Close friend/s: Miu, Shuichi, Rantaro

Tenko Chabashira: The energetic and cheerful aikido master who loves to defend girls from the degenerate MENaces. Tenko loves to be active, often encouraging the girls to exercise (especially those with a sedentary lifestlye). A fiery character, she wears her emotions on her sleeves and reacts strongly on impulse. She has a on a hair trigger temper, especially if the aggressor involves a guy and has a tendency to be physically violent. Tenko’s distaste towards men in general stems from a dark past: she and her mother suffered abuse from her own father. Her mother was eventually murdered by her father in front of her (at a young age) and after her father was subsequently locked up, she was taken in by her mother’s friend who was matriarchal.

Add: She is an adept shogi and chess player.

Close friend/s: Himiko, Angie, Kaede

Himiko Yumeno: The resident sloth who also happens to be a magician (er… mage). Himiko is very lethargic, dislikes doing almost any physical activity, often trying to weasel her way out of doing assigned tasks and the like. She isn’t dismissive of social interaction though, and is quite talkative when you start a conversation with her. She loves to watch youtube videos and web series, particularly korean drama. She is good at math, and would tutor Angie and Tenko when pestered enough.

Add: Himiko is ambidextrous, and can seamlessly use chopsticks with her left hand.

Close friend/s: Tenko, Angie

Angie Yonaga: The eccentric and bubbly artist with a deep devotion to an obscure religion. Angie is a pious devotee of Atua, and is willing to provide for the spiritual needs of her classmates. She loves mentioning unusual habits and customs from her island home, such as blood sacrifices and orgies. Hardly anything fazes her, this nonchalance and ignorance being considered sinister by some of her peers. Even with the best intentions in mind, she sometimes used religion to get what she wanted.

Add: Angie owns four horses (named War, Famine, Pestilence and Death) that Hope’s Peak allowed her to keep in school (for some reason). Their stables were located at the student/staff parking lot.

Close friend/s: Korekiyo, Tenko, Himiko

Great Gozu: The former Ultimate Wrestler is now the homeroom teacher of Class 79A. Despite his intimidating physique, he is gentle, patient and very supportive. He becomes quickly attached to class 79A and is quite protective of them.

And now for the romantic relationships~ (I inadvertently retconned some stuff from the HPA AU comics in the fanfic version apparently, I’m not very good at slow burn lol)

Kaede//Kirumi: Both of them are altruistic, though one is out of pure selflessness while the other due to moral obligation. Kaede is the first to develop a crush on the other, mostly out of physical attraction but it’s Kirumi that first falls in love between the two of them. Kirumi is mostly drawn to Kaede’s comforting presence and empathic nature, and is impressed with the pianist’s diligence in perfecting her musical craft. Kaede admires the maid’s dedicated work ethic, and is very enamored with Kirumi’s elegance and grace. Kaede’s considerate nature holds her back from pursuing Kirumi head-on out of respect for the maid’s seemingly unshakeable adherence to her creed of selfless devotion, while Kirumi struggles internally in balancing her whims and sticking to her creed. This results in them tiptoeing around their feelings towards each other.

Shuichi//Kokichi: One lies while the other exposes the truth. Kokichi, despite his growing interest on the detective, denies his feelings. Shuichi, initially unconfident about his chances with the supreme leader, takes the leap and reveals his feelings first. Kokichi is drawn to Shuichi’s intelligence, good-natured personality and cute face (and he may or may not have a detective kink). Shuichi is drawn to Kokichi’s complex personality, considering it a mystery puzzle only he could solve. Both Kokichi and Shuichi suffer from insecurities that the other deserve better than themselves; Kokichi believes Shuichi wouldn’t fall for him because of his complicated personality while Shuichi thinks Kokichi was in love with the more appealing Kaito, somewhat resigned he has no chance.

Kaito//Maki: Polar opposites and yet both hide the same thing; one relies on outward emotion to hide a weakness while the other represses emotion to hide a weakness. Kaito is greatly drawn to Maki’s independent and capable mindset but struggles with his own sexist mindset. Maki falls for Kaito’s endearing personality, but struggles to make sense of her romantic feelings. Eventually, they both overcome their weaknesses. Maki is the first to fall for the other, and while she is also the one to confess her feelings first, it was Kaito who first changed his ways, learning to be less sexist. Maki avoids Kaito when her feelings toward him intensified, but this unfazed the astronaut and remained wooing her consistently.

Tenko//Himiko: Polar opposites that balance each other out. Tenko and Himiko may have been the first pair to be immediately drawn to each other but they are the last pair to be officially together. Tenko’s more active lifestyle gets Himiko to reconsider her lethargic nature while Himiko’s relaxed attitude grounds Tenko’s overactive nature. Tenko was drawn to Himiko from the get-go, and while the smaller girl was initially annoyed by the aikido master being insistent, she eventually warms up to her. They subsequently act like girlfriends, but surprisingly their ‘official’ get together doesn’t happen til later.

[others to be added lol]

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goodnightkisseu · 6 years

Text

Bae Jinyoung - Jealousy

Requested By: @theperfect-rose ( “ahhh im so happy you're taking requests again! uwu~ so can i request a jinyoung one shot? the iconic jealous best friend scenario,,, fluff please~💖”)

Genre: Fluff but with some angst for good measure~

Note: Writing for Jinyoung is always a challenge for me, but it’s also a lot of fun. This one is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but I hope that you all like it ;__; Please enjoy and let me know what you think~ ^^

[ Masterlist ] [ Upcoming Stories ]

- goodnightkisseu’s admin <3

A deep breath left Jinyoung’s lops for the third time that morning since he left his house. He had rehearsed what he would say over a hundred times, trying to not make it sound to robotic when the words finally flowed from his lips. His mind had mapped out every possible scenario that could have played out, from the things that you were most likely to say to the things he was going to fumble on. He was ready. Today was going to be the day.

Today, he was going to confess to you.

Honestly, Jinyoung never thought that your friendship would ever end up at this crossroad. The two of you had known each other since you started middle school and he was pretty sure that, to him, you would always be the girl that took a bucket of water for him because his friends had poor aim. That you would always be the girl that eat too many melon breads during lunch and felt sick when you got home. He never thought of you becoming more than just his best friend. But that all changed when you entered high school. Jinyoung wasn’t sure how it happened, but he became more protective of you, took better care of you, watched over you to the point where one of his male friends said, ‘just date her already.’ Yet as soon as those words were put out into the universe, Jinyoung really did wonder why he wasn’t dating you. The idea had never crossed his mind before, but he had to admit that his attitude towards you had changed. Though he valued your friendship greatly, there were times when, late at night, he yearned for more. And it almost felt right for the two of you to be together. It was a cliché thought, but he just… felt it.

Granted, it seemed like he was the first to realize how your relationship had changed, and it definitely made things a bit awkward at times. He sometimes have to pretend that he wasn’t just staring at you because he thought you looked cute. He had to make up some excuse about how you had something on your face or that you had a booger hanging from your nose. Jinyoung had to pretend like he wasn’t excited to see you every morning, much like today, when the two of you would walk to school together. He had to remain as aloof as he could, pretend as much as he could, but lately, it was getting harder.

Being best friends also meant that you both talked about people that you liked. From Jinyoung’s side it was just picking a random girl at the school and saying that he might be interested, because he really wasn’t, yet he didn’t want to make it obvious that he liked you. However, on your end, you were being truthful and honestly, Jinyoung found himself getting a bit jealous at the way that you talked about the guys you had liked. Some had been his friends, but they already knew you were off limits, so it was unlikely that they would try something. But others… others he didn’t know as well and he was worried that he would lose his chance with you. So, not wanting to leave anything else up to chance, he decided to let his feelings be known. In his eyes, there were no points of failure in his confession. He couldn’t guarantee that you would say yes, but he could say that he would do it earnestly, and at least that part would be perfect.

That was, until everything wasn’t perfect.

Jinyoung had entered your building like he did every morning, greeting the older gentleman that watched the lobby before he headed up the elevator. As soon as he got off of the elevator, he rounded a corner and saw you. He couldn’t help the feeling of happiness that washed over him like it usually did. Just seeing you really brightened up his day. Yet, in an instant, it was replaced with a feeling of dread.

That morning, you weren’t alone like you usually were, just lounging around in the hallway waiting for him. Today, you were chatting with Euiwoong, another student that also happened to attend the same school. He was a year younger than the two of you, as well as your next door neighbor. Jinyoung had no idea that the two of you even knew each other. You had never mentioned to him that you had befriended Euiwoong, even if it made sense because you lived so close to each other. He was in a bit of shock.

The feeling of shock, however, was soon replaced by a wave of jealousy. Jinyoung had become upset. Not with you, but with himself. On the day that he finally decided to tell you how he felt, when he was finally ready to let his emotions run free, you were happily talking to another guy, as if the things he had to say were the funniest in the universe. And soon, envy towards Euiwoong was started to build up. Why couldn’t you laugh so effortlessly with him? You always told him that he was no fun, too serious. Was… it really true after all?

Though, underneath all of these ugly feelings was also a sense of sadness, he feeling of getting his heart broken. You looked so happy with him, and Jinyoung… could he ever make you that happy? He always thought the two of you had a connection, but you had never laughed like that unless he did something dumb. Maybe… maybe best friends weren’t meant to be together after all…

Still, even though every single emotion seemed to be coursing through his vains in that moment, the ones that won out, unsurprisingly, were anger and jealousy. In a huff he trudged towards you and Euiwoong to get you for school, but honestly, he probably wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around that morning…

========

“Jinyoung, yah, Bae Jinyoung. Wait up, would you? Hey, tell me what’s wrong,” you urged as you tried to match your strides with your best friend’s. However, his legs were much longer than yours and you had to speed walk to keep up with him. He had been acting a bit off all morning. When you were on the way to school he practically ignored you the entire time. In class he talked with all of his other friends except for you. You were basically getting the cold shoulder and you had no idea why. Obviously something was up.

Truthfully, you had noticed your relationship and attitude towards Jinyoung changing over this last year. When you were much younger, if he had ignored you like he was now, you would have just huffed and walked off, not wanting to deal with his tantrum by throwing one of your own. But now… things were a little different. You found yourself yearning for his approval. You wanted him to only you sometimes, to give you his attention. It was hard to pinpoint when you started seeing your best friend as more than just your best friend, but it had happened. You wanted him to be more than just the guy that walked with you to school or else you’d be late. You wanted him to be more than just that guy that waited around after school for you to finish your club activities. You wanted him to be your boyfriend, and you his girlfriend.

Though all well and good, you couldn’t quite read how Jinyoung felt about you. There were definitely times that you caught him staring, caught him looking at you as more than just a friend. Yet, when you hinted at it, in hopes that it would get him to drop his guard and just admit it, he offered instead to act aloof about it, and it was driving you a bit nuts. Granted, you’d much rather aloof Jinyoung than whatever you had now. He seemed upset with you for some unknown reason, but you couldn’t help but be a bit sad. After all, how could you fix something that you didn’t know happened to begin with?

“It’s nothing,” he muttered dismissively as he continued to walk two steps ahead of you, making his way up a set of stairs that would eventually lead to the roof of the building. He couldn’t help but feel frustrated. He had it all planned out… and then he had to see that.

To your luck, a large group of students were making their way down the next set of stairs so you found yourselves stopped in the hallway. You were finally able to steady your breath in that moment, thank goodness. “Jinyoung, don’t pull that with me. I know you better than anyone, and you know me better than anyone. So tell me what’s wrong…”

Jinyoung couldn’t help but scoff, which he saw perplexed you. He couldn’t help that he was acting unreasonably right. He was just so upset. Still, he knew better than to cause a commotion in the middle of a hallway where other students could eavesdrop and gossip. He waited until the students cleared and continued on his path to the roof, making sure that you were behind him. When the two of you reached your destination, and he took a look around to make sure that no one else was there, that you had the privacy you needed, before he turned to you.

“I know you better than anyone, huh? Really? Are you sure that title doesn’t belong to Euiwoong?” he asked, his tone condescending.

You didn’t like being talked to like that, not even by Jinyoung, and whether he knew it or not, you were growing more upset by the minute. Sure, his words were accusatory, and that hurt you a bit as well, but you were just… you would fight back if you had to. “Euiwoong? What does Euiwoongie have anything to do with the way you’re acting?” you shot back.

Oh, that hit a nerve. “Ohhhhh you call him Euiwoongie now, do you? I guess the two of you had gotten closer than I expected. Is it a new budding romance?”

“A new, wait, what? Jinyoung, where is this coming from?!” you yelled. To say you were upset was an understatement. You could understand him being angry about you eating the last of his food, or about you not coming to get him to go to the store. But right now, he was accusing you of spending time with someone, of seeing someone that you didn’t even know that well. And all because, what, the two of you happened to be talking that morning? Did Jinyoung realize how ridiculous this was? What kind of person did he think you were?

“You don’t have to lie to me if you like him, you know. You don’t have to be all sly about it. I would just appreciate you not playing around with my heart in the process. I really liked you, and I thought that you might have liked me back. But at the end of the day I guess you like the boy next door more,” Jinyoung replied not really thinking of his words. He had his back turned to you now, so he hadn’t seen you shaking at what he had said.

“You jerk, I don’t like him, I like you!” you practically screamed, you emotions getting the better of you and the tears threatening to let loose. He was accusing you of so many things and it was all so hurtful. And yet, you still, you still liked him. Why couldn’t he just see that?

Your words took Jinyoung by surprise. He was expecting you to admit that you liked Euiwoong over him, that yes, the two of you were thinking of dating. He had expected all of those things. He wasn’t expecting you to say that you liked him. Quickly, Jinyoung turned around on the spot and that was when he saw you. Your face was red, your eyes were welling up with tears, and in that moment, all of his anger and jealousy washed away. He realized that he had screwed up, and now all he cared about was making you feel better, for making up for yelling at you. Full of concern, Jinyoung was back at your side in a split second, pulling your face into his hands so that he could wipe away the tears. He never meant to make you cry. That wasn’t the purpose of his words at all. Ah, why was he like this?

You wanted to push Jinyoung away, you really did, but you couldn’t. His presence was comforting and though he had every intention of wiping away your tears, more flowed in the process. “I don’t like Euiwoong,” you said through your tears, waiting for them to subside before you could continue. “We don’t even know each other that well. I was talking to him this morning because he was asking me about how to approach someone he liked. I was telling him that I had no idea because I couldn’t even tell you that I liked you…”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that was what happened?” he asked, a pout forming on his lips as he tried to hold back his own tears. His emotions were as much on the fritz as yours. And plus, seeing you cry always had a way of making him want to cry too.

“I didn’t know why you were mad at me, so how was I supposed to tell you that that was what we were talking about?” you muttered through your sniffles. “Plus, I thought I was making it obvious how I felt about you this entire time. But you just kept ignoring me so I didn’t know how to tell you. Why did you have to be such a jerk today? I told you in such a dumb way, now you’ll never want to go out with me…”

“Of course I would!!! I like you too, you dummy,” Jinyoung retorted, having no control over his own words. Though his tears never fell, he could feel his face getting warm from embarrassment. “Look, I wanted to tell you on our way to school today. I just… after I saw you with Euiwoong… I… I…”

“You got jealous,” you stated for him, both of your minds processing each other’s ridiculous actions.

“A-a little. I got really mad that I didn’t tell you sooner because I thought you found someone else….” He muttered, now feeling rather ridiculous about the whole thing.

“You’re so dumb…” you told him, though you meant it in a sweet way. “I’ve never had eyes for anyone else…”

“Same…” he said, letting go of you to finally pull you into a hug. As silly as the two of you were, he would never change a thing about either of you. It was what made the two of you such a good pair…

#wanna one #bae jinyoung #wanna one imagines #wanna one scenarios #kpop scenarios #wow what an emotional roller coaster ><#ahhh i hope this is okay ;^;#and yeah... that gif doesn't have much to do with the scenario but it felt moody enough ><"

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vaguely-concerned · 6 years

Text

Overwatch fic - I hope that I don’t fall in love with you

PG-13, Hanzo Shimada/Jesse McCree, 7400 words, young McHanzo. Jesse and Hanzo are stuck in an airport overnight because of a snowstorm - drinks and shenanigans ensue.

On AO3

Outside the huge windows the snowstorm kept howling like the tantrum of some weather god whose idea of creativity stopped at ‘just turn the dial up as far as it will go and call it a day’, a shifting wall of white rushing by behind the glass.

Inside the airport it was quiet, though, like the snow had settled in here too and was dampening all sound. Everyone moved with the weary yet unflappable tranquility of people who had accepted the truth that they were stuck here until the forces of fate and air traffic control saw fit to release them. Even the baby that was invariably crying somewhere in the distance sounded like it was mostly phoning it in for the look of the thing at this point. With the darkness pressing in on the airport it felt like being trapped in a high-tech cave of glass and concrete, the lights kept low and lulling.

Jesse was aching for a smoke, but the lady behind the bar had that ‘overworked and ready to commit murder with a cocktail strainer’ look about her and he wasn’t ready to stand outside in the roaring gale again until the bourbon had properly thawed out his bones. So instead he fiddled with the corner of the coaster and idly kicked his heels against the leg of the bar stool, keeping half an eye on the holo-set in the corner showing some kind of soccer game and otherwise watching the slow trickle of his fellow waylaid travelers flowing past.

He glanced away from a thrilling 0-0 draw — Jesse wasn’t big into sports that didn’t involve horses at the best of times, and found that having to watch grown men aim for and fail to hit such a big target for ninety minutes straight was like sandpaper over his soul — to see Hanzo Shimada standing in the middle of the terminal, glaring at the flight information display screen. Jesse felt an instinctive twinge of amusement; there was no mistaking him, no other man could have so eloquently stared at a defenseless piece of technology like it had personally offended him and his entire family back several generations.

Hanzo looked no different than he had when they parted ways twelve hours ago, job well done and encrypted info on illegal weapons technology duly exchanged. Even in everyday clothes — well, what passed for it for him, anyway — he seemed… sharper than the people around him, like he’d been carved out of the world differently. Jesse leaned his cheek in his palm and took the opportunity to watch him without having to think about being watched back. Yeah, no, there really was nothing the clothes could do to hide the broad shoulders or the way he moved like he knew precisely where every part of his body was at all times. You could stick a hoodie on a wolf, but it wouldn’t make its teeth any blunter.

With his hair down and a look of peevish outrage on his face he looked younger and infinitely less forbidding, though, like said wolf caught using the drawstrings as a chew toy.

After a while he seemed to spot Jesse and stood for a moment completely still, as if making up his mind about how to react. Jesse decided to leave the choice to him and pretended he hadn’t seen him, instead taking a sip of his drink.

A minute or so later there was the sound of Hanzo clearing his throat, and Jesse glanced up to find him standing close by, snow melting on the shoulders of his coat.

“Oh. Hey there.”

“Hello again,” Hanzo said, letting his bag fall to the ground with a thump and the tiniest hint of clanking metal — Jesse tried to keep out of his mind how many lethal weapons he could keep stowed in there, security be damned. Not that he needed them to be the deadliest guy in the airport. Any airport.

“We keep meetin’,” Jesse agreed, tilting his head to the side. “You having a drink?”

“Why,” Hanzo asked, sitting down on the bar stool next to Jesse, “are you buying?”

Jesse let out a surprised huff of laughter — now there was a tone he’d never heard from him before. If he didn’t know any better he’d say that that was a touch of playfulness.

“Sure,” he said. “If the next round’s yours.”

“Of course. Have they said anything over the intercom?”

Jesse shrugged. “Nothin’ encouraging.”

Hanzo gave a dissatisfied grunt and ordered a drink after a perfunctory scan of the list. He checked his phone while he waited, his brows drawn together irritably.

“Good luck with that, the only forecast you’re likely to get is ‘disappointment with a chance of confused meteorologists’,” Jesse told him. At Hanzo’s surprised blink he added: “Checked it before. You know you’re fucked when they ain’t even had the time to give the storm a name before it hits. We’re right on the outskirts of it as it passes, though, so with a bit of luck we’ll be good to go before noon tomorrow.”

That same impenetrable blinking for a few seconds and then Hanzo gave a breath of laughter and put the phone down, accepting his Old Fashioned with a short ‘Thank you’ when the lady handed it to him. “I see.”

“Guess we’re stuck here at least overnight, huh,” Jesse said.

“It would appear so,” Hanzo sighed, running a hand through his hair to push it away from his face — it fell sleekly over his shoulder and down his back. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were still pink from the cold outside.

Strangely enough the confirmation that they were indeed trapped seemed to calm him down more than anything. He took a sip of his drink and wrinkled his nose, though it didn’t stop him from going in for another straight after.

Hanzo shrugged the coat off and rolled up his sleeves, the tattoo clearly visible on his left forearm. Jesse found himself wrapped up in the design, tracing the interlocking patterns with his eyes when Hanzo wasn’t looking — he’d been trying to get a better look ever since that first time he’d noticed it, when it had been way too dark to make out details and a smear of blood had obscured parts of it. Now that he could study it freely he decided the design suited the man, stark and bold and wound tightly in on itself in ways that didn’t look entirely comfortable.

Eventually Hanzo seemed to sense Jesse’s gaze on him and raised an eyebrow, glass halfway to his lips.

Jesse tore his eyes away and cleared his throat, leaning his elbows on the table. “You gonna get in trouble with your folks over this?”

“Hm?”

“We were already runnin’ kinda late before. Can’t imagine they’ll be happy with this little delay.”

“I… may have some explaining to do when I get back.” He stared into thin air, as if contemplating this, then grimaced and knocked the rest of his drink back in one go, waving for another even as he swallowed.

“Whoa,” Jesse said, equal parts impressed, perturbed and feeling his throat burn in sympathy.

Hanzo gave an acknowledging shrug and started in on the new drink with infinitesimally more restraint, sipping it like a man on a grim quest to escape the dingy shallows of sobriety. “It has been… a long day. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have no one back home to answer to?”

Jesse made an indifferent sound. “Sure, but so long as I get the job done they don’t care much one way or the other how I get there. Would probably start askin’ around for me if I didn’t turn up in a week or so, though. At least I’d like to think so.”

“...an interesting way to run things.”

“I’m a bit of a special case,” Jesse admitted, shrugging. “And I’ve earned it, too. We’re not all charmingly free spirited mavericks like me, though, believe it or not; some of the guys actually do numbers and spreadsheets and shit.”

“Thank heavens,” Hanzo said, “I am not sure the world is big enough for more than one of you.”

When Jesse looked at him there was a smile playing on Hanzo’s lips even as his eyes were drawn and weary, a disarmingly charming expression just from how pleased he looked at his own joke.

“You know, like in your movies? ‘This town isn’t big enough for the both of us’? Dramatic duels at dawn?” He made the most deadpan finger gun Jesse had ever seen and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I, uh, I thought I caught your reference there,” Jesse chuckled, swirling his drink around in his glass. “You have watched a few Westerns in your time, then? You been holdin’ out on me?”

Hanzo gave a grunt and took a sip of his drink. “None that did not involve assless chaps and only the R-rated kind of riding. No horses involved, though.”

It was a near thing that Jesse didn’t snort bourbon through his nose. Hanzo’s smile widened almost imperceptibly.

If you’d asked Jesse before tonight about Hanzo Shimada’s defining qualities, his sense of humor would not necessarily have come up. The aloofness might, as well as the way he walked and talked like he knew, in a disinterested, blasé sort of way, exactly the most efficient way to kill anyone he set his eyes on if needed — the sparkling repartee, not so much. Jesse had always felt that slinging jokes in his direction was like appealing to a vaguely condescending brick wall. Well, more fool him; one on one and devoid of any business to discuss the guy could be hilarious, not even unintentionally, in a way that careened merrily between the sharply observed and the delightfully mean, though the worst of the nihilism eased once he started in on the third drink.

“So you’re telling me,” Jesse said, squinting at Hanzo’s face, “that you had to stay in character as a delivery boy for a month before the guy finally let you in?”

“It was the only way to get close enough to him,” Hanzo shrugged. “A deeply paranoid man. Rightfully so, of course, he had made some powerful enemies through his stupidity and greed.”

“Wow, Mr. Shimada, tell us how you really feel.”

Hanzo made a little face that clearly said ‘Eh, what can you do, there’s no helping some people’. It was the kind of expression that held the ennui and world weariness of a much older man — Jesse suspected Hanzo had been born with it already preprogrammed into him. “If he had been as willing to learn to cook for himself after divorcing his wife as he was setting up diabolical and deadly security systems… I might have had a lot more trouble. He used his last words to complain he had not ordered pepperoni.”

Jesse had a vivid, inexorable mental image of Hanzo dressed up as a pizza boy scowling daggers under the cap; he had to rest a hand over his mouth before he made a sound he might regret, though Hanzo picked up on it anyway.

“I am glad you seem to find it funny. I did not see the humor in it at the time.”

“I can see how you wouldn’t,” Jesse said, strangled. Pushing his luck he asked: “You keep the uniform, at least?”

Hanzo grimaced into his drink. “Perhaps you and Genji should get together some time and create your own comedy act. He asked me the exact same thing when I got back.”

“I knew that kid was alright,” Jesse beamed. “Good instincts.”

“Apart from having to endure your comedy it was a temporary indignity only and the job went smoothly from there. I did get a commendation from my employer several times,” he added, as if he’d only just remembered. “Had to all but fight off a promotion before I left.”

“Well then, at least you know you got a job waitin’ for you if this industry goes tits up in these peaceful Overwatch times. More than you can say for some of us. Ain’t got too many marketable skills outside of… this whole deal,” Jesse said, catching himself before saying ‘shootin’ people in the head’ as the bartender passed by on her way to another customer.

Hanzo made an unconvinced sound in his nose. “Oh, I would not be so sure of that. One does a lot of people watching in our line of business. You develop a knack for working people out, which is usually half the battle. Take that one,” he said, gesturing discreetly in the direction of a corner table with a lone businessman whose only crime, as far as Jesse could tell, lay in a supremely bland taste in ties.

“What about him? You find his fashion sense personally offensive?”

“Obviously, but beyond that he is clearly having an affair.”

Jesse squinted at the guy, finding that despite looking gracelessly and resignedly middle aged there was no lipstick on his collar, literal or figurative. “Oh, clearly.”

Hanzo, taking this as a challenge, held his head higher and appraised the man as a renowned art critic might the results of a ‘Watercolors For Complete Beginners’ course. “Hm. The first thing he did after sitting down was remove his wedding ring. Two phones, two separate credit cards, which — oh, how embarrassing, he still mixes up on occasion, so this fling might be a recent development…”

The guy sat there mortified while the server reset the card machine; Hanzo rested his chin in a studiously dispassionate palm and kept going.

“Generally surreptitious and flighty manner, so perhaps very recent at that, could be he is not entirely sure his new flame will show up — a newly bought and expensive if, hm, inadvisable outfit, a rather sad attempt at styling what remains of his hair, but I suppose there is something to be said for the nobility of doing what you can with what you have…”

Jesse bumped their shoulders together, chuckling despite himself at the sheer unfiltered disdain. “Okay, Sherlock, I get it. You can stop showin’ off.”

Hanzo shrugged and abandoned the theatrical thinking posture, sitting up straighter again. “Of course most cases are not quite so blatantly, pathetically obvious.”

“You really don’t like this guy, do you.”

A stiffening of his back, almost unnoticeable if you weren’t paying attention — perhaps he thought no one was. “I dislike disloyalty. If you have made the decision to devote yourself to something or someone, you stay true to it.”

“Well, I dunno. I’ve seen too many people stay loyal to their own misery. To bad places, or bad times, or bad people. Sometimes you gotta know when to fold ‘em and walk away, y’know?”

Hanzo glanced at him with sharp, dark eyes from behind the curtain of his hair, something written nakedly in his expression that Jesse didn’t know how to read.

“Not that goin’ behind the back of someone you’ve promised the whole ‘to have and to hold’ thing to isn’t a certifiably shitty move, it ain’t the way a man oughta treat his partner,” Jesse clarified, holding his hands up in easy concession and leaning back to show he didn’t mean to make an argument out of it. “Just sayin’ that there are some things that loyalty doesn’t… well. You see enough shit, it makes you wonder.”

“Hm.”

The corner of Jesse’s mouth wanted to twitch up — he’d known the man for almost a year now, and those little ‘hm’s still remained completely opaque to him.

Hanzo touched his arm and tilted his head towards their new friend with the bland tie. “Ah. Observe.”

The guy was still fiddling with his two credit cards when a woman — slightly younger than him and looking excitedly nervous in high heels — came over to his table, and in his rush to hide them away he almost ended up putting his mouth on her nose when she went in for a chaste kiss.

Hanzo gave a little ‘ta-dah’ wave with such withering sarcasm that it was a miracle the guy didn’t collapse on the spot. “See? He may be unfaithful, but he respects his wife and her intelligence enough to go out of his way to hide it. Touching, in its own way. Perhaps there is something to salvage there yet.”

Shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, Jesse brought his glass to his mouth but had to put it down again before he spilled booze all over himself. “You’re a cynical, cynical man, Mr. Shimada.”

“As cynical as any man who endeavours to see the world clearly.”

Jesse nudged his knee against Hanzo’s under the bar, inclining his glass towards him. “What’s that thing ‘bout how… behind every cynic there’s a disappointed idealist or whatever? Is there really no romance in your soul, sir?”

Hanzo quirked a strange little grin — he glanced at Jesse out of the corner of his eye and held out his glass too. “An odd question to ask a man who studies swordsmanship in this day and age.”

Jesse tipped his head to the side in acknowledgement and touched their glasses together with a clink, taking a sip. In his precise, certain way Hanzo pushed his hair away from his face, still that look about him like he was entertaining some private amusement.

“Such incisive commentary is enough to have me worryin’ what you see when you look at me,” Jesse said, meaning it as a joke. “Starting to think I’ll have to plant some red herring backstories to keep you off my trail. On an unrelated note — I ever tell you ‘bout how I was found as a baby by a circus elephant and was raised by a happy triad of clowns, knife throwers and fire eaters? The good ol’ ‘secretly a Russian princess all along’ ditty? How I got this scar?”

“You,” Hanzo said, the slightest slur to his words now when he didn’t watch it, “are… strange, mostly.”

When he finished laughing Jesse said: “Yeah, I’ve been reliably informed.”

Hanzo pursed his lips thoughtfully, looking at him with what seemed like honest curiosity. “It does not trouble you, then.”

“If it did I’d be nothin’ but troubled all the livelong day,” Jesse said. “Lotta effort, low payoff. Not like I’m ever gonna pass as anything but what I am for any length of time anyway. Might as well work with it.”

Hanzo smiled, his cheeks flushed with the booze and dark hair loosely gathered over one shoulder. He looked different when he smiled for real, almost surprised, like his face had just received an unexpected but not unwelcome visitor.

Jesse found himself smiling back.

“You, uh, you hungry?” Jesse asked after a while, without quite knowing why. “‘Cause I could murder a burger right about now.”

Hanzo blinked slowly at him. “...it is nearly two in the morning.”

“It sure is,” Jesse agreed. “You can have some of my fries, if you’d like,” he added, in the name of sweetening the pot.

After a moment of deliberation Hanzo shrugged. “Who am I to refuse such a deal. Lead the way,” he said, hopping down from the bar stool and gathering up his things.

———

After they finished eating they drifted aimlessly through the terminal for a while before settling down on a bench in an isolated corner, Jesse giving up on what remained of the ketchup splotch on the thigh of his jeans and tossing the paper napkin in the trash. He felt full and warm and oddly at peace with the world at large, and not just because of the booze or the fact that he’d gotten to see Hanzo Shimada — a man whose name was whispered with fear and deference in certain parts of the underworld — make fun of his smoking habit by way of creative application of a french fry not ten minutes ago. The image of Hanzo holding the fry between his fingers like a cigarette and giving a bad imitation of Jesse’s drawl would keep him warm on cold and lonely nights.

Their conversation had petered out to become a comfortable lull, and when Jesse glanced over at him Hanzo was glaring intensely at the opposite wall — almost, Jesse noted, like someone desperately fighting to keep their eyes open.

“Y’know,” Jesse ventured, having observed this internal battle for a while and taking pity, “you can have a snooze if you’d like. I’ll keep a lookout for any questionable characters headin’ our way.”

“Hm?”

“When life gives you jetlag, make a night shift, right?” Jesse said, waving at what he felt sure were the impressive dark circles under his eyes. “I’m not gonna be sleepin’ anytime soon anyway.”

Hanzo blinked in consideration for a while, then gave a ‘fair enough’ head tilt and leaned back. If he was anything like Jesse he probably had the chip with the data they’d traded somewhere on him, close to the skin, but he made a loop with the shoulder strap of his bag anyway and hooked his foot into it. Then he settled into perfect stillness with uncanny immediacy, arms folded over his chest and a look on his face like he was preparing to offer Mr. Sandman an offer he couldn’t refuse — since Hanzo’s eyes were closed anyway Jesse allowed himself a grin.

He rooted around in his bag to fish out the holovid, booting it up and navigating his way to the giant trove of video files he’d downloaded — extremely illegally — when he was eleven and had kept around and up to date ever since for occasions such as this. His logic had always been that should the war break out again he’d better be able to watch every decent Western ever made before the nuclear winter finished him off.

Hanzo drifted off quickly, if the way his breathing changed to be calmer and deeper was any indication, though he still looked stiff and tensed up. Occasionally he would let out a small, hilariously dainty sniffle as he shifted; Jesse was delighted to learn that even while far off in Dreamland he managed to look faintly peeved.

Jesse started the movie and let his brain slide into the comforting groove of the familiar plot. Sinking down on the bench he settled in, crossing his legs at the ankles and stretching out as much as politeness allowed.

When the first movie ended he put on the next one, whistling to himself under his breath as the title screen flashed to life. In his sleep Hanzo slid down the bench until his temple rested on Jesse’s shoulder — for a couple of mad, serene moments Jesse’s body acted like this was the most natural thing in the world. In fact it decided to just sit there for a while, smiling faintly down at the top of Hanzo’s head. They were close enough now that he could smell him, warm and clean and strangely graceful even after what must’ve been a couple of days of travel and half a night in the airport bar. Maybe the mystical mumbo-jumbo the Shimadas shrouded themselves in wasn’t all smoke and mirrors after all and the man was actually magic. It was either that or a really well picked aftershave.

(Jesse might’ve had more to drink than he’d thought at this point, he recognized absently.)

Huh.

…wait a fucking second.

Jesse’s brain felt a slow, indomitable wash of horror as it realized that what his body had meant to do was pull Hanzo in closer where he’d lie more comfortably and securely against his side before turning back to the movie.

Jesse stared into the middle distance for a long time. At one point an elderly lady walked up to him and asked him in hushed tones if he was feeling well.

“Never better, ma’am,” he said hoarsely, realizing too late that he’d sort of leaned back into Hanzo’s weight as if to seek out something sure and steady under her mild, concerned gaze.

She patted his knee. “I get like that myself,” she said wisely. “Put away enough gin beforehand and you’ll sleep through most of the flight anyway. I’m sure your young man won’t mind if he knows you get that worked up about it.”

Jesse made a strangled sound in his throat and nodded, smiling a fixed, manic smile.

As she winked at him and walked away Hanzo sighed in his sleep and turned his face further into Jesse’s shoulder — a soft, trusting gesture that had Jesse dizzy because...well, you wouldn’t know it to look at him, would you, that there could be that kind of easy sweetness in him. Normally you got the impression that he was the kind of man whose most pressing reason, at any moment, not to stab you to death was the potential dry cleaning bill, and nothing about that could prepare you for this.

Some locks of hair had fallen into his face, silky over sharp features. Jesse kept very still and watched him.

You deserve better, Jesse thought nonsensically, out of the blue, Hanzo’s face as he talked about loyalty flashing through his mind. Was loyalty really the word for it when you gave them everything and they seemed all too happy to take it and give nothing back?

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before Hanzo gave a low sleepy sound and seemed to come awake. As he stirred he tilted away; Jesse hurriedly inched away before Hanzo’s eyes blinked open, desperately trying to pretend that his side didn’t suddenly feel very cold and lonely. He crossed his legs at the ankles and sank back against the bench, staring fixedly at the holovid as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

With a grunt Hanzo sat up, rubbing at his neck with a pained expression.

“Welcome back,” Jesse said, hoping his grin seemed natural enough to hide the fact that everything inside him was currently one long incoherent scream.

Hanzo smiled slightly and rolled his shoulder, working out the stiffness. “Thank you. Happy to be here.”

The scream in Jesse’s head rose to a violent crescendo at the easy sarcasm. Hanzo glanced down at the holovid for a second with an unreadable expression, then squinted at the big hologram clock over by the entrance, moving his neck like he was smoothing out a crick. He looked over at Jesse. “Hm. It is still only four.”

Jesse’s heart gave a thrill at the barest indication of a raised eyebrow, the invitation slyly offered and easily ignored if unwanted. “Ah, the night is still young, then. You up for another round, Mr. Shimada?”

“‘Hanzo’ is fine,” he said, getting to his feet in one mesmerizingly sure, fluid movement. “And absolutely. I have nowhere else to be.”

———

The bartender seemed both amused and unimpressed to see them again, but she acquiesced readily enough when Jesse grinned and told her to leave the bottle.

“Promised to buy you a drink, right?” Jesse said, waving Hanzo off when he started to say something and pushing a glass towards him. He felt sure he needed to be much drunker if he were to survive the night in this state.

Hanzo tasted the admittedly dirt cheap bourbon and wrinkled his nose. “...interesting,” he said, with the very faintest veneer of politeness the human voice could bestow to cover up the disgust.

“A free drink is a free drink, ain’t it?”

Jesse noted that Hanzo’s expressions changed after a few drinks — normally he looked like he meant to constantly school them even if the results were varying, any flicker of emotion the result of a momentary slip-up and immediately, angrily squashed, but tonight that mask had definitely fallen off somewhere along the way. It looked good on him, that new unrestrained expressiveness. Now that he knew the signs to look for Jesse was pretty sure he could start to pick up on them in a sober Hanzo too. “An excellent point. I apologize for my brashness before, keep it coming.”

“You got it, friend,” Jesse said and topped up his drink.

The nap seemed to have given Hanzo a second wind. There was more of a swagger to him now, a tiny lift of his chin. They talked shop for a while, in a vague and euphemistic dance to avoid saying anything that’d have someone in the bar calling the cops on them, then somehow ended up derailed enough that they were talking about the history of their respective countries in the eighteen seventies the next time Jesse checked in with himself and realized he was having fun. In his surprise he ended up stuttering to a halt; when Hanzo gave him a questioning look he floundered for something to say.

“Y’know, I keep meanin’ to ask,” Jesse said, hoping it covered for his momentary distraction and current existential horror at how charmed he was by Hanzo explaining, in his sardonic, clipped manner, the finer details of the military reforms of the Meiji restoration. “What’s the deal with the sword ‘n the bow ‘n stuff? Not that you’re not pulling it off like nobody’s business, but isn’t it a little… old fashioned?”

Hanzo wrinkled his brow thoughtfully, tapping his fingers against his glass. He looked Jesse over from boots to hat and back again; Jesse fought the urge to squirm under the inspection. “...was that a serious question?”

“Huh?”

That private half-smile from before returned, something brightening in his eyes. “Apparently it was. Hm. I suppose it is a little old fashioned, at that. But you never know — perhaps there is still a future for anachronisms.” He blinked slowly — well, he did have a few drinks under his belt at this point too, built like a brick shithouse though he was. “It is also a smidge quieter and more discreet than the hand cannon you carry around.”

“I’ll not sit here and listen to you besmirch my gun just ‘cause your taste skews more medieval,” Jesse announced. “Peacekeeper’s served me plenty well through the years, thank you very much.”

“I am sure it has. And I am even more sure that my ‘medieval tastes’ would still have you beat every time.”

“Would it, now?”

“In fact I am perfectly willing to put money on it,” Hanzo said, leaning forward, a glint in his eye that made Inner Jesse whimper. “Any contest, at any time.”

“Oh ho ho,” Jesse said, casually pushing his hat back on his head as his heart raced against his ribs, “you better believe that all that stands between you, an empty wallet and complete humiliation in this very moment is the laws of this land frowning on firin’ guns in public places.”

Hanzo gave a faux-haughty huff, eyes glittering. “A pitiful excuse.”

Jesse felt the grin bright on his face and leaned forward too. “Hey, gimme a time, place, and somewhere to dump the evidence and we’ll see ‘bout that.”

“That can be arrang — ” Hanzo stopped, a frown appearing on his brow.

“What’s up?” Jesse asked after a while, realizing suddenly how close their faces were now.

“I just had a strange feeling that — ”

Hanzo’s phone called out shrilly, a dozen times or so in quick succession. With the air of someone stepping up to the scaffold and giving the hangman a meaningful look to get it over with already he checked it.

After a few moments he picked up his drink, finished it in one go, poured himself another and then leaned forward to rest his forehead against the bar, the image of a beaten man.

“Uh…” Jesse said, tentatively resting a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“My feeling was right,” Hanzo murmured, holding out the phone without lifting his head. “My brother is indeed disgracing himself and our entire family as we speak.”

“What, your Genji sense was tinglin’? You felt a great disturbance in the Force?”

Hanzo gave a mirthless bark of laughter. Jesse stared at the bared line of his neck, stumbling over the fact that he could barely remember ever wanting anything as much as he wanted to brush his lips there, to hear a breath of real laughter in response. The physical contact before had woken something inside him that had slumbered for a long time; he couldn’t remember ever longing for anyone to just… touch him before. It was easily the third most pathetic he’d felt in his entire life, sitting there yearning for what was likely one of the most dangerous men in the world to rest a hand on his shoulder, even for a few seconds.

He felt vaguely that his brain had broken or something.

Taking the phone he glanced down at the screen, then flinched back like he’d been stung by a wasp.

“Dear lord,” Jesse said, tilting the phone and then his head to try to make more sense of the image, morbidly fascinated. “The hell’s he doin’ with that lobster? How would that thing even fit down the front of his… huh. Well.”

Hanzo just whimpered, burying his fingers in his hair. “Keep going.”

Jesse flipped through the next few and whistled under his breath. “Well, someone’s havin’ more fun than us tonight, at least. Didn’t even know they made drinks with that many colors. Who’s the young lady with the… ”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Fair enough, that’s — whoa there,” Jesse said, hurriedly skipping one. “Don’t mean to be rude or anythin’, but that’s, uh, that’s more of your brother than I ever needed to see.”

“I know the feeling,” Hanzo said. “For what it is worth I think he sent that one by mistake. My name must be close to one of the girls he is… dating in his contact list, it would not be the first time.”

“‘One of’, huh. One of those situations.”

“Enough of ‘those’ to fill an entire four act comedy of errors.”

Helpless against the depths of resigned despair in Hanzo’s voice Jesse chuckled. “Sounded like you saw this comin’, somehow.”

“It is a special instinct I have developed,” Hanzo told the tabletop earnestly. “I can feel Genji shaming every single one of our ancestors from half a world away.”

Jesse snorted, squinting to make out an image distorted by blurred lights and excessive photo filters and deciding it might be a nightclub actively, literally on fire.

“Of course it is partly a matter of always being prepared to expect it,” Hanzo continued vaguely, sitting up. “Statistically I usually turn out to be right. Mathematics. You know how it is.”

“Least he’s kept his pants on in this one,” Jesse said philosophically, flicking through the last few messages to find that Genji had gone the extra mile by making a holo gif so the nipple tassels could have their full, animated effect.

“Sometimes,” Hanzo said, in a way that suggested he wouldn’t have done so sober, “it feels like he does it specifically to spite me. To get a rise out of me, rubbing it in my face just to show me that he can. Which is naturally ludicrous because I doubt he has ever thought that deeply about anything in his entire life, but it does not stop it from being… annoying.”

Jesse put the phone down, intrigued by the minefield stretching out before them. “Is there anything in those,” he waved towards the phone, “that you’d actually want, though?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hanzo snapped, though Jesse didn’t take it personally as the ire was clearly not actually directed at him as much as the very concept of the question. “It’s pathetic. But he stands free to do anything he wants and chooses to squander it on…”

He stopped himself, looking down at his hands tightly curled on the bar. With deliberate movements he unfurled his fingers, though the tension still ran through them like piano wires — some part of Jesse, having already barrelled through the first stages of grief and resting now in depressed acceptance, recognized that his hands were extremely nice, strong and sure and well shaped. He wished he could have managed to dwell in the tranquil valleys of denial at least until boarding his flight, but there you were. “No matter.”

“Hey,” Jesse said. “He’s just bein’ young and dumb. When’s the last time you saw each other?”

Hanzo shrugged. “Weeks ago. Half a month or so, maybe. Why?”

“You call him in all that time?”

“No. I doubt he would pick up if he knew it was me.”

“Maybe he wanted to get your attention somehow and thought actin’ like a dumbass was the way to go about it,” Jesse offered. At Hanzo’s blank, uncomprehending stare he quickly added: “Hey, what do I know, though, I’m just some random idiot with a neat hat.”

Hanzo, in a very un-Hanzo move, looked unsure. He fiddled with the edge of his sleeve, staring into the middle distance.

“I never know why he does what he does,” he said finally. “We… do not speak much anymore.”

“You used to?

Hanzo shrugged again, a tight, constrained little gesture. “Some. More. When we were boys. Before — hm.”

Jesse nodded, watching him out of the corner of his eye — he’d ducked his head again, as if going into hiding behind his hair, shutting himself off. There was an ache in Jesse’s chest, some puzzle pieces falling into place and making a pretty sad picture in his head. It seemed weird now that he’d found the guy so inscrutable and overbearing in the beginning. Considering where — who — he came from, it was maybe a wonder he had any urge left to connect to anyone else at all.

“Should I…” Hanzo furrowed his brow as if doing complicated calculations in his head and looked up. “...answer him?”

“Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You saw the nipple tassels, why would you underestimate him like this,” Hanzo said immediately, but he was tapping something out on his phone with a thoughtful expression. “I — would asking him to stay safe count as nagging, do you think?”

“Just like that? Shouldn’t think so.”

Hanzo made an absent-minded sound of gratitude and kept writing. There was something horribly endearing about the way he picked each character like he was setting down important messages in stone that people would see and judge for generations to come.

For a while Hanzo stared down at his finished message, a doubtful downward curl to his mouth. Finally he mumbled: “Perhaps I should not encourage…”

“Hey,” Jesse said, touching Hanzo’s shoulder. “Don’t think about it too hard. Just send it.”

“Is that your professional opinion?” Hanzo said sardonically, though there was a grin lurking in his voice.

“As someone who ain’t never thought too hard about anythin’ in my entire life,” Jesse agreed, bringing his free hand to rest over his heart, “you’d be surprised how often it works out.”

Hanzo chuckled, letting his head fall to one side. After a moment he pressed ‘send’ and put the phone face down on the table, giving a small sigh. “There.”

“And would you look at that, the world didn’t even end,” Jesse beamed, snickering when Hanzo aimed a cheerful kick at his shin.

He had his hand on Hanzo’s shoulder and Hanzo wasn’t shaking him off, wasn’t even acting like it was strange, just looked at him with eyes that were tired and soft with booze and still warmed by a small, rueful smile.

There was a chime of longing in Jesse’s chest, at first unbearably gentle like a bell struck by butterfly wings, but deepening, a call that couldn’t be silenced because it rang through his bones.

Fuck, Jesse thought, giving Hanzo’s shoulder a squeeze before pulling his hand back. I am so screwed. Twenty years of nothin’ and then I just had to go for the gangster ninja assassin. Sure. Splendid. Why wouldn’t I do that. Completely in character, if nothin’ else.

Hanzo’s phone buzzed again, only twice this time; he snorted as he checked it but wrote an answer before sliding it into his pocket. He turned back to Jesse. “My brother apologizes for accidentally mentally scarring us both. You do not have siblings, do you?”

“Not that I’m aware. I’ve known some of the boys long enough that it’s kinda the same thing, I guess.”

“It is, as they say, a mixed blessing,” Hanzo said. “On the one hand I have been in a constant state of worry for close to twenty years now, on the other… actually no, there is no other hand. That’s it.”

Jesse grinned into his drink. “Sounds like maybe I dodged a bullet there.”

“...I would not go that far.” There was a quiet, fond lilt to his voice Jesse had never heard before.

Fuck.

Maybe — maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad. It wasn’t as though he’d ever act on it, Jesse told himself. Just because he knew it was there didn’t mean he’d have to do anything about it. It could just… stay a background thing. A, what was the word. No, a less embarrassing word than that. A crush, perhaps. His heart could do its whole newfound pitter-patter tap dance routine now and then, backstage where no one could see it, and otherwise he’d keep it under wraps and act like the goddamn professional he’d been scrambling to pretend to be all these years. Topsy-turvy with the booze and the low lights as he felt he wasn’t dumb or mad enough to think that Hanzo would welcome any advances with anything but, at best and simultaneously worst, pity. This was not a knife edge he was eager to test his throat against.

And yet… even as he thought it the part of him that was always watching itself and was wise to his particular brand of bullshit braced itself for the inevitable hurt.

He did a mental shrug. Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound. Anything that was worth doing was worth doing with panache and gusto, even if that thing was crashing and burning. “Can I interest you in more of the house’s finest damn disgusting swill, Mr. Shimada?”

“Mr. McCree,” Hanzo said, “I thought you would never ask.”

————

When the storm ended Jesse didn’t even notice for a while. It was first when Hanzo glanced over his shoulder to the windows and gave a small sound that he realized how light it was out, and that the low but constant howl of the storm had faded somewhere along the way.

Hanzo got up and stood by the huge windows, arms loosely crossed over his chest.

“It would seem the worst has passed,” he said, black hair outlined by the sharp clean light of the dawn. He glanced over as Jesse came up next to him. In the distance they were clearing the runways for snow at a fervent pace, though the inside of the airport had only just started to move out of its torpor. Soon it would be a real mayhem as people scurried to their new gates — but for now it was quiet.

“Seems that way,” Jesse lied blithely, watching his profile, the curl of his mouth.

They paid for their drinks — Jesse hissing between his teeth because well, he’d known it was gonna smart but he’d been trying to keep it out of his mind — and wandered off again, drifting idly through the terminal. Jesse was still tipsy enough that everything felt light and warm, all the sharp edges worn off the world. Hanzo was muttering something under his breath about the architect’s taste in dramatic floor tiles and looking enchantingly snippy while doing it.

Then the departure board updated and Jesse gave a grunt as his phone buzzed with the alert too. “Well, that’s me, I guess. Better get a move on. Thanks for the company, by the way,” he added, reaching out a hand before he could think better of it. “Saved me from being that weird guy getting shitfaced alone in a corner. It was fun.”

Hanzo blinked at him in surprise.

“Y’know, fun?” Jesse prompted. “Surely you’ve encountered the concept before?”

“Hah. McCree,” Hanzo said, taking Jesse’s outstretched hand and shaking it — you could sense the strength in his fingers even under such a controlled, careful gesture. He was grinning. “I… hm. We will keep in touch.”

“You better, we got a bet to settle now,” Jesse said, feeling mildly delirious. “Come at me whenever you’re ready for a taste of humility, I’m always ready to defend my gun’s honor.”

———

A couple of hours later he sat sleepless and hungover in the window row, leaning his head back against the seat as he replayed Hanzo’s startled laugh in his head again and again.

Part of the Scoundrels and Thieves ‘verse, which can be found here!

I would like to thank @callmesherly for helping me with what kind of drink Hanzo might go for if sake was off the table, and to @solivar and @bananamilk for lending their expertise on cowboy innuendo for Hanzo trolling Jesse! On another note — ‘leaving the bottle’ does not seem to actually be a Thing outside of movies and/or very special circumstances in most places, so let’s just assume that the bartender heard our two wonderful boys talking ~*inconspicuously*~ and was smart enough to go ‘haha I’m *not* getting paid enough to argue with international crime syndicates, if this weird kid with the hat believes the shit he sees in movies I’m not gonna be the one who corrects him’. (They did not finish that bottle by themselves, btw, the dialogue would have ended up a lot less coherent otherwise lol)

Also feel free to imagine, years down the line, Sombra finding Jesse’s old… holovid account or whatever they call it and just rubbing her hands together because surely there’s some embarrassing porn in there, there must be, he’s been updating this playlist all through his teens and young adulthood… only to find that no, it really is just every Western ever made, regardless of quality or merit, scrupulously organized like literally nothing else in his life has ever been. Which is, of course, also deeply embarrassing, but in a way that’s hard to exploit because he has exactly no shame about it and he always has at least one backup squirreled away so she can’t even threaten to delete it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lastly: There might be nothing funnier to me than the idea of Hanzo doing the social stealth part of the whole ninja bit. Entirely competent (because he would never allow himself to be anything less) but also wearing the most long-suffering FML face once the dupe’s back is turned? — yes good. Title is from a Tom Waits song because I am incorrigible and none of you can stop me.

#overwatch #mchanzo #hanzo shimada #jesse mccree #young mchanzo #my writing #Perhaps there is still a future for anachronisms #Scoundrels and Thieves 'verse #I'm really sorry if the @s don't go through -- I tried my best but I can't get them to work I think?? thank you guys anyway <3

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