#my grandpa told me I don’t know what the political angle is and I’m just so tired | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jerzwriter · 2 years

Note

I’m back with more TikTok asks

MC places a bowl of sweets in front of their child/children (like here). Does their child/children eat the sweets or are they able to avoid temptation?

Hello beautiful Alice! I am sorry for the delay in answering this! I see two very different scenarios for Casey and her beloved offspring depending on the universe... let's delve into each!

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Part 1, Ethan/Casey; Part 2, Tobias/Casey Rating: General/Fluff Summary: Based on ask above. Warning: None

Emma's World:

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Ethan grumbled as he watched Casey setting her phone up on a tripod to get the perfect angle.

“Relax, Ethan,” she answered, undeterred from her assignment, “I assure you that this will not stunt Emma’s emotional or psychological development. She’ll still get into an Ivy as long as she puts in the effort.”

“As much effort as you’re giving this nonsense,” he huffed.

Casey looked up at her husband with exasperation, “Listen, grandpa, we’re just having a little fun. I shouldn’t even be calling you grandpa! My dad, Alan & Naveen are all going to love this. You’re the only grumpypants! You… you know what you need,” she said tapping him in the head with a lollipop before handing it to him “some sweetness! Here, try.”

The look of annoyance that had punctuated his face since Casey began this endeavor quickly morphed into a mischievous grin. Wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist, he whispered.

“If I want something sweet, I’ll wait until Emma is down for her nap. Then, I will….”

“Hey, hey, hey Ramsey! That is a completely different kind of video! And not one suitable for Tik Tok!” She extracted herself from his arms and grabbed the colorful bowl of candy. “Now, go get your daughter.”

“This is ridiculous,” he yelled, walking to get their four-year-old. “Besides, Emma is the perfect child, and there is no way she’s going to do anything besides politely wait for us.”

“Sure. Let’s see how that goes.”

Ethan returned and placed Emma on the couch as Casey pressed record.

“Hey, Emma! Guess what, we have a surprise! Later on, Grammie and Pop-Pop are coming over.”

“They are!”

“Yep! And so are Grandpa and Daada! I got this big bowl of candy for us to share, but we can’t have any until they come over, OK? I’m going to leave this bowl here, Emma, but you can’t touch it now. OK?”

“OK, Mommy.”

“Daddy and I are going to get something in the kitchen. We’ll be right back, but don’t touch this, OK.”

“OK.”

Once they are out of sight, they retreat to a corner to watch. Emma’s head slowly turned from the left to the right, then back again. She let out a sigh and peered down at the sugary treats. She looked around once more, then sat on her hands, fighting the temptation to give in. The curls began to sway as she bopped her head and hummed a happy song.

“Hello, Mr. Gumdrop!” She said, lifting up the wrapped candy, “You look delicious!”

“I told you!” Casey whispered.

“She hasn’t eaten it! I know my girl, if her Daddy told her not to, she’s not, period.”

“I said don’t touch it! You already lost, Ramsey!”

Emma continued an engaging conversation with the gumdrop, alternating between her sweet voice and Mr. Gumdrop’s deeper tone. Then, after much deliberation, she slipped the treat under the cushion of the sofa.

“I won!” Casey whispered.

They returned to the living room, and Casey removed the bowl. Ethan asked her if she had eaten any.

“No, Mommy and Daddy, you told me not to.”

“That’s a good girl!” Ethan exclaimed proudly.

“But did you touch any?” Casey inquired.

Emma’s eyes widened, and she sucked her lips in. Her parents watched silently as her wheels spun. Finally, she smiled sweetly and said, “No, Mommy. I didn’t touch any.”

“Are you sure?” Ethan asked sternly.

Emma moved to the spot on the couch where the sugary treat was concealed and sat firmly atop it. “Yes, Daddy, I’m sure.”

Ethan scowled while Casey controlled a giggle. When the recording was stopped, and Emma was back playing in her room, Ethan sat ashen-faced at the kitchen island. Casey was beaming as she chopped vegetables for dinner.

“I don’t know what you’re so happy about,” Ethan scolded. “Our sweet little angel is turning into a sociopathic liar.”

“Ethan,” Casey laughed. “She’s a four-year-old who wants a piece of candy. She’s not a hardened criminal. You would have done the same thing at her age.”

“No, I would not have.”

“Really? I’ll ask Alan for his opinion over dinner.”

“OK, I would have!” He admitted lowering his head. “Do you still think Hopkins will accept her one day?”

“If we destroy the evidence, sure. I mean, they took you and Tobias after all.”

“You’ve got a point,” he smiled.

“She’ll be ok, big boy. Now go get that gumdrop. I’m going to record what happens when she comes back looking for it!”

Power in numbers:

Casey and Tobias were far too giddy. As they fiddled with the tripod, trying to get it at just the right angle, a commotion from the family room grabbed Casey’s attention. A short, muffled crash followed by Brooke admonishing her older sister.

“Sammy! You did that. And you’re scaring Kayla!”

“I didn’t do anything! And Kayla isn’t scared. You are!”

Casey’s head fell onto her husband's shoulder as a brief sigh escaped her.

“Should I go check on them?”

“Are there any blood-curdling screams?”

“No.”

“Any indication that there may be bleeding and/or broken bones?”

“No.”

He turned to face his wife, his piercing blue eyes fixed on hers, and he smiled. “Then you stay right where you are.”

He leaned over and kissed her head as she snuggled closer to him.

“How do you think this little experiment will go?” She asked.

“Knowing our daughters… well, at least two of our three daughters… it should be horrifying. But I always say it’s better to know what we’re dealing with. So, why don’t we get this little experiment started.”

“Do you want to get them, or shall I?”

“Let’s call them and watch them stampede in. It’s more fun that way.”

“Sammy! Brooke! Kayla! Come out here, girls; Mommy and Daddy need you!”

Tobias was spot on. The sounds of a stampede of little feet tripping over one another to be the first to the kitchen followed. Sammy and Brooke arrived, neck in neck, each claiming victory. Little Kayla waddled in a few moments after, a big grin behind her pacifier and her arms reaching up for her Mommy.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Casey said, lifting her youngest up. “Oh, oh my….”

“What is, babe?” Tobias asked, Sammy and Brooke already seated on each of his knees.

Casey’s nose crinkled. “I think there is a situation I need to take care of here.”

“Kayla is full of poop, Daddy,” Brooke giggled.

Tobias bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. “Brooke, honey, I think there are better ways we could say that.”

“Yeah! Like Kayla needs to have her diaper changed. Right, Daddy?”

“That’s a good choice, Sammy. Brooke, honey, daddy appreciates the bathroom humor, but not everyone is as funny as you and me, OK? So let's save that for home only.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she nodded.

“T., I’m going to go clean Kayla up. Why don’t you talk to the girls.”

“Teamwork! That’s why I love you, baby.”

“Is that the only reason?”

The devilish glint that appeared in his eyes matched the smirk on his lips as he winked at his wife. “Far from it, sweetheart. Now, please, go take care of her so we can have our fun here.”

“What are we doing, Daddy?” Brooke squeaked.

“Mommy and Daddy need your help,” he pulled the huge bowl of candy over toward them. “See this bowl? It’s got Hershey Kisses, Rolos, and lollipops. What I need you two to do, is count how many we have of each, OK? So take them out, line them up and count them, then let us know how much there are of each type.”

“Don’t you already know?” Sammy asked.

“Nope.”

“And do we get to eat any?” A wide-eyed Brooke asked.

“Not now,” he answered sternly. “But, if you do your jobs well, tonight after dinner, we can have some.”

“Grammie lets us have some candy before dinner,” Sammy offered.

“Did she do that with you and Jordan when you were growing up, baby?” Casey asked with a chuckle as she walked back into the kitchen.

“Yeah, right. You would have been more likely to see pigs flying than candy before dinner in our house growing up.”

“Does that mean she loves us more, Daddy?” Brooke beamed.

“Baby, we do not have the amount of time required to analyze Grammie. Now let's get back to the project at hand. Case, I explained what they need to do.”

“And you made it clear to them. No eating candy until after.”

“That’s been made 100 percent clear. Now. Mommy and I are going to clean up your mess in the family room. You girls do your counting, and we’ll be back soon, ok.”

“And make sure Kayla doesn’t eat any either,” Casey added.

“We’ll make sure, Mommy,” Sammy nodded.

Casey and Tobias took a spot in the family room where they could watch the girls unseen.

“I’m not taking my eyes off of them,” Casey whispered. “If they ply Kayla with chocolate, you are getting diaper detail for the rest of the night.”

“I have faith in our girls,” he whispered, pulling his wife close.

“You do?” she asked, shocked.

“No, I am just wishing that into reality. OK, they’re counting. Let’s listen.”

“How about I count the kisses, and you count the Rolos,” Brooke queried Sammy. “Since Kayla can’t add yet, we can count the lollipops together when we’re done.”

“She’s going to be a good project manager one day,” Casey whispered to Tobias.

“She already is,” he agreed.

“That’s fine,” Sammy said, counting up the Kisses.

“And Sammy, if they don’t know how many there are, we could probably sneak a Kiss or a Rolo, right?”

Sammy rolled her eyes. “Don’t you get it, Brooke? This is probably some stupid Tik Tok thing they’re doing.”

Casey and Tobias’s jaws dropped. “She did not just….” Casey gasped.

“Oh, she did,” Tobias answered with a shocked but duly impressed look on his face.

“Some of the kids in school were talking about it. You probably didn’t hear it because you’re not as advanced as I am yet.”

Tobias shook his head and laughed.

“I don’t know if you realize it yet, Casey, but I think you gave birth to the reincarnation of my Mother. No wonder she liked you so much from the start. She realized you were the pod that would give her immortality.”

Casey hit his shoulder, “Would you shut up,” she laughed, “you sound like a twisted sci-fi movie. I can’t believe this, though. Is this already over? They’re on to us.”

“Well, I said I wanted to learn, and we’ve learned.”

“And outside of me learning that I unwittingly released Vivian Carrick 2.0 on the world, what have we learned.”

“That we’re outnumbered, and we've got our work cut out for us. We’re really going to have to be an unbreakable team.”

“We already are,” she said, placing a kiss on his cheek.

“Mmm-hmm. And they haven’t outsmarted their dad yet.”

“How so?”

“I counted all the candy in advance. So let’s get out there to show them I have the answer and this was a test of their counting skills. We’ll pretend we don’t know what Tik Tok is.”

“You thought this all out in advance?”

“I allowed for the possibility. If I let them get the upper hand on us this young, we will be royally screwed during the teen years.”

“I love you, T.”

“I love you, babe. Now, let’s go take little Vivian out there down a peg or two.”

“Then reward her with a Rolo because she is smarter than me.”

“Well, of course, she is!”

Casey shot her husband a dirty look. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hey, no offense! They are smarter than me too. Come on, you take parents as freaking amazing as us, morphing our DNA together, those kids are going to lead to Carrick global domination.”

“God help us all.”

“Come on, hun,” he said, draping his arm around her, “you’re one of us now. It’s all good.”

“I love you, T,” she sighed.

“I love you.”

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#ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x f!mc #tobias carrick #tobias carrick x f!mc #open heart fanfic #playchoices fanfic #dual story #two part ask #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week

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sabraeal · 3 years

Text

Climb to the Rooftops

[Read on AO3]

Written for @another-miracle; a birthday fic that is COMING OUT ON TIME would you look at that (though I am definitely doing some fancy footwork to make it work out in both time zones 😂 Yixin asked for the Post-Rescue Tanbarun Tree Scene for WFB, and then I said, I could give you that, but what if I told you about a secret scene instead...

And then Yixin told me to write whichever one was Obi POV

He knows her.

That’s what keeps running through his head’s hamster wheel as he clomps up the student center steps. He knows her; he’s always known her. If he reached out on that park bench, if he’d grabbed her with both hands and just said, don’t leave me--

He would have been laid flat on his ass, courtesy of that mean right hook her dad taught her before he bounced. And there’d be another demerit on his record to boot, one more instance of anti-social behavior to make him even more unadoptable than he already was. Doc was always destined to go to a loving home, complete with cozy hideaways and towers of books, with warm firesides and even warmer grandparents, and he...

Well, he wasn’t meant for anything like that, no matter who he clung to. Sometimes shit just happens, and no wishing on stars thirteen years gone can change that.

It’s good to see her though. He’d always wondered what happened to his muppet girl, whether she’d gone off and had her happy ending just like she said she would. And now he knows she did.

He glances down at the peanut butter canister in his hand. Well, at least for a little while. That’s the thing about happy endings; they don’t really stick.

Obi hesitates, one foot poised over a step up, his hand wrapped around a ruddy safety rail. “Um, Doc.”

It takes her three steps to bounce to a stop, just enough to let her look down instead of up or across. He’s got double vision for a moment: Doc in the here and now looking at him with so much hope and anxiety that he’s half-afraid she’ll shake apart like a Hot Wheel in a blender; superimposed over the little girl in his memory, round face beaming up at him and her worries far behind her.

She’s got more freckles now, though most of them are hidden beneath her coat, fading without the direct application of summer sun. More inches too, though not as many as he’d given her in his head; for once he’d given more benefit of the doubt than nature could provide. And her hair-- well, that’s the same. Red. Fluffy. Muppety, too, if it’s the morning.

“Obi?”

He should really be paying attention to this conversation he fucking started, instead of just staring at her like a creep. “I just wanted to check in.”

“Oh.” She goes rosy under the freckles he can see, shifting the urn from her hands to her elbow. “I’m-- I’m fine. I’m glad that we could find--” one arm juts out, trying to encompass both them and the containers-- “everyone.”

“Yeah, I got you, but I meant...” He angles a pointed look over her shoulder. “Why are we going up?”

Doc’s jaw drops, and he sees it, the way panic crests right behind her eyes.

“Not that I’m suggesting we don’t.” He takes the next step slow, just enough to put them on equal standing. Except it doesn’t, it puts him a little above her; the beginning of really looking down. His heart flutters in the exact way it shouldn’t when he’s carrying human remains. “I’m just saying, if we’re going to carry geriatrics up a few flights, the elevator’s better for their hips.”

He expects her to laugh at that one, or maybe even roll her eyes, but instead Doc breaks out into a full-body Chihuahua tremble.

“Obi.” Her eyes are so big in her face they might swallow him whole. “We can’t take the elevator.”

“We...can’t?”

Her head jerks in the scarcest side-to-side. With one long, steeling breath, she informs him, “We’re going to do something a little illegal.”

His brows raise. “Illegal?”

The urn bobbles treacherously as her hands fly up between them. “Only a little!”

“You cashed in your favor with me,” he repeats slowly, savoring the thrill that zips through him with every syllable. “To do something illegal.”

Doc deflates with all the gravitas of a popped kiddie pool. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if that would be okay. Especially with, um...”

She’s far too polite to say, your presumed preexisting criminal record, Doc just hasn’t realized it yet. Not when she doesn’t know for sure whether it does exist or not. It’d be easy to help her along, but it’s kinda satisfying to watch her flounder, fishing for the pieces of him she does know.

“If it’s a problem,” she says finally, lifting her eyes to his. “You don’t have to--”

“The only problem is how hot that is, Doc.” He wraps a hand around the rail beside her, leaning in close enough that her eyes nearly cross watching him. “Are you gonna get into your old field hockey kit and punch a girl up there too?”

She blinks, heels clunking into the concrete rise. “I don’t think it would fit. The skirt would be too short, at least.”

Are you sure, he wants to say, stretching every last inch over her, but instead he rumbles, “Honey, you’re saying all the right things to me--”

“Hey.” A finger presses into his nose, hauling his words up short like a pileup. “No call list.”

“Ahh.” Her mouth twitches as he pulls back, rubbing at his nose. “Haah. You know I hate that.”

“Then stick to the list,” she informs him pleasantly. “Besides, are you really trying to flirt with a girl in front of her grandpa?”

“Well.” He holds up the tin, giving it an experimental shake. “You think they’d mind?”

There’s a quality to the silence in the stairwell that clues him in to the fact that he’s cocked up real good this time. First with the tomb joke, now asking if grandma might be watching from beyond the grave, objecting to his game. At least he knows he never had a chance; otherwise he’d have to go take his hopes out behind the woodshed--

“No,” she hums, confident. “They’d like you.”

It’s a good thing she doesn’t get it in her head to try the nose trick again; it’d push him right over. He can survive a lot, but four flights is pushing it. “Doc,” he huffs, scratching the bristle at the back of his head, “I don’t think--”

“Well...” She’s thoughtful when she puts her back to him, bouncing up the next couple of stairs. “Opa would. Oma would think you needed to be fattened up.”

He laughs, but even to his own ears it sounds busted up, wings broken. “Sounds like my kind of lady.”

“Ugh,” Doc sighs from one landing up. “She’d love that you said that.”

“That just makes her even more--”

“Don’t.”

RESTRICTED ACCESS, the doors says, bright red letters fading against the plastic sign. ALARM WILL SOUND.

Doc’s been bullish these last few flights, pushing a pace that makes him want to remind her he’s a hitter, not a runner, but now--

Now she shuffles on the stairs, daunted. “Do you think it will really...?”

Obi thinks this might be a private university, funded by mommy and daddy’s pockets to keep their babies safe, but alarms go off all the time. Unless this building has a rent-a-cop watching daytime TV down in the atrium right now, it could take hours for someone to answer the call, especially mid-afternoon on a Saturday.

“Who knows.” He’s not sure what she’s got up her sleeve that involves two dead people and a rooftop-- especially when even Doc is quick to admit it’s got at least a toe on the wrong side of legal-- but it probably won’t look good if they’re interrupted, even by the Diet Coke of the law enforcement vending machine. “Maybe you should plan to keep the fancy speeches to a minimum.”

“Eulogies.” Her thin fingers flex over ceramic, white where they press in. “You mean a eulogy.”

“Gesundheit.”

Doc turns her head, real slow, letting him soak in every drop of her disapproval. Well, that’s one pigtail successfully pulled.

With a breath so deep it makes her pea coat really earn the name, Doc nods. “Right. Okay. I think...”

Obi expects some dithering, some real soul-searching doubts being dragged out for airing right here in the stairwell. Doc likes that sort of thing, taking everything out of her head so she can fold it all up real nice again, but instead--

Instead she barrels across the landing, plowing right through the metal door, a whole stretch of gray winter sky stretching out before her. There’s one blink, two, and then-- well, the sign wasn’t kidding. The alarm does, in fact, sound.

He catches the door with a hand; it’s weighted, ready to swing right back into place and-- if he knows his doors-- lock right behind her. Not that it’d be a problem if he meant to stand around on the stairwell and act as look out; a role he’d be happy to play if that’s how Doc wanted this whole show to run. But right now she’s slumped at the ledge, every last ounce of her usual moxie wrung out.

Maybe she might tell him to stand back, that this is something she’s got to take on alone, but Obi knows every aching line of that pose by heart. A car can keep going for fifty miles once it hits empty, but that just means you’ll never know when the tank runs dry. That’s where she is right now, stalling out at her limit.

And that’s what he’s here for, to push her that last inch over the finish line. Besides, he can’t just stand back, not when he’s grandpa’s ride.

“So.” There’s a shim in a corner-- a naughty thing to have around an emergency door like this, but Obi’s not about to tattle. He’s perfectly happy to wedge someone else’s problem right where the paint’s flaked off the door. “What’s the problem?”

Doc blinks, one hand trembling on grandma’s lid. “W-what?”

He settles grandpa on the ledge, arms folded around him, taking in the sprawl of buildings below. Clarines isn’t as big as one of those state universities, but it makes Tanbarun look like a college playset instead of a campus. Both of them have those stuffy brick and marble buildings they like up here, the kind that say academic and too good for you loud and clear, but whereas Obi’s walked across Clarines for thirty minutes and still never hit the edge, it looks like he could lap this place in twenty. No wonder Doc was miserable here; the real mystery is how she managed an entire year in this fancy rat cage.

“There’s got to be one.” He knows better than to look at her; if he’s going to make her talking about feelings, the least he can do is give her the privacy to have them. “You were all gung-ho a minute ago, ready to do your thing even if you had to punch out a cop to do it--”

“--I didn’t say that,” she murmurs--

“--but now you’re just standing here.” He shrugs, chancing a glance from the corner of his eyes. “Looking lost.”

“I just...” She shifts, head twisting toward him, he doesn’t need to meet her gaze to know it’s wild, desperate. “It doesn’t feel right that they don’t go together.”

It’s his turn to stare now, lost. “O...kay.”

“What if...” Her teeth fold over her lip, worrying at places already worn. “What if I left them go, and they don’t find each other?”

“Ah...?” It seems like a bit of an oversight now, not asking what the plan is, but he ventures, “You mean...the ashes?”

Her mouth twists up, annoyance in every wrinkle. “It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“No, no, I’m just...” He glances down at the tin between his arms. “I’m just putting things together. There’s nothing wrong about how you feel, Doc. Not like anyone’s really written a book about how this works.”

She looks up at him, so guileless. “Of course they have, Obi. There’s a whole section in the bookstore for it. It’s just that they’re all written by charlatans and quacks.”

Whatever the conversational version of whiplash is, Obi’s experiencing it now. For a minute all he can do is stare, taking in the abject disapproval rumpling her face, and then he-- he--

He laughs. Because this is what he’s into. The sort of person who pumps the breaks and spins the conversation 360 without even a courtesy ‘buckle up.’

“Listen, I’ve been thinking...” He taps the top of the tin, the metallic ting drowned out by the blare of the siren. “What if we just...mixed them? Then when you release them--”

“--They’re already together.” Doc blinks up at him, eye shining like he’s her savior, the center of her world, the answer to her cosmic question--

The way she really shouldn’t, when she already belongs to someone a hundred times better than he’ll ever be. Not when she’d never mean to get his hopes up.

“Thank you, Obi,” she breathes, a smile dawning on her lips. “That’s exactly what we need to do.”

Like all his good ideas, it’s easier said than done. On the ground, it’d been breezy, the sort of gentle push he’d come to expect from New England right before it got its first good snow, but up here--

“Here, take this.” Obi shrugs off his jacket, hurriedly pushing it into Doc’s boneless hands, but it’s too late-- they’ve already lost a bit of grandma. “Hold it up.”

She stares down at it, thumbs rubbing over the leather in a way that makes his shoulders itch. “Hold...?”

He swings out one arm-- the one not holding a geriatric-- yanking it wide. “Like a wind screen. I don’t want to lose Oma’s pinky toe or something.”

Doc blinks, stretching the coat between her hands. “Pinky toe?”

“Wouldn’t that make you cranky in the afterlife?” he asks, shaking more of Oma loose in a lull. “Losing a toe? Or a finger. Like just the last knuckle. A bit of your nose.”

The leather starts to ripple as the wind spins back up, and Doc stomps a foot down on the end of it to keep it from smacking up into his face. He appreciates the effort; it’s hard enough trying to pour from a large container to a small one without his zipper clocking him over the eyebrow. “Would that really matter?”

He shrugs. “To some people, probably. I got plenty of nose to spare.”

Doc mouth curves shyly, hunching down to hide behind his coat. “I think it’s fine just as it is.”

“Haah.” It’d be nice if she could give him a heads up when she plans to make his heart pound like that. “Think you might be the first to think that.”

“I don’t know,” she hums, eyes electric with some mischievous spark in their depths. “Maybe I’m the first to say so, but you certainly weren’t getting any complaints a few nights ago--”

He huffs. “Drunk college girls aren’t exactly arbiters of taste, Doc.”

She fixes him with that steady stare of hers, the one that’s so earnest it makes his heart make a bid for freedom through his throat. “I think,” she says, each word weighed before she lets it free, just like a good scientist, “that they did just fine.”

He smothers a whimper into a sigh. “Maybe your grandparents don’t mind me flirting,” he mutters, hunched over that stupid peanut butter tin, “but I’m sure they wouldn’t like you returning the favor.”

She blinks, head cocked. “Did you say something Obi?”

“No,” he says, just a little louder. “Just talking to myself.”

“You know--” he sets down the urn, wiping the sweat off his forehead-- “this would have been a lot easier going the other way.”

“We can’t.” Doc’s mouth twists up into that troublesome knot. “Opa always said he never wanted to be in one of those big fancy vases. And even if he would never know, I...”

Obi sighs, hanging his head. “Yeah, I know, I get it, just...complaining to complain. You know how it is.”

She stares down at him like he’s a fish on a dock telling her about the dangers of air. He shakes his head, stifling a laugh. Of course Doc wouldn’t get it; she could lose a limb and she’d still be thankful for the other three. Probably point out how much better things were now that she didn’t need to keep track of all of them. He might complain like it was as easy as breathing, but Doc-- Doc would take every last uncharitable thought to the grave.

Haah, give her some time. A few more months around him, and she’d discover some things to complain about. People always did.

“So,” he says, picking grandma back up. “Why here?”

Doc blinks. “Huh?”

“You know, on top of the roof of the campus center at one of the prestigious universities on the East Coast?” He raises a brow. “I know you used to go here, but most people just settle for leaving dog shit on the stoop when they want to send a ‘fuck you,’ you know.”

Doc unleashes a sound that can only be termed a squawk. “What? What do you mean most people--?” She shakes her head. “No, I don’t-- I mean, it’s not supposed to be a, um...”

“Fuck you?”

“Ah...yes. That.” She grimaces. “They met here. And when I tried to think of places they might want to be...”

Her words drift to a stop, but it’s gentle. They don’t abandon her, leaving her high and dry, but she just...stops saying them, letting the wind carry them away.

“I couldn’t think of any place else,” she admits, fingers tightening in the leather. “They always talked about Tanbarun so fondly, and I...I always thought it sounded like paradise.”

“But the roof?” Obi asks, incredulous. “Is it just easier to scatter the ashes, or...?”

“It’s where they met,” she repeats, like that makes any sense at all. “They used to have movie nights up here, played on one of those reel projectors,”

Her gaze swings out over the concrete like she could see it; all the hippy bean bags piled up, big screen pulled down and movie hardly able to be heard over the wind. Not a bad picture, he’ll admit. Wholesome, just like he’d expect out of the people who raised this Precious Moments doll of a person. Doesn’t really explain Mukaze, but well, shit happens. Half the people who raised him don’t deserve the person he’s become either. “Nice story.”

She’s hardly here with him, eyes hazy and distant, stuck in a past only she can see. “That’s what I always thought. I always wanted...” Her voice trails off again, but this time her smile falters, topping like china from a wobbling shelf. “I always wanted to have a story like that too. But it, um, didn’t really work out that way.”

He shouldn’t say anything. He’s not some neutral party, here to give her that impartial, unbiased pick-me-up she wants to hear, like telling her won’t rips a strip right off his back, so-- he should keep his big mouth shut.

But he’s never been good at any of that being smart shit. “It’s not like you didn’t have your own meet cute, it just wasn’t here. It was, er...”

Huh, now would you look at that. He’s never actually asked.

“At a record store,” she supplies slowly, like she has to think on it too. “Between the aisles after I missed my bus. No--” she laughs, more bitter than he’s ever heard her-- “after I chose to miss it.”

“See?” he hums, vibrating the knife deeper. “That’s already a good start.”

Her lips press thin. “I suppose...”

“No supposing about it.” He taps grandpa so the ashes sit flat before he starts another pour. “If I know anything about your Oma and your Opa-- and I don’t know nothing besides what you told me--” and what he saw a decade ago, sitting on that park bench-- “I don’t think they care whether you met your person at a rooftop movie or in a Walmart--”

“Record store.”

“They have CDs too,” he informs her, just as prim as Doc gets with him when she indulged the one pedantic bone in her body. “But the point is, they wouldn’t care where it happened, they just wanted you to find what they had.”

“I...” She deflates, the leather bowing over her legs. “I know. I think they used to worry that I wouldn’t, especially since I wasn’t really, ah...”

“Looking for it?” he offers.

She nods, relieved. “Yes, that. After my parents, I think they expected a much more, um, active interest in...anything. And I wasn’t.”

He doesn’t need to hear her say it to know that there’s more to it than that, that what she means to say is, and I don’t think they understood.

“Well, nothing for them to worry about anymore, is there?” She blinks up at him, alarmed, and he adds, “You and chief are kind of a done deal right?”

“Ah!” It’s hard to tell with the wind slapping both their cheeks red, but he could swear Doc’s blushing. “I don’t-- it’s not-- we haven’t really talked about--” she heaves a heavy, resigned sigh-- “I mean, I...I guess?”

“As done as it can be without getting PR involved.” He gives her the sort of eyebrow Kiki might. “I’m sure that if they’re out there floating on clouds or whatever, or, i don’t know, free energy in the universe, molecules just bumping around...they’re happy for you.”

“Right.” Her reply’s so faint he nearly misses it, but the wind that snatches it away carries it right by his ear. “Yeah.”

“All right, I think I’ve done as much as I can do.” Obi levers himself to his feet, brushing off his lap before handing her the tin. “You ready for this?”

Doc stares down at the canister, jaw set, the same way he’s sure it looked right before she threw herself out a window. Certainly looks the same way it did when she tried to bean Itoya with her purse.

“Yeah,” she breathes, fingers tightening around the metal. “I think I am.”

The wall’s not tall, but neither is Doc; she has to go up on tip-toe to throw an arm over it, the wind already pulling at the ashes laying loose at the top. Her brow furrows, mouth working for a good minute before she manages, “It’s time to say goodbye, I think.”

Obi stares. Sure, he’d said to keep it short and sweet, but if it’s taken this long for the rent-a-cop to hustle up, maybe she can spare the people who raised her more than--

“Thank you.” He’d thought it might be hard to hear her over both the alarm and the wind, but somehow all her words fly true, brightening the air. “For...everything. I don’t really know how you...”

Her breath catches, but her eyes are clear, no tears streaking down her face. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? You did everything and more. But I think...” She sniffs, taking a moment. “I think I can take it from here. I’ll miss you, Oma. And Opa...”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I forgive you. For whatever still needs forgiving. Rest well.”

Her hand tips, just the barest degree, and the ashes scatter, wind whipping them past, twisting high over the quad.

“Hey.” Obi steps up beside her, shrugging his coat on over his shoulders. If it’s a little gritty-- well, good thing Doc thing thinks Oma would like him so much, because part of her might linger until the next wash. “I’m pretty sure it’s super illegal to scatter human remains like this.”

“Oh,” Doc hums, shoulder bushing his arm. “It absolutely is without a permit. I was not joking about the slightly illegal thing.”

Obi grins. “Well good thing that no one ever came to check on the--”

As if summoned by the mere mention of potentially having something approaching good luck, the door bar rattles, accompanied by some creative cursing.

“Who the fuck is leaving this open?” A gruff yet feminine voice demands, as if she might be able to shake down the universe and pick up the answers from what fell out of its pockets if she just rattled it hard enough. “Bill, is it you? God, what did I say about using the roof for your smoke breaks--?”

The door swings all the way open, and there she is, a security guard with shoulders that could have dropped straight from the Lowen family tree. Obi would take a picture if he wasn’t sure that would get him thrown in the campus drunk tank.

She takes one glance at them, then another angrier one. “Who the fuck are you?”

“UM,” Doc shrills informatively.

“No, wait.” One broad hand waves in front of her. “I don’t care. What are you doing up here?”

Doc flounders in the face of authoritarian disappointment-- which is fine by Obi. This is his wheelhouse, after all. It’s nothing to reach out, cinching Doc’s waist against him, grin wide. “Sex, obviously.”

If it were possible for a body to choose the time and place of its expiration from this earthly dairy aisle, Doc’s mortified stare suggests she might curdle on the spot. “Obi.”

The guard’s glare is a study in skepticism, taking in the both of them, and then the concrete wasteland around them. “Here? With your clothes on?”

“It’s our kink.”

“Please,” Doc mutters against his shirt. “Don’t talk.”

The guard spares them one last weary look and sighs. “You know what? I don’t care. Just get out.”

Doc certainly doesn’t need to be told twice. Obi’s got his mouth open, what can’t you let us finish first about to spill right out, but her small hand clamps around his, and she drags him right off the roof.

“SORRY,” she yelps as they pass. “WON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.”

“Yeah,” Obi agrees with a grin. “Next time we’ll fuck on some other roo--”

Doc pauses for one moment, just long enough to raise a finger and inform him “DON’T.”

This time he lets her drag him off, grinning.

They’re halfway down the stairs when Doc finally slows, her cheeks reaching a shade of red that looks more lipstick than lobster dinner. Her hand wraps tight around the rail, and it’s not until he saunters down the last couple steps to stand beside her that he realizes-- her eyes are screw tight, breath coming in ragged bursts.

“Hey,” he murmurs, trying to ignore the spark of alarm zipping under his skin. “Did you just realize we could have used the elevator?”

Her fingers, already wrapped tight around his palm, squeeze. “Obi...”

The muscles in his arm lock, the way he’s sure lizard tails do, right before they drop them off and run. “Doc?”

Her head turns toward him, and when her eyes flutter open, they’re bright, clear. “Thanks. For being there.”

“No. No, no,” he murmurs, his fingers spasming against hers. “You’ve got it all wrong. I should be the one thank you for letting me. No one...”

No one has ever asked me to be there, he doesn’t say. No one but you.

It’s too much when she’s looking at him like this, like he’s not just a stand-in but her first choice. Like there’s more to how he feels than some one-sided over-investment. It brings him so close to feeling like someone, like the kind of guy who might be her person--

And maybe he could have been, if he hadn’t let some asshole rip her right out her arms in the middle of the night. If he had a record of being something other than a professional disappointment.

The grin doesn’t sit right on his face when he says, “No one’s ever asked me to get rid of a dead body before.”

Doc blinks, then rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she sighs, tugging his hand. “Let’s go.”

“Back to the hotel?”

“Well,” she wheedles. “That. And I dropped the tin when the guard surprised us...”

“Ah I see.” He slips his hand from hers, grin finally sitting the way it should. “So we’re adding evidence removal and obstruction of justice to our list of crimes.”

She tips a dubious look back at him. “Are you complaining?”

“Doc,” he breathes, pressing a hand to his chest. “I would never. I’m touched that you would even think that I could--”

“Come on, Obi,” she laughs, hopping down the steps in front of him. “I’d like to do this sometime today.”

His mouth curls as he watches her back. “Your wish is my command.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #The Wide Florida Bay #modern au #ans #this has been a scene I've had on my radar since I started plotting out this fic #i knew that Tanbarun Arc needed to end with a request #but a request to come back to this old college didn't make sense #so i wanted to make it purposeful rather than a promise #an invitation to stay in her life #and I knew she'd cremate her grandparents #but hadn't done anything with the ashes #so i wanted to drop the hints in the sanddollar fic hoping someone would seize on it #but the sand dollar part proved too interesting 😂#though not to worry i'll be coming back to that part too #but when Yixin asked for this Joanna was like ASK HER IF SHE WANTS TO ASHES SCATTERING PART THOUGH #SO HERE WE ARE

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konggodzuko · 3 years

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Momtara & Dadko

Hello! Back with some more fics, just in time for Zutara month!!! This one is a piece of an old WIP on mine, modified a but and chopped down, but I still think it’s a cute fluffy thing. Ao3 link

Story:

When the airship had descended to about twenty feet above from the snowy airfield, several crew members rappelled out to the ground, meeting the airfield’s ground crew.

“—and now, the they will work together to use the ropes the aircrew came down on to pull the airship a few more feet and then fasten it down,” Zuko explained.

There was a burble in response, then a small, yet strong hand grabbed his hair and pulled.

Zuko barely reacted, only readjusting the baby in his arms before pulling the hand away from his hair, and muttering, “No, Ursa, don’t grab Daddy’s hair,” before smiling, “Well, you seem to be in a better mood now, Moon Peach. Come on, let’s get back to Mommy and your siblings.”

The father and daughter left the observation deck and made their way through the ship to the royal family’s cabin.

Zuko opened the door and was relieved to see that things had calmed down a bit from earlier. Twelve-year-old Kya was reading a well-worn copy of Love Amongst the Dragons, while seven-year-old Haruki was working on a large drawing of… something he couldn’t see from this angle, and three-year-old Kiviuq was playing with animal toys.

Katara was sitting by the cabin window, and alternated between reading a document — Zuko was fairly certain it was a report on Nationalist movements in the Fire Nation — and staring out the window with a slightly giddy expression.

The entire family was dressed in Water Tribe blues, but the parkas had been foregone as the airship was still warm. Splashes of purple, red and gold accented the blues, to pay homage to the family’s mixed heritage.

The room itself was stately and well-furnished — reflecting the scaled-back royal aesthetic Zuko had come to prefer, with a distinct Water Tribe influence in the decor — but still rather cramped for a family of six used to having a full palace to themselves.

Zuko entered the room and Katara looked over at him, “How is she?”

“She’s fine, we were watching the airmen and ground crew bring the ship in,” he tickled Ursa under her chin, causing her to squeal happily, “And Ursa found Daddy very interesting, right?”

“Mama!” Ursa suddenly called out through her giggles, “Mama!”

Katara put her scroll aside and walked over to the pair. Ursa held out her arms and made grabby hands, so Katara plucked her daughter from Zuko’s hands and began peppering kisses all over the baby’s face.

“It should just be a few minutes before we disembark.”

Katara pulled away from Ursa and said, “I hope so, I want to be out there already,” she smiled at Ursa and started to coo, “isn’t that right, Moon Peach? Mommy is soooo tired of this cabin, and I bet you are too!”

Zuko gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek before leaving the mom and daughter and moving to look over the shoulder of Haruki, “What’re you working on?” The drawing was clearly supposed to be a human, or at least humanoid, but the head looked odd, even for a seven-year-old’s drawing, colored a green-blue with big red eyes. It reminded him of an insect.

“It’s my costume!” Haruki proclaimed, “It’s what I’m gonna wear to fight bad guys!”

Zuko raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“Mmhmm!”

“Where’d you get this idea?”

Haruki turned, and looked at his dad with large eyes that sparkled in wonder, “Kya told me about the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady! And how they fought bad guys all over the Fire Nation after you became Firelord!” He gasped, “Did you ever meet them?”

Zuko glanced off to the side, internally cursing his oldest daughter’s obsession with history, then said, “Erm, once or twice.”

“Wow! How cool were they? Are they spirits? Or are they people? Oh! Or are they spirits and people combined? Oh—”

“Sorry, kiddo, but again, I only met them once or twice, and it was very quick. I know what they looked like, but not much else.”

Haruki’s face fell, “Awww…”

Zuko ruffled his son’s hair, then asked, “So why green?”

“‘Cause it’s my second favorite color besides blue! And the Blue Spirit’s already Blue, so I can’t be blue!”

“Ohhh, okay. Well, your drawing’s very, very good.”

“Thanks daddy!” He went back to furiously scribbling with crayons.

“Daddy!” Zuko felt a tug on his pant leg, and he looked down to see Kiviuq staring up at him, holding aloft a wooden dragon. Kiviuq smiled widely when he saw he had hid father’s attention, and then asked quietly, “Dragon breath?”

“Er,” he glanced at Katara who had shot him ‘The Look’, “sorry, Snowball, but dragon breath is an outside thing, remember? Ask me later, okay?”

Kiviuq pouted slightly (and boy could Zuko see Katara in their son’s pout) but said, “Okay…” and wandered back to his corner to continue playing with his toys.

Zuko glanced at Kya and grinned, but didn’t go over to her. She was nose-deep in a book, and he knew that any sort of “unnecessary” distraction would be barely acknowledged. It was how he used to get way back before his banishment, when he just loved to read.

He went back over to Katara, who was bounding Ursa on her knee, much to their daughter’s delight.

“Exited to be back home?” He asked, smiling.

Katara grinned broadly, “I’ve needed this for a while. Everything’s been so—” she waved her hand irritably, “everything in Caldera, I can already feel myself relaxing.”

“You realize that the Council will probably immediately request you to show up at sessions, right?”

She laughed, “That’s fine, I’d still much rather deal with fishery disputes than, well,” she gestured at the scroll she had been reading.

“It’s nothing new, right?” They had had a briefing about the current situation regarding Nationalist violence shortly before their departure. The scroll had arrived via messenger hawk about a day into their flight, along with several other documents that their ministers had deemed important enough to pass on.

She sighed, “Apparently they’re starting to leave the Fire Nation and set up shop in the Republic.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, “Of course they are,” he shook his head, “Well, nothing can be done about that right now.”

“True,” Katara said.

Their conversation was interrupted by Ursa, who yelled angrily and patted Katara’s knee, which had stopped bouncing at some point.

The parents chuckled, and Katara resumed a gentle bounce.

The family sat in quiet peace for a while as the crews worked to secure the airship so they could depart. Ursa eventually tired out and fell asleep on her mom, but after a few minutes Katara transferred her to Zuko, who had donned a sling to carry the sleeping baby. As the Firelady went back to the report she had b been reading, her husband strode around the room, rocking the baby to keep her asleep.

Eventually, there came a polite knock at the cabin door.

“Come in,” Katara said.

There was a creak as it opened to allow Qibolin, the airship’s captain, to step in. He fell into an immaculate bow and said, “Your Majesties, I am delighted to report that we have officially arrived in the Southern Water Tribe. It also appears that Chief Hakoda has already arrived to greet you.”

“Thank you, Qibolin,” Zuko said, as Katara was already pulling out the parkas and bundling up the children.

It took a few minutes to get everyone properly dressed, but soon the family was moving through the passageways and arrived at the starboard hatch, where a gangway had been extended to the ground. And at the base of the gangway, chatting with a few of the airmen who had rappelled down earlier, was —

“Grandpa!” Kya and Haruki yelled at the same time and shot down the ramp.

Zuko and Katara shouted a simultaneous and useless “Don’t run!” Kiviuq — held by Zuko — shouted and tried to follow his older siblings, but there was no way Zuko was going to let his tiny son toddle down the ramp on his own. Ursa — held by Katara — paid no mind and just snuggled into her mom’s neck.

“Kids!” Hakoda yelled joyfully and leaned at the bottom of the gangway, arms spread wide. Kya and Haruki crashed into him and he wrapped them up in a big hug.

Zuko and Katara gave each other tired looks before continuing down themselves.

#atla #Zuko #Katara #steambabies #Zutara #Zutara month #momtara and dadko

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drwcn · 4 years

Text

discordance!verse part 7: an interesting morning in jingshi, Lan Wangji is shameless, much to the shock of Wei Wuxian. rated M??T??

in which wwx is lxc’s husband through political alliance, and there is an affair.

[8] | [7] | [6] | [5] | [4] | [3] | [2] | [1] [synopsis] OR

see [discau tag] or [discordance navigation page] for all installments

(~10 days before part 5/6)

Wei Wuxian wakes up slowly, warm and comfortable. The first thing he sees is the green bamboo shoots past the white tulle curtains, just outside the window, and the droplet of dew glistening under the morning sun. It had rained some time during the early hours; he recalls drifting to sleep listening to the muffled pitter-patter against Jingshi's roof, Lan Zhan curled at his side…

Lan Zhan is still there, fast asleep, as though he hasn't moved an inch all night. He is pressed against Wei Wuxian's shoulder, one arm thrown across his chest, every even breath a gentle breeze across his neck.

Even in sleep, Lan Zhan is a vision. That peerless face which others find cold and intimidating, is relaxed and open. Thick lashes kiss pink flushed cheeks. Soft full lips part minutely, still a bit swollen. Long silk hair runs like ink between Wei Wuxian's fingers.

He releases a soft affectionate huff, pulling the covers more securely around them both. Wei Wuxian closes his eyes, ready to indulge in sleep for another couple more hours. He doesn't know why they don't do this more often, it's so nice…

Wait!

His eyes snap open, all thoughts of sleep vanishing instantly.

Fuck! We slept in!

There's a very good reason why he and Lan Zhan never wake up warm, coddled together in a patch of morning sun like two aristocratic cats: it's because Cloud Recesses' rules are fucking nightmares - and also because he and Lan Zhan are technically, technically in an illicit affair - but mostly because of Cloud Recesses’ rules. Lan Zhan always has to get up at a quarter before mao-shi to sneak back to hanshi so he could continue the charade of having woken up in the bed he definitely didn't sleep in.

Judging by the angle of sunlight spilling into the room, it must be at least si-shi by now, a whole two shichen later than when Lan Zhan is usually up and about…

Oh ffffffuuuck -

Dap, dap, dap!

There are three polite knocks at the door. A disciple's hesitant voice echoes from the other side.

"W-Wei-jun? Are you in there?"

He can hear the anxiety clearly in their tone. Because of course they must be frantic! Lan Zhan's secretarial disciple would've gone in to bring him his breakfast, like he does every morning, and discovered Hanguang-jun's bed and sheets as cold as ice and Lan Wangji himself nowhere to be found.

It's been at least four hours, Cloud Recesses must be having a full blown panic attack by now!!

Wei Wuxian jolts up from bed and is torn between feeling sorry and amazed when that exaggerated movement only manages to elicit an incoherent grumble from Lan Zhan.

Oblivious to Wei Wuxian's impending meltdown, Lan Wangji curls a little deeper into the covers, but does not wake up.

No time to worry about that, Wei Wuxian yanks the covers over Lan Wangji's head to cover him and pads across the matted floor to the clothing rack. He can't answer the door even if he wants to; he's completely fucking naked.

Wei Wuxian is just about finished with the ties of his second layer of robes when the disciple speaks again,

"Wei-jun?! Are you in there?! Many apologies for disturbing you…but - but it's urgent! Please, could you open the door?"

For the first time since the death of his husband, Wei Wuxian is glad for his widower status. As the previous Sect Master's yishu 遗属, it would be bad etiquette for lower disciples to barge into his private residence without invite. Not that any of them would be capable: the seal Wei Wuxian placed on the inside of the door last night is an invention of his own. He's confident that no more than a dozen cultivators of their time can break it without expending serious spiritual energy.

Thank goodness last-night-me had the foresight to do that…

Though, he does wonder why it's a bunch of disciples and not someone like Lan Qiren knocking on his door. His nerves calm by half a fraction. If they're coming to me, perhaps they haven't directed this particular issue to higher authorities. Probably doesn't want to give the grandpas an impromptu stroke by declaring Lan Zhan missing…

Wei Wuxian shrugs on his outer layer, and in the calmest, most put-upon voice he can manage, he answers, "What is it? I am feeling poorly this morning."

"Begging your pardon, Wei-jun, it's just…Hanguang-jun, uhm, we can't find Hanguang-jun."

Glancing behind his shoulder, Wei Wuxian winces as he sees Lan Wangji stirring, turning onto his back and shoving the covers out of the way.

"Ah, yes, Hanguang-jun," replies Wei Wuxian, channeling his inner Lan Qiren and attempting his most authoritative tone of voice. "Sect Master has informed me that he’s gone on a…a meditative trek. It's been some time since he's been able to cultivate in peace. He will be returning shortly. No need…no need to worry the Elders."

Through the thin walls, he hears a collective sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness. Forgive us for disturbing you, Wei-jun. If you're feeling unwell, should a healer be sent for -"

"No! No, that's quite alright. I'll be fine. Return to your studies. Do not dally." Wei Wuxian quickly dismisses the disciples.

Ear pressed against the door, he listens to their footsteps walking away until he can't hear anything but the sparrows chirping in the woods. Letting out the breath he’s been holding anxiously in his chest, Wei Wuxian pads himself in relief.

Crisis averted.

When he turns around, Lan Wangji is sitting up in bed, staring dazedly at him.

"I slept in. It's very late, isn't it?"

The sight of him like that, blankets gathered at the waist, pale chest bared and hair unbound, immediately steals from Wei Wuxian the breath he’d only just been able to catch.

Hanguang-jun is truly the Light Bearer, he laments, mindless of the smile that overtakes him. Even the sun seems to be drawn to the good Lan Zhan. Streaming onto the bed from the window behind, morning sunlight enshrouds his entire being and condenses into a soft halo around him, as if to remind the world that this man is blessed by the gods.

Yet this god-chosen man, destined for immortality, has given himself over to Wei Wuxian last night, delivered into his hands, with pure trust and a small smile in the dark.

Wei Wuxian feels the back of his neck heat up from the memory. Get yourself together, Wei Wuxian, you flagrant degenerate, it’s practically midday.

"Wei Ying, I…" Lan Wangji averts his eyes as Wei Wuxian takes a seat beside him, holding his clothes ready for him.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, don't be embarrassed." Wei Wuxian chuckles, reaching out to twirl a strand of Lan Wangji's hair around his finger teasingly. "So you slept in, happens to the best of us."

Leaning forward and pecking a chaste kiss to his forehead, Wei Wuxian hands him his robes and says, "Alright, come on, let's get up. You have to work, and I have to assist my venerated Hanguang-jun. A bath and some breakfast - I told the disciples I'm not feeling my best, they'll probably send whatever I ask for. Nobody ever has to know our Sect Master was sleeping the morning away."

The tip of Lan Wangji's ears turns pink, but instead of accepting the garbs the other man holds out to him, he shifts closer and winds his arms around Wei Wuxian shamelessly. "Yes perhaps, but I am not entirely to blame."

This time, Wei Wuxian does blush. He draws his head back, aghast. "L-Lan Zhan! H-how could you say such a thing in broad daylight!

"Is it not so?" Lan Wangji rests his chin against his lover's shoulder and pivots his head almost accusingly.

Wei Wuxian sputters. Why you shameless little - you - I -

Memories from the night before come rushing back: Lan Zhan's earnest open face when he asked Wei Wuxian to indulge him, climbing onto his lap and whispering into his ear exactly what he wanted. Wei Wuxian is used to Lan Zhan taking charge. It’s been that way since the two of them became intimate. He’s thrilled, more than thrilled, to share those stolen moments with Lan Zhan. In fact, it always does funny wonderful things to him to see the disciplined Hanguang-jun let loose the way he does when they’re together.

But to have his Lan Zhan laying under him, arching and trembling and falling apart for him, his name uttered by those heavenly lips like an answer, a spell, a prayer…How does any reasonable man come back from that?

Oh my god…I - I deflowered the Second Jade of Gusu… Wei Wuxian realizes with a jolt, suddenly hot under the collar. It's not that the implication didn't occur to him yesterday, but the weight of his actions had not fully sunk in until now. It's probably not a coincidence that Lan Wangji, who has never overslept a day in his life, fails to keep to his rigid internal clock after Wei Wuxian spent most of the night having his ways with him.

When did they even go to actual sleep? It couldn't have been any time before midnight. Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian, you fool, you absolute idiot, how could you have done this?! You should've been more careful!!

…Lan Zhan had been so careful with me…

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji calls his name, arms still locked around him. "You told them I'd be gone for a while yet, yes?"

Wei Wuxian frowns, not sure where he's headed. "Yeah?"

Lan Wangji shuffles closer, one of his hands travelling across the front of Wei Wuxian's robes until he finds the knotted sash. Blinking innocently, he says without a shred of pretense, "I do not doubt your skills, but my memories of last night are a little vague. Perhaps you ought to demonstrate for me again, as a reminder?"

For a long, long moment, neither of them move, Lan Wangji's request apparently having shocked Wei Wuxian into petrified silence. He does nothing but stare back at him, so much so Lan Wangji begins to wonder if he went a little too far with the teasing. But then Wei Wuxian's expression shifts, something raw and hungry flashing across his face. The next moment, Lan Wangji is flipped over onto his front, the covers yanked off exposing his pale bare form, every inch a perfection.

Lan Wangji shivers, more reactionary than actually cold. He can feel Wei Ying's gaze on him, heated and appreciative, and as much as he doesn't want to give him the satisfaction, he squirms under the scrutiny.

"Wei Y-"

But the weight of Wei Ying's body is suddenly flush against his back, and Lan Wangji notices with a start that while he is thoroughly bare, Wei Ying is mostly dressed and does not appear to be in any hurry to change that.

Does Wei Ying really intend to take him while fully clothed?! Somehow the thought doesn't bother him, not in the least. Rather, it spurs him on, sparking the desire that simmers just beneath his skin.

His hair is swept to side; Lan Wangji groans as a pair of lips press a hot, open mouthed kiss against his neck behind one redden ear.

"One would think, Hanguang-jun, that requesting physical intimacy in the middle of the day counts for misbehaviour."

The needy kiss transforms into a sharp bite.

Lan Wangji suffocates a groan, shuddering as the kiss trails between his shoulder blades and lower. For a few minutes, all he can focus on is the touch of hands and lips and tongue mapping out the planes of his body and wringing from him wonderful pleasures that he would not otherwise so easily relinquish.

"As the once disciplinary officer of Cloud Recesses," continues Wei Ying, lifting Lan Zhan by the hips and pushing him onto his knees. "Please enlighten us the appropriate consequences."

Wei Ying sounds very much like a cat savouring its play time with its poor prey before devouring it alive. Although Lan Wangji would never admit it out loud even under duress, he can confess to himself in the safety of his mind that this fate is exactly what he wants.

The Wei Ying of last night was careful, gentle, and steadfast despite being nervous.That Wei Ying had held his hands, lacing their fingers together, and whispered sweet lovely things as he brought them to their heights and back. Lan Wangji wasn't lying when he said his memories were a bit fuzzy; the entire experience had been…a lot.

However, Wei Ying in the morning is a whole different beast, and Lan Zhan aches just imagining what waits ahead. He wants him, by god, he wants him.

"One would think, Wei-jun," Lan Wangji manages to grit out, "that as someone who holds the highest running record of punishments received during his guest disciple days, you would be more than acquainted with Cloud Recesses' method of discipl - ah!"

The cry is ripped from his throat before he could help it. Panting, Lan Wangji writhes against the sheets and marvels a little at just how readily he receives what Wei Ying gives him.

But Wei Ying's tone loses its playfulness right away. "Lan Zhan -" The hand that threads through his hair is light and the following kiss on his left shoulder is tender. "- are you - are you hurt? Was I -"

Perhaps that cry sounded more distressed than he actually was. Lan Wangji turns his head to meet Wei Ying's worried gaze and melts a little. Blood is roaring in his ears and he is hot all over, but the warm cocoon that envelops his heart has nothing to do with lust.

Wei Ying presses another soft, comforting kiss against the shell of his ear and then another against his temple. "Say something, should I stop?"

Stop?! If this endearing idiot even thinks about stopping now Lan Wangji will absolutely smack him out of pure frustration.

Catching his breath, he pushes back against Wei Wuxian and is immensely satisfied when the other man shudders in response. Reveling in the knowledge that he is the only one to ever see Wei Ying this way, he does it again. This time, the hands gripping his deviant hips are no longer gentle.

"Are you going to make good on my punishments," challenges Lan Wangji, batting his lashes, infinitesimally coy. "Or were those merely empty threats?"

The speed at which Wei Ying's eyes darken with desire almost makes Lan Wangji regret his impertinence. But then he is being thrust forward without warning, the unexpected motion hitting that spot inside him that makes his toes curl and his vision go white, and he instantly regrets nothing.

"W-Wei Ying…"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is aware that he is being objectively loud, but it really isn't his fault. Who in their right mind would expect him to be silent when he is being railed into the bed like both their immortalities depended on it. He just hopes Wei Ying has the good sense to cast a silencing talisman (lucky for them, he did).

Lan Zhan moans into the sheets, his eyes rolling back. How on earth is he so wrecked so quickly?! What is Wei Ying doing to him? In this position, he is completely at his lover's mercy, but he doesn't want to fight it, not at all. Clutching the wooden headboard, Lan Wangji surrenders the last bit of his self-control and submerges under the waves of sensations and sounds and bliss.

Lan Zhan is quiet afterwards, soaking in the bath Wei Wuxian prepared for him. Wei Wuxian wipes himself down perfunctorily, changes into fresh robes and then proceeds to meticulously tidy the bed. The sheets are…probably not salvageable. He'll have to burn them or bury them, because there's no way he can hand them over to the disciples on laundry duty in the state that they're in. Even he can't talk his way out of that one.

When he's sure there is no more incriminating evidence of their activities, Wei Wuxian rounds behind the screen to find Lan Zhan exactly where he'd left him.

Eyes closed, he looks so young. It's not fair how everything must fall to him now. Lan Zhan never complains, but he must be exhausted after all that's happened since the end of last year.

His heart squeezing tightly, Wei Wuxian picks up a wash cloth and sits down by the tub. Lovely eyes flutter open just as he runs the warm towel over the round of Lan Zhan's shoulder.

"Are you alright?" He asks softly, wiping a bit of dried spent from Lan Zhan's chin. "Was I too rough?"

The tip of Lan Zhan's ears turns pink again. He shakes his head, taking Wei Wuxian's hand and caresses his knuckles. "No, you were perfect."

Still, something nags Wei Wuxian in the mind of his mind. Their hands still clasped together, he shifts closer and searches Lan Zhan's face.

"Lan Zhan, what brought this on? Last night and this morning. You know I don't mind being the …uhm…" Blushing, he clears his throat, suddenly thin-skinned. Damn it, Wei Wuxian, get it together. "You know I don’t mind being the way we were before. Love it in fact, can't get enough of it even. I don't want you to think I expect you to - uhm - return the favour... as it were."

Lan Zhan's eyes are serious but also bright and earnest with understanding and intent. He thumbs the blush on Wei Wuxian's cheek, curling his fingers around his nape.

"I'm yours now, Wei Ying." He says, voice hushed but resolve firm. "Do you understand? No more nonsense about finding me a proper husband, or a wife to bear me heirs, or any talk of that kind. Even if the Elders bar me from marrying you on the account of you being my brother's widower, I'm yours, and you're not allowed to abandon me. I won't have it."

"Lan Zhan..." The back of his throat grows unbearably tight. Wei Wuxian feels as though he could cry. He remembers their conversation back in Qishan when he saw Lan Zhan with little Wen Yuan and the ensuing row they had afterwards. It was perhaps the first and only time Lan Zhan lost his temper with him. He'd been so angry, so hurt, that Wei Ying would even suggest he should marry another.

Wei Wuxian, if you truly want me to be with someone else, then what, tell me, are we doing now?!

Wei Wuxian squeezes his hand, pressing a heartbroken kiss to his palm, then another, then another. He feels horrible with himself. How could he not realize earlier? Is this why Lan Zhan had been so insistent?

"Lan Zhan, my good Lan Zhan, you didn't have to - I won't leave you, Lan Zhan, I promised you, I won't. You have me, you'll always have me, you didn't have to -"

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji interrupts him, seeing his self-deprecating tendencies are once again leading him down the wrong line of thought. "I want you, want to be with you. Last night was not solely to drive home a point. Even if I did want to make a point, it would only be part of the reason, minimal at best, and certainly would not account for this morning.”

Wei Wuxian blinks, swallowing thickly. "And the real reason?"

"Well, surely it's very telling." Lan Wangji inches closer. The angle of the round tub makes it awkward but he doesn't care. A smile playing at his lips, he whispers into the other man's ear and delights at the way Wei Ying pulls back with a scandalized cry.

"Lan Zhan!"

Wei Wuxian is sure that his entire face is on fire. Who would've thought the esteemed Hanguang-jun could be such a lethal combination of imaginative mind and dirty mouth?!

But Lan Wangji only chuckles, nuzzling his neck. "Thank you for being so obliging, Wei Ying. I hope I was not too much of a burden."

I’m going to cry, thinks Wei Wuxian, I’m actually going to cry. Inside his chest, his heart has swelled so incredibly that he feels it will burst any second. "Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, my good Lan-er-gege," he chants, over and over, peppering the lightest and sweetest of kisses along Lan Wangji's face. "You can't say things like that without warning! My heart can't take it!"

"Mn,” Lan Wangji purrs.“You'll live."

"Lan Zhan, ah Lan Zhan, what am I going to do with you?" Wei Wuxian sighs, holding the other man by the curve of his jaw and smiles that sunshine smile.

"Stuck with me, I'm afraid. Hasn't anyone told you?" Lan Zhan peers at him through hooded eyes. "Us Gusu Lans, we're rooks."

"Rooks?"

"Rooks mate for life."

At that, Wei Wuxian pulls Lan Wangji impossibly close and silences him with a deep, long kiss.

[part 8]

yishu 遗属 - family that is left behind through death.

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millenniumpuzzle · 3 years

Note

maybe them playing video games at yugi's place after school?

so i know this is three days late, but in my defense, i wanted it to be good, and election stress, and also i finished it yesterday but didn’t want to post it because of, you know. everything. however, i have finally finished, and i bring you: wishshipping where they’re playing video games, but it’s also a first kiss story :) (g-rated!) thanks again for the prompt!!

Having a best friend that lived above a game shop came with certain benefits, Jonouchi thought as he sat down on Yugi’s bed, N64 controller in hand. The one he was most concerned with at the moment was Kame Game’s early access to the latest video games, and the fact that Yugi almost always got a free copy of any game he wanted from his grandpa as soon as they came in. As such, the only reason he was at Yugi’s house was to play the new Nintendo fighting game (named Super Smash Bros, of all things), no matter what Anzu tried to insinuate as she saw the two of them walking in the same direction after school.

“Hey! Did it boot up okay?” Jonouchi nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Yugi’s voice, but relaxed when he saw him in the doorframe, balancing two bags of chips and a two-liter of soda in his arms.

“Yeah, it’s ready whenever we are,” Jonouchi replied, before standing up and taking one of the bags and the two-liter from Yugi to set them on the coffee table in front of the small television. Yugi smiled gratefully, and Jonouchi carefully ignored the skipped beat of his heart as he watched Yugi set the remaining bag down. He was only here for Super Smash Bros. Nothing more.

“Ah, thanks, Jonouchi.” Yugi’s face was red, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. Jonouchi found himself fixated on the violet of his eyes, the movements of his muscles, the blush of his cheeks, even as he tried to put it aside and focus on the character-select screen. “Well, should we get started?” Yugi asked, clapping his hands together as he sat down on the bed entirely too close for Jonouchi’s liking.

“Sure thing, Yug’. What character do you want?” The urge to toss his arm over Yugi’s shoulders was almost too great to ignore, but he managed to push it down, instead swallowing and moving the joystick over the character portraits in a circle.

Yugi hummed, opening a bag of chips before grabbing his own controller. “I want…” he said, before selecting his character, with a cry of, “Kirby!” He reached into the bag of chips and popped a handful into his mouth, then, chewing at Jonouchi as though it were meant to be triumphant. Mostly, Jonouchi thought Yugi looked silly – and yet, whenever Yugi looked silly, he looked cute, so he couldn’t quite complain.

“The marshmallow, I should have known,” he said instead, arching an eyebrow at Yugi, who immediately erupted into laughter.

“Hey, don’t underestimate the marshmallow!” Yugi fixed Jonouchi with a stare that was surely meant to be intimidating, but was contradicted by the laughter sparkling in his eyes, and the twitch of his cheeks as he tried to keep them from smiling. “I can beat you with Kirby nine times out of ten, no doubt!”

“We’ll see about that!” Jonouchi laughed, selecting Link after not much thought. The guy’s got a cool sword, what could he say? Yugi hit the start button, and selected the first stage – thank goodness for that, Jonouchi had to figure out how the game worked before trying anything too crazy! After a brief loading screen, the game counted them down from three, and they were off.

***

“And that’s another win for me!” Yugi set his controller down and flung his arms into the air, eyes squeezed nearly shut from his smile as Kirby smiled from his first-place position, Link clapping politely in the background. “Yugi five, Jonouchi zero,” he continued, doing a seated victory dance that did little more than shake the bed underneath them.

Jonouchi only looked at the victory screen on the television for a moment before his gaze was drawn back to Yugi, unable to resist the magnetic pull of his bright smile. He didn’t much like losing, but it was worth it if he could see Yugi smile like that. “Guess I’m gonna need more time to get the hang of this game than you, huh?” he said, unable to keep the fondness out of his tone. “What’s your secret? How are you so good at everything you do?”

Yugi turned to look at him, then, cheeks immediately turning pink, which was cuter than it had any right to be. “Quit messing around, Jonouchi. There are plenty of things I’m not good at!” There was still laughter in his tone, like he was making a joke, but the way he rubbed the back of his neck told Jonouchi there was more going on.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that! C’mon, you’re the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever seen.” Jonouchi put his hand on Yugi’s shoulder and shook it lightly. Yugi’s cheeks flushed even darker; whether it was because of the compliment or the physical contact, Jonouchi couldn’t be sure. He didn’t reply, choosing instead to stare at his lap and keep rubbing his neck. Jonouchi’s eyes narrowed; that had to stop. Without thinking, he grabbed Yugi’s hand and brought it to rest in the space between them, rubbing the back lightly with his own thumb to help comfort Yugi. “Hey, need me to run down a list?”

Yugi ducked his head, further avoiding eye contact, speaking his next words to the carpet. Jonouchi had to pause for a moment to fully comprehend what he said – it was always tougher for him to understand what people were saying if he couldn’t see their mouth move – but eventually he managed to process it. “No, you’re fine, I get it. You see me differently than I see myself, I guess.”

“Well that’s a shame, because I wish you saw yourself how I see you!” Jonouchi began holding Yugi’s hand with both of his, ducking his head so that he could see Yugi’s eyes under his bangs. “When I see you, I see the smart, brave, compassionate person who stood up for a no-good bully, even though he got beat up in the process.” Yugi opened his mouth to respond, but Jonouchi cut him off. “And I know you’re about to defend me, say that I was just trying to make you a man, or that I didn’t know what I was doing, and that’s the thing, Yug’! You always look for the good in people, no matter how deep you have to dig to find it. You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s all focused toward other people. When are you going to find compassion for yourself?” He squeezed Yugi’s hand a little tighter, which made Yugi finally look up toward him, wide, violet eyes shiny with unshed tears. Jonouchi felt like his heart would burst at the sight, so he squeezed tighter still, until Yugi brought his neglected hand to join the other, squeezing back.

“I think I prefer to hear it from you,” Yugi finally responded, voice thick with the tears he had yet to shed. But he was smiling, now, and that made Jonouchi so happy, he didn’t think twice about leaning forward to close the distance between them and kissing Yugi.

As far as first kisses went, it could have been better. The way they were sitting, side-by-side on Yugi’s bed a foot apart, made the angle awkward, especially since Jonouchi refused to let go of Yugi’s hands. Not to mention, the way Jonouchi had rushed in made the press of lips hard and unyielding, and Yugi had gone stiff at their first touch. When Jonouchi pulled away, it was with regret, fear – had he ruined their friendship forever? “I’m sorry, Yug’, I didn’t –”

“Let’s try that again,” Yugi interrupted, pulling his hands free and scooting close enough that his shoulders and thighs were touching Jonouchi’s. He cradled Jonouchi’s face with a hand, and Jonouchi knew he must have gone wide-eyed, because Yugi laughed. Finally, he leaned in, and captured Jonouchi’s lips in a much gentler, less impulsive kiss. Jonouchi melted into the contact, reciprocating as best he could, before they both pulled away. Yugi looked fit to burst with happiness, despite the lingering tears in his eyes, and Jonouchi couldn’t keep the dopey grin off his face.

“Man, and you really think you aren’t good at everything? ‘Cause you keep adding to the list!” Jonouchi laughed, brushing a stray bang out of Yugi’s eyes. Yugi glared at him, but it was playful, and he combed his hand through Jonouchi’s hair as well. “Seriously, that was the best kiss I ever had! You oughta teach classes on this, I’m not kidding.”

Yugi raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? You want me to kiss other people?” Jonouchi stared at him for a second, again taking time to process, before spluttering and taking things back. Yugi just laughed, and interrupted him with another kiss. “I’m just kidding, Jonouchi. If you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

Time froze around Jonouchi, the world reduced to nothing but him and Yugi. If he could, he would have sprinted out the door and ran through the streets of Domino, proclaiming that Yugi was his. As it was, though, all he could say was, “Yeah, of course. And I’m yours too.” Then, he kissed Yugi again, just because he could. And if pieces of Kirby’s victory screen were burnt into the television screen for some time afterwards, well, who could blame them for forgetting to turn the game off?

#my writing #i think that's my tag?#thanks again!#stabbymattress #wishshipping #this turned out way longer than i meant it to be lol

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whatusernameshouldieven · 4 years

Text

✧･ﾟ:* You and I *:･ﾟ✧*

Genre: fiancé au, fluff

Pairing: Fiancé!Choi San x Foreigner!Reader ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

⇰ Chapter 2: A New Place

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★ ・・・・・・・

“Good work everyone! I expect the same performance for our meeting next week.”, You slightly nodded, as you held bunch of files in your hands. Standing in middle of the table, you gazed down at your workers or assistants in an authoritative way. Your hair was slightly braided back from the side in order to prevent any hair strands to be in the way when you leaned down. You preferred it this way because you would often get irritated because of it. Your face wasn’t fully exposed, luckily, you had made bangs recently to add a youthful touch.

“Yes!”, all of the workers said in unison, welcoming back the enthusiasm of your voice. You softly smiled, “Dismissed.”

Chatters began to fill up the place as the opening and closing of the office door could be heard. As the chattering died down to complete silence, you let out a heavy sigh of relieving stress. you bit your lip, keeping yourself from cringing at her overly tight office outfit which was decided by the upper boss a week ago, as you massaged your right shoulder with your hands. Letting your massaging hand fall, you use it to fix your bangs back to their side-parted position.

“I seriously need to talk to the upper boss with this overly...tight outfit. That greasy old pervert, I swear!”, you talked in mid-silence. It was overly tight and showy. The white shirt that hugged your curves almost too tightly, and the black skirt which was almost too short. At least, you wore black leggings from showing your skin. “But...these leggings aren’t helping me much.”

You groaned under stress as you walked to your office desk to grab your phone on it.

9:40 PM

“What? Already? Geez...I can’t believe I waste my time working all day.”, You complained as you slipped your phone into the small pocket of the black skirt. You grab your black blazer hanging on your chair as you exit the office.

You close the door behind you, and proceeds to lock it in order to prevent thieves. You trusted no one in this company, and you sure knew you had some juicy enemies behind your back. The problem was you didn’t know who exactly. But--that is to find out later not now.

“Ms. Y/N.”

You glanced to your side to catch a glimpse of a handsome young blue-haired male. An unusual color it was, it looked good to a selected few, and you had to admit he was rocking this color. You turn back to to the lock on the door, as you finish locking it. Holding onto the door knob and twisting it for confirmation.

“Hongjoong, I’ve told you thousand times to call me just Y/N.”, You chuckled as you turned to your side to face the male.

The male had a perfect v-shaped face which seemed to be popular among Koreans, you were jealous at the exact angle of it. He had round eyes which got million times more attractive when he flashed his pearl white perfect teeth. He had a sharp up-turned nose. A very sharp and striking face in particular.

Hongjoong returned the chuckle, “Ah yes, how could I forget? However, it’s quite odd to refer to someone with such an authoritative position with their first name.” Hongjoong smiled, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes-- nothing like those old-grandpa types of wrinkles though. You were almost staring too long at them, shameful of you.

You shrugged, “Doesn’t make me above you or superior though? Anyways, what is it?”

The smile fell on his face as he turned quite stern, “Ah yes. The upper boss told me to inform you that there will be a meeting with the ambassadors this Friday. He also told me to tell you he expects the best of your performance, it seems like this deal is very crucial for our next act.”

You sighed dramatically as you threw your shoulders, “Great! More stress! That scumbag is always overworking me.”

Hongjoong was slightly taken back by the sudden informal language from the usual polite Ms. Y/N, but still kept a small smile. It showed that the usual charming appearance of you was still human in some ways. You rolled your eyes in the thought of attending the meeting, but showed a smile of gratitude, “Thank you, Hongjoong, you saved my ass.”

Hongjoong shook his head, “Oh no, Ms-- Y/N. It’s my pleasure. You work harder than any of us, it’s the least I can do.”

You let out an impressed expression, “Wow. Your future partner will be very lucky to have you.”

“Oh.”, Hongjoong blushed, feeling overwhelmed by the compliment as he shook his head, “I don’t plan on marrying any time soon.”

You were surprised. A young handsome and capable man like Hongjoong could get any girl he wants in his palms, what was stopping him? He was dedicated and passionate about his goals, his works. His hard works was even admirable to the upper boss and to you yourself. Countless time he showed his responsible side when you procrastinated, saving you from getting fired.

“WHAT?”

Hongjoong flinched at the sudden loud noise.

“Sorry--”, You cleared your throat, “What, why?”

“Well, I have a lot of ambitions and right now, my focus is on them.”, Hongjoong smiled with confidence. You couldn’t help but admire him, it put you to shame. Even if you were in a higher position in a company, this male, was way above you in morals and spirit. You wanted to mentally cry and bawl your eyes out in shame but you had to keep your facade of authority. “I see, I hope you achieve them.”

“Thank you.”, from the look on his face, you could tell he was touched.

“Uh yeah, I must leave now. See you tomorrow Hongjoong!”, You did a small wave as Hongjoong nodded.

_____________________________________________________________________________

You stopped in your tracks as you held your phone in your right hand, making sure your fingers were at all sides of your phone so it wouldn’t just slip and fall. You raised your face as you were standing in front of a golden gardenvale gate with bars. It made your frame look small almost towering over you in an intimidating way. But that wasn’t what made you stop in your tracks.

The huge mansion beyond the gate caught you off guard. The lights seemed to be turned on, as the mansion was accompanied by a beautiful garden. You wondered if it was even legal to have such a big house. You also wondered if google maps had led you to the right place. If your mother were to be beside you right now, she would be absolutely fangirling at the modern design of the house.

“Do you have a business here, miss?” You wandering in your mind was cut off as you heard a masculine voice ring beyond the gate.

There was a guard dressed in black suit with black shades to add the touch of the oh-so mysterious vibe, in front of her. He was bald, and seemed to be in his 40s.

You were scared. Despite leading group meeting and being proud of your authoritative position, you were also socially awkward at these random times. “Um...Choi San...told me to come here?” Your voice raised in uncertainty at the end, scared of the validation it was going to receive.

The guard nodded, “Master sent you? You must be Choi Y/N.”

CHOI Y?N?

“No--I’m--”

“Master talks a lot about you, please come in. He’s expecting you.”, the guard opened up the gate as you stepped in, feeling as if you were violating the place. Stepping your feet into the foreign land, it seemed like you came to a whole another country. Beyond the gates, it was a whole different atmosphere. You felt important, you felt like a royal. To be standing in front of such a mansion, it made you feel proud in a way. Oh, how lucky you were to have a rich best friend-- oh fiancé.

“Please follow me, miss.”, the guard speaks, almost making you laugh because he was going out of his way to sound friendly. The guard began to walk to the grand main door of the mansion, as you followed behind him like a lost puppy trapped in some wonderland. You mentally facepalmed on the choices of the shoes you wore, as the made melodious CLICK CLACK sounds.

From the corner of your eyes, since the guard was way taller than her, you saw two another guards beside the grand door opening the door for both of you. Your eyes widened, once again, were you at the right place?! There would obviously be more than one Choi San-- oh but only this one knows my name!

“On the second floor, take right as you go up the stairs and turn right again. Keep walking and you’ll meet master in his room.”, the guard informed, bowing as he left immediately.

You panicked inside the grand mansion. How the heck were you supposed to navigate at the place?! You thought the guard would stick with you until you arrived face-to-face with San! You were blinded by the whiteness of the walls, the redness of the wide carpet beneath your feet which led all the way above the stairs, the glittering golden chandelier on the ceiling, the huge windows which highlighted the view of the garden, and just the hugeness of the place. The place was sparkling in your eyes, as you smelled the fresh scent of lavender inside the house.

Choi San was one hell of a lucky fellow to live his entire life in such a place, where you lived in a normal house. You began to feel the polar oppositeness, were you even great enough for him at this point? Would his parent acknowledge a normal young women?

You began to climb up the stairs as you apologized mentally for stepping on the beautiful red carpet every time. As you reached the second floor, you took right and was greeted by another path to take. Recalling what the guard said, you took right again, now being greeted by labyrinth of halls. You hugged herself in brace of the unknown, as the finally reached of the end of this particular hallway. Now standing in front of the ominous door.

Should you knock? You gulped holding your hand to your chest. Gosh...why am I nervous over something like this? You scolded herself. You gripped the door knob and slammed the door open, “CHOI SAN!”

The door open to reveal a marvelous wonder. There stood the man she expected, looking so ethereal beneath the blue hint of the moonlight which reached from the huge window behind him as the white curtains made him look like he had wings with the pattern they flowed with. His black swept back hair seemed extra soft today as a strand of it fell in front of his forehead.

Your breath was caught in your throat, to your luck, this was not like any of those scene where the man would be shirtless. To your sanity, he had a sleeveless shirt on. However, the fact that his muscular arms were on sight did not do you any good. He has been working out, you realized but mentally slapped yourself for making it even worse for yourself.

“Uhm…”, you let out awkwardly, “Surprise?...” You braced for the worst.

San’s shocked expression soften up as he walks over to you, gently dragging you inside by the hold on your wrist. He makes sure to close the door behind you as he stares down at you with the same gentle gaze he would always provide you. In the perspective of you, you were buffering all over again. While San was doing his best to be gentle as possible, you were overheating like a computer system.

“Y/N… ”, your name came out so tender from his sweet voice, “You’re here.”

“Was I not supposed to?” San smiled noticing the same sarcastic attitude of his best friend to be back once again, “No, you’re at the right place. It’s very late though…” San tilted his head, pouting.

“You think I don’t realize? Let me tell you how my upper boss is such a pain in the BUTT and that I had to do some extra work today-- Nevermind… it’s going to be long.”

San listened attentively, as he nodded in sympathy. He gently took hold of your blazer and took it off, “You still work under him? We are going to marry soon, I don’t think you would need a job, honestly.” San walked towards one of the sofas in the room, as he folded the blazer in a neat pattern then placing it on it.

You watched San’s figure stand tall once again and turn towards your direction. “Oh please, I can’t depend on your money even if we are married.”

“Okay, anyway, where am I staying?”, you looked around, eyes scanning the marvelous room. A wide sofa with a royal-looking table. A king-size bed in the middle of the room with beautiful white sheets with the hint of yellow. A huge window which led to a relaxing balcony, which had its own set of chair and tables outside. You wondered how many of these type of rooms this place had.

You raised an eyebrow when you heard a chuckle. “What?”, you asked, genuinely curious.

San walked over to you as he placed his arm beside your head, trapping you against the door. He leaned down slightly to have a eye-contact with you, as his eyes were now tender as ever. You yelped as your back was now fully against the door, without knowing, both of your hands against your chest too. You stared back into his eyes, looking like a prey.

“You are already in your room though?”, San almost whispered, his voice so low and sweet which made your heart do things. The window error notifications ran inside your head multiple times, along with the loading symbol.

That wasn’t what you had heard. If you remembered correctly, the guard did mention that this was, in fact , San’s room. “What? Isn’t this your room? The guard told me that.” Deep down, you knew what San meant, but you had to go with the oblivious card.

“Don’t pretend to be innocent.” San’s sweet sugary voice traced your heart like the texture of silk, pleasant. “Don’t you ever think about this?” “W-What?...”, you gasped as San leaned down to your neck, his hot breath tickling your skin. San continued, “How a lot of times you are alone with a man who is way taller than you and can overpower you anytime? How like this-”

You let out another gasp when San slammed another one of his hands beside your face, now completely keeping you under him. “--I can take advantage of you anytime?”

You looked up into San’s dominant eyes burning with passion and expectation. Your gaze was fragile, almost too innocent for San to handle. Truth to be told, it was eating him alive inside. With an appearance of a delicious bunny you had, San felt like a wolf who could devour you any moment. Domination ran inside his blood, traveling all over his body, taking over him.

“I… San... “, You averted your eyes from his gaze. You couldn’t handle the intensity.

That gave San the answer. Not yet, it was too early for him to have you. You were far too fragile at the moment. You couldn't handle his intense side. Well, not yet anyway.

San steps back, causing a gap to appear in between them as he releases you. You finally take the moment to breath, trying to control the rapid explosive heartbeat in your chest. You dug holes on the ground with your eyes, as your face was far too red not to notice in the moonlight. You played with your fingers like a little child.

San ruffled his slicked back hair, causing his messy bangs to appear, “We should rest, tomorrow is a day off for you right?” San’s arm falls on his sight as he waits for an answer.

“Yeah…”, Your voice comes out shyly, as you looked above with the same helpless expression.

San nods, “Yup, alright.”

He begins to walk to one side of the bed, while you immediately walk to the other side of it. San yawns as he stretches his arms above for a brief moment, only to reach the bottom of his shirt and pull it all the way up. Taking his shirt off, he throws it across to the sofa hitting the perfect shot.

Your face flushed even more as you tried to not focus on his physical self, you turn around instead. “Oh, how rude of me.”, San spoke as you felt footsteps coming closer to your form. You turn around, meeting the sight of his bare topless self as you tried to normalize the view. Your eyes soon traveled to the shirt he was holding in his hands, the shirt he wore a moment ago.

“It’s going to be uncomfortable to sleep in that tight dress, sleep in this for today. We’ll get your stuff tomorrow, okay?” San tilted his head for confirmation, as you just nodded not being able to form words.

San hands you his shirt as he turns around to give you some privacy.

You unbutton your shirt, and unzips the side of the skirt. Slipping the skirt down your legs, you reach down on it and fold it in a perfect pattern. You placed it on the side table of the bed, and proceeds to take your white shirt off, repeating the same set of action. You stare at the shirt San gave it to you, it seemed like a simple grey sleeveless shirt with no tricks visible whatsoever. You slips into it very easily, as the shirt falls until some centimeters above your knees.

“I’m done.”, You said, as San turns around to face you once again. He examines Arsh’s form and smiles once again, like a lovesick puppy. You playfully hit him on the shoulder, “Stop staring!” “Can’t help it. This is the first time you wore my clothes.”

You rolled your eyes but smile. You then climbs on the bed, pulling the sheet above you. You sighed in relaxation as you feel the soft mattress beneath your body. It was like a safe haven. San travels to the other side and gets on the bed, adjusting himself to lay on it. He turns to you with a lazy smile, as you glances at his lazy expression.

“You know you’re so weird today.”, You spoke as you fully laid down, eyeing San, “What’s even weirder is that I’m sharing a bed with someone who I recently got engaged to...and who is also one of my close friends.”

“Are you complaining?”, San raised an eyebrow. “No.”, You replied honestly, “Why would I? It’s all perfect…” You fell quiet for a moment.

San extends his muscular arms, reminding you once again that he was topless. you panicked inside slightly as you were pulled close to San’s warmth. “Don’t act surprised, you know my sleeping habit.” “I know, I know! I’m still a girl okay? You doing this makes me…”

“Do I make your heart beat fast?”, San asked as he wraps his arms around you, burying his face on the crook of your neck. You relaxed under his warm embrace, feeling his muscular body against yours. “Of course, idiot! I could die you know?”

“Stop being dramatic…”, San replied, lazilly. “Dramatic? I’m going to hit you and I don’t care if you are about to sleep.”, You threatened.

“I...you…”

“What?”

“Good night.”

“Choi San!”

#ateez san #ateez imagines #ateez au #ateez fluff #ateez imagine #choi san #choi san imagine #ateez kpop #ateez kq #Fiance au #choi san x reader

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darkanachronism · 4 years

Text

Keziah Mason Meets the Whateley’s

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?" Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman.

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

~~~~~

What’s this, me posting writing on main? More likely then you think. Anyways have the Lovecraft crossover no one asked for.

Wilbur had been preparing the shed for some time now. He didn't have to yet, but he would eventually with Twin getting as big as it was.

For now though, he just wanted a bit of space. A little respite from his mother, from his brother. From the Byhakee it had upstairs.

Just a quiet place to read, to write, to study.

Admittedly it was a rather sad little makeshift lab, but it was his nonetheless. The chairs and tables fit him, he barely had to stoop to get in the door, yes this was as comfortable as he could hope to get.

Wilbur was just about to enter with another armful of books when he heard a crash from inside.

The crash, and accompanying string of curse words belonged to an old woman stumbling out of a corner, tripping over a pile of books and face planting onto the floor.

Keziah Mason has taken a wrong turn on her trip back to Arkham. Something she immediately decided not to tell anyone about, in a rush or not this was an amateur mistake.

She rolled onto her back and cussed again. Being fairly certain she'd heard some bone or other make a noise it shouldn't. And took in her surroundings, digging in the pockets of her robe for something to throw at whoever owned the place.

The door creaked open and Keziah was staring down the barrel of a revolver.

Fuck.

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?" Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman. She looked harmless.

So did lots of things.

Keziah blinked in surprise, trying to take in all of the massive figure that loomed above her, to place the unearthly stink that came off him, and come up with an answer to his questions all at once.

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

She managed two out of three, and to stall for time on the third. The gun lowered just a little, Wilbur's brows furrowing in surprise. Not the answer he’d been expecting. Or for that matter one he’d accept.

"I’ll answer yew once yew answer me seein’ as I asked first an' I've got the gun."

No point in distracting himself.

"Both valid points. I'm Keziah Mason, and I took a wrong turn. Now you."

Cryptic and sort of a non answer, but in certain circles her name preceded her, and in others bothering to explain that you were not just a common burglar but an fiendishly intelligent witch who could use her knowledge of advanced physics and arcane secrets to travel long distances via interdimensional shortcuts, well that sort of talk was just as likely to earn you a bullet as keeping quiet. Even if the man towering above her could barely pass for human himself.

" 's just how I smell is all." He answered her first question. "And I'm Wilbur Whateley." She hadn’t asked for a name, but it seemed polite to give one.

Whateley, of course, everything clicked into place.

“Yog-Sothoth’s kid then?” She asked quirking a wiry brow. She’d expected more...Tentacles? Maybe a tail or something. Still, something around the eyes put her in mind of the fathomless space beyond spaces.

The revolver dropped to Wilbur's side as he tried to puzzle through how to respond to being called out so casually. He nodded. Not sure what else to do.

"Help an old lady up would you?"

Wilbur did, hauling Keziah rather artlessly to her feet, still baffled into silence.

"How'd yew know that?"

Keziah shrugged. “Your family’s been at this for a while. Honestly I’m surprised things lined up."

"Yeah, guess et were a bit 've wurk on granpa's part." Wilbur trailed off mumbling, scratching the back of his neck and looking around for something else to discuss. The topic of his conception was awkward, he imagined that was one of the few things he had in common with any other teenager.

"Sorry, didn't catch that. Tinnitus." Keziah said, adding the explanation with a grimace. It was a small price to pay for visiting The Court of course, but a deuced nuisance most of the time.

"Uhh, Nuthin'." Wilbur said, before changing the topic abruptly.

"Yew still didn’t explain why yer here."

"Told you I took a wrong turn.” She was trying to sound casual, but perhaps came off as a tiny bit defensive. “Just a tiny miscalculation on my part. We are in New England aren’t we?"

"Dunnich."

Keziah pulled a face and Wilbur laughed.

"Take et yew've visited before?"

"Not if I can help it. Is it still as painfully backwoods as it was in...1786?"

Wilbur quirked a brow, sure, she looked old, but not that old.

"Nah, et's wurse."

"You poor thing." Keziah patted him on the arm, it was about all she could reach.

The condescension wasn't appreciated, nor was the physical contact, Wilbur pulled away from that, but since she evidently loathed Dunwich, he let it slide.

"Where were yew tryin' t' get then?"

"Arkham."

"That ain’t far,” Wilbur started helpfully. “Yew culd take our horse, Long as yew return et."

It’s not that he was a particularly generous man, he had no natural inclination to help a stranger out. But it wasn’t as if he was planning to ride anywhere any time soon.

Keziah chuckled.

"Thanks for the offer, but I can get there faster." Keziah glanced around the makeshift magical laboratory, looking for something.

"Do you have some graph paper I could borrow?" She asked after a moment.

"Uh, yeah I c-" Wilbur was cut off by a tentative knock on the half opened door.

"Wilbur, dinner's rea-," Lavnia called out, opening the door as she did so. Ordinarily she wouldn't but in like that, Wilbur had been so insistent on his privacy lately. But he’d left it ajar, so she didn’t see any harm.

She paused mid step to stare. In what world did Wilbur have company? And how had she missed the woman showing up in the first place.

"Who's yer friend?" .

Wilbur looked between the two and stepped out of the way to make introductions.

"Uh, hi Ma, this is-"

"Keziah Mason. One of Nyarlathotep's Thousand Favoured." she said, brushing past Wilbur and offering the other woman a hand to shake. No need to be cagey about who she was now.

Lavinia very quickly wiped her hands on her skirts before accepting, clearly flustered by the title drop.

"I'm Lavinia Whateley, pleased t' meet yew."

Wilbur wasn't half so impressed, actually he had to wonder what she did to earn the Crawling Chaos' attention. Or if she wasn't just full of shit like so many magicians turned out to be.

"I'm sure it's mutual. Don't let you keep you from Dinner though, I was just about to leave."

"Yew dun half tew, ef yew dun want. I mean, yew culd stay fer diner ef yew'd lak. We dun often have guests, 'specially 'un so destingished."

Wilbur winced at his mother's gushing and hand wringing. She was special enough in her own right that she shouldn't be tripping over herself to impress some witch who couldn’t even keep her angles right.

Admittedly Wilbur’s understanding of interdimensional travel and the mathematics involved in them were shaky at best. But he could make an educated guess as to what a wrong turn meant.

Keziah considered the invitation, taking a quick look at each of the Whateley’s to guess at how much of an intrusion she’d be before answering.

“Why not, I don’t really need to be back until Sunday.” She gave a casual shrug.

Lavinia positively beamed when the older woman accepted her invitation. A reaction that made Keziah question the other woman’s sanity just a bit.

“Well, house es this way ef yew tew want t’ follow me. Sorry ‘bout the house bein’ in a state, et’s ain’t usually this much ‘ve a mess.” Lavinia gestured for the other two to do just that, before backing out of the door way.

Wilbur let Keziah go out ahead of him and locked up behind the trio.

Dinner at the Whateley house was usually an awkward affair, consisting of strained attempts at small talk from Lavinia and increasingly successful attempts to avoid that small talk on Wilbur’s part. So a third party was appreciated, and it really didn’t take much to set Keziah off.

An idle question about how exactly she knew the Whateley’s from Lavinia prompted wild stories about Wilbur’s great great grandparents, questions about Yuggoth from Wilbur earned an even more energetic response. All the while Keziah displayed the kind of table manners that startled even Wilbur.

It was increasingly difficult to imagine the hunched old woman tearing into a drumstick with clawed hands and trying to explain the Dho Formula through a mouthful of chicken rubbing elbows with The Outer Gods, acting as a messenger for Nyarlathotep himself.

But she did know things. Gods did she know things. His grandpa has known some and read some, and Wilbur had done his best with that meager tutelage and a plethora of crumbling books. But Keziah, she rattled off facts and incantations and corrections to his magical theory like other people talked about the weather.

The conversation was beyond Lavinia’s grasp, she nodded when she thought it was appropriate. And was quickly forgotten by the other two. She didn’t mind though. It was a rare treat to see Wilbur so animated.

Dinner ended with everyone in a good mood, Lavinia offered to clear up and let the other two retreat to Wilbur’s lab, Keziah still had to work out exactly where she’d gone wrong in her calculations earlier, and Wilbur was eager for a crash course traveling the space between spaces.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll work slow so you can keep up.”

The teasing earned her a sour look. Even as Wilbur bent over the desk to see what she was working on.

“I’m sure I’ll manage just fine, I’m sharper ‘en most folks.”

“So am I.”

If Keziah made things a little unnecessarily complicated just to show off who could blame her. Wilbur was a nice enough kid. But she couldn’t let him think he was smart just because his dad knew absolutely everything there was to know.

Still, she helped. More than slaving over his books alone could. And after some untold hours. Keziah stood up, stretching and cracking her back and knuckles as she did.

“I think that’s enough for the night. I’ve got to get back to Arkham, and I really hate to travel when I’m tired.”

Wilbur looked down at her with a frown.

“S’pose ef yew’ve got tew. Like ma said, yew can come back whenever yew like. Jus’ use a door next time.”

Keziah let out a low scoff and rolled her eyes. “Absolutely not kid, doors are for people with no imagination.”

She traced a quick sign in the air, lines lingering that glowed a shade no human eyes could really appreciate, and without another word Keziah stepped through the corner of Wilbur’s laboratory and was presumably back in Arkham. The space she just occupied tilting strangely before folding in and righting itself.

Wilbur stared and wished he’d had his better eyes out to watch that. Probably would have been quite impressive to see in five dimensions.

#Wilbur Whateley #Lavinia Whateley #The Dunwich Horror #Keziah Mason #Dreams In The Witch House #my writing #I don't know how much of my writing I'll post #but I may as well right

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lovelyirony · 4 years

Note

55. “Just smile. I really need you to smile right now.” Tony and Sharon

Sharon is known for being the cousin that mediates most family drama. She’s the one who calms down the arguments that are from heated political debates, drags grandpa away before he can make a comment about the newest girlfriend introduced.

She’s the mediator, always there with a kind smile and a positive attitude.

So Tony’s a little surprised when she joins SHIELD, even though she takes classes for dance, language, and marksmanship. He’s always thought of SHIELD as a super-secret agency filled with stoic people and Aunt Peggy, who takes everything seriously and makes a super bad sweet potato casserole that no one eats and they all take turns throwing it away when Sharon distracts her.

Sharon’s always good at distraction. Tony knows this, has known it since he was twelve and she was nine and she managed to get the last of the pie that he had served himself.

But she could never keep a secret from him, and she knows that. She doesn’t even try to hide it when she comes to his apartment because she still lives close to her parents and she can’t bear them to see the stitches in her thigh.

“Mission gone wrong,” she says, voice harsher.

“Where at?” Tony asks.

“Just local. A couple of bad guys in the wrong part of town.”

“Too close to politics?”

“Got it in one.”

Tony’s silent because he’s not sure what else to say.

“How can I help?” he asks finally.

“Don’t ask,” Sharon warns, smiling. “It’s all fine.”

“You can say that when you need to get Aunt Josie out of the kitchen when she tries to take over cooking the turkey, not about a secret mission,” Tony says. “Because you have stitches in your thigh and you came to me, who is the Bad Cousin Example for the next two or so generations.”

Sharon smiles.

“And what, am I suppose to pretend you don’t make jokes and make the uncles mad at you to distract from the other cousins that we all know would get it worse?”

"Yes,” Tony says, “you’re supposed to do exactly that. Except not pretend, because I don’t do that out of kindness. I do it because if I have to hear one more damn speech from one of our uncles about ‘the good old days’ I’m going to go feral,” Tony remarks.

Sharon smiles and asks for a beer.

“You’re a baby, barely over twenty-one,” Tony teases, handing her a beer anyway. “But tell me how you beat the bad guys.”

She doesn’t always give specifics with her missions. He’s not expecting her to. But she comes home and she still smiles and he loves that about her.

It’s when he comes home with the taste of sand and blood in his mouth and a defined legacy when she smiles gently and asks whether or not they have time to stop for a burger.

“The shittiest burger imaginable,” Tony says. “Because I’m not going to your fancy place. To Burger King.”

“The hospital!” Pepper yells. “Oh my god Happy, don’t you dare...”

“I’m the one who has to sign your paychecks,” Tony says. “Burger King.”

Sharon gets caught up in something soon after Iron Man is born. He can’t keep a secret from her, but she can keep a secret from SHIELD. He’s depending on that.

And it’s when he gets palladium poisoning and she knows. She’s listened to enough rants about his inventing to know that palladium is dangerous with exposure ratings.

She does not smile. Her lips tremble and her eyes are wide as she crawls closer.

“Please smile for me,” Tony asks, eyes watering. “Please.”

“How can I?” Sharon whispers. “How can I smile when I know you’re dying?”

They sit in silence for a few moments. Tony looks out at a skyline that he’s quite sure he doesn’t have too much longer to see every night.

“Let us help,” Sharon adds quietly.

“And have me owe your company? You guys don’t do anything without a motive,” Tony says.

“I’ll owe them, not you.”

“Fury’s not that stupid,” Tony adds. Sharon looks to him. “I’m not totally clueless. Keep your enemies close and all that.”

“You saying SHIELD is your enemy?”

“No, I’m just saying they’re not on my Christmas mailing list for a reason,” Tony retorts. “I don’t care. They’ll have us both owing debts and cashing in at the most inopportune times.”

“You’re dying.”

“And I can manage,” Tony says harshly. “God knows there are other people who can take over my job, my life. And maybe...maybe this is how it’s meant to be.”

“It’s not,” Sharon says, scowling. “Because you’re Tony, who refuses to eat the gravy every year out of spite because Aunt Angie told you that one day you’d like it and you want to see how long you can go with disliking it and not trying it in front of her. You make robots that are sad when they can’t press an elevator button and then you make sure they can. No one else here is like you, so quit that and start fucking looking. You find different angles, so stop looking at the same ones and start the big picture of your life.”

The Stark Expo. Because of course his old man is still schooling him in some aspects. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth until the coconut and metal hit.

But Sharon smiles, and then he forgets how to do anything but smile back and promise to not make her sit at the kids table for Christmas if she can go.

“Deal,” Sharon says, grinning. “But you have to bring a home-cooked item and make everyone try it.”

“I can cook,” Tony says defensively. “I just don’t keep track of time very well and thus am banned from using family heirlooms.”

“And using stovetops at different houses,” Sharon giggles. “I’ll see you soon. Go kick ass and don’t sass Nick. You know how he hates it.”

“I’m gonna,” Tony responds. “Tell Natasha that the long curls aren’t a good look.”

“I definitely won’t.”

#sharon and tony: a duo #sharon carter #tony stark #sharon and tony are the ultimate cousins who are the closest and bond a lot #loveyirony writes #pepper potts #iron man #agent 13

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pastelgrungewrecker · 4 years

Text

Daddy Issues

Où est ton papa? Dis-moi où est ton papa?

They never stay past the morning. They never stay long enough for Mimi to learn their names.

It doesn’t stop her from asking who they are, it doesn’t stop him from saying, “No one important.” even when it makes his chest tighten.

He wonders if he should be calling himself that.

Drift leaves without a kiss goodbye; walks out of the bedroom with silent steps as he straightens his clothing and yawns- creeps by the creaking door to Mimi’s room and doesn’t look back at the sleepy, “Hullo?” he hears chase him out the door.

Mimi stares in confusion, seeing just a blur of white hair and red slashes over clothing that she knows she should recognize, but doesn’t. She slides on her glasses with a yawn, padding down to her father’s room and pushing the door open slowly.

“Papa, ‘s mornin’.”

“Mm.”

She clambers up onto his bed, all awkward tweenage angles and misplaced limbs before she giggles and flops over his stomach. She sees the odd markings over his throat, down his scarred chest; she ignores them, and she pokes just under his sternum to make him grunt softly and slit open his good eyes with a chuckle.

“Mornin’ Froggy.”

“Mornin’ Papa.”

He sits up slowly, back creaking with the effort. She pushes herself off his midsection and moves to hook an arm around his back- Like she learned back on the Trion, back when he couldn’t even manage to make his voice work.

“Careful Pops, go slow, remember?”

He nods, wincing slightly at the creaks and clicks of his body before he sits fully up. She looks down, settling next to him and curling against his side.

“Who was that this morning?”, she asks gently, unexpecting, out of habit.

“No one important.”, he answers, his arm around her shoulders as he tilts his head to rest on top of hers- an answer so normal its nearly tradition, “No one you need to really worry about.”

She nodded with a sigh. She’d already been hearing... things. Creeping around the common areas and searching out old Wreckers, old Kimia labjockeys; hearing the fateful tale of Perceptor and his Wanderer.

Her other father. The one Perceptor told her fairytales about, the one he painted like a knight in shining armor.

She decided, that morning as Perceptor kissed the top of her head and shooed her out of the room to go get some breakfast in her stomach, that she was going to find out the truth. She was going to talk to him, come hell or high water.

‘Besides.’, she reasoned in her young mind, ‘He’ll probably be excited to find out about me!’

The thought made her smile; and when Brainstorm grandly threw open the front door, bellowing his greetings and laughing as she ran up and flung herself on him in a hug- She couldn’t help the conspiratorial giggle.

Her schedule was as it always had been- She would get ready while Perceptor did; they’d playshove for space at the bathroom sink to brush teeth, to wash their faces. He’d fuss over her ponytail and she’d huff that “Crooked tails are COOL, Papa.”

She’d help him with the buttons on his shirt. They’d be silent for a moment and remember the days that it was body armor he’d put on. They’d leave that behind, he’d poke her sides and she’d yelp.

She’d cling to his arm when they left with Brainstorm. She didn’t much like the Lost Light- it hadn’t been long they’d been on it, but she already bitterly missed the Trion. It was smaller, cozier- there wasn’t a stupid ENFORCER on board.

She’d always shoot a little glare at him when they passed the bridge. She doubted he noticed.

She liked the lab; with it’s sterile counters and high shelves and oversized console screens- The way containers and glassware distorted her reflection, the swivel chairs in the offices.

As they enter, with Papa’s code (unchanged since who knew when), she’d be nudged to what Brainstorm always called “Mimi’s HQ” - an office outfitted with a console, a bookcase full of her textbook datapads, a little refrigerator, and a telecomm screen.

None of them spoke about how it was the office cube with the heaviest wall reinforcement. No one mentioned that the lockdown alarm trigger was right next to her door.

No one spoke about the plan that if the worst happened, Brainstorm was to be pushed into it, Mimi was to lock the door and hit the alarm- and Perceptor promised to protect them.

‘Brainstorm isn’t like us.’, Perceptor had told Mimi once in a strange kind of tipsy clarity, ‘He’s far more good than I, far more soft in the heart than you.’

It hurt, knowing her Papa could see the frostburnt edges she worked hard to hide.

But today she was going to fix that. She worked quickly and quietly, pushing through several lessons with a crooked grin she inherited from an absent parent until she was able to ping out a “Done!” message.

She saw Perceptor chuckle to himself and look over his shoulder before he nodded once. It was safe to leave the room, no hazardous materials- this time. Her flat-soled shoes made oddly hollow noises over the floor as she wandered for a moment before calling out that she was going to go to the training rooms- Much of the equipment was like a jungle gym for her, and it got her some exercise while they rumbled through space.

“You know the rules, stay out of the medibay and away from the lower floors!”

“I know!”

Her plan was so simple, yet so very perfect. She grinned as the lab doors hissed shut behind her, blocking off the beginnings of Brainstorm’s cackle and Perceptor’s angry yell of the scientist’s name. Mimi took off down the hall, shoes smacking against the too-slick and clean floorpanels as her eyes darted to and fro to read each door label.

Control Bridge, Rodimus, Magnus- Drift.

She all but skidded to a halt, and reached into her pocket. A tiny toolset- a gift from Brainstorm given with a wink and a whisper of “Whirl can teach you about the lockpicks.”

It was the work of seconds to make the keypad beep it Unlock tone, and Mimi smiled as the door opened. Sliding a foot in the way, she carefully reset the keypad- putting it painstakingly back together in an odd act of criminal politeness; before she ducked into the office and looked around.

Strange crystals on some of the shelves- books written in languages she had only a passing recognition of from when Topspin taught her about the world. From before he... Before he...

She shook her head, she wasn’t going to think about that now. All that could be in the past; Everything could be in the past. Birdy leaving and Papa being so quiet and cold for so long. The red haired Doctor and the man-in-white Mimi kept seeing leave her Papa’s room but she never recognized.

It would all be pulled away like an old band-aid; she’d have both her parents now, like a normal kid.

She took a few more steps, peering at the few pictures on the wall. She recognized some of the faces; not many, but some. She recognized Grandpa Kup, with his big cigar and his eternal squint. Uncle Springer, which made her frown and roll her eyes for a moment.

Uncle Blurr, whom she made a rude gesture at and giggled to herself as she continued looking.

Something hummed in the corner of the room. She turned on her heel, a soft sound escaping her. She tilted her head, looking at the antique sword gently set on a hanger on the wall, it’s massive decorative gem flickering even though the overhead light hadn’t moved. It flickered again, brighter, as she reached out to touch it but paused.

“Yeah, touching weird swords never worked out well in the movies.”, she muttered to herself, “Better not risk it.”

She wandered to the center of the room, her heart in her throat as she looked around at all the remnants of a life she remembered- the Trion, her Papa, the Wreckers who became a family to her...

But this time, she saw where her white-haired father fit in, where his puzzle piece belonged-

And then the door opened.

Drift grumbled to himself, rubbing his face with one hand as the door to his office opened and he stopped dead. The kid standing in the center of the room waved with a smile.

“...How did. How did you get in here.”

“Picked the lock. I fixed it though.”

“...Fair enough. Who... are you.”

He didn’t like how similar that sudden squint was, “You were at my house this morning, weren’t you. Visiting Papa.”

Ah, Perceptor had a child. This was lovely. Drift cleared his throat awkwardly, “Really don’t see how that’s any of your business, kiddo.”

“I’m Mimi; and you’re Drift. You’re my dad too.”

He didn’t mean to, but he sputtered out a laugh, “Good one! Good one, nice. Look, kiddo, you seem to be lost. Let’s get you back to Percy’s lab...”

“He told me all about you. You left before he started getting sick in the mornings- and then not long after I got here Garrus 9 happened.”, she continued, turning away to look again at the pictures, “He says you’re where I get my hair from, and my eyes. And my teeth, I think.”

Drift stared- He had to admit, this kid was pretty bold.

“I turn fourteen in about a month. That’s about how long it’s been since you were a Wrecker under Kup, right?”

Drift slowly nodded.

“He called you an asshole for not even leaving a commline to call you on. Topspin said the stress from you leaving is probably what triggered the morning sickness- He’d punch you for that if he could, his shoes never recovered.”

“If... he could?”

“He’s dead now; died on Garrus 9.”

Drift’s hand reached out for the arm of the sofa near the door, dragging himself to sit down, “So uh. So what else can you tell me huh?”

She pointed at one of the old photos, “That engine blew a few days after I was born- it’s not that weird green anymore, it’s orange.”

Drift nodded, mentally going over the few updates on the Trion he’d managed to dig up after he left- out of curiousity, of course... Not because he missed anyone. Anything.

Mimi rattled off old dates, lining up with a timeline Drift had built before he had approached Perceptor in Swerve’s the first time.

“For old time’s sake.”, he’d purred into the scientist’s ear. Had Perceptor mentioned a kid? He might have, Drift couldn’t remember.

“And... now here we are.”, said Mimi brightly, “I found you, like I always said I would.”

“Look, I get you’re excited over a possiblity-”

“But-”

“It’s a possibility, kiddo- your Papa probably had a lot more uh. Partners than me, okay? There’s no proof I’m even your dad.”

“You were the only one he’d been with in the like, two years before I was BORN.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yeah I’ve only shared living quarters with him since before I knew how to eat with a fork!”

“LOOK. There’s no proof, this is all something called hearsay, okay?”

“Then call the medibay and order a test. I’ll consent to one. Papa wouldn’t lie about this, Mister Drift- I know him. I know him better than anyone ever.”

Drift rubbed his face, “Just. Gimme a second.”

Mimi’s gaze hardened, he hated the tiny similarities that made him doubt his own words, and she held out a comm, “Here. Call Papa or the medics if you need to. I don’t use it often because wearing it-”

“Gives you a little blister right behind the ear, right.”, said Drift quietly, hooking the commpiece over his ear, “Anyway- Drift to Perceptor.”

:: Drift? Why in the HELL do you have Mimi’s- Oh no.::

::Yeah- she thinks I’m her DAD Percy.::

Silence, and Drift felt his stomach grow cold.

::Perceptor, reply.::

::You are. Look, it’s a long story, I’ll come get her-::

::No, HELL no- This is sick, Perce. SICK. A kid? You expect me to just believe I’ve had a secret kid? No, I’m setting this straight- You can pick her up at the medibay, because she’s right. We need to test this.::

::Drift NO-::

Drift pulled the commpiece off his hear, holding out to Mimi and frowning at the way she plucked it from his hand.

“You need to be set straight-”

“You first, jerk.”

“Very funny; We’re going to the medibay, and you’ll get your test kiddo. And when this whole story Percy spun you falls apart, I’m calling Rung and getting you both some help.”

“And when it proves I’m right, what’re you going to do?”

“It won’t, that’s the whole point.”

Mimi followed him like a stormcloud as he pulled his own commpiece from a pocket and contacted Ratchet, all but growling his demands and rolling his eyes at the soft wince he heard from the CMO.

::Alright, alright if this is really the hill you wanna die on, hippy- Lemme call Magnus to notorize everything.::

::What, why?!::

::Cos this goes on medical records, Drift. And thanks to a lotta wartime bullshit Magnus wants all records changes notorized. Don’t worry, he’ll only take a minute to get down here. How’s Mimi?::

::Obnoxious.::

::One of many traits she has that matches you. See ya in a bit.::

Drift frowned at the “joke” as the medibay doors came into view. Magnus flinched as he waited by them, as Mimi growled in her throat.

“Oi, watch it kiddo.”

“As long as he’s not here to steal anymore parents.”

“Hello to you too, Mimosa.”

Drift blinked in mild confusion before he pushed the doors open, holding them as Magnus slunk in and Mimi stomped after him and Ratchet sat between two mediberths with a tired expression.

“Paperwork’s on the desk over there Magnus. Drift, on my left. Mimi, my right.”

“Oh YOU’RE the redhead I see sometimes, Mister Ratchet.”

“Pfft, yep- Sorry for not sayin’ my hellos but I was trying to make your Dad go the hell to sleep.”

“Fun, right?”

“See?”, said Drift flatly, “More than me.”

Ratchet glared at him, “I’m Percy’s doctor, dumbass- When he has a fainting spell or his old injuries act up I handle it. Mimi’s just a blind baby bat without her glasses-”

“HEY!”

He laughed, rumbling and smooth before looking between the pair of them, “So, what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna take a sample from both of you. Then I’m gonna call First Aid, and he’s gonna run it through some bullshit sci-fi machines-”

“RATCHET!”, called a distant voice, “STOP CALLING THEM BULLSHIT SCI-FI YOU OLD FART!”

Ratchet snickered to himself, “Anyway, they’ll be put through a machine to analyze and compare them, and I’ll be able to pull up the results on the mobile console. A hard copy will be put in both y’r medical files, and we’ll all know the truth.”

They all looked to the door when it slammed open, Perceptor leaning forward with a hand on his knees and Mimi looked away.

“Then let’s do this.”, she said, her voice soft yet bitter. When she felt the mediberth shift, she leaned with it to fall gently against Perceptor in an arm-free hug for a moment.

She hated the taste of swabs. Drift didn’t much like them either.

“Do you need to take blood too?”, asked Mimi with a tilt to her head that suggested intrigue more than fear.

“We can use things present in blood to kind of double check our results, yes.”, said Ratchet quietly, sealing the sample vials tightly as First Aid’s footsteps clacked over to them, “But it’s not required.”

“Do it.”

Ratchet looked to Drift, something shadowed in his expression, “Pardon?”

“Do it.”, said Drift flatly, glaring at Perceptor, “I want this blown out of the water.”

“...Alright. You’re lucky this isn’t in ancient history- I’d have to make you wait a full forty eight hours for results.”

“How long will results take?”, asked Perceptor, his voice already hoarse from worry as one arm went around Mimi’s shoulders.

“About ten to fifteen minutes.”

“Start counting down, Percy.”, spat Drift. Perceptor said nothing, instead rocking Mimi gently and murmuring to her; soft words and gentle scolds underlined in understanding.

“Drift- stop talking shit, wouldja.”, said Ratchet flatly as he gently maneuvered Mimi’s arm to prepare to take a small blood sample, “You never know what might happen with this, and that last thing you need is to be proven an asshole.”

“Alright, last thing- since Drift wants to be ever so thorough- Percy, if you could?”

Percy nodded, not even flinching as samples were taken from him, barely noticing his arm being moved away and back to it’s position around Mimi.

“Why’d you take from Perceptor?”, asked Magnus quietly.

“Just a way to narrow it all down- Everyhting Mimi gets from Percy will ping, and then if everything left pings for Drift, then it’s a solid irrefutable test.”

“I see.”

The fifteen minutes was torture. Tense silence, Drift with arms crossed firing angry glares at Perceptor, who avoided his gaze and simply held Mimi, who clung back to him.

When Ratchet saw the notification appear on the mobile console, he looked from Percy, to Mimi, to Drift.

“Say your last words before the big reveal.”, he said, trying to smile and failing.

“I hope you learn a lesson, Perce.”, snapped Drift, “She’s a kid, not a tool.”

Perceptor simply looked at Drift, making the swordsman jerk back slightly at the viciousness present in the gaze, “I hope Ratchet isn’t too rough when he puts your useless carcass back together, you bedhopping piece of garbage.”

Ratchet pulled up the results on the mobile console, swallowed hard, and turned it.

“It’s confirmed with 99.999 percent certainty. Drift is, in fact... Mimi’s father.”

“I TOLD YOU!”, she shrieked, “I TOLD YOU!!”

Drift stared. The entire world narrowed down to that screen; the marks and lines and dots and dashes suggesting that he was not just her father, but that she took mostly after him.

“I. I’m gonna be sick.”, he choked.

“Too bad.”, said Perceptor’s voice.

Drift looked up, and then saw nothing. When color and sight came back to him, the medibay was dim from night hours- Ratchet was seated next to the mediberth and touching up a stinging part of Drift’s lip.

“Wh. What.”

“Perceptor took a helluva swing at you.”, said Ratchet, “Mimi ran off- we found her, don’t worry; well, if you’d even worry.”

“Rude.”

“I’m rude? You spat bullets at someone who has YET to lie about anything aside from his own health, Drift. In front of your KID.”

“H-Hhhhow w’s I sposed to- ow-OW.”

“Hold still, Percy split your lip in two places. Swelling’s gone down thankfully. Anywho, Mimi ran to her good ol’ Uncle Birdy, so enjoy your future ass-beating.”

“Uncle whaty?”

“Uncle Birdy. Her name for Whirl.”

“Wh- Aw sonuvabitch...”

“You’re an idiot Drift. And, as y’showed today, an asshole. I’ve called Rung already, Magnus agreed that our primary focus is Mimi right now, and Percy-”

“And what about me?”, snapped Drift before wincing at the pain in his lip.

Ratchet glared at him, “What about you, you fuckin’ bully? You coulda just commed Percy, and asked him about it, and not been a dick the entire time I had to test for fuckin’ PATERNITY.”

Drift was quiet, and then groaned as he rolled onto his back and one leg dangled off the mediberth, “...I have a fucking kid, oh god.”

“Yup, and so far you suck at being a dad.”

“Fuck you doctor.”

“Fuck you too.”

#tf #humanformers #fankids #drift #perceptor #ratchet #in which drift is an asshole before the maury reveal and everything goes to shit #dont worry he gets better

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petitelepus · 6 years

Text

Halloween, 2. Lost

What is lost is lost, what about when you’re lost also? Thanks to @imababblekat!

She keeps me company sometimes and we bond over Transformers! Enjoy people, these are starting to be shorter from this day onwards! Oh yeah, and nobody character dies in this chapter.

You were visiting an alien planet with Drift on tow with you while Lost Light was resting in docking area. The streets were bustling with alien lifeforms and everything was so exotic. There was a festival going on, but you didn’t really know much about it. Drift said it was some kind of a planet’s tradition, but neither of you had no idea what the tradition was. You just shrugged and went with the flow and that flow took you to this small mysterious shop.

The shop was actually so small that it was perfect with for you, but Drift had to take his haloform to fit inside. The shop was old, made of old brown painted cracking wood, crystals of all sorts were hanging from the ceilings and walls were filled with all sorts of space hippy voodoo stuff.

The owner, a humanoid with four arms greeted you. He was a sad looking little thing, like a old grandpa holding a cane with two of his lower arms while he read a book with his upper arms through his slit eyes.

”Hello there mister.” You went to greet him, only for him to put his book down and put a hand to his ear and asked you to repeat. You did. Five times and in the end he thought you were admiring his collection. Well, you were, but you were also trying to be polite so you just smiled and waved.

Drift and you looked around, Drift staying behind you to ask the old man about the crystal tree he was selling, only to old man to ask him if he wanted tea with tentacle dip?

You giggled by yourself as you made your way to deeper parts of the store looking through all sorts of weird objects that were at some point of the time in some part of the universe used in some kind of rituals and traditions. That’s when you venture to the hall of mirrors.

There must have been hundreds of mirrors all sizes. Big, small, round, square, everything! Your reflection greeted you wherever you looked and you had to admit it, you looked good today. A little make up never hurt, especially around aliens who could be pretty finicky.

That’s when you saw it. A mirror bigger than you had ever seen before, covered with big dusty cloth. The cloth looked old and moth eaten by the edges and you think it might have been black at one point, but it had dulled into dirty grey. Time had really been rough on this one.

You were about to walk past it and continue if you would happen to find a mirror you would like… When you heard a tap?

Confused, you looked behind yourself thinking that Drift was following you, but there was no one. The tap was heard again and you walked backwards until you could identify the source of the tapping. They were coming from behind the cloth.

You looked around yourself and carefully pulled the fabric away off. The sight behind it was breathtaking. It was the prettiest mirror you had ever seen and by far the largest. The frame must have some kind of an alien metal because it glowed in different shades of rainbow which ever angle you looked at it from.

Then the image of you. It was you, looking back you yourself. You smiled to the mirror, but something was wrong. Somehow your smile game off as a smirk and before you knew it, arms stuck out from your mirror image, forcefully grabbed you and you shrieked Drift out as the arms pulled you in.

You landed on the ground with a thud, confused and dazzled beyond belief. You pushed yourself up on your feet and turned to look back at the mirror, but it was dark for some reason. Weird. Maybe you had a weird seizure or hallucination from the incenses in the shop.

Creeped out by the whole situation, you turned and left the hall of mirrors, returning back to Drift and the old shop keeper. ”Drift, the weirdest thing just happened to me and I have no clue how to explain it.”

The mech in holoform turned to look at you from the case of voodoo dolls. ”What the frag are you talking about?” He snarled, snarled at you and you jolted in shock. Drift never even raised his voice at you, let alone glared you like he was doing now.

”Drift, what’s wrong? You’re acting weird…” You asked from your friend and his glare at you turned harsher. ”If there is someone acting weird it’s you bitch. Did you hit your numbskull or something?”

Now you were officially shocked. You quickly glanced at the shopkeeper, but you were taken a back by the sight of him. Instead of smiling nice looking old man you were greeted by a fossil of one. Wrinkles more than anyone could count, eyes closed shut and weakly just sitting on the chair and gripping the table. He was not the same old man you had seen when you had entered the store.

You were jolted from your shock when Drift grabbed your arm and dragged you out of the store. ”We’re leaving, this place is a dumb…”

You were shocked to see that the planet where you were at wasn’t as happy looking and filled with life as it was earlier. Everything was gloomier, people and aliens were sulking instead of talking happily— Did that guy just get stabbed!?

You had no time to worry about a complete stranger’s health when Drift was dragging you through the crowd a way too forcefully, his claws almost piercing your skin and hurting you.

”Ouch, Drift—!”

”I told you, I’m not Drift! I’m Deadlock!” He shouted at you and you flinched in shock. Suddenly everything made more sense. Drift would never raise his voice at you let alone call you with horrible names. As you looked closer you could even see that his sky blue eyes weren’t what they used to be, but they were crimson!

”Y- You’re not Drift…!” You stuttered and in rush of adrenaline you yanked your arm back from him and run to the crowd. You could hear the Deadlock shouting and cursing after you, but you didn’t care, you had to get back to that store! Luckily you didn’t make it far.

You threw the store’s door open and without even a glance to elder man you run to hall of the mirrors where the giant mirror rested.

”Hey! Anybody! Is there someone there!?” You shouted and banged your fist against the mirror. Suddenly the darkness was lifted and you were greeted by a sight of you on the mirror, but she wasn’t you. She was something far more malicious and evil with the wicked look in her eyes that compared to your kind ones really struck the difference out.

”So, how’s the life in there?” The other you asked. ”Though you have been there exactly 5 minutes.”

”Let me out! Let me return! Please, I don’t belong here!” You cried as you placed your hands against the mirror and tried to push through it but it wouldn’t let you back in your own world no matter how much you pushed!

The other you raised an eyebrow at you. ”Why should I? I don’t want to return there and I like it here. Sunny and calm, the whole planet is totally different from there.” She grinned and leaned in closer as if to tease you. ”I wonder how Lost Light back in here is…!”

”Leave them alone! Leave my friends alone!” You shouted and banged your fists against the glass, really now just wanting to beat your evil side up. She snickered. ”You mean my friends? I’m you now and you are me and let me tell you, at the Lost Light there, you have no friends what-so-ever~”

You stopped hitting the glass and just glared at the sight of you. ”You’re evil…!”

”So I’ve told~”

”Let me back at once!”

”Not a chance! This is the moment I’ve been waiting for ages!” The other you shouted right back at you and you recoiled at the harsh and cruel tone of her voice. If the bark could hurt you would be good as dead.

”So… You came from the other side as well.” Came a voice behind other you. You looked over other yours shoulder and saw the shop keeper standing behind the other you. Other you turned around and placed her hands over her hips, striking a sassy pose.

”Yeah, so? What’s it up to you old man?” The other you asked without a hint of care in her voice. You hit your fists against the glass and shouted with all your might. ”Please mister! Let me out!”

The old man didn’t move and inch. He just kept staring at the other you… Until a wicked grin grew to his face. You gasped in shock and shop keeper laughed. ”Finally! I’ve been waiting years for someone else to come over and the other side!”

You heart froze in horror of realisation. The old man on this side of the mirror, the meek and half dead old man was originally from your world…! What had happened to him in this world that could have turned him from the used to be him to this weak shell of a person he was now…?

Your blood turned cold at the idea of you spending any more second in this world and you banged your fists harder against the glass. ”Please, let me out, please!”

The other you and the other shopkeeper completely ignored you in favour of discussing between each other.

”So you old fart are also from the other side?” The other you asked and grinned. ”You changed places with original owner and locked him up in our world. That’s wicked.”

The hold man chuckled. ”Oh, it has been years since I came over. Life has been good ever since I changed places with my wimpy counterpart. Like my wife here wasn’t a bitch like in there…!”

The other you chuckled. ”I hear you old man. Life was one big shit fest in there. Hey old man.” The other you glanced at you over her shoulder and smiled. ”Do you mind if I break this mirror of yours?”

Your heart froze and you hit the mirror harder until your hands started to bruise. The old man stopped smiling, cracking an eye open to look at other you like he was testing her. ”I don’t mind, but are you sure girlie? You won’t be able to go back to our world after that. You think you’re ready to live here in a world unknown to you where nothing you knew is real?”

The other you grinned madly and with a few steps walked up to old man, snatching his walking cane from his hands and raising it above her head. ”I’ve never been sure of anything in my life…!”

”No, please no!” You cried, but no avail. The other you swung the cane down and shattered the mirror, the image of you and your chance of returning back home with one cruel swing.

The mirror shattered and you cried out as shards flew straight at you from the mirror and you fell back on your ass. You carefully opened your eyes and saw to your greatest loss that the mirror was no more. Only shards of glass in your feet and over you.

”There you are!” Came a angry growl from behind you and before you knew what hit you, Deadlock yanked you forcefully up by your upper arm and started to drag you away. ”Always doing what you want…! If Captain wasn’t so keen to you I would have taken you by force ages ago…!”

”W- wait!” You cried, pleading him to stop just at the door of the shop. You reached towards the elder shop keeper. ”Please explain that this is a huge mistake! We don’t belong to this world, we’re from the other world!”

The old man shakily lifted his head and tried to talk, but to your shock you saw that his tongue had been cut off and by the sign of it it had been ages ago. All he could do was mumble and grumble incoherently, still trying to talk.

Deadlock groaned and pulled out a gun. ”What a drag…!” And he shot the shopkeeper right where he stood! You cried our in horror, your hands flying over your mouth in shock and Deadlock blew the still smoking pipe of his gun before putting it back.

”Now…” He started and he sounded more ominous and darker than before as he looked at you with his dark crhinsom eyes gleaming. ”What was this I’m not from this world whining?” There was a dark and wicked smirk on his face and you felt your blood truly freeze as he dragged you away.

On the other side of the mirror, in your world the other you chuckled with a pleased grin and threw the cane to somewhere, effectively breaking another mirror.

”(Y/n)!” At the sound of your name, the other you turned and saw Deadlock, no, someone else standing on his place. He looked like her Deadlock, but his eyes weren’t blood red but light blue like sky back in Earth. If her Deadlock used to be Drift he must have been formerly known as Deadlock.

The other you gave him the most awkward look she could manage and rubbed the back of her head. ”He he… I’m sorry Drift, I accidentally broke this mirror… You aren’t mad are you…?” She was testing the waters. Her Deadlock would have been furious, but this Drift just smiled kindly and nodded, reaching for his pocket.

For a second your evil twin thought he was pulling out his gun and was going to shoot you and she was ready to bounce on him, but she flinched when he instead pulled out a wallet.

”It’s okay, I can cover it. Sir, how much would the mirror be?” Drift asked smiling to the old man. The man grumbled a little under his breath and finally announced the price. ”100 000 tieras. It was a old thing.”

That was robbery! You were so proud of the old man. Your Deadlock would have killed the man on the spot and dragged you off, but this Drift just dug out a fortune without batting an eye and handed out the money. ”Here, this should cover the expenses. Once again, I’m horribly sorry for this.”

The old man said nothing, nodded and smiled pleasely as he accepted money with two of his hands. ”Thank you young man. You’re such a nice customer.”

Drift smiled, but then he noticed that the other you was still standing in middle of the broken glass and quickly swept her in his arms, much to her surprise. She let out a small yelp, quickly wrapping her arms around his neck.

”Careful! There’s glass everywhere!” The mech in human suit warned and the other you grinned.

”Yes. Shattered glass indeed.”

#Transformers #Transformers MTMTE #Reader #Reader Insert #Drift/Deadlock #Drift #Deadlock #Death #Shattered Glass #Writing #My story #Enjoy!#Halloween Challenge #Challenge

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khrow-shinku · 3 years

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The Great War S19

D&D 5e Campaign

The Great War

Session 19

We return to our “heroes'' with Ara noticing several children dead in soldiers' uniforms. Ara’s anger and power had already started to escalate beyond Thefa’s ability to calm her and as such Ara was actively changing the weather with her heat at this point unbeknownst to Ara. When Ara realized just how many children were dead on the field, it was obvious by the size of the foot print on their flattened corpses it was Rooklus’s handywork. This drove her rage beyond her mental capacity to withstand it causing her to lose her sanity. Upon losing her sanity, her power went out of control. The power both of her parents knew was unawakened within her suddenly awakened violently against her will and judgement because without her sanity there was nothing to keep the massive well of power in check. It began to transform and morph her body in new and unusual ways. Her eyes began to glow crimson, her tail swelled up and became more muscular as the heat inside her burned her skin black as charcoal and turned her clothing to ash before the charred skin began to peel off revealing the glowing form underneath that looked like magma. Thefa at this point was unable to stand and was forced to kneel and bow to Ara as the aura being emitted by Ara pushed her down. At this point the dragon was burned alive and tinkerman was melted into the ground. Rooklus grabbed the rest of the party and ran as fast as he could away from Ara except Rin and Baruch. Baruch turned ethereal hoping to avoid the damage and be there to heal anyone alive when it was over. Rin stayed behind, intentionally putting herself directly in harm's way, she then fell to her knees and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Grandpa I know you’re watching I need to talk to you now! Face to face and I do mean hurry!” With that Rin blinked out of the realm.Rooklus ran for several hundreds of yards hoping it was enough, he collapsed to the ground tired and turned to look to see if he made it far enough away only to see he had not. It was at the moment Rooklus looked back to see a giant ball of fiery plasma that was shrinking and turning darker. A few moments later it implodes and sucks everything in this and 2 other solar systems into it, destroying all life within them except Baruch who is now floating in space, still ethereal. Baruch’s inner monologue “Oh shit, when this spell ends how am I going to breath? Welp this sucks.”

Meanwhile in a realm outside of time and space a very panicked and frightened Rin tries to compose herself. “Ummm Grandpa, if I’m allowed to call you that? I mean I’ve been told not to use your real name, hell I don’t even know your real name… anyway… you here?” Rin questioned hesitantly. “Yes little one I am here, and yes you may call me that. Why did you ask me to bring you here?” He asked. “Well I know you were watching and… I know it's more than likely a taboo but can you please rewind time just a little? Just right before that battle. I know I can fix it so please, If you do I swear to come stay with you once my journey is done so please just please do this just this once. Please!” Rin begged. “Heh my dear child how many times have we made these deals before? You wish to add to it now in a different way? Sigh…” he said exasperated. Rin looked at him with a puzzled look, “What do you mean before? I’ve never come to you asking for anything before. What are you talking about?” He chuckles to himself, “Oh that’s right this is the first time, this time. How easily I forget that. Anyway pay no mind to that, yes, yes I’ll do it. I have nothing but faith in you deary.” With that Rin blinked back to the battlefield at the beginning before anyone had done anything.

Rin appears on the battlefield, turns to the party and looks at them. “Ok everyone stop, no one do anything. We’ve done this before.. It did not go entirely as planned. To prove it, JJJ you were just going to ask Rooklus to throw you at the main enemy, over the soldiers.” JJJ’s eyes got wide and he nods looking at everyone before Rin continues. “Ok Rooklus I want you to still do that however do the same to me right after you throw him but aim me at a 45 degree angle so that I go a bit higher. JJJ. you do exactly everything you are thinking of doing. Rooklus shrugs and throws JJJ then throws Rin at a 45 degree angle towards the enemies. (HAH Mammoth 1 Fox 1 Fire, Fox 2 Fire! Hahaha, right DM!) JJJ does the exact same attack as before breaking the leader’s shield. Rin while in the air transforms, sprouting her incorporeal wings as she draws her katana flipping her the speed switch on her katana. With a swift blur she ascends skyward til only the twinkle from light reflecting off her sword is seen and she dives down and slams her katana through the leader's neck. The blow results in a complete beheading and his entire body is sliced into tiny perfectly congruent cubes.(Hey DM you should give her that as a permanent move, call it “Sky Gullotine” you know that sounds fucking awesome right? Everyone has to name their moves, it's just a part of the hero thing isn’t it?) Seeing the tyrant fall the soldiers ran away screaming “..don’t kill us.. ..we never wanted to fight.. ..thank you for killing him.. ..aahhhh!”

Rin then took this time to walk back over to the party and fill the party in on everything that happened the first time and explained why she took over the party for a moment and had them completely scrap all of the plans they had made before. However before doing so she looks at the dragon and tells him to sit and asks him to put down tinkerman. To the party’s amazement he listened. Rin also notices as she rejoins the party and Ara arrives on the scene that Ara’s mood circlet has changed. Where it was previously, there is now the top part of a dragon skull embedded into her skin going into her hair. Only it is no longer her hair it seems as though the illusionary flame has fully merged with her hair and the flames now are her on the top of her head however the back still looked the same. During all of this a blue haired female appears standing on Biska's tail however Biska feels no weight on her tail as if the girl is weightless. Biska then asks her politely to get off her tail and she does. The soldier’s come back to get their weapons cautiously. One of the elders among the soldiers thanks the party for getting rid of the tyrant and asks who they are.

Rin and Thefa nudge Ara forward gently yet forcefully and Rin whispers to her using the tongue rings, “Now is your time, talk to your people and tell them who you are. You can do this queenie!” Thefa just nods to Ara and motions her to do it as well. Ara clears her throat and then begins speaking in a very royal manner, “ Hello citizens of Aeldari. My name is Aravari Domarien..” Thefa chimes in through the tongue ring, “Use your mothers maiden name!” Ara then bounces back quickly and charismatically, “Or as some of you may better know me, Aravari Nishimoto, daughter of Bekari Nishimoto and rightful heir to rule of this country.” As soon as they hear the name Nishimoto all of them take a knee and kneel recognising her as their queen. “I came here with my friends to free you from this hellish nightmare and take back the throne. I will put an end to all of this and you will never live in such dire straits like this again. I will bring this country back to its former glory and beyond. You may now stand.” Ara commands. As they all stand upon her command Ara whispers through the tongue ring, “I could get used to this queen business.” After standing an elder chimes in “So does that mean you’ve taken care of the council?” “What council?” Ara asks. The elder further explains that there is a council of business owners, known as the council of nine hands, who are running things and that those two idiots were nothing more than puppets that acted as the figure heads. Ara quickly responds, assuring them she will take them out too, she promises, and she sends them on their way to go home to their loved ones.

The party then goes back to the castle to do some planning on how to approach this council situation. Once the castle comes into view the party notices it is almost completely repaired, the specter butlers had been very busy while the party was away. The dragon, Biska, and mysterious blue haired female, also come back to the castle playing a round of Tinkermanball, that is to say they were throwing him around like a giant ball. Baruch talked to his deity to find out if he had any offspring in the area. Turns out he had a lot so he left to go talk to them about what they knew if anything. Thefa, Rin, and Ara started going through the books in her castle library. However before they could hit the books the head knight of the guy Ara one shot, shows up. (Yeah DM not your best moment, still salty about how anti-climatic that one was.) She asks who killed him. Ara speaks up and announces herself as future queen, daughter of the queen that shirked her responsibilities as queen that lead to all this. She then adds saying, “I am the one who killed him. I intend to retake what was intended for me and fix this mess.” The knight responds, “Ok well I should warn you I work for the council you are going to have to go against to achieve your goals.” Ara then asks, “Is there is some way I can convince you to work for me instead as a double agent. Keep me informed of the council’s movements etc.” The knight thinks for a moment. “Perhaps as long as you can do something for me once you’ve taken over. Pardon my brother of his crimes and free him from prison.” Ara asks, “Depends, what did he do to get in there?” The knight answers, “He tried to impersonate a member of the Nishimoto clan in order to get rid of the council.” Ara chuckles, “Is that all? Yes yes, once I have control he will be fully pardoned and rewarded for being an outstanding citizen who attempted to help his people. Given the way things are I do not blame him and I understand his reasons.” With this the two struck a deal and the knight left to continue her duties.

Baruch on the way to meet up with his family was able to talk to his offspring in the city through his deity and ask them all to meet up at a tavern in town. He then arrived at the tavern one of his offspring owned and he had a secured room that Baruch could do research in and he had lots of books on sensitive topics. It was odd to say the least to find such a room in a tavern. Baruch then talks with all of his offspring and sends them out to collect info for him. Baruch then chimes in using the rings and informs the party that he has found some more books and lets the party know his location if anyone wishes to join and assist. Rooklus and JJJ feeling there was too much estrogen here decided to go help Baruch. Baruch notices that the door and only exit to the room he is in looks strong enough to withstand a mammoth with no issues, curious to say the least. Rooklus and JJJ finally caught up to Baruch and joined him in the back room and helped him with the research.

The girls found books with updated laws on how the caste system actually is in the country at the current time. The boys found an older book of that same caste system dated around 100 years prior to the book the girls found. At this point the boys contacted the girls through the rings and they began comparing notes on the books. During the conversation Rin and Baruch both suddenly are able to see both copies side by side through some magical means that neither of them had activated to their knowledge and their tongues were itching for some reason right around the tongue rings. (Really divine intervention? All because they are connected to celestials? Ugh, what is this hallmark?) They noticed the writer of both was different. The newer copy was written by Alfonse Le Darc about 31 years before his death. Rin gasps, “Oh shit guys, that’s the scumbag whose ass we kicked who was doing shady shit behind the queen or Urildyr’s back? He was on that list of assholes trying to start the war.” To be continued...

#d&d #d&d5e #campaign #the great war #session 19 #homebrew #dnd

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onlymorelove · 7 years

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Fic: The Boy I Used to Know (1/1)

Title: The Boy I Used to Know (1/1) Fandom: Timeless Characters: Wyatt Logan, Garcia Flynn, Iris Flynn Rating: PG-13 or T Notes: Written in response to the following prompt from @timeless-fanfic-prompts : How to save the world in five simple steps. Summary: It’s two years today that the police found Jessica’s body, and Wyatt’s chest aches and his stomach tightens. (AU without time travel)

If you read this, thanks. Feedback is treasured; constructive criticism is welcomed.

Read below the cut, @ FF.net, or on AO3. Rating: T Tagging @extasiswings.

"You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics." -Charles Bukowski

"Grandpa Sherwin, how do you save the world? Jack Riley told me you gotta have a sword to do that, and Mama said we don't have enough money to buy one. How'm I gonna save the world without a sword?"

"Well now, Wyatt, that's a great question. Come sit here." The old man patted the empty spot beside him on the threadbare brown sofa. When Wyatt clambered up and raised questioning eyes to him, he brushed his hair back from his forehead and sighed. "Son, you don't need a sword to save the world. I'll tell you how to save the world in five simple steps. Are you listening?"

The boy nodded vigorously.

"Show me your listening ears so I know I have all your attention."

Wyatt set both hands to his ears and pushed them forward.

His grandfather smiled. "Step 1," he said, holding up his thumb, "make a difference in one person's life." Next he raised his index finger. "Step 2: Make a difference in one person's life." His middle finger came up. "Step 3: Make a difference in one person's life." A fourth finger was added. "Step 4: Make a difference in one person's life." Finally, he held up his pinky; five fingers total were raised. "And last, but not least, Step 5: Make a difference in one person's life."

Wyatt's forehead wrinkled. "But Grandpa, all the steps you said are the same."

"I know they are, son. That makes them easier to remember." Smiling fondly, he wrapped an arm around his grandson's shoulder. "You'll remember them, won't you, Wyatt?"

The boy's expression smoothed out, and he nodded. "Yes, sir. I promise I will."

"That's my boy."

It's two years today that the police found Jessica's body, and Wyatt's chest aches and his stomach tightens. He wants nothing more than to be alone in the middle of Zola's Coffee and think about Jess—not about himself and all the ways he fucked up; not about what an asshole he was the night she died; not about his last words to her: You make me sick. No. He wants to remember her and how she liked to bake when she felt stressed. How her feet were always, always freezing at night and she used to press them against his bare skin to warm them up. How her arms felt like home.

Rain taps fingers against the window next to him in a steady beat that lulls Wyatt into a state of well, not exactly peace, but near-stillness, so he sighs and shuts his paperback, John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold . He drops the book on the scarred wooden table in front of him, next to the coffee that he can smell every time he inhales, but he hasn't sipped yet, and the strawberry cake pop—Jess' favorite flavor— still dressed in a plastic wrapper and cheery red ribbon. With his eyes closed and arms folded loosely over his chest, he stretches his legs out under the table, one boot propped on the other, and readies himself to fall into the memories.

A voice cuts through the haze. "...I understand there aren't more in your display case. But could you check again? I don't know— Aren't there more in your refrigerator? Or maybe under the counter?"

There's an edge to the stranger's voice, of desperation or something close to it, that Wyatt recognizes. That resonates inside him. He opens his eyes. A man, a tall one, stands in front of the register. A black umbrella dangles from one of his hands, dripping onto the floor and puddling at his feet. His other hand is entwined with a little girl's. They stand with their backs to Wyatt, so he can't see their faces.

"I'm sorry, sir," the guy behind the counter says, tugging at his name tag. "We're all sold out of the strawberry cake pops. But we still have mint, cookie dough, and chocolate, and they're all really—"

The umbrella drops, and the customer smacks his hand on the counter, making the shop employee jump. "My daughter wants the strawberry one. Nothing else!" His voice rings out through the coffee shop, ushering in a sudden hush. As if he's just noticed the attention he's attracting, he says, much more quietly: "My daughter, she just lost her mother. A week ago." The hand he cards through his dark hair trembles until he tightens it into a fist at his side. "Please," he adds, the word sounding half-strangled.

If Wyatt hadn't already made his decision, the please would have done him in. The shaky atmosphere is palpable, though, so reluctant to interrupt, he waits for the exchange to end.

"Sir, I'm so very sorry, but we don't have any strawberry cake pops left. Would you like to order anything else?"

The man and his daughter stand with their backs to Wyatt, so he can't see their faces, but he easily deciphers the message written on the checkout guy's face: pity and discomfort. With a silent shake of his head, the man picks up his umbrella and turns away, his shoulders hunched.

For the first time, Wyatt sees both their faces. He and Jess never got around to having kids when they still could, and now it's too late, so Wyatt hasn't spent much time around young children. Even to his inexperienced eyes, though, it's obvious the girl can't be more than four or five-years-old. He'd be sympathetic even if she threw a tantrum, given the intel he picked up while eavesdropping, but she remains quiet as tears slide down her cheeks.

Her father stops walking and stoops until he's at her eye level. "I'm sorry, Iris," he says, and his voice, whisky-rough and kissed with an accent he can't identify, holds such tenderness that Wyatt almost looks away, his chest heavy and aching with feelings he doesn't want to feel. But Wyatt doesn't look away; he can't. Instead, he sits, frozen in place in his chair, and watches as the other man's hands slip over the girl's tear-stained cheeks and tuck her short, blonde hair behind her ears.

"It's OK, Papa," she answers in a voice as small as she is, and pats her father's shoulder. The man catches his daughter's free hand and brings it to his lips, head bowed for several heartbeats.

Wyatt shouldn't interrupt; he knows what he's seeing is a private moment playing out in a public place, but there's a dull pain in his chest and his throat is tight and dry and he can't hold it all in any longer so he stops thinking and starts moving.

He shoves his chair back from the table and stands. It takes him four strides to reach the tiny family. Four strides until he's tapping the other man's broad, white-shirted shoulder. "Excuse me," he says. His face flushes hot at how unsure he sounds, and he clears his throat.

The stranger gets to his feet so quickly that Wyatt takes a step back.

Wyatt angles his chin and takes in the other man's features. At first glance, his face is remote; angular, and time, grief, or perhaps both, have sketched deep lines around his mouth and into his forehead. Thick, dark brows and a hawkish nose render his expression stern and forbidding, but Wyatt hasn't forgotten the gentleness he heard in the man's softly-accented voice scant minutes ago, and there's a certain hollow look to his green eyes that Wyatt recognizes from the times when he can't avoid viewing his own face in the mirror.

"Yes?"

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop on you, but I did." He scratches the back of his neck. "I hear this young lady wants a strawberry cake pop. Is that true, ma'am?" he asks, bending until he is closer to the girl's level.

The girl, Iris, glances at her father first. When he gives a nearly imperceptible nod, she turns to Wyatt and nods as well, her face entirely too solemn for someone her age.

"Well, it just so happens that I have one, and I'd like you to have it. But only if it's OK with your dad." Wyatt and Iris both turn to look at the other man, who sighs and twists the gold band on his left hand.

"Are you sure?" he finally asks.

"Absolutely," Wyatt replies.

"All right then," he says, ruffling his daughter's hair, "you can have it."

Iris bounces on her feet, her face finally showing a hint of something besides sadness. In response, Wyatt feels his mouth stretch into a wide grin, but he can't stop it, even though he knows he probably looks like a first-class idiot. He unties the ribbon bow and holds out the cake pop; their fingers brush when she takes it from him.

"What do you say?" her father asks.

"Thank you," she answers before removing the wrapper and biting into the pop.

"You're welcome." Wyatt keeps smiling, even though something in his chest cracks at the realization that with her blue eyes and blonde hair, Iris could have been Jessica's child. Their child.

The other man reaches for his wallet, then pulls out a few bills. "Here," he says, holding the money out toward Wyatt.

Wyatt shakes his head and waves the money away. "No. Not necessary."

"Take it," he says, and there's an insistent note in his voice that catches and buzzes around in Wyatt's ear.

"No. Seriously. I don't want your money." He takes a step back and lifts his hands. "Just let your daughter enjoy the treat."

"Fine," the man replies, his tone still a bit too huffy for Wyatt's liking. Then: "Thanks." He switches the umbrella to his left hand, then holds his right hand out to Wyatt. "I'm Garcia." This time his voice harbors only politeness and a hint of fatigue.

He eyes the outstretched hand for only a second before he leans in and clasps it firmly, holding Garcia's gaze all the while. "Nice to meet you, Garcia. I'm Wyatt," he says, injecting a touch of extra warmth into his voice.

A/N: Title is borrowed from Dean Lewis’ Waves.

#nbc timeless #timeless fanfiction #timeless fanfic contest #wyatt logan #garcia flynn #iris flynn #onlymorelove writes fic

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childrenofhypnos · 7 years

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Chapter 5: The Wilmark Fox

Wes was already at the Fenhallow front gates, speaking to the gate guard, when Emery arrived at eight the next night. The gate guard was the first to go quiet when Emery approached.

“Checking out.” Emery passed her cuff over the sensor on the gate guard desk. The scanner beeped. “We’ll be back in the morning, Alice.”

“I’m sure you will, Miss Ashworth,” the guard replied. Emery politely ignored the glance Alice gave Wes when she thought Emery had turned away. “May Hypnos steady you, Miss Ashworth, Mr. Jager.”

Fenhallow’s great iron gates were already open. Wes and Emery followed two other dreamhunter pairs out. One pair was from an upper class, trained and tested, striding along easily to their mission destination. The other pair were two girls from Wes and Emery’s class, recently assigned as partners, heads together to pore over mission details on one girl’s cuff. Very aware of the thick silence between herself and Wes, Emery watched the girls until they reached the end of Fenhallow’s long entrance drive and disappeared on an inner road of the Sleeping City. Cars zipped past, drivers heading home from late jobs or going in for graveyard shifts. The air was sharp with gasoline and fallen leaves.

Emery motioned for Wes to follow her to the sidewalk beneath a large beech tree. They were already dressed in their black dreamform armor, though neither of them had revealed their weapons. Passersby paid them no attention. Dreamhunters on the outskirts of the city were at least a little interesting. Dreamhunters standing right outside the dreamhunter school were routine.

“Okay.” Emery stretched out her arms. “What have you got?”

Wes held up his cuff. “I marked a few places in the city that I’ve heard of strange activity recently. Aimless nightmares, or recurring nightmares despite dreamhunters cleaning them up night after night. We can search those areas to see if the locals have noticed anything suspicious.”

“You really think non-dreamhunter locals would know what suspicious looks like?”

Wes ignored her. “That was the first idea, which I think is the best one. The second idea was to lay a trap for him.”

“A trap?”

“Sure. You can lay a trap for anyone if you know what they want. We don’t know that much about him yet. We know he went to Fenhallow, we know he’s a dreamhunter on the verge of his Insanity Prime. He’ll be powerful, and probably pretty smart, if the full-time hunters haven’t found him yet.”

“That still doesn’t tell us what he wants.”

“That’s why the first idea was the best one.”

Emery brought up her own cuff. “Tell me: what do you know about the Wilmark Fox?”

Wes paused. Frowned. “The urban legend? What does that have to do with this?”

“You mentioned recurring, aimless nightmares. I had the same thought, so I looked into a few of the cases, and it led me to other reports of strange sightings around the city. There were three—three—reports to the Wilmark Park security office of sightings of a young man wearing a fox mask.”

“So there’s a kid wearing a fox mask scaring people in Wilmark Park. That doesn’t make the Wilmark Fox a nightmare.”

“That’s the kind of thinking that kept Fenhallow from investigating it. But listen to this.” Emery pulled up the report on her cuff. “‘We were halfway along the north trail when we saw him through the trees. He had a fox mask and a t-shirt and a coat. He followed us for ten minutes. We ignored him, hoping he would get bored and go away. When he didn’t, my boyfriend called out to him. He screamed and ran at us. We tried to get away, and when we looked back, he was gone.’ All three reports are just like that, down to the details. North trail, he follows two people—in all three cases, a couple on a nice stroll through the park—until they address him, then he screams bloody murder and charges at them. They run; a few minutes later they look back and he’s gone.”

Wes’s expression went flat. “That sounds like a teenage boy stalking people in the woods according to an urban legend.”

“So you don’t think it’s weird that these three reports match all of the other reports that have ever come from Wilmark Park over the last twenty years?”

“Not if the urban legend hasn’t changed, no.”

Emery narrowed her eyes. “You don’t actually know the legend, do you?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“But you don’t know it. You couldn’t tell it to me right now.”

“Teenager in a fox mask got murdered in the woods and now follows people who go in.”

Emery laughed. “You need to talk to the day division more. That legend changes every five years. Only recently did people start talking about the north trail and couples, and the story changed because those sightings were so consistent. It’s not unheard of for a whole city to bring its urban legends out of the Dream. And three sightings in one week? If that’s not increased abnormal Dream activity, I don’t know what is.”

Wes sighed, shoulders drooping. “You seriously want us to go into Wilmark Park tonight?”

“Scared?”

“No.”

“This is our assignment for the foreseeable future. Fenhallow already has full-time dreamhunters on the case who’ve probably exhausted all the normal options, so let’s go for something abnormal.”

Wes tapped the toe of his boot on the sidewalk like he was trying to loose mud from the sole. He looked up at the night sky, folded his arms over his chest, breathed out slowly through his nose.

“Fine. But only tonight. Tomorrow, we explore the normal options. Whether or not they’ve already been tried.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re as much fun as a sack of mud?”

“No,” he said. “That’s a new one.”

The trees on the west side of Wilmark Park had once connected with Fenhallow Woods behind the administration building, until the wrought-iron fence had been built around campus to keep out trespassers. In the summer, the sounds of picnickers, dog enthusiasists, and school fieldtrips sometimes carried over the academy grounds.

In October, at this time of night, only stargazers visited the park. They’d made small encampments near the playground in the middle of the park, far from the trails that disappeared into the woods. Emery and Wes steered clear of them and waited until they reached the edge of the woods to turn on their flashlights. Wes’s thumb slipped twice before his beam flickered to life.

“You sure you’re not scared?” Emery said.

“I’m fine.”

He pulled his hammer off the chain he wore around his neck, enlarged it to its full size, and choked up close to the head. Their flashlight beams swept through the trees. The woods chirred in the night with insects that hadn’t yet settled down for the cold.

“What, exactly,” Wes said, “is the legend?”

“Oh, good. I hoped you’d ask.” Emery skipped past him and started down the path. “The city used to host a haunted trail walk for Halloween out here. One year, a group of teenagers dressed in animal masks were playing a group of murderers supposed to scare the trailgoers. One of them—the fox—saw his girlfriend on the trail with her ex-boyfriend, who’d been making advances for a few weeks. He ran at them, screaming, but the woods were dark and he didn’t see the broken tree branch sticking up off the ground. Now he stalks couples who come here. Chasing. Screaming.”

The trees rustled. Emery watched Wes’s face and smiled when he whipped around and shone the light behind them.

“I can still see the entrance, Wes. Calm down.”

“That kind of stuff isn’t funny. Why would they have left a broken branch so close to the path? Did they leave him impaled there or did they go get help?”

“It’s an urban legend; it’s almost guaranteed it didn’t really happen. But enough people think it happened, and they think about it often enough that they created it. What we really need to do is see if we can find a hotspot in the park here. Some mark that the Sandman has been here. He might ever be using this park as a campsite. Being this close to Fenhallow would allow him to keep tabs on us, too…”

She trailed off to give Wes a chance to jump in, but he was too busy trying to see through the solid darkness between the trees. Emery shone her light in his face. His eyes remained flat black even under the bright beam, and he didn’t squint away. Emery frowned and angled it more directly at him. Not even a blink.

“This is a stupid idea,” Wes said.

Emery puffed out her cheeks. “I think I heard something behind you. You should go check it out.”

Wes stomped away, up the path. Emery followed behind, feeling unreasonably vindictive all of a sudden. She smiled when Wes spun to his left, flashlight darting along the trees.

“I did some research on the Sandman myth,” she said. “The idea of him we have now is pretty nice—throws sand or whatever in kids’ faces and makes them go to sleep, right? There’s another one, though, German I think, where he throws sand in their eyes that makes their heads bleed, and while they’re asleep he plucks their eyes out and flies to the moon to feed them to his owl-children.”

Wes looked back, expression twisted.

“Germans, right?” Emery said. “Let’s hope he got the nickname from the nice myth.”

“What if he didn’t get the name from just the myth?” Wes said slowly, returning his gaze to the trees. “What if he’s actually using sleeping sand?”

“Possible.” Emery had looked into it. Sleeping sand was a topic of much contention around the Fenhallow administration, according to Grandpa Al; while the North American Ward and the overall Hypnos State had no hard and fast laws about teaching it to dreamhunters-in-training, many of the Fenhallow Education Review Board members thought it was something the students shouldn’t know about until they were full-fledged, adult dreamhunters, and even then only if they dealt in the medical or dream material sectors.

It was made from the Dream. The nurses in the Fenhallow health clinic used very small doses of it for dreamhunter students who had trouble sleeping soundly when their eventual monthly nap came around. Emery had never needed it, but she’d heard that it was like being wrapped in a cloud and lifted into the sky, sleeping so deeply that when the mind at last woke up, it took several more minutes for the body to follow.

“Maybe he is using sleeping sand, and that’s why we’re not supposed to engage him if we find him.” Emery tipped her light to the treetops. The darkness of the sky swallowed most of the beam, and the shadows between the leaves took the rest. “If a pinch makes you sleep through the night, imagine what a handful would do.”

Wes grunted.

Hair prickled at the base of Emery’s skull.

“Do you feel that?” she said.

“No. What?” His voice was an octave higher than normal.

“I think there’s some activity around here. Maybe a nightmare. Maybe not.”

Emery turned in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint the source of the feeling. The north trail was the longest in the park, if the walker took the left side when they came to the fork in the path, and Emery and Wes hadn’t yet reached the fork.

“It’s in the woods. We need to get off the trail.” She stepped behind Wes, toward the bushes that cramped the space between the trees. Wes grabbed her arm with three fingers; the flashlight still held between his index finger and thumb crushed her elbow. She raised an eyebrow at him. He let go.

“It’s—there are—what if—”

Emery watched the arguments live and die in his expression.

It was dark? They were dreamhunters; night was their playtime.

Creatures lurked in the woods? They were dreamhunters; nightmares feared them.

If something happened to them? They were dreamhunters.

They’d been born expecting the worst.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll be together.”

She waggled the elbow he’d held, offering the space beside her. Wes moved to fill it and seemed to settle. His flashlight beam held steady.

“Can you really not feel it?” she said.

“I can, a bit. It’s hard to feel it when there are so many things going on.”

It was hard to feel it when he was scared, was what he meant. To Emery, a nearby nightmare felt similar to being watched. A tingling on the back of the neck, hairs rising, the urge to check the path behind. If it was like that for everyone, she figured it would be pretty near impossible to recognize the sense if she was already paranoid.

“It feels like it’s everywhere,” she said. “Like an echo in the trees.”

Wes shifted his grip on the hammer. “It’s the woods. Most woods, especially near populated areas, have this kind of low-level touch of the Dream. Probably to do with early humans, fear of the woods…”

“…like fairy tales,” Emery said. “‘Beware the forest,’ right?”

“Right.”

Urban legends, fairy tales—not so different. Both sprang from that deep well of the human subconscious that gave places like Wilmark Forest its power. These were the places where the veil between the Dream and the waking world was thinnest. It was why Fenhallow had been built where it was, close to a forest in the center of a city. Old Fenhallow Manor, hidden in Fenhallow woods, was said to be haunted with the collective, unbanished nightmares of the Sleeping City.

Emery grabbed a low-hanging branch to steady herself as she stepped over a large, twisted tree root, then nearly tripped down the steep decline immediately past it. “Watch yourself,” she called back up once she reached the bottom. She pointed her light at the slope while Wes made his way down.

At the bottom, he looked past her and froze.

“Emery,” he said, quiet.

Emery turned. Her light shimmered over the tree trunks. The insects still chirped. The breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees and the bushes. Emery paused, breath caught, and slowly brought the beam back to where it had passed a flash of white and orange. Wes’s flashlight was shaking again, angled down at the bushes, illuminating a pair of legs in tattered jeans.

A boy stood in the underbrush wearing a mask of white and orange. The mask itself was thick folded paper, rounded around his face, with two big curved ears and a snout decorated by a huge, square-toothed grin. Rusty tear stains ran down the mask from the cut-out eyeholes; inside the holes, two human eyes regarded them. Brown hair framed the edges of the mask, and he wore a jacket with a thick fur-lined collar, matted with mud.

The Wilmark Fox had come.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos --> Is That Supposed To Happen, Or...?)

#children of hypnos #nightmare hunters #ya #ya lit #ya books #reading #wattpad

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archivallyfound · 7 years

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“How” formerly knowns as: “Millennials, Politics, Hate-Groups, Baby Boomers: How many buzz words can I fit in a title?”

“How the hell do I even spell it?”

After 3 tries, Google finally understands my jumbled disaster of letters. Millennial, that’s what you want, right? Yes, thank you, oh wonderful technology god that does not demand I know how to spell anything correctly. Now before you scroll past this, I assure you, this is not another millennial-defense piece about how eco-friendly, economically-minded, and amazing they are; nor is it a millennial-bashing piece berating the society-killing nature and socially-spoiled, participation ribbon generation. This is simply me trying to figure out what’s going on.

“How do I want to word this?”

A quick Google search of the word “millennial” brings up 39,900,000 results in .73 seconds. Impressive. Most results begin with definitions, a few stock images of young people doing “young” things (like laughing weirdly and eating ice cream). However, a modified search to “millennials” results in something entirely different. “Millennials Don’t Care About X” fills the news headlines. “The Unluckiest Generation.” “Why Millennials Don’t Work Hard Enough.”

“How is this search so different?”

The addition of a single letter skews the results. The pluralization of a single word, mass-scale search shows an ugly side of reality. The single millennial is not a threat. There is a certain curiosity about them. Almost like a newborn animal at a zoo where all information is gathered from scientific-evidence (height, weight, age, coloring, blood pressure, etc.). But more than one millennial is a threat. Once groups start forming generationally, changes begin to occur.

“How do they not remember that?”

Alright, Baby-Boomers, I’m looking at you here. I guarantee that at some point in life, you have been called the “greatest generation” and also condemned at the “worst generation” as well. These generalizations are just that- generalizations that are applied by those outside the group via their personal perspective. Are all of you “the worst”? No. Are all of you “the greatest”? No. Do most people fall in the middle of two such extremes? Absolutely. Remember when your parents told you that you were changing too much? News reports about cultural norms being “ruined” essentially by a young generation? Let me jog your memory if not: Civil Rights. That was a pretty big doozy.

“How can they blame us?”

Millennials find themselves in the same place that all generations have been: the transition. The change. The “ruining” of the last generation. Altering the course of history. You get it. But this generation faces a slightly different angle to the change: the rapid growth of communication and technology has forced these changes to occur at lightning-speed that has never been seen before. Within .7 seconds anyone can connect with someone around the world. We are glued to our phones, laptops, tablets, smart devices. Why? Because they’re awesome. I don’t say that facetiously. The power to compute, communicate, research, and enjoy is easier now than ever before.

“How did we get here?”

Millennials are often referred to, at least recently, as the generation that kills things. Millennials kill the fast food industry. Millennials versus Walmart, Millennials opting to go organic. Why are millennials making these changes? Perhaps, and just perhaps, it has to do with the mass amount of information and commentary we carry in our back pockets and our purses. We have found other people like us. We’ve formed entirely online communities. We type our hearts out to strangers who in turn share theirs. We are creating a shared experience globally.

“How is that bad?”

I’m glad you asked, other me typing the questions. Interaction is not necessarily bad or good, it’s an interaction depending on multiple circumstances. However, with the growth of communication and the demand for immediacy in everything surrounding millennials lives, destination of news, events, politics, and culture, is not always great. Oftentimes, accuracy is sacrificed for speed and sources are cited only due to their proximity. This means the reality of the situation isn’t fully realized until much later and it is sometimes contradictory to the initial reports. Quick news is generally not wholly accurate news.

“How do we combat that?”

No idea. No really, I have no explanation for that. But I do want to circle back as to why this rant is continuing. A.) I wanted to used the word “rant” so a google search for “millennial rant” will pull my writing. B.) The growth of the “millennial” global community is a reflection of a much larger issue at hand. Politics. Yup, we’re going there. Buckle up and get on the Magic School Bus kids, it’s gonna be bumpy.

“How does politics relate to any of this?”

It’s pervade in everything we as people do. News, online articles, TV interviews, podcasts, Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat. News and information is everywhere. You’d need to be hiding under a rock to miss all this. Even if you only get your news from traditional or “reliable” sources (debatable, by the way), you’re still consuming information in the technologically most advanced age in the course of human history. This means you have the ability to select which news you see, respond instantaneously to the author, link the information to others, which is great. IF. IF. IF. If the information is correct and unbiased.

“How do we get unbiased news?”

We don’t. Everyone ever has had a personal bias that shapes the way they think and act. Experiences, education, culture, trauma, disabilities are all factors in how we process information and determine the lens in which we view the world. None of this is new. The news has always been biased. People have always been biased. History is biased. If you don’t believe me, check out a textbook from the 1950’s, the 1970’s, the 1990’s, and 2017. Look at the index and search for “women” or “race.” I promise you they will all be different in their explanations of events and information. We fight against unbiased news by ourselves bing educated.

“How can you demand that from people when they are so busy?”

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not expecting everyone to read every book and have full knowledge and acceptance of every concept ever. But remember those devices in our pocket or purse or, more likely, in your hand right now? huh. Maybe a search to check out some research before you comment or you post or you discuss. Remember writing papers in high school? Thesis then support and support and support (and every bit of support is cited to a source that is an expert on the facts of the discussion). We should be approaching news and information the same way: thesis+researched sources and background = argument.

How can you expect me to do that?

I know firing off in the comments on youtube or that god-awful article forum is more fun. We as humans like drama. Don’t deny it. We want to get a rise out of the other side because emotions cloud the reality and sustainability of their argument. Facts are not emotional. Facts do, however, sometimes depend on the source. “There’s his side, her side, and the truth.” That applies here. Gathering as much information as possible allows a fuller picture to encapsulate most of the reality of what happened/is happening/will happen. This demands a background on the topic. Sorry history-haters, you’re going to need to brush up a bit here. Disclaimer: I’ve got two degrees in history, I’m a nut. I know it’s not normal, but it is vitally important. I’ll keep my excitement to a minimum.

How does history apply?

More than anyone realizes. History shows us the patterns of humanity when faced with interactions. Good, bad, ugly, we’ve got examples on all of them. None the same, but some very closely related (like identical twins versus you and a cousin who look more like siblings). Same concept, different solutions or different means to an end. Let’s look at the current political atmosphere: Nazis and White Supremacists. These groups are not new, even in the U.S. no matter how much a large group of us would like them to be. they are deeply rooted in our history (cheesy, right?) but there is an element of truth to it.

How do we fight them?

We don’t. Violence isn’t solving anything in this case. It’s causing injuries, injustice, death. Unfortunately, it is also giving those in support of these policies and ideologies a chance to easily blame those standing up to these hate-groups. “There were fine people on both sides.” “There was aggression on both sides.” “The liberal violent agenda…” This is not going to solve anything but draw the line in the sand even deeper. You cannot change their minds. They will not change yours. That point is at an impasse. However, we can fight them by not indulging them, by knowing historically where we’ve been, by taking realistic, rational steps towards educating those around us so they know that hate is not how the U.S. operates.

How do you know what to do?

I don’t. And you shouldn’t listen to me. Or anyone, for that matter. The more educated you are and the more you think for yourself, the more dangerous you are. You’re not sheep, you’re not dumb, you have an 8 pound brain in your head (according to that cute kid in Jerry McGuire); USE IT. The mob mentality is lazy. Let one person push their thoughts out to a mass and the mass responds with “yeah, that works.” We aren’t just fighting black/Jew/Middle Eastern/Asian/Mexican/name your minority haters, we are fighting ignorance. We. Not a person. Not an individual. Individuals. That’s right, add that ’s’ on there. Changes the meaning. We need to examine our education on these matters and then add to the collective knowledge of humanity and join together.

How?

Any way we can. Read a book. Share and article. Have a discussion. Get into it with Aunt Liza and Grandpa at Thanksgiving. Ask them why they feel the way they do. Understand their perspectives, look historically when and where they lived. Place yourself in their circumstances. Then fight the prejudices that they are facing. Find information. Fight ignorance. And take care of yourself. We make this world better collectively by taking care of ourselves individually first.

#Milennials #USA #Trump #Ignorance #Hategroups #Politics #Republicans #Democrats

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