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#nevermind the fact i was like ‘damn I actually… was not trying to fight but you’re mad so let’s go’
hella1975 · 2 years
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me and my sister were watching the news last night and i was casually in the way you are when talking to family and not before an official debating panel like ‘we should just axe all billionaires’ and my sister got mad? she was like ‘no one will listen to you if you say crazy stuff like that’ babygirl you want crazy london is ON FIRE
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wuxianxkexing · 6 months
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Mu Qing x Goddess Reader: Stop Fucking With My Cat Part 5
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What do you mean I have to actually write this story and it won't just magically appear? Yeah, I didn't forget, I've just been too busy for the past like 5 months? Or however long it's been since the last update. Lol
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Ghosts of all types were most active at night. It was a fact of life and it seemed like humans were born with that innate knowledge, the innate fear of the dark. Y/N didn't really mind the dark too much usually. However she really wasn't prepared for how all consuming the darkness of the swamp really was. It was her first time ever being in one. The torch she carried was practically useless. Between the darkness and thick of the swamp the eye could only see maybe a foot or two in front of it even with the help of the torch. Still it was better than nothing. With it's help Y/N was able to traverse the swamp with all of the delicatecy and grace of a couple hours old fawn, instead of one just born mere minutes ago. It was more difficult than walking on just solid ice! Y/N thought as she gave a dismayed look to Mu Qing who was impatiently stopping every few feet or so to wait for Y/N to catch up again. At least solid ice usually doesn't have so many damned obstacles! Y/N had long ago lost count of how many twigs, mossy rocks, fallen trees, roots and just plain mud she had fallen over during their trek deeper into the murky swamp. It didn't help that despite being so dark it was also super loud. Bugs, owls, frogs, everything seemed to be screaming, or rather singing, it's lungs out. Though Y/N supposed that was a good thing. A silent forest is a bad forest.
"At this rate I might as well carry you." Y/N froze over the large tree root she was making her way over. Mu Qing rolled his eyes so hard she wasn't sure if they'd ever return back to normal. Unlike Y/N Mu Qing was making his way through the swamps like an elf. Never a foot misplaced, barely making any noise. He had the footwork that one would expect of a martial God. It kind of annoyed Y/N, nevermind the insult he had just given her. Why was she the only one suffering in this stupid swamp? "Feng Xin could move through this faster and quieter than you. I'm surprised you haven't scared off everything in the area. The frogs must know that you are too clumsy to be a threat." He smirked.
"Well if you hadn't interrupted my hunting lesson with Echo I could've learned cat like footwork from him!"
"Pfft, so you'd make your master my cat? Well I suppose no one else /would/ take you under their wing." Y/N puffed her cheeks in mocking fake anger. She was a martial Goddess. If anything people would fight each other to be able to claim her as their student. They both surely knew that to be true.
"I think your cat would be a good master. The worst he'd do to me is maybe scratch or bite me, but at least he wouldn't have me run laps until my legs fall off." Y/N smiled back.
Mu Qing huffed and rolled his eyes. "Actually the worst he might do to you is try to suffocate you in your sleep by laying directly on your face like he does to me every night. He's not as innocent as he looks."
"Maybe I shouldn't have given him that demon collar after all. Sounds like he is already halfway there." Y/N laughed at her joke but Mu Qing just stared at her, clearly unamused. Y/N mentally hit herself. Right, he still didn't find the whole thing funny. Y/N liked to fancy herself as a comedian but undeniably most people didn't think she was very funny. She made the rest of her way over the large tree root and went to stand next to Mu Qing, who quickly turned on his heel and continued deeper into the swamp. 'Psh, maybe I should just have him carry me.' Y/N thought grumpily to herself. But she knew it was just a thought. No way would she ever ask to be carried by anyone, let alone Mu Qing. He obviously already thought that she was useless, she didn't need to make it worse. And really it was rather pathetic that a martial Goddess was having such a hard time just walking around. Y/N decided to focus harder on making her way through the swamp with some element of grace, and whether through actual focus or just more experience on where to step the duo actually started making decent time on their descent into the swamp. However their slow going in the beginning finally caught up to them as their last torch finally died.
"Nice going Y/N, now we have to walk around in the dark." Y/N felt her eye twitch in the pitch darkness. It wasn't her fault! She was pretty sure that they needed to bring twice as many torches than they did but Mu Qing was the one who didn't want to carry them around!
"General Xuan Zhen, why don't you just light a palm torch? I was pretty sure that we didn't bring enough torches along but you were the one who said that we'd be fine. Don't blame me for your lapse in judgment." Y/N let out through a very forced smile. She wasn't sure why she even bothered since neither of them could see anything at the moment but that's just a part of playing nice she supposed.
"Tch, why don't you light a palm torch. I need to conserve my spiritual energy." Y/N didn't need to see to know that he just rolled his eyes at her though. She thought about telling him to go fuck himself, she needed to conserve her spiritual power as well and being the very popular God that he was he surely had a lot more of it to spare than she did. Y/N waited a few seconds, listening to the sounds of frogs croaking in the night, considering whether or not she would use her spiritual power. To be honest she didn't really need her spiritual powers, her martial abilities were exceptional even without them, so she ultimately decided to cooperate and lit a palm torch for them.
Unexpectedly Mu Qing was standing a whole lot closer to her than she remembered and she almost caught his robe sleeve on fire. "Watch it!" He screamed out as he pulled himself out of the line of fire. Y/N almost laughed. What was he even doing standing so close to her in the first place after he had just told her to light a palm torch?
"Sorry General Xuan Zhen. My bad." Y/N weakly apologized with a small smile on her face. Mu Qing fixed her with a scrutinizing gaze.
"You did that on purpose."
"No I didn't. I thought you were standing over there." Y/N pointed to where Mu Qing was definitely standing when the last torch went out. His eyes followed the line of Y/N's finger and he pressed his lips together firmly. Maybe it was just the lighting from her palm torch but Y/N was pretty sure that Mu Qing was blushing.
"Whatever, let's get going." Mu Qing turned and started to walk off into the darkness, leaving Y/N to chase after him so he didn't get lost or hurt without light.
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I have a really weird hyperfixation on The Mummy, but not the Boris Karloff or the Brendan Fraser versions, those would be completely acceptable movies to enjoy (and I do so enjoy them)
but I cannot stop thinking about The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise and it's a problem
I love bad movies, I love them so much, I own so many b-grade horror flicks, old classic films with terrible acting and awful special effects, I love absolutely shit tier cgi, I love Ed Wood disasters, I love cult classic bad movies, I love really weird niche bad movies
but this one is like, such a special kind of bad movie, I can't really put my finger on exactly why though?? but I am damn well going to try, in this essay I will-
they fucked up from the get go by casting Tom Cruise, like this movie is sometimes deliberately goofy, but a lot of the time it takes itself very seriously, SO seriously, and I cannot physically take Tom Cruise seriously, he turns every single scene he is in into a joke by virtue of his mere presence
but when they have actual jokes, they are so not funny they cycle back around to being really fucking funny
I am watching this movie fucking whiff every god damn beat it tries to hit and it does it so beautifully it's a god damn marvel
Russel Crowe as Jekyll and Hyde??? I actually somehow missed the part where he introduced himself as Jekyll on my first watch, so the Hyde reveal was a true surprise to me and I was very genuinely disappointed on my second watch when I realised it was not supposed to be a surprise, because that was a really fun reveal
and Russel Crowe seemed to be having an absolute fucking whale of a time as Hyde, I loved every moment he was on screen with his stupid cockney accent, I would watch his movie, I know it would be bad, that's why I want it, because there is nothing quite like a bad movie with an actor still giving 110%
and the mummy character herself? she was supposed to be pharaoh and then her dad had a son with someone else and now this baby is jumping all up in her place like, okay baby murder might not be the coolest thing in the world but like, she's got ambition, she's getting shit done, she's hustlin' like go get it girl I'm rooting for you babe
also when she sucked the life out of some dude and turned him into a shrivelled husk my roommate said 'she could do that to me and I'd thank her' so she's got that going for her, like girl's a half rotten corpse wrapped in decaying bandages and she still slays
and then we have the completely ridiculous female rivalry??? like this mummy could kill this woman SO MANY TIMES and just doesn't???? for reasons?????? like she could literally kill her in an instant at any moment but no they gotta girl fight for a bit because Tom Cruise is at stake and why wouldn't two hot women fight over Tom Cruise right?? right????
nevermind the fact that he has been practically nothing but ✨The WooOOOOooorst✨ to her the WHOLE first act of the movie, oh and uh let's not forget the 'duh huh guy bad at sex' jokes that they just could not put down for a good chunk there (but wait! uh he's good at sex actually she's just being mean because he hurt her feewings)
like, this movie hits every fucking branch of the bad trope tree, this movie is playing bad trope bingo, it is collecting bad tropes like pokemon, it has to have them all
also a really bizarre ongoing American Werewolf in London reference?? it was not unwelcome, it was some of the best comedy in the movie (that is an easy bar to jump btw), the actor had some great wry line delivery, I enjoyed it
I think the biggest issue, and the reason I can't stop chewing on this magnum opus of garbage, is that it reminds me of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in several different ways
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also happens to be another of my favourite bad movies, but it falls into the particular genre of bad movies, a fucking cool as shit concept, and some really cool as shit visuals, and some very cool as shit characters, but an absolute swing and a miss on the delivery
The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise has That Vibe to me, there is some cool shit here, we know this because the previous version utilised that cool shit very very well, but this one was the only one who made the villain a woman pursuing a man, and not just any man, the ✨worst✨ man, you did not feel very sorry for this guy, honestly watching him go through the constant torment of being stalked by a bodacious supernatural babe who put a sexy little curse kiss on him was fun, he's a sopping wet little meow meow and I wanna see him thrown at a wall, and I get to see that several times, and it is a delight every time
in the previous movie the mummy went after really likeable characters, people who were just generally nice, a roguish scamp with a heart of gold, or just really hot, seriously that cast was beyond smoking what the fu
I did not like Tom Cruise as a character, and to be fair that was the point, he was supposed to have a redemption arc, the story and his sacrifice at the end were supposed to be about him becoming a better person
but he fucking doesn't??? it's like 'oh boo hoo I have made this great sacrifice and now I am a monster and I did it to save my lady love's life even though we had zero chemistry and I was just ✨The Worst✨ to her' and then he fucks off to go and do the exact same shit he was doing at the start of the movie, fucking around in the desert looking for boy adventures
it was a great ending and I loved it because it was so dumb and also he abandoned the woman he brought back to life to go fuck around with his bro who he also brought back to life, I love that for them, go have some boy adventures you madlads you sure didn't earn it but don't let that stop you, just heterosexually ride off into the sunset together it's fine, she is literally better off without you in every way you made the Correct Decision
and then there's these moments, moments that are treated like big moments, and could be really cool moments, but just don't fucking land
there's a part where Tom Cruise starts talking to the mummy in her own language (they got a psychic bond and shit which is it's own cool little thing we'll get back to that) and everyone is watching like 😮 oooh didn't know he could do that wow there really IS magic bond between them oooh, and it's like a Big Deal and Very Cool
but Tom Cruise just sounds like he's speaking gibberish with a mouth full of novocain???? it doesn't sound cool at all??? it sounds really goofy???? I half expected him to start drooling on himself
then there is the ending, leading lady dies, he completes the ritual to invite the god of death into his body (a fucking baller move honestly), he fights it for control as the mummy attempts to sway the beast inside him to her side, but when he sees his beloved laying dead he fights her off, using his newfound powers to defeat her, and then weeps over his lady love begging for her to wake up
and then as he lets the god inside him loose, a terrible monstrous visage takes him over as he bloodcurdlingly screams in her face WAKE UP!!! and the power within him that he doesn't understand and can barely control listens
she wakes, and sees him hiding in the shadows, unable to face her now that he has become something terrifying
at least that's what I think they thought the scene would be like, it was a little more like, some crappy flashback and speed up effects as he becomes the god of death, a really pathetic and uneventful 1 minute of him fighting for control, after which he has a really pathetic and uneventful 1 minute of fighting the mummy, and then as he screams for his lady love to wake up, we get a shot of some absolutely fucking god awful cgi and the most uninspired monster face I've ever seen
I mean, half seen, it was a very dark shot, in fact most of the movie is shot in the dark, a very blatant attempt to obscure the shithouse cgi
except in one scene where it kinda fucking slapped, where the mummy sucks the life out of some guys, and then reanimates their husky corpses as thralls, the way they stand like jerky unstable puppets being dragged to their feet by unseen strings was actually pretty fuckin' dope and the dark scene obscured the details in just the right amount to make their uncannily decrepit silhouettes appear super creepy
this is the only time that trick works, every other time I just want someone to turn on a fucking torch so I can actually see what the hell's going on
okay now let's get back to that psychic bond thing
our main character was chosen not because he was a descendant, or a reincarnation, or just Looked Real Pretty (although I think she did have the hots for him a leeetle bit which is like, girl raise your standards, it's Tom Cruise, he's about as sexually appealing as a wet potato, you can do better), he had absolutely zero in common with the mummy's original choice for this ritual, in fact that guy was not significant to the story at all, I think he was just some dude who was down for some ritual shenanigans 'cause a hot lady asked him (also he was hotter than Tom Cruise so this is a significant downgrade, I feel like if she had the opportunity to shop around a little she might have picked better)
so Tom Cruise wasn't chosen for any reason other than that he's the one who released her, and she sees this as her way of saying thank you, and I love that, it's real sweet, would love if I opened a door for someone and they repaid me by summoning a god of death into my body, that really shows they care you know?
she gives him a little hallucinatory kissy kiss and then manages to follow him everywhere, while also compelling him to follow her without him really knowing it, there is a very cool part where he's trying to drive away from her, but somehow ends up driving in a circle and falling right back into her clutches, that was cool, that had the potential to even be super fucking creepy, she can manipulate him without him even realising, it doesn't matter where he goes or what he does, he will always somehow find his way back to her, that's so good, I love that
and then back to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comparisons
The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise established a concept of an organisation who hunt down, collect, and research supernatural phenomena, with a leader (Jekyll) who also has ulterior motives and is actually not really the good guy, this movie was also supposed to be part of a monster movie cinematic universe, so this really could have become like, the Universal Monster Movie equivalent of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I would have watched the hell out of that, and I am crushed that this movie bombed so bad and ruined the whole plan
like could you imagine a whole series as bad as this movie? all culminating together as the most god awful Avengers style team up? fuuuck I want to live in that universe so bad
I think my fascination comes from this ungodly mix of real pure potential, those fleeting super fucking cool moments and concepts that, if given to literally any other actor, could have really been something, and the just pure insane failure to make literally anything in this plot successfully land a hit
somehow this movie felt like the completely dead and soulless corpse of a cheap party clown, while the ghost of something incredible flickered in its eyes
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starlightshadowsworld · 6 months
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Danganronpa 3 Despair arc episode 9
Thonks.
Well my heart is the gutter soo this should be fine.
Not like this gonna be equally if not even more soul crushing.
Nope.
Saw this bit in the post credit scene but now we know that while Chiaki knows who Izuru is.
Izuru has no idea who Chiaki is.
Werid reminder that Junko is a year younger than the Remnants.
These kids man, terrifying.
Oh shit I forgot about Chisa.
Didn't expect her to throw a fire extinguisher at Junko.
That's a new one.
Ohhhh Chisa recognises Hajime too, oh that's good.
I forgot that they'd met.
So she's staying back while Nagito and Chiaki get away.
Junko I thought you were gonna bone the whole world, stick to one metaphor girl. Although she'd probably get bored and change it.
Fair enough.
Yeah this is a pretty good trap.
The whole class went to get Mikan, they are absolutely gonna go get Chisa.
Right into Junko's hands.
I'm here for Gundam unleashing his eldritch powers.
I do not trust Mikan though.
... I thought they were just gonna try and brainwash Chisa but no they're gonna make a guy kill himself against his will.
The curve balls in this show.
... Yeah no it makes sense that the Remnants turned out this way, good lord.
Nagito bring serious in this is it's own brand of unnerving.
Well you'd know all about suicide now wouldn't you Nagito.
...okay that was dark..
Honestly though Nagito is right it's gonna end awfully but they're go anyway.
Because of course they are, they love Chisa.
And Chiaki is gonna hopes speech and get them to save her... Spelling their destruction.
Man this is almost as tragic as the last episode of future... Same ideals though.
WAIT is the imposter real face? Oh shit hey man.
Aw Nagito being proud of everyone is sweet.
Sonia ordering Soda to carry Nagito, sure why not.
Maybe not the best idea... I do wonder if this is... What I think it is, if Nagito had stayed behind because he's injured.
And he had to watch all his classmates fall into despair... Think he'd fall either way. Just wouldn't be dedicated to Junko.
Oh shit we get Junko's admission paper.
So she was a special case and "Jin Kirigiri and Kohichi Kizakura aren't to be involve themselves in this."
While also putting all responsibility for her admission on the principal.
... So this was sus from the beginning good to know.
Usually I wouldn't agree with Juzo threatening to beat up a student but it's Junko.
So, it's kinda deserved.
Also, he won't be able to do anything.
It's more werid he disobeyed Munakata.
... Dude they aren't your students? Munakata I'm pretty sure you don't work here. You may work for Hopes Peak but not this location.
Also I don't believe you actually care.
Chisa having to watch the murder video, but she's not giving in.
Oh this painful.
Random shot of Munakata, I guess that's motivation to not give into torture... Nevermind it burned up.
So they do get her?
"How pedestrian"
Okay Mr dark brooding and mysterious.
Oh shit the signs became wooden stakes, this really is a mob. And they're going up against Gundam and Nekomaru.
It's cool seeing these two fight alongside each other, rather than against.
Oh no Ryota.
The mob dividing for Junko to walk in, that is cool.
Poor Ryota, the fact she's letting him live as a favour... Yeah this guy is definitely joining Makoto in the survivors guilt camp.
It wasn't his fault.
But he'll damn well think it is.
No wonder he joined the Future Foundation.
It's cute Juzo thinks he can defeat Junko.
Oh no.. I knew they shouldn't trust Mikan.
Least she found Chisa, if she's... Not brainwashed.
I don't trust any of this.
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gildedmuse · 2 years
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The ZoLaw AU Nobody Asked For Where...
Zoro is "in love" with Mihawk/Ace/Saga/Shanks/King/Sanji, he's really sure of it [okay you're gonna have to stick with me for a hot minute on this one]. Not that he has any idea of how to flirt with such an amazing guy.
Law is a flirt, that's an established fact. He's even tried flirting with Zoro a few times, probably for laughs or thinking it might unnerve Zoro before a match (ha! as if Zoro was so easily distracted!).
(Nevermind he'd failed to recognize it as such until Robin pointed it out. Oh, so that's what he meant about Zoro's Santoryu skills having other uses. No, wait, he still doesn't get why the guy would say that....)
It's not like Zoro enjoys the idea of being indebted to that smug son of a bitch with his smirk that makes people go all pink and voice that he's probably making purposefully low so it does that annoying thing to your stomach. But, well, he's starting to think maybe Usopp had been right when he used to talk about "the importance of wooing". Not the part where he insisted he was a master of it - Zoro isn't an idiot, and besides what would Usopp even be doing "wooing" someone not Kaya and around her he is just Usopp but more sappy. Still, it's possible he was onto something with that nonsense about people liking when you say silly things about them wearing clothes or their faces being good, or maybe they actually do like being given useless stuff that they're just going to throw away later or.... Damn, what else had he gone on about? Arg! It had all just seemed like a huge waste of time and making a fuss over these bootless acts and words that didn't seem to mean anything much. Why should Zoro even bother!?
Oh, right. Because stupid [Preferred Hot Guy] and his stupid face and even stupider damn voice. Not that Zoro hadn't tried it his way first, it's just, well, the guy is clearly an idiot and it was his fault for making Zoro gets all - just - tch! Stupid!
And with Usopp's advice half forgotten before he's even finished, it doesn't exactly leave Zoro with a ton of others he can ask for ideas I mean, tch, he's certainly not paying Nami just so she can insult his haramaki again - it's comfortable, especially with his swords, and he's not wasting money on some itchy outfit he'll never want to wear - and he doesn't want Franky making a big deal out of it. Zoro just KNOWS he'd turn it into this whole thing and insisted on building a giant robot with Zoro's face painted on it or worse. And it would probably just end up smashing down [Preferred Hot Guy]'s door, just like it did when Sabo had asked for his help on putting together a surprise party for Koala. Sure, Sabo (and most the rest of Zoro's idiot friends) thought it was awesome, but Kaola was definitely not "woo"ed, and she was already dating Sabo forever by that point! Besides, Zoro is way too mature (and can't afford to fix his door after). No, giant heart-strewn robots definitely weren't what he needed.
Chopper is a kid, Brook is super old, Kuina is Kuina and Luffy is like his captain (they're not exactly pirates, just university kids, but Zoro thinks Luffy would definitely be his, that is if captains were reckless idiots that dragged you to all their stupidest, messiest, best adventures) and you can't ask kids, old people, rivals or captains about stuff like asking out crushes. Everyone knows that. Perona already is always trying to tell him what to do, he's not about to give her permission to boss him around. Johnny and Yosuke once said that Zoro could get any girl he wanted without even trying, but apparently that doesn't work on guys. If he asked Vivi she'd tell Nami. If he asked Jinbe he'd tell Luffy. He could ask Yamato, but the guy keeps slapping Ace on the back and yelling really loudly about what good friends they are, and again, Zoro is not as clueless as everyone seems to believe. He knows hopeless when he sees it (plus he's tried both fighting and talking to [Preferred Hot Guy] way too loudly and they got him about as far as Yamato....).
There is HER but.... no, he has his pride. Zoro would rather cut off his own feet than go to Robin and ask something so embarrassing. Besides, he already knows whatever answer she gives, he wouldn't't understand it. Or he WOULD but she'd also give him one of those SMILES like she just knows he doesn't understand it even though he totally does. Maybe.
At least some of it. Well, if the damn woman just said what it was she wanted him to know instead of making it some kind of demonic riddle!
And that leaves... Well, Zoro has always been proud, but he's not a fool. When Kuina defeated him he stayed until he became better, when Luffy was there to help him out after that asshole cop got in his face and handcuffed him to that lamppost, he let the annoying kid help, when he had the chance to train under Silvers Rayleigh, he took it and nevermind that it meant having to put his ego aside. Zoro would never let some hurt feelings stand in the way of victory.
And Zoro is only a little flustered and embarrassed he has to ask for help over something that is so nonessential and shouldn't even be that hard, but damnit he really wants things to work with this guy! And that means being good at flirting and dating and sex and compliments and relationship and everything. So he grits his teeth and does it.
Even if it's a strike to his ego having to ask Torao for help. Especially help with this whole... (Come on, he already asked the embarrassing part, just say it....)
"Really, Zoro-ya? You can't even say it? You need my help to get your little crush to notice you, right? To make him *want* you, I should say. Tsk, tsk, no need to get all indignant, Zoro-ya. And here I thought you would have preferred me being honest and to the point."
Would it be too much to tell the younger man how adorable it is to see him so flustered? Considering how easy he's made getting a reaction out of him, Law supposes it would be. Really, he should take pity on Zoro-ya, after the other boy worked up the courage to come to Law with such a request.
"That's quite the cute expression, Zoro-ya. Though what happened to the swordsman that gives me such a challenge on the mats. I certainly hope you're not so easy when it comes to showing your hand to your [Guy]-ya. Love is like any other fight; hardly worth the effort if there is no blood on the line."
[Why is Torao smiling at Zoro that way? It's.... Annoying, and Zoro doesn't like it! Gah!]
Okay, okay, so Law may enjoy himself a little too much at first. Can you blame him, when here is the overly confident, self assured, unimpressed Roronoa Zoro of kendo infamy standing here, openly admitting to Law's superiority? How can he resist the temptation of... Nudging the boy's (very easily pushed) buttons when he's giving Law such an opening?
Not to mention Zoro is one of the Strawhat gang, and while he always has been one of the more interesting tolerable, it still gives Law a great deal of satisfaction knowing that their usual method is running straight into every situation without a thought or care hasn't paid off. For once.
(What? Cora-san, it's not that he's laughing at Zoro-ya's misfortune! Don't give him that look! Law just likes that one of the Strawhats finally had to admit that Law is better than them.)
It's more than that, though. Law remembers the boy's blank stares the number of times Law played coy or made vague advances out of curiosity or boredom. Worst, he saw Zoro-ya's last attempt to talk to this guy he's apparently gotten himself so tied into knots over and.... Law can't believe someone can make such a mess when he's hot enough that, to be honest, he could have skipped right past the part where he used his mouth for something as pedestrian as talking. Law can already see [Preferred Hot Guy] would be more than happy to... Accommodate this more direct approach.
But Zoro-ya had asked for Law's guidance. He's hardly going to throw away such an opportunity. It isn't as if Law is going to stop Zoro from getting his [Preferred Hot Guy]-ya, but what about the next person that catches the kenshi's eye? No, it's better if he learns these skills properly.
Zoro: Tch, come on, how hard can it be? Just show me how it's all done so I can do it.
Law: *smirking* Just so long as you take our little lesson seriously, Zoro-ya.
Flirting goes well, date upcoming!
Zoro: So now what?
Law: *raised eyebrow, more concerned with his medical text book at this moment. He can't always just be amusing himself by teasing messing with this boy* Hmm. I thought you said the flirting worked. *As Law knew it would.*
Zoro: Yeah, now you have to show me the next part. Don't tell me you're backing out of your promise so soon, Torao!
Law: ....
Law: *Curiosity getting the better of himself, turning to look at the green haired boy with.... A weary thoughtfulness* You have the attention of your boy. What precisely is the problem?
Zoro: That was just the asking out part!
And while Law is helping to guide Zoro through all of it without being a diaster it's hard not to notice. Well, he already noticed Zoro was hot, but it's not just that. He's also cute. Like, in a way that makes Law smile this kind of stupid smile.
One that Zoro-ya informs him isn't nearly as annoying as his usual smile which only makes Law feel....
Oh.
Oh.
Fuck.
How did Law let this happen?
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kosi-annec · 11 months
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[HAIKYUU!!] Season 1 episode 25
Oh shit this is the final episode for this season, guessing its gonna be about the aftermath of the game
Right, they're highschool students, they still got like other classes and shit
OH SHIT, AOBA JOHSAI vs SHIRATORIZAWA, this was the rematch oikawa has wanted for so long
WAIT NO I WANNA WATCH THAT MATCH NOOO
Uhhh my guy, don't think that's what hinata wants to hear right now, that's like rubbing salt on a still fresh wound
IM SORRY WHAT DAICHI??? RETIRE?? EXCUSE ME??? SUGA SNAP SOME SENSE INTO YOUR HUSBAND
Mmm yeah hinata, you def need some more practice on certain parts of volleyball, you can't just be good at one thing and neglect the rest
NO KAGEYAMA GO TALK TO YOUR BOYFRIEND
Hhhh oh yama... Yeah listen to the adult guy (i dont know his name), it's like daichi said, if you don't try, how do you expect to do well?
BRUH that was kinda adorable, tsuki how can u be so cold to this bean?? Again, how are these two friends again HSKHSKS
Ohhh no, i see where this is going, the teach is gonna ask their club advisor (i still don't know this guys name) to convince the 3rd years to focus on college and shit. This... I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, i wanna side with the guys here, volleyball is their dream and all. But also, gotta look at it rationally, see the bigger picture, like, do they really plan to play volleyball as their career, or do they see themselves doing something different in the future, could their present skills flourish better if they pursue a different path? Things like that. On paper pursuing your passions sounds nice, but its actually not that good advice. You can't just rely on what you're passionate about to dictate you future career
Anyway, i got sidetracked, OMG DO WE ACTUALLY GET TO WATCH THE MATCH?? Aww nevermind
... is the dynamic duo skipping classes LMAO
Ohhh boy, here comes "The Talk"... Oh it was a lot less tense than i thought it was gonna be
The fact that neither of them are like yelling or getting angry at each other is just... Kinda weirding me out ngl
GEEZ TANGERINE WTF CALM DOWN JESUS CHRIST, tho then again you've been bottling up all that frustration, so... As long as nothing breaks i guess
Its kinda funny watching them running around like that lol
Great, finally worn themselves out, but how tf did they end up in those positions?? Like lmao hello???
DID KIYOKO WATCH THE WHOLE THING LMAO
Well good to see the other idiotic duo are still their weird selves
OMG THEY'RE STAYING YAY, hopefully they understand the consequences of that
DAMN that gotta hurt oikawa's pride
Karasuno better actually get to spring nationals cuz i swear i will riot
The coach called kageyama and hinata lovebirds, they didn't even fight him bout it, AND they had a slowmo shot together, how can i NOT ship these two
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gukyi · 4 years
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the love project | jjk
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summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.
{college!au, friends to lovers!au}
pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy word count: 12k warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!
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These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur. 
At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.
Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks. 
Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all. 
Your best friend would have to disagree.
“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”
“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”
“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”
He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.
Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode. 
Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments. 
But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.
“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”
Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did. 
He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself. 
“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half. 
“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”
“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”
“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”
“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”
“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”
“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you. 
“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”
Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.
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There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off. 
The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything. 
So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong. 
“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds. 
It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you. 
“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated. 
“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.
“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”
“What do you have to do?”
Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”
You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly. 
“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”
“Oh,” You say dumbly. 
“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”
“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you. 
Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”
“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”
“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”
“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years. 
“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly. 
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”
He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost. 
Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about. 
“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”
“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”
He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.
“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”
“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless. 
“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”
“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.
You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together. 
Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest. 
Click.
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“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?
From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task. 
“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”
“Well, how many do you have now?”
It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.
You wonder what the hell he sees in you. 
“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement. 
“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk. 
Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows. 
It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click. 
He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why. 
“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?
“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”
“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.
Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”
You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations. 
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”
“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”
“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”
 “What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair. 
“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”
Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems. 
The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you. 
When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.
“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.
“I never want to miss anything.”
“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”
“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”
“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?
“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”
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At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship. 
You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it. 
Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio. 
Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic. 
This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since. 
It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have. 
“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows. 
“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”
“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in. 
You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”
“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.
“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”
“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once. 
“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”
“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.
“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”
Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”
“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”
“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”
“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this. 
You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right? 
The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.
“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins. 
“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing. 
You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”
You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention. 
“Y/N!”
You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind. 
Another voice breaks you from your trance. 
“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide. 
The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes. 
“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”
“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to. 
Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you. 
“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”
The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”
Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you. 
“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”
“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”
“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you? 
What do you not know?
By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.
This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?
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Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.
You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence. 
Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them? 
Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.
Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.
So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.
An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met. 
And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.
The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.
“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.
The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor. 
“Whoa.”
“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook. 
“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”
“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”
“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”
“Yeah.”
It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date. 
“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”
“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”
“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this. 
“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”
Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share. 
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”
“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”
“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”
“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”
You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you. 
“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”
“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief. 
Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”
He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it. 
Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it. 
And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory. 
Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away. 
You wonder what he sees. 
(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)
“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.
You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders. 
“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”
Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door. 
“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”
There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.
“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”
Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door. 
For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left. 
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The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind. 
You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet. 
[November 7th, 8:48PM]
You: you still game for that movie?
[November 7th, 8:50PM]
Jungkook: you finished your date already?
You: is that a yes or a no
Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that
You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me You: i’m coming over
The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.
Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side. 
But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet. 
Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive. 
“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist. 
“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him. 
“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them. 
You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”
“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted. 
“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”
Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing. 
Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter. 
“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”
“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”
To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash. 
He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them. 
“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.
Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him. 
Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”
The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card. 
“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black. 
“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised. 
Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure. 
“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body. 
The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is. 
“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you. 
“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”
“I want to see it.”
“What? My project?”
“What else?”
“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”
You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”
“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”
“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”
“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?
“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown. 
“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back. 
You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further. 
“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.
Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”
And that’s good enough for you. 
You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.
You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.
“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”
“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”
“How do you know what feels right?”
Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him. 
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The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet. 
So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?
Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment. 
The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester. 
Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there. 
Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that. 
Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?
Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right. 
“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”
“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk. 
Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room. 
You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind. 
Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world. 
As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well. 
The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen. 
There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written. 
What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?
Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her. 
What?
Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?
Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now. 
This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page… 
This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?
Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over. 
“Y/N?”
You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling. 
“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed. 
“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom. 
“Uh—”
“Were you reading my computer screen?”
It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else. 
“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head. 
(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now. 
If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over. 
I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)
“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease. 
“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart. 
“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”
“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you. 
“So you are hiding something?”
“That’s not the point, the point is that—”
“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”
“Because then you’d know!�� Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving. 
He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless. 
“Jungkook—?”
“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”
“Know what? What would I know?” 
Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”
The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating. 
“You’re in love with me?” You ask him. 
“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”
You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”
Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”
“And you are mine,” you remind him. 
“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”
“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”
And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain. 
You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing. 
But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure. 
He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth. 
He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about. 
By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out. 
“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”
“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.
“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”
Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process. 
You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world. 
“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”
“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”
“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”
“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”
“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”
“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious. 
It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side. 
“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”
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What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?
Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.
Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?
Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her. 
This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?
Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”
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↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!
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Hello! New to your blog! Saw request are open! Yayyy! May I request a Cloud Strife drabble were reader is allergic to flowers and since Cloud hangs around Aerith they sneeze a lot and he gets confused as to why they tend to slightly avoid him since he kind of likes them- the reader does too.
Hey there! Welcome to my blog, I hope you'll have a great time here. <3 Thank you for your request, I really liked the idea and I hope I did it justice. Take care and stay safe!
Bless you, sneezy – Cloud Strife x gn!reader
“(Y/N)! It’s so good to see you again!”
Cloud looked up from his drink at Tifa’s cheerful greetings. She was smiling, just like she always did when a new customer entered her bar but this time, she seemed to be truly excited. And he could totally understand why.
Because he was excited, too, although he actually managed to fight back the smile that had started to form on his lips as soon as he heard you say, “Hi, Tifa!”
He always acted like that when he was around you – well, not always. In the beginning of your acquaintanceship, he had been quite approachable, at least for his usual standards, and had even initiated a conversation with you from time to time, unlike he did with others. He had valued your company, catching himself admiring you every so often.
But now… well, he wasn’t so sure if you actually shared the sympathy he felt for you.
Cloud turned his face away and pretended to focus on his drink when you approached the bar. You gave him a nod and greeted him with a brief “Oh, hi Cloud!” before returning your attention to Tifa who was already reaching out for a glass to pour you your favorite drink.
From the corner of his eye, Cloud could see the smile that flashed over your face as you thanked her before picking up your glass and looking around to find the perfect spot to sit. He pressed his lips together, watching you as you purposely overlooked the empty barstool right next to him to sit down at the other end of the bar counter, ensuring that there were two seats empty between the two of you.
He held back a sigh. “Hi, (Y/N),” he mumbled, his voice way too quiet for you to actually hear it but as it seemed, you weren’t interested in a conversation anyway.
And recently, it was always like that. You avoided him all the time, keeping your distance whenever you had to be in the same room, despite the fact that you had actually gotten along quite well in the beginning. He didn’t understand where things had gone wrong, and he had no idea what he should do to fix it. Not to mention that there was a nagging fear that everything he could try would make your relationship even worse.
He took a sip from his drink, one of Tifa’s new creations which he always got to try before she served it to other customers, while he continued to watch you, almost as if he could figure out what you were thinking just by staring at you.
You weren’t paying attention to him. Instead, you were focused on chitchatting with Tifa, telling her about your day while you stirred your drink with your straw. Then, all of a sudden, you scrunched up your nose, a few tears welling up in your eyes – and then, you quickly buried your face in your hands before letting out a heart-wrenching sneeze.
“Bless you,” Tifa said but another sneeze coming from you drowned her word out.
Cloud’s eyes widened when you sneezed a third time. Why did it sound so goddamn adorable? He wasn’t supposed to find everything about you cute! And still, he somehow did.
You sniffled and pulled a tissue out of your pocket to blow your nose. “Geez,” you mumbled, wiping the tears from your eyes. “Damn allergies.”
Cloud was still staring at you. And then, before he could stop himself, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just… I have allergies. Some things just make me sneeze all the time. No need to worry.”
“Oh,” he replied slowly. You sniffled again. “Yeah. It’s usually not that bad but-“
Another sneeze cut you short, and you laughed; a quiet, awkward laugh. “Well – whenever you’re near it seems to get even worse.”
He wasn’t sure whether you were joking or not but it probably didn’t matter anyway. “What kind of allergies?” he pumped you in an almost desperate attempt to keep the conversation going, now that you were finally talking to him again.
“Flowers, mostly,” you replied and shrugged. “But there must be something else as well because – well, I guess, you don’t spend your time surrounded by flowers, so that can’t be the explanation why I apparently can’t,” you paused and pinched the bridge of your nose when you felt the familiar tingle building up again, “stop sneezing around you.”
Cloud frowned. Then, when he fully understood what you were trying to say, a surprised chuckle escaped his throat. Could it really be that simple?
“Actually, I do,” he said slowly. You raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“I do spend a lot of time around flowers,” he explained, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that’s why you’ve been avoiding me. I thought – well, I thought it had something to do with me. That you started to dislike me or something.”
“You – what?” You looked at him, your eyes filled with utter confusion before you started to laugh. “Cloud, I’m not avoiding you! Or, maybe I do but that’s not because I don’t like you. It’s because you smell like flowers all the damn time and the constant sneezing is really annoying!”
“This is ridiculous.” Cloud shook his head once again, completely baffled by his own stupidity. The whole situation could have been so much easier if he had just asked you about the sudden change in your behavior instead of visiting Aerith over and over again, unknowingly making things worse with every hour he had spent with the flower girl to ask her for advice regarding you.
You rolled your eyes but there was also a soft smile tugging at the corners of your mouth when you stood up and sat down on the barstool next to him, ignoring the fact that your eyes started to water again. “You really thought I didn’t like you?” “Well, what was I supposed to think? Whenever we met, you either turned around and left immediately or you spent the entire time on the other side of the room!”
“Because you make me sneeze!”
The two of you laughed, earning an amused smile from Tifa while she polished a glass. Then, you reached out for his hand. “Cloud,” you said softly, “I’m sorry. I should have taken the time to explain my allergy to you instead of avoiding you.”
He looked at you, an almost tender expression in his blue eyes, and your breath hitched in your throat. “Nevermind. I understand it now.”
For a few seconds, you kept staring at each other, unwittingly leaning in until you were so close to him that you could smell the sweet scent of flowers again. And, as if by command, you had to turn away to sneeze, effectively spoiling the mood.
“Cloud, I really like you but please go and change your clothes, or else I will sneeze myself to death when I try to kiss your stupid face.”
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geminil0vr · 3 years
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"lists" | ron b. weasley (part one)
read part two here !!
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summary; you and your boyfriend ron are both completely inexperienced, but one day he asks you what you like in bed. lucky for you, you actually made a list. and he's happy enough to play a few of those fantasies out.
tagged; @weasleyssupremacy
word count; 4.6k
content; smut, fluff, banter, making out, embarrassment, shit ton of blushing, mentions of kinks, mentions of teasing, mentions of hitting, mentions of choking, mentions of sex, mentions of praise, mentions of degradation, cursing, grinding, finger-sucking, spit, cum swallowing, first time foreplay (male receiving oral, female receiving oral), fingering, handjob kinda, orgasms, teaching/instructions, relatively realistic, no aftercare included but you know damn well ron'll take care of you, not really a specific dom/sub dynamic, inexperienced/house-neutral fem!reader, inexperienced boyfriend!ron, think that's it but lemme know if i forgot anything !
a/n; holy shit this took me hours !! in this fic, ron and the reader are sixteen years old. i'm from the uk, where the legal age of consent is sixteen — more specifically, in england, wales and northern ireland, a minor is considered a person under the age of eighteen. and i do not want to write smut about minors, i will never do that. so i did a little more research, standard wiki shite, and in scotland (where hogwarts is) that age is sixteen. sixteen year olds and up are no longer minors in scotland. i know many of you are from different countries and therefore may feel uncomfortable with this age because it doesn't reflect the definition of minor/non-minor in your respective countries, and that is perfectly okay !! i completely understand, hope this made sense bc i'm too fucking exhausted to tell. feel free to scroll by and find another fic to read, please put in a request for any of the harry potter characters if u wish, and have a lovely day :))
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you hadn't done much with him.
just kissing, really. some grinding here and there. you were comfortable in each other's grasp, sure, but you both never quite went over that line, of more than kissing, of more than light touching.
didn't make you insecure. nor impatient. it was a comfortable kind of middle ground.
and in that middle ground, you were seated on his thighs, legs either side of him, kissing gently, tenderly. these were tepid, lukewarm, waters, just bordering on more, just bordering on scalding hot, and you didn't mind it. you didn't mind it at all.
pulling back, lips not too swollen, just pink, you smiled softly down at ron weasley.
"you okay?" he asked. you hadn't meant to start kissing, you were just talking, just hanging out, him levitating a marble in his empty bedroom, you reading a book and making sure he didn't try and levitate a lamp — that never went well. not with ron weasley. but he got bored, and your eyes wouldn't focus on the pages, and you'd forgotten your reading glasses and he'd kissed you sweetly, and you'd kissed him back and now... now, you were snogging. you didn't care much for that word. it sounded weird, and heavy, and hot. and things with ron (so far, at least) weren't weighted, and hot, they were warm, and soft, and him.
you took the time to rifle your fingers through his red hair. he'd been letting it grow, just a little, down to the nape of his neck. "yeah, you?"
he grinned cheekily, nose and cheeks flushed already. of course, this was the usual. one kiss from you turned him pink, not out of awkwardness, just passion, you supposed. it was rather cute. and he pushed you further up in his lap, not too close, but closer. you grinned back. you kissed. and you pulled away again, just to look at him.
he took in a sharp breath, before blurting out something he’d wanted to ask for the longest time, "what do you like?"
"hmm?" you tilted your head.
he swallowed. “what do you like?"
"i'm gonna need some context here."
"in bed." now you felt as flushed as he looked. to ask that question, it must've taken a lot of courage. he was a gryffindor after all.
even starting a sentence caused your breathing to pick up. "well, you know i've never done anything before..." that was true. but you'd done your research. you'd actually made a list of what you thought you might like, which was idiotic in retrospect, and quite childish, but you'd done it, and it sat in your bag with a burning prescence.
"but surely you know... ya’ know, what you might like?"
you settled back, more comfortably in his lap, arms still around his neck, but you were less close. "why're you asking?" you teased.
"you know why!" ron groaned, burying his head into your shoulder, and he felt your shoulders shake with nervous laughter.
"well, i guess, i have — well... nevermind." he moved back, face burning, with an eager smile plastered on his face.
"go on, tell me! i want to know."
"it's embarrassing!"
"i won't make fun."
"yes, you absolutely will."
"won't."
"will."
"just tell me."
you swallowed and chewed nervously at your lip. "i've made a list."
"alright, tell me." if he said 'tell me' one more time you would strangle him. speaking of choking, and all that —
"promise you won't judge?"
"promise."
"well it's more of... well, it's not a mental list. i've written it down."
a grin broke out on your boyfriend's face, and you smacked his bicep.
"oi, you said you wouldn't judge!"
"i'm not judging! it's just cute, 's all." his smile faded a little. "so, about that list... why don't you go fetch it?" he said, with a sideways nod of his head.
"fetch? i'm not a dog."
he made the excited face he always had before he told a bad joke. for fucks sake. "aw, well, i figured pet play would be on your list —"
"shut up, shut up, shut up!" with each 'shut up' you punched his chest and he crossed his arms over it to protect himself.
"hitting, is that your kink too?" well, you weren’t exactly opposed.
you groaned and swung your leg over him, "i'm gonna go get my fucking list."
getting up and 'fetching' your bag, you searched through it and found your little, blue notepad. as soon as you'd returned to the four poster bed, ron reached out to grab it, and you quickly pulled back.
"no, i have more than just 'kinks' in there. and i don't wanna tell you everything."
"why not?" he was genuinely confused. that was the problem with these weasley boys: no boundaries.
"if i tell you everything about me then what secrets will i have left?"
"secrets are overrated." he stared blankly at you, shrugging, but still wrapped his arms around your waist comfortably as you swung your leg back over to sit on his thighs. as you flipped through the pages of the notepad, you found what you had been searching for. 27 pages in, hidden between random pencil scrawls, was your list. you'd learned about sex from books, and your friends' experiences, and being a sixteen year old at what is technically a boarding school. and though that wasn't the highest form of education, you knew enough to keep safe, and to feel good, and ron knew enough, too. "so, start reading!"
looking over the first line, your cheeks burned and you shook your head. "i can't say that!"
"want me to turn around?"
"no, i — no. i'm just gonna..." you slid all the way up his lap, ron attempting to ignore that you were right over his crotch in a pair of pretty blue jeans, and hid your face in the crook of his neck, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, embarrassed by your childish ways.
"c—" ron's voice broke, and you fought a smile, "comfy?"
"yeah. i'm ready now." you swallowed, breaths shallow and voice shaky as you brought your list up to your eyes. "um, well, i've heard about, uh —" he rubbed a hand up and down your back. you couldn't see him, but he was grinning and biting his tongue in anticipation. "pet play."
"you bloody liar, tell me the real list! don't be a pussy."
"fine, fine. no pet play. but i, uh, think choking sounds hot." your voice was slightly less shaky as you kept your flaming cheeks out of view. ron was bright red, too.
"uhuh. what next?" his voice was quiet and trembling now, grip on your waist tighter. the atmosphere of his dorm room had completely shifted.
"and, um, teasing. 's hot." your eyes flitted to the next word, trying to keep your composure as ron's grip on your waist tightened even more, keeping you still on top of him. "i like being praised, but being degraded is — it sounds... good."
ron had to fight the urge to groan, not out of frustration, but pure lust. you were by no means innocent, in fact, you tended to make a sex joke every day, or comment 'that's what she said' at every euphemism, but he never expected to hear those words actually slip from your lips. he couldn't speak, his voice got stuck in his throat, and he knew if he even tried his voice would break and go all high-pitched.
"then, hair pulling. hard sex, soft sex." both of your hearts were beating so fast, and you squeezed your legs against him. it was a nervous action, but you didn't expect him to let out a high gasp, and you certainly didn't expect him to grow firmer beneath you. "spanking, breeding, maybe, we'll see." he closed his eyes and let out a low exhale that he’d been holding in.
you pressed your hips harder down onto him, and his nails dug into your thighs. you'd been in this position before, while kissing, but this felt like pure filth, you telling him what you wanted him to do to you, and him just listening, and him getting hard. i mean, he'd been hard beneath you before, on top of you even, but it never led to anything more, and you didn't think you'd ever felt him this hard.
"i — i think i like biting. anywhere, really. not too hard. you have to be gentle with me." you had pulled back a little now, eyes still glued to your notepad, head turned a little so your lips were almost touching his ear. tentatively, you looked away. the tips of his ears were burning hot, and red. you took the lobe between your teeth, biting softly, tongue darting out just a little. his hips bucked up into yours, and you both moaned quietly. "and licking." you slid your tongue over his warm skin, just below his ear, then curved your spine to lick further over the expanse of his neck, causing him to let out another breathy moan.
"fuck..."
"and, spit. i think it's hot. i've thought about it, about you, before. i dunno." you kept your tone unsure, in hesitation. you had more on your list, just things you found hot, situations you found hot, but you closed it and pulled back, unwrapping your arms from around his neck and fiddling with the notepad between your fingers. that was enough, for now. ron was breathing heavily. you were breathing heavily. everything felt hot, and heavy, and it wasn't the norm, not with ron, but you liked it.
"th— that was... good. a good list." he choked, hands still on your thighs.
"yeah."
a tense silence settled between you, until he wrapped one arm around your waist, hand slipping up your back, the other in your hair, and brought you into a feverish kiss. you grinded down on him, moaning into his mouth feeling the reminder of how hard he was, chucking the list to the side and sliding your hands up his shirt as your tongues explored each other's mouths. it felt good. really good. better than you could have expected.
ron gently nibbled at your bottom lip, before pulling away and moving his focus to your neck. you tilted your head to the side, hurriedly moving your hair to the side to give him better access. he licked teasingly up your neck, and you dug crescent moons into his abdominal as he began sucking and biting at the skin beneath your ear, and your pulse point, and soon your collarbone, and before you knew it your sweater was pulled off and he sucked and licked against the skin right above your breasts. this was the first time he'd seen you without a top on, just in a plain, black bra, and he was damn well going to savour it.
you tried to hold back moans, but it seemed impossible when he was burning beneath you, so you did what was natural. you grinded against him and whined as he trailed wet kisses all over your chest, and after a while of you arching your chest into his mouth, you realised what he was doing.
your voice came out breathless, almost breaking. "you're teasing me."
he stopped his trail of kisses to move his face back to yours. "what, you thought i wasn't listening?"
"well, stop." you whined, scratching your nails over his abdomen once more, earning a shallow moan from him.
"i thought you liked it." he tilted his head, almost smirking.
you swiped your tongue over your bottom lip, chest heaving, as you took your hands from under his shirt. "just touch me. please." ron took a moment to take his own shirt off, and you admired the freckles dotted over his pale yet flushed chest and shoulders until he wrapped his arms around you, unhooking your bra clumsily, fingers shaking with lust. you gripped his shoulders, fingers gliding over each mole as your eyes darted over his features.
"so fucking pretty." he licked and kissed underneath your right breast, cupping the other one in his large hand, and your mouth dropped open, brows furrowed in pleasure as he took a nipple into his mouth, looking up at you as you grinded down onto him.
"ron, fuck, i'm too sensitive."
you watched him grin as he slowed his movements and instead licked softly once over your nipple as you threw your head back. you were the hottest thing he'd ever seen. well, he'd only ever seen his brother's porn magazines so there wasn't much competition. but he could say without a doubt that you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, your back arched, your head thrown back, your chest flushed. so pretty. but if he didn't speed things up he was sure he would cum in his jeans. you caught his lips in yours once more, struggling with the buckle on his jeans. you knew you wouldn't have sex, not today. but other things were always possible. that thought made your head spin with anxiety and need.
after a little while, you resorted to quickly tugging off your own jeans, ron doing the same, and soon you were back in the same position, except you could really feel him against you. you both looked down at the sight of you in your panties on top of him in his blue boxers, and both laughed breathlessly, kissing once more before you slid off and between his legs. if you'd stayed any longer, he might've felt how fucking wet you were.
"y/n..."
"it's okay, i want to do this. do you? we don't have to." he nodded his head, bottom lip between his teeth. "okay. just tell me what to do, okay? tell me what you like, ronnie."
‘ronnie’ didn't think he'd last that long when your hands were gripping at his thighs and you were on your knees, in only your underwear, between his legs. "okay. yeah."
you cautiously slipped down his underwear, pausing for a second as his flushed and red cock smacked up against his stomach. fuck, he was big, and already dripping precum. you were almost mesmerised with him before you remembered that he might be self conscious, so you proceeded to slip his underwear all the way off, throwing it off the side of the bed and coming closer to him, laying on your stomach and trailing a finger soothingly up and down his thigh. "so pretty." you teased, mimicking him from before, but as you looked up at his desperate face, mouth open, cheeks red, brows raised slightly, you decided that maybe teasing wasn't the best decision in that moment.
so, you wrapped a hand around his cock, feeling it twitch in your hand as ron moaned, head thrown back just like you had before. "that feels good."
"i haven't even done anything yet." you chuckled, looking up at him expectantly until his blue eyes met your own. "tell me what to do."
he gulped. "right, so you just wanna... make your hand wet. spit in your hand. you should like that." he couldn't believe he was saying this to you, or even joking in this moment, because right there, he was totally and utterly at your mercy.
you removed your hand from him, finding your mouth already salivating, and instead of licking your hand, you gathered your spit and let it drop from your tongue down onto it. he groaned as you looked up at him. fuck, he definitely wouldn't last long if you did more shit like that. taking your slick hand, you guided it up and down his cock, hesitantly dragging it over the tip, making him buck up into your hand and drip out even more precum. "fuck, uh... be careful with the tip. it's sensitive."
"sorry." he went to tell you not to apologise, but then you avoided going directly over the tip, collecting more of the precum, and the amount of spit and slick on your hand was creating lewd, wet sounds. if he tried to speak now, he’d probably just whine. testing the (now, scalding hot) waters, you dragged your tongue up his shaft, and he moaned even louder. he seemed to like that, so you did it again, and again, then put the tip in your mouth, pushing your lips down onto it until you got scared that your teeth would graze him.
"fuck, just like that, y/n, you’re so good."
seems he took more notes than you gave him credit for. or maybe this was natural? shit, is this how he spoke normally? he would drive you insane.
and how the fuck did people not use their teeth? at this point, you wanted to hear more of those beautiful sounds coming from your boyfriend's mouth, but also wanted to ask him. so you slowly took your mouth off, making him look down at you in concern.
"ron, how... i'm worried i'll use my teeth."
ron wasn't sure how to answer that, being just as inexperienced as you were, but he tried to use what he heard his friends talking about in the boys dorm.
"i think you just, try to wrap your lips down over your teeth. or you purse your lips. like an ice pop." you chuckled, and so did he. "i guess you have to make your tongue flat and then cover the top ones."
"okay, i'll try..." but before you went down again, he spoke once more.
"and, don't swallow the cum. doesn't taste great."
you nodded, and he watched you as you tried the technique, getting down even further, causing him to grip at your hair. he didn't push you down, just needed something to hold onto other than the bedsheets, that was all. and after all, you did quite like hair pulling. you moved his thick cock in and out of your mouth, wrapping your hands around the parts where your mouth couldn't reach, and looked up as ron's grip tightened on you. you didn't bother touching his balls — that was an experiment for another day.
"fuck, i'm gonna cum," you moved your mouth to just the tip, as more groans left his lips. "y/n, shit, don't swallow, just take your — fuck, take your mouth off."
you were stubborn. so stubborn in fact, that you kept suckling at the tip of his cock as he jerked up into your mouth, body freezing, as you swallowed load after load. you just wanted to please him. and thank merlin you'd done all those water (and to be honest, butterbeer) chugging competitions with lee, or you'd have been absolutely done for. he was right, it didn't taste good, at all. it was salty, and bitter, and as you took your mouth off him and let his slowly softening dick slap against his thigh, you almost winced at the flavour.
ron's chest was pink and flushed with perspiration, head thrown back against the headboard and eyes firmly closed, recovering. "fuck. told you."
"'s not the worst thing in the world. i'd do it again."
"don't say that or i'll get hard again." he reached for his boxers off the side of the bed, awkwardly slipping them on in a sitting position.
you chuckled, reaching to his bedside table to gulp down some water, head fuzzy and chest warm with the accomplishment of pleasing your boyfriend. he wiped a hand over his forehead, taking the glass out of your hand to take a big sip himself before putting it down.
"well, that was exhausting." he groaned.
"tell me about it. my bloody jaw hurts." you grinned, and he smiled back and rushed to peck you on the lips firmly, sending you to fall back against the covers as he hovered on top of you. "what're you doing?"
"don't think i'm done with you just yet." he grinned, but faltered. "unless you don't want to. i don't want to force you or anything, just tell me if —" you shut the clumsy boy up with another kiss, clasping your hands behind his neck and grabbing at his soft hair, wrapping your legs around his waist. you clenched around nothing as you felt his soft cock beneath his boxers against your soaked panties.
"it'd be my pleasure." you muttered against his lips. and he grinded into you once more before moving you so your head was against the headboard, and him between your legs.
"oh, how the turn tables, hmm?"
"shut it, loverboy." you shook your head, biting your lip and looking down at him as he trailed his nails down your inner thighs, making you arch your back a little. "and what did i say about teasing?"
"that it's hot." his crooked smile made your stomach clench.
"that you should stop." your complaints were ignored as the humour in the room dropped, and he looked at the wet patch seeping through your underwear. he seemed transfixed, swiping the pad of his thumb over it, before hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties and pulling them off, tossing them to the side.
taking his middle finger, he swiped it through your soaked folds, making you whine. "you're dripping." his voice got much deeper, and his throat felt dry, but if he opened his mouth he was sure he'd drool. "did it turn you on, sucking..." he cleared his throat. "sucking my dick?"
you didn't reply, just bucked your hips up into his touch as he paused.
he pressed on. "so?"
"yes, it did." you were so desperate that you actually pouted your lips. seeing ron talk so dirty, despite his hesitance, was the second reason you were dripping. you didn't know he'd be like that. though you should've expected it.
but his shyness hadn't left just yet. "can you... can you tell me what to do?"
you tried to catch your breath, his finger was still over your clit, not firmly pressing, just there. you got distracted for a second, looking down and subtly pushing your hips up, before you bit your lip, swallowed, and met his eyes again. he seemed to be amused by that. "uh, so... you just get your fingers nice and wet, first."
it even surprised ron when he removed his finger from you, and held up his hand to your mouth. your breath hitched. "you're probably wet enough anyway, but go on, then. 's what you like, right?"
you nodded nervously, taking his wrist and putting three of his fingers into your mouth. you sucked them in, making sure to get enough drool all over 'em, before messily removing them and letting spit string down to your tits. ron watched it all, dick growing hard again. he was sure now. you would be the hottest thing he'd ever see in his entire life. you let go of his wrist as he let the rest of the spit drip onto your pussy, the air leaving you cold as he spread it around with his fingers, up your folds, circling your hole. the avoidance of your clit made you throw your head back, as he teased you. he knew exactly where the clit was, frankly, it was pretty clear to see, all red and swollen and big. he was doing this on purpose.
"please, ronnie." you whined.
"okay, okay. what next?"
"you need to touch my... my clit. and maybe put a finger in, but, be gentle, please?"
"you've never fingered yourself before?" his voice broke.
"i tried, just one, but, it's not really comfy when i do it. too tight. fingers aren't long enough, maybe. i don't know." you swallowed nervously. speaking about your personal sexual experiences was embarrassing. ron found it hot.
he took your advice, slick fingers brushing over your clit, then paying more attention to it, playing with it, even pinching it, turning you into a whimpering mess. figuring you were prepared enough, ron gently dragged his middle finger over to your hole. "gonna put a finger in, now. ready?"
"yeah, please."
you gasped and gripped his arm. he eased in slowly, and fuck, you were tight. you'd broken you hymen before, probably by either walking, riding your bike, or simply experimenting on yourself, so there was no resistance as he reached his finger all the way in, just a slight discomfort on your part. he almost began to start moving, but you tightened your grip. "just a second, ron. your finger's bigger than i'm used to." that sentence made him rut into the bed, as he followed your instruction and stayed still. your body relaxed, and he even felt you begin to unclench around him, your ridges less restricting. "it's okay now, you can — fuck."
he'd started sliding his finger in and out, slowly, as soon as you gave the 'okay', and this was definitely better than you could have ever done to yourself. you weren't sure you could come just from this, but you didn't care, it felt good. you'd heard one way to make it better, though.
"try curling up your finger — oh." if this boy could only give you a chance to breathe. that change in movement was hitting a spongey spot inside you that made you clench your thighs together, which he fixed by using his elbow to spread one, and his free hand to hold down the other. you brought one foot up to his back, needing some kind of stability. "you okay?" he asked, which was a loaded question considering that his thumb accidentally brushing over your clit made your entire body jerk, and you weren't just okay, you were bloody brilliant, the blinding pleasure bordering on pain.
"fuck, touch my clit, please." you moaned, head thrown back as he did as you said, making your entire body spasm. you were so close, so fucking close, and you practically rode his fingers as you thrashed up and down, tits bouncing. you were just about to tell him you were gonna come (though with you non-stop clenching around his one finger, it was pretty obvious) when he decided to try something, removing his thumb from your clit and instead sucking onto it.
he'd heard about eating girls out, and it was something he'd always wanted to do to you, to drive you crazy, and if he couldn't do it now he was going to at least include his mouth into some of the action. he wanted to taste you.
with this surprise, you came hard, the heel of your foot pressing into his back, his hand working hard to hold down your other thigh, stomach clenching and eyes rolling back. you were moaning so much and so loudly that you were glad almost everyone was out at hogsmeade. as you came down from your high, ron removed his lips from your clit and slowly removed his finger, your aftershocks trying to suck him back in. your back, forehead and chest were sweating, your entire mouth dry as your eyes stayed closed. ron rubbed his hands soothingly up your thighs as your body spasmed again, and brought himself up to kiss your forehead, a grin that you couldn't see playing at his lips. he wrapped his arms around you as you sighed and leaned into him.
"fuck." you sighed, opening your heavy eyes and glancing at ron who licked the rest of your cum off his fingers, looking up at the ceiling. you were still clenching around nothing. that was the hardest you'd ever came, even better than the showerhead — oh, ron would have an absolute riot if he knew you used the showerhead. "thank you."
he gave you that dumb fucking grin, the one he always had before making a bad joke. "orange you glad you read out that list?"
"shut up and kiss me. idiot."
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anothertimdrakestan · 3 years
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Batfam On A Road Trip HC
req: “Batfam on a road trip? It’s been on my mind for like a week-”
oh god it’s probably so chaotic... and like distinctly dangerous???
also this is my car AU where there’s infinite rows of seats in the car until I’m done.
we’ve got Bruce driving - even though Damian, Dick, Tim, Jason, AND Steph all tried to get behind the wheel but after last years incident the only people allowed to drive are Bruce and Duke but Duke doesn’t like driving with his siblings bouncing off the damn walls.
Speaking of Duke, mans snagged himself a window seat SO FAST it would make your head spin. He likes to sit next to Damian (who got put in the middle because he’s the smallest) and they share earbuds and Duke’s phone which is loaded with like 128 hours of songs. Against popular belief, Damian is actually good at sharing when it’s not with one of his more “obnoxious” siblings and he and Duke get along really well - they also have the same music taste. Duke changes between queue-ing songs, staring out the window making little stories in his head, and watching Damian draw. He occasionally is tasked with holding the sharp objects smuggled into the car after they’re discovered by Bruce as he’s the second most responsible (after Cass).
Speaking of the most responsible sibling, Cass somehow got shotgun next to Bruce. This is because she’s the only who makes him not want to throw himself out of the car and she’s a pretty good navigator. So, as she tries to moderate the back of the car she also is in charge of agreeing on pit stops and coffee breaks which works well because Cass is fair and no one can be an asshole to her. On the first road trip Cass discovered a Wendy’s Frosty and now she will usually write at least one Wendy’s stop into the trip - no one complains except Tim who is forbidden from ordering the spicy nuggets after last years incident.
Tim, the one notorious for threatening to throw himself out of the car most often, is sat in the far back. He someone gets a row to himself under the guise of “sleeping” when in reality he spends the trip typing away on his laptop, chugging monster energy drinks, and occasionally trying to make Dick bark like a dog through some kind of sleep-manipulation he read about one night at 2am. It involves him whispering in his ear and usually ends up making the whole car uncomfortable, except Jason who thinks it’s the funniest shit ever. However, after the incident his back seat gets thoroughly checked by Bruce for stowaways every pitstop, but he’d never store a secret in the same place twice...
We move to Jason! Who sits next to Steph. They’re the snack distributors. Known for throwing popcorn in the other’s mouths but it usually ends up being thrown at Bruce, Damian, or both. Jason is a champ at fruit roll up eating competitions. He claims it’s because his tongue is so strong from eating... nevermind. Jason is surprisingly organized about the snacks, and frequently restocks (with Bruce’s credit card of course) on pit stops. Jason likes to complain early into the trip but by the end he’s telling the most fun stories, singing the loudest, and causing the most trouble. His and Steph’s row is definitely the most fun. But he’s still on the list with Bruce after helping Tim become a world class smuggler during the trip that shall not be named.
Steph is the family interpreter. She shares messages from the back to the front and vice versa. She’s known for saying the back row is hungry when it was in fact her but everyone loves her for her honesty. She’s the first to ask for a leg stretch break, and the one who puts on good songs after Dick has had the aux for too long. She’s basically the lorax of the batfam road trip. She usually makes the snack packs that are distributed throughout the car and is known for memorizing everyone’s favorites to optimize the best snacks. Steph actually wasn’t in the car for the great incident, she often questions what happened but only knows what Dick quietly whispered to her, something about feeding nuggets to a foreign passenger...
Dick, the storyteller, the terrible-music-meister, the road trip organizer himself, sits on the other side of Damian. He was the one who purposefully cleared everyone’s schedule for the weekend and who roughly planned the route. Dick works closely with Cass to make sure they’re going the right way and he also mediates all fights that occur during the trip, and trust that there are a lot. Dick is known for being restless and often throws his head out the window on the freeway “just to feel something” his quote not mine. Dick is incharge of taking all dangerous items off Damian (and sometimes Tim’s) person before the trip and he was in the most trouble when the intruders were found during last years incident. But he took it with stride and promised Bruce this year would be better!
Damian, the deeply unhappy middle seater, can be found drawing and pretending he can’t hear Grayson blabbing on about “this crazy adventure he had as Robin so sooo long ago”. Damian is known for pouting through the first stop but after he’s had some quiet time he can actually be seen with the corners of his mouth upturned- especially if they drive past farms during the trip (Cass tries extra hard to make sure they do). Damian also had been known to try to run away during stops so he’s kind of heavily watched by Bruce and Dick. Luckily, his place in the middle seat means he’s far enough away from Tim to be “bothered by his mere presence” which is a significant win and close enough to Duke and Cass to keep him sane.
We are in fact missing two main people: Babs and Alfred. These two opt to stay home, getting the much deserved break they need. They like to have tea parties, cleaning extravaganzas, and (though they won’t admit it) the occasional dance break in the batcave when no one’s looking. They like to take the batmobile to get food and their guilty pleasure is watching rom-coms on the giant screen in the batcave while eating “trashy takeaways” as Alfred so eloquently calls them. These two have the best time, but if anyone asks they were simple awaiting the rest of their families return.
That’s how I think it’d go down! Overall I think it would be chaotic but not as bad as one might think, they are family after all : )
Oh wait, I forget, there are two more stowaways...
Bart and Kon are silent, Kon mostly flies above but occasionally slips into the trunk to rest with Bart. Bart easily slips into the trunk and is quite literally gone in a flash if Bruce ever suspects anything. Just because Tim can’t hand feed him nuggets doesn’t mean the boy isn’t read for road trip part two! He just hopes Kon made a flying stop at tacobell because he’s getting kinda hungry...
“Timmmm are we there yet?”
“DID I JUST HEAR WHAT I THINK I DID TIM”
“oh my god I finally experienced the great incident but now part two!”
“hi Steph! Yeah I’m here! Sorry Brucie, but yeah, can you pass me a twizzler?”
“HOW DID YOU DO THIS AGAIN TIM I SWEAR TO-”
yup, now that’s a batfam road trip : )
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redisaid · 3 years
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To Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore, the only thing worse than a pirate was an undead pirate. She could run one straight through with her cutlass and have them keep on fighting. She could send one overboard with a canon ball strapped to their legs only for them to trudge through the bottom of the ocean and show up in port again weeks later, soggy but otherwise intact. Her job was to get rid of pirates. Undead pirates were especially difficult to get rid of.
A fact that she was sorely reminded of as she faced their Queen, cutlass to cutlass yet again. It seemed as though the woman taunted her, allowing herself to be caught now and then, if only to make yet another daring escape, grinning as she did at Jaina’s displeasure of losing her quarry yet again. 
Jaina wouldn’t let her get so lucky. Not again. She’d blast a hole through Sylvanas Windrunner’s skull this time. Even a clever undead pirate queen couldn’t go on without a brain.
Well, she would have, if she didn’t lose her pistol earlier in the battle. She’d only realized it was missing when she went to pull the gun from its holster, only to have Sylvanas laugh behind the swing of her sword.
“I thought resorting to dirty tricks was for pirates, Proudmoore. This isn’t a good look on you,” Sylvanas cackled gleefully as metal crashed into metal.
“You rotten cur!” Jaina shouted as she took a swing of her own. “Where's my pistol” “Do I look rotten to you?” Sylvanas asked, easily parrying her and spinning away from the railing Jaina had been trying to back into. “I’m easily the least rotten person on this ship. Present company excluded, perhaps.” “Stop playing games with me!” Jaina roared, this time going for a powerful thrust at Sylvanas’ midsection.
Which she parried, again. Smiling, still. Not even panting. Damn undead.
“Gladly, on two conditions,” Sylvanas said, steadying Jaina’s sword with the guard of her own and the pressure of her strong, wiry grip. “One, that you and your Admiralty bullies get the hell off of my ship and cut your losses before they pile up as high as the paperwork you’ll have to file on them. Two, that you and I settle this once and for all, woman to woman.” “And where would you want me to do that? At your fortress, surely? Or one of your turncoat pirate ports? I don’t think so, Windrunner,” Jaina sneered.
She wasn’t above fighting the woman one and one. Hell, she was doing just that. Nevermind that she was breaking a sweat and breathing hard while Sylvanas made a fight like this look like a leisurely waltz. Jaina could best her. Eventually. Maybe. Or at least, she was stubborn enough not to let Sylvanas get the better of her.
“Actually, I was thinking over dinner. The goblins run a nice neutral port not far from here. They’re despicable little things, but they do know how to live life to the fullest. There’s a place there with an excellent wine cellar and a chef who certainly knows his way around a fish. What do you say?”
Jaina was at a loss for words. Even as Sylvanas grinned and waited for her answer. Even as she kept pushing to free her sword from where Sylvanas had it trapped and twisted against her guard.
“What’s the matter? Are you going to tell me you don’t date pirates, Lord Admiral? Or at least not rotten little pirates like me?” Sylvanas demanded gleefully.
“Is this another game of yours, Windrunner?” was all Jaina could think to ask.
“Only if you’ll play with me,” Sylvanas offered, unlocking Jaina’s sword to let her make the choice on her own.
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Stalker X Stalker, Part 4
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Perma tag: @nathleigh
Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever
Marinette almost missed Hawkmoth. Sure, she ended up extremely emotionally repressed, but hey! At least her opponent was stupid, at least she never had to fear losing.
But, yeah, that was why she didn’t notice the fact that chloroform was on the floor. That was way too smart for a villain, in her opinion. Wasn’t Joker supposed to be insane or something? Why wasn’t he completely stupid like Hawkmoth had been?
Those were her last thoughts before her vision blacked out.
She blinked her eyes open one time while she was being transported, but… it wasn’t enough. Her head pounded, her limbs felt like lead. She tried to pull one of her arms away from the five goons carrying her around -- she giggled at how much effort they were going through to keep a half-conscious person down -- but it was too weak to even break their grip. She wasn’t going to be getting out of the situation anytime soon.
She rested her head back against the chest of whoever was carrying her head.
Her eyes fluttered shut without her permission.
It took a while for her to be able to open her eyes again, and when she did she was almost tempted to close them. She was tied up with Red Robin, hanging upside down over a vat of acid. Decidedly not a good situation to be in. Maybe she could ignore it for a little longer…?
She buried her face in the neck of Red Robin’s suit, using the cool material as a kind of cold pack to try and soothe her pounding headache.
… wait... Red Robin!
She had a bit of protection because of her mask covering her mouth and nose and miraculous immune system, but he was a human and both his mouth and nose were uncovered! Shit!
Marinette pulled back as much as she could to check his face and see if he was okay and then cursed the domino mask blocking his eyes from her view. What she could see wasn’t good, though: the skin of his face had broken out into hives where he had come into contact with the chloroform. Ouch.
She tried just poking the good parts of his face with her nose to get him to wake up, but clearly that wasn’t working. Alright, new plan.
“Red Robin?” She whispered.
Nothing.
“Red Robin Red Robin Red Red Red Red Red…”
She was pretty sure she was doing this annoying thing right. She didn’t have siblings, how could she know?
Wait wait wait, what was that one thing that his siblings always said to him?
“Reeeeed Robin, yum~.”
Not even that got a response? Damn, he must really be out of it.
Time for drastic measures, then.
She tipped her head back as far back as it could go and then slammed her forehead against his. This evoked a lot of swearing from both parties. Apparently, headbutting people doesn’t help headaches.
When her head stopped ringing as loudly, she peeked her eyes open. “Sorry, checking to see if you were alive.”
He gave about as much of a nod as he could. “It’s… I understand why you had to do it.”
She gave a tentative smile. “Right. Still, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, then glanced down to see what they were working with. He bit his lip anxiously. “Ah, that’s not good,” he said after a few moments of consideration.
She rolled her eyes because, yeah, obviously. She didn’t say that aloud, it wasn’t productive, so she said: “I’m going to squirm. See if you can free your arms a little?”
“Do you think I have some kind of gadget in my gloves for every situation?”
“Don’t you?”
He hesitated. “I mean… yes, I do have something that could help us out of the ropes, but we are kinda over acid right now. How fast is your reaction time?”
She tipped her head from side to side with an awkward smile. “Not great.”
“Then maybe we should just wait for backup --.”
“Do you think they’ll get here before Joker does?”
“... you’re right. Start squirming --.”
“Wow, you two hate me that much? I’m hurt,” a voice cooed.
Marinette jumped out of her skin. She craned her neck to glare at Joker for scaring her…
And immediately regretted it. Why was his face not attached to his skull properly? Did he cut his own face off? Who even does that? Ew.
Red Robin scowled at him. “I can’t say we were all glad to hear you were out.”
“Red Robin...” she warned.
“Wow, not even old Batsy was happy to hear the news?”
“Nope. Didn’t say anything, actually.”
Joker’s smile wavered. “He didn’t?”
“Um, Red,” she tried again.
“Nothing,” he confirmed. “Not. A. Word.”
Joker didn’t seem to know what to do about this information. Batman wasn’t even paying attention to him? What was the point, then?
Marinette was also concerned about what was going on, but for a completely different reason. She leaned close to his ear and whispered: “Why are we trying to anger the psychopath?”
He gave as much of a shrug as he could while tied up. “If he’s talking he’s not trying to kill us.”
“And what if he gets angry enough to kill us?”
“He probably won’t.”
She winced. “Okay, I really don’t like your use of ‘probably’ there --.”
With both of their hands forced behind their backs, the only comfort he could really give was pressing his good cheek to hers. It shouldn’t have worked, but apparently life or death situations mess with your emotions.
“Just… trust me?” He pleaded quietly.
She sucked in a deep breath before turning to glare at Joker, who was still having a crisis over the fact that Batman didn’t care as much as he did. Well, she guessed that she had to take out her headache on someone. Might as well be the bitch in ugly clown makeup.
“You know, I don’t even understand why people are scared of you.”
Joker frowned and turned to look at her. “What?”
“I mean, I get why Poison Ivy is feared, I get why Mr. Freeze is feared… I even get Penguin and Riddler since they both have a high enough intellect to make up for their lack of powers… but you’re just… some guy.”
Joker gave her a cold look. “I could kill you.”
“So could a particularly determined cow, you’re not special.”
Red Robin snickered. She smiled, a little proud of herself for making him laugh.
Their grins were wiped off their faces when the rope holding them up dropped.
It caught them again dangerously close to the acid. Red Robin was a few centimeters from getting a new haircut. Marinette wondered, morbidly, whether her suit would go with her if she disintegrated.
“Not going to kill us, huh?”
“... well, I did say probably,” he mumbled, his face a little red.
She swallowed thickly. “If we live, I’m going to kill you.”
“Fair. Want to mess with him if he’s going to kill us anyways?”
“... yes.” She whipped around to glare at Joker again. “I mean, honestly, why aren’t you dead yet?”
“We don’t kill,” supplied Red Robin.
She grinned. “Sure, and I get that. I’m also not fond of murder... but is every citizen in Gotham just agreeing to not kill him? Does Batman spend all his time making sure that civilians don’t do it? Why hasn’t anyone seen him on the street and just tried to run him over?”
“... I mean, Robin hit him with the Batmobile once.”
“See?” She grinned. “And don’t even get me started on Punchline and your goons, Joker. How did you find so many people loyal to you?”
“I love him!” Said Punchline defensively.
“... sweetie, if you want a pasty white guy with green hair just watch 2016 Jacksepticeye.”
Red Robin nodded. “At least he’s kind of funny sometimes.”
“If you need the guy to be evil, how about the evil alter ego he made… what was he called?”
“Antisepticeye.”
“Ha, you’re a fucking nerd,” Marinette teased.
Red Robin blushed (or maybe that was just the blood slowly rushing to their heads from being upside down for so long) and pointedly ignored her: “Look up Antisepticeye. It’ll probably be healthier for you.”
Punchline didn’t have a retort for that. Marinette was deciding that was because she was considering it, not because she probably didn’t know who Jack/Antisepticeye was.
She pushed on: “And, hey, you goons don’t have to give Punchline over there the glory. Stab your boss. C’mon, it’ll be cool. Doubt he’s paying you more than whatever bounty is on his head, anyways.”
“If you’re going to rally henchmen maybe you shouldn’t call them ‘goons’,” suggested Red Robin.
She pouted. “But ‘goons’ sounds cuter.”
He opened his mouth to retort but she’d never know what he was going to say because, at that moment, Signal and Robin came busting in through the skylight.
~
Tim relaxed when he heard the glass shatter. Whether Marientte’s henchmen rallying had somehow worked or their backup had come, it at least meant that Joker and Punchline were distracted from wanting to murder them.
He struggled to crane his neck to see what was going on.
Oh. Damn. Damian was back from his angsting on the weird murder island? And he was here? Nevermind, he’d prefer Joker and Punchline. Damian was never going to let him live this down.
Speaking of Damian, a weight jumped onto their ropes and the three vigilantes became a pendulum. Tim grit his teeth tightly and Marinette let loose a long string of swears as their headaches worsened.
But, apparently, the world wasn’t done with them. Damian sliced the line at the highest point and they went flying across the room. Tim was the unlucky one on the bottom when they hit the ground, which he doubted was an accident.
Damian left them to deal with things on their own from there. Least he could have done was cut them free with his katana, but Tim supposed that was too much to wish for from the youngest brother.
He rested his head back against the cool floor for a second. He could feel Marinette stretch across his shoulder to do the same. They sighed in relief. This was the closest they had come to treating their headaches and wow was it nice.
But, frankly, resting in the middle of a fight isn’t a great idea. So, they wriggled around on the floor until he was able to flick open the tiny knife in the index finger of his gloves and cut the rope binding them without, y’know, cutting one of them instead.
Freedom! What did they do with this newfound freedom, you may ask? Scratch their heads. Turns out chloroform sucks for many reasons and one of those is that it’s a major skin irritant.
He also vomited. Thank god they’d been freed. He’d been only a few seconds away from throwing up on Marinette. He felt especially bad about that when she peeled a hand from her itching to hold his hair away from his face.
The fight was over soon enough. Duke and Damian came over to watch the two of them attempting to peel their skin off layer by layer.
“Pathetic,” chided Damian.
“Don’t be a dick --.” Marinette cut herself off, her hand flying to her mouth. “I swore in front of a baby.”
“I’m twelve!”
“Exactly: a baby.” She reached out and cupped a very affronted Damian’s face in her hands. “Look, you still have baby fat! You shouldn’t be fighting crime!”
Tim couldn’t tell if she was messing with Damian for being rude to them or if she genuinely saw him as a little kid. He wasn’t going to correct her. She’d remember he was a gremlin soon enough.
Damian wrenched his face from her grip. “If I hadn’t come you two would have been burned in acid.”
“Please, we all know Signal probably could have dealt with this entirely on his own,” Marinette waved him off.
Duke rested a hand over his heart like he was touched.
Tim rolled his eyes and pulled Marinette to him, resting his head on top of hers lazily. “We should get a checkup at the cave. Chloroform has… not nice effects and we both rolled around in it a little while fighting.”
Duke and Damian both winced, but Marinette didn’t seem all that concerned.
“I’ll be fine. My immune system is enhanced by --.”
Duke clapped his hands by her ears as loudly as he could. Neither Marinette nor Tim were particularly happy about it.
“Behold: a headache, one of the main symptoms of chloroform. Your face also has some red streaks, so don’t even try to deny that the chloroform is affecting you.”
“I take back my praise, I’ve decided I hate you,” she murmured, massaging her temples.
“I just remembered that I need the siren on my bike on to tell all the other bats we’ll need them at the cave...”
“Wait, no --.”
~
Marinette glared at Black Bat and Spoiler. The batboys had left the infirmary area for her own comfort and that was nice of them but she would really prefer if she hadn’t had to come at all.
Now she sat in some of Black Bat’s pajamas and one of Spoiler’s spare masks as they inspected her.
Her nose scrunched as Black Bat drew blood from her arm.
“This is dumb. I don’t need this.”
“We’ve been told. Humor us?” Spoiler said and, though Marinette couldn’t see her face from where she was, she knew she was rolling her eyes.
“I would if you were actually funny.”
“I think we can definitely put her down for irritability,” commented Spoiler.
Black Bat nodded and dutifully wrote it down. Traitor.
The cool metal of a stethoscope was pressed to her back and she cringed.
“Deep breaths.”
Marinette complied, however reluctantly. Might as well get all this bullshit over with as soon as possible.
… she was regretting that decision, now, though.
She gave Batman a cold look. “You can’t keep me here.”
“You need to stay so we can monitor your state overnight. You could have asphyxiated.”
“But we didn’t,” complained Red Robin, who looked just as annoyed about this as she was.
“We have lives, B,” she said.
“You weren’t going to do anything other than patrols tonight, don’t act like I’m tearing you away from something important.”
“The protection of the city is important,” Red argued.
“Neither of you would be much help tonight in the state you’re in, anyways.”
Red Robin stuck his lower lip out in a pout. Marinette gave her best puppy-dog eyes.
Batman wasn’t moved. “If you need something, Agent A will provide it.”
She blinked, eyes returning to normal in her confusion. “Who --?”
He disappeared into the shadows before she could finish the conversation, something she was, unfortunately, getting used to.
Marinette scowled at where he had last been.
Maybe she should have expected this, maybe if she had been less out of it she would have. They had given her pajamas when she’d had clothes and insisted on cleaning her old ones ‘for chloroform’. The checkup might have been a genuine checkup on her state, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered what the results were. She was always going to end up staying the night in the cold, dingy cave filled with bats.
She sighed and laid back against the stone floors. She heard Red Robin groan and looked up to see he had been locked out of the Batcomputer for the night. He leaned back in his chair and mumbled curses.
She giggled at his distress and, despite himself, a tiny grin poked at his lips.
“Want to race to see who can hack into it first?” She suggested.
He raised an eyebrow at her under his domino. “Think you can win?”
“Considering I don’t know that much about hacking, I’m going to say probably not.”
A wide smile spread across his face, now, and he waved her over. She took a seat on the desk beside the keyboard and he started teaching her everything.
Most of what he said, while technically heard, wasn’t exactly understood. She couldn’t concentrate. It was the first time she had seen him in anything but his vigilante suit and she decided that that was a crime because he looked so cute in the Batman-themed pajamas. Furthermore, the way his long hair was pushed back by a headband to keep it out of the green paste spread over his face to alleviate the chloroform’s rash reminded her of a spa day in all those movies.
And then there was the smile. It made her heart flutter in her chest because she was so used to his grins but this was just a genuine smile. He looked so passionate about the intricacies of cyber crime. She was almost sad about the domino hiding his eyes because she wanted to see the way they lit up while he explained different ways viruses could be accidentally downloaded to devices.
Basically, she was a mess for this random cute guy she worked with. She had never seen him so casual and at ease and it felt far more intimate than it maybe should.
She rested her head on her hand, nodding along as he talked about data encryption versus decoding.
Well, maybe a forced sleepover in the Batcave wouldn’t be so bad...
~
Tim was suffering a lot more than he would ever admit, and only a small part of it was due to chloroform.
He was going to be having a sleepover with one of his idols and he was going to be spending a large amount of the time trying not to throw up. And she could totally tell, too, why else would she be watching him so intensely? Someone kill him, please. He was so glad he had a secret identity because he didn’t know how he would manage if she thought Tim Drake-Wayne was a loser.
Granted, she was going to think Red Robin was a loser... but at least he had a second chance as Tim.
He rested his chin on the back of his chair. He had hacked into the Batcomputer already but it was a relatively dull night out on patrols and he wasn’t eager to be yelled at for showing Marinette some files on top of already hacking into them when he wasn’t supposed to.
“Wanna do something?”
She grinned. “Is there anything to do here other than train?”
“... nothing approved.”
She tipped her head to the side. “And of the things that aren’t approved?”
He matched her grin. “Well…”
And that was how he ended up setting up a movie projector in the cave so they could watch Groundhog Day. Marinette had taken to making them a pillow fort.
Duke stumbled down the steps, half awake, and raised his eyebrows at them from behind his domino. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that they had made and took a long sip before sending the two of them a wary look. “Do I want to know?”
Marinette didn’t look up from her and Tikki’s base construction. “Dunno. Do you want to watch Groundhog Day with us?”
He frowned. “Isn’t that the one where that guy in a time loop stalks his co-worker until he knows enough to make her fall in love with him?”
“Just say you don’t like romcoms and go,” Marinette irritably.
“I’m fine with romcoms, it’s just… a little messed up that he uses the knowledge he gets from being in a time loop to ensure she falls for him?”
“It’s a story about self-improvement,” Tim said, sending his brother a glare. “He grows as a person until he is worthy of her love.”
“Him learning about her is part of his arc. He starts off selfish and he ends it with a deeper appreciation for other people,” agreed Marinette.
Duke held his free hand up in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. Enjoy your stalker movie.”
“It’s not a --,” Tim tried to argue, but Duke was already heading back upstairs.
He huffed a little and finished setting up the computer and projector, then took a seat in the pillow fort. She poured each of them a cup of coffee, put a straw in hers to maintain her identity, and then took a seat beside him.
He took it from her with a bright smile and turned on the movie.
She rested her head on his shoulder as the happy-go-lucky music started up.
Unfortunately for them, they didn’t manage to stay awake for all that long. Duke had drugged the coffee pot.
~
Marinette shifted awake a while later and promptly decided that being awake sucked.
Nothing about her current situation sucked, of course. At some point during the night they had fallen asleep and now she was laying half on top of Red Robin, clinging to him like a koala. He didn’t seem all that upset about it, though, with his arm wrapped around her and his face buried in her hair.
Unfortunately, the time on the bottom right of the Batcomputer’s screen told her she didn’t have much time to enjoy it.
She started the slow process of extracting herself from him. Getting the arm off of herself was easy, getting his face away from her head was much harder (this wasn’t helped by the fact that the paste on his face had stuck to her hair).
There was one scare where she thought he was going to wake up. She pushed herself off of his chest and he took a long breath in. Marinette froze, watching his lips tighten… and then he turned over in his sleep.
Oops, apparently she’d been suffocating him a little in her sleep. Sorry, Red.
Well, at least she was free now.
She slipped out of the pillow fort and glanced at the time again.
Even less time to do what she needed. Because that’s how time works.
She sighed and called Tikki over with a tiny wave of her hand, walking over the edge of the railing. She looked down at the abyss that stretched many feet below.
Tikki couldn’t have looked more disapproving if she tried.
“It’s just a little insurance,” Marinette signed.
This didn’t make Tikki any less upset with her, but she hadn’t really expected it to. She signed for her transformation. She tied herself to the railing with her yoyo as a precaution and then hooked her legs around the railing.
And down she went.
She flexed at an awkward angle, flashlight in her mouth, and stuck a tracker to the bottom of the platform.
And, really, she wasn’t intending on using it. Like she said, it was just insurance. They had drawn blood from her earlier and she knew for a fact that it wasn’t necessary for chloroform inhalation. The only reason that made sense for that was that they wanted to check and see if she had inhaled some but they already knew that so… what did they want with her blood?
She was willing to bet it had something to do with her secret identity. And, hey, she didn’t particularly care if they knew her identity, she trusted them, but if it ever got out because of them revealing then who the bats were would be 1) revenge and 2) a good distraction.
“Hey --?”
Thank the kwamis she had tied herself to the railing because she’d been surprised enough to let go of the platform.
“Shit, sorry!” Said Red Robin.
She pulled herself back up onto the platform with his help and then collapsed on the cool stone. She spat the flashlight from her mouth. “Fuuuuuuck, don’t do that again, please.”
“Sorry,” he said again. Then he glanced back at where she had been and, momentarily, his lips pulled into a frown. “I gotta ask: what were you doing?”
“Hm?”
Shitshitshit.
“Oh, I wanted to see if there was anything down there or if it was just for The Aesthetic.”
“Why not just use your yoyo to go down?”
She shuddered. “The flashlight barely did anything. Would you want to go down into that darkness with no clue even how far down it goes?”
He seemed to accept the answer. “It’s an old iron mine. No one uses it anymore, though.”
She nodded her understanding.
She pushed herself back up to a sitting position and looked at him.
“The bats don’t get back for a while and we’re still on lockdown, so… want to do something?”
~
Damian was the first one to get home. Apparently he had broken a leg on patrol. This was fine (well, maybe he shouldn’t have been driving himself, but whatever).
What was not fine was that he had promptly decided to be an asshole.
Tim and Marinette had been playing Minecraft on the Batcomputer and, like all younger brothers, Damian asked to play.
And, like all older brothers, Tim barely looked up from his controller to tell him: “No.”
Damian looked to be on the verge of a meltdown.
Marinette sighed and sent Tim a tired look. “Red, don’t be mean. He’s just a kid. There’s more controllers, we can just give him one.”
“But…” He started. Damian was a terrible partner to play Minecraft with because he never helped out with anything except for the farm.
However, Marinette was looking at him expectantly. Tim bit his lip, considering.
Damian looked between the two of them and a wicked grin spread across his face and oh no.
Damian took a seat next to Marinette and gave her puppy-dog eyes (a real feat, considering the fact that he was wearing a domino and therefore his eyes were invisible). “Miss Ladybug, can’t you please make him let me play?”
Marinette gave Tim a tired look. “Red, c’mon, just for a bit.”
Damian smirked a little but, by the time Marinette turned back around, he had schooled his face back into a pout.
She handed him her controller. “You can have mine. I’ll find another for myself.”
The two watched her leave and Tim sent his younger brother a glare. “I can’t believe you would embarrass yourself this much just to play a game.”
“Anything to annoy you, ‘big bro’.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but then Marinette came back and all he could do was send him a glare behind her back.
Damian retaliated by sitting himself on Marinette’s lap. She looked down, amusement making her eyes crinkle, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge it. Damian smirked and stuck his tongue out at Tim.
That little shit.
And it continued on for hours while the three of them waited for the rest of the bats to come back. Damian would cling to Marinette in some way and he would become the bad guy for glaring at a child. He was seriously considering breaking the No Killing Rule for this kid.
Finally, though, people started coming back and apparently Damian thought it too embarrassing to do such a thing in front of more than just the person he was trying to annoy because he clambered off her lap to play just a little bit away.
Bruce was the last one to come in and he looked at his kids with the patented Batdad Glare because they had managed to drag Steph into playing with them (without much effort) and Cass into watching (with much more effort). Which meant that there were currently five family disappointments. Yay them.
Tim smiled innocently. “What? We got bored. Maybe you should let us out so this doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m keeping you here for your own safety.”
Marinette and Tim both groaned.
“I have work to do.”
“Me, too.”
Bruce didn’t relent because he was a stubborn asshole.
But that was fine. They really hadn’t expected them to. Tim glanced at Marinette and she twirled her index finger against her flat palm, the sign for ‘start’.
One flash and smoke bomb later, the two of them were running as fast as they could to his bike. He grinned as he helped his giggling friend get on and hopped up himself. Arms wrapped around him tightly and her face buried in his back. They tore out of the cave, giggling all the while.
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ecoamerica · 2 months
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dreamkidddream · 3 years
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Hello sunshine, would it be possible for you to write me some headcanons for my beloved Chuuya, Dazai and Atsushi? I was thinking about them having a fragil health s/o? Maybe they work an office job in the ada/pm and they somehow fall for the s/o? I hope this is no trouble and you have inspiration to write this. If you don't like this you can just ignore it. Thank you very much :)
Hi anon! Thank you for the request! So I’m assuming that when you say fragile health s/o is that the reader can get sick easily/overall very weak? I hope that I got the interpretation right, and I didn’t please feel free to send it in again so I can do it over for you. Reader is gender neutral, and hope you enjoy!
TW: Suicide (Dazai’s part, nothing heavy is mentioned, and it’s only in one line) and Abuse (Atsushi’s, nothing heavy is mentioned)
Easily Sick/Weak S/O with: Chuuya, Dazai, and Atsushi
Chuuya
Oh man, he hated this feeling. He already hated you even working in the Port Mafia (even though he was there too), but he hated it even more since you were weak physically
Don’t get him wrong, Chuuya knows that you’re a strong person through and through, but it was so easy for you to get hurt or sick working on the field, it honestly made him worried
What also made him worried was how he was falling for you and quickly. He’s an executive! He doesn’t have the time for romance, and what if (really when if because he wants you so bad you have no idea) someone decides to come after you because of your ties with him? It was already so easy for him to lose you now, he didn’t want to chance things and speed up the process
But, you were just...a really great person. You were determined, always kept your head up, didn’t take anything from anyone (you backtalked Mori once and still walked away with your throat intact, so that was a sign), and it didn’t help that you were really easy on the eyes (he couldn’t help it, you were already attractive, and those things were just icing on the cake for him)
Chuuya didn’t know how you could stand being in a stuffy office all day, so he always stopped by to check on some “information” for some “case he’s working on). It started out genuine, but then it became a daily occurrence, even on his rare days off. 
One thing about him is that he’s a true gentleman, he knows how to treat his partner right. Bringing lunch to you, flowers sitting on your desk for no reason with a random note (”Hope you have a good day”, “Saw these when I was out, made me think about you”, “These don’t even compare to how beautiful you are, inside and out”, etc.), driving you home no questions asked, even offering you his favorite bottle of wine to share
He knows that he’s being cheesy but he was pulling out all the stops just for you
He knew it was risky for you to be out all the time, so whenever he did finally ask you on an “official” date (you thought sharing his wine was a date but he said that he wanted to show you off, not just in the office), you guys were either in a fully reserved restaurant or at his place. Seriously the way his place looks was like luxury! Damn you knew his job paid good money but wow! This was better than going out honestly
He confessed when you went over to his house one night. It was a particularly rough day for you both, and you just needed some reassurance which Chuuya was happy to give. It seemed like he went on for hours, but really it wasn’t too long, and you were in tears by the end of it. When he ended it with, “anyone would be beyond lucky to have you (Y/N), and I wish it were me. I wish I would have the chance to show you how much I really do love you, words aren’t enough for me. I’ll take the chance if you let me, and I swear you won’t regret it. Be mine, (Y/N), I’ll treat you like you deserve, and you deserve more than the world.”
You both understood the risks that came with dating you, but he swore that he would protect you with his life. If you did get sick, he couldn’t be there for you during the day because of his work, but he made sure to text you every hour on the hour to check on you and as soon as he got home, it was caretaker mode until you both went to bed
He bought you your medicine, the fluffiest pillows ever known to man, I mean did everything and anything. The dude was loaded, money was not an issue obviously
Chuuya is a great boyfriend, and will honestly do anything it takes to keep you safe and happy. He loves you after all, and he doesn’t mind all the extra work that comes with it (he doesn’t even see it as work, just precautions, which still isn’t a problem)
Dazai
He was not only worried about your health and safety, but also the fact that he was falling for you. Dazai was a very secretive person who didn’t like to show his true feelings, and he was scared of what he’s feeling for you. Him being attached and actually caring about people never paid off for him, as his past would tell you...
But here you were, being a bright, shining light in his cruel, bleak, dark world. He tried to keep his distance at first, but he couldn’t help but be drawn to you. You were so fun to be around, despite your condition! You always helped as much as you could in the office, being the first one to pick up on his work when he was too lazy busy to complete it and having reports ready for any meetings, even on short notice. You looked out for him, both as a coworker and as a caring friend, and he could tell
You even helped him annoy Kunikida sometimes, which just made you even more stunning in his eyes
He felt himself falling for you more and more everyday, finding excuses to stay in the office just to be next to you. “(Y/N), please don’t strain yourself my dear! Let me handle this for you, I would be a terrible suitor if I didn’t.” “Dazai, I just have to staple these- nevermind, thank you my knight wrapped in bandages!” 
Kunikida would of course hate this and drag him out every time, but all that it concluded in was Dazai whining and complaining about how it was so unfair that he was being kept from his “precious (Y/N)” and how they must be so lonely without him. It got to a point where Kunikida made a compromise with him: if he actually does some work and help on the field missions, then he can spend more time with you in the office
I feel like they forget that Dazai is actually crazy smart and most likely already knows the culprits to whatever cases that they are handling, and he was definitely waiting for this outcome. No extra work for him and more time with you. It’s a win-win!
When he does eventually accept that he was in too deep, he started to take his advances in a more serious manner (I mean he was always being serious but he was not going to hold back anymore). He’s a great listener, so anything that said wanted that was said in passing conversation, expect it to be on your desk with a little sticky note. You had a strong craving for something? What do you know, Dazai brought just enough for both of you to share (and he gave you the bigger portion of it). You want to go see the stars? Sounds like the perfect date night for you two!
That’s how he actually confessed to you, right underneath the stars. It was perfect, you guys were away from everyone, having an amazing time just stargazing. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this at peace, and you were to thank for that. He knew that while he was risking his life on a daily basis, but you were constantly fighting for yours. You couldn’t even go on a mission with how easy it was for you to get an injury you couldn’t recover from. But he had faith in you and in himself, that he wouldn’t let another person that he cares for perish in front of him. He made that promise to you, and that he would do everything in his power to keep it. He will not fail you
After that night, your dates were usually held at your place, and it ranged from cooking together to having movie nights. You didn’t have to spend money really, you were both fine in the house in each other’s arms. And if you did get sick, you thought he was clingy before, WHEW did it get more intense
You had to push him off of you too many times to count. What part of NO HUGS did this man not get?! You were already suffering, he didn’t need to either. He did try to make this a double suicide opportunity though, and you were not very happy
Was banned from cuddles for 3 weeks straight, it was pure torture for him
You were Dazai’s distraction from this horrible joke he called a life, and he was welcoming of you. He embraced you, never complained about your weakness or anything. You were someone that he can proudly say that he loves, and that won’t ever change
Atsushi
He was so nervous, so scared. He doesn’t even know how to look everyone in the eye, how was he suppose to admit that he started to like you more than a friend?!
Atsushi was in love with you, I mean he was in deep. He couldn’t help it! You’re just so nice, so easy to talk to, always there to give him a pep talk and just keep him in high spirits. It just wasn’t fair what hand life had dealt you. He wanted to spend time with you outside of the office, but due to your delicate situation, he was so scared to. What if the Port Mafia tried to strike and he wasn’t strong enough or quick enough to protect you? He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if you died because of him. He wouldn’t be able to live-
So he tried (keyword: tried) to spend time with you at work. But with Kunikida on his ass about work, and Dazai being Dazai making his life difficult for his own amusement, made it difficult. Every time he got a chance, before he could even speak a word, someone needed him for something. If he did somehow had the spare time to talk to you, he would either choke or say something that he really meant but chickened out last minute and tried to change it (which was kinda your fault, you like to tease him sometimes too)
“So, um, (Y/N). I remembered that you said you liked that one takeout spot, so if you want I can bring you some back?”
“You would do that for me, Atsushi? Wow, it’s almost like you’re like my boyfriend!”
“Yep, I don’t mind! It makes me happy when you’re hap-w-WAIT HU-“
But besides that, he always checked on your whenever he got back from his missions (even if he was the one injured and bleeding), brought you back small trinkets or food, and always walked you home, not caring if it was out of his way
He hated that you were confined to the office majority of your time working, but he was worried that literally anything could and would happen on his watch, and he didn’t want to risk it. With Kyoka tired of watching him in distress and even Dazai showing a sliver of compassion for him, they helped him set up an inside date
But first, he had to ask you. Dazai wanted him to do some elaborate, over the top, proposal for asking you out (which Atsushi was pretty sure that he just wanted him to panic and embarrass himself) and Kyoka suggested that he gets you tofu (which he was also convinced that she just wanted some again). He decided that he was just going to have to suck it up, and do it himself. He has been through Hell and back, and if he survived that, then he could ask you on a date damn it!
So he finally got some courage, and directly went up to your desk. When you looked up, you flinched back. What was with the intense look in his eyes?! But you realized soon enough when he bowed and asked you to come over for a date. And of course you said yes!
The date was marvelous, and the poor boy was sweating so much you thought he was going to pass out! Whatever Dazai and Kyoka did to the place blew his expectations out of the water. Latern lights strung up along the walls, your favorite meals readied, little messages stuck to the wall made just for you, and the biggest/most comfortable blanket fort that you had ever seen. It sounded so simple, but one look into your eyes and you were overjoyed. He really did mean it that it made him happy that you were happy
He confessed with you snuggled into his side, so anxious yet at ease. Despite everything that he has gone through, you were brave too. You were stuck in that stressful environment, had a body that could quit on you after one bad day, yet you still encouraged him every day, every time you spoke to him after he’s had a bad day, or an encounter with Akutagawa. He was so convinced that he didn’t you, that he didn’t deserve anything good in his life after the abuse he endured at the orphanage. But you didn’t let him believe that for a second, and he’s indebted to you for that
He poured his heart out to you that night, and ever since, he’s been a lot more confident, both in his ability and in himself. You gave him that push in the right direction to trust himself more, and everyone could see the change (Dazai was pretty proud to be honest)
Dates after that were spent at his apartment, relaxing. Once in a blue moon, you guys would go to the arcade where he won you guys matching Tiger phone charms (he was a little embarrassed but he loved you and the charms too much to let it affect him)
If you did become ill, he would panic so bad that you had to bring him back down to Earth while hacking up a lung (not literally but it felt like it). He tries his best, he’s a little shaken because of how distraught he would get due to your fragile body, but he does care for you pretty well. If you need anything, he was too scared to leave you so Kyoka would be his go-to (with the promise of tofu afterwards)
(But don’t worry she’s a little worried for you too)
Atsushi knew he could never forget the horrors that he experienced at the orphanage, but you reminded him of the strength he had to not let it hold him back. He was your hero without a doubt, but you were his in the sense of how strong you really are, and how you didn’t know or believe it when he told you. You became an overall positive influence on his life, and helped him see life a little brighter and more meaningful. He loves you more than you could imagine, and he would continue to prove it to you in everything that he does.
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bananaapplewaffle · 2 years
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Another Batch of Vignettes [2 of 5] [Savanaclaw]
Y’all know the drill
I'm Being Rude | Leona - Uniform
Leona My Beloved what are you doing
Ah, not waiting to be bothered
Okay Leona but what if you got prettied up just be prettied up
A WHAT
COMMON WHAT
VIL YOU'RE SAYING THAT SHIT WITH YOUR WHOLE CHEST LIKE LEONA ISN'T A KING
HIS NAME IS LEONA KINGSCHOLAR FOR A REASON
VIL SHUT THE FUCK UP
LEONA BEAT HIS ASS
SMILING AND SHIT
DO YOU WANNA CATCH HIS PAWS
BOUT TO HAVE ME OUT HERE LIKE ASHELY KATCHADORIAN BUT WATCH ME ACTUALLY WATCHING THAT DOOR
GASLIGHT HIS ASS
LISTEN LISTEN
Vil, you kinda right. He kinda does only have a pretty face and a shitty attitude
BUT HE'S MY PRETTY FACE AND SHITTY ATTITUDE BELOVED SO NO MEAN
Um, Vil, Leona aint that. He worked for what he's got.
ME
Just My Tail | Leona - PE Uniform
:)
Yeah, I'm gonna need someone to pull a Chowder on the sun.
Leona, you just went from not giving a fuck to picking on the old and sickly.
Tryna act up cuz the Sun caught Lila lacking.
Girl help what are they saying
Nah let'em box
Trey this is literally the funniest shit
TREY OUT HERE THE REF AND COMMENTATOR
Okay but watching their sprites move is the goofiest shit
OOP ROOK JOINS THE COMMENTATIN' FRAY
CHILE LILIA GOT THE BALL
WHOLE SCREEN SHAKING
HIS EYES
His eyes...
looks away
THE GIRLIES ARE FIGHTING
AYE Y'ALL BETTER CHILL OUT BEFORE Y'ALL KICK EACH OTHER
Y'all should kick each other
Okay this transitions are way too aggressive
They should have them box forreal
Quit Kickin' and Screamin' (Part One) | Leona - Labwear
GRIM??
EPEL???
ME???
Mang, all Rook do is lie, shot and speak french
Grim no! You don't have thumbs!
LEONA MY BELOVED
DON'T BULLY GRIM LIKE THAT HE'S TRYING HIS BEST HE'LL GET TALLER ONE DAY
...Grim I swear to god
YOU BETTER LICK IT UP BITCH
YA DONE FUCKED UP SO BAD EPEL'S COUNTRY ACCENT DONE GONE AND CAME OUT
NAH NAH EPEL IN THIS SHIT TOO, LEONA
Epel, it's okay. You can be country 'round me.
NAH NAH GRAB HIM
OH? YOU STOP AT THE MENTION OF ROOK DO YOU?
LISTEN
EVEN LEONA IS LIKE
"WHAT THE FUCK IS HE SAYING"
RECKON
LEONA MY BELOVED PLEASE DO NOT MANDLE ME
at least not in the open halls omg scandalous
OH HE'S LIFTIN'EM
PICK ME UP TOO
YES
PICK ME UP RN
Quit Kickin' and Screamin' (Part Two) | Leona - Labwear
omfg look at his claws fuck me
I like Epel's shoes lol
Also Grim baby, stfu you got us into this :)
I ain't doing shit, Grim.
NOT HIM DROPPING EPEL LIKE THAT
MANG PICK ME UP INSTEAD
GIRL NOT THEM COMMENTING ON THE FACT THAT HE RANDOMLY CHANGED INTO HIS LABWEAR
He said: "I snapped my fingers and that shit was there."
Ah look at Leona doing something nice
Nevermind
Grim.
I'm really gonna have to teach you when to shut the fuck up.
"Damn, you said that shit with your whole chest."
Umm chile "you guys" who???
WHAT A FUCKEN KING
"You drink it, you piece of shit!"
And then we spent the rest of the hour with Leona.
You're Dreamin' (Part One) | Leona - Ceremonial Robes
Leona in his Ceremonial Robes my beloved
Silver! Take your sleepyass home
Eye- Silver what?
Silver out here reading in between the lines
"Well, yeah they fight, but as friends, right?"
Silence
"Right??"
LISTEN LSITEN KALIM HE
...nah y'all right not much going on up there
Silver please
Leona my lying beloved
HEARTLESS
DID SOMEONE SAY HEARTLESS
shoves fic idea away
nap time besties
You're Dreamin' (Part Two) | Leona - Ceremonial Robes
aaannnd we're back!
Oo he big glaring
Not Ruggie being like: "THE SUNSET SAVANNA ROYAL FAMILY?"
Ruggie the beloved grandchild
:)))))))))))))))))))))
"extra nice to la ladies"
HE DRINKS HIS RESEPCT WOMAN JUICE
WAS RAISED ON THAT SHIT
Let us see the woman of Savanna
I want to see their muscles
I want them to pic me up
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LOOK AT HIS EARS AAAAAAAAAAA
wait a
IS THAT A LUCLY FUCKEN EMBLEM
KASLMJASKLJDSLJDSAKLJDSLJ
MALLEUS' HOOD
ON MY LEONA BELOVED
MORE LIKELY THAN YOU'D THINK
Yeah Malleus do give off head empty vibes
mang why do y'all got these hats
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IS THAT ANOTHER LUCKY EMBLEM
A HEART-TO-HEART
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I love how Silver slips up and calls Lilia father
(and the conclusion will be found in Malleus Ceremonial Robes Part 2! See y'all in a month LMAO)
Caught Red-Handed! | Jack - Uniform
Oh shit hea sniffin'
Nah nah, abort abort Jack. It ain't worth it!
(I don't really know just yet tho... Chapter 3 Part 1 did just drop...)
NOT ALL BRING AN NONDESCRIPT BREIFCASE TO THE DINING HALL
LETS FUCKEN GO
THROW SOME HANDS
...oops
Nah that can't be no beauty lotion if it fucken stinks
ain't nobody about to put that shit on
EPEL!
I love when Epel loses his cool.
Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you wanna go apeshit, Epel?
GIRL NOT THE ONIONS IN THE COAT POCKET
WHY ALL THE ONIONS
MANG IF YOU DON'T CARRY SOME DAMN SEASONING THEN
And thus, a friendship bloomed
all thanks to some damn onions
Grammy Doesn't Need Fancy | Ruggie - Uniform
Girl what? Soup as a midnight snack?
JADE WHAT THE FUCK
I would say I'm surprised that we're all awake at the ass crack of night but it be like that tbh
Oh no
WHY WOULD YOU JUST LEAVE THAT SHIT OUT
GIRL IF ITS OUT IN THE OPEN, ITS GOOD FOR THE TAKING
30 RECPIES????
CHEF RUGGIE
Man I love adding cheese to my eggs.
GRAMMY?? AAAA
FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD????
I AM LEAVING THIS PLANE OF EXISTANCE
Lower! | Ruggie - PE Uniform
Oh god, its Sleepy Silver.
Lilia my beloved...
COINKIDINK???
Don't you dare, Ruggie. He is sleepy enough.
$7 FOR A DRINK????
OOP
omg Silver is deadass falling asleep on my screen
SILVER SHUSH
WHEN HAGGLING NEVER BRING UP THE ACTUAL PRICE
$6.50???
$6???? THAT'S ONLY A DOLLAR OFF
AT LEAST $4 DAMN
Damn, he got it for $3.50
But the trade off was a lot better for Sam tho
3 for $7 damn Ruggie
What I Went Through (Part One) | Ruggie - Labwear
Leona's room my second home
Okay nah, Leona pick up after yourself.
Nah, Ruggie tell him off forreal
What's he gonna do? Growl?
Periodt expensive everything to Leona's account.
His money is your money at this point.
Also we are always at Sam's shop lol
TREY YOU BITCH
Oh my good no...
Mew Meow! (Part One) | Ruggie - Dorm Uniform
TREY YOU BITCH
YOU LITTLE SNEAK
Fucking
"Not pink, not green, not aquamarine." SHUT UP
Got scared for a second, thought I was gonna have to do some Twsitunin'
WHO LET RUGGIE WALK OUT THE HOUSE LOOKIN LIKE THAT
not leona following the sun like a fucking cat
I can't say much tho because when the sun hits just right
LAUNDRY SAUCE??????
NOT LEONA JUST THROWING HIS WALLET
BITCH TOSS IT AT ME
Bitch he's that stacked?
Damn making me feel like a gold digger...
Mew Meow! (Part Two) | Ruggie - Dorm Uniform
LEONA MY BELOVED
WELL- don't call Ruggie out like that when you got all that damn money
Y'all are sneaky sneaky
Y'ALL NEED TO STOP TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE THAT WONT JUST POP UP
oh he is speaking the way of the rats
RATS RATS WE'RE THE RATS
oh that was quick lol
Mew Meow! (Part Three) | Ruggie - Dorm Uniform
LEONA WITH THE BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT (STEEL CHAIR)
Leona, don't say get some help like you're gonna help.
Yeah that's what I thought.
aww Ruggie! You'll be a leader one day!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT MY HOUSE
oh thank god its just Lucifer
(I'm not fucken calling him Lucius)
on meorw?
OH SHIT WE FINNA GATHER MORE PUSSY
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LEONA MY BELOVED IN THE DISTANCE
Ruggie my bilingual beloved
Nooo what did they say at the end?
Ramblings Masterlist
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billy-the-hurricane · 3 years
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200 harringrove
Hi sorry it took me a ridiculously huge amount of time to do this, but here we gooo
200. "He loves you, you know? He's just afraid of admitting it"
_
Steve and Billy's friendship was.. complicated to say the least. Admittedly, Hargrove having punched the shit out of the other boy last November was probably not helping their case. Before that fight, it had been rivalry, mainly fueled by Billy while Steve tried his best to just ignore the guy. After that, they kept their distance for a while, and Steve found out from Dustin that Maxine had threatened her brother with a nailed bat to leave them alone. But the whole thing felt off to Harrington. It's a good thing Hargrove wasn't trying to fight with him anymore, but it seemed everything else was gone with it. His fire died down. Billy came back to school with a black eye Steve knew for a fact he wasn't the one responsible for, and alarmingly quiet. Him who usually was loud and obnoxious was just trying to stay quiet. After interrogating Max (god forbid he'd ask the guy himself), he wasn't given much of an answer, but it seemed Mayfield definitely felt somewhat of an embarrassment when the question dropped. This only concerned him more. The real turn however was one time Steve drove the redhead back to Cherry Lane. Both Neil and Billy's vehicles were parked here and as soon as they got out of Steve's beamer, they could already hear some fighting was going on inside.
"Steve, you should leave now" Max had told, despite the concern written across her face.
"why? What's happening?" Harrington asked with a worried frown that only deepened as Neil's voice raised even louder. They could hear him like he was simply in the room next to them and not outside the house. Max bit the inner side of her cheek, swallowing hard.
"Please, you really sho-" The girl had started before their discussion was cut short by the most haunting pleading Steve's heard. At least in a while. It was clearly Billy screaming, with the sound of a vase breaking right after. He couldn't make up the exact words, but it was obvious the blond was begging for this to stop.
And things kind of clicked. Why Billy was behaving the way he did. Despite Max trying to avoid this being known, because Billy doesn't want it to be known he's guessing, Steve knows now. No matter how much his guts are telling him to storm inside, to just do something, anything, he leaves. He feels extremely gross for days afterwards, spent the weekend wondering if complying to the redhead's request had been a good idea at all. When Billy showed up at school with a scar forming on his eyebrow, having split it in a way that probably would never grow back, Steve had no doubt about the situation.
So he tried finding small ways to somehow approach Billy, befriend him. It was clear the guy's behaviour was stemming from his life at home, but Steve was certain that with some help, he could give the blond a more healthy outlet than knocking people out. This was definitely easier said than done, with Billy being very hostile at the idea of ever hanging out or even being seen with the guy. But one step at a time, one meaningless small talk at a time, they started actually hanging out at lunch. Then after school. Shared joints and deeper conversations ensued over the course of a few months and although this didn't fix Billy's issue, it was obvious he wasn't as agitated anymore.
The main turning point for them was a night of April. In which Steve confided in his own insecurities. Brought up his failed relationship with Nancy, the fact that his parents themselves didn't know him more than on an acquaintance type of level. He felt alone in a stupidly big fucking house all the time, stuck with nightmares he couldn't describe to the blond. For a second he thought maybe Billy would mock him, or flee his way out of the conversation but he did not. He listened. Hargrove let Steve talk and although it was clear the Californian native wasn't used to give advices, he genuinely tried and it showed. Then he opened up too. Billy seemed really hesitant for a hot minute, but he confessed to the abuse at home. The fact that it's been happening for so long and gradually getting worse. The fact that it took an awful turn when Neil caught him with a guy.
Holy shit.
That wasn't expected for sure, caught him off-guard for sure and judging by Billy's face, it showed. The guy looked like he was seeing someone dying. It hit him now. Just how much trust Billy has in him now, to even just share this.
"Nevermind, I'll just go" Hargrove blurted out, getting up with a reddening face. An awful sense of embarrassment coursing through his body. He just made a fool of himself. Again. As he walked out, Steve ran after him, grabbing his wrist but Billy instantly moved it away almost mechanically.
"Listen man, it's okay, I just didn't expect it" Harrington awkwardly let out, watching Billy's back still turned towards him. "It's a bit of a lot to process at once that's all. I think I figured out for your dad, but I didn't know you.." the brunet went on, earning a chuckle that held no joy from Hargrove. "It's okay. That doesn't change anything for me. I'm sorry this happened to you, you don't deserve any of it. Just know you can always come over if you need to sleep away from your house"
And just like this, Billy's sexual orientation was never brought up again. Steve was supportive and offered him a roof more than anyone has in YEARS. He was always stupidly kind, never asked for anything in return. Billy finally had a safe space and someone he could count on. Billy laughed harder than he ever had with him, and the experience was mutual. It was just. Easy. Stress free. Well until he caught feelings. Until he came to realize just to what degree Harrington mattered to him. He'd rather die than admit it, of course, but they were there. The stupid fucking butterflies. Whenever Steve smiled too bright of showed too much care. Usually Billy found a way to distract them both with something totally different, just so he can focus on something else than the way he feels. But with time, it became harder and harder and the fear of slipping up grew bigger and bigger. As much as it pained Billy, he slowly tried distancing himself. Just to avoid this disaster.
However, what Billy hadn't anticipated was just how much this would hurt Steve. He just couldn't understand what the hell he did to upset Billy. And whenever he asked, Hargrove would assure nothing happened and they're fine.
After weeks of useless back and forth, Steve asked Max. Asked what the hell was wrong with Billy. And apparently that was a really stupid question, judging by the stare she gave him. She shook her head with a whispered "boys" before looking around them to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
"You really have no idea?" the redhead asked, crossing her arms.
"Not really, no" the teenage boy reiterated with a sigh.
"He loves you, y'know? He's just afraid to admit it" Maxine explained. "He's changed a lot since you guys made peace. It's obvious he cares a lot for you, so please don't let this destroy your friendship. Just give him time to move on-" she started, cut by Steve that was finally processing the words.
"He's in love with me?" Harrington questioned, although the answer was given to him even before he spoke. Well, damn. He didn't even add anything else, just left with Max calling him behind him.
He just hopped into his beamer and drove off, later realizing he probably scared her to death, she probably thought he was about to fight with her brother over it. But he just had to see Billy. It's now been weeks since he's been questioning himself over this, over how much he cares about the blond. Over the implications of it. But hearing Billy loved him was like all of his thoughts now made sense. He parked into the public pool's parking lot, knowing Billy was on his Saturday shift. He walked in, ignored the girl at the entrance, vaguely explaining he was there to see Billy and headed to the lockers, finding him there.
"The hell are you doing here?" Billy told, putting his sweater on properly as Harrington was just walking towards him in an overwhelmingly confident manner. Now dragged into a changing room, he's really starting to freak out.
"Jesus man, what's your issue?!" Hargrove insisted as the brunet locked the door behind them. "What do you want?"
Steve just found himself speechless once locked in here with the other, now only fully understanding what this was. "You're in love with me" he let out, quite breathless sounding. And Billy turned white like a ghost. The guy that usually dripped in confident was losing all of his arrogance in seconds.
"No" Hargrove mumbled out, his voice now slightly shaky. There were no fucking way out. Both of the discussion and physically.
"You're not a good liar" Steve smiled, watching the blond embarrass himself like a twelve year old.
"Fuck off" Billy replied, trying to move Steve out of the way, just to get his arm pulled even closer into Harrington's space, chest pressed against chest. Steve had this dumb smile on his face, and Billy felt like this was a joke at his expense. Couldn't be anything else. "That's not funny. Just beat the shit out of me, get this over with already"
"I want you to tell me. Say it to me, please" Steve said, completely ignoring Billy's previous words.
"Are you serious?"
"Please" Harrington asked again.
"I.." he looked away, swallowing tightly. "I'm in love. With you"
In response, Steve gave him one of those beautiful bright smiles of his, his hand sliding up to cup Billy's cheek. "You're beautiful" he told before leaning in to kiss that fucking idiot.
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fandom-necromancer · 3 years
Text
Guitar Lessons
Fandom: Cyberpunk 2077 | Ship: Judy/V, SilverV (interpretable)
‘Of all the shitty ideas you’ve had so far, this is the worst.’ ‘Oh come on!’ ‘No! I'm not some ability-splinter you picked off some unfortunate dead merc! I'm a person!’ 'A person with amazing guitar skills’, V purred. ‘A rockstar whose songs are still famous and loved by his fans even fifty years after his death.' 'Yeah, with lunatics and rebellious youth maybe. You do know that tactic won’t work with me, right?'
'I know for a fact it did with others', she teased the engram. 'Yeah, but I wasn't in their head and knew exactly what they think of me and my music.' 'I do like your songs, okay? Just... Nevermind.' V gripped the neck of the guitar a little stronger, torn in between Johnny's familiarity to the sensation and her own completely foreign one.
'I will let you take over for a night, so you can have your fun', she tried again after much consideration, even though it felt like defeat. 'Giving up so easily?' 'I won't beg you', V stated stubbornly.
'She that important to you?' V sighed, eyeing the crappy guitar she haggled off some homeless in the streets, then looking up to the open window of the run-down apartment complex. She was very quiet when she answered: ‘Yes. I don’t have much time left and I've been alone long enough to know I don’t want to die alone too.’ ‘You know you might be the only person in this world not to die alone’, Johnny commented. ‘Also I won’t let you.’ He said it with such confidence, V wanted to believe him. But at the same time, she knew better than to hope for such a thing. ‘Fuck off. Neither of us will know what happens and how – if – we can survive. Is it really that absurd I want to have a few good days before shit hits the fan?’ ‘You want to forget for a while’, Johnny stated, and V was surprised to hear a slither of real empathy in his voice.
‘Fine.’ ‘You will do it?’ ‘Don’t fuss over it, I’m not doing this for you’, he brushed it off, despite V knowing that was a lie. ‘You owe me an evening with the living, understand? It’s a trade-off.’ ‘If that’s an excuse that helps you sleep at night’, V chuckled. ‘Shut up. What should I play for your output? And if you say Ponpon Shit I take back what I’ve said and kill you myself.’ ‘She’s not my-‘, V began, but couldn’t continue, laughing at the thought of making the great Johnny Silverhand play that song. ‘I mean it.’ ‘Now that you say that-‘ ‘V.’ ‘I’m joking, come on. No, Play Kill the Messenger. It’s her favourite song.’ ‘Urgh. Okay, give me a minute.’
The feeling when Johnny took over her body was as alienating as ever, but she didn’t fight his control and he didn’t push her into unconsciousness as he had done before or as the pills had. He pulled the guitar up to put the strap around her shoulders. Almost automatically their hands came to rest on the strings and V suddenly felt how everything fell into place as if the instrument was a well-known part of her. She knew it was Johnny’s doing, but as her fingers plucked at the strings experimentally and tuned it right, everything felt like she had done this uncountable times already.
The first chord brought a smile to her face that wasn’t hers but could have been in better times. ‘Damn, how did it go again’, Johnny mumbled to himself, trying to figure out the main chords and getting them right after just a few times. ‘You definitely listened to that song far too much, V’, he teased as he tried the melody part next. ‘But some practise time would have been nice.’ ‘You’ll manage.’ ‘Fuck yes I will.’
He pushed V’s mind further into the backseat, but not far enough to shut her out completely. It felt more like an enthusiastic ‘move over, I drive’, than anything, but V couldn’t help the instinctual cold shiver running down her back knowing just how easily the engram could take over if Johnny really wanted to. It was brushed off the next moment anyways, as the rush of the music captured them both and she felt her mouth move on its own. It was hard to say who of them was singing though. V knew the words by heart and Johnny knew how to use a voice, but at that moment it was them singing Judy’s favourite song underneath her window, not really knowing why and at the same time hoping for her to recognise it. It should have been confusing; at the very least it should have been worrying. But all V felt was an almost forgotten sense of unity. For once her own head wasn’t full of fighting thoughts and foreign emotion and conflicting feelings. It was a whole new sense of relaxation she likely was the only one to even know of.
She had wanted to wallow in that sensation for a little while longer, but their synchronisation shattered, as Judy appeared at the window, grinning and looking down at them. ‘V! I didn’t know you could play!’ V stopped singing, but Johnny kept playing the guitar. ‘I can’t!’, she screamed up at her. ‘Only this one song.’ She felt the engram thinking of something and quietly grumbled ‘don’t you dare’ at him, but the tune had already changed to heavier chords. ‘And Samurai’, she awkwardly added then and shrugged with her shoulders as best as Johnny allowed it. ‘Are you coming down now? I’ve reserved in Night City’s finest!’ ‘Taking me to another of your merc bars?’, she chuckled. ‘Yeah, wait I’m coming.’
V sighed and put the guitar down, not without indulging one of Johnny’s habits of sliding her fingers over the strings. ‘Thanks’, she muttered, meaning it. ‘Yeah, yeah’, he waved her off, leaning against a parking van. ‘Just don’t forget my promised evening.’ ‘Alright, I’m here, who is driving?’, Judy asked, hurrying out of the building and meeting V in a messy kiss. ‘Also, you can play Samurai songs? Don’t tell me you actually like them?’ V smirked, side-eying Johnny over her shoulder. ‘Hey, don’t disrespect the classics! And I drive, come on!’
She could still see Johnny shaking his head as she climbed into the driver’s seat but was already thinking about where to take Judy to. ‘Have fun, princess.’
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ecoamerica · 1 month
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youtube
Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc
The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!
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