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haesunflower · 1 year

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petty fights with zb1

genre: slight angst only for hyung line, most are lighthearted

pairing: reader (gn) x all members of zerobaseone

about/tags: what i think reader x zb1 would fight about

warning some have triggers (implied cheating, jealousy and injury), these are mostly lighthearted, not all are established relationship, bullet point reactions, all lowercase is intentional, not proofread, i should have just made this normal and not bullet, I'm lazy

⠀⠀ kim jiwoong ⠀⠀

you always thought you were secure in your relationship

a lot of people swooned over jiwoong but he's been good at reassuring you that you're the only person for him

but lately, he's been busy filming another drama with seobin

and they spend all their free time together, doing lives and filming vlogs for seobin's channel

while some of it is for pr, you know they're really good friends either way

he's a hell of a good actor, you think

because watching his chemistry with seobin, you start to think he's cheating on you

you hope he isn't, but when he comes home one day looking extremely exhausted and as if he just cried – you prayed that you would be wrong

jiwoong kneels in front of you, and has trouble looking you in the eyes

he keeps stuttering, and then just cries

⠀⠀ zhang hao ⠀⠀

when you first started dating, one of the things you worried about was how well hao would get along with your group of friends

they were kinda, well, loud and too much

and you know hao is quite introverted – it's one of the things you love about him. he's calm. you're crazy. that kinda thing.

when you're all together he's usually mostly silent but he engages in conversation. you had assumed that when you all mingle and have your own conversations he holds up on his own.

to your surpise, your best friend let you know that he hasn't made an effort to get to know her even after all these months

that made you mad

the air in the car ride home felt weird. you were at a stoplight when you accusingly said

"do you hate my friends?"

hao just looks at you, and begins to open his mouth but is distracted by the sudden green light

without giving him a chance to think, "hao i've made an effort to be good friends with your members"

hao thinks you're being unfair, because even his partner doesn't understand what it's like to be an introvert

but to some degree you're right, he doesn't try hard enough

unsure of what to say, he nods and continues to drive

you loudly sigh and direct your body towards your window. you know this will have to be a conversation for tomorrow.

⠀⠀ sung hanbin ⠀⠀

hanbin was taking longer than usual again today

you always meet up at the exit of building b of the university when you're both done with your classes, so you could go on a quick cafe date before the sun sets

it's been 30 minutes since he texted "on my way!"

fed up, you head over to his classroom to find him lending his notes to a girl. usually this isn't a problem, but it's who he's lending it to that irks you.

"baby, can we go?"

"oh hi y/n, yeah hold on somi's just finishing up with my notes"

thing is, somi likes your boyfriend, and your boyfriend doesn't see that.

you head over to their table and pick up hanbin's notebook, somi looks shocked she was disrupted

"i'll send you photos of the other pages when we get home"

you shove his notebook in your book bag and start walking away, not giving her an opportunity to respond

when hanbin catches up to your pace he reaches for your hand only for you to swat it away

"stop being so nice to everyone hanbin, they get the wrong idea"

hanbin wanted to defend himself, but he deprioritized that train of thought as he realized you are 100% the jealous type

⠀⠀ seok matthew ⠀⠀

matthew's main descriptor is that he's cute, because he is

but you didn't know that being called cute bothered your boyfriend

"am i not handsome to you?"

"babe, where is this coming from?"

he flashes his phone screen, your recent photoset post from your finsta on display. it featured various pictures of both of you from your dates the week before

the caption he pointed to: "i have the cutest boyfriend in the whole world"

so you deadass thought he was joking

but he really wasn't, he looked real serious -_-

you set the phone down and hugged him, placing your head on his chest

"of course i also think you're the hottest man on the planet"

"much better", matthew finally smiles and you both laugh as he tickles you in revenge

later that night, you posted a few of his gym thirst traps with the caption "my boyfriend is so handsome he should choke me"

his older sister commented: gross. block me next time.

⠀⠀ kim taerae ⠀⠀

so the "fight" started when he texted you that morning with

"y/n look at this, the fans are saying i dress terribly"

"....well"

"well?! well what??"

you ended up not replying because you didn't know how to word it

you loved taerae but those red sweats needed to go

so when you got another text that said "are you really not going to respond to me"

you hit him with a "let's just go shopping today"

even though you hated couple items, it was the only way for taerae to buy the items you wanted for him

he secretly bought a pair of red sweats for you

in the end, he beats the fashion taeraerist allegations (thanks to you)

⠀⠀ ricky ⠀⠀

ever since you started dating, you couldn't recall a time when you were able to pay for your dates

he beats you to it every time...and you feel terrible about it.

ricky extensively spoiled you, and all you wanted was to be given an opportunity to do the same for him

one day you asked him if you could pay for lunch this time around

"no. never. don't worry about stuff like that"

"let me do it just once, please?"

you didn't get your way, and you both walked out of the restaurant slightly annoyed

in fact, you refused to go on any date with him from that point unless you could pay for it

he deadass couldn't get you to come with him on any plan he made for a whole month.

eventually, he showed up at your place and said "fine. for every ten dates you can pay for one"

he wasn't happy with it but at least you were

⠀⠀ kim gyuvin ⠀⠀

gyuvin was the clumsiest person you know

so when he knocked over the vase and cut his hand in an attempt to clean it up, you couldn't help but scream at him in worry for his safety

"gyuvin what are you doing? you shouldn't have touched that!"

you quickly found the first aid kit that his mom kept underneath the bathroom sink

gyuvin had his head down as he applied pressure to the cut

he watched as you worked your way through the supplies

as you gently tended to his wound he tried not to make any sound

"sorry i yelled earlier. i just wish you were more careful. i don't like it when you get hurt"

he looked up to meet your eyes, you were tearing up

it was sorta clouding your vision, so you had to stop what you were doing

"i know y/n, i'm sorry. i'm working on it"

he leaned his head against yours

⠀⠀ park gunwook ⠀⠀

you're both in debate. and you strongly dislike going up against him because 98% of the time you lose.

he likes to win and then gloat about it later

"how's it like to lose for the 3rd time in a row?" (jokingly, you think)

(because you have an inclination that he might have a massive crush on you) (you are correct)

academic rivals to lovers, if you will

when you finally started dating he stopped gloating at least

that doesn't mean he goes easy on you, he tries to give his one hundred percent because so do you

sometimes mid debate he'd catch himself staring at you and get a little distracted

your losing rate has since decreased to about 70% now (thank you puppy gunwook!)

⠀⠀ han yujin ⠀⠀

yujin had issues with sharing way before you started liking each other

maybe it's because he has younger siblings and basically had to share everything with them all his life

so when he shows up to school with a fully packed lunch and extra snacks, and you dare to come up to ask for the pack of pretzels he had, he was hesitant

you did this every monday without fail and he started to get fed up with it

"get your own food will you?"

"i would but it tastes better when it comes from you" you say as you plop down next to him at the courtyard

boy was gobsmacked. from that moment on he was kinda smitten.

i don't know how either that's just how his brain works

from then on, he only shared his snacks with you

except for that one time yena from the upper year said "oh that looks good, can i have some yujinie?" and he gave the whole bag to her.

yeah you guessed it, your pretzel bag.

you were furious

he didn't understand why until you made a snide remark at the end of the day - something along the lines of "yeah you're only nice to older girls"

he bought the giant xl version of the pretzels to school the next day as a sorry

A/N: my friend alexis helped me out with the ideas per member. personally tried to be angsty but most ended up being lighthearted lol. requests are open and you can claim anons too if you'd like hehe

૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

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aledethanlast · 1 year

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I want to clarify something about my Lawyer!Andrew post:

Andrew is not doing this to impress people. In fact he actively doesn't want to impress people. He is done being a superman who holds everyone's lives in his hands. It's not good for his mental health when he's doing it and it's not good for anyone when that he fails, because the law is too big and some of these fuckers are just legitimately dumber and more guilty than his literal murderous mafia husband.

Anyways. Andrew wakes up in the morning, goes to his closet and shoves aside the 15k dollar Armani suits so he can put on the two piece he got at Macy's (then tailored to fit, cause he still has standards), and a matching tie.

He goes to the office. Brad asks him if he heard about the latest draft picks. Andrew stares him down until Brad goes to Andrew's desk and drops a quarter in the "Asking Andrew about Exy" jar. Andrew's coworkers seem to think that he's gonna buy the office a Foosball table with the jar money. They are wrong. It is for a new cat tower. Also, no Andrew hasn't seen it, but he got the rundown from Neil and Kevin, so he knows enough to tell Brad not to bother with a season pass for the Sealions this year.

He has two cases to deal with today. The first is a vehicular manslaughter charge. The client is pleading self defense, and that the victim was a stalker. Andrew likes her because, despite bursting into tears every time they have a trial prep session, she actually listens to instructions and knows when to shut the fuck up. He's confident.

The second is grand larceny. The guy is so super incredibly guilty but Brad gave him this case because he knows Andrew loves police misconduct cases and this one is just so full of protocol breaches that Andrew only had to show Neil the file for him to burst out laughing.

Janet says he has a call waiting. Janet is the highest paid paralegal in the county, because she also filters his celebrity mail. Technically Neil's pr firm still represents him, but Janet knows to turn down the DA's gala invitations without needing to argue with him.

He picks up the phone. It's the DA. The man invites him to the police gala because he knows Andrew ignored the emails. Andrew assumes the man was banking on Andrew giving a polite refusal he can wheedle or harangue into compliance. The man is new to the job, so Andrew will forgive this embarrassing miscalculation.

They spend the next hour discussing court dates for a certain case. Andrew's client for that one is disabled and only has partial aid, and he won't let them set court dates that they know she won't be able to attend. The DA, despite his embarrassing naivate, seems to be on the same page in this regard, so hopefully this will go well when they bring the matter to the judge.

In the span of this phone call, two of Brad's clients come into the office, and within five minutes of walking in are made to contribute to the jar. They don't get their questions answered, because he's on the phone, and they're not Brad.

He has court tomorrow. Court is annoying, because it's a room full of strangers who hear his name and forget why he's there, and he's not allowed to bring the jar. Court is a chore, because he has to walk people through their own idiocy, and then occasionally convince the room of just how stupid or brilliant it actually was.

Court is also, maybe, just a teensy bit fun, because whatever the stereotype of a lawyer is, Andrew really isn't it, and that makes people take him a lot less seriously until he starts quoting their words back to them faster than the stenographer.

(Janet also filters job offers. They tend to crop up every few months.)

(It used to be more fun, back in the early days when Neil would sit in sometimes, until he remembered just how horrifically boring the whole thing is. But that's fine. Andrew is happy having his own thing.)

But really, court is easy. It's a place where your word has weight, where promises are binding, and when everything is going to shit, nobody looks at Andrew like he's the freak for keeping his head.

#the foxhole court #all for the game #aftg #andrew minyard

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hazelsmirrorball · 7 months

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Rockstar Girlfriend VI. | Hazel Callahan

Rockstar! Hazel Callahan x Popstar! Reader

Summary: Hazel Callahan and Y/n L/n have to be in a pr relationship, but both of them can stand each other.

Warnings: Enemies to lovers! Enemies to lovers! Enemies to lovers! Angst, Fight (not physical) Not proof read. Sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my main language.

a/n: I’m back after a while!! Sorry for being MIA. I don't know how to feel about this but I'm really thankful for all the support. Lots of new things coming soon. love you guys.

part one. part two. part three. part four. part five.

The tour was canceled.

Everything Y/n had worked for went down the drain. Not only had she lost the tour she risked everything for, but she had lost her bandmates' trust. They were losing followers by the minute and receiving hate left and right. All that success she had gained because of Hazel was almost gone.

The moment everyone found out about Hazel's outburst, the show was canceled with a blink of an eye. They could hear the cries and screams of fans outside. Y/n couldn’t bear to listen, she felt bad, guilty even. Management said that her band couldn’t perform because they were only the openers, so karma was biting her ass quickly.

But after one show became two and then two became five, management canceled the whole tour, every single date. They claimed that they couldn’t do anything without Hazel, their star. Y/n tried to be positive that maybe Hazel was joking around and that she was going to come back but when management canceled the tour, her feet finally hit the floor. The tour was over before it even started. The hop of the wave of success both bands were having was cut short. The most anticipated tour of the year was canceled due to mental health issues from one of the band members. That was what got posted on the band's page and every news article.

But Hazel made it her job for people to know that, that wasn’t the case. If the tour was canceled she wanted people to know the real reason, no more tricks, no more lies and no more fake love. Y/n felt her heart stop when her phone started to blow up with notifications and her eyes landed on a video Hazel had posted on instagram after being MIA for two weeks.

That was when “Mean” was born.

“Hi guys! I know I’ve been gone for a while and all of a sudden the tour got canceled. But I’m here to tell you guys that we are currently working to get your back running again. This time we decided it was best to get new openers. Anyways, on my little break I decided to write this song I really hope you guys enjoy!” Hazel said to the camera starting to strum her guitar. Y/n felt her heart drop every second that passed by. If she was already losing everything with a blink of an eye it wouldn’t surprise Y/n if what was left of her career ended just because of that song.

hazel.callahan via instagram

liked by bottomstheband, y/nnn, and others

hazel.callahan rehearsals for tour are the shit! I missed this a lot, can't wait for tour to start <3

view all 1,550 comments

hazelsbottoms she's backkkkkkkk

user101 mother is back, hope tour doesn't get cancelled this time.

pjandhazeparis sorry to disappoint but I'll be a groupie for life

bottomsupdates why is y/n lurking in the likes? hasn't she done enough

| ynloveshazel please leave y/n alone

| bottomsupdates she's the one lurking her comments

Hazel had uploaded an acoustic version of a song she had written through her break in an attempt for people to understand what she was going through. It was something new, different from the songs she was used to writing for herself and other people. The song quickly took the world by storm gaining everyone’s attention. Fans had caught up quickly with who the song was written for, making it their job to make Y/n’s life a living hell. Her band's account was barely existent by the minute and management was going insane.

Y/n couldn’t let things slide. She had three options, let her pr team do everything for her, clap back and deny the allegations, or attempt to do a song just like Hazel did. The thing was, Y/n was already used to Hazel’s constant help writing songs and honestly she kinda missed spending midnights with her writing songs. She missed how Hazel would slowly touch her skin in an attempt to get her attention or how she got lost in her blue eyes while she tried to explain the chorus of the song. Y/n missed Hazel. She hated herself for running things with her. Things were finally different, this time Y/n didn’t hate Hazel, Hazel just hated Y/n.

She was going to make things right, possibly ending her career. But it was worth it. If Hazel heard the song, she could lose everything and she wouldn’t care.

Y/n propped her camera hitting record while sitting in front of it, letting out a sigh. She slowly strummed the guitar she barely knew how to play but all she could think of was all the times Hazel had attempted to teach her how to play it.

“This song is for someone special in my life that I treated so badly. I know I fucked up and I wished I could go back to december, they day I met you and start all over”

y/n's instagram

liked by bottomstheband, ynnnn, and others

y/nnn but if we loved again, I swear I’d love you right

comments have been deactivated

Y/nnn let out a sigh as she looked at her phone flooding with notifications. At least if she was gone for social media, she was certain Hazel had heard the song. Maybe she could get another chance or another life where they could get together with no mistakes. Y/n’s thoughts got interrupted by a harsh knock on her door. She quickly walked towards it, ready to face her neighbor. But she felt her heart drop when she noticed the familiar blue eyes she had fallen in love with. Y/n’s eyes wandered all over her trying to tell if she was real or an act of her imagination due to the lack of sleep. But as the words slipped out of her mouth she knew it was all reality.

“My guitar.” Hazel replied, playing with her feet. Y/n furrowed her eyebrows and looked at her confused.

“What do you mean, my guitar? How do you know where I live?” Y/n responded leaning against the doorframe trying to get a better look at Hazel.

“My guitar. You have my lucky guitar, I saw it in the video you posted. Now, can you please give it back”

“No.”

“What do you mean no? It’s mine, L/n.”

“You don’t speak to me, drop a diss track on my name and expect me to give you back you guitar” Y/n exclaimed while looking at Hazel with a surprised look on her face.

“Are you insane? You do know that all of this is not my fault, right? I was willing to do anything for you but you preferred the fame over me. You fucked up your own career and you fucked up with me. Yet, I came here, to your apartment and you still want to act like the victim instead of saying your sorry. You know what stays with the stupid guitar. I don’t want it anyway. You want to play a game that I’m really tired of playing. I really don't understand why are you like this.” Hazel exclaimed loudly pulling on her hairs.

"I like you Hazel and I'm like this because I know I screwed up the only good thing in my life" Y/n said loudly leaving Hazel with her mouth wide open not knowing what say.

At least he got the chance he desperately needed.

thank you for reading

previous part.

#hazel bottoms #hazel callahan reader insert #hazel x reader #hazel callahan #hazel callahan x reader #kit tanthalos #kit tanthalos x reader #ruby cruz x reader #ruby cruz #hazel callahan bottoms #bottoms movie

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msschemmenti · 1 year

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The Bodyguard

Melissa Schemmenti x Reader

summary : reader hasn't mastered the art of self-care yet and melissa helps.

a/n: been sitting with this for a bit, hoping to post more now that i'm kinda getting my adult life together :) i also could not tell you what happened at the end of this...

“Good Morning beautiful educators! Are we ready to change some lives?” Janine called, bounding into the teacher’s lounge. All eyes rolled and a collective sigh fell over the room. Despite the less than enthusiastic response, Janine’s smile remained in place as she shoved her lunch in the refrigerator and sat next to Jacob.

“What’s got you so chipper this morning?” Melissa spoke, eyeing the younger woman over the cat-eye reading glasses she had perched on her nose.

“I just woke up well-rested. With the new schedule I’ve created for myself I’ve had loads more time to get things done. I’m worrying less and feeling my best.” Janine proudly spoke, causing the older women in the room to observe her thoughtfully.

“That’s great Janine. You have seemed much more confident and that’s great to see.” Barbara smiled.

“Good for you Kid. That’s often the hardest part of teaching in a school like this. It’s hard to take time for yourself.” Melissa smiles over her reading glasses, leveling the younger woman with a congratulatory nod. Janine beamed at the camera over the older woman's shoulder and turned to Jacob to listen to his spiel for the morning. As everyone went back to their own morning routines, Y/n slumped into the room heading straight for the coffee machine. The cameras followed her as she pulled a mug from her bag and filled it to the brim with the bitter liquid gold. As soon as she added the sugar and creamer she needed she gazed at her watch gauging how much time she had before school officially started. With twenty minutes to spare she trudged over to the couch and sighed as she slouched into the chair pulling out some homework she wasn’t able to finish before bed. With the young woman’s attention focused on her work and coffee, she missed the green eyes that seemed to track her as closely as the camera did. Melissa watched as the fifth grade teacher busied herself with stacks of paper and a book. It didn’t look to be the work of her students, so Melissa’s curiosity peaked. She watched as the younger woman wedged a highlighter between her teeth and flipped through pages of tiny text. Her eyes moved across the screen frantically as if trying to memorize as much of the information as possible in the next 20 minutes. She didn’t realize how long she’d been watching until she felt Barb bump her shoulder subtly. Melissa’s eyes landed on Barbara and was instantly met with a soft smirk lining her friend’s lips.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Melissa grumbled under her breath, peeking back over to the couch to see if the younger woman had relaxed a bit but she seemed to only have tensed more.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Barbara smirked allowing her eyes to fall to the younger woman as well. “It seems someone hasn’t mastered the ‘taking care of yourself’ part of all of this.”

“What’s she working on anyway? It doesn’t look like anything the kids would be working on. I know she’s upstairs but they’d hardly be reading anything that long.” Melissa asked, finally turning back to Barb.

“I’m not sure, but you know she’s still in school so that could definitely be some homework of her own.” Barb shrugged.

“She’s still in school? What do you mean?” Melissa asked.

“She’s getting her masters. Which you’d know if you weren’t always being so standoffish. She does all her classes and coursework after we get off.”

“I am not standoffish,” Melissa huffed indignantly, “I just don’t like new people.”

“Mmhm, I don’t think that’s the case with one though.” Barbara grinned as she watched the red-head’s cheeks heat almost instantly at being called out.

“Oh shut up.” Melissa grumbled as the bell rang for the school day to finally start. She rose from her seat pointedly ignoring Barbara’s chuckle behind her as they made their way to their classrooms.

“Alright, who has an answer they’d like to share?” Y/n asked from her place in the front of the classroom. Lunch was still about 10 minutes away but she wanted to at least finish the rest of the worksheet her students had been working on before sending them off. She let her eyes roam over the classroom patiently but as she saw no hands raise she knew she’d need to entice them a bit. “I know it’s hard you guys, but if we finish the last two problems I’ll let you head to lunch earlier.”

She waited to see if anyone would take the bait and it seemed to work when Mariah raised her hand from the middle of the room. “Alright Mariah, what ya got for me?”

“4 over 12.” She spoke timidly.

“Uh Huh, and what’s 4 over 12 simplified?” Y/n prompted with a smile. Mariah seemed to be working through it but seemed a bit overwhelmed so Y/n opened it up to the rest of the class. “Anyone? What number can we divide both 4 and 12 by?”

“2.” Jamal called from the back row.

“Yep, but is there a bigger number we could also use?” Y/n asked with a smile glad the students seemed to be getting closer and closer to the right answer.

“Oh! I know.” Jasmine’s hand shot up from the front.

“Alright Jasmine, what number are you thinking?”

“4.”

“Excellent! That’s exactly right. And if we divide them by 4, 4 over 12 becomes?”

“1 over 3!” Everyone answered.

“Very good everyone. Let’s do the last one together and then we can head off.” Y/n smiled, heading to the white board and grabbing a marker.

Melissa really isn’t sure how she found herself in the fifth grade hall. She’d dropped her kids to recess and somehow she’d found herself peeking through the glass window in the door of Y/n’s classroom. She watched as she patiently guided the students through the fractions. She could tell the students really appreciated the atmosphere she’d created in the classroom. Even when someone wasn’t right, there was nothing but support flowing through the space and Melissa had no choice but to admire the work she’d done to capture that. Realizing if anyone saw her up there she’d have no explanation for her behavior, she quickly turned on her heels to head back toward her classroom with the hopes of not being caught. In her descent of the stairs, she missed the camera man down the hall collecting footage.

Melissa hurried into the teacher’s lounge hoping to grab a snack before she needed to pick her students up from their art class. She pushed forcefully on the door and headed for the vending machine, letting the door swing behind her with little care. As the door clanged against the doorframe she heard the startled gasp within the room. She turned quickly with her fist up and ready to attack whoever was in the room. She only relaxed when she saw Y/n sat on the couch with her hand over her chest and wide eyes. There was a book in her lap and highlighter poking out of her hair. Melissa figured she was doing homework again but as she looked closer, she could see the grooved pattern of the couch fabric on the younger woman’s cheek.

“Oh Melissa,” The younger woman sighed as she leaned back into the couch as she started to calm down.

“Sorry Hon. Did I wake ya?” Melissa said, coming to lean on the back of the chair that was closest to the couch.

“It's probably for the best. That was a complete accident.” Y/n shook her head a bit and pushed her hands down her face in an effort to liven up a bit.

“Must not be too interesting, if it’s putting you to sleep.” Melissa commented, nodding her head toward the book still in Y/n’s lap.

“Unfortunately it is not. It doesn’t exactly help that I’m already sleep deprived. A recipe for a great nap.” Y/n chuckled lightly before turning her eyes to her watch. “Looks like it’s time for me to pick my kids up.” As Y/n gathered her things, Melissa watched and hummed in agreement. Once Y/n was done and her eyes met Melissa’s the older woman could see the exhaustion setting back in place. “See you around Melissa.”

Y/n moved to walk past Melissa to the door, but Melissa hand wrapped around her forearm keeping her in front of her. “Hey, make sure you get some rest hon. We can’t have you collapsing on us like Janine.” Melissa squeezed her arm in emphasis and released her arm when she saw the younger woman nod in understanding.

From then Melissa found herself checking in with Y/n more often. She’d shed her ‘standoffish’ behavior and had become one of the teachers Y/n talked to the most. She never spent a lot of time with anyone on the elementary level teaching staff besides Barb, but now she seemed to be running into Melissa more and more. She’d be in the teacher lounge poured over a textbook or a stack of spelling tests and Melissa would appear with a hot mug of coffee. She’d gradually started bringing the younger woman lunch everyday of the week. It had started on a day about two weeks after Y/n had been caught napping on the couch. The fifth grade teacher had waltzed into the room carrying her laptop and textbook and that seemed to be it. It only took Melissa about 5 seconds of seeing her work on homework before she cleared her throat with a raised eyebrow. She, Y/n, and Barb were the only ones in the lounge so far so Y/n was quick to turn her attention to the older women’s table.

“Oh hi.” Y/n said, meeting Melissa’s eyes. Assuming the redhead was upset she hadn’t greeted them when she arrived, she looked back at her work.

“Hello but that’s not what I wanted. Where is your lunch?” Melissa asked, eyeing the younger woman intently.

“Oh I forgot it. I’m just gonna grab a snack after work to tide me over through class tonight.” Y/n shrugged, lifting the textbook from her lap.

“You mean after school?” Barb cut in looking at the younger woman skeptically.

“Mmhmm. No need to worry, I’ve done it loads of times before. I forget my lunch a lot more than I care to admit.”

“Oh sweetheart, well that’s not healthy.” Barb said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

“I know, I know. I try not to but I think I’ve done it so often that I hardly notice anyway.”

“Well that’s not happening anymore, get over here.” Melissa said, pulling out the chair next to her. Y/n looked at the older woman in confusion, not fully understanding what was happening. She didn’t move but watched as the older woman pulled a fork from one of the drawers and wedged it into the tupperware dish she’d been eating. When her eyes landed on Y/n’s face she looked at her expectantly. When the older woman didn’t say anything, Y/n grabbed her books and moved over to the older women’s table and sat in the seat obediently. With Y/n situated, Melissa slid the food in front of her and patted Y/n’s back, “Now eat.”

Y/n went to protest but before she could even speak there was a fork-full of pasta in her mouth. Her eyes widened in shock initially but melted shut when the food hit her taste buds. “Oh this is so good.” At the praise Melissa smirked and went back to scrolling on her phone as Barbara laughed with a smile. From then on Melissa made it a point to pack a bit more food for lunch. And if Barbara asked about it she simply shrugged citing her large portion sized cooking as the reason. As Y/n and Melissa became closer, it seemed easier for the younger woman to take care of herself. With someone checking on her as often as Melissa had taken to, it became second nature.

One day after a particularly demanding week of homework and tests, Melissa found Y/n sprawled out on the teachers lounge’s couch once again. It was a very similar scene to the first time but unlike last time, when the door closed Y/n didn’t start awake. If anything, she burrowed further into the couch and threw her arm over her eyes. Melissa paused briefly watching the younger woman sleep and sighed. She only looked at Y/n for a few more seconds before making her mind up. She sat her things at her table and pulled her jacket off of her arms. She walked over draping it across the younger teacher and then made her way to her table. She positioned her chair toward the door and watched the door. It wasn’t long before the door swung open revealing Janine ready to talk about God knows what, but as soon as her eyes met Melissa’s she closed her mouth. The older woman sent a menacing glare her way before placing her finger up to her lips. Janine, though confused, tip-toed further into the room and took a seat at one of the other tables in the room. By the time everyone was in the room, Melissa had quietly declared that the teacher’s lounge was experiencing a quiet lunch and with her reputation no one questioned her.

The bell rang signaling the end of lunch and that seemed to be the only thing to rouse Y/n from her sleep. By this point everyone had made their way to their own classrooms and the only two people remaining were Melissa and Y/n. The younger woman groaned as she opened one of her eyes to scan the room. She paused briefly as her senses were overwhelmed with a very familiar fragrance. She looked down seeing the familiar leather jacket draped over her shoulders and felt her cheeks heat at being caught asleep again. Before she could say anything Melissa spoke leaning against the back of the chair next to the couch.

“Good morning hon,” She spoke, leveling Y/n with a soft look of concern. “I thought we talked about you taking care of yourself?”

“We did, I’ve just been cranking out a lot of papers this week. Had an extra late night last night trying to finish one before the weekend.” Y/n explained placing her feet on the floor and facing the older woman.

“Well when is it due?” Melissa asked moving to sit on the arm of the chair.

“Not until Sunday night, but I use my weekends to plan for the week here and catch up on grading.” Y/n explained.

“And when do you take time for yourself?” Melissa prompted.

“When I sleep it’s just me and my dreams. So I count those few hours every night as self-care.”

“Haha, very funny hon. You know that actually does not count right? You just slept through lunch. I think we need to think of some new ways to make sure you’re getting things done. Ways don’t include skipping meals and hours of sleep.”

“I slept through lunch? I slept through Janine’s latest life update and Jacob’s flailing? I really must be tired.” Y/n said, shaking her head before moving to rise from the couch. “And I gotta go get my kids for recess.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. I told Jacob to take them with his kids. And as much as I agree that you are extremely tired, the teacher’s lounge was having a silent lunch today. But I don’t think we can do that every day so we’re gonna have to figure something else out.”

“Jacob is taking my kids to recess?” Y/n asked, looking at the redhead in disbelief. Before Melissa could confirm, Y/n seemed to pick up on something else she said. “Wait, did you just say silent lunch?”

Melissa shook her head in amusement at the fifth grade teacher, “Yes to both. And before you ask how? Think about who you’re talking to.”

Y/n nodded with red cheeks realizing the redhead had done quite a bit for her during her slumber. “Thanks.” She finally mustered up the courage to say.

“You’re welcome, I’m glad to help. But I’d be even happier if you’d meet me halfway with this.”

Y/n nodded in understanding, “I’m sorry, I’ve always just been like this and I overestimate how much I can actually handle. I didn’t realize anyone would care so much.”

“Well I do. Listen, how about we find sometime to get you set up with a healthier schedule? I’ll even make you dinner and everything.” Melissa suggested hopefully. “I’d really like that. I have to be honest, I didn’t take you for the mentor type of the group.” Y/n said with a shrug unconsciously pulling the older woman’s leather jacket closer to her chest.

“Oh I’m not. That’s definitely more of a Barb thing, but I have my moments. And my reasons.” Melissa smiled softly at Y/n.

“Well I appreciate it and I won’t take your help for granted.”

“Good girl. Now come on, recess is almost over.”

Y/n’s cheeks heated at the older woman’s words before she nodded and stood to walk out of the door with the woman. Melissa collected her things from the table and grabbed a tupperware container from the fridge and met Y/n at the door. She pushed the food into her hands as she’d been doing for the last couple of weeks and moved to head out of the door. Just as they were about to cross the threshold of the breakroom she extended the jacket toward the woman. “Oh, probably need this back. Thanks.”

“No problem hon, don’t leave before seeing me. We can find a night sometime soon. Alright?”

“Yes ma’am.” Y/n saluted before both women parted ways.

“Knock knock. You ready to go?” Barb asked as she leaned against the door frame of Melissa’s classroom.

“You can go on without me, I’m waiting on Y/n. We’ve gotta figure out when she’s free.” Melissa said casually turning in her desk chair to face her best friend.

“You finally ask her out?” Barb asked with a smirk causing Melissa’s cheeks to heat.

“What? No? What are you talking about? I’m just gonna help her figure out how to take care of herself a bit better.” Melissa sputtered.

“Right because you’re so good at that yourself.” Barb rolled her eyes.

“Hey! I’m pretty good. And you do the same thing with Janine.” Melissa defended.

“Yes, but I don’t want to take Janine to bed. We are not the same Melissa.”

“Oh would you get out of here before she hears you!”

“You didn’t deny it!” Barbara grinned.

“Bye Barb.” Melissa groaned. Barbara smiled in victory before sending a wink over to her friend and leaving the building.

#msschemmenti #lisa ann walter x reader #abbott elementary x reader #lisa ann walter #melissa schemmenti x reader

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vhagarlovebot · 1 year

Text

VALENTINE’S DAY.

pairing: modern!aemond targaryen x fem!reader.

summary: on valentine's day everything seems to have a discount for couples, so why not pretend to be one to save some money and have fun?

content warnings: fake dating trope, hurt/comfort, pining, some mildly suggestive content, confessions.

note: hello, lovely reader ! i just want to say a few things before you start reading. this was one of my first ever works here on this app but in a different blog way back when i used to write for the marauders. this was actually a request sent to me from a prompt list i can’t find anymore, and it was about sirius black. i edited it the best i could, so you’re probably still going to see some very poor grammar and it’s because i’d just started writing in english and because of that it is completely normal for me to still have problems writing in a language that isn’t mine. i really hope you enjoy! reblogs and likes are greatly appreciated.

“YOU SHOULD COME WITH US.” your friend maris says, applying lipstick in front of her mirror.

“and be the third wheel?” you ask from your spot on her bed, flipping through the pages of a magazine. “it’s bad enough you are dating my brother.” sighing, you toss the magazine having lost all your attention. “besides, i’m sure aegon and aemond are on their way.”

at the sound of their names, cregan’s head appears in the door. “you didn’t hear?”

“what?” you roll your eyes.

“aegon has a date.” the couple says, looking at each other, and then you.

“he what? fucking traitor.” you get up, going for your phone. “didn’t even have the decency to tell me. but he’s go—aemond is calling me… i swear to the seven if he’s going to cancel our plans i’m goin’ to kill myself.”

cregan laughs, calling you a dramatic as he walks away.

“you heard?”

aemond laughs. “yea’, i played matchmaker.”

“aemond?!”

“stop being so dramatic, i’m on my way.”

“and who the fuck is his date?” you ask again.

you hear him sigh, but you really want to know who’s this girl your friend is ditching you for. “just a friend.” his answer doesn’t make you feel better at all. it’s silly but this tradition of the three of you eating junk food and watching slasher movies has been going on for three years. it all started the valentine’s day your useless ex-boyfriend dumped you and both of them cancelled their dates to stay with you. you never really thought this day would come.

“it’s okay, just one more reason to be mad about.” you collapse on the couch, going immediately for the remote to search for a movie. “you bringing the food, right?”

“about that…” you sigh, ready to be stood up. “maybe we should go out.”

“what?”

“just make sure to be ready by the time i get there.”

then the call cuts out.

maris and cregan look puzzled at you, asking what’s going on without actually asking. you shrug and that is the only answer you give them, because you really don’t know what his plans are.

and not even five minutes have passed when aemond is knocking on the door.

an expression of pure terror crosses your face and before cregan opens the door, you run to maris’ bedroom.

“what’s going on?” she asks, her dress half buttoned.

“aemond said something about going out,” you explain while going through her clothes. “and m’not going out in sweatpants.”

you find a red skirt that goes with one of your tops and with a little help from your raven-haired friend you have as a roommate, ten minutes later, with an “are you done?” coming from the living room, you are ready to go to wherever your friend is taking you.

aemond is chatting with cregan, neither of them aware of your presence, so you take the time to look at him… like really look at him.

he’s wearing his leather jacket, the one he got during sixth year at boarding school and hasn't taken off since then, the same one you used to see girls wearing all around campus when he was with them. never the same girl twice. aemond is dressed entirely in black and you can see his chest peeking out from his button down.

aemond catches you staring and looks at you with a raised eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips, only to show you what’s behind his back; a bouquet of roses. it’s part of the tradition but it still makes your heart beat faster. you accept it with a smile, smelling them and leaving the bouquet on the table.

you pout, crossing your arms. “are you going to tell me what you have planned?”

“nope, let’s go.” aemond grabs your arm, dragging you out of there.

“no, seriously, he’s kidnapping me and you’re not doing anything.” you protest, looking back at your brother who just laughs, waving you goodbye. “i’m telling mom and dad!”

the door closes behind you and you let him walk you out of the building.

“aaand?” you ask once more, walking down the street, your arm around his.

you see couples everywhere, a few of them with flowers and balloons, holding hands, radiating love. and a part of you wishes for something like that. maybe not the balloons and a lot less cheesy, but the commitment, the tender love, someone with whom you can share your thoughts with, your nights, your future. you want to feel the passion, the need to have someone kissing every part of you, worshiping your body, sleepless night with bodies intertwined. you don’t want a one-night thing; you want it all.

“there’s a restaurant with discount for couples and is giving dessert for free.” his lilac eye looks straight into yours, a lopsided smile on his face. “and i was thinking about eating there, then bring dessert home and watch texas chain saw massacre on your couch.”

“that sounds like a great idea.” you smile, walking beside him a little more excited than before.

“you know we’ll have to pretend to be a couple, right?” he stops walking.

you roll your eyes. “know your limits.”

“i’m serious!”

“i know you've been dying to kiss me since forever, but that’s only going to happen in your dreams.”

he brings a hand to his chest, feigning sadness. “you are cruel.”

you slap his arm, pushing him aside. “fine, but keep your hands to yourself. i’m not one of your groupies.”

“you could be.”

“in your dreams.” he just laughs, walking by your side.

neither of you spoke again, but every time his arm grazed against yours a cold shiver ran down your spine. and that is something you haven’t felt since seventh year, when you walked in on aemond having sex with a girl and couldn’t look him in the eyes for weeks. you weren’t exactly quiet, dropping the books was what gave you away, and the girl was focused on something else, that being her body being pushed against the bed, so the only one who saw you was him. you’d think he would stop, maybe feel embarrassed, right? that is not aemond targaryen. he just kept doing it, eye focused on yours, on the way you held your breath when he moved his pelvis a certain way making her cry out. you were frozen in place, your eyes going from the spot where their bodies met to his eyes, and it was only when he moaned something that sounded a lot like your name, you got out of there.

you couldn’t look at him, opting instead on avoiding him and all the questions from your friends. eventually, what you saw was left in the past, even though he tried to talk about it you didn’t give him the chance. you couldn’t. even if a part of you wanted to know what he was going to say, even if you spent the rest of the year dreaming about it, wishing to be one of those girls. even if you still want to be one of those girls.

“oh gods.” you say, stopping in front of a sushi restaurant full of valentine’s day decorations.

the host greets you and aemond immediately gets into character, hand going to your lower back, right where your top meets the skirt, leaving a few centimeters of bare skin. your whole body reacts at that and it’s like touching the sun.

the whole place is full of heart-shaped balloons hanging from the ceiling, the tables have red tablecloths with red roses in vases, and each one of them is named after a romcom.

“your table.” the host smiles, stepping aside.

“no strings attached? really?” you could cry at how cheesy, awkward and stupid everything is.

“i wanted that one with matthew mcconaughey because it is your favorite, love. but it was already taken.” he seems genuinely sad and you smile, fixing the collar of his button down.

“it’s okay, aem.” you kiss his cheek. “thank you.” you give the man standing in front of you a smile and sit in the booth. it’s discrete and you are grateful for that, not wanting to pretend the whole time you are going to be there, afraid of arousing suspicion.

“your waiter is going to be here any minute. if you’ll excuse me.” the host walks away and you can finally breathe normally.

aemond sits beside you and when you make eye contact, it’s impossible not to laugh.

“i can’t believe we are doing this.” you hide behind your hands, making him laugh even more.

“i knew you’ll like it.” aemond winks at you. “no, but really, i can’t believe how they do this.”

“and how people like it.” you pretend to throw up, and he laughs again. “but at the same time it’s kind of cute?”

“are you serious?”

“it’s cute to see couples enjoying this day, going to restaurants like this and enjoy each other’s company.” you shrug, playing with the rose petals, avoiding eye contact.

“you want that?” he asks, moving closer, creating a bubble around the two of you.

“yeah.” this time you look up, meeting his eye looking intently at you. “i’ve wanted it for a long time, but i think i’m not made for that.”

aemond must see the sadness on your face, because he places his hand on top of yours. you smile, feeling the sudden urgency to run your fingers through his hair.

“i know the right guy for you is out there, maybe you just need to pay more attention.”

“you think so?” you lean towards him, whispering.

“maybe what you’re looking for is… right in front of you.”

you smell the cigarettes and peppermint on his breath and are almost able to see and count all the freckles on his face, you just need to move a little closer to know if his lips are as soft as they seem.

“aemond targaryen?”

a third voice startles both of you, and just like that the moment has passed.

a blonde girl stands in front of the table and by the pad and pencil in her hands you know she’s the waiter. she has green eyes and a bright smile addressed to aemond.

“do you—you known each other?” you ask when a minute has passed and none of them has said a word.

“um, yeah.” aemond moves away from you, hands resting on his thighs.

“i think the word known falls short.” the girl giggles and you want to throw up.

“i thought you were off tonight.” it’s like you are invisible for him right now.

in any other circumstance you wouldn’t care, but not today. not right now, not after what almost happened a moment ago, because you’re a hundred percent sure that if this girl hadn’t shown up you two would be doing a totally different thing.

“i didn’t know you were in a relationship.” her green eyes look at you. “i mean, if i’d known i wouldn’t have gone to your apartment yesterday.” there’s poison in her words, she’s doing it on purpose to hurt you, and succeeding.

you chuckle, closing your eyes. why does it hurt?

aemond says something and you immediately let your guard down, allowing you to believe, and wish, and dream about things that most likely aren’t going to happen. ever.

you thought the little crush you used to have on your brother’s best friend had vanished, but one night with him was enough to know that aemond targaryen still has power over you. that’s why you are never alone with him; you don’t trust yourself.

you never made a big deal about it until that incident in seventh year. that was the moment everything changed. but you were able to get over it, or so you thought.

“it’s okay.” you smile, trying not to look at aemond at all. “we’re just pretending, aemond wanted to get the discount.”

she giggles again. “couples only, sorry.” she doesn’t look sorry at all. “i’ll give you time to look at the menu.” with a flirty little smile, she disappears.

“why did you do that?” aemond asks, touching your arm for a second before you move away. you don’t want him to think something’s wrong, but it’s a little hard for you to pretend you’re not hurt.

“did what?” you play dumb, pretending to look at the menu.

“why did you tell her we’re not together?”

you frown. “’cause we’re not? and you had sex with her yesterday, if we’re going to pretend at least let me have some dignity.”

“you are getting it all wrong.” he huffs, running his hands through his hair. “if you let me explain—”

“you have nothing to explain, aemond.” you say, looking at him and trying to swallow the urge to scream. “i know how you are, we’re friends, remember?”

“but—”

“you know what? i think i would rather order something from mcdonald’s and call it a night.” smiling, you touch his hand trying to make it look like everything’s okay and you don’t want to jump in front of the blonde girl and scratch her face. “you are more than welcome to join.”

you don’t give him time to say something else, standing and walking out of the restaurant in less than a minute. not bothering to look back to know if he’s following, all you want to do is choke on ice cream and watch a movie, the thing you should be doing tonight in the first place.

the night is cold, but it helps to clear your mind.

you’re not even a block away, when his voice makes you stop in your tracks. “i like you.”

you’re surprised by his confession, even a little flame of hope taking place in your heart.

“tonight was supposed to be fun.” aemond sighs, and you know he’s scratching his neck, something he usually does when he’s nervous. “but i messed everything up.”

you stopped breathing after his first confession, but you still can’t turn around because you’re a coward, not sure what to do with a confession you have been dying to hear for so many years.

“i didn’t have sex with her.” you hear his footsteps and, in a second, he’s in front of you, his fingers lifting your chin up, lilac eye locked fixed on your face. “and haven’t had any in a very long time.”

“what?” you can’t hide the surprise in your voice.

he chuckles. “i know i haven’t been good at showing it, but i’ve had a crush on you since forever.”

“stop messing with me, aemond.” you don’t want to believe him, you really want to walk past him and forget this night happened at all. but the part inside of you that still wants this to be real, won’t let you.

“m’not!” both his hands are now on each side of your face, the only thing you can see is his good eye, his lips, the longing on his face. “i’ve wanted to tell you for a very long time… seventh year, to be exact.”

your eyes open a lot more at that. “are you—”

“yes.” he chuckles, his cheeks a soft pink. “it was stupid, but i thought you would take the hint. after all, i moaned your name on purpose.”

“shut up!” your face is burning, you don’t even need a mirror to know you’re blushing hard. “you were having sex with another girl, aemond.”

“but i was thinking of you.”

“that does not make me feel better, y’know.” you step away from him, taking some distance.

“i know, i’m an idiot.”

you silently agree, not jnderstand anything, tonight has been a blurry, a lot of things happening in so little time. old feelings resurfacing, jealousy, heartbreak, happiness.

“but i like you too, idiot.”

his face lights up. “i knew.”

“you—what?” you frown, heart about to get out of your chest.

“i had a feeling.” he shrugs, slowly getting closer to you again, making sure you are not running away this time.

“are you serious?”

“i think i just buried ‘em because was sure nothing was ever going to happen. you were, well, you. and i was not willing to suffer because of those feelings.” your arms wrap around his shoulders, fingers interlocking in his soft hair.

“i always thought you deserved much better. and i was a total coward, too afraid of not being what you expected.” he smiles, his hands going to your waist and caressing your soft and delicate skin, still burning for his touch. “and i kept denying it and denying it. denying that my heart beats faster every time you walk into a room, that i want to kiss you every time you laugh, every time you make fun of cregan, or cry watching animal planet, or talk about what you like and don’t like. that the only thing i’ve wanted for years has been to hold you in my arms and touch every part of your body, to make you feel what i feel. to show you what love really means, to show you things you haven’t experienced before. and just… to be by your side.”

all you feel is him, his calloused hands creating patterns on your bare skin, his peppermint breath, his warm, rich, woody scent engulfing you. and for the first time in years, you let those feelings rise to the surface. you let yourself burn for aemond targaryen.

#📮 ⌇ my works ˖⋆࿐#modern!aemond #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen fluff #aemond targaryen scenarios #hotd x reader #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen angst #aemond x reader #hotd fanfic #hotd imagine #prince aemond x reader

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bloodlust-1 · 7 months

Text

༻ 3 Nights ༺ part 3

Gortash x fem Tav —mini series Explicit 18+

Summary: Gortash invites Tav to stay 3 days at his palace for the sake of an alliance. Reluctantly, she compromises for peace and it becomes an experience they won’t forget.

T/W: manipulation, angst

Part one -> here <-

As she navigated through the labyrinthine corridors of the palace, she couldn’t help but notice the hushed whispers and fearful glances exchanged by the servants. The walls seemed to hold secrets, and every step she took felt like a plunge into unmarked territory. That servant must've already spread rumors of what they had just seen. Tav cussed under her breath, she knew this was awful.

She walked through the grand halls of the palace, her heart heavy with shame. Tav had just kissed her enemy, the one person she had sworn to despise and defeat. The taste of his lips still lingered on hers, a small hint of alcohol and sweetness. Tav couldn’t shake off the feeling of betrayal. Tav had learned to hate him and his despicable actions, to see him as the embodiment of evil. But at that moment, she had forgotten all of that. She had let him in, and he had taken her to a place of pure pleasure. She hated it but didn't stop it.

As she walked, Tav found herself in a cluttered library, the walls lined with ancient tomes and dusty scrolls. The air was thick with the scent of old books and the many ladders that led to levels of books. She wandered the aisles, running her fingers over the spines of the books, searching for something to distract her from her lewd thoughts.

Tav pulled out a book at random, a book-lined with real leather. As she opened it, she found that it was a history of the kingdom, written in a language that was written in antique words used long ago. She flipped through the pages, studying the illustrations of battles and royal processions. She felt a sense of comfort in the familiarity of the images, the history she knew growing up, and its tales.

As she continued to browse, she stumbled upon a passage that caught her eye. It was a description of a similar situation, a queen who had also been torn between her duty and her heart. The passage spoke of the queen’s struggle to reconcile her feelings with her responsibilities, and how she had ultimately chosen to follow her heart.

She felt a sense of hope rise up in her chest. Maybe she wasn’t alone in her confusion, maybe there were others who had been through this before. She read the passage over and over, committing it to memory. She felt a sense of peace wash over her, and for the first time since the kiss, she felt like she could breathe again.

Tav settled the book down and sighed. She thought of her camp. How disappointed they'd be if only they knew. Tav wondered at what cost would it take to create peace? Sure it would disappoint them, but maybe a closer bond to Gortash could benefit them: help them by fighting alongside her. It was just a matter of getting him to betray his god. Not like she hasn't done it before with Shadowheart. Tav likes to think that people could have some goodness in them.

Moments turned into minutes and minutes into hours. She wasn't exactly a bookworm, but this time alone felt like an escape from reality and its troubles. A faint voice made itself closer, "Lady Tav? Dinner is ready!"

With a graceful glide, Tav made her way to the dining hall, where lord Gortash awaited her arrival. The servant pulled out her chair as she approached, and she took her seat next to him this time at the table. The lord nodded in acknowledgment, his eyes alight with anticipation as he welcomed her presence next to him. Has Tav gotten soft? She cringed on the inside from her kindness. She hated that she was so good-hearted sometimes.

The aroma of roasted meats and freshly baked bread wafted through the air and they began to eat before Tav broke the silence, " What was so important earlier?"

"Straight to the point, I admire that about you." He chuckled and continued to chew his food before swallowing. "I was doing damage control from Orin. She's not as open-minded as you are and it can be such a fucking hassle to deal with. To have her running around the city and committing murders in the name of a god who doesn't care about her existence. Pitiful isn't it?"

Tav looked at Gortash questionably before nodding, "She is one of many on my list to get rid of. I'm so close to solving those mystery murders in the lower city."

"The sooner the better for me and you, darling."

Tav perked up her head from his words, "Is that encouragement from the tyrant, Enver Gortash? How curious that is..." She averted her eyes from him. Was all it took was a kiss to get him to speak with her normally?

"Maybe, but let it not spoil your thoughts or meal," Gortash spoke lowly and it felt a bit distanced. Maybe he too was feeling conflicted that his heart raced each time he looked at Tav. This feeling was one he ran from, it did nothing but make him weak.

As the meal drew to a close, they rose from their seats with a sense of reluctance, knowing that they would soon part ways and return to their separate chambers. The weight of unspoken confessions hung heavy in the air as they exchanged polite farewells, each longing to express what remained unsaid.

In this quiet moment within the palace walls, amidst grandeur and splendor, two hearts beat in silent harmony, bound by a love that dared not speak its name.

Tav returned back to her room, silent she stood. She walked to a window and peered outside, the lights flickered and gleamed over the city in its humble structure. She felt terribly wrong and needed to push aside her feelings, quickly. She only had one more night left before she left the palace and kept forward their alliance. But a feeling of heartbreak crushed her chest. Her companions wanted Gortash dead, and so did Tav, or at least she thought she did.

But for now, she kept a strong will, Baldur's Gate was not the Absolute's play toy. She stood strong on this hill and was willing to fight for it. Tav made her way into bed and slept early in the night. Her aura filled with a somberness because Gortash never came to her side that night. He didn't even try to pick and bother her like he usually did. Tav felt like she was in over her head and her feelings may have clouded her better judgment.

But the real truth that Tav would have not known is that he kept his distance in fear of emotions. Gortash was not allowed feel affection, nor love. He was taught to stay away and not give in. These feelings were only ever acceptable to manipulate but never to act on selfishly. In his blind religion, this only made someone weak, and that was not acceptable for a follower of Bane. Even if he felt a glimmer of something for Tav, he pleaded his loyalty already.

The sun crept on the horizon again, this time the sky was dark and clouded with rain clouds and heavy rain. instead of feeling a sense of comfort and security, a wave of dread washed over loneliness as she remembered the events of the previous night.

Tav woke up with a clear head. She felt like she had been blinded by his charm and charisma, failing to see the darkness that lurked beneath his facade. As she lay in bed, she couldn’t shake off the feeling of heaviness that seemed to suffocate her.

the heavy wooden doors of her chamber burst open, and a contingent of Steel Watchers marched in. Their cold, metal hands bore into her skin as they demanded that she leave the palace immediately. Confusion and fear gripped Tav as she struggled to comprehend what was happening.

"Get the fuck out of my room! I'll rip you piece by piece and tell Gortash of your actions!" Tav sat up on the bed, her heart raced with confusion and nervousness. She was merely only in pajamas and her amour had been stored away with her weapon.

"We are ordered by Lord Gortash to escort you out of the palace. Seek retaliation and we will forcibly remove you." The Steel Watchers continued to grip Tav's arms, pulling her body out of the bed swiftly.

Tav tried to pull away, grunting and yelling in the process, "What? Where is he!?" She was completely distraught, why was she being kicked out a day early?

"You must leave now, he will not be seeing anyone."

Tav was forcibly escorted out of the palace, she caught a glimpse of Gortash standing at the top of the grand staircase, his expression devoid of any remorse. The realization hit her like a physical blow – the man she had feelings of care for had kicked her out in the cruelest manner possible. Tears welled up in her eyes as she was cast out into the cold morning air, her heart shattered into irreparable pieces.

The cold rain hit her skin like bullets as her nightgown soaked against her skin. She fell to her knees and stared up as the palace doors closed. She caught just a glimpse of his emotionless face just as it slammed shut. He saw her completely shocked, betrayed, and sobbing as her knees scraped against the concrete.

The wind whipped her hair into a frenzy, and her dress clung to her legs, weighing her down. Tav felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. As she made her way through the wet streets, trying to make her way back to her camp.

She let out a shaky breath, feeling the weight of her troubles lift off her shoulders upon seeing the camp. They had taken shelter under a wooden structure and the campfire burned brightly. As she approached it, Tav was greeted with worrisome looks.

"Soldier! What the hells happened!?" Karlach ran up to Tav was scooped her up, bringing her body next to the fire.

Tav shivered as her teeth chattered through her words, "K-Kick o-out." She hugged her own body in an attempt to keep warm.

Wyll came running over with a blanket and wrapped Tav's body in it. Everyone seemed to surround Tav with worried questions, bombarding her all at once.

"Give her some space!" Halsin reasoned over everyone, and that they did.

The camp then silently dispersed, giving Tav the solitude she needed to come to terms with what had transpired. Some retreated to the tents, while others lingered within sight, ensuring that she was safe without encroaching on her need for solitude. They understood that sometimes, in moments of vulnerability and pain, the greatest support they could offer was the gift of space and time.

To Be Continued ~

Any thoughts? Comment 👇🏼 I love to engage!

Part 4 Here

#bg3 tav #astarion bg3 #bg3 fluff #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fic #bg3 astarion #bg3 halsin #gortash x durge #enver gortash #gortash smut #gortash x tav #gortash x reader #lord gortash #bg3 gortash

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hollowed-theory-hall · 2 months

Note

What do you think about Hermione? Love her? Hate her? Any thoughts about her being given the time Turner? Because that's what made me dislike her. There's literally no way it makes sense for her to have that other than favouritism from Dumbledore. Because if they were really willing to give out time turners to any smart kid, Barty Crouch Jr. and Tom Riddle should also have gotten time turners.

Okay, there are two parts for this answer. The first part is that I got to defend Hermione on the Time Turner bit because it's not her fault Dumbledore plays favorites.

I'm pretty sure Dumbledore knew Sirius was innocent all along (or at least suspected it) and intended Harry and Hermione to have all the means to help him at their disposal.

“Dumbledore just said — just said we could save more than one innocent life. . . .” And then it hit him. “Hermione, we’re going to save Buckbeak!” “But — how will that help Sirius?” “Dumbledore said — he just told us where the window is — the window of Flitwick’s office! Where they’ve got Sirius locked up! We’ve got to fly Buckbeak up to the window and rescue Sirius! Sirius can escape on Buckbeak — they can escape together!”

(PoA, page 395)

They were still ten feet away from the forest, in plain view of Hagrid’s back door. “One moment, please, Macnair,” came Dumbledore’s voice. “You need to sign too.” The footsteps stopped.

(PoA, page 401)

The back in time Dumbledore, before he sent Harry and Hermione back in time, seems almost too aware of what's going on. Even though he hasn't sent them back in time yet. So, I'm suspicious he had a plan there.

“Where is it?” said the reedy voice of the Committee member. “Where is the beast?” “It was tied here!” said the executioner furiously. “I saw it! Just here!” “How extraordinary,” said Dumbledore. There was a note of amusement in his voice.

(PoA, page 402)

But even if Dumbledore didn't plan Sirius' escape and the Time Turner shenanigans, it's not Hermione's fault Dumbledore wanted her to have a Time Turner. Honestly, it's good she had it for Sirius' sake, but Dumbledore's favoritism isn't on her. I feel it's wrong to blame her for a decision that wasn't hers. It was Dumbledore's and McGonagall's decision to give Hermione a Time Turner and not to other students. We don't even know how common Time Turners are for students (my guess is not at all, and Hermione wasn't supposed to have one, but that's a different post), but it was still a decision completely out of Hermione's hands.

As for the second part, which is my opinion on Hermione:

I like Hermione, she isn't in my top favorite characters, but I do like her. She's interesting, adds contrast to Ron and Harry and I related to her a lot when I was younger.

I hate what the movies did to her. They stripped her of everything that made her interesting and made her this perfect figure who always knew what to do which Hermione just isn't. Hermione tends to panic and stress out in the books often. It's often Harry who comes up with last-minute plans under pressure.

And yes, she's smart, but she isn't always the cleverest or wisest (I'll say Ron has the most common sense in the Trio), and a lot of times she doesn't think her plans through (like with Umbridge, the centaurs, and Gwamp. She didn't plan anything other than not wanting to see Harry in pain). And that's an interesting character flaw for her to have. And she knows this about herself. I mean, she says herself there's more to magic than just reading books.

And book Hermione really loves Harry and Ron and appreciates their cleverness compared to movie Hermione who's just done with both of them and their idiocy constantly. Which is a disservice to the Golden Trio's friendship. All three are really smart in different ways. and the three of them know this (sorta, Harry has really low self-esteem so he doesn't think he's smart).

My biggest grief with Hermione's character in the books was always her complete faith in authority she trusts. Throughout the series, Hermione is the one of the Trio who always speaks up that they should trust Dumbledore and do what Dumbledore says because she respects him. Hermione, once she respects an authority figure, she tends to just have full faith in them and their judgment. And that really got on my nerves sometimes. But again, that's an interesting character flaw that contrasts Harry and Ron and creates an interesting dynamic. It's a character flaw that is an extension of Hermione's loyalty. I think her loyalty is a trait that is often downplayed too, but she is so loyal. Like, once she decides you have her loyalty you could do pretty much anything and she'll try to justify you. She'll make excuses and justifications so people she's loyal to are in the right.

And she does this justification with her own actions too. I like Hermione's ruthlessness that is so often ignored. She:

Set Snape on fire as a 1st year (but, yeah she loves all authority *sarcasm*)

Kept Rita Skeeter in a jar

Marietta Edgcomb (the curse on the DA parchment in general)

Came up with the DA coins and told Harry she got inspiration from the Dark Mark:

Harry looked sideways at Hermione. “You know what these remind me of?” “No, what’s that?” “The Death Eaters’ scars. Voldemort touches one of them, and all their scars burn, and they know they’ve got to join him.” “Well . . . yes,” said Hermione quietly. “That is where I got the idea . . . but you’ll notice I decided to engrave the date on bits of metal rather than on our members’ skin. . . .”

(OotP, 399)

6. Confounded Cormac McLaggen so Ron would get the Keeper position.

7. Basically everything she did in Deathly Hollows, I'm not listing all of it.

And there are more I'm probably forgetting!

The point is, Hermione is ruthless when she wants to be. She's not to be trifled with.

I think her loyalty, as I mentioned above, is a very distinctive trait of her character. She didn't have friends before Hogwarts (she was probably bullied for being a know-it-all. Like, it shows in her behavior) and she latched onto Harry and Ron and has been incredibly devoted to their friendship since. She's not only devoted to her friends but invested in keeping Harry and Ron as her friends (and each other's freinds).

And she actually is really smart. Yes, book smart, she can memorize books like a pro, but she's also a really good puzzle solver. From the riddle in the obstacle course in 1st year, figuring out the basilisk, finding out Lupin's a werewolf, figuring out Rita's Animagus form, etc... Hermione is really good at organizing information and putting the puzzle pieces together. And that's before I mentioned her magical talent, from brewing Pulyjuice Potion (a complex and advanced potion) in 2nd year in the girls' bathroom to usually being the first in class to get spells right.

Hermione's desire to know everything, as I mentioned in another post, I think is an extension of her desire to belong. She arrives in a new world as a muggleborn, and she takes each and every chance she gets to learn about the Wizarding World. To appear as if she was always there. Because she wants to be a witch so badly she doesn't mind Obliviating her parents and sending them to Australia.

I have more thoughts, but I'm just blabbering...

So, Hermione, while not in my top five, is an interesting and flawed character that I like a lot.

#harry potter #hp #hermione granger analysis #hermione granger #hp meta #harry potter meta #asks #anon asks #anonymous

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asteroidzzzn · 11 months

Text

stargirl | part 3

pairing: rockstar!ellie x bartender!reader

warnings: cursing, smoking, eventual sexual themes, ellies kinda an asshole, reader is delulu (are u sensing a pattern here)

songs in this chapter: crybaby - the neighborhood rip 2 my youth - the neighborhood knee socks - arctic monkeys true blue - boygenius cool about it - boygenius why'd you only call me when you're high - arctic monkeys

word count: 2.1k

a/n: i just couldn't resist

summary: the fireflies is a new band consisting of three people. after being cheated out by their former bassist, they needed to find a replacement, and quick. who better than you, the cute bartender that hasn't touched an instrument in years?

fireflies gc🌟

dina <3: you guys better prepare i have great news

your phone flickered with dina's message as it lay on your chest. the ringing broke the unbearable silence between you and ellie.

ellie sat on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, scribbling in her journal. you figured it must be some sacred text, considering how she never let anyone read it but herself. it probably included random blurbs and ideas, but she would only let the rest of the band see the finished versions of her writing.

you interlaced your fingers together. cracked your knuckles. looked around the room. twirled your finger in the stray string hanging off the bottom of your shirt. pulled it. you were very bored.

dina had urged you to be early to practice today, but she got caught with jesse in traffic on the way. she was an estimated fifteen more minutes away. leaving you and ellie alone. together.

"dina says she has great news for us," you told her. you got no response.

her eyebrows furrowed and she flipped her pencil around, erasing a whole half page of information, flicking the excess off that landed on her shirt. it was the third time she erased a major section. you figured she had writer's block.

"can i read what you have so far?"

"no," she responded promptly, not taking her eyes off the paper.

"but i could help."

"no, you couldn't."

"rip out a page for me."

"what?"

she looked at you like you killed her whole family.

"yeah, could i try writing something?"

"you—ugh. sure, fine, knock yourself out," she flipped to the back and handed you an uneven sheet of paper. you grabbed a stray pen from the coffee table.

"have you ever written a song before?" she folded her arms and leaned against the arm of the couch to face you.

you hesitated. "one."

"about?"

"an ex," you mumbled, embarrassed at the recollection of your angsty teen attempt at writing a sad love song.

she groaned, shoved her pencil into her journal, and shut it aggressively. now that she was done with her own writing, she seemed to want to bother you about yours.

"let me read the lyrics. or listen to it," she said while throwing her journal somewhere to the ground.

"only if you let me read one of your songs."

she scoffed. "ultimatums are rude."

"you've probably done worse," you bit back.

she couldn't argue with you. she waited for you to pull up the doc to the lyrics before she gave you the journal. she reached for your phone, but you pulled it back before she could grasp it.

"i don't want feedback. it's old and bad and i'm aware. also there are three on this, so i get to read three of yours."

"fair enough about the feedback. thought we agreed on one for one, though?"

"i know you well enough to know you'd read the other two anyways."

she tilted her head down to smile out of your sight, but you caught it before it was hidden. "yeah, you're not wrong," she dropped her journal in your lap and you handed her your phone.

it was very vulnerable for both of you. song lyrics tend to be very intimate and personal. you hoped she liked them. but also that she wouldn't share her thoughts.

her opinion mattered an odd amount to you.

you noticed her fingers tapping on your phone. her knee bounced. maybe she was just as nervous as you. you wondered if you were the first person she shared this part of herself with. probably not. but the thought lingered on your mind for a while.

you carefully opened her journal to where the pen was. apparently, this was also her sketchbook. countless messy faces, animals, and instruments littered the pages, to the point where there was no blank space left.

there were only eraser marks on the right page, and a song titled crybaby on the left.

crybaby didn't seem like it was written by ellie. it was too...honest. it revealed things about her. while reading the lyrics, you felt connected to her. you understood what she was feeling.

crybaby (name is work in progress).

i think i try too hard

how i look, what i do, what i'm sayin'

i spend too much time explainin' myself

i hope there's a chance some time to change it

you glanced at her beside you. she avoided your eyes, continuing to scroll on your phone, knees tucked up to her chest.

note: keys heavy for this song.

i've got this anxious feeling

but it goes away for a minute when I'm with you, being breathing

i can't fake it i can taste it, my heart's breakin', please don't say

that you know, when you know

you flipped to the page before it, with two new songs.

(??? no name)

note: shit ton of treble or i'll sound dumb

i don't believe it if i don't know you

i don't believe it if it's on the news or on the internet

i need a cigarette

i'm just telling what's true the truth

and you could play this at my funeral

tell ******, "don't cry and don't be sad

i'm in paradise with dad"

close my eyes and then cross my arms

put me in the dirt, let me be with the stars

you almost wanted to stop. it was too personal. you skipped to the third song.

knee socks

when the zeros line up on the 24 hour clock

when you know who's callin' even though the number is blocked

when you walked around our your house wearin' my sky blue lacoste

and your knee socks

note: this part repeats like 4 times. we'll see. maybe would sound cool with reverb?

you and me could have been a team

(zeros)

each had a half of a king and queen seat

(lined up)

like the beginnin' of mean streets

you could be my baby

you cleared your throat.

"i'm done."

ellie nodded, lip in between her teeth. "almost done."

you waited for a few more minutes, trying to remember which three songs you wrote all those years ago, and imagined what she was thinking at that exact moment.

"ok, i'm done too," she gave you your phone, and you handed her the journal. there was a moment when neither of you dared to breathe too loud.

"so... what did you think?" she asked, not moving her head up from her lap.

"oh? thought you didn't want feedback?"

"only if it's good."

"well, then i couldn't say anything," you teased her, which drew out a chuckle.

"i'll only tell you good things, too."

you sighed. "ok. you first."

the two of you shifted on the couch to face each other. you propped your head on your hand, staring at her with anticipation.

it was a long moment before she spoke. "true blue is really good, and cool about it is... kind of tragic. why'd you only call me when you're high is a fucking mouthful of a title, but the lyrics aren't bad."

you smiled. "so, which one was your favorite? and why?"

"depends on my mood. if i'm...angry, i guess, or bitter is the better word. it's why'd you only call me when you're high. if i'm sad it's true blue. even more sad, it's cool about it. that's an evil song, man. like really. heartbreaking."

you shrugged. "i tend to have that effect on women."

"yeah, whatever," ellie rolled her eyes. "tell me about mine."

"it's kind of the same for you, actually. a sad-ish one, evil and heartbreaking, and a little angry."

"and your favorite?"

"definitely crybaby."

she groaned in disgust and covered her face with her hands.

"damn, i thought i ripped that page out. that one sucks."

"i thought it was great. it's honest. and relatable."

she scoffed and turned away from you. you had noticed it was a habit of hers to avoid the situation when she became defensive. and being rude usually never helped. "yeah, totally relatable—"

"i'm serious, ellie. you're a good writer. they're good lyrics. why haven't you performed it yet?"

"it's not really your business."

but it is, you wanted to say. you were part of this band too, now. but she didn't act like it, and it made you furious. you sighed. it wasn't worth it to start a fight now.

"ok, fine," you at least made it evident in your voice that you were disappointed. ellie had let you read her journal, but it wasn't enough. you wanted more. to learn everything about her. to figure out who she really was.

it was extremely difficult to accept the fact that it would most likely take a very long time.

in almost perfect timing, dina and jesse pushed through the door.

"guys, i am so sorry, traffic was a bitch and i had to pick something up for us."

you shook your head, "don't worry about it. come on, sit down," you moved to the left slightly so dina could take up the space in between you and ellie. jesse took the white box dina held into his own lap and sad on the floor near the couch.

"so? what's the big news?" you asked dina, who was beaming.

"this is huge for us, it could mean—jesse, don't open the box yet. i haven't told them."

jesse swiftly placed a cupcake back inside the box. "sorry, i'm hungry."

dina continued, "ok. drumroll, please."

everyone patted their thighs.

"we're going on tour with the fucking strokes! we'll open for three of their shows on the east coast in two months!"

"oh my god..." you breathed. "that's huge!"

ellie blinked. "you're serious?"

dina nodded fervently. "yeah, dude. we could get so much recognition for this. it's the opportunity of a lifetime."

you brought your hand to cover your mouth, and realized you were shaking. were you ready for this? would they find a better bassist to go on the tour? would you become famous? no... this was a part-time thing. just something on the side.

you swallowed, and spoke just barely loud enough for them to hear.

"would you want me to go...or....?"

the three turned to you, unsure of what to say. you had made it clear you were simply a temporary fix for the real bassist that would be joining the band. and you would leave, and be on with your life.

dina bit the inside of her cheek, eyebrows furrowed. "that's up to you. i... i'm not sure we could find a different bassist in the next month and a half that's like... you. y'know? don't feel pressured, though. we could make—"

"i want you in the band," jesse shared while licking the sprinkles off of a blue cupcake. "you're basically already in it, anyways. not much would change. think about it, we'd love for you to be apart of it officially. right, guys?"

ellie and dina shared a quick look. dina nodded, "of course."

"yeah," ellie added, giving a brief, small smile.

your heart raced. this would change everything. but you were willing to try.

"ok. i want to stay. i'll go on the tour with you."

dina pulled you into a hug.

"welcome to the fireflies, y/n. for real this time. now, let's get to work."

༊*·˚

the next sixty days flew by before your eyes. you sat down with the band and allowed them to read one of your songs. you did a bit of revising, and they loved it.

you urged ellie to share knee socks with the others, telling her that it was the perfect "tour song", and that everyone would adore it. she didn't understand what you meant. she did it anyways.

it was two days before your departure to the first destination: seattle, washington. you had to take a few weeks of leave from work to go on tour. your boss was very understanding. with a laugh, you promised you would remember her when you were out and about as a famous rockstar signing tits.

ellie, dina, and jesse sat on the floor on their phones. you yawned and gripped the couch to help you stand up. as soon as you were upright, you fell back down again.

with your face pressed into the cushions, you mumbled, "g'night."

dina chuckled. "you want a ride home so you can sleep in your bed? that couch probably has rabies and it feels like a rock."

"don't care," you sighed, sinking into it.

after a few minutes, you had nearly drifted off to sleep. you suddenly felt a chilling leather material cover your upper body. you heard someone sit down.

"aw, you're so sweet, taking care of her," dina teased under her breath.

"shut up," ellie whispered back immediately.

"just saying."

"a—what's that supposed to mean?"

their voices became fuzzy as you drifted into sleep.

"whatever you make it mean."

a/n: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ellie putting her leather jacket over reader when she's asleep oh i'm ill i need a doctor ASAP! hope u enjoyed !!!!!!!!!! so excited to write the next chapter i'll actually die. i do need to go to sleep rn tho it's 12:44am so, goodnight (❁´◡`❁) also,,,,, since reader's officially part of the band now should i change the pairing? since she's not a bartender anymore,, really,,,, i don't know.

taglist: @ximtiredx @gold-dustwomxn @elliesinterlude

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #tlou game #the last of us #tlou 2 #band au #wlw #rockstar!ellie

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 5 months

Text

tumblr.com/emdeerm insert-that-spiderman-meme

based on this prompt and the amazing fanfic "Wait I'm a Cartoon Over Here?!"

Ahem Damian flopped onto his bed, exhausted after having had to clean the bat litter once more, as per Alfred's instruction. However, that exhaustion was punctuated by an underlying satisfaction. Despite everything, he and Richard had succeeded. They made contact with Team Phantom (part of him felt dizzy and giddy at the notion, but he'd impale anyone who'd suggest it) and managed to keep Father and the others from combusting at the notion of their existence. Phantom had sworn up and down to never expose their identities, knowing just how important they are. ("You were my hero since I was 7, I'd rather eat Dash's underwear again than betray your trust!") If only he knew...

Speaking of whom, Damian clamped his hands of his ears as the girlish squealing in this room entered a fever pitch. He was starting to regret allowing Kent to enter the Manor while team Phantom were visiting.

"DANNY DANNY DANNY DANNY DANNY I'M SUCH A HUGE FAN OF YOU CAN YOU PLEASE SIGN THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND-" Damian could've sworn that's the spiel Jonathan had opened with about twenty minutes ago. Fenton, for his part, was doing his best to withstand the onslaught of super-powered pre-teen fandom.

He'd never be caught dead doing something so... debased. So petty and pointless as to gawk at a fictional character. He, the blood son of the Bat and his future successor.

"Come on Damian, aren't you excited too?" His heart rate spiked. Blast. How quickly could he break into Father's kryptonite vault...

"You sure you wanna mess him with right now? He really looks like he could kill you, and I read the issue where he tried to murder Tim."

Damian prickled, even felt a hint of shame knowing that Fenton knew just as much about him as he did, how shameful. No not shameful at all, why would he care about someone who probably wasn't even real. Damian moved to sit up and shot Jonathan the deadliest glare he could muster, an expression copy-pasted right off his Father's Batglare.

Jonathan, for his part, cowered behind Fenton. "You'd do well to keep remain silent, Kent, before I remind you that your life is as fragile as a dying rat." He all but spat out. However, instead of cowering further, Jonathan's lips curled into a devious expression.

Fenton's head bounced between the two. "Maybe this personal arc hasn't been published yet..." He muttered.

"Hey Danny..." Jonathan began, hesitantly. This could not be happening. Damian grabbed the nearest katana and lunged. However, his efforts were made fruitless as he passed through the duo like they weren't there. Dammit! "I know this is kind of embarassing, but we put in a lot of work and you're like my number two inspiration after my dad and we don't know how long you'll be here so., but you gotta keep this a total secret, like a total secret, you can't tell anyone."

Jonathan reached into his backpack. Damian swung his sword again. Anything, anything to prevent the inevitable. If this were allowed to happen, his life would be forfeit. Curse his hero this hero for being so overpowered. Where was the lipstick laser when you needed it? Or the fenton thermos? or the anti-creep stick, or anything?!

However, just as Jonathan was about to retrieve the forbidden contraband, a fist flew out and blew him away. "Woah what is this?" Exclaimed one Danielle Phantom. It was at that moment that Damian knew, there was nothing more that could be done.

~~~~~

Danielle rifled through the pages of the comic book that Jon was about to pull out (which, btw, was amazing! Danny might be into Nightwing and Martian Manhunter, but she could not count the number of nights she'd dreamt of flying with the Super Sons. Basically she was never gonna wash that fist again anyway) and was shocked to find the contents. "Yo Danny, have you seen this??"

Her template/brother/cousin/dad (his status is in a weird gray area at the moment) leaned over, eyes widening too.

For within her hands was the latest issue of the celebrated fancomic, the Secret Adventures of Danny Phantom, which circulated around this universe's social media forums and the schoolyards of Metropolis and Gotham. Danielle flipped through pages upon pages of lovingly hand-drawn panels.

"I didn't know we were a comic, too! I've never looked that cool before." Danny said, nothing the cover art.

"I dont think this is official, i mean, whatever official canon means these days. Look, there's no logo from the channel our cartoon's on."

"I can't believe I have fans who know enough about me to make a fancomic." Danny groaned.

"Oh shut up, Danny. you don't see me getting any fanart." Dani teased, until she reached the beautiful two-page spread of her, Robin and Superboy swooping in to save Danny from the GiW. Special attention was placed by the artist on her hair, and the unnatural glow of her ghostly eyes. Overall it was a very flattering picture. the real Dani's jaw dropped.

Danny turned to the gaping Jon, and the limp Damian, both of whose faces were drained of colour, looking even more dead than himself on a cold day. Realisation dawned inside of him. "Wait, did you guys make this?"

His interoogation could not continue furhter before Dani squealed with excitement. She phased out of the bedroom door in an instant before anyone could react, yelling in excitement about this amazing fancomic that Damian and Jon had made, like it was fate... Her voice was followed by one Dick Grayon's comment on Damian's evolving artstyle, before more joined the chorus. As for Damian? He rolled for 60d6 psychic damage, took 300, and lost the wlil to live. Jon was not far behind.

#dpxdc #dc x dp #danny phantom #dp x dc crossover #based on another prompt #each universe exists in the other as a fictional series #How do i tag others???#im new to tumblr plz hepl

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kawarikisaki · 6 months

Text

Okay! So with the new case finished up I'm ready to talk into the void about it.

Starting with the fact that this case has made me reevaluate how strong Hakuba is.

Cause I have always thought of him as being somewhat strong, but lo and behold he can just lift a whole Kaito and keep him on his shoulder for several minutes (it was six pages, and most of it was dramatic deduction time, which is usually not particularly fast dialogue) without any signs of being encumbered by the weight. He does adjust position a few times (his hand moves between panels so either he's adjusting or he's rubbing Kaito’s ass, I'm eating well as a Hakukai shipper but I'll take the innocent explanation) but there’s no sweat, no wince, no commentary about Kaito being heavy. Like, yeah, a fireman's carry is an effective way to carry a person. However, the average person is still going to struggle to lift someone that's a similar size to themselves.

Also, while im sure his assertion that he was going to walk him to the police station was just him being cheeky and bantering... he didn't seem to have any intention to put him down any time soon. I'd like to think that he was waiting for Kaito to call him out on it then make his escape, but if Kaito hadn't he'd have probably kept it up till the deduction was done then walked over to Nakamori-keibu and said something like, "this is Kid by the way, can you handle him from here?"

Anyway... Hakuba strong actually? I have decided to think so.

Can I just say I love all the little faces they make at each other? All the bois, not just Kaito and Hakuba. Granted, the character interactions and shifting dynamics have always been my favorite part of dcmk.

But like....

Hakuba bending down to talk to Conan. Kaito looking to proud of himself when he pulls out the 'hey did you consider it could actually be suicide?' While Conan’s in the background like 'oh shit oh shit oh fuck'. Conan and Kaito both thinking they had Ran Convinced, but she was sus.

Speaking of sus, I think Hakuba figured Conan out.

Sure, that last page had him back off from it and be like, "You got in contact with Shinichi and had him help." And that explaination works but... its an explanation that just makes less sense the more you think about it.

Even if I give the benefit of doubt it doesn't make sense to do it the way Hakuba explained, because if Conan contacted Shinichi to help then why would Conan be acting as the middle man? It'd introduce unnecessary delay to have Shinichi hear what's happening via phone, then Shinichi tell Conan his response, and Conan bowtie it to Kid, and Kid say the lines. (Realistically speaking the way they actually did it should also have this problem, but adding a step like this when in theory its completely unnecessary to have Conan as the middle man beyond just contacting Shinichi is just going to imcrease the delay.)

That said I can actually kind of see how that could be a conclusion he reached from this interaction:

Hakuba, at this point, knows that Shinichi is Kid and that Conan is helping him by supplying lines, but he hasn't figured out the details. So when he notices that Conan reacts before 'Shinichi' that's him reaching that conclusion that he brings up later about Conan being so invested that he was mimicing Shinichi’s expression and attitude.

I don't think he fully believed that, though.

Looking at the information that we know he had:

1. 'Shinichi' is Kid (and also Kaito Kuroba using his real face)

2. Conan is supplying Kid with lines.

3. The lines Kid is saying are from the real Shinichi.

4. Conan gets worked up if you say something that Shinichi would be worked up about

5. Conan has gadgets. (Hakuba is at least aware of the bowtie having speaker/microphone function, bit arguments could be made that he’s aware of the voice changer and also the sleep needles from the events at sunset mansion)

6. (Bonus) In a previous case Hattori had been upset with Hakuba being the representative 'detective of the east' but was completely fine with Conan taking that role.

I think he figured out that Conan was Shinichi, but that he wasn't certain until he brought up 'the real Shinichi' during the deduction and saw Conan begin to panic. I think he had mentioned it purely to get a rise out of Conan and see how he would react, and upon getting his answer he played along and gave Conan an out to jump on because if he exposed him here he wouldn't get the answers as to how this had happened.

And I feel like this read of is is reinforced by his final lines expressing that he understands why Shinichi/Conan would help Kid for the sake of solving the mystery because it's a detective’s nature. Hakuba gets it because he’s doing the same by helping Conan get away with his deception in hopes that doing so will help him get answers to the mystery.

Thats how I've decided to view things anyway, though it is possible that im partially blinded by my hope that he continues to be relevant.

#dcmk #hakuba saguru #so glad the boy came back #and i pray for his continued existence #the pool of hope is shallow but not empty #rambling #overanalyzing

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ohtobealady · 29 days

Text

This is for @callhimnowmarisamylove … it’s not exactly that you were hoping for, but I hope you like it all the same. Missing scene: S3E8.

—//—//—//—//—//—//—

Women’s Stuff 3

“You know something, don’t you?”

Cora startled a little at his words, and she looked up and away from her book at the dividing door. “Oh! Robert.” She found where she was on the page. “You frightened me.”

“But you do, don’t you?”

“Do what?” She mumbled, but her eyes scanned the page. ‘Dearest,’ exclaimed Valentine, with her adorable smile, ‘awake and look at me!’ Morrel uttered a loud exclamation and frantic, doubtful, dazzled, as though by a celestial vision, he fell upon his knees.

“Honestly, Cora, I’m speaking to you.”

“Sorry, darling, but I’m only paragraphs away from the end,” she sighed, but tucked her thumb into the pages of her book and closed the cover over it. “Surely it can wait five more minutes?”

“No,” he enunciated, and began to untie his dressing gown, “it cannot. Especially because I suspect—” here he tossed the garment at the end of her bed and worked to slide himself inside her blankets. “—That you know something and you’re keeping it from me.”

Cora rolled her eyes, but chuckled. “I really haven’t a clue what you could be referring to.”

“Mary.”

“Mary?” She waited for Robert to finish adjusting the pillow behind his back before speaking, but her mind went immediately to where Mary was: London. “What about her?”

Her husband lifted his brows. His face looked brighter than it had been in months and months, and her heart grew a little in her breast. She felt her mouth soften into a smile. “She’s told you she’s pregnant, hasn’t she?”

And Cora deflated. “Oh, Robert—“

He chuckled. “I saw the way you glanced over to her yesterday. And today in the library, darting your eyes away from me. Really, Cora, you’re not quite as subtle as you think.”

“She’s not pregnant.” Cora opened her book and attempted to find her place again. “I’d tell you,” she added. “And that glance was for something else entirely.”

“Something else?”

Cora hummed, and she read. The next morning at daybreak, Valentine and Morrel were walking arm-in-arm—

“Then you do know something. Has it to do with—“

Cora sighed deeply and looked up. “With what?”

“They’ve been married for nearly a year, Cora.” She looked at him as he spoke. “Matthew hasn’t a living father. Do you think I should speak with him?”

She felt her mouth fall open a little as she studied her husband’s face. His eyes watched her, waiting, his pink mouth opened slightly in his earnestness. “It hasn't been a year, not as long as that. And besides, I’ve already said no,” she answered. “I think they both know all they need to know. In fact—“ she took in a breath, and then stopped herself.

“You do know.��

Oh. She was terrible at secrets. “Alright, but you mustn’t let on that I’ve told you anything.”

“What is it?”

Cora studied him a few moments more—the tired lines around his eyes, the crease between his brows, the evening stubble at his jaw—and again she closed her book over her finger. “Mary has to have a tiny procedure done—very quick, and very small—“

“—a surgery?”

Cora shook her head to ease the nerves she saw etch deeper lines into his face. “Not a surgery, Robert. A procedure. Lasts only a handful of moments and is fairly painless.”

He repositioned himself against the pillows, and he shook his head. “That still sounds rather like a surgery to me.” He looked over at her again. “And Matthew thinks this wise?”

“He doesn’t know. And I don’t think it’s our place to tell him, Robert. Really, I’m not sure it’s my place to say anything at all—“

“What? And when is Clarkson doing this?”

“It’s not Clarkson.” Robert still looked at her, and his brows bobbed higher. “It’s a Doctor Ryder in London. And she had it done today.”

“Is that why she’s gone? I don’t like this,” his anxiety now crept into his voice. “Some quack of a doctor doing—“

“—he’s not a quack—“

“—God knows what to our daughter and perhaps destroying her chances of ever having a child—“

“He’s a very good doctor, darling. Trust me.” Her husband looked at her, but this time the brightness she’d seen moments before had clouded over, and she knew why. How could she not? Her chest felt tighter, and she gave a small little smile to reassure him. “Doctor Ryder is well-respected and very knowledgeable. Truly. He’s done the procedure dozens of times. I’m not worried in the slightest.”

But Robert frowned. “You can’t be sure.”

“I am sure,” she let her eyes go back to her book when Robert began to cover himself more with the sheets. “It’s amazing what he knows just by appearances alone. And it helps that he’s kind. I’m certain he put her at ease.”

“You speak as if you know him.”

Cora stilled. And suddenly she realized she’d said too much, had gone a step too far in the truth.

She could feel beside her as Robert leaned to his left and back again, and she heard the sound of his book’s pages fluttering. “Cora? Do you?”

She heard herself make a little unintelligible sound, her ability to conceal anything from Robert not an ability of hers at all. Especially now. She wouldn’t hide anything from him now.

Cora looked up from her book, and held her breath. Oh. Her mouth moved open and then closed again. “Well, I—“

“How?”

“How?” she repeated.

“How do you know him?” Robert blinked at her, peering meaningfully, and Cora let all the air she held in her lungs escape. It was useless.

“Because I’ve been his patient,” she confessed quietly. Robert’s eyes widened.

“What?” He angled his body towards hers. “When was this?”

“Years ago, before the war,” she rushed out. She watched her husband do the quick tallying of math and memory before his mouth fell slightly agape. A quick look of hurt flashed across his features, and she felt herself crumbling. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you; it wasn’t meant to be a secret forever.” She tipped her head. “At the time, I didn’t want you to get your hopes up if it didn’t work, and then when it did, nearly a year had gone and—“

“It being the pregnancy,” he said in a flat voice, and after a moment Cora tried her best to nod.

They were quiet, and Cora felt her throat grow thick. “Seemed pointless to speak of it afterward,” she added quietly.

And then their quiet slipped into silence.

“You should have told me,” he said after some time, and she nodded.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Had something happened to you—“

“It’s really not that sort of procedure, darling,” she reiterated. “It’s very safe.”

“But it wasn’t necessary.” His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “We had our girls.” And, without warning, Cora’s eyes stung.

Oh, the past week had been better. She’d managed to avoid weeping, but Robert’s words—“had”—caught in her chest and ached. “I…” she did as he had done a moment before and pulled in a breath. She understood now why he had done it: so that he could speak around the emotion that she was sure was as lodged in his throat as it was hers. “…I wanted to make you happy.”

Nearly immediately, he turned away from her. He swung his legs over the side of her bed where she heard his book slide against the top of the table there. Tears threatened her composure.

“Oh,” her chin trembled, and she moved her jaw. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

But when he turned quickly and looked at her, Cora choked. “I’m not angry. No.” And as he reached his hand toward her, Cora could see that his eyes were teary. “Not at all.”

She took his hand and held it.

“Unexpected,” was all he said as an excuse as he turned his head away again, and she heard as he cleared his throat.

She tightened her grasp of his thumb. She let him sit that way for another moment, another two, before at some length, he turned again towards her.

“Goodness,” he chuckled, but wryly. “Apologies.”

“Don’t apologize.” She let him release her hand, and not knowing what else to do—how else to comfort him—she tugged the covers beside her. With a small grin, he pulled his legs up, and he pushed them back to where they had been.

“She’ll be alright,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she affirmed. “Perfectly alright.”

He nodded, but did not speak.

“Matthew should know,” he added, and she nodded. “She’ll tell him.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, too, and touched the covers at his waist.

She leaned to him, trying to catch his gaze. “Let’s try to sleep?” She pursed her lips. “You’ve got plenty of things to think about in the morning.”

“You’re right. The Cricket.”

She didn’t even roll her eyes.

“Didn’t you want to finish?” He added, sniffing, and nodded towards her book that still lay in her lap. “You said you were at the end.”

“Oh.” She’d nearly forgotten. “Yes, I am.”

He held out his hand, and gestured with his fingers. “I’ll read aloud.”

“You won’t.” She opened her book, and shaking away the cloud that threatened her, she lifted her chin. “It’s just like you to swoop in at the best part.”

He laughed, a pitiful, wet sound, but all the same, it made Cora’s heart go skipping about her breast. “You always make me out to be much more calculating than I am.”

“Well…” Cora eyed him, assessed him, and then smirked. “Alright.” She passed the book to him, and she turned and settled on her left side, lying ever closer to him as he sniffed and cleared his throat once more.

“Here?”

She peered up at where he pointed and nodded. “At the break.”

His chest expanded, and he began. “The next morning at daybreak, Valentine and Morrel were walking arm-in-arm, Valentine relating how Monte Cristo had appeared in her room …”

Cora listened as he read, listened to the beautiful lifts and falls of his words, listened to the small crack at the vowels that had come from the emotion he’d buried away again. She listened to him, and she felt the hum of his voice against her, humming through his arm, his side.

And without much other thought, she pressed her lips to his sleeve.

He paused, and she looked up at him. Her eyes felt warmer and stung again, but she smiled. She lifted herself and finding his lips, she kissed him again.

“Darling—“

But she didn’t want him to speak; she kissed him again, and this time she felt him smile against her mouth.

“Shall I tell you how it ends?”

Cora kissed his prickly jaw, his throat. She felt his hand go to her neck and a finger thread into the base of her braid. She hummed. “Would it please you to spoil the ending?”

A laugh rumbled against her, and she closed her eyes.

“‘All human wisdom is summed up in two words…’” She knew he closed the book, and she was glad. She let her fingers find his cheeks and opened her eyes to see him. “‘Wait and hope,” he finished in a whisper.

And, wanting to cry, Cora kissed him again.

————-

Excepts from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

#cora crawley #robert crawley #cobert #cobert drabbles #hope you find something about it that you like!#thanks for suggesting it

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weaselle · 22 days

Note

What'd your boss do, if you don't mind?

oh dear. trap card activated

ok. ok. There is a lot more behind me reaching the end of my rope. But the final straw was this:

I have next week off (my first week off in 3 years). She said she needed a report. She explicitly told me the reason she needed the report was so she could cover my shifts while i am off, citing problems covering when one of our clients gave me covid a month ago.

She said she needed to know what order I was doing pick ups and drop offs, and she needed to know procedures for the new clients (about half of our clients are new enough that she has never worked directly with them).

She gave the specific example of not knowing to go to the side door of one client's house instead of the front door. She said she also needed to know who had timing expectations, saying when she covered for me clients were "blowing up her phone" because she didn't know when clients expected me and which clients i typically texted an arrival time, again giving a specific example of "like the way you text [client she is familiar with] from the bottom of the hill on your way to her house"

I clarified by using two more examples "oh like how I always let [client's dog] stop to pee right before putting him back in the house, and how I always text [other client] when i am 15 minutes from her house?" and she confirmed that was the information she was asking for. She said to just write it down at each house along my route as i worked each day of the week.

At the end of Monday I told her writing all that down was making me late to client's houses, so i was just going to write it all up on the weekend. I also pointed out that since i was writing so much of it down anyway, i might as well write it not just good enough for her, but complete enough that any other employee could cover a shift of mine if needed. She agreed.

Since i was volunteering to do more than was strictly asked, and since i have been trying to showcase how i go above and beyond because she promised to make me a manager but hasn't, i wrote up this report in my own time, unpaid, over the weekend.

Now I only wrote a short paragraph for each client. But I service about 20 clients each day. Many of those clients are repeat clients throughout the week, so there was a fair amount of copy/pasting, but it was still a hell of a report to write up.

Because it was so long, I spent extra time making it super organized and easy to read, formatted so it's not just a wall of text, easy to skip over parts and find specific information as needed.

I turned in to her a 26 page 14,000 word document, which contains the necessary information for any employee to cover my specific client routes. It took me 7 hours.

Her response?

"This isn't what i asked for"

BUT IT IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE ASKED FOR.

I confirmed that it was what she asked for. It IS a little more detailed than she strictly asked for, but I TOLD her I would be doing that and she spent four days knowing I was preparing to do that and she didn't say a thing about not doing that.

So I'm like "well, what do you need that's not in there?"

And she says "i need to know the exact order you are doing your route, not just pick ups, but slotting the drop offs in-between the pickups too"

So i'm like "that is exactly how that report is written"

And she says "I need to know the times clients expect you to be picking up and dropping off, and when you are doing the walks and when you are taking breaks"

And i go "every client that has a timing expectation is noted in that report, my break times and the walk times are also included."

And she says "it's more information than i need, I need just the stuff i personally need, like the cliffs notes version of your report"

And i'm like "the cliffs notes version, the lines containing the specific information you personally need, are done in bold so you can easily skim through and find it."

and after going around and around like this, it finally comes out that what she ACTUALLY wants is a minute to minute log of how i am spending my day because she's paying me about 6 hours a week of overtime and she's mad about it.

Which i'm happy to provide a log of my time on shift, but if she wants to know why there's overtime, i can tell her in 2 minutes instead of wasting my time on this logging project, IN FACT I DID TELL HER WHY THERE WAS OVERTIME, ONCE WHEN CHANGES TO THE SCHEDULE MADE IT SEEM LIKELY, AND AGAIN TWO WEEKS LATER CONFIRMING THAT WAS WHAT HAD HAPPENED

But really it boils down to me bending over backwards to help her grow her business while she has failed to make good on every single promise she's made me.

Like, I was her only employee for two years and she promised she would make me a manager (i'm interested in a promotion for both the monetary compensation and the job title for résumé reasons) and i worked my ass off to build up the client base so we could hire two more employees and make that happen...

but she did not have me sit in on the interviews, she did not have me shadow her doing the intake process, nothing. She clearly either does not intend on making me a manager or doesn't know how.

i tend to gravitate to small, owner operated businesses, partially because i have a real soft spot for being truly needed, and partially because it's a way to study the dos and don'ts of how to open and run my own business one day.

I understand she is a small business with small business problems, and i have been very patient because she's a single mom with a lot going on in her personal life.

But the thing about me is, while I am very very patient and very very loyal... i need a bare minimum of return on that to replenish it. Tell me what a great job i'm doing every now and then, show appreciation for what i do, listen to me when i say things, etc, and if you NEVER do any of that, my vast reserves of patience and loyalty will dry up.

And once you use up my patience and loyalty? That's it. It's gone.

And I, well, i have been all used up.

also she pays me like half what she should, which i was letting slide because i was going to get a big raise with my promotion to manager, but that is looking like it will never happen, so ... fuuuuuuck this shit i'm out

"so i can open and run my own business one day" has arrived

#my life #too much tea #probably more than you wanted to know lol

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heygerald · 17 days

Text

Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 3

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic asshole. After their moment at the wrap party, Tom shows up at Parker's bookstore. How is it possible someone can be such an asshole when asking for a favor?

read the story here: prev / next

Two weeks later finds the weather outside shifting with the first hint of autumn; cooler temperatures in the morning greet Parker when she walks to work, and the coffee shop next door has started advertising their new fall drinks of pumpkin spice and cinnamon tea. She's seen her brother every day since the wrap party—partly because he always makes a point of taking some down time after finishing a movie to recover from his stunts, and partly because her and Jody have become fast friends—but she hasn't seen Tom since their moment in the bathroom.

She suspects that's for the best. The internet is flooded with paparazzi photos of him flouncing around town with models every other day, and she's still trying to forget how natural it felt to laugh with him.

But despite her brother's newly open schedule, and Jody's constant pestering to go spend a day at the beach, Parker finds her bookstore just as empty as always.

There are a few stragglers here and there throughout the day. Sometimes she gets lucky when a tour bus stops for gas and snacks, allowing an ensemble of tacky dressed tourists to flood her street for twenty minutes. On unlucky days, Mr. Chamberlain will stop in to peruse her historical section; but he doesn't have any sort of schedule or income, and those visits consist entirely of him describing last night's CSI episode to Parker before trying to set her up with his grandson. Once he bought a book from her dollar bin. He attempted to return it three days later.

On days like today, Parker is visited by a sixteen-year-old named Melissa who hangs out every so often while her mom attends overpriced Pilates in the studio down the block.

"...and then Peter was all 'no, sorry Mandy, I'm not interested". Like, hello! My name is Melissa and we've lived in the same neighborhood since we were four," said teenager was droning on from her spot atop the upcycled reading chair in the corner. She never failed to impress Parker with how much she could talk—the stories quite literally never stopped coming—while at the same time she managed to read about four books a week. Parker suspected that Melissa's brain represented something like the Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, when the music got a little too fast and the turns were a little too hard to keep up with. "Now, I have no idea what I'm going to do. There's no one else for me to ask since it's three weeks away."

Parker, only half-listening to the story, hummed from her spot two rows back. She had won several boxes of books at a local auction about a month ago and had done a pretty good job at pretending they didn't exist.

Ignoring the problem only lasted so long, however, and this morning she had ended up spilling coffee all over herself when her sneaker caught the edge of the box. Pride—and knees—damaged, she decided to tackle the issue first thing in the morning.

It was now four in the afternoon, and the books were mocking her.

"Can't you just go alone?" she asked.

"Go alone? Are you crazy! That's, like, really sad, Park," Melissa explained. She couldn't see her, but Parker could feel the judgmental look the teen girl was giving her. "Only losers go alone to dances."

"Baby did it."

"Who?"

"Baby. You know? You don't put Baby in a corner? That one."

A tut. "You should really update your references."

"Jesus. Since when did Dirty Dancing become an outdated reference?" she muttered while inspecting the spine of a mystery novel from the 70s. It had definitely seen better days, and when she shifted it, three pages fell out. Parker tossed it into the TRASH box with a sigh. "Is going to a dance with your friends considered outdated too?"

"That's the same thing as going alone," Melissa groaned.

"How? You're literally not alone."

"Because if I go with my friends, that means that I couldn't get anyone that wasn't a friend to agree to go with me. I don't need the whole school thinking that I'm a total loser."

"I went with my friends and had a blast. And I'm not a loser."

There was no response other than silence, and after a few moments Parker realized that if Melissa had nothing to say about the subject, she likely had nothing nice to say.

She cleared her throat before moving onto the next, and final, box hoping that there would be better books in it. So far, her KEEP pile was looking pathetically small compared to what was about to be binned. With a forced change of conversation, she asked, "hey, you grew up here, right?"

"Sure."

"Did you know the Sawyers?"

"Like, Miss Sawyer? Down on Oakcrest?"

"The fancy old house with the bushes shaped like dogs. I bought a bunch of books at her estate sale, and so far, they all suck. I thought she was supposed to be a big collector or something."

The sound of Melissa humming echoed throughout the empty store, and Parker peeked around the bookshelves to spot the girl lying upside down on the chair; Doc Martens stuck up in the air, long ponytail hanging to the ground as she played on her phone.

Parker rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, totally. But she collected those kid's books. Original copies or whatever. Mom said she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for some rabbit book."

"...Peter Rabbit?"

"I guess," Melissa shrugged. There was a loud smack of gum popping before her voice rang out, "she did a bunch of donations to local art musuems and galleries and stuff. A phila-something—"

"Philanthropist?"

"—and there was some big deal about her donating everything to some charity. Mom was talking about it. Which, like, good for them or whatever but I don't understand how donating an old book is helping solve world hunger."

Parker let her head drop against the beat-up cardboard box in front of her, something despondent and miserable sitting on her chest at the realization that she had wasted time and money on nothing but crap. "Well, I wish I knew that before I went into a bidding war over this garbage. Are the Hardy Boys still cool or is that dated too?"

A judgmental laugh floated back. "Um, their name is pronounced Hemsworth, Park."

"I meant—" she started, before realizing that this was a battle she was never going to win, and even if she wanted to try the musty smell resonating from these boxes of crap had burned through her daily allowance of braincells. Something Melissa didn't seem to worry about as she puffed from her vape pen. "Forget it."

Not so shockingly, Melissa did not, in fact, forget it. Instead, she spent the next ten minutes describing in scary detail each Hemsworth brother, their looks on a scale of one to ten, their best movies, and why Chris was the dreamiest of them all. His hair and eyes were a big selling point, apparently, and as Parker listened to the teenager drone on, she couldn't help but wonder if Chris Hemsworth used box dye too.

So wrapped up in her own world of book sorting, Parker didn't notice when the front door opened with a tinkle of the bell until the shop went eerily quiet. Melissa, it seemed, had finally found a reason to shut up.

"I never liked Chris all that much," Parker said as she slowly gathered the KEEP bin and hefted it off the floor. Her lower back ached at the strain. Jesus, maybe I am old. Moving towards the front counter, she continued musing, "There's something about him in the first Thor movie, when his eyebrows were all bleached, that kind of turned me off. I think there's a word for that, right? The ew or something...."

She spots Melissa first.

The girl is sitting upright in the chair now, face flushed a deep scarlet red with a book held tightly in her lap as she pretends to read through it. Her phone and vape are nowhere to be seen, and she doesn't so much as glance up when Parker strides by.

"What happened to you?" she asks with an amused quirk of the brow. Melissa doesn't respond, and Parker turns to set the heavy box of books on the front counter when she spots the other person in the room. "Oh, sorry. I was in the back. Can I help—?"

It shouldn't surprise her as much as it does, but Parker blinks to find Tom Ryder standing on the other side of the counter staring at her with raised brows.

Tom fucking Ryder.

He looks better than the last time she ran into him. He has a nice tan going underneath a funky pair of yellow sunglasses that are, in her opinion, too big for his face. They look a little absurd with the whitewashed denim jacket he's wearing, but the yellow matches the bedazzled t-shirt he has on underneath, so she suspects it's some sort of fashion statement. Paired with an expensive pair of well-polished boots, it all looks quite absurd standing in the middle of her dilapidated bookstore.

Even more so when Parker realizes she's wearing nothing but a pair of cheap cargo shorts and an oversized Twilight sweatshirt that was covering the coffee-stained shirt underneath. (Team Jacob, always).

"Tom. Um... are you looking for Colt or something?"

In typical Ryder fashion, he ignores her question entirely to do a slow spin; blue eyes tinted by his glasses trailing over everything in sight. She can feel the judgement from across the counter, and when he finally fixes his sights back on her, his smirk is rage inducing. "This is your store. Seriously?"

Parker promptly plants her hands onto her hips with a scathing glare.

"Ok, what do you want?"

"Jesus, no wonder this place is empty," he drawls, a pointed smile tossed towards Melissa's prone form as he leans an elbow onto the counter. At being noticed, the teenager ducks her head behind the spine of her book as if she had just been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Do you talk to all your customers like that?"

"Just the assholes," she retorts. Over Tom's shoulder she catches Melissa's book dropping down two inches, and the girl's face is completely aghast.

What are you doing! she mouths, that's Tom Ryder!

Parker rolls her eyes. As if she didn't know who the blinged-out asshole standing in her store was. Speaking of—he's still standing there smirking at her. "That's you, if I wasn't clear. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Tom snorts. "I think I got that after the fifth time you said it."

"And yet..." she gestures vaguely to him, then to her store.

Because he's never behaved like a normal person, however, Tom doesn't seem to mind the insult or the offhand comment that she didn't want to deal with him. Instead, he smiles while his gaze drifts from judging the bookstore to judging Parker. He gives her a glance over—up, down, lingering on her oversized sweatshirt, before going back up—and finishes with a snort. "If the door hits me, I'm suing for damages, and I doubt you could afford the lawsuit. Let alone a lawyer."

God! What. a. fucking. asshole!

Parker bites back the insult knowing that it won't do any good. They've played this game before, and clearly being called an asshole seemed to have lost some of its bite over the weeks. So instead, she forcefully returns her attention to the cardboard box and slowly starts sorting the books into categories. "Fine. Can you just tell me what you want so I can get back to my life?"

He shifts against the counter and over the mustiness she catches a waft of his cologne when he grabs a book at random from her pile. "Why else do people come to a bookstore? I want a book."

Parker snorts. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Seriously, what do you want?"

There's a moment of silence. She glances up to find him pointedly ignoring her as he flips through the book at random.

"You're... serious?"

He shrugs. "You said you have a bunch of sci-fi books."

"I'm surprised you even remember that given the whole," she sticks a finger into her mouth and mimes throwing up. He doesn't find it funny or cute and responds with a disgusted glare. Parker rolls her eyes with a shake of the head. "It was a—never mind. Why not order off of Amazon? I thought you said you've never even been to a bookstore before?"

This time, it's his turn to roll his eyes. He drops the book with a thwack before turning his attention to the overstuffed bookshelves at her left. At random, he starts ambling towards one. "You should be flattered that I picked your little store to start. Most people would kill to say that you know. Tom Ryder explores rundown bookstore in the shitty side of LA. If you had a picture, the paps would run it in every paper by tomorrow morning," he huffs.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to document this monumental occasion forever," she snarks, but follows after him anyway. His pattern is half-hearted; poking books here and there, glancing for hardly a second, before moving on. "And my store isn't rundown. It just has some... character."

He snorts over his shoulder. "That's what a Mom says when her daughter is ugly."

"Don't you go through PR training or something?" she scoffs as he diverts to a different aisle. "I can't imagine Gail would like to hear that particular opinion if I sold it to TMZ."

"Gail would sue you for everything you own," he laughed while flipping through an old copy of Gone with the Wind. Parker crosses her arms at him with a glare, and in response Tom flashes a too-white smile at her. "She freaked out about the mink rug, by the way. Was screaming and everything. It was hilarious."

Parker's heart stopped in her chest, but when there was no continuation of the joke—haha I can't wait to see you served with papers!—she furrowed her brows at him. "You didn't tell her it was my fault?"

A shrug as he shoved the book against her chest.

She huffed, turning the book over to check for damages, but when he turned his back... well, a part of her did wonder why he would keep that a secret if it was such a big deal. Was it to be nice? Or so he could hold it over her head indefinitely? Then again, if this was his attempt at blackmail, letting it go for two weeks seemed like the wrong way to go about it.

Deciding not to linger on unsolvable riddles, Parker returned the book to the end cap he had found it on and asked, "so, does this mean you've decided to audition for that sci-fi part after all?"

Her question went unanswered as Tom paused in front of the SEX & SEXUALITY section. He pulled a wrinkled copy of Fifty Shades of Grey off the shelf and waggled his brows at her pointedly. "Keeping the good stuff for yourself, huh?"

Parker responded by snagging the book out of his hand and stuffing it back into place. "You break it, you buy it applies here too, Ryder."

"Half this place is broken," he said with a pointed glance at the flickering overhead light. "I still can't believe you own this shithole."

"I happen to love this bookstore—"

"Oh, trust me, I can believe that you would own a bookstore," he said, and while there was nothing insulting about owning a bookstore on its own, the way that Tom spoke made it clear that owning a bookstore was not something he held in high regard. Then again, he spent all his time reading shitty scripts, so what would he know? "I just can't believe that you would own this bookstore. Like, you actually paid money for this place?"

"If you have to know, I used to be friends with the owner, and got a good deal on the property," she started to explain. He raised his brows at her while slowly perusing the RELIGION section, and Parker shook herself. She didn't need to explain anything to him of all people. The reminder helped her find some confidence, and she fluttered her hands at him irritably. "You know what—I don't need to explain myself to you. You've never even been to a bookstore before. What would you know about making sacrifices for something you believed in?"

Tom paused in his search. She saw his jaw clench, and eyes droop towards the creaky wooden floor beneath his shiny boots, and his comment from the other day drifted back to mind.

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, too, he had said.

And while guilt did block her throat up a bit—fucking asshole couldn't even let her defend herself without feeling bad about it—this time he didn't make any such reprimands. Instead, he just shrugged, before diving deeper into the store.

He cleared his throat. "I just expected it be nicer coming from you."

"Does something about me secretly scream rich girl to you?"

Tom harrumphed. "Trust me, no one is mistaking you for rich. Uptight, however..."

"Oh, ha, hilarious, Tom. God! You're such an asshole," she laughed, but it was a mean sound, paired with a mean insult. It failed to have the desired effect, however. In fact, Tom seemed to have shifted from hating the insult to owning it and looked far too amused for her liking. Frustrated, Parker decided the best plan of extermination was a straightforward shot. Through gritted teeth, she asked, "...what kind of sci-fi book do you want?"

The rhinestones on his shoulders sparkled as he shrugged. "I don't know. I need to understand what gets nerds so fucking excited about this shit. Not too nerdy, though. Alright? I'm not trying to be a Trekkie or whatever."

There were so many things wrong with that statement that Parker wasn't sure what to pick first. So, she pinched the bridge of her nose to point out, "I have a feeling the so-called nerds making up your potential fanbase aren't going to appreciate being talked about like that."

"Who's gonna tell them—you?" he asked with a derisive glance over.

It was definitely true what they said about Tom Ryder; his effect on women was instantaneous. Parker just doubted the tabloids were talking about migraines.

"The sci-fi section is on the right," she sighed while pushing past him. It was one of the larger sections she had; it hadn't been a lie to say the books weren't selling all that well despite being her favorite. "What have you read before?"

The blank look he gave her was response enough.

"Ah, right, maybe... Altered Carbon?"

"Isn't that a tv show?"

"Well, yeah, but it was a book first."

He glanced at the book in her hand, but clearly wasn't impressed. Leaning on the shelf, he said, "why the hell would I read that if I could just watch it?"

"Sound logic," she tutted with a narrow eyed look. Parker returned the book with an eyeroll. "Fahrenheit 451?"

"Read it in high school. Not impressed."

She trailed the shelf while muttering, listing books in her head before subconsciously crossing them off the list of something he was likely to read and enjoy. "I guess that means you wouldn't like The Illustrated Man or The Martian Chronicles," she said to herself.

His arm brushed her aside to pluck out a familiar novel. "Nerds love this," he said while already flipping through the pages. She was surprised the size didn't scare him off immediately.

"Nu-uh. No way," she shook her head.

"What?"

"Dune is not a starter book."

He furrowed his brows crossly. "You don't think I'm smart enough to read this shit or something?"

You shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answers to, her mother's voice echoed in the back of her head.

"Reading Dune as your first sci-fi book is like jumping straight into the deep end," she told him in a much more diplomatic approach. "If a sixteen year old wants to start drinking, you don't give him scotch, you give him a fruity cocktail."

Tom huffed; first through his nose and then through his mouth but stuffed the book back onto the shelf anyway. To which Parker then had to put it back on the correct shelf with a huff of her own.

"Don't be a baby and just trust me that Dune isn't a starter book. Okay?"

"Well—what is? You're supposed to be the expert here."

"If you weren't so picky it would be a lot easier..." she deadpanned but returned to her search anyway. Tom didn't seem to like waiting, and scowled at her as she shifted past him. She ignored him as best she could while squatting down to the lower shelves. "Arthur C. Clarke is one of the best sci-fi writers. He established a lot of rules that still exist in writing today. And films."

Parker pulled one of his novels, before moving towards Asimov, and then finally to Sagan. They were all slimmer novels than Dune, but no less complicated.

"Contact is my favorite," she said, shoving the books into Tom's arms. His denim was rough on her hands, and she tried not to think about how feverishly warm his skin had been the last time she had been this close to him. Swallowing, Parker remained on task. "But any of these should be good starter books for you to get into sci-fi with."

He glanced at the choices warily. "My audition is next week."

"Then I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to finish these if you're really serious about wanting to get that role," she chirped.

Together, they wound back towards the front counter. The TRASH boxes sat in the middle of the aisle, and she carefully toed them to the side before trailing past. While she was pretty sure he had been joking about suing her, a workplace hazard was the last thing she needed.

"How do you remember all of this?"

"Where stuff is? I spend almost all of my time arranging books. I'm uptight, remember?"

She felt more than saw his eyeroll. "These books, the authors. You, like, know everything about them."

Parker paused. It definitely wasn't a compliment, but it definitely felt like it could have been. Then again, this was Tom Ryder. When she glanced up from the counter, she found that he already has his nose back in his phone, and the conundrum of compliment versus not was thrown out the window. Parker shot him an unimpressed look to say, "please tell me that you're not on SparkNotes right now."

It was his turn to pause. "I'm just... reading the descriptions."

"Maybe that's why you can't understand why nerds like these books," she argued, hands planted firmly on her hips now. "Why would I go to watch one of your movies if I already looked the plot up on Wikipedia?"

He ignored her point entirely to smirk. "So, you do see my movies?"

"Goodbye, Tom."

"Relax. I'm not going to spoil them, alright? What's the fun in that when I could read them instead, and then leave you a bad review when the books end up being awful?"

"You mean have your assistants leave me a bad review."

He didn't seem impressed at the jab but didn't defend himself either. Most likely because they both knew she was right. Parker shot him a smug smile that he promptly rolled his eyes at. "Hilarious. Just tell me how much the books cost so I can leave before stepping on a rusty nail or something."

"Didn't you see the sign out front? Can't come in without a tetanus shot due to liability reasons."

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but when she glanced up at him, Tom was wiping a hand down his face. "How much for the books, smartass?"

Parker was pretty sure she could upsell him. There was no way that he knew those three books, decades old with ripped pages, were only worth fifteen bucks together. And with all the Gucci name brand bullshit that he wore, she was pretty sure she could get away with telling him the price was a hundred dollars and he wouldn't even blink an eye.

But he was also a customer, a somewhat work acquaintance, and someone she really didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary. Not to mention her brother's pseudo boss, and someone that knew she was guilty of wrecking a far more expensive rug than she could ever pay to fix.

"Just consider them a loan," she said before she could second guess herself. When Tom raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared into his hairline, she waved a hand at him while half-heartedly returning to her job of book sorting. "If you're that put-off by it you can always pay me an agent's fee if you get the part."

He stared at her for a long moment, not necessarily computing, definitely hearing static, before Tom spared her an over-the-top eyeroll that surely had to have hurt to perform.

From his pocket he pulled out a couple of crumpled bills and slapped them onto the counter. He didn't even look at how much money it was. Just shook his head at her, glasses bobbing on his nose, before he was on his way out the door.

"Hey! Don't you want your change—?"

The door shut with a ting.

On the counter sat seventy-three dollars. Parker wasn't sure if she should be offended or complimented.

From outside there was the sound of an obnoxiously loud car engine revving, alongside the thrum of music, before it tore off down the street.

"What a fucking asshole," she grumbled with the shake of her head.

But it wasn't exactly an asshole thing to do, when she thought about it. And she would know; every exchange they had since being introduced had Tom acting like an asshole to her.

Or, well, not every exchange. Not when he had been, almost, nice to her at Gail's party, if only for a few moments when no one else was around.

"OH. MY. GOD!" a shrill voice shrieked across the store, bouncing off of bookshelves, as two boots went crashing towards the window. Parker was reminded in no gentle terms that they had not, in fact, been alone when Melissa smudged her face against the glass to peer out onto the street. "Holy shit! That was Tom Ryder! Tom Ryder! Are you kidding me right now? TOM. RYDER."

"Yeah, Jesus, I know who that was," she winced, pinching her ear when she thought the girl's high pitch yelp may have burst an eardrum. There was definitely a ringing as Melissa tromped around.

"You—he—I can't believe after all of this time you never once mentioned that you're friends with Tom freaking Ryder!" she squeaked.

"Well, hang on, we're not—"

"How long have you known him? How do you know him? Do you have his phone number? Ohmygod everyone is going to flip when I tell them that you know him. Tom Ryder!" Melissa shouted, phone already in hand as she started typing. "My friend, my dear friend and favorite bookstore owner, is best friends with Tom Ryder! Did you see his latest movie, Good Cop, Bad Dog? Ugh! He's so hot!"

"We're not friends," she said immediately, not even bothering to dispute the fact that Good Cop, Bad Dog was a puff piece in an attempt to market him for younger fans. "He's actually kind of an asshole."

The teenager shot Parker a scandalized look, mouth popped open into an O as her brows lifted to her hairline. "What? Are you kidding me right now? He just drove all the way out here to ask for your recommendation for a sci-fi book! His house is, like, fifty minutes from here with traffic. Don't call him that when you just became so cool."

Parker frowned. "How do you know where he lives?" she asked, before adding with much more intensity, "hang on a second, am I not cool?"

But Melissa was already moving on, the sound of facetime dialing on her phone as she darted back outside in hopes of catching another glimpse of the celebrity. Parker, in response, caught her head between her hands with a low groan.

And yet, she couldn't help but think about what Melissa said.

Tom Ryder was a total, grade-A asshole... right?

She cast a despondant glance towards the crumpled bills on the counter, then the box of books at her side, before fishing her phone out of her back pocket, and pressing the second number on speed dial.

"Hey," she said, "do you want to get, like, really drunk tonight?"

Colt didn't bother to ask why before he was checking what ingredients he had in his fridge and offering to invite Jody and Dan over for dinner. Sometimes, she really loved her brother.

#plot bunny #the fall guy #tom ryder #tom ryder x ofc #original female character #tom ryder imagine #series?

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peterparkouryo · 1 year

Text

lies between us | *ੈ✩‧₊˚

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

prompt: You and Peter have been frenemies for as long as you can remember.

warnings: fluff, banter, confessions, flirty peter cus why not, typos maybe, no kissies this chapter :(

word count: 3.4k

a/n: still very much in the bahamas but i felt very bad, also pls ignore how trash this is i'm so focused on my vacation lmaoo

"MJ, it hasn't even been a day."

MJ rolls her eyes, completely ignoring your words as she opens her textbook to the given page the teacher assigned.

"Knowing you, it'll take until the deadline to get this project done." She glares at you, breaking her attention away from the textbook in front of her.

"It's better to procrastinate than to do it as soon as it's assigned." You shrug, scooting close to her as she subtly furthers your bodies apart, you pout at the action.

"I don't understand how or why I managed to get you as a partner of all people." MJ sighs and you show her a sarcastic smile.

"It's cause we're soulmates." You joke, removing yourself from her bed to look around her room curiously.

Despite the two of you being (best) friends for the better part of two years, you had never been in her room. Whenever you did come over, she always insisted the two of you hung out in the living room or spent your hang out time in the city, so it really surprised you that the girl drags you into her room the minute you step inside for a project you had been assigned.

Her room amazed you and had been everything you expected from the girl given her closed off, dark, and sharp-eyed personality. MJ being the advocate reader she was, had tons of books (some which you had borrowed), posters of subjects that mattered to her, and pretty much anything you would least expect to be in a girl's room, not that it bothered you.

When you first met MJ, she was very closed off and it took a lot of hard work on your end to break down her walls just to get to know her. It still surprises you (herself included) and a lot of people who knew of MJ and were aware of your friendship how you of all people managed to crack her shell and squeeze your way into her tight circle of friendship.

"No, but you and Peter are, which is why I'm still confused about how you aren't his partner, you two are perfect for each-other." You break your gaze away from the small box on her desk to glare at her words, the girl not sparing you a glance.

"MJ." You warned.

"What did I say?" She asked in faux innocence, bringing her eyes to meet your annoyed expression.

"I'd much rather partner up with Flash than ever be in the presence of Peter Parker, and that's saying a lot." You tell her, crossing your arms over your chest, walking back over to her bed.

"Weren't you two just friends yesterday?" MJ asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

You stay silent, not giving the girl an answer, thinking upon her words. You settled for an eye roll as your answer.

"Right, I still have no idea how you two aren't a thing. It's almost painfully obvious you like each-other." The girl tells you, her attention on the textbook now, leaving you exasperated, digesting her words in your brain.

You and Peter have been sort of friends for a good half of your childhood, almost best friends if you thought too hard about it. You two were inseparable when in grade school up until the end of your middle school years. It happened a little too fast, your fallout was over something incredibly stupid (Peter's words, not yours), and to you, it was a serious subject you had managed to hold off, but inevitably, you couldn't take it anymore.

That something stupid being about his lack of care for your feelings, continuing without awareness to break your heart when it came to things the two of you planned, and at the last minute cancelling them for whatever that reason may be.

The excuses he gave you were half ass, so when it came time for an event you two planned, it wasn't a surprise when he said he couldn't make it, saying something about May needing him last minute or anything that deemed unbelievable.

The fact that Peter had the audacity to call your argument "incredibly stupid" when you had finally had the courage to confront his lies made your blood boil in the anger you tried so hard to keep at bay. It evidently did end your friendship for a short amount of time, and it was you who eventually apologized to him in your freshmen year of high school, because truth be told, you did miss him.

Though when your friendship was in mist of healing itself from its long deprived attention, he continued with the same broken promises he said he would plan to fix, your plans going undone because as always, he would cancel last minute.

Peter's excuses did get more believable, you'll give him that, but it didn't change the fact that it still happened. You only wished he'd be honest with you with whatever it was he did that had him abandon you when you knew he was aware of how excited you would always be whenever you two had plans to hangout.

This was an ever ongoing habit he did, which led to your on and off again friendship for what is now three years deep. You were glad when Peter introduced you to his decathlon team, allowing you to meet MJ, who, dare you say is a much more promising friend than Peter would ever be.

Not that the two of you are friends, not even best friends, but sometimes you can tolerate him on your good days when he wasn't being a borderline idiot or liar.

"I don't like Peter, like at all." You say, MJ shrugs her shoulders, and if you knew her, it was obvious she didn't believe you one bit.

"You were just making heart eyes at him yesterday, I don't wanna hear that." MJ waves off, holding her hand out, expectingly waiting for you to hand her another pencil crayon, you do with a huff.

"I hate you." You mumble, plopping down on her bed, grabbing a pencil crayon yourself.

"But you love Peter." She jokes, dodging your attempts at throwing the coloured pencil in your hand with a laugh.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Why's it always math? You hate math, and its a fact everyone who knows you, know. You were glad the decathlon team had it easy for you and made at least some units of the stupid subject understandable.

If you were on good terms with Peter, you would ask him for help, but you knew that wasn't going to be an option, anytime soon.

"Ned, what did you get for number six?" You ask the boy across from your desk, watching Ned look up at you quickly, Peter does as well.

"I'm not even past number three." Ned groans, shaking his head in defeat.

You nod, understanding his frustration. You don't know why your math teacher was out to get you, it's not like you were already failing his class, and it didn't make it better that you had other class courses to stress about either.

"I can help." Peter shows you a smile, hoping to get on your good side, all you do is glare at him.

"No." You respond, the boy's face dropping into a pout, and Ned lets out a laugh, quickly straightening his demeanour when Peter shoots him a glare.

"You're still mad at me?" Peter quizzes in confusion, putting his pencil down near his paper.

You take your time with your answer, trailing your eyes onto his paper, taking notice of his far progress. You really needed his help.

"I'm not just mad Peter, I'm furious, which is why we're not on speaking terms." You tell him, picking up your pencil just as Peter does too, with an eye roll at your words.

Ned is visibly uncomfortable, no matter how many arguments the boy has been in the middle of or witnessed between the two of you, he is always left without a say. It makes him upset you two couldn't properly work through your problems and just admit your tangible feelings for one another.

It might have something to do with that stubborn personality of yours. It was clear Peter had harboured a deep affection for you, and it goes unsaid if you liked him back or not, but given the fact you were always willing to forgive and forget, falling back into the friendship stage with Peter was a sign you might just like him as well.

"You're speaking to me right now." Peter points out, fighting back his smile when you give him a not so impressed look.

"I'm this close," You pinch your index finger and thumb together for demonstration, "To hurting you." You finish, and Peter shrugs off your words.

"You're distracting me from completing my work." The boy scolds at you in his joking manner, and you groan in annoyance, tempted to flip him off.

Both Peter and Ned laughs, and you ignore the boys, trying to figure out how to do quadric equations instead.

There's a few minutes of silence, something you're very thankful for. Eventually, Peter stands from the desk he settled in, grabbing his now finished work to turn it in. You and Ned share a look, both suffering on different problems from the same page.

When Peter returns you focus back on your work, not that you made it far, it's been a good ten minutes and now you're on number seven and Ned was on number five.

"Do you guys want to come over my house and I can help you with this worksheet?" The boy suggests, sitting back down.

"Can't, I have to help my Lola move." Ned answered, packing his things as the bell was two minutes away from ringing.

Peter nods at his best friend's words, turning his attention on you, who hadn't taken one glance at him or Ned, your gaze still on your paper.

"You can stop pretending like you're working, I know you don't understand it." Peter countered with a smirk when you roll your eyes, still not breaking your attention away from the paper.

When you don't response, Peter takes that as a sign to try and convince you a little harder, really opting to get on your good side.

He approaches you, standing next to your desk before huddling down, leaning over your figure to scan your paper.

You subconsciously scoot away from him, blocking his gaze from your paper, shielding it with your hands.

"You know, you'll have to forgive me eventually right? You always do." Peter shakes his head as the bell rings, and you grab your bag from the empty desk next to you, standing up and shoving your worksheet into Peter's chest, the boy stumbling slightly at the impact.

"Fine, but you're keeping my paper until I get there." You give in, walking pass a smiling Peter and out the classroom with an irritated mindset.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

"I knew it." Peter smiles when he opens his apartment's door to you.

It took a lot of debating to be where you were now. MJ was no help either, joking about how you two were "meant to be", so it was no shocker you that you would give in.

"You have my paper, dumb ass." You tell him, pushing pass the boy and entering his apartment.

"Yeah, but you could've like, not showed up and I would had done it for you anyway." Peter argues, closing the front door before turning to face you.

You try not to dwell too hard on that logical statement, opting to shake your head at the boy instead.

"Can we please just get this over with, so I can get back to my bed?" You plead, and Peter laughs at your question.

You follow Peter to his room, taking notice of how different it was the last time you were here (two months ago to be exact). The polaroids you had taken with him a few years back laid on his desk along with other useless items, probably related to some nerdy project he always mentioned he was working on. His Star Wars collection was getting relatively smaller as well.

You close the door of his bedroom, turning to Peter who grabbed a worksheet from the backpack that sat in the corner of his room, you blink, realizing it was your math worksheet you gave to him earlier.

Peter walks over to his desk, grabbing two pencils and you watch the boy sit on his bed, bringing his attention to you.

"You gonna stand there and look pretty or are you gonna come sit down so I can help you with this work?" Peter questions, an eyebrow raised expectingly. You grimace at his words, ignoring the annoying heat rising to your face.

You drag your feet to his bed, sitting next to him, leaving a fair, and respectful space between the two of you, accepting the pencil the boy gestures toward you.

"You understand how quadratic equations work, right?" Peter asks, and you nod with a shrug.

"I got to question seven, didn't I?" You snide, tilting your head at him in amusement.

"Yeah, and every single answer you put is...well, wrong." The boy says, and you feel embarrassed at his words.

"Oh."

"Nothing to be embarrassed about, it's a hard unit." Peter reassures, placing a hand on your shoulder for comfort.

Your head turns, lingering yours eyes where his hand laid upon your shoulder. Peter, who sensed your hesitance removes his hand to his lap, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Let's uh," The boy gestures to your worksheet in his hand and all you do is nod, mumbling a quiet 'yeah'.

The atmosphere around the two of you shifted into something cumbrous. It was definitely something new, that much you noticed. Undoubtedly, you and Peter have had your awkward, and gainsay moments, but nothing could quite reach this level of uneasiness.

You decide to ignore the evident tension, choosing to solely focus on getting your worksheet done. The sooner, the better.

Finally after, maybe one or two (you weren't paying any attention to the time) torturous hours, Peter had somewhat managed to help you complete the majority of your paper, and you were grateful, despite not letting that appreciation show.

"Thanks." You smile, it not quite reaching your eyes, taking the paper from Peter's desk as the boy stretches.

"Yeah, don't mention it." Peter mumbles with an eye roll, following your swift figure out his room and to his front door.

Peter calls out your name and your irritation toward him is visible, which doesn't really make the boy feel better, but he thinks if he tells you what he's been withdrawing himself from confession for awhile now, you might change your mind about this hatred phase you have for him, or it might make things worst and if anything, have you loathe him even more.

When you turn around, it reminds Peter why exactly he felt the way he felt about you, despite your on going frenemy relationship, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't caught feelings for you throughout the years.

You were just so beautiful, effortlessly so. You have such a vibrant, headstrong, and imaginative personality, it was fairly easy to be attracted to you.

"I have to tell you something.." Peter starts, and you notice his nervous habit of fiddling with his fingers, and it makes you uneasy.

There's a prolonged heartbeat between you and it makes you impatience, the boy taking a relatively long time to say whatever it is he wanted to say.

"Are you gonna tell me what you have to say?" You ask him.

"We're not exactly friends right now, so if this is one of your many apologies, I think I'll pass on that and I'll be on my way." You countered, turning around without giving the boy a chance to reply.

Your hand connects with the doorknob, and you were just about to twist it before something catches you completely off guard, and you swear your eyes are practically out of your socket when they gaze to the sticky substance stopping you from your attempt of leaving.

"Wha-"

"Okay, listen, I know this looks bad, but you have to hear me out." Peter defends himself, holding out a hand and you shoot him a look as if you're a dear in headlights.

"What the hell is this?" You exclaim, using your free hand to gesture to your stuck one.

"I'm Spider-Man, but that's not what I had to tell you." The boy says coolly.

You're sure your eyes are out of their sockets at this point. It baffled you how calm and collected Peter seems as if he didn't just say a life changing sentence.

"You-, you're Spider-Man?" You question, unsure if you had actually heard the boy right, but you know you did because he said it with such ease.

"Yeah, but that's not what's important." Peter argues and you have to fight back an eye roll.

Instantaneously, something in your brain just sort of click, you raise an eyebrow as a question forms in your head.

"Is that why you can never make it to your hangouts?"

Peter blinks at your question, he squints his eyes at your question.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Peter, what the fu-"

"And I also like you!" He exclaims, almost purposely blocking out your almost vulgar language.

You don't want to believe his words, considering it's, Peter, but with the way he was looking at you with those golden brown eyes, you force yourself to give into his confession, digesting his words slowly.

There's no doubt that somewhere down the road of your on and off again friendship, you didn't think upon what it would be like to be in a relationship with the boy, but those weren't serious, more fantasy like thoughts if anything. And it's not like you had a crush on him, maybe. You'd be lying if you didn't think of Peter as more than a friend.

Maybe you did have some sort of affection for him. Maybe it was when he had helped you get on the decathlon team, or when he gave you his hoodie (which you still had) because it was raining and he didn't want you to get soaked, though you did, it was a still very thoughtful thing Peter did. Possibly you started seeing the boy in a new light in this exact moment of his confession. All it took was for him to tell you, to have you realize maybe it's been him all along.

"Oh."

"Yeah..."

You stare at Peter, who looks anywhere but at you, for an agonizingly long time, racking up an answer in your brain, you can tell the boy is extremely nervous of your answer.

"I like you, too." You smile when Peter does, his eyes lighting up as well.

"I knew it." He quips, and you glare at him.

You two gaze at each-other and you have to break the staring contest as a curious thought pops up in your head.

"So, let me get this straight," You start, Peter listens intently. "You lied for years about being Spider-Man and had me believe it was because you didn't want to be my friend anymore?"

Even if what you had asked was true, it didn't help the fact that no matter what you would always find your way back to Peter, but with the same given excuses told differently, you couldn't help but think he got easily bored of you and lied about not being able to hang out, then when the two of you had a fall out, it was no wonder why you so easily forgave the boy.

Peter frowns at your question.

"No, it's way more complicated than that. I only lied to you to protect you." Peter argues sincerely.

"I would had totally understood if you told me the truth though." You shrug your shoulder, and Peter nods.

"Yeah, but I couldn't risk it." He explained.

You nod, somewhat understanding his reasoning. Your entire friendship came and went because he was a superhero. You should be mad really, but you're all burnt out. Maybe when you're thinking more rationally, you'd find it in your heart to be more furious with the boy.

"So, what now?" You ask, and you briefly glance at the web that still contained your arm before looking at Peter.

"Well, I was thinking, um.." The boy trails off, unsure on how to ask his question, and if you knew any better, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see exactly where his question was going.

"Sure." You decide to save the boy from embarrassment.

Peter's eyes get a shade brighter, relief coursing through his body at how quickly you understood where he was going.

"Really?"

"Only if you get this web off me."

"Oh!" Peter swiftly approaches you, tugging off the substance off you as if it was as light as a feather.

You smile in thanks, flexing your hand from the uncomfortableness it settled in for way too long.

"Can I get a kiss?"

"Save it for the date, Parker."

#peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker fluff

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teaberrii · 1 year

Text

Chapter Twenty-Seven: We're Family

Alhaitham has the looks and the smarts. He will also be the stand-in CEO for his grandfather's company for a year.

But, he's been mysteriously cursed to turn into a cat every night since his eighteenth birthday… until he meets you, an employee at his grandfather's company, who rescues him as a cat and changes him back with one kiss.

Alhaitham/You

Notes:

Cross-posted on AO3

Female reader

Chapter index at the end of chapter one

You opened your eyes and saw a lifeless body lying on an empty road. Though you couldn’t see the man’s face, you knew it was your father. You ran toward him. Faster…. Faster… But no matter how fast or hard you ran, he seemed to be getting further and further away.

When you closed your eyes, you suddenly heard a voice.

“How horrible… What kind of a daughter would do that? She’s dating a murderer’s son.”

You opened your eyes and found yourself surrounded by a group of people whose faces remained in the shadows. Yet you knew they were looking at you, and their voices were loud and clear.

“Such disrespect to her family… She’s such a disgrace!”

“She’s so selfish. What would her father say?”

You closed your eyes and covered your ears with your hands. No. You weren’t a bad person. You—

“She left me to die.”

You opened your eyes and looked up. Everyone was gone except for a man standing in front of you; you recognized him as your father. He got closer and closer, his face melting away when he finally yelled, “How could you love a murderer’s son?”

You immediately sit up; strands of your hair cling to the sweat on your forehead. Your hands are gripping your blanket so tightly that your knuckles turn white. However, you can't see it in the darkness. As your heart slowly calms down, you reach over and turn on the light on your nightstand. You check your phone. Then, you sigh when you see it's not even close to when you're supposed to get up.

Is Alhaitham sleeping okay? Or… Is he also awake? Clearly, this revelation regarding his mother is also new to him. You can only imagine how he must be feeling about all this.

You remember the sad look on his face when you asked the dreaded question. Yet, he didn't oppose it. Instead, he nodded and said, "...I understand."

You bury your head into your pillow. You cannot imagine a more perfect boyfriend than Alhaitham. But perhaps you're too head over heels. Maybe you can't see the flaws everyone else might see. But to you, he has no flaws. You love him just the way he is.

So, why do things have to turn out this way?

Back in Alhaitham's apartment, Alhaitham, in cat form, is lying in front of an open book. He has always welcomed books as a distraction, and they have always worked. So… why has he been stuck on the same page for more than ten minutes?

All he can think about is you.

Are you sleeping well? Or… Are you also awake? Alhaitham knew what was coming when he decided to talk to you about your father. So, when you asked for time apart, he wasn’t too surprised. But nothing could’ve prepared him for how much his heart ached.

It also took him by surprise.

Alhaitham sits up and hops onto his bed. Is it too cliché to say that he cannot imagine his life without you? But that's exactly how he feels. And… it's not just about the curse. He'd already lived more than a decade transforming into a cat, and he'll continue to live with it regardless if you're in his life.

As long as you're happy.

He curls up under his sheets. Yes. That is how he’ll cope. As long as you’re happy, he is too. But right now, there’s still work to be done.

◆◆◆

It's after work when Alhaitham checks his phone for the umpteenth time that day. After going through his work emails, he sees a message from his mother. He'd messaged her earlier in the day, asking if they could have dinner together. He knew her mother knew the real reason. But she said yes anyway.

So, it's a good start.

Alhaitham opens the last conversation between you and him. He hasn't heard from you for the entire day, so he shouldn't be surprised. You two are on a break. Yet, that doesn't mean he hasn't thought about texting you multiple times just asking if you're okay. But he figures that will do more harm than good.

Alhaitham’s secretary pulls up to a fancy restaurant and says, “We’re here.”

Alhaitham looks up. “Won’t you join us for dinner?”

“Me?”

“Why are you so surprised?” Alhaitham asks. “I invited my grandfather as well. It’ll be a family dinner.”

“...I… thought you’d want to set things straight with her.”

Alhaitham crosses one leg over the other. “Set things straight? Like what if I may ask?” When his secretary says nothing, Alhaitham says, “Does this mean she got you involved with my girlfriend’s business too?”

The man sighs softly. “The truth is… she had me look into her father. She… didn’t want me to tell you about it.”

“...I think this is a perfect opportunity to have everyone on the same page.” Alhaitham’s stern gaze meets his secretary in the rearview mirror. “No more secrets.”

When the men walk into the restaurant, a waiter escorts them to a table where Alhaitham sees his mother and his grandfather sitting across from her. As soon as his mother sees him, she gives him a look, one that Alhaitham can easily read.

“You didn’t tell me you’d invited others, Haitham,” his mother says as Alhaitham sits next to his grandfather.

Alhaitham smiles. “I thought it’d be a nice surprise. We haven’t had a family dinner in so long.”

“Haitham said there was something you’d like to discuss,” his grandfather says.

“...Did he now?” she asks, looking at her son. “And what did he say I’d like to discuss?”

“...Let’s get straight to the point,” Alhaitham says just as a waiter pours everyone some water. As soon as he leaves, Alhaitham looks at his grandfather. “The divorce isn’t her only secret.”

“You—”

“Her only secret?” his grandfather interrupts. “What are you talking about, Haitham?”

“Stop!”

Her voice is loud enough to get the attention of others around their table. But after a look, they quickly go back to whatever conversation they’re having.

“Why are you doing this?” his mother asks.

“Because there's something I want you to know,” Alhaitham answers.

Before his mother can say anything else, his grandfather asks, “What… is going on?”

“...I think I can answer that.” Everyone turns to the secretary. “...Some of it, at least.”

But before he can say anything more, she says, “They don’t need to get involved in this.” Then, she stands. “I’m leaving.”

"Sit down." Everyone turns to Alhaitham's grandfather, who's sternly looking at his daughter. "You heard me. I told you to sit down."

“Just because you’re my father doesn’t mean—”

“Do you know what Haitham told me today?” he interrupts. He gestures for her to sit down, so she finally but reluctantly does. “...He told me he wanted his mother back.”

“Dinner? Tonight?”

It was lunchtime, and Alhaitham had given his grandfather a call.

“I know it’s a little sudden,” Alhaitham said, “But… there’s a reason why I’d like you to be there.”

“What’s wrong, Haitham?”

“...Mom has changed, but not in a good way."

His grandfather sighed. “You aren’t the only one who thinks that way. She’s my daughter. I can see that she has also become a completely different person. Though… I don’t know when it started.”

“...The reason why I’m having dinner with her tonight is to her back on the right path.”

“Did something happen? You’re scaring me.”

“She’s fine,” Alhaitham reassured. “It’s just… I feel she’s struggling mentally. And… I’m hoping you can help me talk her through this.” He sighed softly. “I want my mother back.”

“...I’m fine,” Alhaitham’s mother says. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

His grandfather puts his hand on top of hers. "We aren't here to judge or lecture you. We… or I want to know what happened. We're family. If we don't rely on each other, who else can we rely on?"

“...Mom.” Everyone turns to Alhaitham, who’s looking at her earnestly. “Her and I… We’re taking a break.”

“...You told her, didn’t you?” She buries her face in her hands. “Why would you do that? You’re hurting her—”

“I knew what was coming if I told her,” Alhaitham interrupts. “...But if I kept it from her, I would be hurting her more and risking my sanity.” Then, he looks his mother in the eyes. “This is why I want you to admit what you did. I don’t want you to keep suffering like this.”

As the waiter puts everyone’s food on the table, he glances around, confused and a little worried about the stern but sad look on everyone’s faces.

“Is there, um, anything else I can get you?” he asks.

“We’re fine,” Alhaitham’s mother unexpectedly responds.

The waiter bows slightly once and quickly leaves.

"...Do you know how hard I worked to get to where I am today?" she asks. "If this gets out, everything I worked for would be for nothing.”

“...Would you rather let this blow out of proportion?” Alhaitham asks. “I don’t know how she’s going to react, but if you still keep quiet now, you’d be digging your own grave.”

“This isn’t just about me, Haitham. Have you considered they might not want to relive this?”

“She wants to talk to you,” Alhaitham says, and his mother visibly stiffens. “...She could’ve chosen to run away, but she didn’t. No one wants to relive this, Mother.”

She looks at the worried face around the table and sighs deeply. Then, she looks at her father. “...More than twenty years ago… I left someone to die.”

“You… what?”

After retelling the tragic story, she turns to Alhaitham’s secretary. “I… also got him involved. I only knew it was her father after I saw his personal records. Before then… I really only knew this man’s name and…”

Alhaitham’s grandfather looks at her sternly. “...And?”

“...I knew that his family took him off life support.”

He exhales sharply, and a loud silence starts to settle.

"I know what I did was wrong," she says, defeated. "Truly. I… I—"

“I will not let you keep running away from this,” he says, glaring at her. “This is not how I raised you, and I will not let my daughter become a coward. You dragged other people into your mess and allowed your selfishness to interfere with other people’s relationships. You’re not a kid anymore, so stop acting like one.”

“...Do you really need to reprimand me like this? I didn’t kill him. I just—”

“But you hit him, did you not? Perhaps he would’ve met the same fate even if you took action, but at least you did something. You didn’t run away.”

“But—”

“I know you had your reasons,” Alhaitham’s grandfather continues. “But you made a choice that day to actively avoid responsibility. I’m going to say this once. You should be ashamed.” He sighs. “You’re facing this alone, but as your family—he puts his hand on top of hers—“you’re never truly alone.”

And for the first time, Alhaitham sees his mother cry.

◆◆◆

“What’s so important that you needed to see me?” your mother asks.

You went to your mother’s place after work. Lumine and Aether are still out, so it’s the perfect opportunity to get your mother alone to talk about what’s plaguing your mind.

“...Alhaitham and I are taking a break,” you say.

"Why? Did something happen?" she asks, visibly surprised. She sits at the dinner table, and you sit across from her.

“...Yes and no.”

She puts her hand on top of yours. “I’m listening.”

“I… recently found out something that really doesn’t sit well with me. At all. And I’m going to deal with it, but”—your bottom lip curls inwards—“it’s just… a lot.”

“What is it? What did you find out?” Her eyes widen. “Did he cheat?”

“No,” you say. “It’s not that. It’s…”

Then, you tell the story of how you found out about Alhaitham’s mother. As you do, you can see the colour drain from your mother’s face. Baffled. Confused. Shock. It’s like everything hits her all at once. You can relate.

“I want to talk to her,” you finish. “I know it might be meaningless, but I want a sincere apology at least. But”—you clench your fists—“I also want her to pay for negligence.”

“Yes, I… I agree,” your mother finally says. “I just… I cannot believe it was Alhaitham’s mother.” Then, she nods. “I want to talk to her as well.”

“...I don’t know what will happen,” you say quietly. “But… I’m prepared for the worst.”

“Well, you’re not alone.” Then, your mother sighs. “If only I was as strong as you when this happened. Perhaps… we could’ve caught her earlier.”

“...What do you mean?”

Your mother looks down. “Sometimes I felt like I didn’t try hard enough to catch whoever did this to your father. The woman who was there didn’t get a licence plate number. The physical description she made could’ve matched anyone, and there was no CCTV footage. I… just gave up hope. All I wanted was just to make the feelings stop.”

“What about now?” you ask.

“I agree with you. Your father deserves justice.”

“And we’ll make it happen,” you say sternly.

A small pause.

“...And what about Alhaitham?”

Now, it’s your turn to look down. “What about him?”

“I know what you’re thinking, honey. It’s written all over your face.”

You sigh. “I… don’t want to think about being with him right now. I want to get this solved first.”

Your mother nods, and the two of you smile slightly at each other.

The door swings open, and Aether and Lumine walk inside. Aether’s in a middle of a stretch when he sees you.

“Sis?” they ask simultaneously. “What are you doing here?”

You turn around. “What? I can’t come to visit?” you joke.

Lumine walks up to you and stares at your face longer than normal. “Are you… okay? Your eyes are kinda red.”

Have you been crying?

“I’m fine,” you say, forcing a little smile.

“I bet this will brighten your day,” Aether says. “Lumine passed the preliminaries for that contest thing she entered.”

“Contest?” you ask.

That’s when Lumine tells you about the competition her professor told her about. “...Childe was my model for the character.”

“You should tell him the good news,” your mother says. “I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

“Agreed,” you say. “Congrats! Why didn’t you tell us about this contest sooner?”

Aether nudges her. “She was embarrassed. She only told me when we met up at the bus stop!”

“I… didn’t know if I would make it,” Lumine says. “If I did make it… I wanted to make it a surprise!” Then, she gives a deadpan look at her brother. “But this kid just had to ruin it.”

“Sorry, I was too excited,” he says, giving her a toothy smile.

You get so caught up in the conversation that you don’t hear your phone buzz on the counter.

◆◆◆

Is it bad that Alhaitham is standing in front of your door? He wants to give you the decent news in person. His mother has agreed to talk to you and your mother. While he knows he could've just texted you, it's an excuse to see you. When you haven't answered the door for more than five minutes, he finally messages you... only to get no response.

He sighs. Great. Now he looks desperate. As soon as he enters his apartment, his phone buzzes, and his heart races with anticipation that it might be you. But when he sees the name on the screen, his shoulders fall. Yet, he answers it anyway.

“Hey, Junior, I got a great deal on groceries today, so I picked up extra for you. You at home?”

Well, maybe it won't be a bad idea. Kaveh can take his mind off things.

“...Yeah. Come on over.”

Kaveh raises a brow. “You okay? You sound kinda… off.”

Should Alhaitham go into detail? Eventually, he settles for, “...It’s a long story, but she and I… we’re taking a break.”

“What? You’re talking about Sis, right?” When Alhaitham says nothing, Kaveh continues, “But why? You two were doing so well.”

Alhaitham sighs. “... As I said, it’s a long story.” Then, in the briefest way possible, he tells Kaveh the story of his mother’s involvement in your father’s death.

“...Oh, my God. Damn.”

Before Alhaitham can say anything more, it happens.

Kaveh hears a soft, slightly annoyed-sounding meow, and he almost chuckles. “Well… maybe this is your final hurdle. If you guys can get over this, maybe your cat days will be over.” Suddenly, he gets an idea. “I’ll be over in ten.”

Alhaitham is lying on the couch when Kaveh enters his suite. It’s times like these that Alhaitham justifies giving Kaveh an extra key to his place is a good idea.

“Hey, hey, Kittyman.” Kaveh puts a bag of groceries on Alhaitham’s kitchen counter. “I have a surprise for you! You’ll love it.”

Alhaitham doesn't bother getting up. He lazily looks over his shoulder and sees Kaveh pull out a bag of catnip.

“It’s times like these you need to get your mind off things.”

Right. And the only way to do that is to get high? Alhaitham lies back down, and Kaveh sighs. Alhaitham feels the sofa shift beside him and lets Kaveh pick him up. Soon, Alhaitham is facing him with a deadpan look.

“I know you miss her.”

Alhaitham looks down, his tail tucked in between his legs.

"...And knowing you, I know you're already prepared for the worst."

Alhaitham slowly looks up. He may not relate, but he can understand that your feelings are all over the place. But that's not the only thing. This rollercoaster will eventually end, but it's what happens after.

Will you still accept him?

He may not be responsible for his mother’s actions, but she is still his mother. That will never change. And, while he condemns what she did, Alhaitham will always see and love her as his mother. Is that… something you can accept? Alhaitham knows what he's getting himself into. This probably won't be just a break… but a breakup.

Suddenly, Alhaitham hears his phone ring, and he immediately wiggles out of Kaveh's grasp, jumps onto the table and looks at his phone.

“I can’t believe you’re more excited about a message than catnip.”

Kaveh also slightly leans in, curious about the message.

Thanks. I also told my mom about what I know. Let’s… get this resolved.

Kaveh looks at Alhaitham, who's still staring at his phone. "...Want me to reply for you?"

Alhaitham turns to him as Kaveh picks up his phone and starts typing.

“Good… idea. I… miss you… already.”

Alhaitham meows loudly and swipes at Kaveh’s hand.

“Ow! Okay! Geez! What’s wrong with a little honesty?”

Kaveh erases what he typed and starts again. “I… agree. The faster… the better.”

Alhaitham stares at the message, and when Kaveh gets no response, he sends it. Alhaitham frowns at him. “Well, you didn’t say no!”

◆◆◆

You’re sitting in your old room at your mom’s place when you respond to Alhaitham’s text. You replied right away upon seeing that he texted you almost an hour ago. He’s probably at home… and probably a cat. You sigh and lie on your bed, dropping your phone beside you.

You're staying at your mother's place for the night. When Lumine and Aether asked why, you'd told them you missed him, which is only half the truth. You don't want to be alone. Not right now, at least. If you're being completely honest, you also don't want to make the mistake of going to see Alhaitham. You already miss him, but there's a part of you that's still not comfortable being with him.

It's not his fault. He isn't responsible for his mother's actions. Rather, he's helping you. But perhaps it all comes down to how his mother will react. Will she be apologetic? Or… will she make up excuses? Regardless of what she did, you know she's still his mother. The last thing you want is to ask Alhaitham to pick between you and her. But, no matter how much you love him, you can't feel comfortable being with him if his mother won't or can't own up to her actions.

It’s just not right. It won’t be fair to your father.

Your phone buzzes, and you quickly sit up.

Catman: I agree. The faster, the better.

You look at the time. It’s late. Quite late.

That’s when you hear your door open.

“Aether?” you ask.

Your brother opens the door a little more, revealing Lumine behind him.

“We, um… heard about what happened,” he says, walking up to you.

“Mom told us everything,” Lumine adds quietly.

“...It’s absolutely horrible what his mom did,” Aether says sternly, sitting next to you. His sister sits on your other side. “...Are you… are you still going to stay with him?”

“We know you’re on a break,” Lumine says. “But… are you going to break up?”

You see your mother appear at the doorway. She leans against the door just as you look down.

“I… I don’t know,” you admit quietly. “I”—you sigh loudly—“I really like him. But… if his mother is going to make up a bunch of excuses… I really can’t bring myself to be with him. I would feel terrible, and…”

Lumine suddenly hugs you, and Aether takes your hand.

“No matter what you decide, we’ll support you,” Lumine says. “And… I think you’re doing the right thing.”

Aether nods. "Yeah. I mean… some people wouldn't even care and follow their feelings blindly."

You ruffle your brother’s hair. “Thanks, kid. As long as you two are on my side, I know I can get through anything.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll nab a president next time.”

You give your brother a deadpan look. “I appreciate the support, but can we not talk as if we broke up already? We’re just on a break.”

“...Then, I guess you aren’t going to Zhongli’s wedding together,” Aether says.

“I don’t need a date for that,” you say. “We can go together.”

“Er, well, about that…”

Your eyes widen. “You’re taking someone?”

“I… I asked Ayaka!”

Your jaw almost dropped. Then, you look at Lumine.

“...Childe’s still going,” she says. “So… yeah, I’m going with him.”

“Ayato’s going,” Aether quickly says. “Why not ask him? Y’know… go as friends.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” you say. “If Ayato’s going, we’ll just meet there.”

When your phone buzzes, your mother ushers Lumine and Aether out of your room. Just as you open the message, your mother looks over her shoulder and says, “...Get some sleep, dear.”

You give her a small smile. “I will.”

Then, your mother walks out, and you read what's on your screen.

Catman: It’s your favourite Kaveh! …You don’t have to worry about Haitham. I’m taking care of him.

You unknowingly smile when you see Kaveh’s selfie. You also see Alhaitham lying on the couch on the back. What you don’t know, however, is that he has completely passed out on the couch behind him, holding a little bit of catnip.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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#alhaitham x reader #alhaitham x you #alhaitham fluff #al haitham x reader #al haitham fluff #al haitham #alhaitham x y/n #alhaitham x yn #genshin alhaitham

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