#stuff i fell onto that i particularly wanna get around includes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sorry-apsalar · 3 years

Text

Does This Mean I'm a Girl Now?

Content Warning: this fic contains genderbending (sort of anyway) and gender dysphoria as a result of it, also multiple mentions of genitals as well as nudity in general.

My friends and I were discussing a thing that we were mildly salty about which brought on the topic about how we were salty in general over how a lot of genderbending stuff is portrayed. It often relies on stereotypes and gender roles which is really annoying and pretty shitty. Then my dear friend @itsladykit (I hope it’s okay that I tagged you, I just wanna give you proper credit for the idea) brought up the idea of a cis character getting magically genderbent and experiencing gender dysphoria because of it. Which I thought was a really neat idea but I wasn't sure if I was qualified to tell that tale but then they told me to follow my heart and write it and that's why this fic came into being.

Now I feel like I need to put the disclaimer that while I have personal experience with gender dysphoria, the worst of it was was back when I was a teenager, I've mostly grown out of it and I'm pretty sure most people have it stronger than I ever have. So if this isn't an 100% accurate depiction of dysphoria, that is why. I did my best though.

Also, Frender features in it mostly just because I was already fueled primarily by salt, might as well let my usual Futurama salt fuel me too.

“Wow,” Fry said as they looked over the naturally formed pool of bright pink goo. They’d been to a lot of different planets and seen quite a few different kinds and colours of goo but never one so pink. “It’s kind of pretty, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Bender replied, disinterested. “I’m bored though so I dare you to jump in and see what happens.”

“Do not!” Leela snapped from somewhere behind them before Fry could even decide if he wanted to take that dare or not. “I don’t know what you guys found over there but don’t listen to him Fry because whatever it is, is probably dangerous.”

“Fucking killjoy,” Bender muttered so that only Fry could hear. He was right though; they were hiding out on a dumb planet with nothing on it to escape some asshole pirates which meant they had to just sit around and do nothing until Leela was sure they were free. It had only been probably an hour so far and Fry was already bored out of his mind. Leela had forbade them from doing anything ‘dirty’ in case they needed to get out in a hurry so the least she could do was let them investigate some cool pink goo.

So, feeling rather rebellious especially as the sound of Leela’s footsteps approached, presumably to investigate, Fry lowered himself to the ground so he could lean forward and stick in his hand in. The goo didn’t come up all the way to the lip of the natural pool, forcing him to lean a bit farther than he was really comfortable with considering the utterly unknown alien substance he would fall into if he lost his balance but if he fell Bender would catch him… probably anyway, so it should be fine.

The goo was pleasantly cool as it engulfed his hand, almost seemingly clinging to him and pulling it down. It was like sticking his hand in thick syrup fresh out of the fridge, a pleasant texture if a bit odd. Right away though his hand began to have that pins and needles feeling that came from laying on one’s arm wrong for way too long so he should probably…

The ground gave way beneath him, sending him into the goo. He didn’t even have time to yelp in surprise before he was fully submerged in it. He gasped instinctively, inadvertently breathing it in, making him choke and sputter.

He needed to get to the surface now! Except he didn’t even know where it was. He thrashed, trying to go in any direction but to no avail, the goo was too thick to swim well in and blackness was already eating at the edges of his vision. He couldn’t die like this! No fucking way! It wasn’t…

“…think it’s permanent?” Bender was saying from somewhere above Fry as he slowly came to.

“Who knows?” Leela replied from also somewhere above him. “For his sake, I hope not.”

“You make it sound like it’s a big problem.” Bender’s tone indicated that he disagreed.

“You don’t understand.” Leela was giving Bender her annoyed look, Fry didn’t even need to open his eyes to know that. “Though I guess I can’t really blame you for not understanding this, you’re a robot so it’s probably different for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Leela sighed. “Maybe you’re right, maybe it won’t be a big deal. Heck, maybe it’ll only last a few hours.”

As much as Fry enjoyed napping, the way they were talking was rather disconcerting so with a groan he opened his eyes and forced himself to sit up. Bender and Leela were standing to either side of where he lay on the ground. Bender was coated head to toe in bright pink goo, calling to mind what had happened last. That meant he’d jumped in after Fry and was probably the sole reason he hadn’t drowned. Now he was trying to wipe the goo off with a pink rag that might’ve once been white but it wasn’t very effective.

“Hey meatbag,” he said, turning his attention onto Fry. “How do you feel?”

“Uh… weird.” Fry was covered in goo still too. It clung to him and made him feel all tingly and odd, like his whole body had fallen asleep even though that wasn’t possible. And it smelled strange too and tasted bad. He turned his head to the side to spit as much of it out as he could, though it did little to rid his mouth of the taste. “I got to wash this stuff off,” he said as he stood up, careful of the probably slippery goo coating him and pooling around where it had dripped off him and Bender. “Thanks for saving me.” Was it just him or did his voice sound strange?

“Uh… Fry,” Leela cut in before he could turn to start for the ship. “The pink stuff kind of did something to your body.”

Oh no. “What?”

“Well, uh… um…”

“The most noticeable thing it did was give you boobs,” Bender finished. “I didn’t check your pants so it might’ve changed you down there too. You might want to look into it.”

Fry looked down at himself and… true to Bender’s words, his chest was quite different; his clothes soaked in the pink goo clung to him, highlighting the weird lumps on his chest. Boobs was what they were called, he had them now, big ones too. Or at least they looked big to him from this angle which wasn’t an angle he was ever supposed to see boobs from so how was he supposed to know?

“Does this mean I’m a girl now?” he asked as he looked back up at Leela and Bender. The strange thing about his voice was that it sounded more feminine and if it sounded that way to him how much more so was it to everyone else?

“Not unless you want to be,” Leela said with a reassuring smile.

“Uh… I don’t think I do.” He’d never considered it before even in passing but now that was forcibly faced with it, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to be a girl.

“Come on, let’s go wash this gunk off,” Bender said as he gave up on the rag, tossing it disdainfully to the ground before starting for the ship. Fry was more than happy to follow because who knows, maybe it would only last as long as the goo was coating him.

“All right,” Leela said, “I’m going to collect a sample of the pink stuff to bring back to the Professor.”

Undressing brought to Fry’s unfortunate attention that the goo had changed more than just his chest and voice. His hips were wider, his shoulders a little narrower – not by much, he’d never exactly had broad shoulders but enough that even if no one else was likely to notice he still did – and the other biggest change was that his dick was missing. He could explore what was there instead with his hands but… he didn’t feel particularly inclined to do so.

Which was odd, wasn’t it? In every movie or TV show he’d ever seen where a man ended up with a female body through whatever means, the joke almost always was that they were excited to touch themselves down there and play with their new boobs. It wasn’t even that he wasn’t into such things, while he did prefer men – especially if they were robots or aliens – boobs and vagina weren’t turn offs by any means. On himself though it was just… too weird.

With a sigh, he did his best to shake it off and stepped into the shower after Bender. There was only one on board the ship because it wasn’t exactly meant for everyday use, mostly decontamination and washing off dangerous chemicals which this probably counted as. There was enough room for both of them though so it was whatever.

“You owe me for going in after you,” Bender said, turning to face him. “It leaked into my everything and now I have to clean everything.” To demonstrate, he opened his chest compartment, revealing that it had been partially filled with pink goo, Fry had to pull his foot back to stop it from splashing on him. Bender then began taking things out to wash off too, including his cigar case, its contents most likely ruined. He gave Fry a pointed look as he put it back as if this were his fault, which it kind of was.

“Sorry, thanks for saving me though, I owe you big. But uh… you did dare me to jump in.” Not that Fry had meant to or would’ve if given the choice, not even he was quite that stupid.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it. But whatever, I guess this is more exciting than sitting around doing nothing. By the way, in case you haven’t noticed yet, your dick’s gone.”

Fry had to hold back a groan; that wasn’t something he really wanted to think about. “Yeah, I know. How long was I in the goo before you pulled me out though?” Because surely a change this drastic couldn’t have happened in brief awful seconds he remembered.

“I don’t know, five, ten minutes. That stuff isn’t exactly easy to see through and it was a lot deeper than it looked. Which was why I had to jump in to find you in it.”

“How come it didn’t do anything to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I’m a robot.” That was kind of an ‘oh duh’, huh?

They were silent for a bit while Fry focused on making sure to wash all the goo off. He could probably safely step out now if he wanted to, the pins and needle feeling the goo had given him was rapidly fading, but the water was warm and… “What do you think of this?” He did his best to keep his tone casual. “Does it uh… change how you see me or anything?”

Bender scoffed as if Fry was stupid to even consider such a thing. “No, why would it? I’m a robot and I’m pan so I have double the reason not to care what your body is shaped like. It should be fun to play around with later though.” He winked as if his meaning wasn’t already obvious.

Fry wasn’t really sure about that but… that was probably just because he still wasn’t over the shock of the sudden change. When he was more used to it, it would probably be fun to experiment with so… “Yeah, maybe once we’re home and stuff.” Or maybe it would wear off before they even got there and thus it would basically be a non-thing, just another weird adventure that wrapped up quickly and left everything exactly the same as before. He could always hope, right?

“… and it’s permanent,” Professor Farnsworth finished, jerking Fry out of the bored stupor listening to the scientific explanation behind the exact mechanics behind the sex change had put him in.

“It’s what?” Hopefully Fry had just misheard something. He hadn’t exactly been paying attention after all.

“It’s permanent,” Farnsworth repeated. “It’s not going to wear off.”

“You mean I’m stuck like this forever?”

“Not necessarily. There’s of course the traditional transition methods you could take or I could use this,” Farnsworth held up the vial of pink goo that Leela had collected for him, “to engineer a substance that will have the opposite effect. And then it’ll be like this whole misadventure never happened except we’ll have the means to get rich off of selling this stuff. Of course we don’t yet know what all the risks it might pose are but that’s all the more reason to sell it to as many people as possible so we can find out.”

Ugh, Fry hadn’t even considered what other possible risks his inadvertent bath in the pink goo might’ve had. What if it was also super toxic and was going to eventually kill him? Or what if it drastically increased his risk of cancer other possibly fatal condition? … Eh, it was probably fine so… “How long is that going to take?”

“Hmmm…” Farnsworth held the vial up to the light as he studied it. “I don’t know. I should probably get to work on it.” And without any further word he was shuffling off out of the room. Everyone in the room, which was everyone employed at Planet Express because privacy didn’t exist in the modern age, watched him go.

“On the bright side,” Leela said from the other side of the conference table, “if he can make something that can do the reverse, we’ll have discovered something that can help a lot of people.”

“Assuming it’s safe anyway,” Amy added. “It could still be super toxic and deadly or something. So, congrats Fry, you get to be a guinea pig for a new way of transitioning. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t kill you in the end.”

“Uh… thanks, I think.” He’d rather not be a guinea pig for anything but seems he didn’t have a choice here so yeah, hopefully it was safe to use. But at least if anyone could make something that could turn him back to normal it was the Professor. So really everything would be fine. He just had to deal with this weirdness for a little while.

Looking at himself naked in his bedroom mirror was a mistake. His boobs were weird shaped lumps on his chest that hung there kind of like those ballast bags that hung on the sides of hot air balloon baskets but rounder and with nipples. How could something that looked like that be natural? Crossing his arms over them to try to hid them from view sort of worked but it also pushed them closer together which wasn’t a pleasant sensation. And combined with his hips, they gave him that ‘hourglass figure’ that was supposed to be desirable but didn’t look right in the mirror.

He couldn’t bear to look at his crotch for more a couple seconds because his dick was gone! That was weird and just plain wrong. Everything about his body looked wrong now and he hated it. He’d never particularly liked his body before – muscles would’ve been cool to have but weren’t worth the effort – but it had been utter indifference. Now looking at himself was an unpleasant experience.

He… wasn’t just going to just get used to or over this, was he? His body wasn’t supposed to be like this and thus he couldn’t feel comfortable in it while it was.

Eager to be done looking at himself, he stepped forward and turned the mirror around to face the wall. It would stay until his body was back to normal. All he could really do was hope that that would be soon.

In the meantime though he went to his closest in search out the baggiest clothes he had. Luckily everything he wore on a typical day was already baggy and a lot of it a size or so bigger than needed. Zipping up the jacket should help obscure his boobs too, maybe even completely, though probably not because his initial call had been right, they were on the larger side. But regardless it would be better than nothing.

Right as he was pulling on the jacket, the door opened behind him. “I don’t like this whole sex change thing,” he said as he zipped up and turned to face Bender as he entered. “Like I really, really don’t like it.”

“Why?” Of course Bender wouldn’t understand and well, honestly Fry didn’t either.

“I don’t know.” There wasn’t any solid logical reason for why he disliked it so much. “It just makes me uncomfortable. My body’s not supposed to look like this with boobs and… stuff.” And lacking of other things. “I don’t like it. So if we could pretend that it’s not a thing that would be great.”

Bender gave him a weird look before shrugging and moving on. “I swear you meatbags never cease to be weird. But if it really bothers you that much, I won’t mention your boobs or junk if that’s what you want.”

“Yes, I would like that, thanks.”

“That means we’re not going to fuck tonight though, huh?”

“Uh… yeah, I’d rather not.” That would involve exploring his new body and he couldn’t imagine that being fun.

“The things I put with for you. But whatever, let’s go watch TV then.”

Fry was more than happy to follow him back out into the living room. He could really use the distraction of both watching TV and of cuddling up with Bender.

True to Fry’s prediction he never got over his discomfort about his new body. Wearing obscuring clothing helped as did making sure to never look at himself in the mirror, especially without clothes, but it was still there. He could go for hours at a time without thinking about it but ultimately it always came back in one form or another and it was the worst.

Thankfully no one at Planet Express treated him any different. None of them even mentioned it after the initial buzz about it had faded. Sadly, such was not true for strangers; men flirted with him more which wouldn’t have been much of an issue if they weren’t flirting with him because of something he was uncomfortable with and wished wasn’t a thing. Bender put a jealous stop to a lot of that though which was much appreciated. And then there was everyone calling him she or her which sucked – he got called they or them some too which was better even if it still wasn’t right – most people didn’t care when he corrected them but it was still awkward that he had to.

But finally, just when it was starting to seem like he’d reached his limit and couldn’t take it anymore, upon arriving at work, Professor Farnsworth was there to greet him with some actual good news for once. The opposite of the pink goo was ready to be tested. The fact that Fry would be the first one testing it didn’t even matter to him to anymore.

It was in the pool out back where everyone else was already waiting because again, privacy wasn’t a thing anymore apparently, though honestly Fry didn’t even really care that much. But… “I’d thought it’d be blue,” was the first thing he said upon seeing it because it was bright yellow.

“Why would it be blue?” Farnsworth asked, genuinely confused.

“Because the other stuff was pink and it did this to me so it just makes sense for something that’s supposed to do the opposite to be blue, right?”

“That makes no sense,” Bender said. “Stop being stupid and go jump in already. And don’t almost drown this time because I’m not jumping in to save you again if you do, once was more than enough.”

“You say that but I doubt you mean it,” Hermes chimed in. “We all know you’d jump if to save him if you had to.”

Bender glared at him but Amy spoke up before he could say anything. “Yeah, you two have been dating for like a year now and were like totally in love for like ever even before you were official so don’t pretend to be a tough guy.”

“Just jump in already,” Zoidberg butted in. “I want to see what happens.”

“Yes, let’s just get this over with,” Fry said before anyone else could chime in with anything. He stepped forward to stand on the edge of the pool. “Can you guys like… look away please? I don’t want to ruin my clothes and uh… yeah.” He didn’t want them seeing him naked when his body was still like this even though logically they all already knew what he looked like but… he just didn’t want them seeing.

“Of course,” Leela said as she turned away. Thankfully everyone else soon followed suit with only a little grumbling.

Eager to have this over and done with, Fry quickly undressed. After tossing his balled-up clothes to the side, he sat down on the edge of the pool and slowly lowered himself into the yellow goo. It felt exactly the same as the pink goo had; cool and thick, quickly giving him that unpleasant pins and needles feeling. He had to force himself to submerge his head.

Fry was awoken by cold water being splashed onto his face. His eyes shot open to see who else but Bender hovering over him. “Hey Fry, I thought I told you not to almost drown this time.”

He didn’t remember falling asleep or unconscious and he certainly hadn’t intended to. “Sorry,” he said as he sat up.

Everyone had crowded around to loom over where he lay on the ground next to the pool. “How do you feel?” Farnsworth asked, adjusting his glasses. “Did it work? I can’t tell with all the yellow.”

“Uh…” Fry looked down at himself. … “It worked!” he said as he shot up to his feet. He was back to normal, how his body was supposed to be. His chest of flat, his proportions back to normal, and he had his dick back. Gosh, he never would’ve thought he’d feel so good while naked and surrounded by a bunch of people staring at him.

“Congrats on surviving another sex change,” Leela said.

“And on getting your dick back,” Amy added with an unhelpful thumbs up.

“Maybe next time think twice before deciding to play with a mysterious alien substance,” Hermes said.

Of course the Professor had something to say too. “Now we just got to wait a couple weeks and see if you randomly drop dead before declaring it tested and ready to sell.”

This was very quickly growing awkward with everyone standing around Fry and talking at him while he was butt naked and covered in experimental goo. “I’m going to go wash this stuff off now,” he said as he was already backing away. Also, now that his body was back to normal, there was something he wanted to do because he finally could again and the shower would be the prefect place to do it.

He’d learned an important and valuable lesson though: next time Bender dared him to play in an unknown substance, no matter how bored he was, he’d think about it a little harder before deciding to risk sticking his hand in. And to be more careful around alien goo in general.

#My writing #futurama #Frender #genderbending #dysphoria #gender dysphoria

21 notes · View notes

jungshookz · 5 years

Note

hey, au idea (as if you don’t have enough jsjsjsj) - really studious reader(what a change for once lololol) and popular boi Jin. Jin obviously can work around the social ladder and circles but he sees reader who just dgaf about him and he’s a klutz in front of her. (but like he’s not a butthole, if that makes sense diskshe sorry I saw this is a drEAm)

→ pairing: kim seokjin x reader

→ genre: college!au, comEdy, everyone loves jin including mE

→ wordcount: 1.2k

→ note: this was supposed to be a baby drabble but then it spiralled out of control because i! love! jin! also,.., could this be.,., the return of grumpy!y/n.,., i’M IN

(gif isn’t mine!)

jin is the type of person that everyone instantly falls in love with because not only is he handsome and kind,,.,. he’s also super intelligent and well-spoken and charming and gracious and caring and and all in all suPER super…. humble!

anyways he’s the kind of guy u wanna take home to ur mother but also the kind of guy u wanna take home to ur bedroom

he has everyone wrapped around his dainty pinky finger

he’s loved by evEryone

the jocks love him

the musical theatre kids love him

the punk kids love him

even the cafeteria ladies love him (“love that hairnet on you! it keeps your hair back so i can see those pretty eyes… oh, you’re giving me extra dumplings free of charge?”)

so imagine his surprise when he’s suddenly unable to charm someone with a snap of his fingers,,. that someone being (1) y/n y/l/n

sighs

he doesn’t know what your problem is but every time he says hi to you you look at him weird and then move away from him and he’s like??? what’d i do

it’s almost like..,, you don’T care about him which is impossible because literally everyone cares about him (super, super humble.)

you know that whole thing about how people always want what they can’t have

it’s apparent that jin can’t have you which only makes him want you moRe

you with your creaseless blouses and your pleated skirts and your perfectly pulled back high ponytails

even when you glare at him?? that little wrinkle in between your brows and the way your nose twitches slightly???

god

you’re.,, really cute

usually he can take a hint when someone’s not interested in him and he’ll back off but come on

no one’s nOT interested in him

plus

he enjoys the chase

it keeps him on his toes!!

“hey, y/n! you wanna grab lunch with me?”

“i already ate.” you don’t even bother looking up at jin and he pokes his tongue into his cheek

this isn’t the first time you’ve shut him down

there is a whole liSt of times that you have shut the Jin Machine down

“you wanna study together for the history midterm?”

“not particularly. i study better alone.”

“i like the stickers on your laptop!”

“so do i.”

“y’know, i can get us into taehyung’s house party next weekend”

“i can get into the archives room of the library but u don’t see me bragging about it”

not to mention

every time jin is around you he somehow manages to make a fool out of himself and it makes absolutely no sense

like???? one time he literally tripped over noTHIng and fell flat on his face in front of you

another time he bumped into namjoon’s library cart and knocked the entire thing over

and namjoon is a very nice guy so he was very surprised when namjoon literally started yelling at him like %#%*&@#!!!!!!!

you have to admit

jin is very persistent

it’s kind of cute how much he tries

obviously you think he’s handsome

one would have to be crazy to look at his face and be like .,.,eh

you know the guy’s popular n stuff and you’re flattered that he’s interested

you’re not used to the attention and it makes u feel more confident which is nice

but like

you just don’t want to be distracted from your studies!!!

maybe you’ll finally say yes to going out with him aFter finals blow over

but you’d never tell him that because it’s obvious his ego is bigger than the size of the galaxy

“whatcha up to?” you glance up when a certain someone’s shadow blocks the sunlight streaming in through the window

“what does it look like i’m up to?”

the library’s under renovation so you decided to hAul your ass to the cafeteria

it works out because it’s not that busy right now and also you can go up and raid the vending machines whenever you want

you’ve only been here for twenty minutes and you’re not surprised that jin was able to track you down

you’re either at the library or the cafeteria

there is no in betwEEn

“what are you studying?”

“chemistry.” you hum and flip to the next page of the book “organic chemistry if we’re being more specific.”

you gave a little more detail which is a good sign

see!!!! you’re opening up to him!!! finALLY

“you and i seem to have a lot of chemistry, if you catch my drift”

you take a bite out of your apple and look up at him in a vEry unimpressed manner

o god

he’s loSING YOU

he clears his throat

“did you know that 20% of the human body is made up of carbon atoms-“ jin leans back against a table and moves to prop himself up on his hands but-

he freezes

and turns to look over his shoulder slowly

omg

he just stuck his hand into a bowl of someone’s leftover tomato soup

“oH jesus-“ jin pulls his hand out of the bowl quickly and it clatters to the ground and soup spLatters everywhere including his brand new balenciagas

jin chuckles lightly before grabbing a napkin out of the dispenser and wiping his soUpy hand “let me clean that up really quick and get back to you- woAH“

as he turns, his foot gets caught on the leg of the chair and the next thing he knows he’s falling flAT on his face in lightning speed

oh,..,oH god,..,

jin lets out a groan and flops around onto his back so he’s staring up at the ceiling

suddenly your face appears above his

oh GREAT

he died!

he died and went to heaven!!!!!!!

he died in a tomato-soup stained shirt in the middle of his school’s cafeteria

what a way to go

he died because he tripped over the leg of a chair like an idio-

“it’s 18.”

his brows furrow

“what?”

“it’s 18%.” you stick your hand out for him “18% of the human body is made up of carbon atoms. and this nice white shirt of yours is now made up of 18% tomato soup.” you help him up and jin looks down at his shirt

god damnit

the stain is a lot bigger than he thought it was

this is arMANI

>:-(

you tuck your textbook away and pack up your pencils and jin’s heart droPs to his stomach

are you just going to leave him like this.,., as per usual.,.,.,

maybe this is a hint he’ll finally have to accept

he lets out a sigh and turns to leave

luckily he has a spare button up in his locker noT just for fashion emergencies (like if certain lighting makes his clothes clash) but also regular emergencies like this soup disaster

“are you coming?”

wait what

“comi-“ jin’s voice cracks and he clears his throat “where are we going?”

“to the lab. i’m going to make a hydrogen peroxide cleaning solution for your shirt.”

“,,.you are?” his cheeks flush slightly when you turn and offer him the tiniest of smiles

usually he’S the one making people blush so this is a very foreign feeling

he reaches up to press a hand against his reddening cheek

what’S HAPPENING TO HIM

he’s getting weAK

“uh-huh. oh, by the way.” you swing your backpack over your shoulder “watch out for that chair.”

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

drabble tag

#requested drabbles #seokjin #jin fic recs #jin fics #seokjin fics #kim seokjin #bts #bts fics #bts fic recs #bts drabbles #jin drabbles #seokjin drabbles #seokjin fluff #seokjin cute #jin fluff #reader insert #seokjin x reader #jin x reader

471 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

The Exhaustion One (Biadore) - Whiskey Neat

A/N: Finally finished this after 84 years. I have a lot of ideas for future fics and I have a couple of them partially written but I can never seem to put a whole story together in a reasonable amount of time so I’ll see y'all again in 84 more years when I decide to get my shit together and actually finish a story. In the meantime, enjoy this one! (also I apologize for the formatting of the last fic I submitted. Idk why it looked like that but hopefully this one won’t look the same)

Summary: Adore is tired and no one understands until she snaps.

Waking up at 5am was not something Adore Delano was prepared to be doing so often. It was exhausting. The early mornings had been going on for about a month, since she was on tour with a group of other drag race girls. Lately, they’d been having to do promotional stuff for later dates of the tour, which meant their call times had to be in the early hours of the morning as to not interfere with their shows in the evening.

Today they had a photoshoot at 7am, which meant Adore had to get up at 5, be full drag by 6, and leave the hotel at 6:15 in a van full of drag queens who didn’t understand that she barely felt awake enough to even breathe until at least 10am.

Adore woke up in a particularly bad mood. She wasn’t sure if it was the hangover or just the knowledge that she had to deal with such a long day lying ahead of her that made her so anxious and angry, but at this point, the thought of leaving her warm cocoon of blankets on the bed made her feel physically sick.

Her phone vibrated on the bedside table signaling that Bianca was calling. Adore meant to hit ‘decline’ but hit ‘accept’ by accident and groaned into the speaker as a greeting.

“Are you up?” Bianca asked.

“Get fucked” Adore croaked and ended the call, slamming her phone back down on the table so hard the screen probably shattered but she didn’t care. That wouldn’t have been the first phone she broke this year.

She laid in bed for a few more minutes, wondering if she should fake sick or something so she could sleep for just one more hour but she knew Michelle would never fall for it.

Wrapping a blanket around herself, she trudged to the vanity and fell into the chair, looking at her reflection in the mirror and trying to figure out how she could put the least amount of makeup on but still cover up how dead she looked.

After having to wipe her eyebrows off and re-draw them about 3 times out of pure frustration, she finally finished her makeup. While she was getting dressed, her phone vibrated and lit up again. The clock read 6:17. Shit. She was late. A text from Bianca also showed on the screen.

My Willow: “You better get your ass down here NOW. Michelle is pissed.“

Great. Now she’s never going to hear the end of it. Just what she needed today, right?

Adore rushed to put her favorite black wig on and throw a few things in her backpack, before pulling a sweatshirt on over her outfit and heading to the parking lot where everyone was waiting.

“Adore, you have to be more responsible with these things. When I tell you to be out here at a certain time I expect you to actually be here instead of keeping us all waiting” Michelle scolded as soon as Adore was in sight.

“Yeah okay mom” She said in a flat tone.

“Adore…” Bianca said, resting her hand on Adore’s shoulder to warn her that this wasn’t the time for her ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude.

“Don’t touch me.” Adore snapped as she roughly shrugged Bianca’s hand off and got in the van, putting her sunglasses on and curling up in the back seat.

“Damn, who shit in her cereal?” Detox asked, as Michelle and the other queens just silently looked at each other and shrugged before getting in the van themselves.

Courtney and Bianca sat with Adore in the back seat, Bianca in the middle.

Adore had her head resting against the cool window as they drove. Her hood was up and her sunglasses still on so Bianca had no way of reading her emotions without getting the younger queen’s attention.

“Looks like someone’s really feeling her brat fantasy today” Bianca teased, nudging Adore’s side.

Usually this would make Adore laugh, or at least crack smile, but today she just squeezed her crossed arms tighter against her body, trying to escape Bianca’s touch and go to sleep.

“Yeah Adore, is it cause you didn’t get any dick last night?” Detox chimed in, wiggling her bright yellow eyebrows.

Disappointed when Adore didn’t respond, Detox glanced at Bianca and shrugged, turning back to her conversation with Violet.

“Adore, is everything okay?” Bianca whispered, poking her leg. Bianca decided she wasn’t going to stop annoying her until Adore either cheered up or told her what’s wrong.

Adore on the other hand, was about to snap Bianca’s arm off. Every poke of Bianca’s finger into her fishnet covered thigh brought her one step closer to the edge of insanity. She thought she’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t feel like talking, so why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone? At this point, she honestly felt like crying. If Bianca didn’t stop soon she actually might, and ruining her makeup before an important photoshoot was the last thing she wanted to do today.

“I’m fine. Now can you stop?!” Adore whisper-shouted, grabbing Bianca’s hand roughly and setting it back in the older queen’s lap before crossing her own arms against her body again and returning to her original position.

Bianca rolled her eyes. “Whatever queen” she said, giving up and keeping her hands to herself for the rest of the car ride.

When the queens arrived at the building where the photoshoot was, they were ushered into a dressing room where they could touch up their makeup and have a few minutes to chill while the photographer got ready.

All the other queens lost themselves in conversation with each other, talking and laughing loudly while Adore sat by her vanity in silence, adding more dark green lipstick to her plump lips.

Soon, Bianca broke away from the group of talkative queens and walked towards Adore. She was going to try one more time to find out why her friend was so grumpy.

As soon as Adore saw Bianca leave the group, she prayed to everything holy that the older queen wasn’t coming to talk to her.

“Please don’t come over here, please don’t come over here, please don’t-”

“Adore?"

"Fuck.”

Adore didn’t look up, face hidden by her wig. She just closed the tube of Crocodile Tears lipstick and squeezed it so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“You’ve barely said one word all day, and every word you have said has been bitchy, which is MY gig by the way, and now you’re ignoring everyone. Do you want to tell me what the problem is?” Bianca asked.

Adore’s breathing quickened and she closed her eyes. “Not now Bianca.” she begged in her mind. If Bianca continued she was definitely going to cry.

“And don’t say you’re fine cause I know you’re not” Bianca pressed on.

“Wow, what fucking genius” Adore thought. “Maybe if I keep ignoring her she’ll go away.”

“Come on, you know you can tell me anything.” Bianca said, still seeing no reaction from Adore other than the younger queen’s body visibly shaking from how shallow her breaths were. She laid her hand on Adore’s shoulder in attempts to calm her.

As soon as Adore felt Bianca’s hand touch her it was like she got struck by lightning. The dam broke and her face scrunched up as she let out a sob. Forcefully she pushed all the makeup off her vanity onto the floor with a loud crash as she stood up and stumbled backwards, running out of the room.

The sudden outburst gained the attention of everyone, including Michelle who was entering the room at the same time Adore was exiting.

“Whoever is responsible for…..that,” Michelle said, motioning out the door, “better go fix it."

Everyone stared at Bianca.

"NOW!” Michelle ordered when no one moved.

Bianca rushed out of the room, asking a random person in the hallway if they had seen a 6 foot tall, crying drag queen run past here at any point, and surprisingly they had. The man pointed towards a hallway that led to a back lounge.

Heels clicking as she walked down the hall, Bianca hesitantly entered the room.

She spotted the younger queen curled up on a long red couch. Her eyes were closed and Bianca almost thought she was sleeping until those bloodshot green eyes slid open at the presence in the room.

“Pussyface? Can we talk please?” Bianca asked, slowly shuffling forward until she was a few feet from the couch.

Adore shook her head and sniffled, letting out a shaky sigh.

“I just wanna know what’s wro-“

Adore’s body shot up into a sitting position. “I seriously can’t deal with this right now Bianca, can you please just go?!” she pleaded, voice cracking at the end.

“Adore. What’s. Wrong.”

“GET OUT!”

“Just tell me!”

“…I’m tired, okay?! I’m so fucking tired I can’t even think anymore! I can’t remember the last time my head didn’t hurt or the last time I got more than 3 hours of fucking sleep per night! It’s so obvious that I feel like complete shit and you all just make fun of me for not being in a good mood. I can’t keep doing this, Bianca. I thought you, of all people, would understand but clearly you don’t, so just leave me alone and let me sleep….please Bianca just let me fucking sleep…” Adore begged through tears, body falling back onto the cushions.

Bianca heaved out a sigh. She knew that feeling; being worked so hard you can barely function. But this was normal for her. She was always working for months at a time with close to zero breaks. Adore on the other hand wasn’t used to this. Her gigs were usually at least a week or two apart with plenty of time to rest in-between.

Taking a few steps forward until she reached the couch, Bianca sat down on the edge in front of Adore’s stomach, because apparently she didn’t understand what the words “leave me alone” meant.

“I’m sorry” she started, reaching for one of Adore’s hands and holding it in hers. Adore didn’t fight this time. “I do understand how you’re feeling. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

Adore sighed deeply and gave Bianca’s hand a weak squeeze. “It’s okay” she whispered.

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, the only motion in the room being Bianca’s thumb rubbing back and forth across Adore’s knuckles. The younger queen was slipping closer to unconsciousness as the explosive part of her breakdown finally melted back into exhaustion.

“Stay here and sleep. I’ll tell them you’re not feeling well and need to sit today out. We can talk more later” Bianca said, breaking the silence.

“Mhmm thanks Willow” Adore mumbled against the fabric of the couch. “M’sorry I yelled at you”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Seriously.” Bianca reassured, squeezing Adore’s hand once more before getting up from the couch.

“I love you”

“I love you too Pussyface”

#rpdr fanfiction #biadore #adore delano #bianca del rio #michelle visage #hurt/comfort #fluff #whiskey neat #submission #canon compliant

76 notes · View notes

heythereunderoos · 5 years

Text

Craving More|| High School AU

Pairing: Senior!Tony x Sophomore!Peter Word Count: (Including lyrics) 3436 Warnings: Underage, recreational drug use, underage drug use, bullying

//Here we go again, I kinda wanna be more than friends. So take it easy on me, I'm afraid you're never satisfied//

Tony hadn't been excited at the prospect of another body in their home. He knew that no matter who it was, there wasn't anything or anyone that could warm the cold walls of their home. He knew that another person's chatter wouldn't be comforting or fill the empty halls, it would just make everything seem that much quieter, that much more lonely.

Maria had promised him that he had so much to look forward to. That despite the fact that this poor kid Peter's aunt, who had apparently taken care of him for a majority of his life, had died, that he was still perky and happy. Maria had told him that he needed more friends like that around, and Tony huffed.

Sure.

So Tony was slightly stunned when the boy bounded into the house with his pale yellow suitcases in tow with an equally bright smile, right towards him. Peter released his bags and his arms locked around Tony's neck with a heavy sigh.

"Long time no see, Tony!" The boy giggled into Tony's neck as Tony stood there, blinking, his arms out to his sides to avoid returning the hug.

Who the hell was this kid?

Maria huffed and gave him that look that Tony knew he had to succumb to. So he conceded, and let his muscles relax slightly, giving the kid an awkward pat on the back with both of his hands.

Peter wasn't blind to the older boy's obvious discomfort and pulled away quickly after receiving a few pats on the back. Peter could feel the heat blooming in his cheeks and huffed, his eyes finding the chocolate hardwood beneath his feet, as he tucked a curl behind his ear.

"S-Sorry. You p-probably don't remember m-me much. I'm P-Peter. Peter P-Parker." His eyes, though still towards the ground, were now following the way he wiggled his toes in his sunflower covered converse. He heard a gruff hmm resound from Tony's chest, and saw as the older boy's scuffed leather boots turned as he exited the room. Peter's head shot up and his hand reached out, as a silent squeak fell from his lips.

Peter thought maybe Tony would remember at least some of their childhood memories.

It would seem he had been horribly mistaken.

//Here we go again, we're sick like animals, we play pretend. You're just a cannibal and I'm afraid I wont get out alive. No, I won't sleep tonight//

Peter was trying his absolute best to belong here. But it didn't seem all that meant to be. He was attending Midtown High with Tony and was keeping up amazingly academically. Socially? He was totally falling short. That accompanied with the minor detail that he was sharing a house with Tony who apparently hated his guts? It made it hard to even pretend that he would make it here eventually let alone belong here in this moment. Peter knew that Maria was doing everything she could to make him feel at home, and be the accommodating mother and host that she could be, but Peter was incredibly alone.

It hadn't been a particularly good day. One of Tony's friends, by extension he claimed, Flash, was constantly on Peter's ass. Constantly nagging at him, putting him down, beating him. Today, he had managed a firm right hook to Peter's eye socket and he was feeling the repercussions of that vividly. His left eye was swollen shut and it throbbed, though not nearly as badly as his brain that had been so thoroughly rattled within his skull.

Peter, on his way home from school, had stopped at Delmar's to grab a shitty pair of sunglasses in a poor attempt to hide the inflamed eye, then quickly made his way home.

When Peter came in the door, Tony stood there looking absolutely pissed.

How dandy.

"Where the hell were you? Huh? You fucking punk, making me fucking get in trouble with my mom 'n shit."

Peter's eyes had found his yellow shoes again as he attempted to reconcile the situation, and kindle his relationship with Tony. Peter hadn't even given a thought to the fact that Peter and Tony were supposed to arrive home together. He was too busy well...getting his skull bashed in?

"I-I'm really sorry Tony. I h-had to talk to M-Mr. Harrington a-about D-Decathlon s-stuff." He shuffled his feet in a sorry attempt to shake his anxiety and continued on, "I p-promise I'll tell Maria it was my f-fault."

Though he wasn't looking directly at him, he could see Tony take brisk steps towards him, and his rough, calloused fingers caught his jaw, tugging it upward in a painfully sharp motion, jolting his brain yet again. Peter winced and Tony rolled his eyes.

"That ain't gonna fucking cut it this time, Kid. I'm tired of your stupid bullshit. Just fucking be on time tomorrow."

Tony released him and Peter let out a frustrated huff, before he burst out, "Y-You don't get to t-treat me this way! I d-deal with all this stupid shit a-at school and t-then I c-come h-here and t-this place is supposed to be my h-home too! I'm s-supposed to f-feel safe here a-and you t-treat me just like y-your s-stupid friends do. I h-haven't done anything to you. So w-why do you keep h-hurting me?"

Tony's eyes found Peter as the younger boy tore off the cheap sunglasses and sighed, attempting to wipe the tears away from his swollen eye, before stalking off to his room.

Tony was stupidly oblivious to other's feelings, of that he was painfully aware, but up until this point, he hadn't cared.

After Tony had collected his thoughts and believed he had given Peter a reasonably amount of time to calm down, he brought the kid an ice pack.

//Oh, oh I want some more. Oh, oh what are you waitin' for? Take a bite of my heart tonight. Oh, oh I want some more. Oh, oh what are you waitin' for? What are you waitin' for? Say goodbye to my heart tonight//

Peter could see that Tony was making a conscious effort. He was sending him small smiles, walking him to some of his classes to ensure he wouldn't be bothered, and when they were in the house he'd occasionally come and check on him. It made Peter beam. It seemed that things were looking upwards for both him, and his relationship with Tony.

In return, Peter made sure to cover for Tony if he decided to sneak out and do "senior things," whatever the hell that had meant, Peter wasn't entirely sure. He had guessed it had to do with things of an illicit nature, but was never confident enough to ask. He was perfectly content with the silent agreement the two of them had, having each others backs without having to explicitly state it.

Tonight wasn't at all what Peter had been expecting. Tony had snuck out, as he usually had on the weekends, but tonight he arrived home much earlier than usual. He stumbled in the front door, as Peter sat on the couch, working diligently on his homework. When Peter heard the front door his eyes shot upward, and saw a stumbling Tony. Peter, being Peter, was extremely concerned and ran to his side.

"T-Tony? Are you hurt? D-Do you need medical attention?" Peter's eyes raked Tony's body for any sign of bodily fluids, bruises, or broken bones, but couldn't find any. At Peter's concern, Tony chuckled, with a lazy side smirk.

"Don't be so concerned, kid. I'm just cross-faded as fuck right now." He laughed at himself, and Peter gave him a look that screamed I have no clue what the hell that means. With a gentle roll of his eyes, Tony took the kid’s arm and dragged him up the stairs towards the older boy's bedroom.

When Peter stood at the threshold, his eyes were wide, in utter awe that he was finally allowed in here, with Tony's permission. The older kid rolled his eyes and waved him in as he collapsed upon his bed, patting the space beside him.

Peter took hesitant steps towards the bed, and awkwardly seated himself on the bed's edge.

"D-Do you need anything, Tony? W-Water or something?" Tony just stared at the boys face: his flushed cheeks and button nose. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the way the light hit the kid's whiskey colored eyes, or the golden flecks within them.

"Nah kid, 'm alright." Tony smiled gently before he scoffed, "dude, stop sitting there all awkward and just lay on the damn bed."

Peter was slightly shocked by the words, but nodded and shimmied his way onto the bed, as Tony watched and laughed softly. After the two were laid side by side, the room was filled with silence, and Peter took a glance at Tony. The older boy looked positively delicious, in his dark, fitted Black Sabbath shirt, glancing off at the ceiling as if contemplating the meaning of his existence, before his eyes found Peter's. Peter's thoughts ceased as Tony's eyes found his and he stared into their abysmal brown hue. Peter hadn't noticed the way he hesitantly gravitated towards Tony, until the older boy spoke and broke him from his thoughts.

"Pete...do you...do you like it here?"

Peter was genuinely taken aback by his question, and quirked his eyebrow as he gave the question some thought.

"A-At first...not really. Maria tried to make it nice. I tried hard to convince myself it was nice. After M-May...after May p-passed and I came here, nothing seemed to fit me quite right. I didn't belong at school, I didn't belong here, y-you," His voice trembled, and he forced himself to close his eyes, take a deep breath and proceed, "y-you hadn't remembered me at all, and we were so c-close, and y-you...you h-hated my guts and I didn't know why."

Peter's eyes found Tony's again, as the older boy let out a soft sigh, before those calloused fingers delicately took Peter's soft buttery hands between them.

"Fuck I'm-," another exasperated sigh leaves Tony's plump lips, "I'm so sorry, Pete. I promise that you belong here, and that I'll treat you better, treat you like you deserve--no, better than you deserve. You deserve better than this, but you belong here, with m-well w-with us."

A small smile graced Tony's features and Peter thought he could melt into those hands like putty if he smiled at him like that again. By now Peter's cheeks were aflame and he wished he could hide his face within the sheets, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Tony's. There was too much residing within them, so much passion and drive, and so Peter just stared.

"But I t-think I belong here with you, now."

//Here we are again, I feel the chemicals kickin' in. It's gettin' heavier, I wanna run and hide. I wanna run and hide. I do it every time, you're killin' me now. And I won't be denied by you, the animal inside of you.//

Tony had made good on his promise. Though he didn't remember making it, Tony treated Peter better than before. He walked him to his classes and even waited around after school if the younger boy had a club meeting. Occasionally Tony would sling his arm over Peter's shoulder and Peter would turn his head away as his cheeks lit on fire. Peter didn't mind belonging with Tony.

It made him feel whole, and appreciated and loved.

Not that Tony had any clue, because he was always oblivious, or so Peter thought.

After Tony had taught Peter what in the hell cross-faded had exactly meant, Peter thought that he could give drugs and alcohol a go. If Tony was there with him. He was unsure about being in that sort of state of mind by himself or at a party, the task seemed a little daunting.

So the two sat upon Tony's bed, as Tony pressed the small bits of marijuana in the small bowl. Tony was a little worried about the younger kid trying a bowl, but he was out of rolling paper so this would have to do.

The stench wasn't exactly pleasant, and it made Peter's stomach turn alongside the concept of getting possibly caught by Maria or Howard.

"Tony a-are you sure they won't be back tonight?"

"Aye, Pete, I told you a hundred times, they're out of the state and won't be back for a couple days. Calm down. You're gonna be alright. I'll be right here the whole time, kid."

"O-Okay." Tony looked up from his handiwork to give Peter a reassuring smile, and in return the kid smiled and awkwardly chuckled.

"Y-You're friends p-probably weren't this jumpy were they?"

"Eh," Tony shrugged, flicking the lighter a few times before a flame actually appeared, "everyone is a little nervous their first time Pete. You're no different than them." Tony waived the flame gently over the bits packed into the bowl, before placing his finger over the hole, inhaling gently as the smoke filled up the glass, before releasing his finger, and inhaling deeply. He let the smoke sit in his lungs, permeate the organs, before exhaling.

Peter watched the scene in awe, and bit his lip to contain himself as a result of how hot the action was. How Tony seemed confident in his motions, how the smoke blew from his lips, and the look of transcendence and dare he say bliss on Tony's face?

"You catch any of that, kid?" Tony asked before he turned to look at Peter who was staring back at him in awe. Tony chuckled gently before lighting the bowl again, and holding it up to Peter's lips. They had a good system going. Peter just inhaling and exhaling and Tony working the mechanics of the bowl that Peter was clearly clueless on.

Peter felt the back of his throat go numb, and coughed repeatedly. For a second, Tony was worried the kid would either puke or choke, but after tossing the kid a water bottle he settled down.

"H-Hey, Tony?"

"Yeah, kid?" Tony was working on taking his own drag before he glanced over and saw the kid’s eyes were a little bloodshot already.

"Is....is any of this real? Am...am I here right now?" Peter's eyes were wide as he slowly looked around the room, as if trying to gauge just how real this situation was. Tony chuckled and nodded his head, smoke dispersing from his lips and seeping out his nose.

"Yeah, kid this is all real. You and I are just chilling out in here." Peter smiled at that and Tony let out a breathy laugh. Tony didn't expect him to be this out of it, this early in the game, but he didn't mind. Peter's face scrunched up before he laid his head in Tony's lap as Tony scoffed. He was a cuddly one. But Tony wouldn't deny him that, so he gently carded his fingers through the younger boy’s soft hair as he spoke.

"Tony..." The boy hesitated, as he reached his hands upwards, taking the hand that Tony had within the boy’s locks between his soft fingers, fiddling with the calloused ones.

"W-Will you take c-care of me? N-Now that May is g-gone?" At this point Tony couldn't tell if the boy's eyes were bloodshot and glassy as a result of the paraphernalia or if he was on the verge of tears. Tony closed his eyes and let out a tight sigh, rubbing his thumbs over the back of Peter's hands.

"Yeah, Pete. I'll take care of you. You'll be okay here with us." He smiled gently down at the younger boy, and the boy gently returned it. Peter sat himself upwards, his hands still gripping Tony's tightly, as if that was the only thing grounding him in this wonky state of mind.

"You h-have really nice hands." Peter takes his lips between his teeth as he stares down at Tony's thick, rough fingers, caressing the pads of them gently. At this Tony laughs, a deep resounding laughter that fills Peter up with something akin to warmth and happiness.

"Thanks, Pete. Yours are nice too. Really soft. You use moisturizer?" Peter's giggles are soft and airy, and Tony thinks that he wouldn't mind hearing that forever. On a loop.

"No! I don't use moisturizer!" Another bout of giggles from Peter that reverberate warmly within Tony's chest. After his laughter has died down, Peter finds himself gravitating a little too close to Tony, but it's too late, because in his hazy state of mind he's crawled into Tony's lap and his head is tucked into the older boy's neck.

Tony doesn't breath, doesn't allow himself to touch the younger boy, and it's obvious to the kid.

"Y-You used to hold me like this as a kid. U-Used to take c-care of me." The boy sniffed and Tony's immediate reaction was to cuddle him close.

"Hey, kid, I told you that I've got you. I'm gonna take care of you, and you're gonna be okay. No need to get upset." His right hand was cupping Peter's head, gently running his fingers through his hair, and the other resided upon the boy's back, running his palm comfortingly over the expanse of his t-shirt.

Peter let himself be cradled for a few moments, enjoy the warmth radiating from Tony's body, and the feeling of being wrapped in security before he pulled back, and Tony looked at him with a curious face.

Peter let his eyes wander, from Tony's messy locks, to his quirked eye brow, to his intense gaze, his long pretty lashes, to the cute slope of his nose, the sharp cupid's bow and plump lower lip, to the stubble on the older boy's chin as Peter bit his lip.

"C-Can I uhh....can I kiss you?" The question took Tony aback, but he laughed gently before responding.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Pete-" his words were stifled by the pressure of baby soft plush lips pressed against his, and the complete loss of any thoughts flowing within his head.

The kid was by no means experienced but it hadn't mattered. Though sloppy, it was endearing the amount of passion and excitement Tony could feel through the gentle way their lips molded together. One kiss turned to two, turned to four, 'til the pair weren't going to pull away despite needing air. Peter's finger were tangled in Tony's hair, and the hand Tony previously had within the boy's hair had now found his chin and was delicately cupping it. Peter was the one that conceded, only gently releasing the other boy's lips before gulping for air and releasing a content sigh.

"That hair," the kid huffs again as a bright smile lights up his face, "it drives me absolutely crazy."

With Tony's consent, Peter clung onto him. Constantly at his side, providing him with company and intriguing conversations. The two were practically inseparable. Tony had introduced Peter to his friends and though they were hesitant, eventually they took to liking Peter. Tony met Peter's friends Ned and MJ, and though Peter was nervous that Tony wouldn't appreciate how quirky and dorky the two were, Tony melded along with them just fine.

At the moment the two were wrapped in each other's arms, tangled within Tony's sheets just basking in each other's presence before the younger boy spoke.

"Umm...T-Tony? I was w-wondering if maybe you'd f-feel comfortable doing m-more than j-just kissing?" Peter's face was tucked into Tony's side, though despite being muffled, Tony heard him loud and clear, and chuckled gently.

"Oh yeah? And do what? Make out?" The older boy teased, and received a slap on the arm, Peter's face growing hotter by the second.

"N-No you jerk. You know exactly what I m-mean." Tony's fingers found Peter's chin and tugged his face up, so the boy was forced to look him in the eye.

"No, I don't believe I do. I'll do whatever you'd like, you just have to say the word, baby boy." Peter's eyes widened and the heat in his cheeks intensified at the pet name.

"W-Well umm...c-could we make love?" Peter's lip was tucked between his teeth, and thought it was one of Tony's favorite sights, he was far too enthralled with the endearing manner with which Peter had asked him that question.

"For you baby? Of course."

_________________________________________

Hey there stranger, check me out on AO3 will ya?

Sorry if this sucks btw, I really gave it my all, but I’m honestly so tired

160 notes · View notes

chemicalmagecraft · 4 years

Text

Foresight is 20/20 Chapter 7

I groaned and yawned as I woke up with a fuzzy head. I started rubbing my eyes as I sat up a bit.

Then I went back down and almost fell asleep. I didn't actually fall asleep, however, because of a knock on my door. "In a minute," I managed to get out, then rolled off the bed. I eventually managed to get up and open the door to the sight of a woman of the main branch family, if I remembered right. "Sleepy," I blearily muttered as an excuse. I probably had bedhead, which added to the image.

She chuckled. "So this is why you don't let anyone in your room in the morning hours," she said jokingly.

I grunted, licked my lips, then said, "I must look like a little death, huh?" I snapped my fingers at my vanity and my brush and comb flew over thanks to the wind attribute in Kurama's chakra, then started un-messing my hair. She just stared at me incredulously. "So what do yo- ah!" I was interrupted by the brush trying to force through a particularly bad knot. They stopped long enough for me to sort out the knot, then continued. "I told you two to stop if that happens," I chided. I gave the woman whose name I couldn't remember at the moment a small, polite smile and explained, "A jutsu that I made that animates things. I unfortunately don't have enough enough chakra to use anything practical in a fight yet, but I can use it for laziness." I shrugged. "Sure, I have to charge them up every so often or they'll die, but they're pretty nice. So what do you need from me?"

"...Hiashi-sama asked me to give you this, and not to look inside it," she said as she handed me a messenger bag. I grunted a "thanks" and opened it to see a couple of scrolls, a large book, and a file. "If I might ask, what exactly is in that?"

"Top-secret fuinjutsu stuff," I muttered as I opened the file to see medical records and a picture of a small boy with red hair and shadows around his eyes. "If anyone asks, you never saw this. Talk to Father if you want to know why, but just know it comes from Hokage-sama." I put the file back and took the book out. I raised my eyebrows when I realized that it looked like a primer on the theory of poison. "Thanks... uh..." I thought for a moment. "Sorry, I should know this, I'm still a little asleep... Yuri-san?"

"It's actually Yuriko, Kouki-kun," she politely corrected. "I'm going to go now. Good luck with your project."

I sat down at my desk after she left and pulled out all of the scrolls and the file. I sorted through the scrolls, putting the jutsu scrolls back in the bag. When I was done I looked through the final scroll, which was about Gaara's seal. I frowned and ran my fingers through my hair when I was done. "This doesn't make any sense..." I muttered. "Either I'm missing something or Gaara really shouldn't be having as many problems as he has... Maybe it's something to do with Shukaku in particular? Maybe Kurama knows something." I opened the file on Gaara back up to see what I could gleam from that. "Nothing too useful, it turns out..." I sighed. I might have been able to do something with the stuff about his chakra and the symptoms that they knew for sure were from Shukaku, but I'd probably need to consult Kurama first, and he was... actually it was really surprising, but he was playing with Hinata, so I couldn't talk to him. Then I noticed a small sealing tag included with the papers. I picked it up and immediately recognized it as a used Inner Demon Calming Seal. A sticky note on it said that the Kazekage had Gaara use one for practice so I'd have a baseline, which was really good on his part. Would have to tell him he done good.

I took it, pulled out a blank scroll, put the tag on the scroll, and made a half ram seal. Words flowed out of the seal and onto the scroll, forming the statistics on Gaara. I nodded. It looked like the scan function was working perfectly, and the data I got from it was pretty good. I already had the beginnings of an idea just from that, though I decided I should probably consult Kurama before actually trying to work on it as a precaution. When I was done, I made a half dragon seal and pulled the tag from the scroll. The words peeled off with the scroll, and as I flipped the tag around and put it down, the words reconstituted into a sort of spherical barrier that allowed a ball of red chakra to emerge from the seal without dispersing into the air. I frowned as I saw the size of it. "The regulator's off..." The idea was that the seal would take only a little bit extra of Shukaku's chakra from what it was using to suppress Shukaku for me to play with, but there was a lot more than what I was expecting. "Orrrrr maybe it's just that Shukaku wasn't trying to break free or fighting at all?" I realized, then shrugged. "Meh." I made another half ram seal with my left hand and an empty sealing circle formed on it. I shoved my hand into the containment barrier and the red chakra flowed into the seal, forming a slash in the middle, the kanji for one.

kukukuku~

I knocked on the door. Thankfully, the seal on my hand had disappeared after it settled down just like Naruto's. That would've been hard to hide if it hadn't... Because I could feel that nobody was around, I revealed the seal for a bit to inspect it while I waited for someone to open the door. When I felt Tenko about to open the door, I let it fade again and shoved my hands into my pockets. "Hey, Uzumaki-san," I said with a small smile.

"Kouki-kun," she greeted back. "Are you here to see Naruto-kun?" I nodded and she let me inside. The house was nice. It wasn't nearly as big as the Hyuuga compound, for obvious reasons, but it was pretty big for a family of four. Probably because of the prestige of the Uzumaki clan, even if said clan was only the four members.

"How's he settling in?" I asked.

"Kouki!" Naruto shouted as he waved enthusiastically at me, then went back to climbing on Ai.

"Hey, kid," Ai greeted as Naruto managed to get to and start pushing on her face. "A little help, honey? Please?" Tenko giggled and picked Naruto up off of Ai, earning a peck on the cheek as thanks. "Thanks, sweetie."

I chuckled. "So he's settling in nice, then?" I inferred, then beckoned for Naruto. "C'mere, Naruto. I wanna tell you something."

Tenko put him down, but he frowned and didn't come to me. "Why do you have that weird feeling that all the mean people have, Kouki-kun?" he asked me.

I internally sighed and, not for the first time, was glad that my general lack of major emoting most of the time kept my annoyance from really showing. Naruto had noted feeling the malice of others recently, which was from my giving Kurama his yin power back. Still, though, it shouldn't have been strong enough to passively sense what little malice I could generate towards him... I extended my (unfortunately still weak passively) malice sense towards him, or rather his seal, and felt a sort of... "smug" malice coming from Kurama, which made more sense. I sent him a little message of "you suck" and told Naruto, "I dunno, but are you gonna ignore my advice?" He shrugged and walked over to me, allowing me to give him a light chop to the head. On the plus side, I was conditioning him to equate malice directed at him with pain, hopefully.

"Hey!" he complained.

"Don't throw away Gudo Dama, stupid," I chided.

"I don't even know what that is!"

"Powerful but finicky jutsu that you might get in the future if events line up, and in my visions you stupidly hamstrung your ability to use two fifths of it like an hour after getting it by throwing two of them into a Chibaku Tensei in another space-time. Don't do that for real."

"What happened to not punishing people for things they haven't done yet?"

I shrugged. "That was for having the potential stupid to throw away Gudo Dama. You don't even want to know what I'll do if I learn you do it without a good enough reason." Then, I heard the frantic footsteps of a young girl and turned around to see Tenten staring at me with an elated expression. "'Sup," I said.

"Naruto-kun said that you have healing powers!" Tenten said.

I shrugged. "Yeah, but not the kind just anyone can use, if that's what you're asking." Her face fell. "But if it's healing jutsu you want to learn, then you should know that you should have a bit of an advantage with yang release due to being an Uzumaki, which you need for medical release."

"Yes!" she shouted and threw her hands in the air. "I wanna be like Tsunade, she's this really cool kunoichi who's a really good healer!"

Ai pouted. "I'm a cool kunoichi too... And I have weapons... It's because I'm only a special jonin, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Tsunade's got some bad habits that I'm pretty sure your moms would like very much if you never pick up," they both agreed emphatically, "and you don't need to be a medic to be cool, but if you really, really wanna know how to heal people, then..." I took my hand out of my pocket, and a leaf appeared on it. "The other half of the equation is chakra control, so get cracking." I used a chakra thread to put it in her hands. "Well, there's knowledge needed too, but the biggest parts are yang release and plenty of chakra control."

"How did you do that?" Ai asked me, amazed.

I pulled down my sleeve, revealing a wristband with a storage seal on it that I'd made with Kurama's help. Really, why don't more people do that? It's awesome and useful. "I made a waterproof storage seal wristband with variable output, which is a lot more practical than you'd think if you do it right, by the way," I explained.

Ai gave me an eager look that made me feel like stars should have appeared in her eyes, and said, "Teach me your ways, master."

"Hey, I don't actually know how this leaf helps me with chakra control," Tenten complained.

"Naruto," I ordered. He took my meaning immediately and went over to help his new sister with her leaf. I turned back to Ai and said, "Right, so the first thing you need to know is that you can put waterproof seals on fabric surprisingly easily..."

kukukuku~

My eyes closed and my body absolutely still as I sat cross-legged under the shade of the tree, I pondered what Kurama and I had talked about in regards to Gaara's seal. "If I use it like that, the side-effects would actually be beneficial," I thought to myself as I formulated the beginnings of a plan. My thoughts shifted, however, when I finally managed to begin to feel the ebb and flow of the energy of the world around me after what felt like an hour of meditation. Without my eye's secondary powers, I doubted that I would've been able to stop fidgeting for that long...

Thankfully, the fact that I wasn't using toad oil to feel the natural energy meant that I didn't immediately start drawing on it, because at my chakra level, that would've probably been really bad. Without even opening my eyes, which I wasn't even sure I could do without breaking my tenuous natural energy sensing, I focused on the blue chakra in my hand. My idea was to combine the natural energy outside of my body until I felt I could do proper sage mode so as to circumvent the danger of using sage chakra.

Kurama had laughed that idea off at first when I'd told him, saying that there was no way I'd be able to add the natural energy to already-completed chakra until I'd actually managed to get the feel of sage chakra. I then told him that one of my failed attempts at yin-yang release involved me somehow managing to split my chakra back into its constituent parts and then recombining them outside of my body, which made him shut up. I thought back to when I managed to do it, then tried to recreate the feat. As is my curse, actually trying to do it somehow made it exponentially more difficult, though I just barely managed to puzzle it out. After that, I started working on recombining it, but with some extra natural energy. I almost got it... almost... almost...

"Hey, you!" Aaaand I lost it. I sighed, looked over the two chakra signatures that approached me, one of which had a suspiciously familiar signature to it that I honestly shouldn't have been too shocked about given who was writing the story, and opened my eyes to see a blonde girl about my age in front of me with a shy-looking pink-haired girl behind her.

"I-Ino-chan, you don't have to..." Oh, right. Sakura was really shy when she was a little kid. Seriously, though, how did she go from that to where she was at the start of the anime?

Actually it was probably the dumb fangirl thing. Would have to do something about that...

I licked my lips. "Nah, it's okay. I was almost done anyway... Whaddya want?"

"Why were you talking to that one kid earlier," Ino asked. She was referring to how Naruto was talking to me while I was meditating a bit earlier before going to play ninja with Tenten, Hinata, and Neji. "Our parents keep telling us not to talk to him."

I gave her my "I'm silently judging you" glare and said, "If anyone ever spent so much as two seconds getting to know Naruto they'd know he isn't a demon that has become quite jaded with most of humanity on account of their exploitative ways," eliciting a "What?" from both of them. "If either of your parents have problems not judging an innocent boy for events that happened literally on the day of his birth, then they can take it up with the Hokage." An idea came to me and I smirked. "Naruto's actually really friendly, you might like him. If you two want, I can probably get you in their game." I looked at Sakura and gave her a small, wry smile. "Plus, I think the two of you might be distantly related."

Ino sighed. "Why does everyone think that everyone with blonde hair is a Yamanaka?" she asked. "Not everyone with the same hair color are clan members!"

"I already knew that, Yamanaka Ino, heiress of the Yamanaka clan." I internally laughed at her face. "I think there are some redhead Yamanaka too, so explain that. Plus zero members of the current Uzumaki clan, despite three of them having chakra that suggests they inherited at least part of the bloodline, have the traditional Uzumaki red hair. No, I meant your pink-haired friend, who for some reason has a chakra signature that reminds me of members of the Senju and Uzumaki, plus with something else vaguely bloodliney that I haven't seen before. Probably foreshadowing for something."

Sakura blinked. "I'm part of the Uzumaki and Senju clans?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Could be close, could be distant. Uzumaki's an offshoot of Senju and I've only ever felt three confirmed Uzumaki, plus I've got nothing to compare that third, totally-something-that'll-come-up-later bloodline to, so that could also be something. Heck, it's so much of a jumble I wouldn't be surprised if you're from a third line descended from Otsutsuki Ashura that I somehow don't know about."

"A what?" Sakura asked.

I hummed. "The only thing about that that you really need to worry about is that you more likely than not have a longer lifespan and life energy than your average person. And if you wanna be a ninja, I suggest looking at medical ninjutsu. Tsunade the medical genius got to be so good from a combination of her advantage in yang release granted by having a Senju and an Uzumaki as grandparents and her skill with chakra control." I pointed at Tenten. "That's Tenten. Speak to her if you're curious. She really likes Tsunade."

Sakura blinked. "Thank you."

"It's cool," I said. "I'm gonna play now. You in?"

kukukuku~

"Hey, you!" a voice that I'm pretty sure was Sakura's mom said. I confirmed with a bit of chakra-sensing.

I turned around to see her. "Hello, Haruno-san."

She flinched. "How did you know my name?"

"I may not look it, but I'm skilled with chakra-sensing," I explained. "You share a... peculiarity in your chakra with your daughter." So my theory about that third thing in Sakura's chakra having to do with Ashura was probably shot, considering the fact that her mom had it and not the Uzumaki and Senju stuff.

"Right, well I don't like you telling my daughter to talk to talk to that Naruto boy."

I gave her a faux-confused stare. "What's wrong with him?"

As I expected, she blanched. "Well... he's..."

I decided to push a bit further. "Give me one good reason for all the abuse he's had at the hands of the village. One thing he's done that would change my mind. Burden of proof." After some more of her grasping for a good reason, I continued with a glare. "I know about the Kyuubi, by the way, and that's not a good reason." I made sure nobody was around before elaborating. "He's not the fuzzball, and if it weren't for him neither of us would be alive. Nor would your daughter, your husband, or just about anyone you've ever known and loved. Why then?"

"I... I-"

I snorted. "Save it. You're not gonna rationalize your way out of that moral quandary." I pulled out the used Inner Demon Calming Seal tag, then replaced the used-up sealing formula with a fresh one with my chakra alone. "If it really bothers you that your kid's friends with the jinchuriki, this thing can be used to suppress Fluffy's chakra, at least as long as... it... is still at least partially in Naruto." Calling Kurama it felt dirty. That's probably a good thing. "It's practically the best thing you can have when dealing with an out-of-control jin...chu..." I trailed off as it finally hit me just what I made.

"Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-" I internally screamed.

She blinked. "It's okay. I don't need this. You're right."

"-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-" I put the seal back away and said, "Yeah that's probably for the best... Hang on, I need to make a call real quick." I closed my eyes and reached out with my telepathy to Sarutobi's office.

"I already took care of it," Hiruzen told me immediately upon picking up. He was getting real nonchalant about having someone randomly use telepathy on him...

"-uuuuuuuu... huh?"

"Do you think I didn't realize how Akatsuki could use your seal?" he asked. "Rest assured, I informed the Kazekage of the gravity of it and why he should be careful with who he gives that information to. I also managed to put a genjutsu on it that should hopefully use Sasori's jutsu to induce memory loss. Theoretically, anyway. I'm not the best at genjutsu and I haven't seen Sasori's jutsu."

"Thanks," I mentally sighed. "I really dropped the ball there, huh?"

He mentally chuckled. "To be fair, you are still a child. You might still want to check in on Sasori."

"Will do. Bye." I opened my eyes back up. "Right, where were we?" I asked before realizing she was gone. "Meh, I'm sure everything's fine now."

kukukuku~

I sighed and licked my lips as I looked at the two balls of "sage" chakra in my hands. One was blue and one was red, but I was a little disappointed with the conversion time of both, even after multiple days of practice. Almost five minutes for a small amount of blue chakra and a little over twice that for an equal amount of red. I wasn't going to be able to use that in combat anytime soon...

Though I suppose it was better than my first time of about an hour for blue.

"I guess it still works for what I need it for," I sighed, then shrugged as I considered the blue chakra. With Kurama's and my calculations, it was doubtful that I'd need any more than a small amount of blue sage chakra, so I just traded a bit of chakra between my hands and reabsorbed the mostly blue chakra. It wasn't much of a boost and therefore carried none of the actual risks of sage mode, but I definitely felt a buzz from it that felt pretty nice. After that, I pulled out the little bug cage thing I got for the other component I needed for the jutsu I'd thought of.

That other thing being the bugs that I had. Well, any animal would do, but I wanted to start small and with something that I would hopefully not feel guilt over killing. Of course, that meant that I barely had any material to work with, just a couple of flies that I'd managed to convince Hinata to catch while I was meditating. I looked at them for a few minutes, took a few deep breaths, and said, "Sorry, little guys." I channeled the demonic sage chakra into the bugs, pouring all of the chakra evenly into them. The flies took on a look similar to a stage two chakra cloak but without the tail before beginning to compress and converge on each other.

The idea was to use the mutative properties of natural energy overload to change them into something I could use. Theoretically, I could have used less demon sage chakra than complete saturation, but I decided that with how easy it was to saturate the flies, I would just do that and observe as best I could to see if I could glean the proper form for that and not have to go through trial and error. After about a minute, they had fully compressed and fused together into a small red crystal with a light glow. I sighed when I saw that it was pebble-sized, about a centimeter in diameter. Sure, I wasn't expecting to pull an adequately-sized crystal out of a few flies, but I was hoping for a little more... I ran my fingers through my hair and picked up the pebble. "I guess it's fine for now..." I muttered, then reached down my shirt to stick it on my sternum, hidden away. A seal blossomed on my skin, collecting the very minute amount of demon sage chakra that the stone was generating. Until I had a bigger one, that was the best use for it I could think of.

kukukuku~

Imagine that one French narrator voice from Spongebob saying "One month later."

"So that's probably a good structure for the seal, right?" I asked, swinging my legs in the air. I was honestly surprised that the blood hadn't rushed to my head yet; I was sitting upside-down on the couch. Something something tree-walking, probably.

Ai shrugged. "Probably."

"Yeah, Shukaku's a slippery bastard, but that should about do it," Kurama agreed, curled up on another seat.

"Seal team meeting adjourned?" I asked, then got nods from the both of them. "Adjourned. Now that we're done, I remembered something I wanted to ask you, Ai."

"Shoot, kid."

I smirked and picked up a cookie from the plate on the table (using chakra threads, obviously). I took a bite from it, then after I swallowed said, "Your wife makes amazing cookies."

She blushed lightly. "Okay first, you skipped over the question. Second, she's only my girlfriend. We're not even engaged yet." I gave her a flat look and raised an eyebrow, causing her blush to deepen to the proper Uzumaki shade of red. "I'm still looking for a ring..." she muttered.

I nodded. "Good, you two feel like an old married couple already. Now, what do you know about the Adamantine Sealing Chains?"

Ai sighed deeply. "I still can't figure it out, even after I asked Kushina for advice a few years ago," she grumbled. "I'm still not entirely sure it's a Kekkei Genkai and not a Hijutsu..."

"Technically it's both," Kurama said. "If I recall correctly, it's technically a Hijutsu that uses the special chakra of the Uzumaki. You should be able to figure it out eventually if you know enough of how to use it, though."

Ai frowned. "How did you... Right... Hey, if you know so much about it from Kushina, do you have any tips to using it?"

Kurama shrugged. "I didn't really pay too much attention to it because I couldn't think of any way I could possibly use it to break out of the seal, and that was really all I was thinking of at the time... I know that you should be able to do it more easily if you manage it at least once, but I can't help you with that."

"I have an idea," I offered.

Kurama sighed, got up, and said, "Why do I feel like I'm not going to like this?"

"If it's part Kekkei Genkai, then you might find it easier to do it if you have more power behind you instead of harder."

"The math checks out, but I still don't like where this is going," Kurama complained. The red gem I'd made, now completed, dropped from under my shirt and into my hand. It had that one gem shape, sort of like a kunai but without the handle, though it was about half the scale of a kunai. "FUCK. NO." Kurama looked at me with with what probably should have been abject terror if he had the ability to make expressions. "Kouki, no!"

"Kouki yes," I countered flatly.

"Fuck this," Kurama said, then ran for the opened door. He stopped at the doorway, said "Kurama is out. Peace," and noped off as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"Should I be concerned by Kurama's reaction to that?" Ai asked.

I shrugged. "Unless you have objections to temporarily gaining phenomenal cosmic power, not particularly. I'll use my eyes to make sure I give you about as much as you can take without adverse effects, maybe a bit less. Kurama's just a wuss."

She nodded. "Cool. So what is that?"

"Demon gem." I originally called it a demon sage core, but that's a mouthful so I shortened it to demon gem. "A special stone of my own invention that generates red chakra and fuses it with natural energy on its own."

She gave me a huge grin. "Sounds fun."

I activated my eyes long enough to check how it would go down. Turns out it was a good idea, worked well enough, but unless we had more, then Ai'd really have to try to finesse it to get the chains out, and that's boring. "Unfortunately, though, it's probably gonna take like a month to do that, even with a head start. You've got a lot of chakra capacity."

"Dammit."

#fanfiction #naruto fanfiction #naruto #Foresight is 20/20 #F20 CH7

1 note · View note

an-indigo-moose · 4 years

Text

The Undying

This is my first fan fiction story ever. It was written in 2011, and then edited several times over the years. It’s most recent edit being in 2016. It includes the Rani and a great deal of my own made-up science of regeneration. ��

THE UNDYING

The Doctor sat alone at the counter in a cozy diner with a friendly fifties theme. A wide eyed waitress with the name Waldo on her name tag served him a plate of pancakes with syrup.

“Are you sure you don’t have any soufflé?” the Doctor asked. “For some reason, I’m really in the mood for soufflé.”

“Pancakes are the house specialty,” the waitress said firmly. “Best thing in Perivale.”

The Doctor poked at the pancakes with his fork. “Waldo… that’s an unusual name,” he commented.

“It’s a nickname. My friend Ace gave it to me,” the waitress answered.

“You’re friends with Ace? Dorothy McShane?”

“Uh-huh,” said the waitress as she wiped the counter with a rag. “How do you know her?”

The Doctor straightened his bow-tie. “She was a traveling companion.”

“You’re the one she called the Professor? You don’t look a thing like she described.”

“I prefer to be called the Doctor,” he grumbled.

“Oh, okay. No judgments. Is she still traveling with you?”

“Uh… no,” the Doctor answered. “I uh … I set her up at the Academy.”

“Nice!” said the waitress with a toothy grin.

“I hoped it would be…” replied the Doctor, mostly to himself.

"Who travels with you now?" the waitress asked, beginning to take off her apron.

"Actually, Waldo –“

“It sounds funny when you say it,” the waitress interrupted him. “Why not call me Clara? It’s my actual name.” She ducked down behind the counter for a moment.

The Doctor muttered the two names. “I’d prefer Waldo, no offense.”

“If that’s what it takes to go on an adventure,” Clara Waldo Oswald answered as she stepped out from behind the counter. “That is what you were about to say, right?” She slung a satchel over her shoulder and began to quickly walk towards the back of the diner.

“Yes. Wait, where are you going? How much did Ace tell you?” The Doctor chased Waldo as she walked out the back door into the alley and found the blue police box parked next to the dumpsters.

***{+==]**

“Well, is there a certain place you’d like to visit first?” the Doctor asked as Waldo marveled at the interior of the TARDIS.

Waldo beamed and pulled a small book out of her satchel. "I have this book, One-hundred one places to See.” She opened to a random page. "The Amazon Rain Forest..." she began to read.

"Please..." moaned the Doctor.

"It says here that the Amazon Rain Forest is a place of unparalleled biodiversity."

She held the book out for the Doctor to look. He barely glanced at it.

Waldo queried, "Have you even been to the Amazon?"

"What? Of course I – well there was this one time I flew over-" He is clearly flustered. "Alright, fine. No," he admitted.

Waldo repeated, "No? You visit London and New York and Perivale of all places, but you've never even bothered-"

"Fine, Oswald. You wanna go? We'll go. Let's go to the Amazon Rain Forest."

The Doctor pushed the buttons and pulled the necessary levers.

**{+==]**

In a laboratory, a woman in a lab coat is distilled liquids and thoughtfully made notes. Behind her were birds in cages and large pieces of high-tech equipment. She looked up from her work when she heard an unusual whirring sound coming from outside. She softly whispered to herself, "No... could it be...?"

She rushed out of the room, taking off the lab coat as she went. Underneath the coat was a fitted, shiny green jacket, tight pants in a matching color, and tall, rugged boots.

In a small clearing in the rainforest, the TARDIS appeared in all its blue glory. It stood out like a jewel amid the bright green plants of the rainforest. The woman peeks out from behind a large tree. "It is him!" she smiled a tight, knowing smile. "After all these years!"

The TARDIS door opened. The woman hid behind the large tree. The Doctor and Waldo stepped out, rubbing lotion on their skin. The Doctor, ever eager to change hats, was wearing a pith helmet.

"Make sure the lotion is completely rubbed in," the Doctor instructed.

"Now how good is this stuff?"

The Doctor proclaimed, "Anti-venom, anti-toxin, anti—well the list of things it doesn't protect against would probably be shorter." Stepping out in front of his one person tour group, he turned and asks, "How's my face? Did I get everywhere?" Waldo nodded.

The woman came out of her hiding place once she was sure the two were gone. She approached the TARDIS. Smirking, she took a key out of her pocket. Without hesitation, she unlocked the door. With one last glance over her shoulder, she let herself in.

She found herself in the main control room of the Doctor's time traveling machine. She talks to herself, as she walks confidently about the space, looking at the various control panels.

"Oh, he's really changed it since last time. I wonder how much he's changed? Ah, here we go..."

She located the panel she was looking for, a key-board with Gallifreyan lettering. She typed quickly and carefully. A screen slide up from below. On the screen was a picture of the current Doctor, with his various stats, including his age.

"That young and on his eleventh regeneration already? Really! He'll be needing the elixir before I have perfected it. What's he been doing with his lives?"

*{+==]*

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Waldo are enjoying their exploration of the rainforest. "Ah, the Amazon Rainforest. I can't believe I didn't visit here sooner..." The Doctor stopped to admire a small lizard climbing a tree. "You just don't get a flora-fauna blend quite like this anywhere else. All around me I see life!"

A large bird swooped in front of the Doctor's face, snatched the lizard off the tree branch and flew away.

"And death..." the Doctor paused in brief thought. "Life and Death! All around me I see the cycle of life!"

The pair trudged on, with no more thought to the fate of the lizard and bird. However, the lizard deserved more attention. The bird, in mid-flight, decided the lizard tasted awful and spat it out. The lizard landed on the ground with a thud, clearly dead. Then, the lizard began emitting a golden glow.

In the TARDIS, the lady in green was watching the Matrix screen. Though it hadn't been used in a while, it still worked well. It showed her the highlights and intriguing details of the Doctor's past adventures .

"Oh, this stuff is good! I should get some pop-corn." She paused the viewing screen and strolls out of the room. She knows where to find a pantry in a TARDIS.

*{+==]**

Back in the rainforest, the glow around the lizard diminished; a new lizard, with slightly different markings was in the dead lizard's place. The creature woke, shook itself off, and began to wander about. It strolled across the Doctor's foot, but went completely unnoticed.

The Doctor invited a poisonous tree frog to jump into her hand.

Waldo rushed over and grabbed his wrist. "Doctor! Don't do that!"

"Relax," the Doctor chided. "What good is wearing anti-poison lotion if you don't touch anything deadly?" He cheerfully handed the small frog to Waldo.

"Doctor, how strong is that lotion?"

"Very strong, until it wears off," the Doctor replied nonchalantly.

"When does it wear off?" she asked, as three more little tree frogs hopped onto her shoulders and head.

"I'd say... two hours? three tops. How long have we been out here?"

Waldo dropped the frog. "Long enough that I shouldn't be touching colorful frogs." Waldo groaned, "I don't feel so good." She started to feel weak in her knees.

The Doctor caught her before she fell. "Never to worry. Definitely something in the TARDIS medicine cabinet."

*{+==]**

Back in the Doctor's TARDIS, the lady had just viewed one of the 9th Doctor's adventures. She hit pause and rewind, then rewatched the moment. On the screen was the Doctor, as his ninth self, telling Rose that he knew he was the only Time Lord left, because he would feel it if it were otherwise. The scientist rewound and watched again, laughing at the presumptuous nature of the man in a leather jacket.

The Doctor throws open the TARDIS doors. Waldo was fading in and out of consciousness. The woman paused the clip and took notice of the Doctor and his new companion. She stayed silent, but mades no attempt to hide or flee.

The Doctor tries to make Waldo comfortable. "Okay,” he instructed, “You stay here. I'll go find... whatever it is."

"You don't even know what will cure me?"

"I'm not that kind of Doctor!" he exclaimed as he darted out of the room.

Waldo noticed the dark-haired woman wearing green kneeling by her side. A small syringe was in her hand.

"Tree frog poisoning?" the woman asked in a brisk voice.

Waldo blinked. "Yes. Wait – who are y-"

"This'll do the trick." She injected Waldo in the arm. Waldo snaps to and shakes herself.

"What was that?" Ethel asked.

The Doctor reentered the room and immediately turned to the stranger, "Who are you? How'd you get in here?"

The woman answered Waldo's question in a calm and professional manner, "That was an antidote to the poison I invented. You're lucky you were wearing anti-poison lotion. You would have been dead within seconds otherwise."

The Doctor spoke-up, "I believe the frogs are poisonous naturally. What do you mean you invented the poison?"

The woman turned to him with a coy grin. "Alright, I should say improved. After just a few months of research, I was able to triple the toxicity of all the blue ones."

Waldo said, "You still haven't answered our first two questions."

"I beg your pardon?" the woman asked

Ethel repeated the earlier questions, "Who are you? And -"

The Doctor took over, "and how did you get in here? Yes. I'm particularly interested in that."

"I had a key," answered the woman.

"How does someone get a TARDIS key?" Waldo asked.

The woman calmly explained, "It comes with every Time Traveling capsule. A manufacturing flaw – all Type 40 TT vessels have the same lock design."

"And when did you get a Type 40?" the Doctor demanded.

The lady in green smirked, "When I graduated from the academy." She narrowed her eyes at the Doctor, "When did you get yours?"

"Which academy?"

"Prydonian Academy. On Gallifrey."

Waldo's eyes light up. "You're a Time Lord! Or... Time Lady, if you prefer -"

"No, don’t be fooled. I’m the only Gallifreyan left," the Doctor assured Waldo.

The woman in green burst out laughing. She stopped chuckling long enough to say, "The only one left! Yes! That's what the Matrix said, too."

"The Matrix?" Waldo asked.

The Doctor quickly provided the answer. "The Matrix is a device that records everything that happens in and around the TARDIS and plays it back on command.” The Doctor turned to the woman. "What were you laughing about? What did you see?"

"Just this," the woman answered. She swiveled the screen towards them and clicked a button to un-pause.

The woman mimics the 9th Doctor's somber tone and touches her forehead, "I'd know; in here."

She shakes her head as she turns off the screen. "Help me understand this, Doctor. You find yourself unable to sense other members of your species, so there are two possibilities." She started to pace about the room like she owned the place. "Option one: every other Gallifreyan in the universe has ceased to exist, OR option two: your sensor is shot."

The Doctor’s brow furrowed. The woman continued, "And you, you arrogant ass, you choose to believe the first. You'd rather think that all Time Lords have been wiped out than consider you have a rebirth defect. You, who spent an entire regeneration cycle in a human morgue instead of a proper TT capsule... you, who interrupted a regeneration cycle and stored the energy in a severed hand..." She took a deep breath in and out. "Yeah, there's no way your buzzer's busted!" she said sarcastically. She rolled her eyes. "Please..."

The Doctor collapsed into a chair. "All this time..."

Waldo rests her hand on his shoulder. "Doctor! We could go looking for them."

"Oh, where? Not like the TARDIS knows where to look," the Doctor continues to let the news of his rebirth defect sink in.

Waldo persisted, "It knows where not to look. We're just gonna have to go to places we've never been before."

"Why do I smell popcorn?" the Doctor asks. He looked up. His eyes darted about the room "Where did she go?"

Waldo shrugged. The Doctor leapt up from his seat. He returned the Matrix screen back to its proper position. "How did that woman say she got in?"

"She had a key," says Waldo.

The Doctor checks his pocket for his sonic screwdriver and heads towards the door quickly.

"We need to follow her," announced the Doctor. "We need to find out what she's doing in this rainforest."

"What do you care why one random Time Lady chose to live in the Amazon?"

The Doctor looks at Waldo with a very serious expression on his face, "Oh, she's no random Time Lady. There is only one woman who would still own a Type 40 TARDIS."

"Who?"

The Doctor sneered, "The Rani." Then, the Doctor pushed past Waldo to another room.

Waldo found him rapidly rifling through a closet.

"The Rani? Who is she?" Waldo asked.

The Doctor answered Waldo's question without ceasing his search. "Back on Gallifrey, she was a talented bio-chemist." He tossed an unidentifiable piece of junk over his shoulder. "After one of her creatures got loose and tried to kill the President, they banished her from the entire planet." More stuff was tossed aside, landing with a crunch and a jingle. "Of course she wasn't in the Time War! I've been thinking about this all wrong! This changes everything! There must be a half-dozen banished Time Lords floating about this universe, not even knowing the Time War was going on until too late. And refugees! Every war has refugees... Little Wanderers of the Galaxy, settling down, marrying other humanoids, having little half-Gallifreyans..." the Doctor became lost in his musings. In his arms he cradled a strange hunk of technology.

Waldo pointed to the bizarre object. "Is that what you were looking for?"

The Doctor shooks himself to refocus on the task at hand. "Yes! My Visual Recognition System." The Doctor elaborated, "The Rani's TARDIS still has a working chameleon circuit. This will help us find her. Smashed visual receiver, so it won't work perfect, but it'll be able to tell a regular tree from a disguised spacecraft."

With gusto, the Doctor exited the TARDIS. Waldo followed.

"And why are we looking for her specifically?" Waldo inquired. "Don't you think it is more important that you find the rest of the Gallifreyans? Think of it! You could reunite with friends and relatives!"

The Doctor was stepping quickly but lightly, aiming the device at different large objects.

"Wait... it she a relative?"

"No," replied the Doctor.

Waldo pressed, "Friend? Girlfriend?"

"Oh! As if!"

"So... what is she then?"

"The Rani's experiments have always ranged from the suspiciously amoral to the downright evil.” He scanned a large flowering bush. “She's in the Amazon for a reason; and it probably isn't a good one."

"I thought she said she was perfecting frog poison."

"The frogs are side project to pass the time." the Doctor said firmly. "She would never think so small as amping amphibian toxicity. No, the real project is something much bigger."

The machine began beeping when the Doctor aimed it at a large, mossy tree.

Waldo smirked. "Well, that's lucky! We parked practically right next to her."

The Doctor shoved the VRS into Waldo's arms. "Maybe it isn't luck," he said. "I think that the TARDIS stopped here on purpose. Maybe she senses more than I give her credit for."

"How do we get in?" asked Waldo.

The Doctor reaches into his pocket. "Same way she got in mine."

The Doctor slid his own key into a mossy patch. Nothing happened. He was bothered that his moment to look clever was ruined. He tried a few more mossy patches and blossoms around the tree. Finally, an opening appears in the tree. The Time Lord entered confidently, followed cautiously by the waitress from Perivale.

They entered a control room much like the Doctor's, but it had a definite Rani twist. It was soft green, like a hospital ward, with tall triangular panes, instead of the round windows.

Waldo remarked, "Well, it's bigger on the inside, like yours."

Doctor strolled out a doorway and into a corridor, looking all around and peering into corners. The Doctor was musing to himself, "The TARDIS changes with its Time Lord."

The Doctor, again taking up the role of unrequested tour guide, began talking to his companion. "It was said you could tell everything about a Time Lady just by looking in the first five rooms off the TT control center." He opened a door. Waldo saw a luxurious, King Louis type bedroom. She moved to step inside, but the Doctor quickly closed the door and continued towards another room.

The Doctor pondered, "I wonder what Romana's capsule would have looked like..."

"Romana?"

"A Gallifreyan I knew years ago. Traveled with my fourth self. Left me to work with some Leonines in E-space..."

"Can the same be said about a Time Lord?" Waldo asked.

"The five rooms rule? Doubt it. I used to have a cloister bell."

Doctor opened a door, then looked back at Waldo with raised brows. He had found the Rani's laboratory.

The Rani was not in her laboratory. The Doctor looked around impressed, yet concerned. He picked up various beakers and gadgets, muttering to himself. "Oh, I've always wanted one of those... but what is she using it for?"

Waldo saw the glass cages of large, odd looking, yet beautiful birds. "Oh! Doctor! Look!"

The Doctor trotted over to the cages. "I told you she wasn't just improving frogs! Look she's created an entirely new species of bird."

"How can you tell it was created by her? The rainforest is home to so many creatures, scientists haven't even discovered them all. That’s what the book said."

"And that is precisely why the Rani would choose such a place. She can create dozens of new a bizarre creatures and no one would even notice! Just chalk it up to the wondrous biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest."

"Fine, but creating animals hardly seems evil..." Waldo insisted.

"Oh, there's got to be more to this than meets the eye," the Doctor replied.

The Doctor returned to inspecting the lab equipment while Waldo continued to marvel at the birds. Suddenly, Waldo felt a pinch in her neck. She quickly brings up her hand finds a small tranquilizer dart has pierced her skin. Waldo falls to the floor. The Rani approached silently and dragged her new captive across the floor. She carefully rolled her onto a low platform. Stepping on a pedal, the Rani raised the platform to surgery-table height. Rani turned around and was startled by the Doctor.

"What have you done to Waldo?" the Doctor demands to know.

"Nothing. I've hit her with a mild tranquilizer. See for yourself."

The Doctor rushed to Waldo's side. He checked her breathing and looked her over, but he didn’t have any medical knowledge, so he wasn't sure what to look for. He began a civil chat with the Rani. "I see you're no longer collecting dinosaurs. Birds now?"

The Rani puffs out her chest. "Oh, I didn't just collect these birds," she bragged. "They are genetically and bio-chemically enhanced."

"Are they now?" the Doctor said, trying to hide his distrust and disgust for this Time Lady.

"You wanna see?"

"I'm not sure I do," the Doctor answered. Then, after a brief pause, "Yes."

The Rani tapped the front of the glass cage with her knuckle. The bird fluttered and shifted its weight. The Rani then pushed two buttons on the front of the cage, and threw a lever on the wall. The cage lit up as the bird was zapped with electric current. The Doctor recoiled in disgust.

The bird's carcass lay at the bottom of the cage. Then, a soft glow emitted from its body. The body changed, slightly different plumage, eyes, beak – same species, but clearly not the same bird. The new bird gave a loud squawk, stretched its wings and returned to its perch.

"As you can see," said the Rani proudly, "The bird can regenerate."

The Doctor slapped his hands together. "That is astounding. How did you – It isn't possible to – it must have taken a life-time to – The genetic manipulation necessary alone is just mind-boggling!"

"Yes, it is. Unfortunately, too mind-boggling even for me," the Rani sighed.

"But, we just witnessed regeneration!"

"True, but not a natural regeneration," the Rani says. "It's chemically induced."

"What? You mean there's a pill people can pop and they’re what… death-proof?"

"An injection, not a pill; but otherwise, yes," responded the Rani. She further explained, "Each injection allows the receiver double the lives it would otherwise live. Give this bird one dose, it lives two lives, a second dose, four, a third dose, eight... For a Time Lord on his eleventh life... I'm sure you're thinking how nice it would be to have 15 more lives rather than just two."

"How do you make it?" asked the Doctor. "The injection. What is it you are injecting?"

The Rani responded, "Follow me."

Doctor looks over his shoulder at Waldo, who is still unconscious on the platform table.

"Don't worry about the young woman," the Rani said calmly. "She'll be out for a while."

The Doctor followed the Rani into an adjoining room. It was a terrarium with small pools and places for growing crystals and corral. The Rani put on goggles and gloves. She indicated that the should either do the same or stand back. She went over to a pool and harvested a clump of crystals and a chunk of corral. Then she placed each in a separate mortar. With passionate precision, she used a pestle to grind each into powder.

The Doctor scoffed, "Don't tell me you're grinding up Cadon crystals and TT corral."

As the Doctor speaks, the Rani is measuring and mixing the powders with a clear liquid. “Ancient physicians tried using those to increase the number of regenerations."

"I am well aware,” the Rani stated. “Of course, all the ancients could manage was getting a wicked high.”

“And,” the Doctor added, “If you did it too often, you would regenerate addicted to the stuff. Never tried it, myself..."

The Rani was holding a small, furry creature in one hand and a syringe in the other.

She spokes, "And, if you give too much to creatures that lack regenerative abilities …"

The Doctor protested, "Oh, please don't..."

It was too late, the Rani injected the squirming creature. It glowed a brilliant array of colors, then froze in an albino form.

“You killed it,” the Doctor said.

"Death from an overdose of life!" the Rani proclaimed.

Her eyes took on a wild joy. The Rani began walking excitedly back to the laboratory. She talked as she moved briskly. "When I learned about it in school, I couldn't believe it. It puzzled me for years. Then I figured it out. It's why we need two hearts. It is why we only have 13 lives. The organ wears out. Our first life we only have one heart, then, at death, the hormones kick in and cause the growth of the second heart.” She set the frozen little body on a sterilized counter and turned her attention to a large apparatus. She continued to lecture, “The second heart isn't just for pumping blood around! It is pumping the extra life. For a brief moment, there are two complete beings in one space and time."

The Doctor chimed in, "It's part of quantum physics. Any particle can be in more than one place at one time."

"The converse isn't true," the Rani stated quickly. "Two particles can't be in the exact same place at the exact same time."

"But in regeneration, the molecules are changing – rearranging. There aren't two complete beings, in the same place and time." The Doctor objected.

"Doctor, I'm surprised at you. It isn't just the body that changes." The Rani turns a few dials and flips a few toggle switches. "Each regeneration comes with a new personality, a new set of tastes, a -"

The Doctor interrupts, “A new soul."

"Fine, if you want to get theological about it." She continued her explanation, "Yet, all the memories of the past remain. I didn't say there were two complete bodies I said there would be two complete beings. The second heart allows you to, in a sense, shift out of the way when the new –for lack of a better term – soul is forming." She held up the furry white statue. "This little creature isn't dead. It is simply waiting for the new being to take up its position. Now, are you ready for the cool part?"

The Rani dropped the fuzzy, frozen creature into the mouth of a large tube at the top of a machine. The machine makes a horrible whirring noise, followed by an odd, percolating sound. Out of a thin tube at the other end of the machine, drips a deep pink liquid into a vial.

The Doctor was slightly horrified. "What... is... that?"

The Rani removed her gloves. "The machine is my Liquefier and Life Extractor. And this," she picks up the vial, "is the perfect mix of hormones and chemical triggers. Or it will be after I allow it to sit a while."

Rani placed the vial in a cooling cabinet with a glass front door. She places the vial in and takes a different vial out. It is filled with a pink liquid of a richer tone.

"This one's ready. I call it Aliavix." She smiles at her captive audience. "It remains dormant in the body until one begins to die.” The Rani moved back towards the other end of the laboratory. “At the time of death, the natural surge of adrenalin and other chemical compounds will set off a chain reaction with the Aliavix injection. The second heart will form - or repair as the case may be, making a regeneration possible." The Rani puts on a lab coat, new gloves, and fills a syringe with the pink liquid.

The Doctor folded his arms, "So, you're just zapping beautiful exotic birds to death and seeing if they spring back to life?"

"Of course not," exclaimed the Gallifreyan scientist. "I was at first, but a real scientist needs to get results from the field. I tag my subjects and release them back into the wild. I let them die of natural causes." She glared at the Doctor and his doubting face. "My science is solid," she insisted. "I have used two regenerations watching various creatures experience what this pink liquid can do. Fortunately, my fifth self was more mechanically inclined. It was a great day when I completed the LLE machine. And today will be even more grand."

"How so?" asked the Doctor.

The Rani smiled. The Doctor had not yet noticed that they were standing by the surgical platform. The Rani answered the Doctor's question, "I can inject my first human."

She turns around, pulls up Waldo's shirt and injects the liquid into the base of her spine. The human awakens, shouting in pain.

Waldo breathed hard, trying to take her mind off the pain. "What... what the heck was that?"

The Rani answered, "Aliavix. Serum for a second life."

The Doctor noticed that Waldo was missing a shoe. On closer inspection, he discovered an odd plastic and metal chip where her toe-nail should be. "What's this thing on her toe?"

The Rani spokes soothingly. "A simple tracking device. I want to record the results of this trial. I keep records of all the creatures I inject."

The Doctor grabbed the Rani by the shoulders. "Uninject her! She gave no consent to being a victim of your -"

"I prefer the term trial participant – and I can't uninject her."

"An antidote then."

The Rani raised an eyebrow. "The antidote to life? Surely you're not asking me to kill her on the spot."

Waldo shouted, "I don't want to die!"

"And with the injection I just gave you, you won't," said the Rani. "You'll regenerate. All your hopes, dreams, and memories will be held in a transitive state whilst a new body and soul form around your lifeless corpse."

The Doctor protested, "But, you can't be sure. You said Waldo was the first human you've tried it on. Something could go wrong."

"I have every confidence in this current formula. I have reached a success rate of 82 percent."

Waldo, trying to be optimistic, said, "Well that's encouraging."

The Doctor said, "That's an 18 percent chance of failure. An 18 percent chance that weird pink gunk just kills you."

Rani spoke firmly, "No one and no thing has ever died from an Aliavix injection."

The Doctor tilts his head in thought. "Then how are you defining this 18 percent failure, Rani?"

The Rani spread her hands. "Well, there isn't a truly scientific term for it..."

"Then tell us the unscientific term for it," Waldo demanded, sitting up.

The Rani mumbled, "Zombie."

"ZOMBIE!" Waldo screeched. "I'm turning into a zombie? How long do I have?"

"You're not turning into a zombie now," said the Time Lady. "At the time of death most likely you'll regenerate, you'll be a brand-new human with all the knowledge and experience that the old you gained in this life-time."

The Doctor went nose to nose with his old rival. "Don't try to gloss over the fact that she has an 18 percent chance she becomes one of the undead."

"Will I be all stiff legged and craving human flesh forever?" Waldo inquired.

"Don't be ridiculous,” scoffed the Rani. “Just because you don't die doesn't mean the body won't start decomposing. You'll eventually rot away. How long you have is based purely on environmental factors."

The Doctor wants to speak with the mad scientist alone. “Waldo, go back to the TARDIS," he ordered.

Waldo asked, "Are we going to find a suitably dry place to slow down my rotting?"

"If we need to."

"Quite talking as if you’re a zombie already," said the Doctor. "You gotta actually die first."

"Keep traveling with the Doctor and it will happen soon enough,” the mad scientist quipped. “Go on, I release my latest specimen back into the wild."

Waldo scowled at the Rani. She hopped off the platform table and grimaced with pain. She hobbled out of the lab, glancing over her shoulder at the Doctor.

The Rani put her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. "Really, you shouldn't be so worried. I'm sure she'll be fine."

"Yeah, yeah. 82 percent chance."

"Actually, it is even higher for large mammals. Between 87 and 93."

"What larger mammals?"

The Rani grinned with a twinkle in her eye. She had no idea how unethical and amoral the Doctor thought she was. She was cuter, and much less cold than her former self, the Doctor couldn't deny that. However, perhaps it was precisely that which made her extra creepy.

The Rani called out in a clear voice, "Tracker System..."

A computerized voice responded, "Yes, Mistress?"

The Rani grinned at the Doctor. "I just love a machine that responds to audio-input. Old boyfriend made this for me using parts from a junked K-9!"

"The larger mammals?"

The Rani spoke in a measured voice, "Tracker System, please allow video display for 233, 234, 235, 237, 239, 231 alpha and 236 alpha."

Images appeared on the seven screens, each a large jungle cat.

The Rani glanced over at the Doctor. "Please don't look so troubled by the numbers. It's a classification system. I didn't start at one."

The Doctor gazed at each screen. "So, each of these felines has successfully regenerated."

"Yes."

"And the ones that … zombied?"

Rani shrugged. "In this heat and moisture? The first fell apart in less than a month."

"Are there others?"

"Tracker System, change display. Show 232 and 238."

The images on the screens changed to show two large, zombie cats prowling. As a team, the two creatures worked together to trap and take down a wild pig. The wild pig had a plastic chip clearly imbedded in its front hoof. It gave a little squeal as it was attacked.

The computer voice reported, "437 is now experiencing regeneration."

The Rani looked up with concern. "Display vital stats."

She watched another screen, nails hovering near her mouth. Numbers went up and down. Various lines and waves flickers across the screen, much like a monitor at a hospital.

The Doctor said, "Not even Time Lords can regenerate if half their flesh is in some other creature's stomach."

"Don't worry," says the Rani. "They'll run-off once the pig starts glowing.”

.The system announces, "First period of regeneration successful."

The zombie cats pounced and began to feed eagerly. The Doctor could not take his eyes off the scene. The Rani was fixated on the fluctuating vitals.

"Blast it!" she said.

The system reported, "Second period of regeneration unsuccessful. 437 dead. Do you want the print-out?"

"Yes, Tracking System." The data printed quickly from a slot in the wall. The Rani tears off the print-out and scans the data. "Stupid zombies ate the pig before he could zombie or regenerate. It's not viable data at all."

The Doctor rubbed his chin. "I thought you said they would run away once it started glowing."

The Rani snapped, "Well, I'm allowed to make mistakes."

"Seems to me they were waiting for it to start glowing."

The Rani opened her mouth, but said nothing for a moment. Then, in a slightly rushed tone, she ordered, "Tracking System, repeat most recent visual transmission."

The system obeys. Rani watched the zombie cats. "This is an incredible result!" she pranced about her lab. "Why didn't I think of it before?"

"What?" queried the Doctor. "That zombies don't get scared? That they crave living flesh above all else?"

The Rani shook her head. "Not just any living flesh! Regenerating flesh! See, they waited until the shift began. They somehow sensed that their prey could regenerate."

"Then why wasn't I attacked when I was exploring?"

"You must not have been in a zombie area. Oh, I do hope they don't attack your little friend. She's no good to me if she is devoured before she can provide viable data."

"Oh, she’s fine. We parked practically next-door."

The Rani looked puzzled. "Next door to which door?"

The Doctor blinks and then realized. "Your TARDIS has more than one exit?"

"Of course, doesn't yours?"

The Doctor shouted out, "Tracker System, show Waldo."

Nothing happened.

The Rani said, "Tracker System, video display 653."

Waldo was muttering to herself, "Stupid Rani. She could have at least given me my shoe back before sending me out here." She stopped and panted a bit. "I could have sworn the TARDIS was just over there.” She took another step. Under her bare foot, she felt something lumpy and squishy. "Oh, goodness... what did I just step on?"

Waldo took a deep breath and looks at what is beneath her foot. It is a couple of fat, rotting fingers.

She heard a sound cry and, turning slowly, saw a large zombie chimp swinging towards her.

Waldo forgot the pain in her back and did her best to sprint. As she ran, zombie birds, , all in various states of decay, joined the chip in pursuit. Then, zombie lemurs and lizards came crawling out of the trees. The creatures moved in a stiff fashion, but quickly enough to be scary. As Waldo fled, her path became blocked by more zombie animals. She became surrounded, her back up against a big tree, a variety of zombie animals walking and creeping stiffly closer and closer. A door in the tree swings in and Waldo fell backwards into Rani's Tardis.

Waldo was the floor of a small kitchen with a Dutch door. The Doctor exclaimed to Rani, "Goodness! How many exterior doors do you have?"

"I'm surprised you only have one," she said. "Tsk... tsk... you went cheap, didn't get any of the extras. Bet you didn't get the extended warranty either."

Waldo interrupts in exasperation, "Excuse me! I was just chased by a horde of Amazon zombies!"

"A horde?" The Doctor opened the top of the door to look.

Several rotting creatures lunged at him. The Doctor stumbled back, a small zombie lemur scratching at his face. Waldo grabbed a soup ladel and beat back the other creatures trying to get through the opening. The Doctor is able thrust the creature off him and back out the window. Waldo slams the door shut.

"My God!" The Doctor looked to the Rani, "Are you sure the success rate is 82 percent?"

"Positive," she answers.

"How many animals have you tested? There was a literal horde out there."

Waldo gave a little gasp. "Doctor, you're bleeding. He’s been bitten by a zombie!"

The Doctor shrugged. "So?"

"Everyone knows what happens when you're bitten by a zombie!"

The Doctor gave a small smile. "Oh, but not these zombies, right, Rani?"

The Rani became very serious. "Come with me," she said. "There is an antidote for zombie bites if it is administered in time."

They moved quickly to the lab. The Doctor chatted with himself as Waldo and the Rani escorted him to the laboratory. "What were there, like 12 zombie animals? Plus the two big cats we saw earlier. So that represents the 18 percent failure rate, but then a zombie doesn't last more than a few months in such a humid and buggy climate ..."

The Doctor was ordered to sit on the table Waldo was on earlier. The Rani, wearing gloves, applies a blue syrup to the Doctor's wounds with a cotton swab.

The Doctor reaches his conclusion. "Rani! You must have experimented on thousands of defenseless creatures over the decades."

"I wouldn't call a large jungle cat defenseless," points out Waldo.

The Rani said in a business tone, "He'll want to be under sedation for the next part of the treatment."

"Are you sure?" asked Waldo.

"I've been bitten by these beasts before. Trust me, he will want to be under sedation for the next part of the treatment."

The Doctor speaks passionately, "These animals are in danger of extinction."

The Rani rolls her eyes. "By the loss of habitat and food supply due to deforestation! Not because of my experiments."

"I'll put a stop to this! This is horribly wrong."

The Rani sticks the Doctor with a tranquilizer. He continues to rant. "This goes against the Shadow Proclamation; this goes against basic Earth laws. This is a complete -"

The Doctor dropped off to sleep.

"Finally!" the Rani exclaimed. "It is no fun to save someone's life when he is telling you how evil you are." The Rani continued to work while she spokes with Waldo. Without Waldo questioning her actions, or even really noticing, the Rani removes the Doctor's shoe and sock.

Waldo slumped into a chair. “The Doctor, he's going to be okay, right?"

The Rani smiled reassuringly as she tagged the Doctor’s toe. "Of course. Like I've said, I've used the zombie bite treatment on myself."

"I just can't believe the Doctor was so wrong about there being other Time Lords."

"Well, there aren't many of us," admitted. She removed a pink liquid from the cooling cabinet. "Plus, not all Gallifreyans have Time Traveling Capsules. And, unlike him, those of us with a TTC try to stay under the radar." She filled a syringe.

"What do you mean?" asked Waldo.

The Rani imitated the sound of the Tardis landing, "Wheeeerrrr, wheeeerrr, big blue box.” She chuckled. “Tell me, have you gone anywhere where you spend more than ten minutes unnoticed?" Waldo answered, "The Doctor likes the blue box."

The Rani smirked. "Yes, it suits him. A self-proclaimed policeman of the universe, defending the human race against everyone except themselves, and defending no one else."

Doctor woke up suddenly. He started shouting as if the tranquilizer had never happened. "I will call UNIT. I will call Torchwood. I will call anyone with the power to stop you and put you away for good. I've said it in the past, you didn't need banishment, you needed a padded cell. You .. you... you injected me!"

Waldo tried to calm the Doctor. "She was mending your wounds. A zombie bite vaccination."

The Doctor hops off the surgical table. "No. Rani, you injected me. That's Aliavix in the syringe, isn't it?"

"You should be thanking me, Doctor," cooed the Rani. "In you now are the biological chemicals capable of repairing any re-birth defects that your previous regenerations may have sustained. If you die in your own TARDIS, and stay there for the full regeneration, all eight of your senses will be completely restored. You will no longer have that gnawing feeling of being alone."

The Doctor scoffed. "I would rather die after only eleven lives than know I lived a single extra day because of such inhumane practices as yours. I will call UNIT. I will call Torchwood. You will be stopped. You will be locked away in Stormcage -"

She interrupted him. "They can't lock me away if they can't find me." She takes on her air of superiority once again. "They come, I move, easy. I'm not so stupid as to never get my chameleon circuit adjusted. So, run to Torchwood; notify UNIT. See if I care."

The Doctor pouts. "Come on, Waldo."

The Doctor exited the room with Waldo following.

He walks down the hallway leading to the proper door, which is in the control room.

"So, that's it, then?" demanded Waldo. "We're giving up?"

"No, we're still going to contact the proper authorities."

"But you heard her. She can just pick up and move anywhere, be anything. She could be a castle, an ice-cream truck, whatever she wants!"

The Doctor exclaimed, "That's it!"

"What's it?"

"What if she couldn't be whatever she wants?"

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor gave a sly grin. "I can't fix a chameleon circuit. No one still living can. But I can break one."

Waldo nodded. "You can get the Rani's TARDIS stuck like yours is stuck."

"Yes! Not always the exact same box, but always a blue police box. The controls will be in this room."

"How do you know where to look?" asked Waldo. "Her TARDIS is nothing like yours."

"Actually," the Doctor informed Waldo, "It is exactly like mine, a Type 40. Well, at least the control room is. Just a different desk-top theme. See, we can go from asylum green to... this!"

The walls of the room changed to a soft white with dozens of round windows.

The Doctor slides over to another set of buttons and levers. "And we can change the outside to look like …. this!"

With some shifting and wriggling, the three large trees and the ground connecting them stretched and contracted into a hazy, blob of colors.

The Doctor glances at a monitor to view the results of his button pushing. "There, she'll have a hard time looking inconspicuous now. Shall we?"

The time-traveling capsule's door opened onto a familiar part of the forest. Waldo could see see the blue police box not too far off. Waldo and the Doctor made their way to their own TARDIS, leaving behind them a garish Viking ship.

As the Doctor powered up the TARDIS to leave, Waldo asked him, "What about the zombie animals?"

The Doctor answered in an unconcerned manor, "I suppose they'll just rot away. Mother nature will have to take care of that mess."

Waldo asked, "Are you thinking about it, Doctor?"

"About what?"

"About what the Rani said; you could regenerate and sense the other Time Lords."

The Doctor sighed. "I've lived alone for so long. I'm not sure what I'd be gaining is worth the risk. I mean, now that I know I'm not alone, how is feeling not alone a vast improvement?"

Waldo gave a sigh. “Trust me Doctor, knowing you’re not alone and feeling you’re not alone are miles apart.”

“On the other hand," the Doctor pointed out, "The regeneration could fail, I could turn into a zombie and have the overwhelming desire to kill and devour you.”

Waldo conceded, "You put off trying to regenerate as long as you like, Doctor."

#doctor who #doctor who fanfiction #the rani #the undying #zombies #rainforest

3 notes · View notes

witchqueenofthemoon · 5 years

Text

BODY AND SOUL Part 15 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: You guessed it, this part took forever and I had to push the second half of Kenzie meeting Annette into the next part because it just turned out really long etc etc!!! There’s an easter egg implication that the weird weed Claire got in Colorado (from a witch but she didn’t know that) can help you remember bits of your past/parallel lives. I’m going to keep making allusions to Kenzie’s ultimate consciousness as a divine being; in the AHS universe she’s a Supreme, in this universe she’s got a low-key version of that energy, a very strong aura, let’s say, one that can encourage the people around her to be better and inspire devotion in them towards her; if Duncan is her Prince, Claire, Samuel and Harris are her Knights of the Round Table. I really wanted to include a scene at some point where Kenzie gets drunk and Duncan takes care of her because relationships in reality are a lot of forgiving each other for gross stuff and taking care of each other in various states of grossness, so I’m glad I could put it in here and I love how it turned out. Duncan getting her a tee shirt from MARIE LAVEAU’S HOUSE OF VOODOO is an obvious nod to Marie/Angela, but also a hint that Duncan and Kenzie might end up in NoLa one of these days. Here’s his Givenchy face cleanser. This is the dress Kenzie wears during the day in this part. Marissa Montague is, you guessed it, a Madison Montgomery/Emma AU, and she will show up again for sure. Erik, Annette’s stylist, is a Dennis O’Hare AU; he’s sort of based loosely on Liz Taylor from HOTEL, but he’s not trans in my universe, he’s a queer gay man. Kenzie will get to tell you all the story of what happened to her at work more clearly in the next part. This is the dress Annette wears for the press conference, and this is the one she wears at Plume. Here’s THE KISS by Klimt, a painting I’ve thought of again and again for Duckenzie. I listened to Etta James’ Stormy Weather a lot for the latter half of this part; the weather around Duncan and Mackenzie is stormy, but they are the eye of the storm, calm and constant. Plume is real and so is the private wine room and the Jefferson looks FANCY AF and not like a place I could afford to stay at (I used this article to write about it since I’ve never actually eaten there and probably never will...apparently a “cheap” dinner there runs you like $300). So far Annette has repeatedly proven to be the most difficult character to write in this AU; this article is a good example as to why Beau Willimon created a particularly complex character with her, and my hat off to him and Diane for creating a very special kind of villain who I also don’t really think is truly evil, specifically because she is capable of love; she loves her son unconditionally, and that is her most redemptive quality, and I am definitely using that to my advantage in this fic. There’ll be sex in the next part, don’t worry! I found out the other day that The Youth of Bacchus is going up for auction at Sotheby’s in May; wish I had the $35 million to buy it, because I’ve become terribly attached to it since I gave it to Duncan in this story. I guess I’ll have to settle for a print, but I really hope it goes to someone who isn’t terrible. If y’all weren’t aware, Billie really does have a beautiful singing voice. Annette softening to Duncan and Kenzie at the end is definitely due partially to Duncan and Kenzie’s combined magicks; being together will strengthen the echoes of their magickal abilities from that other universe. If you’re reading this fic, your comments, asks and reblogs mean everything to me.

“You know what I think?” Claire voice was low, her words drawn out by the weed and good champagne, and she was collapsed onto the vintage fainting couch in the corner, pulling strands of her blonde shag through lazy fingers. She was looking over at where Duncan and Mackenzie lay on his low leather couch, the remnants of takeout scattered over the coffee table, stray chopsticks and fortune cookies and half-empty cartons; Kenzie was folded against him, sleeping silently, her breathing very small and even, her face pressed into the crook of Duncan’s neck, her forehead against his chin, her pleated skirt riding up, her bare leg visible above the knee, thrown over his thigh; her stomach and the sweetness between her legs pressed, achingly, against his hip. Duncan was staring off into space (listening to her breathing, her tiny heartbeat against my side, her softness and her, her, her) in the quiet, the record long since having stopped, the calm night floating around them in the low light. His head was swimming with the weed and alcohol; it really has been a long day. My poor Kenzie.

“What’s that?” Duncan realized Claire had said something, looking over at her in a daze.

“I think you two are sssoulmates. I really do, buddy.” Claire was drunk and stoned; her voice slurred out the word soulmate like she had a lozenge in her mouth. “I think it’s destiny.”

“I didn’t believe in that sort of thing before I met her, honestly.” Duncan felt drunk enough to say what he was thinking; to hell with it, this woman loves Kenzie utterly, she won’t mind. He spoke quietly, not wanting to wake Kenzie, his hand coming up to trail down the wave of golden hair that fell over her shoulder. “But I do now. And I think you’re right.”

“Something about you two,” Claire pointed over at them, sitting up a little, the better to throw her head into the couch pillow. “It’s real intense. Like a bright light a moth flies into. Everyone else is gonna want a piece of it. Be careful there.”

“I will, Claire.”

“I’m just so happy to see her happy like this.” Claire’s face bunched together suddenly; Duncan felt sure she was going to cry, but she seemed to hold it together, sniffing a little and breathing in harshly, bringing a finger up to dab under her eyes. “Kenzie’s my best friend.”

“I promise I will take good care of her, Claire. I give you my word.”

Claire nodded at him; he could see her lip trembling for awhile, then she sat up, pulling her purse, discarded at her feet earlier, onto her lap, taking out a tissue and wiping her nose with it, tucking her hair behind her ears. She stepped over to where Duncan lay trapped under Kenzie’s sleeping form; she shook her head as he went to move up, “Shhhhh, no, don’t wake her,” she said, and leaned down, softly, to hug Duncan around the neck, letting go of him after a moment to stroke Kenzie’s hair. Kenzie murmured indistinctly into Duncan as Claire did this, her lips brushing into his skin, and he shivered. My angel.

“I’m gonna go home. I’ll see you both soon. Kenzie deserves this so much. She’s the most beautiful person, Duncan. The loveliest, the kindest, the bravest. You truly have everything now. Don’t take it for granted, not for a moment.”

“I won’t. I swear, I won’t.”

Claire stared at Kenzie for a moment, and Duncan could see the affection in her gaze; it stopped his heart, made his head swim. Claire would die for her. He knew it, utterly. He felt a fierce affection for Claire in that moment; felt as though they were sworn siblings or fellow crusaders in some just, divine cause. The comradery he felt defied an accurate description, but he knew that he and Claire were bosom companions now in some way; we protect her. We are her devoted ones. Us, and Madeline, and Harris, and Samuel. His head felt foggy, indistinct, faraway, part of some other time or day; “That really was some weed, Claire,” he murmured as she walked away from him, towards the front door.

“Right? The best shit. Sometimes I feel like I’m in another world when I smoke it, especially when I’m alone. Like I’m someone else for a little while. Crazy, but fucking neat. Goodnight, Duncan. Tell Kenzie I said good night, I love her, and I hope everything goes well tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Claire. Really. Thank you.”

Claire nodded a little, her eyes bright again. Then, she left, the big black door swinging shut with a barely audible snap behind her. Duncan could hear her boots retreating down the hall, then nothing.

He tried to move so Kenzie didn’t wake; tried to pick her up a little, straighten her so he could get a grip to carry her to bed, but she stirred more heavily this time, and her eyes fluttered open, still half-asleep. “Baby, what time issit…” “After 11, Kenzie. We should probably go to bed, we have another long day tomorrow.”

“Babyyy…” Kenzie lifted her face up to his, her flushed skin pressing into him, and her mouth came against his; she tasted like bittersweet champagne and weed and she smelled like roses and low sweat, and he ached at the softness of her, but he could sense how drunk and stoned she was; her hand slid down to his crotch, loosely, and her head seemed to loll on her shoulders, and he gently pulled back from her hand at his groin, placing his firm grip below her shoulder blades, holding her up.

“Baby, not tonight, okay? You’re drunk. Kenzie, come on. Kenzie, let’s go to the bathroom.”

Kenzie made a whining noise in the back of her throat, but her eyes fluttered with the residue of the sleep she’d just left and her body wanted her to return to. “I wanna fuck you, baby,” she murmured, and she pouted, and she tried to reach for his belt but her hand slipped down and he caught her before she fell, his large fingers coming up to the side of her jaw, her eyes fluttering at him again, breath shallow.

“I wanna fuck you too, baby, but not when you’re so drunk and sleepy, okay? I love you.” Duncan slid his arm down around her shoulder and the other under her knees; he lifted her up (oh my sweet Kenzie), carrying her slight weight easily, and she turned into his dark gray high-collared shirt, bending her arms into his torso, like she was a child turning into the heat of its mother, as he carried her through the door of the bedroom, towards the bathroom. Duncan set her carefully upright on the cool marble floor; the coldness of it seemed to make her more alert, her head lifting, and Kenzie’s cheeks looked very pale in this light, and her eyes opened with a snap, disoriented, as he held her under her arms.

“I think I might be sick,” she said in a tiny voice, and then Kenzie pushed his arms away with one sharp movement and ran to the toilet, jerking her little head over the bowl, knees buckling, and vomited a stream of vintage Moet and Chinese food into it. Duncan immediately rushed up behind her and gently pulled her long hair out of her eyes, grasping her in a makeshift ponytail with his fist; Kenzie moaned, then another stream of vomit came from her mouth and nose, filling the bathroom with the sharp smells of stomach acid and fizzy champagne and grease.

“Awww, baby,” Duncan murmured, rubbing her back with his other hand, carefully, steady. “Shhhh, baby…” Kenzie let out another little moan that made his heart clench; ugh, my sweet Kenzie, today was too long and too much, I shouldn’t have let her drink so much, but then he wondered if it would have been possible to stop her anyway; this was Kenzie, after all, wildly determined in whatever she did, including drinking most of the second bottle they’d opened herself. Kenzie reached up and flushed the toilet, and he noticed her little arm shaking as she did, her flesh covered in goosebumps. Duncan crouched down behind her, hand still steadily rubbing her back, hand holding her hair carefully to the side, his lips coming up between her shoulder blades, kissing the cotton fabric of her dress.

“Can you get me a tissue, baby,” Kenzie said, her face in the toilet still, and Duncan’s heart ached to hear its shakiness, the shivering edge of tears in her throat. He gently tucked her hair into the collar of her dress to keep it from falling into her eyes again and reached up to where there was always a box of tissues on a shelf built into the wall beside the mirror; his eyes fell over her Golden Pothos, now on top of the toilet tank, where it would live, and he thought of her holding it so tenderly as they went through the backyard earlier that day. Duncan leaned down tenderly and wiped at the corners of Kenzie’s mouth and around her nose with it as he thought of the plant gathered in her arms; she looked at him with an embarrassed expression, gold flecks floating around her corneas, her eyes over-bright. She looked so tiny, crouched over the toilet this way; he longed to gather her up in his arms again and cradle her against him, longed to soothe the pain and discomfort away from her.

“Duncan, I’m sorry,” and a tear fell down her cheek.

“Sorry for what, baby? It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. You think I’ve never had too much to drink?”

“This is gross, though.” Kenzie made a face, wrinkling her nose, and she leaned over the toilet again, spitting the residue of her vomit into the bowl.

Duncan laughed a little, bringing his hand down to the spot between Kenzie’s ear and jaw, using the tissue, folded over, to wipe her mouth again. I love to hold her here, he thought for the thousandth time, my hand fits here like this part of her was made for me to hold her. “Baby. I love you. That means I love the gross things, too. Are you okay? Are you gonna throw up again?”

Kenzie shook her head a little, a shiver running down her back through the tips of Duncan’s fingers. “I think I’m done. Can you get me a tee shirt to wear?” Her eyes were clearer now; less dazed with most of the alcohol out of her body, and there were lines of tiredness under her eyes. “Mmhmm,” Duncan murmured to her, his hand falling down the back of her hair. He went to the walk-in closet to the bottom drawers and pulled out another one of the old graphic tees there; this one said MARIE LAVEAU’S HOUSE OF VOODOO in melting tie-dye letters, with three skulls and a cross, sticks of incense floating on either side of them, a souvenir he’d gotten in New Orleans when he was traveling alone in his early 20’s, after he’d graduated. The road trip had been before his mother had insisted he become a more public face in the company; after his affair with Misha, before he met Evan. Kenzie and I should go somewhere together, he thought, unbuttoning his own clothing and kicking it off so he was wearing only his underwear, unbuckling his black Movado and setting it on the shelf, and soon. We can’t go on a road trip; that option is closed to us now. But we can get away from everything for a week. It would be so wonderful to sleep in with her all day. No dinners with our mothers to worry about, no paps milling around, no press conferences. We have that cabin around Oakland, next to Deep Creek. I should take her there. Maybe after the Gala. She’d love that. We’d be really alone...and I could worship her for days. Mackenzie. Kenzie. Baby. Angel.

As Duncan reentered the bathroom he saw Kenzie had pulled her dress and bra off, leaving them in a pile on the cold marble floor, and was carefully scrubbing her teeth at the sink in just her underwear (pink and made of some kind of silky fabric, and Duncan couldn’t help but look down at her round little ass for a moment with affection, think of his fingers there between her legs in the red dress), her face visibly damp from having washed it a moment before, a little color returning to her cheeks. She glanced up at him through the mirror, clearly still embarrassed. Good fucking job, Kenz, really making the place your own, puking as soon as you move in, her eyes seemed to think at him. Seemed to, or really did? Duncan pushed it away and came up behind her, his hands falling carefully on her bare shoulders, the shirt gripped in his fingers, pressed against her arm. Kenzie rinsed her toothbrush carefully, swishing water in her mouth, and spit into the sink. Then she turned to him, shivering again, and lifted her head up, expectant, in an achingly sweet gesture of trust that made his heart beat faster. Duncan bunched the shirt and pulled it over her little head, her hair sticking to her damp cheek, and Kenzie pulled her arms through the holes, once again too large for her, the long dip of her collarbone visible through the neck.

“Nice shirt, baby,” she whispered. Duncan grinned. “New Orleans is a great place, ever been there?” He reached for his own toothbrush.

“Nope.”

“We’ll go sometime. I think you’d really like it. And the food is amazing.”

Kenzie stared up at him, eyes dark green and chocolate-caramel and too bright, her cheeks still pink with embarrassment as Duncan brushed his own teeth, then reached for the bottle of Givenchy face cleanser he kept on one of the glass shelves to the side of the silver-framed mirror.

“Sorry I puked, baby.” Kenzie’s hand was at her cheek, as if to shield her face. He looked down at her, his heart full of so much terrible tenderness that it made him feel dizzy.

“Kenzie. Kenzie. I love you so much.”

“I’m scared to meet your mother tomorrow.” Kenzie bit her lip, tears threatening the corners of her eyes now. Duncan wanted to dip his face down to her and kiss them away. The thought of Annette being unkind to her filled him with hot, roiling anger. He had no idea himself of how the dinner at Plume would go tomorrow, and his thoughts flashed back to the texts his mother had sent him that day with the bluntness of a bad memory: I see what’s going on with your social media.You continue to deliberately disobey my wishes by flaunting your relationship publicly and it’s a heinous disappointment to me, Duncan. Your lack of respect for me in this matter is staggering. We’re going to have a long chat tomorrow about what is expected of you in your personal affairs going forward. The press conference is at 3 PM and you’re expected to be there. Do not bring her to it. Do not be late for dinner.

But Duncan knew one thing for absolute certain: I love this girl more than anyone I have ever loved, more than anything. And I’m going to make sure Mom understands that for real this time. I’m going to make sure she understands that Kenzie is a permanent part of my life now for as long as she’ll have me. He reached for the towel that hung on a hook beside the glass shelf, patting his face dry with it, then reached for the hand at her cheek, grasping it, pressing his large, long fingers through the empty spaces of her small slender ones.

“Kenzie. I swear. Everything is going to be fine. Let’s go to bed, okay, baby? Let me hold you.”

Kenzie nodded, sniffling (baby, don’t cry, your eyes are like stars drifting out in the universe, I love them so), and Duncan switched the bathroom light off, gently leading her to the bed, pulling her softly down to him and gathering her into his arms the way he’d longed to, her little face pressed between his ribs, her little hands under her chin.

Kenzie fell asleep almost immediately, her breath slowing to a small whisper in the darkness, but Duncan lay there awake for a long time, his hand falling down through her hair, around the curve of her ear, lost in her, thinking back on the past week, thinking back on everything that had happened, every moment that had led to now: seeing her on the balcony among the roses, his heart dumbstruck with immediate wonder and fierce, nearly painful longing (the resounding weight of the Fates settling down on me, I think; Madeline Stone’s daughter falling down from heaven into my arms, how could I be so blessed, how), kissing the stripes at her ankles, the fall of her hair that first night as they fucked, the quartz glittering at her throat, the look in her eyes in his shower the next morning, her revelation over breakfast, Samuel’s adamant words (let your heart be your guide), gazing at her over their dinner at Le Diplomate, the photos taken of them there that had ended up on the website later, his face pressed ardently into her cheek, the way she hovered over him in the bathtub, steam rising, roses all around her, bathed in golden shadows, Annette’s coldness and dismissal, the aching way Kenzie had folded into him, her face tear-stained, her cunt pressed into his mouth, filling him with her need, her body pressed against him, soft as flower petals, her dresses now hanging in his monotone closet, filling it with her essence and her color and her life, her plants on the sill in the kitchen, in their bathroom, beside the bed. He thought of the women in the line at the coffee shop, snapping pictures of them, Kenzie’s quivering but brave voice rising at them defiantly, her hand slipping a $5 bill into the barista’s tip jar, the dinner she’d cooked for him (the best food I’ve ever had because she made it for me, she made it) and the little wine-colored slip dress falling off her shoulder, the look in her eyes as he’d tied her to the bed (this bed, our bed) with his belt, needy and approving and excited and tinged with vulnerability, kindling his desire with a blunt force, the look in her eyes as she’d held the velvet ribbon sitting naked on his desk, the look in her eyes as she’d handed him the plug and told him to fuck her with it, the overwhelming sound of her voice keening into him and rushing him to orgasm as she rode him on the floor, the fall of her hair always drifting in his mind now, the shape and feel of her much smaller body pressed against him, into him, always in his mind, the lost look she’d had after all the paps were at her little apartment today, and the determined look she’d had when she came back out of the bathroom, and in that moment he knew she was going to be brave, he knew she was brave, and loved her so much in that moment he thought his heart would burst, thought of her in the red dress in his lap and his fingers at her clit, thought of her dancing tonight, her beautiful voice (she does have a beautiful voice, her voice singing out here in our home filling it with her gold and I love it so much, I love her voice so much) falling down 30 stories to drift into the night, the shadows on her skin and finally Duncan started to drift away into sleep, thinking of her voice, like a lullaby, his arms holding her close against him...so it’s hard to find someone with that kind of intensity, you touched my hand, I played it cool...and you reached out your hand for me...

------

In the morning it was raining again; June 1st, and summer storms to come with it. Kenzie still had a pale pallor and Duncan had made her a green smoothie with kale with his Vitamix, one she sipped with a measured disgust in the bed, clearly trying to will herself out of her hangover. “I’ll have to figure out how to make the one with chocolate and avocado that you love,” he said, remembering her rambling about Emissary on the sidewalk that day, and Kenzie smiled at him weakly, appreciatively. “Yes, please, baby. But this is okay.” Her face clearly said otherwise, and he leaned down to kiss her softly before pulling a black mock neck shirt over his head, loving the way her expressions always gave away her mood so immediately. I don’t think she could hide any feeling she has about anything from me no matter how hard she tried, he thought, his hand coming down through the tangle of her chestnut hair. And I love her for it. Her earnestness.

Kenzie had moved slow that morning; Duncan gently pushed some vitamins (a B vitamin complex and curcumin) carefully into her hand, which she’d used the last of the smoothie to wash down, and she’d shakily showered (Duncan having finished long before) and dressed (a tulip-sleeved maxi dress with tiny red flowers and a slit up the side, a dress he loved achingly, immediately; today she put on a tiny rose-gold moon necklace, the one he remembered from the summery photo of her he’d left arrow-pierced hearts on on her Instagram), brushing her hair out with a trembling hand in the bathroom mirror as he watched her from the bedroom, glancing up from his phone, trying to be subtle, worrying over her pale face. Duncan looked down at his phone again; Samuel had texted him that he and Harris were waiting in the BMW outside, and that there were a few paps milling around outside as well; that Duncan should tell them when they were heading downstairs so Harris could escort Kenzie to the car. Paps rarely bothered Duncan at the high-rise; the Shepherds simply had too much money, Bill and Annette inclined to leverage cash for privacy, but it seemed Kenzie’s appearance in his life had emboldened some of them beyond past arrangements. Going to have to make some calls about that, he thought, pulling a hand through the side of his hair. There can’t be paps around here, Kenzie needs to feel safe here.

“Are you sure you’re okay, baby?” He asked as she emerged from the bathroom, her expression serious, a little blush on her cheeks today to hide her hangover, reaching down for her black satchel which was leaning against the nightstand on her side of the bed. He came up to her, his hand falling down her hair to her shoulder, along the side of her waist. “Should you stay home from work today? Annette wants to see us at 6, and I have this press conference I have to go to a few hours before that, but maybe you should stay here and sleep.”

“Duncan, I can’t, my article’s going live on the website today and it’s already out with the print edition. Candice is expecting me to come in today.” He watched with tenderness as she pulled his big black Brooks Brothers cardigan on over her dress; all her clothes are here now but she still chose that cardigan, he thought, and wanted to kiss her, but held back. “And I know Ben is gonna bother me about your interview again--I need your email for him, by the way, or I’ll just give you his contact, I guess. I just need to go in for a few hours. I’ll be fine. But, speaking of my article…I meant to say something before…”

Duncan looked at her quietly. Oh no...what’s the article?

Kenzie pushed a shaky hand through her hair, fingers coming down to fiddle with her necklace. “I was at that party to spy.”

Duncan pressed a hand immediately to his chin. I should have realized that. Why would Kenzie be at that party if she works for the Post unless she was covert. If I hadn’t fallen immediately for her, I would have seen that right away. But I did. I did fall for her. I’ve fallen for her completely and now she lives with me and I love her. Fuck.

“I recorded bits of conversations and used them for my article. It’s about underhanded PAC donors for Republican Congressmen. Senator Howell specifically, but a few others.”

“Fuck,” Duncan closed his eyes. “Kenzie. Fuck.” He pressed two fingers into his eyelids, down the bridge of his nose, breathing out heavily. “My mother--my Uncle is trying to get President Underwood to pass a deregulation bill--this is going to interfere--”

Duncan stopped suddenly. This is going to interfere with our objectives, was what he had been about to say. But the layers of Annette Shepherd in that statement had sent a cold chill immediately down his spine. No. I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to scold Kenzie for this. This article was her job, and she’s a journalist, and this is her work, and it must have taken her a fuckload of guts to crash that party, and she didn’t know me yet--and things have changed. The objective for me has changed.

“Baby, when I got the assignment, I didn’t know you yet--” Kenzie had started, her eyes shining, her mouth turned down sadly, but Duncan shook his head harshly and brought his thumb to Kenzie’s lips to stop her words and leaned his head down with fervid immediacy and kissed her, open-mouthed, and he felt her trembling against him soothe and soften as he tasted her, words washing out of him like a tide drifting away from shore. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” he breathed into her between their mouths, pulling away and then coming back with his hands in her hair, pulling her into him by the wool of his cardigan she wore, breathless, “we’re going to get through this and everything will be okay because you’re here with me now and I’m yours and that’s all that matters and the objective changed, fuck, it changed, to hell with all of them.”

Kenzie nodded into him; she didn’t speak, just nodded into him, her face turned up to him, her feet tip-toed to reach him, and she nodded and fell against him, her hands holding his face, her lips whispering a secret language into him that only the two of them could understand.

--------

Kenzie had quickly walked out of the high-rise’s entrance to the BMW, ahead of Duncan before he could stop her. Harris was closely at her side, holding a black umbrella over her head though the rain was light, scanning the perimeter of the sidewalk in front of the high-rise, his large hand pressed carefully into Kenzie’s back. Several of the paps rushed toward her, snapping their cameras, Harris getting in the way to spoil their shots; they noticed Duncan come out behind her and rushed at him next. “Duncan, Duncan, are you two living together?” The man closest to him asked, shoving a round microphone near his cheek, a cameraman with a steadicam behind him with its lens pointed at Duncan. “Are you engaged? Have you spoken with Madeline Stone? What does Annette think of all of this?”

“She thinks you should mind you own fucking business,” Duncan said, curtly, following Kenzie and Harris quickly as the two men chased behind him, still holding out the microphone and camera. “You know you’re not supposed to show up around here, Gary, and if I fucking see you again we’re yanking all of the BPF press credentials from the Gala next week. You can pass that on to Gretchen and whoever else is in league with you from the outlets.” Gary, who had patchy gray hair and beard and a pudgy face and was wearing a leather jacket on top of a polo shirt, stopped when Duncan said this, his face shocked. “Fuck off and don’t come around here again, I’m warning you, this building is off-limits, as if don’t you fucking know that already.” Duncan turned away from him and slid into the backseat of the BMW, slamming the door. Kenzie had a stony expression on her face, but grasped Duncan’s hand tightly when he reached for her, staring down at her phone as if to distract herself. Samuel pulled the BMW away from the curb, soft strains of Ella drifting to the backseat (such conflicting questions ride around in my brain / should I order cyanide or order champagne), and Duncan closed his eyes, trying to let her voice in to calm him down, gripping Kenzie’s hand perhaps too hard; she shook her wrist a little and he softened his hold on her. His blood was boiling, his mind red-hot suddenly, and he felt as though he wanted to tell Samuel to reverse the car and let him out so he could punch the BPF reporter in the jaw. Gary Spencer was known for crossing boundaries regularly; another BPF reporter named Sissy Conners was also known for her propensity to cross police lines and find back entrances, and Duncan wondered absently if it had been her who had found Kenzie trying to leave One Franklin Square through the loading dock entrance a few days ago. As if she had read his mind, Kenzie lifted her phone up to his eyes; Claire had sent her another link, this one with two videos: the first of Kenzie looking startled in the camera and Samuel barking at the cameraman to step back; Sissy’s telltale brightly colored two-piece in the corner of the shot. The second was from yesterday at Kenzie’s apartment; mostly unintelligible shouting, with Kenzie’s head pointed down and Duncan looking angry and annoyed into a camera off to the side of the video.

“Fuck, I fucking hate them,” he breathed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “They’re fucking relentless. I’m sorry, Kenzie.”

“It’s not your fault. I know I need to get used to this.”

“I just wish it wasn’t like this. I hate seeing them rush at you like that. It pisses me off and I can’t fucking think straight.”

Kenzie was staring down at her phone again, though, her thumb sliding back and forth against his palm, and smiling. “What are you smiling about,” he said, tell me, fingers hooking around the edge of the cardigan, pulling her mouth against him again. The anger was dissolving out of him now, her proximity able to calm him with a supernatural ease; her gold, seeping into me, like soothing medicine, like wildflower honey.

“Just Instagram. The comments on these photos you took of me. People are flipping out, but it’s kind of...funny. Some are nice, too.” Duncan looked down at her phone; she had brought up the picture he took of her yesterday on the way home, her eyes closed, her expression sleepy, with the sunlight falling over her cheek. Sleepy angel. It had over 275,000 likes now. Duncan pulled her phone gently out of her hand; Kenzie let him, the smile still playing around the corners of her mouth (light pink lipstain, like a little candy). He scrolled down.

She really is an angel isn’t she followed by six heart-eye emojis. Yes, she fucking is, he thought.

She doesn’t deserve you dump her

They’re getting married I’m calling it!!!

Seriously this couple is the ultimate OTP, amennnnnn

LEGENDARY MADELINE STONE HAS A LEGENDARY DAUGHTER TURNING THAT RICH BOY ASS TO JELLY I LOVE QUEENS

I give this two weeks y’all

STILL WANT YOU TO BE WITH @marissamontague I WON’T GIVE UP

A long line of crying-face emojis

She’s a gold digger

SHE’S WEARING THE NECKLACE AGAIN ASKADFLASKGHSGKHSA

She is like a little peach, I am so in love with their love

Omg I bet she’s going to the Gala with him and I will not survive those photos

A long line of yellow heart and celestial sun emojis

Kenzie looked at the comments over his shoulder as he scrolled down. “Marissa Montague, like the actress? The one who does romcoms and Lifetime movies?” Kenzie looked at him with a puzzled expression. “There are people who want you to be with her?”

Duncan blushed involuntarily, glancing at her. “Yeah. Her fans are pretty strange. They come to red carpets and try to make me sign photos of her. She and I were running in similar circles for awhile…”

Kenzie squinted at him, and her lips fell in a closed line. “Oh, really.”

“We went on a few dates. She’s...deeply superficial. She usually talked about her endorsement deals.”

Kenzie narrowed her eyes even further, half-facetiously pulling her hand out of his. “Oh. A few.”

“Baby, don’t,” Duncan reached for her and pressed his lips into her neck. Kenzie sat stiffly for a moment, then leaned into his mouth, giggling. “That tickles, I’m gonna unleash these puppies on you.” She wiggled her fingers into his throat and he jumped back, laughing. He slipped her phone back into her lap, his hand resting on her thigh. “It didn’t fucking mean anything. It was years ago. I had a lot of meaningless relationships for a long time. Now it seems like it was in another life.”

“Oh, you’re so important, so many sordid love affairs--”

“Kenzie…” Duncan pressed into her again, hand falling up her hip, biting gently down on her right ear lobe, breathing into her neck. “I love you.” She pulled his face up into hers and Duncan’s nerves simmered into low fire; “I love you too, baby,” she whispered into him. “And you’re mine, aren’t you, baby--” “Yes, yes, Kenzie, fuck yes, I’m all yours--”

The memory of Duncan’s anger became a distant pinprick of light in his mind as Kenzie’s hands fell through his hair, his lifting up to cup her breasts through the fabric of the dress, pushing the cardigan from her shoulders so he could feel the bare skin of her arms; the rain fell against the windows and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, the blood rushing through his limbs, into his groin, as her tongue fell against his and the sweet smell of roses and vetiver filled his nose and his senses and it felt like the sun was out and warm on his skin, rain be damned.

------

The paps were out in full force again; Duncan turned to look over his shoulder as Samuel pulled up to One Franklin Square, out of Kenzie’s languid embrace (his lips had been on her neck again and she was threading her fingers through his hair), and saw them milling around towards the entrance. None of them seemed to have noticed the BMW yet, though.

“Samuel and I will be back to pick you up around 4:30 so we can go home and change for dinner, okay?” He turned back to Kenzie, whose eyes were bright, staring at him with pent desire from his kisses. Her hangover seemed to have dissipated in the car ride; maybe it was the green smoothie and the vitamins, maybe it was something else, he thought, pressing his lips against hers again, his hand falling down her golden-chestnut hair one more time. The partition floated down and Duncan willed it to go back up; not yet, he begged internally. Just a little bit longer, her hair and her body under my hands, I just want to look at her in this dress with its tiny red flowers, look at the gold moon around her throat, the curve of her collarbones, her smiling at me this way, her cheeks with that glow, her mouth swollen with my kisses. “I’ll email Ben Wilder today about the interview. And everything is gonna be fine, baby. I promise.”

“Okay.” Harris was already coming around the passenger side of Kenzie’s door, his sharp eyes scanning the doorway, counting the number of paps; he pulled the door open and said “Miss Mackenzie, time to go,” and Kenzie kissed Duncan with a small desperation again, and then she slipped away from him and he felt that ache, the one that always accompanied her leaving now, the feeling that a piece of him was ripped away and there was a hole, gaping, an open wound smarting in the air. He watched, eyes taking on that stormy shade (though he couldn’t see it himself), as Harris carefully pressed a hand into her back to shield her, and several paps noticed her coming toward the entrance now, rushing up to her. He couldn’t make out their words from the half-distance, now, but there were camera flashes and he watched a microphone come under her and she turned away from it, her golden hair bouncing behind her in the gray light (the rain had stopped a few minutes before and the ground was shiny with water, the sky still overcast), clutching the strap of her satchel closer against her, Harris coming between them, covering her with an expert precision, and he could vaguely hear more questions being shouted at her though he couldn’t make them out, and then she was inside and the paps were standing against the windows, cameras still clicking, peering after her, some of them turning around to snap photos of the BMW as Samuel hit the gas pedal and the car drifted away. Duncan continued to look back, his hand coming up to his chin, against his mouth. She’s so brave. My Kenzie. She’s so brave and so strong and she’s doing so well and I love her so much, I love how brave she is, how fearless, the proud look that comes into her eyes, the way she lifts her chin and pushes forward. Mom is going to pitch a fit to me about that article, but that was so brave of her, she could have gotten into so much hot water there if she got caught, my girlfriend is a stone cold badass and I’m not sure I’m good enough for her.

As if on cue, Duncan’s phone chimed out a text. Mom.

That article is in DIRECT opposition to our objectives. Did you know she was writing that?

No, Duncan replied, curtly. I did not know until this morning when she told me it was being published today. She got the assignment before we met.

Mom: We will talk about this when you get here. Nothing else.

“How are you these days, Mr. Shepherd?” Samuel’s voice floated back to him, soothing, soft, the music turned low.

“Wildly in love, thanks, Samuel,” Duncan smiled at him with a burst of genuine feeling. “But Kenzie’s meeting Annette tonight and I’m....concerned. About how she’ll be treated. And my temper. Which I’ve already lost once today.”

“Your love for each other will overcome any obstacle. If you will it, it will become reality. It will soften the heart of even Annette Shepherd when she sees it, who also loves you very much, of that I am certain.”

“Thank you, Samuel. Can we stop at English Rose Garden before we get to Shepherd Hall, please? I want to get something for Kenzie.”

“Certainly, Mr. Shepherd.”

--------

There was a bouquet of a dozen dark red roses wrapped carefully in black tissue paper beside Duncan in the backseat of the BMW when they pulled up to Shepherd Hall; the inner lining of the tissue had a layer of very thin plastic wrap and several wet cloths around the bottom of the stems to keep them from wilting. Duncan grasped them carefully where the stems gathered, stepping out of the car and passing them carefully to Samuel in the front seat, the better to keep an eye on them; Duncan imagined coming into Shepherd Hall with a bouquet of roses that wasn’t for his mother and the cold look of disbelief in her eyes. Shouldn’t press my luck today, things are going to be bad enough already. He nodded to Samuel gratefully and straightened, looking towards the entrance; there was plenty of press milling around it, but most of them were clearly associated press with clearly labeled passes around their necks, going in and out of Shepherd Hall, waiting for the press conference to start. Duncan wondered absently why his mother had demanded he be there at all, it was, after all, just a dedication for the new Dance Center; just to exert her will over me, I think, show her she can still make me do what she wants and to get back at me for posting photos of Kenzie. Get used to it, Mom. There’s lots more to come.

...So much for not pressing my luck, he scolded himself.

He adjusted the collar and cuffs of his mock neck shirt, discarding the light jacket he wore, opening the door to the backseat of the BMW again and tossing it onto the leather upholstery; the day was still overcast, but the rain was forecast to be over for now and the air was muggy, misty with hanging moisture and an early-summer breeze. Duncan appreciated the coolness of the breeze through his hair; his skin had started to prickle with an odd sense of foreboding, no doubt kindled by his apprehension at seeing his mother. I wish Kenzie were here now, he thought. I want everyone at this press conference to know who I’m with now, and I want them to know that nothing my mother or my uncle say or do will take her away from me. Duncan was aware Bill had a round of chemo scheduled for today; he didn’t leave the house much anymore regardless, and Duncan only tended to see him when he went there to report about an episode or the app or some other kind of feedback on the enterprises of Shepherd Unlimited. Good thing, too, because if my mother disapproves of Kenzie, Bill probably wants to hire a hitman to take her out by now. Duncan shivered at the thought; not a unlikely as one might hope. Bill almost never communicated with him directly; his uncle used Annette as a mediator between the two of them, having never particularly warmed to Duncan, it seemed, for one reason or another. It was also the reason, Duncan suspected, that Annette was going to push to have Bill sign his Will over to Duncan only when he was too sick, too far gone, to protest. The truth of that gave Duncan an nauseous feeling whenever he contemplated it, but Bill Shepherd was not a particularly nice man, and Duncan didn’t feel as bad about all of it as he might have with someone who hadn’t treated him like he was a nuisance for most of his life. His mother loved him; Bill Shepherd barely tolerated him.

Duncan stepped towards the glass doors of Shepherd Hall; several members of the press milling around that area turned towards him with recognition. Duncan pretended to stare down at his phone; he saw Gretchen Friedrichs approaching him out of the corner of his eye in a tulip-yellow sheath dress, a black-and-white striped blazer and very pointy black Louboutins, their red undersides stark in the gray daylight, her long platinum hair bouncing against her back, her smile too big and too white, a press pass swinging around her neck. Stay calm, Duncan demanded to himself. You already snapped on Gary Spencer, don’t let Gretchen get to you too.

“Duncannnnn,” she purred, and Duncan winced, his eyes narrowing just slightly, his eyes sliding over to her. “My, my, haven’t we been the busy boy.”

“Gretchen,” he said through clenched teeth, walking fast. “I think I recall telling you I wouldn’t be doing anymore interviews for Patriot Watch. Funny, I ran into Gary Spencer morning, as they say, outside of my residence, an area that’s off-limits to all of you, which I’m quite sure he was already aware of...you, of course, wouldn’t know anything about that, I’m sure.”

“What would Gary being doing at your building?” Gretchen said in an obnoxiously high octave, faux-appalled. “He really should know better, shouldn’t he?”

Duncan went up to the door, waving a little at the press members he recognized but ignoring their requests for comments; he went to move inside but Gretchen slipped in ahead of him, “Oh, thanks, Duncan, what a gentleman!” she murmured, flashing her teeth at him again; like a giant cat about to rip a warm animal apart, he thought. He tried to move past her in the carpeted, quiet interior of the foyer; he knew the press conference was in the 120-capacity room downstairs across from the newly minted Shepherd Memorial Theater, which would feature much of the Dance School’s performances, but Gretchen continued to trot beside him in her Louboutins, somehow able to keep pace with him despite his long stride.

“So that article from little Miss Stone in the Post this morning is really something, Duncan,” she said as she trotted along beside him, and he glared at her. Duncan, keep your fucking temper, don’t do it, don’t let her get to you. “Care to comment? Anything to say? Did you know she was going to write such an incendiary indictment of the financial spheres of political process?”

He was silent; she’d tried to bait him with that last bit, and he’d almost replied, but Duncan bit into the side of his cheek to stop himself. Duncan kept his long stride up and Gretchen was falling behind. She barked at him again.

“Isn’t it going to interfere with the Shepherd-funded Future Act?”

“Gretchen, I’m going to say this as kindly and as clearly as I possibly can: Fuck. Off. Right. Now.”

“Or what, Mr. Shepherd?” Gretchen stared at him, her eyes flashing. She stopped her trotting, and Duncan continued away from her, not turning.

“Or I’m going to get her to write something about you.”

“Is that a threat?”

Duncan said nothing and continued to walk away from her, his mind seething.

“See you at the Gala, Duncan.” Duncan glanced back to see Gretchen standing there with her arms crossed, a smirk plastered to her face. “You and that sweet little piece of ass.” Duncan clenched his teeth at that, balling his hand into a fist, grasping the handle of the side-door to the conference room, yanking it open, not looking back at her again. I’ve thrown Kenzie into a pit of vipers, haven’t I. These people will try to get at her any way they can. I have to do everything in my power to be the buffer between them. God, I need to calm the fuck down. Threatening Gretchen Friedrichs is just going to make it worse.

He looked up; he saw Erik sitting nonchalantly in a styling chair in the corner, languidly scrolling through his phone, but Annette was nowhere to be seen, at least, not yet.

“Hey, Erik,” he said, trying to keep his tone even. He pushed what had just transpired with Friedrichs to the back of his mind; time to put on a face for his mother.

“Well, well, well,” Erik glanced up at him without moving his shiny, bald head. He wore a long chiffon lavender-colored scarf around his neck today and had false eyelashes on. His nails were carefully manicured. “The man whose name is on everyone’s lips. Prince Duncan. You should see how pissed off you’ve managed to make your poor mother. Come, sit over here, let’s have a look at you. Photos, you know. Not that you ever need much work, Your skin is looking absolutely radiant. All that good sex, I’m sure.”

Duncan came over to the styling chair, blushing, Erik standing and pushing Duncan down into it, hands immediately coming up to Duncan’s hair; the older man sighed, smiling down at him. “This hair. Forgive me, dear, but having none of my own, I always get a special thrill when I get to touch it.”

“Touch away, Erik. On a scale of 1 to 10, how angry is Annette right now?”

“I’d say 12 is the low estimate.” Erik pushed the pump on a bottle of product that sat on the styling table nearby, a mirror built into the wall behind it, smoothing it between his very clean fingers and pressing it languidly through Duncan’s hair. “She could be at 15, you know how she is. It’s usually hiding until someone says the wrong thing. Which is usually Bill Shepherd’s department. You’re always her golden boy, but gracious me, baby, lately, you are stirring the pot, aren’t you? Instagram, gossip sites, snapping at paparazzi, endless photos. Young love. I’ll tell you right now, I’m in your corner. She’s undoubtedly a little flower. I can’t wait to come up with some confection for her tomorrow.”

“I love her, Erik.”

“Sure you do, pumpkin. Of course.”

Duncan looked down at his phone; a text from Kenzie.

I forgot to give you Ben’s contact before, so here it is. He won’t leave me alone, please email him, thank you for doing this, I love you. Some of those paps tried to get into the building a little while ago but security escorted them back out. Harris is hanging out upstairs with me and everyone loves him! I think Ben is going to steal him. Hope everything is going okay bb. Wanted to text you before the press conference. Can’t wait for today to be over. She’d added an exasperated-face emoji and a red heart at the end. The second text as was a contact bubble: Ben Wilder.

Haven’t seen Mom yet, Duncan replied, --but have been told she’s pretty upset. I will do anything I can to calm her down before tonight. I love you so much, baby. If she says anything unkind to you, please try to let it roll off you. She won’t mean it, because she doesn’t know you yet. I’ll email Ben right now.

Duncan opened his email and addressed it to: [email protected], from: [email protected]. Attn: Ben Wilder, Features Editor, Washington Post. Hey Ben. Mackenzie mentioned that you were interested in an interview. I’m happy to sit down with you sometime next week, provided she is there as well; she can decide whether or not she wants to participate, but I want her to sit in. Tuesday works best for me, but I could make some time on Wednesday afternoon as well. Let me know. Regards, Duncan Shepherd. He hit send and lowered his phone; the door swung to, and Annette Shepherd walked into the room, trailed closely by Seth Grayson.

She turned; her eyes fell on him with a measured, gradual acrimony, her slender, beautiful face falling downwards to a regal discomfort, her perfectly waved hair around her shoulders, framing her striking beauty; he had often thought his mother grew even more beautiful as she aged. As ever, Annette was immaculately dressed; for the press conference she was wearing a Diane von Furstenberg dark cobalt silk wrap dress, with a diamond pattern print across it falling to a earthward slant, and low Stuart Weitzman sand-colored suede pumps. As usual, she had no necklace; only the round diamond studs she wore so often, and a thin band of gold around one wrist.

“Duncan,” she breathed, and Seth retreated to a corner, staring at his phone as though whatever he saw there was wildly engrossing.

“Mom.”

“Do you realize how damaging that article could be?” Annette advanced on him, her fingers coming together in front of her in a fist; Duncan stayed in the styling chair, trying not to react. “The bill likely wouldn’t go through at this juncture, regardless, but now? Claire Underwood frankly refuses to sign it, and she’s going to push Gallagher through--Bill could not persuade her to see things as Frank did, confirming our worst fears.”

“Mom.”

“How can this be happening, I keep asking myself. How can my only son, my pride, my joy, be disobeying me and disregarding me so utterly? How can he be saddling himself to the daughter of a woman who would love nothing more than to see my enterprises and my work crumble into dust? How can he?”

“Mom.”

“Let me guess. You love her.”

Duncan said nothing. He stared at his mother; her eyes were cold, shining like twin candle flames in a dark room. He remembered times when she’d been angry with him as a child again; in that gaze he felt minute and impermanent, loveless and discarded. Or he had. Now, he knew that no matter his mother’s anger, she did love him; sometimes she hoarded that love, kept it from him, but he knew it was there. And Kenzie loves me. Even if Mom didn’t love me anymore; even if she cut me off without a penny, even if she pretended she didn’t anymore. Kenzie loves me. She does. And I love her. Loving her is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me; everything we’ve done, Mom, pales dreadfully in comparison.

Erik stood to the side, observing them with his hand pressed to his face, lips pursed. Now, he interjected.

“Annette, surely you must remember what it’s like to be young.”

“Erik, with all due respect, shut the hell up.” Annette glared at him, crossing her arms.

“Whatever I say clearly won’t make you happy,” Duncan said. “But I’m humbly asking that you treat her with respect over dinner tonight, Mom. It would mean a lot to me if you could be kind to her.”

Annette scoffed. “As kind as her article was to our interests, surely. As kind as her mother has been to me on public stages, of course.”

“Since you’ve always been so kind to Madeline, fucking Medusa.”

Annette’s mouth clamped shut at that; she seethed at him, suddenly reminding him of himself a moment ago with Gretchen in the hallway. I am my mother’s son, he thought. We’re both horribly stubborn and we both have bad tempers, and we both refuse to retreat.

“I spoke to her, you know,” she spat, pacing back and forth in front of Duncan, but still staring at him. “As arrogant as ever, as presumptive; as overconfident as I remember her, insisting I can’t “interject in your affairs”--” here, Annette lifted her hands and flexed her index and middle fingers, mimicking a quotation, pausing in her pacing.

“You can’t. Not when it comes to this.”

Annette stared at him; Duncan thought her face would melt, the anger in her eyes as so immediate and intense. She said nothing; her mouth hung open a little, clearly too flabbergasted to reply.

“It’s five after 3,” Seth said, quietly but firmly. “The press conference was supposed to start five minutes ago.”

Annette looked away from Duncan; to Erik for a moment, then into space, her thoughts unreadable. “Get up, Seth.” Grayson lept up. “Duncan. You must contain her. Come.” With this statement, Annette walked across the room and yanked the opposite door open; the door that led to the conference room. Duncan followed her out, his stride pointed, determined to keep his expression neutral and his resolve stony. First, we’ll get through this. Then, we’ll get through tonight.

------

Duncan glanced impatiently at his Movado as the press conference began to wind down; it was almost 4 and he had felt his phone vibrate in his pocket about fifteen minutes ago, in the middle of a long answer from his mother about the scholarships for the Dance School the Foundation was setting up. He began to feel convinced through some unseen sixth sense that the text was from Kenzie, and that it was something important. Annette had managed to hide her annoyance from the press for the duration; it was being taped, and my mother is nothing if not professional, Duncan thought, hand coming up to his jaw to rub there, but when she looked at him over the past hour it was with a dark gaze that made the back of his neck tingle with apprehension. What are you planning, Mom.

“I have a question for Duncan,” Duncan heard someone say; it was Gretchen Friedrichs. Oh no. “Do you plan to have your girlfriend, Mackenzie Stone, on the show soon? It’s ranked second as of now in cable news, and as a journalist for The Washington Post, I think she’d bring a...unique perspective.” Gretchen smiled with all her teeth. “The two of you have been a trending topic on Twitter and Instagram for three days--”

Annette balked visibly and she feigned looking at the clock hanging in the corner of the room, “It looks like we’re out of time for more questions, what a shame,” she said to Gretchen, cutting her off, her smile overwarm. She stood and walked to where Duncan sat, pushing on the long sleeve of his shirt. Get up, Duncan, her hand said. Duncan went to obey her, then for a moment, he couldn’t fathom what to do, his legs seemingly turned to lead; Gretchen was staring at him with that grin, and his mind went hazy with anger.

“Mackenzie is busy with her own projects right now,” he said, and felt the cold pinch of Annette’s fingers digging into the skin of his upper arm. “But eventually I hope for us to work together in a professional capacity, yes.”

The room erupted in voices, other press members shouting their questions out at him across the room (“What does her editorial from this morning indicate for the goals of Shepherd Unlimited?” Will we see a partnership between the Post and Shepherd Unlimited?” “Will she be attending the Gala with you?” “What do you think of her mother’s political statements in the past?”, ‘Annette, does this mean you and Madeline Stone have reconciled?”, “Will you have Madeline Stone on the show?” “Is the implication of leftist politics an indication of the future of Shepherd Unlimited?”); Duncan could feel Annette’s fingers dig in even further, painfully, and he stood, shaking his arm out of the pincer-like grip of his mother’s hand. She stalked after him through the side-door; Seth coming through after them (“no more questions, no more questions,” Duncan heard him say, breathlessly, to the room), half-running, leaning against it with a hard snap as if there were a pack of wolves after him.

“Have you lost your mind?” Annette’s hands came up and grasped at the collar of Duncan’s shirt; Duncan gently pulled her hands away and stepped back from her; she had sputtered out the words as if they were making her sick.

“Mom. I told you. You can’t stop this.”

“Oh, I can’t? What if I pull the plug on the show?”

“You heard Gretchen; it’s got one of the highest viewer ratings on cable news. We both know you won’t do that.”

“What has gotten into you? It’s like you’re possessed,” Annette stared at him, a wild light behind her eyes again; instead of anger, though, he now saw something else there; a kind of panic, a disorientated alarm, and one more thing...a dawning recognition. “What is wrong with you?”

“I have to go pick up Kenzie now. I’ll see you in a few hours for dinner, Mom.”

With that, Duncan turned and walked away from her, not waiting for a reply, through the opposite door, down the carpeted hallway and foyer of Shepherd Hall, skirting around the press members who had begun to file out of the conference room, ignoring their shouts to him; he quickened his pace to a jog, feeling as though he were suddenly suffocating, and pressed through the entrance, running out to the BMW, yanking the back door open, sliding in and slamming it behind him. Samuel glanced back at him in concern as Duncan pulled his phone out of his pocket, breathlessly, staring down at it; a missed call and a text from Kenzie. Her text was odd, like she’d typed it all out without really reading it or pausing.

a man managed to get upstairs past security somehow and harris was in the bathroom and he grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me into the hallway je was rambling abot Shepherd unlimited taking everything away from him so he was going to take something away from the Shepherds and i’m ok but haris did this thing to him where he hit him in the throat like it was ju jitsu or something i don’t know and the man fell on the ground unconscious the cops are her ad i had to give a statemtn but i’m okay but baby oh my god oh my god

“FUCK.” Duncan felt his anger and panic reach a crashing crescendo that fell over him in a suffocating wave; he suddenly, with a removed anguish that felt almost involuntary, punched the bulletproof, tinted glass of the window, the pain immediate and scattering along his knuckles like it had been smashed in a door, and Duncan winced, biting his lip hard, clutching his palm over the fist his hand was still stuck in. “Fuck! Fuck!”

“Mr. Shepherd, tell me where to go,” Samuel looked back at him with an alarmed expression; it was nearly impossible to break the glass of the BMW’s windows, and Duncan knew his chauffeur wasn’t worried about the car, rather the likelihood that Duncan had broken a bone in his hand. Duncan wasn’t prone to displays of physical anger; what he had just done wasn’t something Samuel had witnessed from the younger man since he was a willful teenager.

“One Franklin Square, Samuel, hurry, someone tried to hurt Kenzie,” Duncan said, and the desperation in his voice was enough to send sharp spears of icy cold fear down into his stomach. Samuel said nothing, only laid his foot flat on the gas, the BMW peeling away from the curb and accelerating rapidly, speeding towards downtown. Duncan felt wildly sick, suddenly, and he willed his stomach to settle, willed his nerves to even, feeling dizzying nausea behind his throat. Oh god, someone tried to hurt Kenzie, his hand clutched to his jaw, his eyes dazed. Oh god, someone--

“Mr. Shepherd, she is brave. I’m sure she is alright. Steel yourself to be brave for her too.”

Duncan sucked his breath in, harshly, heart slamming. “Yes. Okay. Hurry, Samuel, please, just hurry.”

He typed quickly, pressing send. Baby, I’m coming now, I’m so sorry, I was stuck in that stupid fucking press conference, I’m coming, we’ll be there in two minutes...

------

Two minutes and fifty seconds later the BMW screeched up to the curb and Duncan threw the door open, noticing there were still several paps milling around the entrance; he saw red again, felt the seething-hot urge to hit one of them. No, stop thinking about what you want, whatever you think you need. Kenzie needs you, stop being so fucking self-absorbed, he thought. Find her. That’s all that matters.

He ran past them; their shouts to him sounded like they were underwater, his ears blocked by the sound of his heart pounding, and he rushed through the doors, throwing himself at the receptionist’s desk; “Which floor is Mackenzie Stone on,” he asked breathlessly; the receptionist was a young girl with a dark, short bob haircut and navy eyeshadow; her eyes widened in recognition at him, her mouth popping open. “Duncan Shepherd,” she whispered. “Mackenzie. Stone. Which. Floor.” Duncan breathed out each word pointedly, his hand coming around the flat screen of her desktop computer and pressing his index finger at the directory searchbar. She blinked at him again, then said “10, all the resident journalists are on that floor--” and he launched himself away from the desk to where the elevators stretched a yard or so down the foyer. One of the doors slid open as he ran up; oh merciful Fates, thank you; he skirted past the surprised woman who exited, fingers slamming against the 10 button, and she peered around the corner of the elevator doors at him as they slid shut, clearly recognizing him. “Come on, come on, come on,” Duncan muttered as the elevator seemed to climb with excruciating slowness; no one else got in the elevator, though, thank you merciful and benevolent Fates thank you, and finally the doors slid open to the 10th floor.

Duncan’s eyes swung wildly back and forth and laid almost instantly against the back corner where Harris’ distinctly large form sat in an office chair, pulled up against a small desk, behind which the shivering figure of his Kenzie sat, her chestnut hair shaking in the gray day’s light; her hands were clutched around her arms and her face was tear-stained, her eyes closed, eliciting a terrible ache from the center of his body that threatened to burst his heart. He ran out of the elevator and past two women (one white, tall and thin with very long, straight hair, one black and very curvy, with a curly weave) who stared at him with shocked expressions in their eyes, down the short walkway of desks to Kenzie’s; her eyes lifted up to him and her lip trembled, tears falling immediately down her cheeks, sending daggers into his heart again; Kenzie (oh my Kenzie) stood, pushing her desk chair back and launching herself into his arms, an aching sob escaping from her lips as she pressed her face into his black shirt, and he could feel the wetness of her tears soak through to his bare skin. He pushed his face into her head, into her hair, and heard his voice whisper “Shhh, shhh baby, I’m here, I’m so sorry, I’m here now, are you okay, are you alright--” and his hand fell down, feeling her body, trying to find anything wrong, any sign of physical harm; no, she wasn’t hurt, her little body pressing into him, but she was sobbing with a terrible relief that threatened him with tears too, and Duncan bit his lip to stave his own away.

“Mr. Shepherd, I can’t say how sorry I am, I’ve failed you in my duties--” Harris looked up at them, his sepia eyes clouded.

“Harris, no, failed? No. You’re the reason Kenzie is safe. Please. Don’t. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough. Whatever we’re paying you, I’m doubling it. I’m tripling it.”

“Thank you, Harris,” Kenzie whispered, her voice still tinged with a sob and muffled against Duncan’s shirt, her arms twined around him tightly, her body shaking. “Thank you.” Harris stared at her for a moment, his expression one of anguish, of distress; then it softened, and affection seeped into his gaze, and he nodded, blinking, quiet.

“Baby, I’m so sorry, I was in that stupid conference and I couldn’t look at my phone, but I felt my phone vibrate and I had this terrible feeling, this feeling like it was you and something terrible happened, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t here--” Duncan’s mouth was pressed into the side of her hair, and he clutched her with desperate relief, speaking quietly down to her ear. Kenzie shook her head against him, the golden waves making him ache; Duncan buried his fingers in her hair, lifting her little face up to him, thumbs pressing the tears gently away, kissing her softly. “It’s not your fault, baby, I’m just so glad you’re here now, I’m so glad you’re here.” Kenzie pressed her face against him again. “They took the man away--I--I don’t know where they took him…” Duncan cradled her against him, the warm feeling of her little body filling him with terrible, overwhelming emotion; none of them said anything, and eventually Kenzie began to quiet, her sobs fading into hiccups, hiccups fading into deep breaths, and then even ones. The two women Duncan had passed looked back at them, whispering quietly to each other; Duncan tried to ignore them. Kenzie leaned back from him, wiping at her eyes with a little hand, sniffling again. “We need to go to dinner now,” she said, and Duncan tried to protest--”baby, are you okay, are you gonna be okay to do that--” and she cut him off. “I need to meet Annette. I’m not waiting anymore.”

Duncan looked at Harris for a moment; the larger man nodded slightly, his expression difficult to read, and yet Duncan felt he understood what the man was trying to say, anyway. Do what Kenzie says. She’s in charge. “Okay, Kenzie.” She pushed out of his arms and pressed the sleeves of the black cardigan against her eyes for a moment, dabbing away the residue of her tears, and shut her Macbook, which had been pushed at an odd angle to the side of her desk, sliding it into her satchel carefully. She straightened, reached for a tissue from a box beside a little rustic sun and moon statue on the desk; then, she turned to him, slung her bag over her shoulder, and said “Let’s go.” Harris stood, coming around her to her back, protectively; she threaded her fingers through Duncan’s, and pulled him toward the elevator; Duncan followed obediently, in awe of her. She is the most amazing person I have ever known.

--------

Kenzie had folded herself into Duncan in the backseat on the way back to the penthouse; her little body sighing against him in the crook under his arm, her spot, that place she was torn away from me once, back at the beginning of time, her face, red from crying, her cheeks hot against him, his hand trailing at the soft tulip sleeves over her shoulders, the warm skin of her arm and down to her elbow and back, through the strands of her hair, gentle, rhythmic. Neither of them spoke; Duncan couldn’t bring himself to ask her for more details of what had happened, loathe to bring her to tears again; somehow he knew she would tell him later, tell him everything, when they were alone and holding each other in the darkness of their bedroom, their bed, their secret place that belonged only to them. Duncan considered trying to persuade Kenzie that they should cancel dinner with his mother; but no, he knew, that can’t happen and it won’t, because we have to do this, we have to make my mother understand, Annette needs to understand that no one and nothing can tear us away from each other. Nothing and no one but death itself. It’s long past time she knows; really knows.

Duncan helped Kenzie out of the car and she was quiet now; her breathing slow and even, her eyes gazing at him with a clearer expression, some of her shock having faded; the day was still overcast and it seemed as though it might rain again, darker clouds coming in from the west. He followed her inside to the elevator; Jerry nodded to them, seeming to notice their solemn mood, and Anchaly looked up from his desk, his eyes crinkling at Kenzie’s tear-reddened cheeks. Duncan noticed he still had his copy of Tropic of Cancer, his finger pressed between the pages, near the end; “Human beings make a strange fauna and flora,” he murmured to the older man as they passed. Anchaly raised his eyebrows, and looked back to the book, clearly content in the mystery of the moment. Kenzie slipped inside the elevator and Duncan followed her carefully; she pressed into him as the doors shut, raising her lips up into his, and he held her, tenderly, his mind and heart aching at the thought that she could have been hurt today, something could have happened to her; “I’m so glad you’re okay, baby, Kenzie, I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you,” he whispered as the elevator climbed, and he glanced to the long mirror inside, where she was now staring at the shape of them pressed together, his lips against the side of her face, and he thought of The Kiss by Klimt again, thought of its gold paint and her gold, her endless gold, bright even in her sadness and her shock, bright in spite of anything that would try to dim her. Kenzie didn’t say anything, but again he felt he could somehow feel the drift of her thoughts: I love you, Duncan, and I will be brave because I love you so much, I love you and I will be brave in the face of my fear because love is stronger and it is more and it is the only thing, I know that now, I will make Annette understand, we’ll make her understand--

Once back in the penthouse, they went quietly to the bedroom, discarding their clothing from the day carelessly; for a moment, Kenzie pressed against him again as they stood in the walk-in closet, in only her bra and underwear, Duncan in only his briefs; she sighed, and he closed his eyes, overwhelmed with the feeling of their bare skin against each other; he longed to draw her mouth into his again, longed to press his fingers down into the sweetness of her clit and soothe her with ecstasy, but he knew that when they fucked again it would need to come from her, it would have to be at her bidding, and he resolved himself to be patient; “I hate that this has been so much to bear for you--” he spoke quietly down into her ear, and she shook it against his mouth, shook her head so her lips brushed against his ribs, making him shiver; “I’d do it a thousand times more to be with you,” she murmured, and he held back the tears he felt warming his senses; his mind ached, and he felt that any words were not enough for how he felt towards her in that moment; “I love you,” he said, quiet, into her ear, and he felt her lips smile into his skin. She pulled away from him, bringing the dress they’d picked out yesterday down from the hanger where they stood in the walk-in closet; he turned, pulling on one of his dozens of pairs of tailored slacks, one of line of a two-dozen black dress shirts that hung on his side (and her side over there, her side with its softness and color and her there); “Baby, zip me up,” he heard her little voice say, and he turned to her hair pulled over her shoulder, the bare nape of her neck facing him, and he pressed his mouth into her there and felt her shiver, his hands coming down around her waist to press at her hips, and he ached for the darkness of their bed, ached for the sweet embrace of night to come. He zipped her up carefully and she turned to him, smiling despite the residue of her tears still lingering, then she went into the bathroom and Duncan buttoned his shirt, watching her back, the little sequined black dress hugging her small frame, her little face in the mirror as she pressed a small compact against her cheeks to hide the redness as he pulled on one of his velvet cocktail blazers, the smell of her drifting around him like a song. Kenzie emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, dark eyeshadow on her eyelids, dark burgundy lipstick at her mouth, the Tiffany moon around her neck again; she lifted her hands to it as she stared at him, and she said “your love, to give me strength.” She had the little black clutch in her hand, the one she had the night they met on that rosy balcony a week ago (only a week, no, it’s been a year, it’s been years, ages, and it’s been no time at all) and pointed black pumps on her small feet; they lifted her about level to his shoulder, and he was struck again by how small she was, even in heels.

Duncan nodded, too overwhelmed again to speak, reaching out for her, gathering her up in his arms. She fingered his Movado, staring down at it. “Time to go, baby,” she said, lifting her face up to him, kissing him softly. Duncan leaned into her; he thought of how he’d run away from his mother this afternoon, defiant and angry, and toward Kenzie, who could have so easily been hurt today, and he turned his face the better to kiss her, relief flooding through him again. He felt her smile into him again; heard her laugh into him, her tears now faded and her skin cool and soft, and the relief rebounded and echoed into the lining of him. Fortune is still smiling. It has protected us all this way, maybe it can even convince my mother. Maybe even that.

-----

Back in the car Duncan handed her the roses he’d bought for her earlier that day; it seemed like it had been years ago when he’d cheerfully picked them out at the florist, dark, deep red and as fresh as if he’d picked them himself. They still looked as lovely as they had when he chose them, thanks to the cool, wet cloths the florists had wrapped around the stems and the top-of-the-line air conditioning in the BMW; thank the Fates, because I forgot about them entirely after Kenzie’s text message, he thought. A radiant smile fell over her face as she took them from him; “Oh, baby, they’re so beautiful,” she murmured, leaning her face up to kiss him again, and he felt relief flood through his body again like dopamine; to see her smile after the sound and feeling of her sobbing into him was like a drug kicking in after excruciating pain. Kenzie held them close in her lap during the ride to the Jefferson, her head leaning softly on his shoulder, her fingers trailing against the silky-soft petals of the flowers, her eyes falling over them again and again; Kenzie seemed to drift away from him for awhile during that car ride (Etta James floating through the speakers tonight; stormy weather, stormy weather...and I just can’t get my poor self together...oh, I’m weary all of the time), and he worried again over the impact her day had had on her; wished they could be alone, fast-forward to later, so she could tell him everything, so he would really know what had happened. As they pulled up to the latticed doorway of the Jefferson, though, Kenzie lifted her head and a studied cautiousness flooded into her eyes. Duncan gazed down at her, struck by it.

“Samuel, please look after my roses, won’t you?” (Harris had gone home for the day; he was officially off the clock until tomorrow morning).

“Miss Mackenzie, of course I will.”

“Thank you. You are so good to me.”

“Miss Mackenzie, please. Of course. You are beloved.”

Kenzie gazed through the partition at Samuel for a moment, and Duncan’s heart felt swollen with the weight of his adoration for her; swollen with the words Samuel had spoken to her. You are beloved. Yes. You are most beloved by me, and those who would keep you and protect you and devote ourselves to you, sweet Kenzie. And I long to be your most devoted.

Duncan helped her out of the car and she passed the roses back to Samuel through the window; a bolt of lightning flashed over them, closely followed by a peal of thunder; rain soon to come. They ran inside as the first drops began to fall, hands tightly clasped, and Duncan was struck by a wild desire to keep running with her; my Kenzie, my dearest one, until the rain drenched them and they could disappear into the night and become new, they could be anonymous again and retreat into a secret hidden place where no one could find them, no one could try to hurt her, no one could be cruel to her, where only beautiful and wonderful things surrounded her, only things devoted to her. The warmth of his thoughts rushed into him and just as quickly rushed away as they entered the foyer of the Jefferson Hotel and moved into the hushed cocoon of Plume, his mother’s favorite; in the past few years Duncan had been here with her over two-dozen times. Once Annette found something she liked, she rarely deviated from it. We are very alike in that way, he thought, squeezing Kenzie’s hand a little. She looked up at him, a nervous smile on her mouth, golden hair falling over her shoulder. The makeup she wore washed away the signs of strain and tiredness he’d seen there earlier, but he knew she still felt those emotions underneath. The dress fit her perfectly, but it almost made her look like someone else; like the version of her Annette would ideally prefer, and that made his heart twinge with discomfort. I know you, Kenzie, I see your gold, and your warmth is so much more than whatever my mother wants. He thought of her flowing black dress with the red flowers today, and wanted to kiss her neck; imagined flowers in her hair again, for the hundredth time, it seemed.

Annette always insisted on dining in the private wine room. It was partitioned from the rest of the dining area by a frosted glass door that hid anything within from prying eyes; usually Duncan felt it was excessive, but tonight, he wanted to keep Kenzie from any further molestation by strangers first and foremost, and was relieved to know they’d be shielded from anyone who might be dining that night. A server (middle-aged with thinning hair and a severe stare) led them carefully to the door, pulling it open for them; his eyes skirted over them with clear recognition, but he said nothing. Duncan turned towards the large wooden table in the center of the room as the server shut the door behind them; and met the cold eyes of Annette Shepherd, cradling her wine glass carefully (Pinot Noir, her preferred beast); they slid off him and zeroed in on Kenzie, like the barrel of a gun at a bullseye. She had changed out of the wrap dress she’d worn for the press conference, and was now in a black sheath dress, tattoo lace cutting away from the black bodice along the neck and arms, extending down to trumpet sleeves at her wrists.

“Mackenzie.”

Duncan’s eyes fell down on her, standing beside him; Kenzie held her clutch in both hands in front of her, against her abdomen; her eyes, gold and tawny green in the low light, staring back at Annette with simmering caution. One of her hands came up to press her fingers along the crescent moon at her throat; Annette’s eyes followed her hand there, and Duncan knew; knew that his mother knew that the necklace was from him. It seemed to kindle some sort of low fire in Annette; she smirked; the smirk he knew so well, far closer to the true incarnation of her mirth than any of her dazzlingly fake smiles on public stages and television. Annette’s real mirth came from a knowledge of her power; how tight her grip on control was. The tighter her grip, the more genuine her mirth.

“Come sit by me, dear.”

Kenzie stepped forward, and Duncan noticed the jut of her chin, the flutter of her eyelids; my brave Kenzie. Kenzie went to the seat on Annette’s left side, pulling the chair out and sitting neatly, keeping her back straight, setting her clutch beside the plate in front of her; she stared down nervously for a moment at the array of forks and spoons around it, then back at Annette, smiling a little; Duncan could see the way she was trying to be sweet, trying to maintain her composure, and it made his chest feel tight. Annette beckoned to Duncan with one perfectly manicured hand; “Duncan, sit over here.” She patted the table on her right side; the seat across from Kenzie, so they’d be facing each other. Duncan bit his lip and considered disobeying for a moment; considered sitting in the seat next to Kenzie. But then he decided against it; it would be better to look at Kenzie’s face, so I know how she’s feeling, he thought. So I know if a moment comes where we need to escape. He came around and sat, looking into Kenzie’s eyes as he did. It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay. I will make sure it is.

“I’ve been so anxious to meet you,” Kenzie said, softly, her eyes leaving Duncan’s and moving into his mother’s; her expression falling a little, one of her little hands coming up to the ends of her hair, seeing the coldness in Annette’s gaze, despite her smile. “I...I’ve wanted to tell you...what a wonderful son you’ve raised. He’s been…”

Kenzie trailed off then, and looked down at her hands. Duncan knew that in that moment she was fighting off tears. Oh my sweet Kenzie, he thought, imagining that he could push his warmth and his energy to her across the table; imagining it was gold and drifting, dust full of calmness and strength and all his love, falling into her, against her, under her skin. Be brave. I love you so.

“I love him.” Duncan could hear the tremor in her voice, but as she said it, it was as if the emotion he wanted to give her; the comfort, the wave of gold; had not only settled into her, but around the table; that it had enveloped the three of them in some sort of invisible cocoon, one that she had pushed out of her being, strengthened by his love and his energy, and made into something greater; something that did not diminish as it was shared, but expounded, resounding like an echo that grew rather than receded. It snatched the breath from his lungs; for a moment, it was as if the air was sucked out of the room. He looked at Kenzie for a moment with wonder--then his gaze fell on his mother, whose expression became unreadable, obtuse, conflicted; Annette said nothing for another long moment, then drank long at her wine glass; she set it down on the table, and brought the napkin on her lap up to her mouth, dabbing carefully. She set the napkin back on her lap and continued to stare at Kenzie; Duncan could see something in her gaze that seemed almost envious, a twinge of jealousy; a kind of longing for something long past and never to be reclaimed. Then it retreated; Annette broke the spell of her judgement, and looked down at her lap, a sigh escaping her lips.

“Mackenzie. My god. You look so much like your mother. When I knew her at school.”

The comment sent a current of shock floating through Duncan’s veins; he knew his mother too well to assume she meant it facetiously or with faux-sweetness. Both Annette and Madeline had been known for their powerful personalities and yes, their beauty, when they had been young. It was one thing to say Kenzie looked like Madeline; it was another to say she looked like the Madeline Annette had once known more intimately. It was true they had never been friends in the strictest sense of the word, but there was a time Annette and Madeline had shared study groups and classes; when they had appraised each other across parties, maybe even shared drunken conversations on late nights. There was a time Madeline and Annette could have been friends, as Madeline had implied herself; Annette had chosen not to accept that friendship, but it wasn’t as if there had never been an inkling of it. No, the truth was, the comment had been a genuine one from Annette; suddenly, the air in the room, coming off Annette like pheromones, had shifted from hostility to a kind of heavy resignation.

Annette turned to Duncan, and he noticed the change in her expression now, too. Her eyes, which had a moment ago been full of coiled inference, were soft with surrender. What had prompted it was unclear to him; but the coldness she had shown him today seemed to dissolve in this moment, and Duncan felt that there would likely never be another chance as fortuitous as this one, somehow, to convince her of the sincerity of his desires.

“Mom. This is my Kenzie. I love her...so very much. Please, give us your blessing. If you would, it would mean the world to me.”

Annette was silent again, for what felt like an eon, her hand coming up to fiddle with one of her diamond earrings, looking away from both of them, as though she had forgotten something important. The waiter opened the frosted glass door; Annette shook her head at him and he retreated, the door shutting with a snap. Kenzie’s eyes (so bright, so beautiful, so full of her essence, her loveliness, her kindness, her goodness) reached across to him as Annette remained this way, and her smile to him was like the flowers bursting into bloom at the true dawn of spring; he felt utterly overcome by her again (and again and again), and wished he could reach her to touch her, anxious to be closer to her.

“If this is really what you...want...Duncan.” Annette’s voice seemed puzzled; her stony composure, usually so resolute, had fractured somehow, abruptly; she seemed lost in the sincerity that drifted between them, seemed to shrink from it, then, with disbelief, Duncan noticed the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

“It is, Mom. It really is.”

She sniffed, drained her wine glass, and looked at Kenzie for another long moment. She did not smile, but she said, quietly, “Very well. I...understand. I see. And because you are my greatest joy, Duncan, I will permit you yours. You...have my blessing. Now. Pour me another glass of wine.”

20 notes · View notes

intothedanvers-e · 6 years

Text

Fundraiser

Word Count: 1.5k

Pairing: college!tom x reader

Summary: Tom would do anything to help you with whatever it is you needed, even working at a kissing booth. What he didn’t know was you didn’t particularly enjoy watching him get to kiss tons of people.

Author’s Note: this is the prompt “A kissing booth? Really?” from @gab-spidey ‘s 2k writing celebration!! i tried my best OKAY

Here’s my masterlist in case u want to check out my other writing!

You were walking across campus to your apartment carrying a bunch of signs and cardboard pieces. You were very obviously struggling and sweating. You heard footsteps running behind you and suddenly one of your best friends Tom was grabbing the boards from your arms.

“Thanks Tommy,” you said smiling at him.

“Why are you carrying these by yourself?” he said walking next to you now.

“Well when I said I’d be in charge of the fundraiser I guess people thought they meant I’d do it all alone,” you said shrugging your shoulders.

“You’re too nice to people Y/N, you have to put your foot down.”

“Okay that’s easy to say when you’re one of the school’s best athletes and everyone wants to listen to you.”

“Okay well practice on me. What are you raising money for?”

You turned to look at him and rolled his eyes.

“This is dumb.”

He stood in front of you and stopped you from walking.

“Hey I’m serious. If people won’t listen to you, you have to make them.”

You sighed. You but on your best fake smile and started your speech.

“Hi I’m with the Student Union and we’re raising money with our philanthropy- “

Tom starts to fake snore. You laugh and hit his arm.

“You asshole!”

“Hey I’m sorry but you have to find a way to peak someone’s interest and and keep it. You have to really sell it. C’mon try again.”

“Hey help us raise money for homeless families!”

“Okay you’re getting better,” he said laughing and continuing to walk next to you, “What are you doing to fundraise anyway?”

“I have no idea I was just gonna sit in my apartment and brainstorm and probably lay on the floor and cry. Wanna join?”

“Sounds good. We can postmates something so we don’t cry on an empty stomach,” he said smiling at you.

It was a few hours later and the two of you were sprawled out in the middle of your living room staring at the ceiling, takeout plates piled in the middle of you two.

“Okay what about an obstacle course?”

“It would cost too much money to rent the stuff plus the school has to approve our use of space on campus at least 2 months in advance and this needs to happen next week,” you said turning on your side.

“Okay well you’ve shot down all of my suggestions so do you have any other ideas? At this point I’ll steal the team jerseys so you can auction off or something.”

You sat up quickly and smiled at him.

“Okay I have an idea but I would need you to get your baseball team and the other teams on campus to agree to it.” “Yeah you know I can get my boys to help you,” he said turning on his side to face you.

“A kissing booth!”

“A kissing booth? Really?”

“A kissing both with the school’s most coveted athletes, where you’re technically paying to kiss them but you know in the back of your mind you’re helping out a good cause. C’mon our generation didn’t have shit like that!”

“You know what the guys will probably be down for that. Just exclude everyone with a girlfriend.”

“You’re the best!” you said grabbing your laptop.

“Are you going to want to include me?” he said smirking at you over the laptop screen.

“What do you mean?”

“Well you know with the huge crush you have on me. You might not be able to handle seeing all those girls kiss me.”

“Fuck off Tom, stop projecting the crush you have on me onto me,” you said smiling even though you didn’t look up at him.

“Whatever bye I have class tomorrow. Text me with the details. You’re coming to my game right?”

“Yes and you better win to get more people to want to kiss you guys at the booth the next day!”

“Oh so that’s what I have to do to win your heart! Well consider it a won game,” he said bending down to give you a quick peck on the top of your head.

You blushed and waved him goodbye as he left.

It was the day of the fundraiser. You had set up three different booths all next to each other, each one for a designated sport. It was an hour till it started and there was already a crowd forming around them especially because Tom did win the most recent baseball game. Tom and his guys all walked up to you.

“Thank you guys for agreeing to do this it means a lot!”

“Anything to help the cause!” You smiled and separated them all into their designated areas. Within minutes you began to let people in one by one. The line for the baseball team was probably the longest, considering their most recent success. You weren’t going to lie, every time a someone asked for Tom specifically you felt your heart start to beat faster. You did your best to hide your personal feelings all afternoon, until Tom’s most recent ex came up to the table.

“One for Tom,” she said handing you a 20-dollar bill.

You rolled your eyes and handed her her change.

“Oh you can keep the change sweetheart. It’s the least I could do because Tom is probably going to come crawling back to me after this kiss, literally.”

You rolled your eyes and turned to watch her toward the booth where Tom was standing with his team.

“Hey baby, miss me?”

Tom’s eyes connected with yours immediately. He knew the two of you never got along, and was surprised you even let her in. He winked at you and walked up to her. They kissed for a few seconds and he took a step back.

“What do you say we take this back to my place? I remember how much you liked my silk sheets.”

He laughed and wiped his lips with his fingers.

“I’m sorry am I supposed to know who you are?”

His teammates all made “ooooo” and dissing noises. You stood up and crossed your arms with a huge smile on your face. He shot you a thumbs up. She turned to look at you and made a nasty face.

“Oh I knew you were always jealous of me. Enjoying my sloppy seconds?”

“Oh sorry was I supposed to know who you are? Sorry ma’am we don’t let fans stay this long after one kiss, also after that kiss I think it might be time to get him a professional mouth cleaning.”

The entire line erupted in laughter. Her face went bright red, she turned on her heels and left. Tom walked over to you and gave you a high five.

“Nice one!”

“I still don’t know why you ever dated her.”

“Hey we all make mistakes! Don’t forget that guy you dated at the same time from that one fraternity. What was it, Alpha Dumbass?”

You laughed and started speaking without thinking about it.

“I only dated him because…” you turned to look at Tom who was staring at you with one eyebrow raised.

“Because?”

“Because he needed a date for all his dumb pledge stuff, I was doing that guy a favor!”

“Okay sure Y/N, whatever lets you sleep at night,” he said rubbing your arm before walking back to his booth.

It was a successful afternoon, with the help of the guys you raised just over $3000! You were finishing off the last few customers of the night. You gathered the money and the guys so you could thank them.

“I really appreciate the support guys. This was one of the best fundraisers the Student Council have ever had and its all thanks to you guys!”

The guys all erupted into cheers and applause. They all hugged you one by one before helping you pack up everything. While you were helping Tom take apart one of the booths, he bent over to pick something up that fell out of your pocket.

“What’s this?” he said holding up two dollars.

“Did it fall out of the box?”

“No I saw this come right out of your back pocket,” he said crossing his arms and smirking at you.

“Oh then it’s mine,” you said trying to take it out of his hands. He held them up and out of your reach. You didn’t realize how close you were to his body tell he put his hand on your back.

“Who were you going to pay for Y/N?”

You blushed and took a step back.

“No one, I just had it in case someone needed change.”

“I call bullshit.”

“Think what you want,” you said turning around to keep cleaning up. You were trying to hide the obvious blush that was creeping over your cheeks. Suddenly his hand was on your hip turning you around, and his lips were connected to yours. You could hear the guys all cheering and whistling. He smiled down at you and winked, shoving the two dollars back into your back pocket.

“That one’s on the house babe.”

#gabs2kwc #tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction #college!au #college!tom #tom holland fic #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland oneshot #tom holland au #tom holland imagine #masterlist

374 notes · View notes

goodproofingwater · 5 years

Text

Wildfire Records - Chapter Ten

Word count: 3379

Warnings: sexual content, drug abuse, angst, fluff, e v e r y t h i n g

It had been a month since the time in the kitchen, and each day has been filled with more tension than the last. She caught him looking at her on many an occasion, and she found herself biting her lip and smiling as he did so. She wondered if he knew what he was doing, if he knew how much she wished that she wasn’t involved with his friend so she could straddle him on the couch and kiss him as hard as she wanted to.

She could feel herself distancing herself from Andy, and while she knew that after being with the redhead she couldn’t be with Josh, she couldn’t pretend that she was happy to sleep with him like she had been. From the argument, she had been taking less and less drugs and realising just how bad Andy's issue was.

Josh couldn’t help but watch her as she moved around the house, the way she blew the hair from her eyes as she rushed around before work, the small smile she gave him before she left, the way she slumped on the couch when she got home, her lazy eyes wandering to Andy and rolling on the many occasions he was high.

“Wanna go on the roof?” She turned to face Josh lazily, “I’ll make us some tea and we can chill?”

The blonde nodded, feeling the shift between them and hoping that it meant what he thought it did. He knew that she had said she was happy, knew that she was still seeing the redhead, but he couldn’t help but hope. He had tried and failed so many times to get over her.

Andy watched as they walked up the spiral staircase, fingers pinching his nostrils as he inhaled the last of the powder, his brow furrowing. She had changed since that night, had gone from enjoying partying and sleeping with him to spending fewer and fewer nights by his side. And he didn’t appreciate Josh moving in on his girl. They certainly had never said they were exclusive but he wanted her for his own regardless.

Juliet and Victoria spent most of that weekend in the study, working to book the boys a tour across London and the surrounding areas. It was proving more and more difficult with each venue they booked as each one had different rules about the surrounding bars. Some said that a band couldn’t perform anyway around them for 2 weeks either side of the date, some said a month, but after some careful planning, the girls managed to book them an eight-date tour that included six London venues, one in Hertfordshire and one in Essex. Victoria was particularly excited for the Essex one as it was at a venue on the seafront, and she knew that the boys would love it. They often spoke about how much they missed the waves, and while she was sure Southend wouldn’t match up, she could at least offer them some kind of saltwater.

They stormed through the tour without a hitch, and the girls fast became merch girls as well as managers, selling CDs and the t-shirts that Andy had sent out to be printed for the tour. It was a shock to all of them that they were selling considering the tour was so short and they weren’t that big, but by the time they were at their last show at Camden Underworld ,there were only 5 shirts left.

“Honestly it baffles me that these people want a shirt with our faces on it..” Danny shook his head looking genuinely confused, “I mean.. I get mine but you guys..” He grinned at them as they all laughed, Juliet kissing his cheek and his fingers squeezing at her waist. The two had been almost inseparable since they had become official, and Juliet often told Victoria that this was the happiest she had ever been. They had kept their relationship so quiet over the previous two months than no one had even known they were official until the gig by the sea where Danny had let it slip, and they were all happy for them. Victoria had never seen such an example of soulmates in her life.

The girls remained at the merch table for the rest of the gig, listening to the boys rather than watching them as the crowds got bigger and bigger. The set was incredible as always, and Red had made its way onto the set list as a permanent fixture, something Victoria was particularly proud of as it saw Josh get more and more confident each time he sang it.

For half an hour after the band left the stage, the girls were selling CDs, the shirts completely selling out and Victoria wished she hadn’t taken one for herself to wear with the disappointment that washed over the fangirls faces.

Josh and Danny made their way over to the merch table when they had finished packing up their stuff, grinning from ear to ear and adrenaline so prominent in their veins that Danny grabbed Juliet and spun her around, Josh hugging Victoria tight and she swallowed thickly when they pulled away. His hands remained around her waist for a beat too long, their eyes dancing from each other’s eyes to lips until she broke the silence, “Red gets better each time you perform it yno..” she spoke, and a warm smile washed across his features before Danny’s cough forced them back from each other.

It was clear to both Danny and Juliet what was happening, but Danny was also aware that Victoria was technically still with Andy. As much as he tried to stay out of it, he also wanted to ensure as little drama as possible. Considering he had Andy as a friend that was no mean feat.

“Uh.. thanks..” Josh smiled again, clearing his throat, “Want a drink? Whiskey and coke right?” He barely gave her time to answer before he was walking off in the direction of the bar. She followed him with her eyes for a moment, and then looked at Danny and Juliet who were smirking at her with raised eyebrows.

“Oh shut up” she whispered, “where is Andy anyway?”

“Still in the green room I think, some chick said she wanted to talk to him about his bass,” Danny answered, and Victoria nodded, walking in the direction of the green room, which was effectively a storage space with a couch for the bands to sit on should they decide they want a break from the crowds. As a general rule, no one spent any time in there, but Andy was arrogant enough to use it if he had an opportunity to.

She showed her AAA stamp to the bouncer who looked like he couldn’t care less and walked past him into the corridor which held only the door to the stage and the green room. And her stomach fell when she heard moans. Andy was an asshole. He was arrogant and self-obsessed and they had never said they were exclusive but surely he wouldn’t…

Her fears were confirmed when she opened the door and saw him sitting on the couch with his pants below his knees, a girl riding him and running her fingers through red hair that she had been gripping only the previous evening. Sure she had these strange feelings for Josh, but she had never thought that Andy would do this to her. She had never thought that she meant so little to him that he would fuck some random girl at a show.

All of a sudden she felt like she was going to throw up, dizzy and like her legs couldn’t carry her all at once, and Andy glanced over the girl's shoulder to see Victoria standing there with an expression that said she was both devastated and furious.

He picked up the girl and threw her on the sofa, pulling up his pants and walking over to her.

“Babe.. don’t get mad..” Andy started, but tears had already started forming in her eyes. How dare he hurt her like this? She had changed so much for him, had taken so many drugs because he wanted to party and he couldn’t even tell her when he wanted to fuck someone else. “It’s not what it looks like..”

Victoria clenched her jaw and before she could stop herself, slapped him so hard across the face that his entire head turned with the force of the blow.

“Don’t you dare fucking stand there and say that to me, you whore.” She hissed, wishing more than anything that tears hadn’t started falling down her face. Emotion always overtook her in that way no matter what she was feeling.

“It’s not— she’s a radio DJ!” Andy gestured to the girl who was sitting there waiting for his return, not even looking a little bit sorry that the kind of girlfriend of the guy she had been fucking had just caught them.

“I don’t care if she’s fucking Debbie Harry, you piece of shit, we were supposed to… we were something!” She shouted in his face, and he moved to hold her but she couldn’t even bring herself to let him touch her. “Stay the fuck away from me..”

She turned on her heel and stormed out, wiping tears from her eyes and walking back to the merch table where the others were. She picked up her bag and didn’t even give an explanation to her friends before she ran out of the door and ordered a cab to get her home.

How was she supposed to carry on now? She lived in his house, worked with him on their record label. They had come too far to give up now but there was nothing more she wanted than to run away from all of this. Would he even let her stay in the house when she wasn’t fucking him? She hadn’t thought him someone to be like that before but she also hadn’t thought him someone to sleep with someone else.

When she got home, she went to the reception room and pulled a bottle of red wine from the wrack, pulling out a glass from the cupboard and pouring the wine almost up to the rim. She was fully crying now that there was no one to see her, and while she was glad of the fact she wished she had told them where she was going so that she didn’t have to explain what had happened. Andy sure as hell wasn't going to be man enough to tell them.

She was halfway through the largest glass of wine she had ever drunk when she heard the front door, and she wiped her tears, standing and pulling herself together as she readied herself to fight with the man she was supposed to be with when he didn’t even seem to think he had done anything wrong.

“I’m up here” she shouted, trying to push away the image his face in complete ecstasy as the girl rode him and frosting her feelings over in an attempt not to cry more “don't you fucking hide from me.”

And then she saw those beautiful blue eyes and felt like she could feel again, “it’s me V..”

Josh trod carefully up the stairs, knowing that Victoria was going to be volatile. He had seen her run off and had gone to see why when he had found the girl sitting on top of his friend, seeming like it hadn’t even broken Andy's stride to cheat on one of the best women he had ever met.

He watched her face change as she saw it wasn’t Andy, and while he was happy she wasn’t looking at him with that look of pure hatred, the sadness that took over from it was far worse.

“J…” she whispered, arms immediately wrapping around his neck and he held her close by the waist. She buried her face into his neck, inhaling the smell of aftershave and the smoke on his skin, and let herself cry.

“Babe…” he whispered, running a hand over her hair softly, “come on, he’s not worth all this..”

She sobbed into him and he gave her a squeeze before pulling back softly, “come on darlin’, let’s go upstairs.”

He pulled a glass from the cupboard and grabbed the half-empty wine bottle as she took her own glass, and walked up the spiral staircase to find her sitting on the couch on the terrace. He moved next to her and wrapped his arms around her as she cried it out, one hand running up and down her back as he poured himself some of the wine with the other.

“Do you know what happened?” She spoke, pulling back from him and wiping her eyes. The blonde nodded, his brow furrowing in a mixture of anger and confusion.

“He didn’t even come after me..” she shook her head and grabbed her glass, taking a generous gulp and sitting cross-legged facing Josh, wishing more than anything that they had kissed when they had been up here trying to French inhale together. It would have saved so much heartache, so much confusion. Andy had been pure unadulterated lust, and that was the exact reason it had ended this way.

Josh let out a sigh and shook his head, pulling a cigarette from the packet he had taken from his jean pocket and handing it to her, lighting it with his zippo.

“He’s an asshole, V” Josh shook his head and sparked up a cigarette himself, “he doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, he’s always been that way, especially with women.”

She took a long drag on the cigarette he had given her and then another sip of her wine before she placed the glass back on the table.

“I think I knew that, but it still hurts so much… I… we were never exclusive but to see him having sex with someone when I was at the show…” she shook her head and took another drag of the cigarette, “and his first words were, ‘babe, don’t be mad’” Josh couldn’t help but chuckle a little at her impression of Andy, the American accent flowing from her lips seeming so unnatural but so on point.

“He asked you not to be mad?” Josh took a drag of his own cigarette and shook his head, “unbelievable”

“Yeah, she’s a radio DJ apparently so it’s okay that he’s letting her fuck him in the green room,” she shook her head and picked up her glass once more, taking another drink and starting to feel it more and more. She finished her cigarette and moved closer to Josh, wrapping her arms around one of his and resting her head on his shoulder, tears still falling.

“It’s not that I loved him or anything, I didn’t even like him that much, it’s just the betrayal y’no? I didn’t expect him to disrespect me like that. It made me feel like I’ve been worth nothing this whole time” She sniffed, and Josh moved to push her face up by her chin with his index finger.

“Hey..” he ran his thumbs under her eyes as he cupped her face, “you’re worth everything. He’s an asshole for even looking at anyone but you” he gulped as he looked into her eyes, his thumbs running along her cheeks for a beat too long before he pulled his hands away and cleared his throat.

“Listen… My mom taught me that no matter what happens, no matter how much everything changes, the sun always rises every day. It has done your whole life, it rose even on your toughest day, and the day after and it did this morning. No matter what happens, the sun will always rise and time will always heal.” He took the last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out, “you might feel shit now but it will get better, I promise…”

She smiled and bit her lip, resting her forehead on his in her drunken stupor. His hand moved to rest on her jaw, rubbing her cheek again as he gazed at her, their lips so close that he trembled. God, she was so beautiful, she was so perfect and had been treated so badly and he wanted to make her feel better but he knew that this wasn’t the time. So instead of pressing his lips to her own as he so desperately wanted, he moved to kiss her forehead softly, pulling her into a hug.

“Thank you..” she whispered as she nuzzled her face into his neck once more, “you’re amazing J…”

The nickname fell from her lips and she wished more than anything that this situation was different, that they hadn’t ended up here with her heart and pride being crushed so that she could taste those gorgeous lips that danced so dangerously close to hers.

“Just want you to be happy...” he whispered, a hand moving around her waist and as he kissed the top of her head, she felt her heart flutter like it never had done.

Perhaps Andy sleeping with someone else had been a blessing in disguise.

Danny and Juliet had come home only an hour or so after Josh, and Juliet couldn’t help but smile as she saw her friend curled up on the terrace couch with the blonde. She had known without Victoria telling her that she had feelings for Josh, and although Andy was an asshole, whatever he had done, she was glad it had given them a push.

The morning was the most painful part for Victoria. She climbed out of bed and had a bath to prepare herself, pulling on a shirt and jeans and wandering up to the kitchen. She had thought she would be okay after Josh had made her feel so much better, but seeing Andy making breakfast as if nothing had happened made her chest hurt.

“Morning babe,” he spoke, and the smile on his face made her wish that she never had to see it again, “I made you breakfast.. pancakes and bacon California style.” He flashed a grin at her and she swallowed thickly, squaring her jaw and walking to the coffee machine. She waited patiently for the coffee to brew and flinched as he touched her arm and tried to pull her toward him.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” She hissed, picking up the mug of coffee and adding creamer before she sat on the couch, flicking on the TV and pretending that Andy didn’t exist.

“Oh babe come on..” he spoke from the kitchen, pulling out cutlery and taking the plate over to her, setting it on the coffee table. When she wouldn’t look at him, he moved around the table and knelt in front of her, hands moving to grip her thighs, “let me make it up to you..” he whispered, thumbs slipping between her legs and running along her denim covered panties.

“Andy I swear to God if you don’t move I’m going to throw this hot coffee all over you. Leave me alone.” She spoke, looking directly into this gorgeous brown eyes and wishing more than anything she hadn’t seen him fucking someone else. She didn’t want them to last longer, but the pain that would come each time she saw him now was something that could have been easily avoided.

“Vic come on..” he spoke, his face falling as if he’d just realised that she might actually be serious, “I was just trying to get us on the radio, you can’t be mad…”

He sat back on his ankles, his hands still on her knees and she let her eyes avert back to the screen.

“Come on babe it’s good for all of us..” she snapped then, a foot moving to press against his shoulder and kick him back and away from her.

“I said leave me alone, for fuck's sake at least give me that!” She almost shouted, and he looked genuinely shocked as she stood and threw the coffee into the sink, making her way downstairs and knocking on Danny’s door, smiling when her friend answered.

“Wanna go for coffee?”

#wildfire records #Lauren writes #bc i couldn't wait #and i love kryss

4 notes · View notes

that-wimpy-cowboy-doll · 6 years

Text

don’t you wanna save this dirty little damsel?

For the Steve Rogers 100th Birthday Celebration created by the lovely @mee2themoo :D

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis

Overall Rating: Explicit

Chapter: 1 of 3

Summary:

It started with a simple question in Tony's lab. And it ended up in a small town strip club, where nobody recognizes four Avengers in civilian clothes sitting in the back. Needless to say, even when he was in the ice, Steve has never had a more uncomfortable birthday.But amidst the smoke, the lights, and the skintight red, white, and blue, one Darcy Lewis is out to start some literal and figurative fireworks.

For the Steve Rogers 100th Birthday Celebration :)Title comes from Natalia Kills's "Problem." Prompts included: Fireworks, Baseball, Small Town, and Red, White, and Blue.

Find this fic on AO3 here :D

Chapter One: you know what they say about me

Captain America’s 100th birthday was a cause for excitement at the Avengers compound, especially because it was the first Fourth of July since the Avengers had been formed that there was no imminent threat to the American public, therefore they’d all be together to celebrate.

Steve, for his part, hadn’t wanted to do anything. Maybe crack a few Asgardian cold ones with Thor, Bucky, and Sam, put on that Independence Day movie he’d been meaning to watch, go to bed early so he could take his run in the morning before the day got too hot. He was a simple man, with simple wishes, so it was baffling to him as to why nobody wanted to go the simple route.

But then the lab conversation had happened, on a total whim, just days before and Steve had let more slip than he knew to intend.

“So, Cap,” Tony started out, flicking on the screens that he and Banner and Cho shared, his fingers sliding effortlessly across the holograms. “Heard you’re hitting the big 1-Oh-Oh soon. What’s the plan? Vegas? Yachts? Every strip club in the greater East Coast?” At that moment, Steve’s eyebrows probably knotted together, as they did when he was confused, and then that Tony’s smile lit up, joyful and mischievous at once. “Cap...c’mon. Tell me you had some big plans.”

“Strip club?” he repeated dumbly, filing a hand backward through his hair. He’d been growing out his beard, much to Tony’s discomfort and Thor’s enjoyment. The grin on Tony’s face widened.

“Holy shit. You’ve never gone to a strip club.” Steve was silent, chewing on his tongue to keep himself from saying anything that might get him into trouble. In hindsight, it was most likely the silence that got him the most trouble. “Christ, Rogers, you know what a strip club is?”

“Bail, Steve,” Bruce was mumbling, passing by him conveniently with a long metal utensil that looked disconcertingly like a barbecue fork. “Bail immediately.”

“FRIDAY, I need you to get Barnes down here ASAP.” Steve kept mum while Tony organized the interrogation, but Bruce was still shaking his head and looking deeply concerned. After a while, Bucky had made his way down from the training room, sweat clinging to his muscle tee and dripping from his skin. He must’ve been working with Romanoff. “Barnes,” said Tony briskly, making the ‘come-hither’ motion with his finger, which elicited a rather confused look from Bucky. “You ever been to a strip club?”

Bucky did the same as Steve had, repeated it in a dumb tone and kept looking confused. Steve would’ve thought it impossible for Tony’s smile to widen, but at the awkward silence that fell after the sixth utterance of those unholy words “strip club,” his lips nearly wrapped around his head.

“Bruce, you got plans for Fourth of July?”

“Tony, no - ”

“Don’t worry, buddy, the big guy’ll be fine. Pressure won’t be on you. We gotta get these dinosaurs to the titty bar.” As the final words left his mouth, it clicked.

He wasn’t exactly certain of how it came out, but he had a feeling that the next phrase to escape his lips sounded something like, “YouwantmeandBuckytogotoabrothelwithyou?”

Now, in spite of what Fury had wanted the public to think, Steve was not a damn saint. But he wouldn’t have come within a hundred feet of a brothel back in the 40s and he absolutely wouldn’t’ve done it now.

“Strip clubs aren’t brothels, Rogers,” Tony corrected, shaking his head with a satisfied smirk. “No, no, no. Just trust me, alright? This is gonna be the best 100th birthday celebration you’ve ever seen.”

That was how the mess had started. And that was why now, in a small town in upstate New York where few people would likely know the difference between Steve Rogers in his civvie clothes and your average juiced up military man, Steve was sitting in the back row of the alleged strip club, flanked by the two scientists and his best friend, only one of whom appeared happy to be there.

“See anything you like out here, Birthday Cap?” Tony shouted over the thumping music, and Steve winced as the strobe lights began to flare, darkness covering most of the large room.

“Yeah, the exit sign.”

Tony waved him off and clapped appreciatively at the slim blonde who’d taken the stage, flinging her sleek ponytail over her shoulder before she did things to the pole that would’ve gotten her arrested back in Steve’s day.

See, it wasn’t so much the act of doing stuff to the poles that skeeved him out. It wasn’t the flailing legs and the bouncing, or even the skin-tight bikinis and bodysuits that left barely anything to the imagination. Shockingly, it wasn’t even the men who wolf-whistled and howled and waved dollar bills at these women like they didn’t have wives and children at home.

No, it was that they’d now watched three separate young women take the stage, and he could see it in each of their eyes. First that flaming overconfidence, like they were acknowledging how tight and lithe their bodies looked, undulating up there for everyone, knowing that all eyes were on them. Then realizing that all eyes were on them and that moment of self-consciousness, as though they wished they were doing this in someone else’s body, so they could leave the reality of it, if just for a moment. And then that moment of resignation. Like they were coming clean with themselves that no, this was real, and then trying to think of anything else: the bills at home, the homework they had to finish later tonight, the laundry they’d left in the dryer and needed to fold as soon as they got back.

Maybe he was wrong, though. He was new to all this; who was he to judge?

“I think we need to get a Cap dance up in here,” Tony was announcing, trying to stand and bending at the waist like a rubbery doll from the sixth or seventh shot he’d just downed in the last hour and a half. Bruce grabbed his arm, progressively looking more and more concerned about the situation pretty much since they’d left the Avengers compound, and Tony dropped back into his seat.

Bucky, surprisingly, was starting to look amused with the whole situation - probably because of how uncomfortable it was making Steve.

“Never thought I’d say this, but I think Stark’s right. Lemme get a hold of one of the girls in charge here.” He slipped past Steve, like he’d done this a million times before, and proceeded down towards the counter to converse with a tall, sturdy brunette woman with hoop earrings Steve could’ve fit his arm through.

“Mm, how do I know...that he’s gonna pick a good one, though?” Tony slurred, pounding his fist on the armrest of the seat in lieu of a tabletop, which would have much better suited his particular brand of dramatics.

Because he’s my best friend and he knows exactly what I like, Steve thought dully. Bucky had pulled shit similar to this before, tucking dirty magazines into Steve’s backpack when they’d been in school (and cackling when he’d admitted that Sarah Rogers found them and took a wooden spoon to Steve, even though he was sixteen, and cursed in Gaelic as he yelped in pain), and he’d apparently took note of which models and which pages made the tips of Steve’s ears burn red hot.

He’d known Peggy, too. And in the short time that he’d had to see the two of them together, he must have noticed the way Steve looked at her with the reverence that he did, because Peggy was...was everything he could’ve dreamed of and more.

This was not the environment to do any of that deep soul-searching, woeful regret stuff, though. He was getting the feeling that, if he didn’t put on a somewhat joyful face for Tony, they’d be there all night.

“Tony, where’s Rhodes tonight?”

“Mrs. Barbara Rhodes caught wind of what the plan was and firmly put her foot down.” Stark rolled his eyes, tucking his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose to dim the strobes. “I, on the other hand, have often found that asking for permission truly is less successful than asking forgiveness.” Sam was caught up with an event at the veterans center in D.C., and Thor was getting his first Fourth experience with Jane at the observatory. Not that this would’ve been less awkward had they been around, but Steve might have felt a little reassured with more friendly faces and less eyebrow raising from Tony.

“Mr. Grant, I’ve brought you a present…” Bucky was grinning, led by the hand of a brunette woman. A brunette woman who blew every other woman here out of the water. It was only when noticing the way that the purple bodysuit clung perfectly to her plentiful chest and bloomed into a flowy bunch at her hips that Steve realized she was the only woman in the club not wearing red, white, or blue for the holiday.

“No fucking way,” she said as she locked eyes with him. But it was with an amused half laugh that she settled into his lap, stringing her arms over his shoulders to grasp the back of his chair. “Mr. Grant, my ass.” Since leaving for their trip off the Avengers compound grounds, Steve had gone by Joseph Grant, after his father. But as her twinkling eyes bored into his and as she smirked into her dance, he was certain that she knew.

“So what should I call you?” he asked stiffly. The whole strip club thing hadn’t been particularly enticing, but he’d be a damn liar if the way she was moving her hips against his right now wasn’t drawing a reaction from him.

“If you want me calling you Grant, you can call me Athena.” She twirled her arms over her head and spun round slowly, unfazed when Tony slipped a wad of singles into the leg opening of her bodysuit. The curve of her ass brushed against Steve’s jeans, then planted itself a little more insistently into his lap. “If I get to call you Steve, you can call me Darcy.” She tilted her head backwards, sending the long, dark waves of her hair cascading down against his chest, close enough that he could smell the lavender in her shampoo.

“Darcy.” She continued to dance, but as the song shifted from a slow, sultry lilt to an upbeat one that thumped the walls, so shifted her style. Instead of the gentle unraveling of her hips in a circle against his groin, she started to bounce, turning around to face him, sliding his legs open so she could squeeze herself between them, and Steve watched, trying to keep as straight a face as he could, while she pulled his hands around her waist and to her ass.

“You got it, chief. You fellas having a good evening so far?” If she knew who he was, she’d certainly know who the rest of them were, but that didn’t appear to worry any of the others. Tony was pretty drunk, still fixated on the edge between Darcy’s hip and leg, and had graduated from foisting ones on her to foisting twenties. Bucky was preoccupied with the dame on stage, a leggy blonde whose golden skin contrasted perfectly with the lacy white number she had on. Bruce, on the other hand, was furiously swiping at Candy Crush, his expression stone-still with all the madness going on around him.

When Darcy noticed Steve observing what was around him, she cradled his chin with her hand, pulling his gaze back around to her.

“Hey.” She pouted, and at that moment a dark curl spiraled into her face, bouncing with her and with the music, and Steve had to fight the urge to brush it away from her cheek, to feel the way her skin would rub against his fingertips. “Trying to hurt my feelings?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He caught her eyes then, and for a fraction of a second, he thought she was going to lean down and kiss him full on the mouth. But then the lights in the club flashed wildly, and the girl on stage was filling a pouch with the dollar bills that had collected at her feet. And Darcy was pushing away from his chair. Her hand ghosted over his thigh as she made her way down the aisle.

“Athena to the stage, Athena to the stage,” boomed the DJ over the loudspeaker, and there she was at the stairs, smiling - or grimacing - at the blonde as she passed, pressing her fingers to the pole. Steve didn’t know the song that Darcy had chosen to play while she danced, but it reverted to that slow and sultry kind. The way she danced up there, curling her legs around the pole and taking her time to spin around it, drummed a beat in his chest that must’ve been louder than the music.

Judging by the way that cash rained down on the stage and the way that the men in the crowd were howling, Steve wasn’t the only one who’d taken notice.

Something pricked behind his ears. Something hot and cold at once. It wasn’t jealousy. It was adrenaline.

Darcy was pacing down the stage, swinging her hips, around the same time that Steve noticed the gaggle of men pushing their buddy toward the front, a wad of dollar bills in his hand. He brushed it against her, ran it down her front, and tried to shove it down the deep V of her bodysuit. Darcy was trying to push his hand away, her lips twisting with disgust, and before Steve knew it, he was bounding down the aisle toward the stage.

Tony, sobered by the jolt of Steve’s body moving out of his chair, might have been shouting at him not to blow his cover, not to cause a scene, but whatever it was that left his mouth, Steve didn’t hear.

He had his hand on the back of the man’s collar just as his hearing miraculously returned, in time to hear Darcy scream over the music:

Dude, stop!

He caught himself. She was holding a small black box between herself and the sleazy punk, a small black box that had two little wires at the top and that buzzed menacingly in the space between them. The guy turned around, looking incredulously at Steve, then gave him a firm shove and marched off cursing.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” She was glaring at him, but her head was tilted to the side, so it didn’t seem so much that she was angry as confused. Well, she was angry, hence the little shock box being pointed at him now, but the look in her eyes considered him more than shut him out. Like she was actually trying to figure out what the fuck the matter with him was.

“I’m sorry.” He put his hands up in surrender, taking a few steps back. Darcy scooped up the small pile of dollar bills that had gathered on stage in the short time she’d been dancing up there, tucked them in the little purple money pouch that she’d presumably taken her shock box from, put the shock box into the pouch as well, and hopped off, clattering after him in her silvery high heels.

“I can take care of myself,” she hissed, and swatted him with the pouch, drawing the confusion of the patrons around them, and from the DJ, who was still playing her song and peering over the top of the booth to see what had happened.

“I can see that.” He dodged another swat with the pouch and took another cautious step back. “Look - stop swinging that thing at me - can I take you to dinner?” Finally, she stopped swinging at him, stopped advancing on him. Steve sighed, glancing out of the corner of his eye to where Bucky was sitting delightedly, watching in on the action, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s my birthday, and I want to do something I like.”

“Does this mean that I’m something you like?” Her expression had shifted, and the look in her eyes was no longer bordering hostile, but had started to dance toward mischievous.

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes, for Tony had started wolf-whistling at him, pumping his fist like a frat boy.

“If you’re game for celebrating my hundredth with me without giving me an ‘Over the Hill’ card or taking me to another one of these ridiculous places, I’ll consider it.”

#shieldshock #steve rogers 100th birthday #darcy lewis x steve rogers #steve rogers

20 notes · View notes

crazyclouds5281 · 3 years

Text

Unnamed Naruto fic part 1

“Alright everybody, listen up!” Umino Iruka called, cutting through the chatter of his students. “First things first, congratulations to all of you for passing the final exam!” The majority of the students cheered. Iruka gave them a moment to bask in their success, smiling gently, before he raised a hand to quiet them down. “Today, I’ll be announcing team assignments! Please listen carefully!”

Uchiha Sasuke scowled. He did not want to be here, and he most definitely did not want to be put on a team with any of these incompetents. He steepled his hands in front of his chin, fingers covering the intense frown the tugged on his lips. Those two fools Yamanaka and Haruno were quietly fighting over who would get to sit on his right side, since on his left was the window. Iruka might not have noticed them, but Sasuke had no choice but to listen to these idiots. Inuzuka’s mutt was yipping excitedly, Nara yawned loudly every five seconds, and Akimichi was crunching on chips at the speed of light, the plastic packaging crinkling between his sausage fingers. All of it served to put Sasuke in an even worse mood than he was usually in.

“Team Seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke,” Sasuke eyes flicked to the Chunin upon hearing his name, “Haruno Sakura,” cue the screeching and bickering, “And Uzumaki Naruto.” Suddenly, the classroom fell silent. “Your Jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi.” Yamanaka was the one to ask the question on everyone’s mind.

“Sensei, who’s Uzumaki Naruto?” she asked. Surprisingly, it was Inuzuka who answered.

“Wait, wasn’t he that annoying bastard who wore orange back in the first year of the Academy? What the hell happened to him?”

Iruka’s smile was a little strained. “Don’t worry about it,” he said simply, then continued what he was doing. “Team Eight will be…”

--------------------------

Two hours. That’s how long Sasuke waited in that room with that damned banshee Haruno, who kept endlessly asking him on dates and trying to talk to him. He completely ignored her, his furious gaze burning a hole into the chalkboard at the front of the room, yet she would not take the hint! If he remained silent for a solid 120 minutes, why did she think he would agree to go on a date with her after the two hour mark? This was supposed to be the smartest kunoichi in their class? Pathetic.

Sasuke was saved from his personal hell when the door opened, and a tall man walked in. He had spiky white hair, his hitai-ate covered his left eye, and a mask covered the rest of his face, save for his right eye. He had an orange book open in one hand, and was dressed in the usual uniform of a Konoha Jounin. The man only glanced up from his book once, eye flickering over him and Haruno at lightning speeds, so fast Sasuke wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen it.

“I’m your sensei, Hatake Kakashi,” the man droned. “Hmm… My first impression of you is… You’re boring. Meet me on the roof.” The man vanished in a blur, an instant before Haruno began yelling at him. Sasuke’s scowl deepened to the point where his facial muscles started to hurt, and he got up out of his seat.

“Sasuke-kun, I don’t think you’re boring,” Haruno said reassuringly, batting her eyelashes in a failed attempt to look pretty. The only reason Sasuke paid her any attention was because she was standing in his way.

“Move,” he commanded, then shoved past her before she could even comprehend his words. He had no patience for her. After these last few hours, spent in only her company, he doubted he ever would. He completely ignored her gasp as she rubbed at the shoulder he’d bumped into, a wide grin on her face. He had more important things to worry about.

--------------------------

There was a boy sitting on the bench when Sasuke and Haruno finally arrived at the roof. He was dressed in beige cargo pants and a gray t-shirt with Konoha’s leaf symbol. He had blond hair, and whisker-like marks on his cheeks. Sasuke scoffed; was this kid a civilian? He didn’t even have a shuriken pouch! Looks like he was in for a rough ride. Hopefully, he’d be promoted to Chunin soon, and be able to leave behind these worthless tools. He plopped himself down across from the blond.

“Um, are you Uzumaki Naruto?” Haruno asked hesitantly, sitting right next to Sasuke, much to chagrin. The boy stared at them with big blue eyes for a moment, before nodding. “Well, I’m Haruno Sakura! We’re gonna be on a team together, so I hope we can become friends!” she said brightly. Uzumaki just stared, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying. Thankfully, before the kunoichi could go on a rampage about him being rude, their Jounin sensei appeared, sitting right in the middle of his students.

“You two sure took your time,” Kakashi said to Sasuke and Haruno. It might’ve been a reprimand, but his bland tone made it sound like he didn’t even care. Sasuke bristled; this man had no right to talk, not after showing up two hours late. Of course, he wouldn’t say anything. Respect for his superiors had been drilled into Sasuke’s head by his father.

Haruno had no such inhibitions. “Us!?” she bellowed, standing up and raising a clenched fist. “You’re the one that’s two hours late!”

Kakashi just waved her off. “I guess the four of us are going to be a team, so we may as well introduce ourselves. Pinkie, you can go first.”

Haruno tilted her head. “What information should I include?” she asked, which was a dumb question. Information was valuable; you only parted with things that were inconsequential, and not even that, if you could help it.

“Oh, you know, your name, what you like, what you dislike, your dream. Simple stuff like that.” Haruno hesitated, and Sasuke wanted to rip his hair out. What part of this was so difficult!?

“Do you think you could go first, Sensei? I’d like an example.”

Kakashi heaved a put-upon sigh, and Sasuke could totally relate. “I suppose. I’m Hatake Kakashi. I like… Things that you aren’t old enough to understand yet. My dislikes… There are a few of those. My hobbies… You kids are still too young for that. My dream… Hm. Anyways, your turn, Pinkie.”

“That hardly told us anything at all!” Haruno screeched. When all three males silently stared at her for a solid five seconds, she deflated. “My name is Haruno Sakura! I like…” She glanced at Sasuke. “My hobbies are…” She glanced at Sasuke. “And my dream is…” This time, she stared at him for a few moments, stars in her eyes and a blush on her cheeks. Sasuke actually wanted to vomit, and had to force himself not to inch away from the pink-haired girl- there just wasn’t enough bench for him to scoot onto. “Oh! And I dislike Ino-pig!” she roared.

A judgmental silence fell upon the group, before Kakashi turned to Sasuke. “Well, I suppose it’s your turn.” Sasuke nodded.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke.” That was common knowledge, so it was safe to divulge. There wasn’t even a point in trying to keep it secret in this village. “I dislike a lot of things, and I don’t particularly like anything.” Lie. He liked tomatoes, and enjoyed spending time with his mother. “My hobby is training.” A safe answer, one which was common amongst shinobi, and wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the ordinary. It also had the advantage of being true. “My dream…” Sasuke trailed off. There was no point telling these people. His so-called teammates had no right to that knowledge.

Kakashi nodded, and turned to Uzumaki. “Your turn.”

“Uzumaki Naruto. My hobby is training. I like ramen, and I don’t really dislike anything. My dream is to become a skilled shinobi.”

Kakashi nodded. “Right, good talk. Tomorrow, I want you three to meet me on Training Ground Three… Around eight should be good. We’ll be doing a little survival exercise, but I plan on putting you through your paces, so if you don’t wanna throw up, you probably shouldn’t eat breakfast. See you tomorrow!” With a cheerful wave, the Jounin disappeared in a blur of motion, and the three newly-appointed Genin were left alone.

Actually, make that two. Uzumaki had vanished as well.

--------------------------

0800 sharp. Sasuke ambled onto Training Ground Three, which was pretty standard for a Konoha training ground. A clearing with some log posts, surrounded by a forest. Sasuke took a seat at the base of one of the posts, wondering if his sensei would be late today, as well. Perhaps he’d only done that yesterday as a sort of test, to see just how patient his new students could be. After all, infiltration and stealth missions often required laying in wait, sometimes for hours on end, not moving a muscle or even breathing too loudly. Or so Sasuke had been told. A leaf fluttered by on the gentle wind, and Sasuke snatched it out of the air. Might as well occupy himself somehow. He placed the leaf on the back of his hand, using his chakra to make it stick. This was the chakra control exercise he’d learned in the Academy.

For five minutes, Sasuke entertained himself by making the leaf flow across his skin in intricate patterns, until a call shattered his concentration.

“Sasuke-kun~!”

Great.

“Looks like it’s just the two of us, Sasuke-kun,” Haruno said in an attempt to be seductive. “Hey, after this survival exercise is over, do you wanna go on a date-?” And that was when he stopped listening.

--------------------------

Two hours. Again. Sasuke really hoped this wasn’t a habit. Kakashi wandered towards his two students with the speed of a snail, orange book in one hand, and a plastic bag in the other. When he finally came to a stop in front of him and Haruno, the man only glanced up for the barest of moments before returning to his reading.

“Where’s Naruto?” he asked.

“He’s right behind you, Sensei,” Haruno answered, pointing behind the Jounin. Single eye narrowed, the Jounin whirled around, and true to word, there was Uzumaki. He stared up at Kakashi blankly. The blond was wearing clothes similar to yesterday, only with different colors. His shirt was a forest green, and his shorts navy blue. Again, he didn’t have any equipment pouches, or even his hitai-ate.

Kakashi took a step back, looking at the boy warily. “O-kay then,” he muttered. “Well, now that we’re all here, I’ll explain what’s going to happen. Today, you three are going to be taking your Genin Exam!”

Thankfully, Shisui had warned him, and Sasuke knew this was coming, though his cousin had been rather tight-lipped on what he’d be doing for this secondary test. Uzumaki remained silent as ever, but there was no surprise on his face. Someone must’ve tipped him off as well. Obviously, Haruno hadn’t gotten the memo.

“What!? But, we already passed the Academy Exam!” she wailed, trembling at the thought of an exam she hadn’t studied for rigorously.

“Exactly,” Kakashi agreed genially, “The Academy Exam. That was only to prove you weren’t completely worthless. The Genin Exam is different; it’s to determine whether or not you’re ready for the real world. Fail, and you’ll be going back to the Academy for another year. If you fail your second Genin Exam after that, then you’ll be blacklisted, unable to ever become a shinobi within the bounds of Konohagakure. Get it?” Stunned, Haruno could only nod. “Wonderful! So, for your exam, you three will have to get one of these bells.” The man pulled a pair of silver bells from his pouch, jangling them lightly. “You’ll have until noon to do it.” He pulled out an alarm clock now, setting it on top of a rock behind the log posts. He placed his plastic bag down next to it.

“But, Sensei, there’s only two bells, and three of us!” Haruno cried.

“Well spotted, Sakura!” Kakashi complimented. “And the reason for that is simple; only two of you can pass!”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. This was another part Shisui hadn’t told him about. Sasuke had only ever seen Genin teams with three members, not counting their Jounin sensei. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d seen every single Genin team in Konoha, so he couldn’t say for certain whether Kakashi was lying or not. Actually, Sasuke kinda hoped he wasn’t; at least that way, he’d be sure to be rid of Haruno.

“Ah, maybe I should be a bit more clear,” Kakashi said, seemingly giving hope to the despairing Haruno. “You can only pass if you get a bell. Which means, if none of you get a bell, then none of you pass. If one of you gets a bell, then only they pass. It’s just that only a maximum of two of you can pass. Got it?”

“But, that’s not fair, Kakashi-sensei!” Haruno yelled. “We already graduated from the Academy! Why should we have to do another test!?” Kakashi blinked, as if astounded by her stupidity, before raising an eyebrow.

“It’s not fair?” he asked softly, his tone setting off alarm bells in Sasuke’s head. Haruno, completely oblivious to the rising danger, nodded emphatically.

“Right, it’s not!”

Kakashi closed his orange book, tucking it away. “So, is it fair when the Hokage orders a suicide mission?”

“What?”

He took a step forward, closing half the distance between him and Haruno. “Is it fair when the client gives bad intel, and you find yourself surrounded by A-rank nuke-nin when you were only supposed to take out some lowly bandits?”

“Uh-”

He took another step, looming over the diminutive girl, a menacing aura surrounding him. “Is it fair, when your teammate, the person you thought you could trust with your life, stabs you in the back and leaves you for dead?”

“N-no…” Haruno whispered, thoroughly cowed. The tension blanketing the clearing dispersed, and Kakashi was right back where he was a moment ago, book back in his hand as if nothing had happened.

“I wonder if I should just fail you three right now?” he asked nobody in particular, making Sasuke tense up. If he failed because Haruno was a naive idiot… “Unfortunately for me, I have to follow protocol, or I’ll get written up for sabotaging your careers. How troublesome.”

“Shikaku-san won’t appreciate you using his line,” Uzumaki muttered, the first words he’d ever spoken in Sasuke’s presence. His voice was incredibly soft, so much so that Sasuke nearly had to strain to hear it. Kakashi held up his free hand in half of the traditional pleading gesture.

“Aha, let’s just keep that between us, shall we?” he asked with a nervous chuckle. Uzumaki didn’t respond. “Anyways, I think I’ve wasted enough of your time. Remember, you have ‘till noon- no bell, no pass, and if you don’t come at me with the intent to kill, you will fail. Ready? Start!”

Sasuke rushed into the forest to find a hiding spot, not paying any attention to what his teammates did. They were on their own.

--------------------------

On the one hand, Kakashi just wanted this over with. He didn’t want to be saddled with some stupid, fresh out the Academy Genin. He was actually quite proud of how he’d managed to avoid being stuck as a Jounin sensei for so many years. The Nidaime’s Bell Test was ingenious, since most of these kids were too arrogant, too assured in their skills to even think about working together. The fact that they honestly thought they could take on a Jounin by themself was laughable, and Kakashi always felt a sort of dark glee when he sent those cocky little clowns back to the Academy.

On the other hand, the Sandaime had declared it was time for Naruto to be put on a Genin team with shinobi his age, and so here he was. Speaking of Naruto...

“Aren’t you going to hide?” he asked Naruto. The blond was still standing next to him. Rather than respond, Naruto just held up a red string, which was attached to…

“Eh?” Kakashi looked down at his waist, and found that only one bell was now tied to his hip. He glanced at the bell in Naruto’s hand, then back at his waist, then back at Naruto. “Eh!?”

“...I’m leaving,” Naruto said, turning around and walking off the training ground. Kakashi could only watch, stunned.

“Wait, my bell!”

#naruto #naruto fanfiction

0 notes

aahhlliiss-writes · 7 years

Text

Secret Kink

Oh GOD this took me so long, but I’m finally done with it! Seriously hope you guys like it, this was find to write.

This one goes out to ma girl, @trulymadlysydney.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any requests for future oneshots, you can ask me HERE.

WARNING: Contains smut.

3445 words.

You hadn’t meant for him to find out. This kink, this little secret of yours was something that you had held close to your heart for as long as you could remember. While it wasn’t particularly strange or weird, it embarrassed you. The mere thought of it had your cheeks flushing a deep pink and your hands growing a little clammy.

So, to have Harry hovering over you, straddling your hips firmly with his fingers flying over your torso, was way too much. It was your worst nightmare combined with your most private fantasy, and you were in complete shock. Giggles and little shrieks fell from your lips, Harry beaming down at you as he continued his relentless movements.

“C’mon baby, tell me! I told you mine…” he grinned, slowing his fingers so they were just trailing up and down your sensitive sides, goose bumps appearing wherever he touched.

Your laughter subsided slightly, the occasional little giggle still bubbling from your mouth whenever he found a particularly sensitive area. All he wanted to know was who your first kiss was, and it would be easy enough for you just to tell him, but you kind of didn’t want the tickling to end.

You didn’t know what it was about tickling that got you going so much. It wasn’t just the action, no, it was more than that. It was the idea of being so completely at Harry’s mercy, knowing that he had the ability to tease you right to your very limits, and even then he could keep going. It was the feeling of desperately wanting him to stop but at the same time loving it so much that if he were to stop you would protest.

Harry leaned over you, his face nuzzling in against your neck, his breath warm as it washed over your skin.

“It’s like you don’t want me to stop,” he murmured, and you could almost hear him smirking, his words hitting you like a tonne of bricks. Your breath hitched in your throat, palms growing clammy at his observation.

He shuffled back a little to meet your eyes, fingers still dancing over you lightly as he smiled down at you. His eyes had their familiar twinkle in them as he looked at you, but you noted there was something else there, something dark and almost carnal.

“Do you?” he asked boldly, eyes piercing your own. You could almost feel him reading your innermost desires, and your cheeks deepened their embarrassed flush as you looked back at him, unable to break his gaze.

“Baby, I asked you a question. I need an answer. Do you want me to stop tickling you?” he murmured, his voice coming out a little breathless as he anticipated your response.

Your hesitated a moment longer, your lip nibbling anxiously on your bottom lip before you shook your head, never breaking his gaze.

Harry let out a low, guttural moan, eyes darkening as they scanned over your face. His hands slid up your sides and under your armpits, pushing your arms up above your head and pinning your wrists there.

“Do you like this? Do you like being all helpless and wriggly?” he breathed, attaching his lips to the delicate skin of your neck, sucking and nibbling a little.

You hummed in response, a tiny, slightly strained moan pushing itself from your throat as your hips rutted up against his own.

“What do you like about it?” he pressed, continuing his sucks and nibbles.

You nibbled at your lip again, brow furrowing a little, your words trapped in your throat. Harry must’ve sensed your unease, because he sat up, one hand slipping into yours while the other moved to stroke back your hair, his gaze softening as he looked down at you fondly.

“Hey… I wanna know about this, sweetheart. I don’t think this is weird. I think it’s hot. I love it. And I love you,” he reassured, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips before leaning back again.

“How about we go and get all comfy in bed, and you tell me about it. Yeah? No judgement, I promise. I just wanna know so that I can make you feel good, yeah?”

You nodded, brow relaxing a little as a small smile crept onto your face.

“Sorry. For getting all… I dunno. Silly…”

“Don’t be sorry sweetheart. Never be sorry for something like this, okay? I love you,” he repeated, kissing your forehead before shuffling off you and helping you up.

“C’mon,” he grinned, heaving you up over his shoulder, his arm gripping your waist as you broke into surprised giggles, hands fisting at the back of his t-shirt. He carried you easily to your shared bedroom, chuckling as delighted giggles continued to stream out of your mouth.

Once he’d set you down, he flopped back on the bed, patting his chest as he grinned up at you.

“C’mere.”

You gladly obliged, collapsing on top of him in another bout of nervous giggles so that you were settled comfortably between his legs, your chest pressed against his as you propped yourself up on him to meet his eyes.

“Okay… Comfy?” he asked, a hand slipping into your hair.

You nuzzled into his touch, nodding and grinning as your eyes flickered lazily, enjoying his touch.

“Good. So, tell me about this little kink of yours,” he encouraged, his other hand moving to rub your back gently.

You took a little breath, reminding yourself that this was just Harry. He loved you, and he just wanted to know you better. With that in mind and his comforting touch soothing you, you began.

“Well… I guess… I dunno, cause it’s not like anyone’s done it before, y’know?” you started, eyes meeting Harry’s has he nodded encouragingly.

“I guess I always knew I liked to be dominated. I like when you take control, and I like feeling out of control… I like it when I don’t know what’s next. I like when… How do I explain…” you hummed, pausing a moment as you gathered your thoughts, Harry waiting patiently for you to continue.

“I guess what I mean is that I like the feeling of being able to give myself completely to you. Where I don’t have to make any decisions, or make any moves… I just do as I’m told and I can sort of… let go. Completely. And tickling is a part of that, I guess. It’s like… A way that you can push me, without it being painful, y’know? Like, I’m scared of pain and all that other stereotypical BDSM stuff. But with tickling… It seems so harmless. I mean, you couldn’t definitely use it to push someone to the edge, but… I dunno. I like feelimg embarrassed. I just… Yeah. I think that’s what… I mean… Yeah,” you finished, looking back up at Harry, cheeks flushing yet again with your sudden bout of honesty.

Harry shifted a little underneath you, and if you didn’t know any better you could’ve sworn you could feel the beginnings of his cock hardening against you, your hips pressed together.

“That’s… Damn,” he breathed, his tongue darting out and flicking momentarily over his lips, leaving them glistening.

“I want that. I want you like that. Baby… I really want that. Please?” he murmured, watching your expression closely.

You couldn’t nod quick enough, hands smoothing over his upper arms as your hips ground down slightly against his groin.

“I want that too. Can we… I mean, could we try now?” you barely whispered.

Harry groaned in response, leaning up and pressing his lips to yours. It was an urgent kiss, his tongue wasting no time slipping into your mouth, completely different from the reassuring peck Harry had given you earlier. You hummed into the kiss, hands roaming over his familiar frame as your hips continued to rut against one another, desperate for more of each other.

You finally broke apart, both breathless a little flushed, and Harry pulled you both up so that he was sitting with you on his lap, his hands resting comfortably on the curve of your arse.

“I want to tie your hands together with one of my ties, is that okay?” he asked, his voice a little gruff as he questioned you.

“Yes. Please.”

“Good. I want you to take all your clothes off, underwear included, and then lay back for me, okay?” he instructed, running his thumb tenderly over your bottom lip.

You nodded, and he audibly sighed as he looked at you. “God you’re perfect. Okay… Off you get.”

You shuffled off him, eagerly tugging off your clothes and getting yourself comfortable on the bed as Harry moved around the room. You watched him blissfully as he stripped down to his boxers, selecting a tie from his extensive collection and stepping back to you. He stood at the end of the bed, eyes scanning over every inch of you. A small groan pushed through his lips, his hand moving to rest on your calf and thumb moving absent-mindedly over your bare skin.

“Before I tie you up, I want to just set a safe word for you, okay? Do you know what that is?”

“Yes,” you nodded.

“It should be something you wouldn’t normally say in… well, in the bedroom,” he chuckled. “Ah, and it’s probably better if it’s one syllable so it’s nice and easy to say.”

You squinted for a moment in concentration, lip caught between your teeth.

“Grape!” you answered, grinning up at him.

“Grape it is,” he smiled back, shuffling onto the bed and settling himself between your legs. He carefully tied the tie around your wrists, pressing a delicate kiss to the back of your hand.

“Okay. Up above your head please baby.”

You moved them up, chest rising and falling quickly as your heart rate rose at the prospect of what was to come. You and Harry had of course tried things in the bedroom before, but nothing as intense as this. You could feel yourself dropping into an unknown state – you felt little, and helpless, and aroused, and nervous, and excited, and it was all quite a lot to process. There was no one else you’d rather do this with however, and that reassured you. This was Harry, your Harry. You loved him and he loved you.

Harry must’ve sensed how you felt, because he leaned down and pressed the most gentle kiss to your lips, pushing a hand into your hair.

“How do you feel?”

You thought for a second.

“Little.”

Harry smiled, nodding. “Is it a good feeling?”

You broke into a shy grin, nodding up at him.

“Oh baby… You’re so sweet… I’m glad you feel good,” he cooed softly, kissing your cheek. His fingers began to trail slowly up and down your sides, dancing over your skin.

“I want you to tell me where it’s the most tickly.”

“Like… where on my body?” you asked, your voice meek.

“Yes please sweetheart,” he nodded, his fingers continuing to move.

“I… I don’t… M’not sure,” you admitted, your nipples pebbling as his fingers brushed underneath your breasts.

“Okay… Okay, that’s okay. How about I just start tickling, and you tell me where it feels the most intense? Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, cheeks flushing a little. You felt like you were constantly a little embarrassed, and you loved it. It was clear Harry did too, because he couldn’t wipe the fond expression off his face.

His fingers started to travel over you, moving from your breasts down over your tummy, up your sides, and under your armpits. You broke into giggles, wriggling a little beneath him. When he reached your armpits you jolted, breath catching in your throat before a fresh wave of laughter washed over you. Harry’s face was lit up with delight as he watched your reaction, and it was clear he was loving this just as much as you.

The thought of this pleasing him only made the vague throbbing between your legs intensify, and you knew that one look at you would reveal how painfully obvious your arousal was.

“Is it here baby? Under your arms?”

“Y-yes! Yes!” you stuttered, whining and giggling as he continued to move his fingers over the sensitive skin.

“Are you wet?” he asked, his fingers never ceasing.

“Y-yes.”

“Is this tickling getting you all wet baby?”

“Y-yes!”

“Do you want me to make you feel good?”

You let out a low moan in between your giggles, hips pushing up a little at his words.

“I asked you a question, little one.”

“Y-yes. Please Haz. Please?” you asked, your voice plaintive and a little shaky as your eyes met his.

Harry’s fingers came to a halt as he shuffled off the bed, rummaging around in his bedside draw. Your chest heaved as you watched him with wide eyes, full of anticipation for what was to come next. He joined you back on the bed, something little wrapped up in his palm.

“Knees up,” he instructed, pressing a soft kiss to the side of your knee as you moved them up.

“Open up for me a little more please,” he asked, tapping your leg.

You widened your legs so that you were completely exposed, and you knew that Harry could now see the full extent of your arousal. He let out a huff of air, groaning softly and shifting as his eyes drank you in hungrily.

“Oh sweetheart… Look at you… All messy and desperate,” he whispered, a hand moving to rest firmly on your thigh. He placed whatever was in his hand down by his side, shuffling down so that his face was hovering right over your pussy. You could feel his hot breath washing over you, and let out a little whimper, hips pushing up, desperate for contact.

His lips pressed against the fleshy skin just above your clit, before working a trail of kisses around your clit and over your outer lips. You were panting now, chest rising and falling rapidly as you anticipated his tongue on you, and then suddenly, an intense shock of pleasure hit you. He had managed to retrieve the mystery item at his side without you noticing, too caught up in your desperation to see.

It was a small, powerful bullet vibrator, and it was being pressed firmly against your clit. Waves of pleasure rolled over you, and your could feel the beginnings of your orgasm building right in the pit of your stomach, your body jolting and hips moving in response.

“Good girl, good girl… Does that feel good?” he cooed, pressing kisses to your inner thigh.

All you could do was moan in response, goose bumps decorating your entire body.

“How about now?” he asked as he shuffled to sit up, his free hand beginning to tickle your side.

It was overwhelming to say the least, the excessive stimulation leaving you a breathless, giggly, moaning, flushed mess. It felt so good and you felt so far away from the real world, your brain almost dizzy with pleasure. You sort of lost track of time at this point, the steady vibration of the bullet on your clit never ceasing as Harry continued to tickle you, alternating between your underarms and your sides.

“N-need… G-gonna- Oh god!” you moaned, desperate for release.

“Cum baby, c’mon… Let go,” Harry murmured.

That was all you needed. Your orgasm washed over you, your moans catching in your throat as your entire body convulsed underneath him, your hips pushing up before dropping back down. Harry’s movements slowed for a moment as you caught your breath, but then he was right back at it, the vibrator circling your clit as his fingers began to work at your sides once more.

It wasn’t long before you were cumming again, the second orgasm just as incredible as the first, but faster and more intense. And just like the first time, Harry was unceasing with his movements. This was a first, and you didn’t know if you could handle it, but before you knew it, a third, mind-blowing orgasm was flooding over you, your voice hoarse with moans and giggles and shrieks as Harry’s fingers flew over your underarms.

Finally, everything stopped. You were exhausted, your eyes shut and body limp on the mattress. You could hear the vibrator clicking off, and then Harry’s hands were on yours, carefully untying the silky fabric from your rests. Your arms fell to your sides, a residual tremor running through your body. Your hand came to your face and you felt the tears that must’ve escaped during the intensity of it all, and you suddenly felt incredibly overwhelmed.

Harry was right there, lips pressing against your neck and hands rubbing slowly over your arms and sides. You felt his cock nudge against your sensitive pussy and you whimpered, breath catching in your throat as he pushed into you slowly.

“Shhh little one… I’ve got you… M’right here, I’ve got you…” he soothed, kissing along your jaw as his hips started to move slowly, pushing deep into you with each thrust. “Open those eyes for me baby,” he murmured, his voice a little breathless as he continued to push into you.

You pulled your eyes open, immediately finding his, your arms wrapping around his torso.

“That’s it. Good girl… God, you’re so beautiful,” he moaned.

He was so deep inside you, and with every thrust you could feel him nudging against your g-spot, rubbing against it with his swollen tip. His movements began to speed up a little, thrusts getting sloppier as he got closer and closer. His fingers found your clit and began to rub against it messily, and all you could do was moan weakly as fourth orgasm crept up on you.

“Cum with me sweetheart… C’mon… C-cum,” he moaned, and you did, the most intense, white-hot pleasure washing over you. His face nuzzled in against you as he came with you, his hot climax filling you up. His fingers slowed as you both came down from your highs, your chests rising and falling against each other.

He pulled out slowly and you whimpered at the loss of contact, thighs trembling as he collapsed next to you, nudging his face in against your neck and pressing gentle kisses to whatever skin he could find. An arm wrapped around your waist, and you felt so safe and secure, letting out little puffs of air as you felt his cum dribble out of you.

You both stayed like that for a while, and at this point you had completely lost all sense of time. You knew he was letting you settle, and you were so glad that he was giving you the time you needed.

Eventually, his soothing voice broke the comfortable silence. “Hey, sweetheart… Time to come back, yeah?” he coached, although there was no pressure in his tone.

Your eyes flickered open as your face turned towards him, and you managed a weak smile as you looked at him. Your eyes were glossy and your lips were swollen, and you knew you must look all fucked out. Harry smiled back at you, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of your lips before kissing you properly, a hand pushing gently into your tangled hair. You kissed back eagerly despite your exhaustion, breaking away with a soft giggle.

“Hey,” he grinned.

“Hey.”

“That was… wow,” he breathed, pecking your forehead.

“I know…” you giggled softly. “I came four times!”

“I know! I… Fuck, you’re… Baby, you’re incredible. We’re definitely doing this again.”

You chuckled, hiding your face in his neck as yet another blush crept onto your cheeks.

“I’m just gonna get a flannel, yeah?” he murmured after a moment, and you sighed as his weight left the bed, slumped back happily against the mattress.

He was back in a minute, and you hummed contentedly as he wiped over your thighs and pussy, whimpering a little when he brushed over your still-sensitive clit. He cleaned himself up as well, and then he was back, tugging the soft duvet up over you both.

“C’mere,” he smiled, arm open, inviting you to cuddle close. You shuffled in against his familiar figure, your head resting on his bare chest, listening to the familiar sound of his steady heartbeat.

“I love you,” you murmured.

His hand began to move slowly over your back, his lips nudging a kiss against the top of your head.

“I love you too. Thanks for doing this for me…” you murmured, snuggling even closer under the duvet.

“Oh, sweetheart… Any time,” he chuckled, cuddling you close.

439 notes · View notes

ginasneesby · 4 years

Text

September- Viv and Andy part 2

On my previous trip to New Zealand in 2008, I and my friends spent a crazy month driving around the whole country with multiple stops and lots of road time, this time round I wanted to spend less time in the car and more time doing things. Top of Viv and Andy’s list was Whale watching in Kaikoura which is on the South Island near Christchurch. With our base in Auckland we decided to fly down meaning maximum time doing stuff and no long days hauling ass down the country. Domestic travel is super easy in NZ so I booked us some last minute fights to Christchurch for the Monday and with no plans till the next day we were able to take our time and minimise travel stress.

We got in mid-afternoon and with google maps in hand tried to work out where our hostel was in relation to the airport, fairly typically I remember it being the opposite side of town, but decent buses and small bags meant it wasn’t too much of a hardship. We stayed at a youth hostel near the botanical gardens in a 3 person room, I guess meant for a family with one child, Viv and I hadn’t shared a room for a good few years so that was a bit weird; but it was comfy enough and we were going to be out most of the time anyway. After a quick freshen up, and a mini google, we headed back out to find somewhere to eat, Monday night in a big city, shouldn’t be too hard eh?

The town centre was absolutely dead. The shopping streets were clean and well-kept with big high street brands, wide streets with multiple pedestrian crossings and yet no people around except us. There didn’t appear to be any little bars dotted around, no bustling restaurants, the only place we found that had a few restaurants/bars in one location was dark and shut up. Perhaps this is different at the weekend, but it gave a slightly abandoned vibe, since the 2011 earthquake it seems lot of people left town for safety/work/the ability to drive on roads that hadn’t collapsed; and really you can’t blame them. We eventually found a small place that was one of those airstream caravans with a heated outdoor seating area that did burgers and pints of beer, by this point we were pretty hungry so it would have been good but honestly, I remember it being particularly good. On the way back to the hostel we passed a giant old school joystick controller mounted in the pavement which was linked with a large screen on the side of a building, with this you could play a giant game of space invaders. Again, we were the only people around in the streets so we played undisturbed for some time; although Andy was the only one good at it so after a while we gave up.

We were picked up Tuesday morning by a local man with a van who drove us all the way up to Kaikoura for the day, it’s about a 3 hour journey so a lot of driving for a day trip, but if you wanna see whales, Kaikoura is where you need to be. It was also really great to have a local drive us as we didn’t know much about the earthquake, save what had been on the news, so getting his insight and experience was sobering but important. On the way out the city, he pointed out some of the local sights that were no longer there, including the CTV building that completely collapsed leading to 115 of the 185 deaths in the disaster. The roads up the coast were also all twisted and broken having been fixed up slowly over the previous 7 years, at one point completely undriveable due to landslides and collapse. They took a long time to be fixed to the point of everyday use partly due to the extensive damage but also lack of money in region (Canterbury is quite a large area to share a budget).

Looking into the earthquake, the reason it was so devastating was three fold:

1) It measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, the epicentre was only 6 and half km from the city centre and it was shallow. This meant there was simultaneous vertical and horizontal ground movement, with eye witness accounts describing people being ‘tossed in the air’ as well as increased liquefaction causing more ground movement, undermining many building foundations.

2) There had been 2 large quakes in 2010, one measuring 7.1, which had already weakened some buildings and infrastructure in and around the city.

3) It was midday so the city centre were full

We made our way fairly slowly up the coast with a bit of chat and narration, over the last 7 years despite the money problems, a lot of work had been done to make these roads passable. Highways in New Zealand are pretty much all single lane and in most places it’s the only road, so with highway 1 out of commission there is no way north from Christchurch without going across to the west coast and back again (a 400km dogleg.) We were booked on a whale tour in the early afternoon and arrived with just enough time to have a loo stop and a quick drink before heading out; we had to watch a health and safety video first which was basically, boat go fast/sit down. The company then took us the last bit of the way to the harbour and onto the boats which were catamaran style and set up inside with swish bucket seats. The boat was pretty full with what seemed to be one large group of Chinese tourists so if we had any hope of getting 3 seats together and by the window we needed to be quick; I knew from experience that I get a bit sick so having somewhere to sit inside where you can still see the sea is useful. After another small health and safety talk (boat fast/sit) we were on our way; most of these tours have the ‘if we don’t see anything we’ll book you on another tour’ policy which isn’t always great coz people don’t tend to hang around Kaikoura for more than the day they’re booked, but it does mean the company would lose money so they really want to see something as much as we do.

Sick as a dog, I spent the whole time sitting outside on the back staring at the horizon coz I was told staring at a stationary line can help (it didn’t) but I made it through without spewing so I call that a win. We didn’t see much to begin with but these boats are set up with all sorts of underwater gadgets so they can try to identify where whales can be located. Kaikoura sits at the southern end of the Hikurangi trench which has depths of 3km very close to shore which has led to a large number of deep sea species ending up here; this food source is pretty irresistible to whales and so unlike a lot of places they can regularly be seen within a short distance of the coast. The boat sent out a pulse thing and the responding squeaks gave us a heading and eventually we came upon some sperm whales; the sickness subsided for a few minutes so I could watch and take some pics. To be honest, the whales were great, but even just being on the sea and looking back across the southern alps was amazing enough to justify the days travel, I’ve never heard my sister exclaim as much as our drive up once we got near the mountains. We returned to the harbour and were met by our driver who took us into Kaikoura for our included fish supper, having felt sick for the last few hours a giant pile of chips with decent ketchup was literally the best.

On our journey back we went at our own pace stopping for photos across Kaikoura, the southern alps and the pacific ocean; every one suitable for display like most of the south island. We also came across roughly a billion seals lying on spits of rock right next to the coastal road who were totally unfazed by our proximity and were, I swear, posing. The main bulk of the journey back we spent listening to our own things, I’m pretty sure I had the newest episode of ‘My dad wrote a porno’ which I was trying to get through without disturbing the driver or laugh so hard he asked what I was listening to. Having consulted my guests, we cannot remember what we did that night so it was clearly super important but having had a long day I’m sure we just flopped into bed.

Our flight back wasn’t until the evening so we had the whole day to play with in Christchurch; I wanted to go to the earthquake memorial which was a short walk through town. I had been the CHCH briefly in 2008 but only stayed for a half day due to time constraints so I don’t really remember what it looked like; I only really have a picture in my head of an old cathedral with a spire on a square. This, as it turns out, was the famous Christchurch cathedral who’s spire fell in 2011 and still wasn’t safe for visitors so they had built a ‘transitional cathedral’ while they fixed up the original. This was right next to the earthquake memorial so we were able to see both; the memorial ‘185 empty white chairs’ is a sombre little patch of grass on a junction with a bunch of chairs all painted white to represent the 185 people that lost their lives. The chairs are all different and range from wicker to kitchen to office to wheelchair, there’s even a baby carrier as sadly there were some children who died. There is discussion of how to make this memorial permanent as the chairs are just made of normal chair material and have required some upkeep and painting since 2012; I think it’s totally worthwhile as it’s a poignant reminder of the 5th worst disaster in NZ history.

After lunch we still had some time so we headed to the Canterbury museum in the botanical gardens, here there was a large exhibition on Antarctic exploration as a number of famous expeditions have taken off from CHCH. Now people tend to travel from Chile or Argentina as it’s a shorter journey by sea and they come to the Antarctic Peninsula which has a lot of wildlife, however, what’s-his-name Scott and thingy Shackleton didn’t know this in advance so left from NZ on a few trips. I don’t remember what else was in the museum but we did head to the café for a cuppa and large piece of cake before retracing our steps from a few days earlier and heading to the airport. I was really hoping for us to get back in time for my regular Wednesday night pub quiz at Zac’s bar; we just about made it only missing the first round. As we were 3 extra we had to form our own team so Canterbury UNT were not the same size as all the other teams put together; I don’t remember how we did but I’m sure we won. Right?

#newzealand #travelling #christchurch #earthquake #kaikoura #whale watching #wildllife #fish and chips #canterbury museum #pub quiz

0 notes

yuki7900archive · 7 years

Text

(Movie) Cole x Reader PT.2

I still can’t believe I wrote over 8700 words for an x reader fanfiction about a lego minifigure. This is what my life is now.

PART 1

You hadn't told anyone what you knew, not even Stephanie, but that hadn't stopped you thinking about it twenty-four seven. It just baffled you! Your crush was also one of the ninja in the secret ninja force. You couldn't believe it. It plagued your mind so much you were becoming distracted at school. It was only Monday lunchtime, yet you'd already been told off for daydreaming three times. You'd also walked into a few other students and even stood in the middle of the corridor for no reason, even after the bells had rung and signaled that you needed to get to class. You were just zoned out completely, and it hadn't gone unnoticed.

"(Y/N), honey, are you alright? You seem off." You blinked and looked up at the four girls staring at you with worried looks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." You smiled briefly at them all and took a bite out of your apple.

"Sweetie, is it what happened on Saturday? Ya' know, with Garmadon?" Oh yeah...he'd almost killed you hadn't he? You'd actually forgotten about the near-death experience. "It's okay that you're scared but like, you can't the fear control your life. Yeah?"

"Steph, honestly, I'm okay. I think I'm just tired."

"Well, the bags under your eyes have gotten a lot worse. You look awful."

"Aw geez, thanks."

"That wasn't a compliment." Oh my god, did she really not understand sarcasm? That was basic too! You sighed and closed your eyes, placing your apple down on the table momentarily as you rubbed your eyes. It's true you hadn't been getting sleep as of recently, and this shocking revelation certainly hadn't helped matters.

"Maybe you should go home, get some rest? I'm sure the teachers will understand." Somehow you doubted it, but you did feel yourself getting particularly sleepy last lesson. You had to prevent yourself from nodding off in perhaps one of the most boring lectures you'd ever had to sit through. Sleep sounded nice.

You only gave a simple hum as you finished off the remains of your apple and stood up ready to leave. You waved goodbye to the girls as they told you to get better soon, then heading off to your locker to collect your things and go home. The corridors were pretty quiet as a majority of students were in the cafeteria. You didn't think you'd ever heard such quiet in a school before, it was kind of relaxing but also felt uncomfortable and weird. You didn't think too much about it as you stopped at your locker and started getting everything together, also not noticing how you were the only person in the hallway. All except for one other person.

As you shut your locker door, it revealed the tall, muscular, raven-haired teen that you had been crushing on since your first day at this school. You flinched and gasped out of fright before settling down after seeing it was only Cole. However, they didn't prevent the blush steadily rising on your cheeks.

"We gotta talk." He leaned against the lockers beside your and looked down at you with seriousness plastered across his face. You couldn't say you weren't expecting this, but you thought he'd wait until the end of the day and then follow you home or something. Maybe he didn't have the patience, or maybe he was instructed to by his leader. Either way, you definitely needed to talk to one another.

"Yeah, okay." You sighed a little and shut your locker, waiting for him to lead the way. Instead, he handed you a bottle of water and a small pill. You glanced down at the items, then at him, then back down at the items again. What in the heck were these things for? You cautiously took them from his hands and examined them.

"What are these for?"

"To knock you out, we can't have you knowing the way to our secret base."

"You can't be serious-"

"It's either willingly take the pill or ill have to knock you out with chloroform and kidnap you. One way or another you'll be unconscious." You had always wondered what being knocked out with chloroform was like...but at the same time, the tablet was in your hand, and you were kind of thirsty anyway. Without another moment's hesitation, you popped the pill into your mouth and threw your head back as you chugged half the bottled water. You put the cap back on the bottle and handed it back to Cole.

"So how long does it take for the-" You never finished that sentence. Instead, your mind completely blanked as you fell into the teenager's arms and immediately went into a deep sleep.

---

When you awoke you were lying on a couch. You blinked a couple of times and groaned as you brought your hands up to your face and rubbed at your eyes. Propping yourself up on your elbows for a few seconds, you exhaled and allowed your vision to come back to you before you sat up straight and let your legs fall back onto the floor. Only then did you see the six familiar figures stood in front of you.

They all had their masks on, Cole included, despite you already knowing his identity. Each of them had a serious expression on their face, a few crossed their arms and other stood with their hands on their hips. It was almost as if they held you accountable for discovering the identity of one of their crew. It wasn't though! You didn't know how his mask had fallen off, but you were pretty sure one of the blades from the crab mech had snagged the fabric upon Cole's release and accidentally taken his mask. That's the only thing you could think of.

"Welcome to our headquarters (Y/N)," the green ninja spoke clearly to you, and the more he talked the more you recognized his voice. "My team and I need to discuss something with you."

"Look, you don't have to worry about me telling anybody, alright? I'm not stupid, you guys have a city to protect and an identity to keep. If I told people it would put Cole's life at stake. I'll keep it a secret, so don't even worry about it." It's silent for a few moments as everyone stands there, the five teammates looking at their leader and waiting for him to continue.

"How can we trust you?" He finally said. Suddenly that's when it clicked in your head.

"Wouldn't I have told people by now if I really wanted to expose you guys? It's been two days, Lloyd." Everyone froze in place.

"How did you-"

"I just realized I knew your voice somewhere. Let me guess, the rest of you are Kai, Zane, Jay and Nya, right?"

"...No?" Jay shrugged and you shook your head. That's when they all groaned and pulled their masks off, each revealing to you their real identities. They looked kind of mad that you'd managed to join the dots so easily.

"Great, now you know who we all are." Kai muttered and scratched his head.

"Yeah, but again, I have no interest in telling anybody. It's better for it to remain a secret." You stood up from your seat and placed your arms behind your back as you peered around the warehouse. All the mechs were in their own little corners, Nya's being on the roof, and the room had other little gadgets in it as well. There was an arcade machine and a jukebox, a games console hooked up to a tv also. It wasn't just a storage place for their weapons, it was almost like a chill-out zone too. You had to admit it was pretty cool.

"Welp, we've already missed the start of class so, might as well hang here until our next one." Lloyd clicked his tongue and walked over to the arcade game. Zane wheeled over to his mech and sat beside a wall, inserting himself into a charger (and making you suddenly realize he was a robot which, honestly, explained so much), Nya and Jay both sat where you were moments before and began setting up a video game to play whilst Kai just joined them on the couch.

That left only you and Cole.

You were sure he was gonna take you back to school or possibly even just drop you off at home if you asked nicely. However what he said next shocked you a little.

"Wanna listen to some of my mixes?" You felt the heat rise steadily in your cheeks as all you could do was nod and follow behind him. He went over to his mech, helping you to climb inside the cramped space and then going through his records. He was surrounded by shelves of this vinyl, one side was his own tracks whilst the other side contained records of a variety of artists. AC/DC, N-Pop Girl, Macklemore, The Kinks, he had a lot of different artists work. A really good mix.

You leaned against the back wall and watched the boy skim over his playlist as he tried to decide a piece to play for you. As he did that you couldn't help but admire his looks. You'd realized he'd put his hair up into a man bun, and you literally felt the butterflies roar in your stomach at the sight. He looked really cool with his hair up like that. You almost wanted to say 'uber-rad' but that felt a little odd to say in this day and age. Unless he still said stuff like that? He seemed like the kind of person who would.

Finally, he pulled out one from the shelf.

"Here's a good one." He said as he passed you a spare set of headphones to put on. You placed them over your ears and watched as the boy giddily pulled the record out of its sleeve and put it on the deck. You couldn't help but smile at the sight of his eyes lighting up and his grin widening in anticipation. He was like a little kid right now; full of excitement. It was so cute.

Suddenly the music blasted in your ears and you jolted in shock. You weren't expecting it to be quite so loud, especially the baseline. Your ears managed to adjust though and you found yourself enjoying the heavy rock music. You bobbed your head up and down in time to the beat and Cole did the same when he sat down on the floor beside you. You didn't say anything to one another, mostly because you couldn't hear anything other than the music anyway, but he knew you liked his music. At least you thought you'd made it clear through your actions. Eventually, the music stopped and Cole got up off the floor to go and change the record.

"That was really good, Cole." You told him with a beaming smile. He glanced at you as he put the previous piece of music back on the shelf.

"Thanks. I take it you like Rock?"

"Oh, psh-" You rolled your eyes and shrugged at him. "I like a bit of everything. You gotta appreciate all the genres there are, you know? Otherwise, all you do is listen to the same thing over and over and over again." The teen grinned at you when you said that to him.

"Yeah, exactly! All music should be listened to, cos' everything has something new to offer."

"Yeah!" There are a few moments of quiet as the pair of you stare at each other, blushing and looking down to the floor after those few seconds slipped by. You couldn't believe you were actually talking to him. You thought that you would never get the chance to talk to the earth ninja or Cole, now here you were talking to both. It was so cool! He was so cool.

"Do you wanna pick a record?"

---

The next hour or so flew by as you both sat and listened to the different bands and artists he had available in his vast collection. There was some classical, some pop, some techno, any genre you could think of, he had. Sometimes you'd even sing along if you knew the words.

"You have a nice voice." He told you once the music died down again, signaling that the song had concluded. You laughed nervously and hid your face as you blushed heavily.

"Ha-ha, thanks. I don't usually sing in front of people."

"You should." You felt your heart explode in your chest and you had to stop yourself from hurling up the butterflies in your stomach. With each comment, he made they only grew more ferocious, and it was starting to make you feel nauseous. "Ha-ha, you're blushing soooo bad."

Him pointing that out to you only made your cheeks turn a darker shade, which as a result made him laugh even harder. You playfully punched his arm with an embarrassed smile on your face.

"Whatever!" Was all you could think of for a response. You blamed Cole for this, of course. Him and his stupidly attractive face, making your brain go to mush. The nerve of him!

The raven-haired teen got up and put the previous record back into its sleeve before sliding it into its place on his shelf. He scanned over the vinyl again before pulling out a new record. You didn't get a chance to see the cover but it looked old and tattered. The moment he placed the disc on the plate, the music began to play and you hummed along to the tune. It was an old song, one you recalled your grandparents singing a lot when you were a child. You could recall the lyrics well enough so you decided to sing along again. And apparently so did Cole.

"I will always think of you." Cole sang the first line as he came and sat beside you, pressing his back up against the wall. You were quite surprised by this; he didn't seem the type who liked singing along with songs. "I see your face when each day's through. And days go past-"

"Oh so fast." You chimed in when the female part started up. The pair of you grinned at each other as you sang along to the music.

"But memories they last~" The song continued and you both rested your heads against the wall behind you, peering at each other in the corners of your eyes. This whole situation was crazy, the more you thought about it. You were sat in the secret ninja force's base, tucked on the inside of the black ninja's mech as you harmonized with your crush. That stuff just...didn't happen. Yet here you were now. What an unbelievable day this was. You quietly recalled how less than two hours ago you had been feeling so exhausted and ready to just go home and sleep the day away, yet now you felt so alive and more awake than ever. Maybe now that everything was cleared up you were at ease. Maybe now that you were friends with Cole you were at ease.

"Summer, Winter, year by year-"

"Year by year.

"I'll hear this song inside my ear."

"Trying to restart-"

"That'd be smart." Back and forth you and he went. Your voices were in perfect sync with one another and the music on the record. As the next verse came up Cole began to sing a little louder with all the more heart. He sang like there was no one watching him, completely forgetting about the other five ninja who weren't that far away from where you both were. They could hear you too, by the way, and they also enjoyed your melodic voice. So much so they'd stopped what they were doing and gathered around the bottom of Cole's mech so they could hear you and their close friend better. Zane even came off of his charging station to come and listen. Each of them smiled at one another.

"Spring and Autumn, up and down, I keep trying to escape this town."

"And I just might-"

"I'll take flight..." You looked up at the ceiling of the mech with half-lidded eyes, waiting a few seconds before singing the final line of the song together with the ninja sat beside you.

"Maybe tomorrow not tonight." The track ended and it was silent for quite a while. Cole didn't get up to remove the record and you carried on sitting on the floor. Instead, you looked at him and he looked at you. No words were exchanged for a little bit, but you swore you felt Cole's fingertips nudge against yours. In return, you slotted your fingers in between his and joined your hands together. He didn't pull away, much to your relief.

"So...my friends and I were gonna go to this sushi bar after school, do you wanna join us?" He seemed a lot more nervous than he usually sounded when speaking, his tone was rather hesitant, almost afraid that you would decline. Of course, you agreed to go though.

---

It had been three months since you'd become a part of Lloyd's group of friends, and two months since you and Cole had gone on your first date. Since both of you were too anxious to ask each other out, the ninja decided to shove you two together at every possible opportunity. And when that didn't work they, Kai rolled his eyes and groaned before saying "will you two just go get a drink together already?" After a small fit of uncomfortable and awkward chuckles from you both, the same day you went and spent the rest of the afternoon in Ninjago city.

You didn't do much, you went browsing in music stores and bought a few CDs before going to his house and getting a drink there. For a while, you just sat on the sofa and watched really bad reality TV shows, until his dad came home from rehearsal that is. The moment he saw you he instantly assumed you were Cole's girlfriend, not that you could really blame him. You were both squashed up next to each other, his arm draped behind you with his hand messing with little strands of your (H/C) locks. You also supposed it wasn't technically wrong. True, it was early days at that point and it had only been your first date, but was there even a technical term for that relationship status? Other than 'seeing each other'? You hadn't heard of one.

Lou accepted you with open arms and a number of times Cole had come home from doing a quick errand, only to hear the sounds of piano and your voice coming from the living room, was enough to make him wish his dad sent him to do more jobs. He loved walking in and your singing to be the first thing he heard.

And now, two months down the line, you'd only grown closer to one another as each day passed.

"Hey, guys!" You shouted from down the corridor as you ran up to him and Jay. They both stood outside their lockers, your boyfriend leaning back as Jay stood upright. They greeted you with a smile, the green-hued male pushing off of the lockers and uncrossing his arms as you approached them both. He walked a little of the way towards you and pulled you into a hug, his nose buried deep in your hair. He kissed your forehead gently before letting you go and taking your hand in his instead.

"Hey (Y/N)." Jay grinned his usual awkward grin at you. You beamed a smile back at him.

"Where's everyone else? I thought we were going to hang out at the sushi bar again before you guys had training."

"We are. The others are-" Jay was cut off by another voice from the other side of the hallway. One you knew too well.

"(Y/N), sweetie," Stephanie hollered at you. "I need to talk to you."

You grumbled under your breath as you rolled your eyes. You'd already told her everything she needed to know. You were hanging out with Lloyd's friends, Cole was your boyfriend, what more could she possibly want to talk about? You heard Cole chuckle as he let go of your hand and motioned for you to go over to your old friend. With one final kiss on his cheek, you wandered over to Stephanie and her lackeys.

"Let's walk and talk-"

"No, Stephanie. Look," You began. "I know we've been friends for years and, don't get me wrong, I still consider you a friend. But...I don't know. I feel like I just get on better with these people."

The redhead didn't process what you were saying at first, she looked genuinely confused. Maybe a little bit hurt?

"What do you mean?" You sighed and crossed your arms.

"You're popular and pretty, and all the guys in this school like you. All of you are," you addressed the other three girls in the group and they all nodded as they paid attention to you. "But I'm not that. I'm not liked at all and I'm a huge dorky loser, kinda like those guys."

You turned behind you only to see that everyone had arrived without you noticing. Even Nya! And that motorbike was so loud you honestly didn't know how you didn't hear it coming. They all waved at you and gave encouraging smiles when they saw you looking at them all. Cole smirked at you and winked, typically. You blushed at his actions before turning yourself back around again to face Stephanie.

"They just get me in ways that you guys don't. And Cole? I honestly don't think I've ever met someone I've had a deeper connection with than him. He's just so wonderful and kind and...a great boyfriend for me. I don't think I'll ever meet anyone like him again." Your friend twiddled her thumbs a bit after you'd finished speaking as she thought quietly to herself. You recognized that look well, knowing it meant she was having some kind of internal struggle. After some time she sighed heavily and glanced down at the ground, shutting her eyes tightly. She refused to look up at you.

"Damn, girl." She laughed a little, but you heard her voice waver. "I guess things have changed a lot for us, huh?"

"Yeah. They kind of have." You laughed back too, suddenly feeling your stomach sink down.

Without any warning, Stephanie engulfed you in the biggest hug she'd ever given you and buried her head in your shoulder. You could tell she was struggling not to burst into tears over this. You had been besties for years and years, but now things were different. Things just weren't what they were in the past. The good old days before this whole 'high school social groups' thing came into play. You'd always been a nerd and she'd always...well, not been. But that had never gotten in the way of anything. It had never mattered. But now it did.

"Promise me we'll still text? And meet up for coffee and stuff?" You wrapped your arms around her and squeezed her comfortingly.

"Of course we will."

Seemingly satisfied with your answer, she pulled away with tears forming in her eyes. She wiped them away before they could smudge her make-up and gave you final smile.

"See you around (Y/N)."

"Yeah." You smiled back. "See ya' Stephanie." And with that final sentence spoken, you both walked away from each other. She went down the corridor whilst you returned to your friends. You felt a little emotional and had to bring Cole in for a bear hug in order to make yourself feel better.

"Woah! You okay?" His hands raked through your hair as you snuggled your head up against him.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"Mhm, you don't sound okay." He tried to pull himself out of the hug so he could get a better look at your face but you refused to let go. He didn't really want to force you off of him either (which he could easily do) so he let you cling to him for a little and just continued to comfort you. He even gave you a piggyback ride out of school, only for a little bit though. You had to walk the rest of the way.

The time at the sushi bar flew by and before you knew it, everyone had to go to training. You made your way to Cole's house and decided to wait for him there, making yourself a sandwich with some of the ingredients in the fridge. Luckily he had all the stuff to make your favourite sandwich, so you immediately started making it and wolfed it down the second you'd finished. At around the same time, Lou came home from rehearsals. He greeted you and next thing you knew you were both sat at the piano again. Once again he played the keys accordingly as you simply sang along. He'd give you words of encouragement in between each song, telling you where to improve but also complimenting you to even out the good and the bad.

"You have a great voice (Y/N), you just need to project a little more."

"I just don't usually like singing in front of people, especially people with years of experience under their belt. You're really talented Mr. Brookstone."

"Please dear, we've been over this, call me Lou. And compliments aside, thank you, by the way, I've heard you sing so much louder. Like when you and my son do your little duets." You laughed nervously and felt the heat rising in your cheeks. He only arched his eyebrows and smirked at your response.

"That...That's different!"

"Oh really, how so?"

"Cole has a really loud voice so...so if I don't sing loudly, he can't hear me!" Lou seemed unimpressed with your answer, but he was most definitely amused that you'd even give that as a reason. He knew the real reason and so did you, but saying it out loud felt embarrassing. Heck, thinking about it made your heart flutter and left you feeling dizzy and breathless.

He made you feel relaxed and safe, comfortable, even. He never judged you and he always made you feel like you were the most precious thing on the earth. He looked after you and treasured you, made sure you were always okay and did everything in his power to make those bad days better. Singing in front of him was a piece of cake because you knew he loved you and you loved him back. He was your everything.

You started the next song and tried to imagine that your boyfriend was in the room with you, watching you. This seemed to help your confidence as you sang a lot louder than the previous few songs you'd done. About halfway through the song, Cole had returned from training, not that you'd heard him shut the door behind him. He heard your voice though and instantly he felt his knees weaken and his tense demeanor seemed to drip away until not a single drop was left. With a relaxed sigh, he slid his bag off his back and snuck his way to the living room so you wouldn't hear his footsteps. He saw you facing the window and looking out at Ninjago city, your back facing him. His dad saw him and nodded, Cole nodding back. He rested against the door frame and listened to the sweet music coming from you and Lou. He didn't make a sound, didn't move an inch, didn't say a single word until you'd nearly finished. When you reached the last line of the song, the raven-haired teenager quietly crept up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist.

You gasped and jumped a little, not expecting the contact, but calmed down when you saw it was just your boyfriend's arms that had you in captivity. You steadied your breathing and glanced back at him as he kissed your cheek. Then he twisted your body around so you were fully facing him. Lou left the room, deciding to give you two some privacy.

"That was beautiful." Cole whispered softly. You brought your hands up to his shoulders and planted them there.

"Mhm." You hummed. "You scared me."

"Ha-ha, I did? Sorry. I didn't wanna interrupt your singing."

"I wouldn't have minded."

"I would've."

You chuckled and he rested his chin on your head. You both stayed like that in perfect silence for a long time. Neither of you wanted to move or say anything. You wanted to stay in this moment for as long as possible. This wonderful moment of peace.

"Cake, anyone?" Cole's dad called from the kitchen. So much for staying in the moment, you thought to yourself.

"Yeah!" Your boyfriend replied giddily as he grabbed your hand and dragged you to the kitchen with a spring in his step. He was such an adorable little dork sometimes but that was the reason you loved him. One of the many, many reasons.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #lego ninjago movie #the lego ninjago movie #cinemajago #tlnm #cole brookstone #movie cole #abbyfanfics

59 notes · View notes