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five-rivers · 3 years

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Long Night in the Valley chapter 7

Oof, this chapter kept getting longer.

It was times like this that really drove home the fact that Eri had been raised by yakuza.

Normally, it was easy to forget. Eri was an angel, almost too well behaved at times, and Mirio loved spending time with her. Being asked to look after her while her foster parents were away was a privilege, not a chore.

Right now, though?

Now, Eri was in the middle of total meltdown and screaming threats at the news anchor who had just… reported something totally unbelievable and, if he was being honest, incredibly aggravating, even for him.

Mirio hoped Eri didn’t know the meanings of half the words she was shouting but, Chisaki Kai being the utter horror that he was, she’d probably seen at least some of them done to people in front of her.

Once again, Mirio was filled with the totally reasonable, if unheroic, desire to punch Chisaki until his legs came off like his arms did. As this was not, in the moment, a helpful impulse, he pushed it aside.

“I’m gonna kill you!” screamed Eri, throwing another marker at the TV screen, tears streaming down her face and horn sparking dangerously.

On one hand, it was great that Eri felt safe enough here at UA and around Mirio to have this outburst. On the other, Mirio really, really did not want to get de-aged out of existence.

It would be really great to have his quirk right now. Or Tamaki. If only he and Hado hadn’t been at their internships today, maybe they could have solved this together.

He was currently alternating between trying to verbally calm Eri down and serially dialing every teacher involved in Eri’s care.

Aizawa-sensei’s phone just rang and rang.

Yamada-sensei’s went straight to a completely unhelpful voicemail.

Kayama-sensei’s went to an even less helpful voicemail that also had the side-effect of making Mirio feel incredibly embarrassed.

All Might-sensei was supposedly “kidnapped.”

Recovery Girl had her ‘medical emergency’ message on.

This left a single, terrifying recourse.

Nezu.

With shaking hands, he pressed the call button and prepared to pray to the Rat God.

“Hi, Principal Nezu!” he said, loudly and brightly as soon as he heard the phone pick up.

“Hello, Togata-kun! I take it that Eri-chan has seen the news?”

“I’m going to tear out your eyes and sew them to your a—”

Hoooo, boy.

“Yeah,” said Mirio, “and she’s not taking it well. I’m really sorry, but I need help.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for!” chirped Nezu. “Knowing when to call for backup is something we try to instill in all our students. I’ll be over right away.”

There was a beep as the line went dead. Mirio put his phone back in his pocket and winced as Eri took a deep breath and let out another round of invective.

“Eri,” he said, deciding to make one more attempt to calm her down before Nezu came, “don’t you think that’s a bit much? She’s probably only saying what she’s been told.”

Eri whirled, incensed. “But that’sa lie! Deku isn’t a villain!”

“I know, but—”

“It’s the news!” she said, stomping her foot. “They’re not supposed to say things that aren’t true! That’s what Yagi-san says!”

“She might not know it isn’t true,” said Mirio, smiling consolingly (he knew this particular smile was consoling, because he’d practiced extensively). “Sometimes, people believe lies. Even good people.”

This was something Eri knew well, so Mirio hoped this reasoning got through to her.

It did not.

“But,” said Eri, incredulously, “it’s Deku.”

Mirio agreed with that sentiment, he really did. But the sheer level of fury currently concentrated into Eri’s tiny body was too much for him to handle.

Still, she seemed to be thinking instead of yelling or crying, so that was good.

“I’m going to bite them,” she said, dreadfully calm.

“Who?” asked Mirio, dreading the answer and knowing the storm had only stopped momentarily.

“The people who come to interrogate me,” said Eri, as if it were a given that she’d be interrogated. He was impressed she knew the word, right up until how she must have known it hit him.

“Why are you going to bite them?”

“Deku said that if a stranger tried to make me go with them or do something I didn’t want I should bite them and scream. And also…” She proceeded to describe a series of actions that would probably have the average assailant lying on the ground in a fetal position, defeated. “And you, and Amajiki-san, and Hado-san said I should…” Mirio vaguely recalled being consulted for and contributing certain portions of this but combined with Midoriya’s contributions and Eri’s anger it became significantly more sinister. “And ‘Zawa agreed and he told me I should…” Ah. That was worse. Much worse. And knowing Aizawa, he’d probably taught her how to do at least some of it.

Mirio abruptly realized that, out of all the people Eri knew, he was most likely the second sanest. He, as a person who saw no issue with appearing nude on national television multiple times, was not used to having such a position.

If the commission were wise, they wouldn’t send any of their people anywhere near Eri. They’d die.

The door burst open. “Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? One thing’s for sure, I’m the principal!”

Mirio now understood why Tamaki spent so much time hiding in corners.

His students screamed alongside him as he fell. He twisted, surprised and uncontrolled, in the air, flashes of skyscraper windows passing in and out of his vision. Above him, the woman, Nana, stood on the air, looking down.

Uraraka had reflexively stopped herself fairly quickly with her quirk, but she was now too far away to reach himself, Iida, or Todoroki. Todoroki was trying to copy one of his father’s moves and fly with the flames produced by his left side, but obviously trying to do something like that with no practice wasn’t going to work well.

Suzuki was there, too, but Aizawa’s first responsibility was to his kids, not the idiot that got them into this mess.

He swung his capture weapon upwards, trying to reach Uraraka, but the tumbling threw his aim off.

Green lightning flashed in the corner of his eye, and he found himself wrapped in black tentacles and moving sideways at great speed. They crashed through one of the windows into an oddly blurry and muted office space.

Midoriya released Aizawa and set down his classmates carefully. “Can you get Ochako down? Blackwhip is still… difficult.”

Aizawa looked Midoriya over quickly. He was wearing his hero costume. It had the same tears in it as it did after the aerial battle with Chisaki Kai.

There was a pattern here.

He nodded and walked to the window. Now that they were no longer falling, his aim was true, and Uraraka, who had been inching closer by deactivating then reactivating her quirk, caught the end of the capture weapon easily. He reeled her in.

“Izuku!” she said bouncing over to him and hugging him. “You’re okay!”

“Haha,” said Midoriya, “yep.”

“You let Suzuki fall,” said Aizawa, who had been contemplating much the same thing.

“I would have done something different,” said Midoriya, “but it wasn’t entirely up to me. Nana would just drop him again. It’s a dream, besides. Worst that will happen is that he’ll wake up and then we can use that to wake you guys up.” He turned away. “Come on, Six is this way.”

“Six, not seven?”

“Nana’s taking care of,” he waved his hand in the direction of the broken window, “that.”

Uraraka glanced that way. “I wasn’t sure before, but that’s Skyrunner, isn’t it? I didn’t think she was still alive.”

“She isn’t,” said Midoriya, shortly, before beginning to stride across the room. “We really don’t have time to stand around. Six will explain things better than me.”

“Who’s Skyrunner?” asked Todoroki.

Aizawa kept his eyes on Midoriya. He seemed distracted, his movements were lower energy than usual, as if his mind was miles away.

“She was a hero ages ago. She’d be in her eighties, I think, but that was her. I found her when I was doing research on quirks similar to mine.”

“They aren’t really the same,” said Midoriya. “Float is an at-will telekinetic type quirk with a personal range. Yours is a five-point touch physical property alteration quirk.”

“Application-wise,” said Uraraka. “But how can we be in her head if she’s dead? You said before, we were in All Might’s head, so…”

“Wait, what?” How the heck were they supposed to have gotten into Yagi’s head? Was this something Midoriya’s dreaming subconscious came up with? Or was there a massive problem about to smack him in the face as soon as he woke up?

More massive than the Hero Commission feeling justified in running a quirk-assisted interrogation on a minor. A minor who was unconscious and may have been moved to another facility, away from any adults who might be on their side.

Midoriya had stopped to lean against a doorway, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not completely here. I can’t—I’m busy, it’s hard to process.”

“Busy doing what?” asked Todoroki.

“Being awake,” said Midoriya.

“You’re awake?” repeated Aizawa.

“Halfway. It’s just—Unexpected quirk interaction. When I was shot—” He broke off and shuddered. “Six will be able to explain it better. I’m on the run, sensei, I’m sorry.”

“You’re awake and on the run from the Hero Commission.”

“Mhm,” said Midoriya. “Six will explain. Probably. I haven’t directly met Six yet.”

There were so many concerning things about that statement that Aizawa didn’t know where to start. Midoriya pushed off the doorway and kept walking.

“We need a contact point,” he said, “so we can cross over to Six. I don’t know where they’d be for Nana and Six, though.”

As they walked, the building slowly changed from a generic office space to something that, at least to Aizawa, resembled a hero agency. An old, dated hero agency.

“Does this have something to do with ‘first contact?’”

“It doesn’t need to be first contact,” said Midoriya, waving over his shoulder. “Just contact. The rules are weird, apparently? I think they’re different, normally. I’m not sure where to go…”

“I’ll show you.”

Aizawa was incredibly tired of people showing up out of nowhere. And Nana really had shown up out of nowhere, suddenly materializing in the hallway, not even having the courtesy to step out of a doorway or from around a corner and pretend this world operated on anything approaching hard and fast rules.

“Hey, hey,” said Nana, “you guys are all really tense, aren’t you?”

“You did drop us from fifty stories up.”

“Haha, yeah, I did,” said Nana, grinning and ruffling Midoriya’s hair. “I’m still dropping that jerkface back there. Hopefully, he’ll decide to nope out before too long and we can get the rest of you out of here without the whole Journey to the West reenactment.”

Midoriya squinted up at her, listing slightly to one side. “Every time you use slang it’s so weird.”

“Come on, kid, I’m not that old.” She sighed. “I’d give you Float now, but given present circumstances, you’ll probably want Six’s or Two’s.”

Midoriya straightened—And was it just Aizawa or did his outline become clearer?

“You can do that?” he asked. He brought his hand up to his chin, index finger resting beneath his lower lip. “It could be possible, depending on the mechanism,” he mumbled. “But then would getting out be…? No, it can’t be something like that, or it wouldn’t even be mentioned, and it didn’t work with Suzuki… But it’s worth testing—Aizawa-sensei, can you use your quirk on Todoroki? Todoroki, think really hard about waking up while you do it.”

They tried this. Nothing happened, other than Todoroki not being able to use his quirk. Aizawa had the sinking suspicion that this conversation was about Midoriya’s quirk gaining yet another, bizarre manifestation. Did his quirk have something to do with split personalities? Loading other peoples’ personalities and quirks into his head?

“It isn’t that, then,” said Midoriya. “Saito’s quirk could still have a mechanism like that.”

“Or it could be the interaction between your quirk and hers,” said Nana.

Midoriya was silent for a moment. “I guess,” he said finally. “But we have to test—”

“We don’t want to overload you. Like I said, I think you’ll want Six’s or Two’s more than mine. Or even Four’s.”

Midoriya shook his head. “No, considering what we’re up against, Float would be very useful. Can we try?”

Nana nodded, put her hands on his shoulders, and bent at the waist to whisper something in Midoriya’s ear. The room briefly flickered into sky, a sunset or sunrise throwing brilliant color from horizon to horizon. The sound of wings presaged a flock of birds. Aizawa braced for a fall. Nana stood back up. The room returned. “Did you get it?”

Aizawa checked to make sure all of his (shaken) students were still there.

“I think so,” said Midoriya. He took a deep breath. “Yes. I have it.” He looked back at Aizawa. “I’m sorry, I really have to go, now.”

Aizawa was also getting really tired of people disappearing, he decided.

Nana sighed. “Anyway, come on, we have to get going.”

They all looked to Aizawa before following. Aizawa sighed. They didn’t have any other leads on what to do, and if they didn’t, they might get dragged along anyway. “Might as well,” he said. “This had better be a great explanation. And I’d like it before we get to this ‘Six.’”

“Yes,” said Todoroki. “Does Midoriya have multiple personality disorder?”

“It’s Dissociative Identity Disorder, and no,” said Nana. “Not as such. For now… We’re part of Nine’s—Izuku’s—quirk.”

“Funnily enough, I had put that together. Why you?”

“I used to ask myself that, you know. Six is the one who can answer. In the meantime… consider this a quirk history field trip. Here we are.” They stepped into a conference room, a projector springing to life along with the faint murmur of phantom voices. “I was just a sidekick back then,” she said. “Not his, though. It’s funny. Toshinori was mine, you know. Before his debut. He didn’t even go by All Might back then.” The room glitched.

Aizawa managed to get the impression of a surreal, almost Lovecraftian, landscape, rubble, and the words ‘You’re next.’

Aizawa could have gone his entire life without knowing that All Might had cribbed his last words as a hero from his teacher.

Nana laughed. “To be fair,” she said, patting his arm (patting his arm), “he’s not the only one. Come on, I want you four worlds away from Suzuki. Let’s get this show on the road.”

The lighting in the room shifted, and it filled with ghosts much like in Izuku’s school. Another, younger, version of Nana sat among them, looking up at the projector.

The underground hero Fidelity is here today to discuss a possible smuggling ring based out of Musutafu…

As the young man walked in, the whispers arrived… But there seemed to be fewer whisperers.

First contact.

Izuku managed to levitate a centimeter off the ground before settling himself again. Enough not to be noticed by anyone but Toshinori.

Toshinori who was close to tears. Izuku blinked back a few of his own.

This was good. With Float and the right planning, they could possibly break their trail even without the more complicated maze-path he and Toshinori had planned out. Some of the words in Trace’s file seemed to indicate her quirk only worked over solid objects, and she didn’t work with the Coast Guard, even though her quirk would, otherwise, be quite useful there. The conclusion couldn’t be trusted, of course, but if he could manage to stay floating, and get Toshinori to float as well, it would be well worth it.

He almost laughed at himself. Mastering a quirk in so little time, worth it.

“If anyone could do it,” said Toshinori, “it would be you, my boy.”

Izuku’s heart filled with warmth as the others agreed. He could almost feel Nana ruffle his hair again.

In theory, the plan to acquire the keys to the testing center’s off-limits areas was very simple.

In practice… It was also very simple, shockingly enough. Maybe it was because the human explosive and the deceptively destructive sunshine child weren’t involved. No, that couldn’t be it.

Hitoshi walked up to a security guard, said excuse me, used his quirk, and asked for the keys. Then he handed them to Yaoyorozu so she could make copies. She gave the guard back the keys, and Hitoshi told the guard to forget him. That order didn’t always work, but they weren’t having the guard move, and the whole operation had taken under five minutes. There wasn’t much to remember in the first place.

“What now?” asked Hitoshi.

“Now,” said Yaoyorozu, making more copies of keys. “We get lost.”

The benefit to having a blunt and straightforward demeanor was that people rarely thought Tsuyu was lying.

Well. The UA uniform helped, too. Even among heroes, UA was known to take only the best of the best. The most trustworthy.

“Excuse me, kero,” Tsuyu said, sidling up to a young hero in civilian clothing. “I was told to tell everyone to go into the back—They want us to spread out, for when the police arrive to question us? The doors are already unlocked.” She pointed. “But our teachers have come to pick us up, and we’re going with them, so can you help?”

“Oh, of course. That’s what heroes do, right?” Bubble Girl shot her a pair of finger guns. “Hey, you’re one of Deku-kun’s friends, right? This is so weird. Have you seen the news?”

“Yes, kero.”

“Sorry, sorry, I know that’s probably not something you want to talk about. I hope everything works out for him.”

So did Tsuyu.

The plan to flood the relatively empty back hallways with people and unleash a dance of chaos the Hero Commission, false warriors of light, could not hope to contain, went… Interestingly, in Fumikage’s opinion.

There were several different entrances to the back that people were directed to, and, predictably, some of them were turned back, even though they had unlocked the doors. There were commission people back there, albeit relatively few of them.

The class slipped in among the others. He led the way, as the sneakiest person after Hagakure. Well. Sort of.

It was hard to figure out who was in the lead with all these people everywhere.

Plus, he got… Ahem.

He was swept away on the tide of darkness, with no beacon to guide his way.

Dark Shadow cackled in his ear. “Just admit you’re lost, Fumi,” she said.

“I am not!” he hissed back.

“Besides there are fire escape maps over there.”

Oh, that was helpful.

When Chiyo woke up this morning, she had not expected to face the fact that Toshinori had finally lost his mind, and the entirely baseless accusation that Midoriya of all people had kidnapped him (the reverse was much more likely, in her opinion). And yet.

When Chiyo had been asked to organize and accompany the fleet of ambulances to pick up their unconscious students and staff members (something she had done many times) she had not expected to be point blank refused by the Hero Commission. And yet.

When Hizashi and Nemuri had asked the fleet to pull around to the back of the testing center, near a loading dock ‘to make room for other traffic,’ she had not expected her coworkers and eleven students to slam up the rolling overhead door of the loading dock and run out at full tilt while carrying ten unconscious bodies.

And yet.

Maybe, after everything, she should have.

She grabbed the radio from the dash and started rolling down the window. “Open the doors!”

The students knew what they were doing, at least with regards to casualty transport. They should. They’d passed the licensing test. Hizashi and Nemuri had better hope this nonsense didn’t get any of those licenses stripped, or, oh, she’d have words with them.

“Hey!” shouted a hero with a prominent commission badge pinned to his costume. He extended his arm and delicate rays of light shot forth. He was aiming mostly at Hizashi and Nemuri. Typical. One of the rays of light hit Hizashi’s heel, and his shoe turned to stone, causing him to stumble.

Chiyo calmly stuck the end of her syringe-shaped cane out the window and depressed the well-hidden trigger. A small sedative filled dart his the hero in the neck, where he was not protected by his costume. He dropped.

One or two of the students did a double take. Chiyo rolled her eyes.

Really. She was a licensed Pro Hero. Pros had to be able to act, regardless of how many of their expectations were being subverted.

The students could stand to learn that.

Large public TV screen at the intersection caught Izuku’s attention, despite how he was keeping his gaze on his feet, the better to monitor his use of Float.

But, then, Izuku had practically trained himself to notice any screen with All Might on it. That this one also had his picture on it was just frosting on the cake.

They’re moving fast.

Of course they are. We’re a threat.

We weren’t!

We’ve always been. Do you remember—?

They aren’t putting quirk users into concentration camps.

No, just training camps.

Not the time. We’ll have to deal with the Hawks problem later.

… We were hoping for more time.

“The Hawks problem?” asked Toshinori.

“I have no idea,” said Izuku. “Come on, we have to keep going.”

Trace was very good at what she did, and Hawks was genuinely hoping that she would be the one to find Midoriya and All Might, not him. He didn’t want to be responsible for what was going to happen to the kid, spy or no. He didn’t want to get on All Might’s bad side, either, retired or not.

Really. The commission should have taken the hint when All Might left of his own accord. Hawks didn’t know how he’d found out about the commission’s plan to psychically interrogate Midoriya, but obviously he did. And he objected. Strenuously.

It might have been better for him to go public, though, rather than spirit the kid away.

On the other hand… It had only been a couple hours at this point. Maybe he hadn’t had the chance. Getting the kid out of commission hands might have been his priority, depending on how much he heard.

What Hawks had heard… Yeah. Not great. One guy in particular had seemed overly enthusiastic about Midoriya’s possible rehabilitation.

He sighed and took off his goggles, so he had a better view of the city below him. Hawks had lucked out in the color receptor department. Like most birds, he had four, as opposed to the baseline human three. If anyone could pick out Midoriya’s green mop and All Might’s eye-watering blonde in these crowds, it would be him.

And if they had changed their appearances?

Well. Their heights were distinctive enough on their own, especially when paired.

Hawks genuinely hoped Trace would find them first. But he wasn’t counting on it.

Well. This was far from the worst thing the commission had asked him to do.

Samson and Delilah were a relatively new duo. Samson had a gorilla mutation. Delilah had a ‘conditional status ailment’ quirk that doubled as a boost to herself. Kind of annoying to activate, though, honestly. Who else had a quirk that made them eat hair?

Anyway, this was their first assignment from the commission. All they had to do was pick up a potential witness.

“Or colluder,” said Samson.

“Come on, have you seen her face?” Delilah gestured with the photo in her hand.

“She’s his mother. Mothers know everything.”

“Your mom, maybe,” said Delilah. “I think this is it.” She checked the door number. Yep. “You knock.”

Samson’s knock was loud and intimidating. It got no response.

“Again?” suggested Delilah.

But no matter how many times Samson knocked, he would get no answer. Midoriya Inko was not home.

Inko checked the piece of paper with Dr. Tsubasa’s current address on it again. Hisashi had always told her that if anything happened, and he couldn’t be there, she should go to Dr. Tsubasa. She never had. The wound he had given her son when he was five had never completely faded, and she couldn’t help but hate him for that.

But Hisashi wasn’t picking up his phone, and this, this was bigger than she could hope to deal with.

Dr. Tsubasa had better be able to. Or else.

(Inko did not know if the ‘or else’ was for herself, Izuku, Hisashi, or Dr. Tsubasa himself, but it was most certainly there.)

(Incidentally, Hisashi was going to get a lot of ‘else’ from her regardless, for not picking up his phone.)

Once, when he was young and stupid, Tomura had thought of life as a single-player game. First person. A shooter, maybe. First person RPG.

Before he’d turned twenty, though, he’d realized that to get anywhere, he’d need a party. Obviously, he was still the only player, other than Sensei, and Sensei didn’t count. Sensei was different. Everyone else was NPCs. Interesting ones, maybe. But just look at Twice! He could turn everyone into infinitely respawning mobs. As things were meant to be.

But the USJ, Hosu, and everything that happened that summer had taught him better. This was a co-op, and when someone got a permanent game over, when they were logged off forever… It made something burn inside him because those were his party members.

He’d found Magne annoying. But when she declared herself everyone’s big sis…

Even so, he’d hung on to the notion that they were fighting the CPU. No intelligence on the other side. Just violence, power, and an assortment of unfair, programmed-in cheat codes.

This, too, was a false impression of the world. This revelation hadn’t come as quickly as the last. In fact, if he were to be honest with himself (a despicable practice) he’d have to admit the realization had been building, percolating, since the USJ. It was something he’d acknowledged, even, although he hadn’t realized it at the time.

This game had a Player 2. And the noob had just finished the tutorial.

He smiled wide enough to make his lips crack and sting in the dusty air of the current hideout. The pinging news alerts on his phone faded into the background as he made his plans.

Tomura was supposed to be following the main questline, gathering party members, and powering up, but what was multiplayer without griefing? What was an open sandbox without distractions?

“Hey, guys,” said Tomura, lazily, not even looking over his shoulder. “You up for a side quest?”

#long night in the valley #bnha #boku no hero academia #fic #my fic

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mistymark · 4 years

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the one where you’re someone else. [jaemin] [part I]

na jaemin x reader // 2.9k words // high school!au // body switch!au

summary; in which you wake up in someone else’s body. more than once.

warnings: swearing, confusion, mention of male genitalia

requested; nope

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Groaning, you roll onto your side, searching blindly for the snooze button on your alarm, your head remaining on the pillow. Five more minutes. Please.

...

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. This time you squint your eyes open, sitting up in bed and rubbing your head groggily. You wonder why you feel so tired, and the remnants of your dream drift slowly into your mind.

Scenes flash through your mind in the same frightening way you imagine one would see highlights of their life before they die. The hallway of a high school that is not your own, a bright-eyed boy grinning at you before he sprints away from you, a test that you had definitely not prepared for, a cute café and delicious treats, the strange feeling of not recognising yourself in the mirror...

“Y/n!” A voice calls for you from the kitchen, and you hastily slip on a pair of slippers and make your way through the house in search of breakfast. A small frown sits on your mother’s face as she finishes making her own breakfast, “Two days in a row you haven’t been awake on time. Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep? Maybe you should go to sleep early tonight.”

“I’m fine, Mum,” you roll your eyes as she presses the back of her hand against your forehead.

“This is so unusual for you,” she mumbles, almost to herself. When you push her hand away to reach for the juice, she goes back to her breakfast, momentarily forgetting about the newspaper she had just been reading sitting beside her. “Yesterday I was starting to wonder if you’d had some kind of mental breakdown.” She looks up at you then, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion; you’d been exactly the same yesterday, only less tired.

“It’s… been an exhausting week,” you try to find an explanation. She seems satisfied with the answer. Looking at the time, you quickly stand up to rush to your room, “Shit. I need to get ready for school.”

You busy yourself with getting ready for school, only a little annoyed at yourself for not having packed your bag last night, the simple disruption to your morning routine adding a few minutes to your normal departure time. You were sure you’d packed it last night, but your belongings scattered around your room clearly disagreed. Quickly sliding your binders, books and laptop into your backpack, you rushed around your room. Luckily, you didn’t miss the bus.

“Y/n!” Your best friend, Nina, sees you shortly after you enter the front doors of your school. Her excitement to see you is shown in the way she smiles at you, though it shortly changes to a small frown as she looks you up and down. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” you answer honestly, shying away from her assessing gaze. Her eyes scan your face.

“Nina, would you quit it?” Seungmin laughs, giving her a slight push. You hadn’t even noticed him walking up to the two of you. She stumbles, her eyes moving from you to him, narrowing. “She’s fine,” he states, turning to you now.

“You were acting so weird yesterday,” she stresses to you, still looking at you tentatively as if she expected you to spontaneously combust any second.

“What?” You frown in confusion at them, wondering why they were being so dramatic. Maybe a bad test result made you cry yesterday, but that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for you. Opening your locker, you tear your gaze from your friends in favour of focusing on piling your books onto the shelf. From the corner of your eye, you can tell they’re still watching you wearily. “Alright, spill it. What’s up?”

“You…” Nina struggles to find the words.

“It was like you were a different person,” Seungmin finally says. “You kept forgetting who you were, where you were, what you were supposed to be doing. We thought you had amnesia or something.”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you look between them again, “You’re kidding, right?” You think back to yesterday – Tuesday – and can’t remember anything out of the ordinary.

“No, Y/n, we’re dead serious,” Nina responds, eyeing you again.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you guys but I have a class to get to. Mrs Kim has a paper for me,” you grab your history books and close your locker.

Nina looks at Seungmin confusedly, “Don’t you have history third period?” He nods. She turns to you again, “Y/n, history is third period. We have chemistry first.”

“We always have history first on a Wednesday,” you smile, rolling your eyes. “Come on, guys, you know I memorised my schedule on the first day.”

There’s silence, before Seungmin grabs his phone from his pocket, pressing the button so the screen lights up and dangles it in front of your face, “Yeah, well, it’s Thursday, so history is third.”

The bell rings before you can dispute this. Even though, of course, what could you say? It was Thursday – your own phone said so, so they couldn’t be messing with you. How could it be that a whole day had slipped from your memory?

You drift between classes in a confused daze, only loosely focusing on the words of your teachers and peers, slowly writing half-finished notes and barely registering when the teacher was giving you homework.

Your focus was primarily on Wednesday – yesterday – and why you couldn’t remember anything. There were plenty of memorable things that happened on Wednesdays – you had gym class, your usual ice cream date with Nina and Seungmin, work. Yet, you couldn’t remember any of them.

“Did I hit my head yesterday? I can’t remember anything at all,” you frown, whispering to Seungmin while Mrs Kim drones on about the cold war.

“Maybe,” he tries to suppress a giggle. “You sure were acting like you did.”

Yawning, you turn over the page of notes you were adding to, revealing a page of messily handwritten notes that definitely wasn’t done by you. The handwriting, for starters, was a messy scrawl that frequently sloped in a downwards direction and overstepped the neatly printed lines on the page. Completely done in black ink, without any highlighting or colour coding the rest of your notes had, you dismissed it as Seungmin writing in your book.

But Seungmin used blue ink almost religiously, and the handwriting didn’t match his. Why would Seungmin write ‘who am i?’ over and over in my book?

Your name was scrawled in the corners of the pages, as if you had forgotten it and needed the reminder.

“Y/n,” you were snapped out of your thoughts by Mrs Kim, who was handing out a worksheet. She smiles at you, “Ah, so you remember your name today?” Seungmin snickers beside you and you elbow him swiftly, effectively shutting him up. “Did you read my notes on your essay?”

You blush, embarrassed and guilty, “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t had the ti-“

Mrs Kim gives you a warm smile, “That’s okay. Let me know when you have.” She walks away, moving on to another student.

Seungmin leans closer to you, his eyes remaining on the teacher, “I’m surprised she didn’t mention the fact that you dodged her yesterday after class.”

“Huh?”

“She wanted to talk to you about the notes on your essay, and you completely ran out! Not as if you had any place to be; Mr Park was late to calculus again.”

“Oh. Oh, right,” you mutter, lowering your chin to the desk.

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

“Where the fuck is my essay?” You groan in frustration. Hyunjin, the poor soul whose locker is right beside yours, startles at your sudden outburst.

“Are you okay?” He shuts the door of his locker gently, leaning against it as he looks you up and down, concern on his face.

“Mrs Kim gave me an essay yesterday and I must’ve misplaced it.” Your locker isn’t exactly messy, so there are very few loose papers in there. A quick flick through the few documents stashed haphazardly in your locker proved it wasn’t in there.

“Don’t you have some intense filing system?” His eyes flicker down to the binder in your hand, dividers neatly sectioning off different parts. “Is it not in there?”

“If it were in here, I wouldn’t be searching my locker,” you mumble sadly. His eyes widen.

“Right... Seungmin has history with you, right?” Hyunjin’s attention shifts to something behind you, and he waves a hand, gesturing for someone to come over. “Hey, Seungmin!”

“Hey, dude,” Seungmin greets. “What’s up?”

“Y/n is missing a history essay,” Hyunjin helpfully explains. When Seungmin’s eyebrows furrow in thought, Hyunjin takes it as an opportunity to leave, and quickly departs down the hallway in search of his own friends.

“Didn’t you throw it away?”

“I don’t throw away my essays.”

“I’m pretty sure you did. After you walked out yesterday. I saw you put something in the bin,” his eyes flicker to yours. “I just assumed it was rubbish.”

You groan, pressing your forehead against Hyunjin’s locker, whining, “No.”

“I’m sure Mrs Kim would redo her notes if you asked her. You typed it, didn’t you? Just reprint it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” you pout. He smiles warmly at you.

“You’ll be fine, Y/n,” Seungmin rests a hand on your shoulder, attempting to steer you away from the row of lockers and towards the cafeteria, closing your locker door with his foot. “But now, lunch.”

******************************************************************************************

The rest of the day flies by and, before you know it, you’re in Seungmin’s car as he drives you home. The town rushes past you in a flurry of houses and small grocery stores, drive thru restaurants and gas stations, and you struggle to stay awake.

“Hey, sleepy head, you’re home,” Seungmin tries to suppress his laughter, giving you a light nudge. “Get out of my car.”

Groaning, you slump away from the door, clumsily finding the door handle and almost falling out of the car, “Fine! I’ll see you tomorrow, assface.”

“Yeah,” he smiles warmly. “See you then.”

The hours of the evening are mostly taken up with homework, as you try and get as much done as possible before the weekend. As it steadily approaches midnight, you find youself getting more and more tired, eventually getting to the point where you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. And from there, darkness consumes you.

******************************************************************************************

RING! RING! RING! The alarm is loud and so annoying. You wonder why you chose to wake up to this, rather than your usual alarm, and turn to your side, fumbling around for the snooze button, your eyes still shut tight from exhaustion. Your eyes open when instead of hitting your bedside table or your alarm, your hand slams into a wall, eliciting a loud grunt from your mouth. For a second, you’re shocked at how deep your voice sounds, but your shock turns to fear when you realise you’re not in your bedroom.

You’re in a bedroom, but it’s certainly not your own. The walls are white, covered in posters and photos and a huge wall hanging that has plants growing out of small pots, leaves cascading down the wall. It’s homely, cute, but not where you expected to wake up – and due to that last fact, horrifying.

You clamber out of bed in search for your clothes, your shoes, your bag, anything that belongs to you. Unable to recall when or how you got here, you wonder if you’re hungover. But you didn’t go out last night - on a Thursday - you didn’t drink last night, and your head isn’t at all sore. Despite the lack of a headache, you still reach a hand up to your head, rubbing it. Your eyes widen at your hair – well, the lack of hair. It’s short, and you can feel the way it’s sticking up in all directions from sleep.

You rush to the mirror in the corner of the room, screaming when you realise you don’t look at all like how you normally look, and screaming louder when you realise your voice is so deep.

You’re a boy.

Ew, you think.

Wait, you look in the mirror. This is some crazy ass dream.

You take a look around the room, seeing the face in the mirror in the photographs, recognising the familiar brown hair and sparkling eyes. Reaching a hand up to touch your face, you push and pull the skin, watching it move in the mirror. You almost expected it to stay rigid, as if you were wearing a mask. This is so weird.

“Jaemin! Are you getting ready for school? Jeno’s going to be here in any minute!” A female voice calls from – presumably – downstairs, and you quickly look around the room. A uniform is hanging on the back of the door – one you don’t recognise – and you move to get changed, though something stops you.

You wait a second before responding, in case the voice was calling to someone in the house. When no one responds, you take a leap of faith, “Yeah! I’m getting dressed now!”

You look down briefly at the cold grey pyjama pants you’re – Jaemin’s – currently wearing, and take a deep breath, clenching your eyes shut as you pull the material down. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

You decide you have to open your eyes when you pull the school shorts on backwards (and you can feel that it’s backwards in ways you could never begin to explain as a girl) and try your hardest to think about anything else. You find the bathroom, which was thankfully located opposite the bedroom, and go about your normal routine as best you can.

The school bag slumped against the wall is empty, and you look around the desk for anything you might have to take with you, packing a few notebooks, a laptop, a pencil case (if you could call it that – it appeared to be a plastic bag with a few pens in it) and a water bottle.

“Hey, sweetie,” a beautiful woman greets you as you bound into the kitchen with a lot of energy. Why am I so hyper?

“Hey… Mum?” You cringe as the greeting comes out more like a question, hiding your face in the fridge.

Luckily, she just laughs. “I know, I know, I’m not normally in the kitchen.” She notices the way you scan the fridge, “Hey! Aren’t you and Jeno going to get food before school?”

You freeze, “Oh, um, yeah. We are. I’m just… browsing.”

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tonight, Jaem. Have a good day at school,” she kisses you on the top of the head, swiping her hand through your hair before leaving. You try your best to fix it, letting it flop down messily over your forehead.

Spotting an apple and a brown banana in a cracked dish on the counter, you slide the apple into your backpack and begin zipping it up when you hear a honk outside that almost makes you drop everything. You stop to listen, and two more honks follow. Confused, you wait. There’s the familiar sound of a car door slamming shut, and then you hear footprints on the front porch of the house. The doorbell rings.

The doorbell is monotonous, and you don’t wait for it to finish ringing before you pull the door open, instantly meeting the soft face of a boy your age, a confused look on his face. You’ve seen him somewhere, but you can’t place him. “Dude, I honked, like, three times. What’s going on?”

“Oh,” you say, dumbly. You surpise yourself by sounding even dumber with the question that follows, “Jeno?”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows draw nearer as he frowns at you. “Are you playing that ‘I don’t know who I am’ joke again?”

You force out a laugh, “No, I’m just messing with you.” You give him a light punch on the arm, trying to act like every douchebag guy you’ve seen in a high school movie. It’s tragic that you suddenly can’t recall how real boys act. “Let’s go,” you push past him, sighing in a way that makes it seem like he’s the one acting weird and not yourself.

His eyebrows raise in surprise, but then he shrugs and heads back to his car, waiting for you to finish locking the house (after much confusion over which key it is).

Once you’re in the car, you pull out the phone that had been sitting beside the bed you’d woken up in and thought thankfully that there was a finger-print unlock feature. Quickly scanning through a few messages, you learnt that Jeno was probably Jaemin’s best friend - and you were in a few group chats; ‘the Bros’, ‘chemistry lab group’, ‘mark’s birthday plans’, ‘Mum & Dad’, and a few others.

“So, I was thinking, Hyuck’s having a party at his place tonight, right?” Jeno begins talking, and once you realise you’re going to have to go to this party, too. “Hyunjin is coming, and he’s bringing a few girls from his school – you know, that guy we versed in lacrosse a few weeks ago? His parents know my parents and – whatever, it’s not important. He’s bringing a few girls and I’m hoping that girl from the game is- Hey! Are you even listening?” Jeno’s eyes flit between you and the road, and you turn to him.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Did you ask him?” You’re dying to know if he’s talking about the Hyunjin you know – the real you knows – but you’re too self-conscious to ask too many questions, wanting to just get through the day with as little confusion as possible.

“Nah, I don’t really know the guy. He’s friends with Hyuck, though, I think, so maybe he’ll know.”

“Can you ask Yuck today?”

Jeno laughs, “Are you bringing back his middle school nickname? He’s gonna hate you so much for that. But I will, yeah. We have PE together today.”

He pulls into the parking lot of the school, and you vaguely recognise the school, maybe from posters or newspaper adverts, but you’re glad Jeno drove you because at least now you have someone to follow. And, you were unsure whether you’d been able to get to school without him.

You trail after Jeno through the main doors, but he clearly sees someone he knows, because he takes one look back at you before he runs off to catch them, “Catch you later, yeah?”

And it’s right then that it clicks; you know exactly where you’d seen him before: in your dream. You’d been here before. You’d seen him before. You’d been Jaemin before.

Fuck.

469 notes · View notes

alien-shark · 4 years

Text

ZoTash prompt/one-shot: JEALOUSY

Echoes of what appears to be sparring shouts reverberate from the training grounds and soon, a surge of female Marine soldiers flood the halls. What used to be a serene area was now abuzz with gleeful exuberant cheers, their attention aimed at the other five female soldiers surrounding a lone shirtless green haired man at the centre of the training ground. Shinai swords drawn and pointed at their single adversary.

Tashigi, curious at the commotion, followed along the queue of female soldiers lining the perimeter of the ground, “What’s going on?” she asked, sipping at her coffee.

“He’s doing it. He’s sparring with them again!” A female soldier beamed, her eyes glued at the subject of interest.

Standing on her tiptoes, the Marine captain watch as the female soldiers consecutively charge at the man. But with a quick side step, parry, deflect and strikes on the shoulder, behind the knee and hip, each soldiers were disarmed and collapse on the dirt, one after another.

The spectators cheered and some groaned on behalf of their fallen comrades. On refusing to yield, one soldier latched on a nearby shinai and swiped at the man’s leg only for the weapon to shatter upon impact with his own.

“Too slow.” He sighed, disappointed. Spinning his head around, “You are all too slow.”

A wave of excited whispers, some of obscenities, rippled through the crowd.

“Your grasp on your swords are too flimsy! Even a kid can disarm you.” He pauses and releases yet another disgruntled sigh. “And you’re leaving too much opening! Do you have a death wish?! If I used real swords, you’d all be dead!” He turned to a soldier on the ground and offered his hand, she accepts reluctantly but hauls herself up with his help.

“The battle isn’t over until you’re dead.” He growled. “Till then, get your ass up and try again!”

Roronoa Zoro returned in the middle of the field, two bamboo swords drawn on his sides. His eyes scan the crowd, “Who’s up next?”

Female Marines race and scrambled to try their luck at him, beaming and professing determined shouts.

---

Captain Tashigi narrows her eyes, irritated that her fellow Marine soldiers- especially ones under Vice Admiral Tsuru’s squadron- are so easily swayed by Roronoa’s simple display of swordsmanship. But her resentment only doubled upon realizing that while she goes and makes herself a cup of coffee to begin the day, the man was already in the heat of his training.

While Roronoa trains the female Marines; observing them with a critical eye as they do drills and correct any mistakes and praise any improvements as they spar with one another, Tashigi decides to train with other soldiers who remained wary of the pirate. But it wasn’t long until Tashigi found herself training alone in their usual spot. She discovered her fellow officers figured Roronoa’s teachings yield very effective results.

And so she was alone, much to her disappointment.

Dinner proved tougher to endure when all she hears are praises aimed at Roronoa, how his outlandish teachings opened up new possibilities in their training immensely enhancing their skills.

“He’s truly a great swordsman! Glad he’s an ally now!” A soldier announced cheerfully.

“And he’s surprisingly such a decent guy too!”

“Right?! And he’s gentle and kind!”

“Have you seen that body?”

They giggle. Tashigi stands to leave.

A tremendous divide among the Marines occurred when the highly influential Vice Admirals finally roused and saw the errors of the entire Marines’ belief. It began with Smoker’s G-5 unit followed by Vice Admiral Garp, Vice Admiral Sengoku and most recently, Vice Admiral Tsuru.

Tashigi started as a grunt in Tsuru’s squad. Her skills earned her respect and praise among her superiors and popularity among the entire female Marine soldiers. Her rapid growth caused her to be transferred under Smoker’s wing in Loguetown. Yet to this day, she would return and spend some time with her previous crew. She considered this her place of solitude, a break from her testosterone infested infantry. It was a breath of fresh air to be around fellow female soldiers and they were always glad to have her back even for a short period.

However, the Marine/Pirate integration has altered her previous comrades regard towards her. (Roronoa and three of his nakamas: Nico Robin, The God-Usopp and The Soul King, temporarily stays on the island under Tsuru’s watch for Nico Robin to decipher a poneglyph. Which explains why and how the pirate is within their vicinity.) Now, the female soldiers’ attention has long abandoned Tashigi and are directed at Roronoa, much like the G-5.

“Give it to him! I bet he’ll love it!” A soldier nudged her companion.

“I hope so. He did say he loves quality sake.”

“Haha! He’ll fall head over heels for you!”

“W-what?! No.. I just wish to thank him..!” The other soldier blushed.

Soon, things took a sudden turn. An ample amount of female soldiers developed a budding infatuation towards the man. Tashigi couldn’t contain her hackles from rising when one evening, during a bonfire, another soldier gifted Roronoa sake. He drank and celebrated with them for yet another productive day. As Tashigi observes the exchange, she notices Roronoa smile almost slyly towards the gushing female Marines. Her suspicions towards the man intensifies. He was still a pirate after all. Tashigi witnessed the vulgar glances Black Leg and The Soul King displays when around women. Who’s to say Roronoa is different? She knows nothing about the man.

That very night, she confronted him. When finally he was alone, walking groggily through the empty streets, she blocked his path.

“Roronoa, a word, please.” She gestured to an empty alley.

“If you need private lessons, you’re gonna have to wait for two days.” He smiles. “I’m a busy man. Tonight’s not a good ti—”

“I know what game you’re playing, pirate!” Tashigi interjects. “You may blind the others with your swordplay but not me.”

Immediately, the pirate’s drunken stupor evaporated and he stares unblinking. But Tashigi refused to falter.

“If you’re training them just to create your little ‘fan-club’ or to invite them in your bed, I will not ask you again, please stop. These are prominent honourable women and some are already developing feelings-- bonds to you deeper than they intended. Feelings I doubt a pirate such as you even have. Whatever dark intentions you have planned, abandon it if you still wish to see the light of day.” She stepped closer and jabbed a finger on his chest. “Respect these women or I will make you.”

Roronoa stares at the finger on his chest and slowly creeps his gaze towards the woman.

“I always wondered why you never attend the training. I thought it was just your stubborn pride that makes you lurk behind the trees, watching from a distance.”

For the first time, Tashigi hesitates and draws her hand back.

“So this is how you still see me.” He narrows his eyes at her, as realization hits. “I trained your soldiers because they asked me to. I won’t apologize for my actions. I am not responsible for the feelings your soldiers harbour towards me neither will I apologize for how you interpret my actions towards them. That’s on you. I’ve never disrespected your soldiers in any way and I never intend to. I only wish to help… because-”

He takes a deep breath. “This may be empty words to you but… I feel obliged- I had a friend—,” Roronoa paused, dropping his gaze to the ground.

His voice suddenly grows quieter, jittery. “I wanted to prove to her… wherever she is I—I want to prove that women can be strong and capable of so much more. At first I didn’t believe it was possible.” He meets her eyes, his own glassy under the moonlight.

“Then you came along and changed my mind. How you handle yourself and radiate that irritating confidence and headstrong determination that affects the people around you. You made me realize that women are capable of so much more. And I want to help even in the smallest way. I want to prove to her that she was wrong for thinking so little of herself because of her gender.”

Roronoa hardens his gaze and almost doubles in size as he straightens himself, towering over the Marine captain. “But she’s dead. And she will never know. And I guess it’s too late for it now. And the person who opened up my mind to the possibilities and gave me hope continues to view me as a petty low-life. And whatever ounce of help I provided in the end didn’t matter.”

The man shakes his head and before stepping around her says, “What do I know? Pirates don’t have feelings, right?”

That night, Tashigi couldn’t sleep. Roronoa’s words cut her deeper than any wound inflicted in battle. How petty and shallow of her to view Roronoa in this light.

His late friend… Of course. How could she forget? When will she ever see beyond herself? She was insecure, blinded by her weakness. Jealousy remains to be her biggest vice, the wall that prevents her from moving forward- the gap between their abilities. She was right about one thing however, she knows nothing about the man.

The following days, Roronoa stopped showing up at the training grounds and began training somewhere else, alone, and refused to train and spar with the female soldiers, however he allowed them to watch.

“Could we have been too much for him?” A soldier during lunch muttered weakly.

“Maybe our progress was too slow he got impatient.”

“Ugh. I shouldn’t have pushed him to try our family’s sake.”

“Face it, ladies. The man didn’t see anything special and probably got bored.” Another stirred at her lunch dully. “He’s still a pirate. Open your legs at him and he might—”

“He’s not like that!” Tashigi snapped. All eyes on her. Upon realizing her outburst has generated attention she wasn’t used to, she trembled and cast her eyes down. “Roronoa is… a lot of things. But he’s not like that.”

She quickly dislodge herself from the predicament. She needed to find the man- for the sake of the Marines. But more importantly give him the apology he deserved. She cannot allow her frivolous mistake sever the unity between Marines and pirates. Tashigi could not locate him that evening so she woke up early the next day and luckily found him in his new training spot, surrounded by female soldiers urging him for a spar.

Tashigi apprehensively stepped closer into his area. A twitch of his eye suggest he’s aware of her presence.

“Roronoa, please… please train them again.” She whispers and hopes he hears amidst his grunts and loud thrusts of his sword.

“They can train themselves.” He grunts.

“They can.” She swipes a quick glance at the inquisitive soldiers. “But they prefer your guidance. They enjoy your company.”

“They’ve trained without my supervision long before I arrived in the island. They don’t need me.”

“Roronoa, please-“

“No.”

Before her tears threaten to spill, Tashigi knelt down and pressed her forehead on the ground and bowed deeply before the man.

“I apologize for every malicious words I insinuated. You didn’t deserve the accusations. I was wrong. It was unjust- I was,” She bit her lip and forced the trembling words out, “— ignorant. I figured my misplaced vigilance for my fellow Marines only causes harm than good. And I realize my accusations reflected more about my insecurities than of your character.”

The thrusting of sword stopped and louder whispers emanate from the growing onlookers.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me. I only wish for you to know how deeply I regret my misdemeanour.” She sobbed. “Please do not punish them because of the lapses in my judgement. Roronoa… Roronoa-san, it would be an honour to gain your insights.”

Tashigi took a deep breath and lifted her head slightly, “Please train them—train us!!”

“Tashigi-san…” Echoes of her name ran through the crowd but she refused to lift her head.

A surge of delight rushed through the swordsman’s chest and instantly felt an entire lightness of being, as if the overbearing weight he’s been carrying the last couple of days was lifted off his chest and he was engulfed with unexpected satisfaction. A single apology from the woman would have suffice, but this almost evaporated every affliction he’d ever experience. Had this happen months ago, he would have a quip to counter, instead he clears his throat,

“Then what are you waiting for? Grab your shinai. We’re losing daylight!”

Tashigi finally raised her head, face coated in watery dirt but she didn’t care. Altogether, the entire female Marine squadron exclaimed, “Haiii!!”.

----

Apologies for going over the word count! I hope this was worth your time!

#zotashprompts #ZoTash #tashigi #roronoa zoro #writing prompt #one shot

34 notes · View notes

irkimatsu · 4 years

Text

I could write full fics, ooooor I could just write shreds of one based on a prompt I got on Twitter. Hey, everyone, how are ya doing.

Magical girl AU, YanaIchi, Ichi is a magical girl and Yana is a villain, or is he. Angst angst angst. Just some disjointed scenes that I wanted to write before I lost them forever.

What if I could promise you anything? Anything in the world? Anything you could possibly want, I could make it happen. All you’d have to do is join me.

I can tell that you miss someone. He broke your heart, didn’t he? You were so close growing up. Such good friends. You told each other that you’d be friends forever. So much for that, huh? He abandoned you. Just up and disappeared on you. He could be dead for all you know.

But I can promise you, he’s alive and well, and he regrets what he’s done. I could make him come back to you. I promise you, he wants to; if only he knew you could forgive him.

Can you forgive him? Then I’ll bring him back to you. Then you can be happy forever, like you both originally promised.

How do I know where he is? That he’s okay? That he wants to come back?

Why, it’s very simple. I’m his brother, after all.

------

“You don’t have to do this.”

Ichimatsu froze at the voice behind him. Why was he still paying attention? He’d said this conversation was over. His loyalty wasn’t up for debate, no matter what. Why couldn’t he stick to his guns?

That wretchedly smooth voice certainly had a way of earning his obedience. It always had, ever since they were kids.

He turned around to face Yanagida again. The other man stood firm, clad in his black and gold regalia, a concerned frown on his face. Suit, cape, boots - it all seemed a bit overdone, but at this point, Ichimatsu was used to “overdone” coming with the territory. It wasn’t as if his own dress and hair were any more subtle at the moment.

“Why are you so loyal to them, Ichimatsu?” Yanagida asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be? They’re my brothers,” Ichimatsu answered.

“I don’t mean them. I mean the ones who turned you into… into this,” Yanagida said, waving his hand from top to bottom to indicate Ichimatsu’s current form. “Are you really happy like this? Being their tool, doing whatever they say is good for the world?”

“I’m not doing this for them,” Ichimatsu said. “I couldn’t care less about them. But I can’t leave my brothers behind.”

“So you’ll do whatever your brothers do? What happened to you? What happened to your will?”

Ichimatsu didn’t have an answer for that. He let the awkward silence hang in the air between them both, effectively obscuring Ichimatsu’s view of Yanagida as his focus retreated inward.

“They’d have you kill me,” Yanagida continued. “Would you be willing to do that, just because a near-stranger told you it was for the sake of justice?”

Ichi’s response was so quiet, almost inaudible.

“...I couldn’t.”

Yanagida approached him, his stride so confident as always, and stopped mere inches from him, though he didn’t yet dare to touch him. “They’re trying to keep us apart, Ichimatsu. All because we chose different sides without even knowing. How can you stand for that?” His composure began to fade; Ichimatsu wasn’t sure how often, if ever, he’d seen Yanagida on the verge of tears before. “I… I already lost you once. I can’t do it again. Not like this.”

Ichimatsu took a few seconds to formulate his response.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Join us,” Yanagida said. “The ones who helped me find you again in the first place. They’d never ask you to do anything you didn’t want to do. All we have to do is be together. Isn’t that what you want? I’ve…” Yanagida took a deep breath, nearly choking on his words, as he took Ichimatsu’s hands in his and held them to his chest. “I’ve wanted it for so long. For years. I already let my chance get away before… I can’t make that same mistake twice.”

Ichimatsu finally answered.

“I’ll do it.”

Yanagida didn’t answer with words. Instead, he smiled, a beautifully beaming smile that came from his entire face, as he rested a hand on Ichimatsu’s cheek. “I knew you’d say yes. We’re meant to be, aren’t we? We always have been. Now, you just need to prove that you’re mine.”

“Prove?” Ichimatsu asked, trembling beneath Yanagida’s touch.

“You need to help grant the wish I made when I first joined this side. Want I wished for, more than anything… was for you to kiss me. Grant my wish, and you’ll be mine forever. You want that too, don’t you?”

Perhaps Ichimatsu had wanted that for as long as Yanagida had. At his touch, he felt even more empowered to make that wish come true. Both men leaned in together, and as their lips touched, a dark energy swirled deep inside Ichimatsu’s heart. He didn’t let its build stop him from this kiss, his very first kiss, even as it spread through his entire body and filled him with a newfound strength… strength, and a newfound rage and bitterness at the ones who turned him into a puppet for their own sense of justice. Shadowy tendrils coiled around his body with just enough pressure to make their presence known, and a bubbling blackness crept like sludge over his purple dress.

If this was the price he had to pay for Yanagida’s kiss, he’d pay it again ten times over.

----

Yanagida watched in horror from the ground as a battle broke out in the sky above him. Black and yellow clashed, yellow using his bat to block the swings from purple’s scythe. Yellow managed to close the distance, pulling himself out of range of his opponent’s long-handled weapon…

...only for the scythe to vanish in a flash of shadow, freeing up both of its wielder’s hands and allowing him to grip the yellow one’s throat instead.

Yanagida had always known Jyushimatsu as a troublemaker. He had that violent delinquent phase when they were teenagers, and even after he grew out of that, he still had a tendency to cause chaos for the fun of it. Even in all his battles with him as a magical girl, he’d gotten used to him as a reckless firecracker, sacrificing defensive maneuvers in favor of attacking quickly and powerfully, tanking hits and never reacting even when he should have reached his limit. He’d also gotten to know Jyushimatsu as the one person on this Earth that Ichimatsu was most protective of, the one for whose good he would willingly die for.

But even from this distance, he could see the fear in Jyushimatsu’s wide eyes as his voice quavered.

“Niisan…?”

Ichimatsu’s malicious grin grew wider as he tightened his grip on Jyushimatsu’s throat, only to lose hold as a blue ball of light struck him from behind. Jyushimatsu immediately flew out of his range as a now enraged Ichimatsu whipped around to face his attacker. Karamatsu floated at the ready, glowing shield held out and ready to strike again as Jyushimatsu hid behind him. Face still twisted in a growl, Ichimatsu summoned his scythe and swung it at the pair, only to be stopped by a forcefield. This didn’t slow Ichimatsu’s barrage at all, as he continued striking the forcefield as if he was doing it any sort of damage.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice from beside Yanagida. A shadowy figure, formless and seeing through a pair of piercing red eyes, rose up from the ground as he spoke, watching the battle with delight. “My Ichimatsu-niisan has gotten so powerful ever since I granted him my strength… I admit, it’d be better if they didn’t fight. I’d love to have all of my dear brothers on my side. But if this is what Karamatsu and Jyushimatsu want to fight for, then it can’t be helped.”

“Why is this happening?!” Yanagida asked in horror. “What did you do to him, Akumatsu?! You told me you wouldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do! There’s no way he’d want this!”

“I’m not forcing him to do anything,” Akumatsu responded casually. “He’s doing exactly what he wants to. His wants are just amplified by my influence. He’s always been a shitty, selfish soul, willing to sacrifice everyone’s good if he believes it means he can stay with someone who can actually stand loving him… he just needed me to amplify his wants over his conscience in order to make that happen.”

“My brother!” Karamatsu called out as he struggled to maintain his grip on his shield. “What’s gotten into you?! Please, cut all this out and come back to us!”

“What’s gotten into you?!” Ichimatsu snapped back as he continued attacking Karamatsu’s shield. “Why do you think I’d want to come back?! Just to do what we were told?! Just because we were convinced it’d be wrong to say no?! I’m not going back to being a puppet!”

Akumatsu cackled at Ichimatsu’s words as his scythe collided with Karamatsu’s shield for a final time. The shield emitted a flurry of sparks before exploding in a blaze of blue light, sending both Karamatsu and Jyushimatsu tumbling to the ground below before they hit it with a loud crash. Yanagida couldn’t take his eyes off Ichimatsu as he gently lowered himself down to the ground; he didn’t even notice that Akumatsu had hidden his presence before Ichimatsu could notice him.

“I did it, Yanagida! I beat them! I won! And I did it all on my own!” His smile now seemed so much more tranquil, which only terrified Yanagida even further. “Now they won’t try to take me away from you.”

Yanagida stood in stunned silence, still unsure how to respond to Ichimatsu’s sudden outburst.

“What’s wrong?” Ichimatsu asked as he stepped closer, cupping Yanagida’s face in his hands. “Isn’t this what you wanted? That was the last of them. I’ve beaten all of them. Now they can’t separate us. You won’t lose me ever again. Isn’t this what we wanted?”

Ichimatsu slowly moved in to Yanagida’s face, getting too close before Yanagida could quite place the change in his expression.

“I love you,” Ichimatsu whispered before kissing Yanagida’s lips.

As Ichimatsu’s hot tears poured down his cheeks, Yanagida just couldn’t bring himself to kiss him back.

#osomatsu san #ichimatsu #yanagida #yanaichi #irk writes fanfiction #irk blubbers about nothing

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wolffupdates · 4 years

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Alex Wolff on 'Castle in the Ground,' Producing a Movie with Nicolas Cage and His 'Jumanji' Future

The actor also reveals the text his friend Cage sent him about playing Joe Exotic.

[This story contains spoilers for Castle in the Ground.]

At 22, Alex Wolff has already had a full 16-year career in Hollywood. From his supernatural horror hit, Hereditary, to his expanding role in the Jumanji franchise, Wolff has even written and directed his own film, The Cat and the Moon. Wolff’s latest role as Henry in Castle in the Ground checks another box that is consistent with most acclaimed actors as his grieving, opioid-addicted character required dramatic weight loss. Since he was already quite lean, losing 30 pounds took its toll on the New York native.

“I only had a couple weeks before I started shooting. I know that [my diet] just didn’t turn out very well, and it turned out to be super unhealthy at the end of it,” Wolff tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I had a lot of problems, but I’ve now found out since then that there’s some totally better, more healthy ways that you can do it. And a can of tuna and an apple is not that.”

At the end of 2019, Wolff wrapped production on Michael Sarnoski’s Pig, and the experience went so well that he’s already collaborating with one of his co-stars on another project. That co-star happens to be one Nicolas Cage.

“I have a movie that I’m going to direct that I wrote and I’m really, really excited about it. And without spoiling too much, Nic is actually producing it with me,” Wolff shares. “I’m going to be starring in it… But yeah, I’d say it’s a character drama with elements of thriller. It’s definitely a psychological drama.”

In a conversation with THR, Wolff discusses Castle in the Ground’s impact on him, his Jumanji future and the text exchange he had with Cage regarding Cage’s new role as Joe Exotic.

You lost 30 pounds for Castle in the Ground. Did you subscribe to Christian Bale’s Machinist diet of one apple and one can of tuna per day?

Oh God. Yeah, I’ve heard of that. I’ve heard of a lot of different diets. I mean, mine was really interesting because I only had a couple weeks before I started shooting. It was like two or two-and-a-half weeks. I know that mine just didn’t turn out very well, and it turned out to be super unhealthy at the end of it. I had a lot of problems, but I’ve now found out since then that there’s some totally better, more healthy ways that you can do it. And a can of tuna and an apple is not that. (Laughs.)

Does a character like Henry ever frighten you to the point of being more cautious in your own life?

Interesting. I think more than anything, it really made me have empathy for people who make bad decisions. More than make me not make bad decisions, it makes me have more empathy for the people who make these kinds of decisions with addiction and everything. I see them more humanly.

As Henry showed, one wrong choice can create a ripple effect that has complete control over you.

Yeah, it just seems like this kind of thing happens so quickly. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing. This can happen so quickly once you start dipping your toe in this pool of these drugs and this kind of lifestyle. You just get completely sucked in, swept up, chewed up and spit out.

When your characters go through a difficult experience and you have to play those feelings and emotions that come with the territory, has that ever prepared you, to some degree, for a similar experience in real life?

I think it’s more the opposite. I mean, there are certain eerie times when life imitates art, but it’s more that my life experience becomes applicable to certain movies and characters. I can do some transference, but I don’t really think that anything that I’ve done in a movie has prepared me for anything in life. What I’ve done in movies has been a collection of my own experience.

I loved the voicemail scene between you and Imogen (Poots). Did you guys rehearse that scene since the timing is so precise and comedic?

I love that scene. We didn’t do much rehearsal in this movie at all. It was pretty guerilla warfare. (Laughs.) We could just go for it. So, we may have run through it a few times, but really, the rehearsal was us just kind of figuring it out as it goes along.

At first, I thought Henry was angling for a romantic relationship with Imogen’s character, Ana, but then I quickly realized that he wanted to transfer the caregiving of his mother (Neve Campbell) onto someone else who was sick in her own way. Do you also think he was dependent on caring for a sick person, as opposed to some romantic fixation?

Maybe he had a crush or something, but I think it’s kind of deeper. He needed anything. He needed anything from her — whether it was romantic or to just be around her, I think he just needed somebody in his life to fill the void of his mom. I don’t think it’s as simple and as clean-cut as her replacing his mom, but I think it’s just that he needs something. He needs some family.

[This next question contains spoilers for Castle in the Ground’s ending.]

The movie ends on an ambiguous, full-circle moment, but given the unforgiving and relentless nature of the opioid crisis, I think history repeated itself in Henry’s mom’s bedroom. Was that your interpretation as well?

Well, I almost want to keep the end a secret for people who haven’t seen it. So, I kind of want that to be one of these big surprises. But I think you’re right. I mean, I’m thinking about it, but I think you’re right. He kind of gives into it eventually. I think he protests, but he lets her do it. I think it’s this moment where, yeah, it’s like history repeating itself. It’s like a prophecy or premonition that he’s going to end up doing it. I kind of want people going in, thinking that it’s going to go a different direction or thinking that it’s going to all come up daisies. You think it’s going to go that way, and then, I think it’s important that it’s like “nope.” It should end super hopeless and punishing because that’s how this actually ends. This is how these drugs usually end.

I loved how aggressively blunt Henry could be at times. He was pretty reserved for the most part, but he did not hold back when it came to Ana’s friends. For example, Tom Cullen’s character said to him, “You seem like a good kid,” and Henry responded, “Thanks, I kind of thought you were a piece of shit...”

(Laughs.) Yeah, I think it’s his only way of survival. I think he is shy, and I love that too. That was really a good element in the script, and I think we worked on beefing that up a little bit. He’s like a little boy, and I think little boys are like that sometimes. They put on a front of toughing it out, hence “I kind of thought you were a piece of shit...” But I think it’s also his way of giving and receiving love. I think it’s how he and Ana bond. I think it’s just his way of connecting.

Henry’s girlfriend, Rachel (Star Slade), had her own life while he was taking care of his mother. She was also going off to school soon. Was Henry’s decision to break up with her partially inspired by the fact that she didn’t need him as much as his mother or Ana did?

That’s interesting. That’s a really good question, but I didn’t see it that way. Maybe to a certain degree, but I would say that instead of her being more independent, I think it was about the fact that she was almost too good for him at a time when he couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle any kind of positive thing in his life. He wanted to be miserable. He wanted to follow the danger and follow his id, not what was healthy for him.

You started acting at six years old. Once you became old enough to make your own choices, did you ever sit down and assess whether you wanted to keep acting or not? Obviously, you made the right call, but sometimes, we hold on to things just because they’re all we’ve ever known.

I think about quitting acting every single day. I have a very love-hate relationship with it. The second I start a movie or when I’m not good in a scene, I’m like, “Fuck, I don’t want to do this anymore. This is hard.” You have to, in equal measure, be completely in love with it and need to do it. It feels like a need. It feels super deep and heartfelt.

Given the sad state of the world, have you done a screen test or chemistry read with another actor yet via Zoom?

Yeah, I’ve done a bunch of monologues and stuff with people, which has been really fun. I’ve been writing monologues and sending them to my friends, and I think that’s been really good. I’ve done some play readings on Zoom, but it’s not the same. It’s not great, but it’s okay. It’s better than nothing. The lag time is better than I actually expected, but it’s just still not perfect. It just isn’t.

You were an uncredited partygoer in Cory Finley’s Thoroughbreds, and you just had a supporting role in his latest film, Bad Education, which is excellent. Clearly, Cory felt guilty over the size of your Thoroughbreds part, right?

(Laughs.) He better have! He better feel guilty. No, I was shooting Patriots Day like an hour away from where they were shooting Thoroughbreds, and I knew the producer. So, I came just to hang out, and they just threw me in there, which was fun. But yeah, he’d better feel guilty for not giving me a bigger part. (Laughs.)

In Bad Education, I was quite fond of your outburst after Geraldine Viswanathan’s character pressures your character to publish her exposé, but he’s torn because of his recommendation letter from Hugh Jackman’s character.

That was kind of a fun day because Cory doesn’t usually have people improvising, but I kind of just went for it.

Jumanji: The Next Level left things in a very tantalizing place as the Jumanji game world has returned to the real world a la the original Robin Williams movie. Are you intrigued by the possibility of your real-life characters acting alongside the avatar characters for a change?

Oh my God, yeah. That better happen. That would be so amazing. I want that. Yeah, I think it would be full circle. To come back to the real world.

I think you just came up with the title.

Jumanji: Full Circle? Yeah, it better be that. Jumanji: Full Circle, I like that. The idea of all the kids, The Rock, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover and everybody else in the real world makes me so unbelievably excited.

Recently, your name was on a very exciting list of actors in connection with a new movie from one of my favorite filmmakers, M. Night Shyamalan. Can you say anything about this?

(Wolff imitates static noise.) We’re going through a tunnel actually. Sorry, I’m going through a tunnel right now. There’s a tunnel in my house. Can you hear that? (Laughs.)

You’ve heard this quite a bit, but Hereditary’s car accident scene is one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen. Oftentimes, when the cast and crew know they have to shoot something dark like that, they find ways to keep the set as light as possible. Was that the case that day?

No, actually. That was not the case. For me, sometimes if they’re trying to make it too light, it’s kind of distracting. So, I sometimes have to just stay in the zone. I kind of just was wearing my headphones and trying to stay in the spirit of it. I think it’s sometimes too hard to completely jump in and out.

Did that scene mess with your head for a little while after shooting it? No pun intended.

(Laughs.) I think it did mess with my head in the moment. I think the whole movie was kind of difficult. It kind of stuck with me. I think that scene in particular definitely stuck with me at least for a few days. But I think that movie was like a constant attention-taker. I think it haunted me for a while.

This is a shameless question, but have you texted your friend Nic Cage about his brand-new role as Joe Exotic [of Tiger King fame]?

Of course, I have. Of course, I have. I said, “Are you playing Joe Exotic?” and he texted me back (Wolff imitates Cage.) “You bet your ass I am.”

It’s perfect casting.

When I first saw it, I said the only person who could possibly play him in a fictional world is Nic. I just feel like that guy is so larger than life, and anybody else would not be able to go there. Nic is the only person who can go there, I think.

Are you itching to direct again?

Yeah, man. I have a movie that I’m going to direct that I wrote and I’m really, really excited about it. And without spoiling too much, Nic is actually producing it with me. Yeah, I’m really excited about it.

Can you reveal the genre yet?

I would say it’s a character drama, and I’m going to be starring in it. I’m really excited about it. But yeah, I’d say it’s a character drama with elements of thriller. It’s definitely a psychological drama.

***

Castle in the Ground is now available on Digital HD and VOD.

#alex wolff #alexwolff #natandalex #castle in the ground #castleintheground

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darlingpetao3 · 4 years

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Flashworld (Ralph Dibny x Reader)

Rating: G

Summary: During a storm, a freak accident sends you into a very familiar world - one you happen to watch every week on TV - and come face to face with a member of Team Flash.

A/N: As soon as I read this request, it made me think of the beginning of Netflix’s Dramaworld (and if you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest checking that out).

“Oh my God, Ralph’s first super suit!” you exclaim to yourself, with a laugh. “It really was terrible in season four.”

Holding your phone in your hand, you are so into this episode of The Flash. It’s one you’ve seen before, obviously, but with your intense rewatch of the series, nothing would distract you from the small screen.

Not even when you should be cleaning up on your late shift at work. And truth be told, you kind of don’t want to leave the building yet. That storm outside is pretty nasty...

Everyone had gone home already, the doors are locked, and as you clean up everyone’s mess from earlier, you still have your phone in one hand. The Flash blares on.

“Ralph had such great character development,” you continue to talk to yourself. “He’s such a sweetie on the inside. Ugh, look at that smile!”

Thunder rumbles outside and nearly breaks your concentration from the show. Nearly.

“It’s so heartbreaking when DeVoe takes over his body. I’m in no hurry for that episode.”

Miraculously, something breaks through to your concentration and commentary on the episode when you hear the tell-tale sounds of riffraff outside the building. You groan and head towards the window to crack it open.

“Hey, you kids!” you shout down at them from above. “Get a move on! There’s no loitering here!”

“Yeah, whatever!” they holler back rebelliously, and maybe seem like they’re about to leave after all. Ugh, youths.

“I can wait here all night! Or do you want me to call the-?”

You aren’t even able to finish your sentence because it’s in this very second that the impossible decides to strike.

Literally.

While one hand holds your phone, and the other still grips the metal handle of the window, lightning strikes you. At first, you feel a jolt, then this odd and frightening sense like you’re spinning. Is this what death feels like?

Everything is dark and wet. Did you fall out of the window? If so, then why aren’t you in severe pain? You are inundated with a series of questions, but first, you decide to hurry back inside your building.

Except it looks nothing like your building.

Climbing the stairs, you reach the second floor - your floor - and find the door down the hall and on the left. But what you find at the door is not the business you work for. Absolutely not. What you do find is something that makes you scream.

Ralph Dibny

Private Investigator

“What the actual hell? What is going on here?” In a continuing series of outbursts from you trying to decipher who’s playing this joke on you, the door you’re so concerned about starts to open.

“What’s all the commotion about…?”

You hear the familiar voice before you lay eyes on the extremely familiar face, finding yourself blinking and gaping at the very real and attractive face of Ralph freaking Dibny.

What the actual f-

Shoes still wet from being outside, you slip on the slick floor, arms flailing and all. But ever the hero, Ralph catches you in the nick of time. Were those his stretchy arms? Is it really him? Is this seriously happening?

“Whoa now, up you go,” he says, getting you to stand back on your feet again.

“I- Is this a dream?”

“Don’t worry, I have that effect on the ladies,” Ralph tells you with a wink as if it’s a secret.

“...Thanks. For that,” you gesture, referring to him catching you. “I’m sorry, but where exactly am I? Just so I’m sure.”

“You’re at my office? Did you need a private investigator?”

“Not at this moment,” you reply, still trying to wrap your head around this… this is a dream, right? “And I’m in…?”

“One hell of a pair of jeans?” Ralph offers. Oh my God, is Ralph Dibny flirting with me??

You can’t help the giggle that leaves you at the sheer insanity. This is unreal. “I meant the city. This is… Central City, correct?”

“That’s right. Have you been hit in the head, by chance?”

“Not as far as I know,” you murmur. “And, you know, just for laughs, what year is it?”

“Two thousand eighteen, baby!” Ralph confirms for you. “Although I still find myself writing two thousand seventeen, don’t you?”

"Haha, yeah, totally.”

This is such a trip.

So, if you really are in season four of The Flash as you’re suspecting, then things will play out like in the show, right? What about the in-between bits of the episodes, what happens then? Your head feels like it’s going to explode. You need to figure out when exactly you fell into the show.

“Say, Ralph- can I call you Ralph?” you ask.

“You can call me anything you want and any time you want,” he replies smoothly.

Okay, keep it together. Keep it together.

“Noted,” you play-punch his arm and you mentally scold yourself. He may seem familiar to you because he’s on your favourite show, but you’ve never met him before now! “Um, anyway, right, so, how’s Barry Allen doing? I know you’re friends with him. I’ve been trying my best to keep up with the news…”

Ralph looks a bit taken aback at the mention of his friend and Team Flash leader. “He’s a real champ, doing the best anyone could in his situation. You know, he’s completely innocent.”

Ah, okay, it’s around Barry’s trial.

“I believe that he is too,” you tell him. “Actually, Ralph, I was wondering-”

“-Yes, you can have my number.”

You laugh again. He really is incorrigible. Ralph appears proud that he keeps getting you to laugh so easily.

“Slow your roll, Casanova. I want to help.” You look around the corridor for prying ears. “I know things.”

Ralph narrows his eyes at you. “What exactly do you know?”

“I kind of know what happens in the future,” you say, bracing yourself.

“You mean you’re psychic? Are you a meta?” he whispers.

“Uh, yes?” Oh great. You’re lying to an actual investigator. Funnily enough, though, Ralph seems to buy it. “And I know your secret.”

“My secret?” he asks warily.

“Your very elongated secret. But don’t worry, you can trust me. I’m a big fan.”

That came out far too fangirly than you’d expected. There’s a bit of a pause in the conversation as Ralph surveys you. You expect he’s trying to get a read on you.

“How would you like to work with me?” he asks straight out of the gate.

“Wow, what? Really? Just like that?”

“Sure. I could use a psychic meta on my cases, and I know some other folks that might appreciate your powers. Especially right about now.”

He means Team Flash, he means Team Flash!

“Yes, okay, I would love to work with you, Ralph,” you reply with a grin.

“Great. Why don’t you meet me back here at ten tomorrow morning? We can get started.”

“Wonderful. Awesome. Sounds good. See you then.” With one last glance at the PI, you turn around on your heels and make your way back from which you entered. As you begin to leave the building, even more questions start to fill your head.

Will things change the timeline of the show now that you’re here inside it? Are you able to change things - like Barry going to jail or DeVoe taking over Ralph’s body?

Does this mean you’re a character in the show now?

Are you… being watched by millions of people at home at this very moment?

You give a little wave to nowhere in particular, and start to think about where you might stay the night in Central freaking City.

Requested by @kurtbastianlover: Hi can you write a one shot where reader would appear in flash universe and she would know what happens to Ralph and how in the end they defeat de voe because in her reality she watched the flash on TV and Ralph would be attracted to her because she would get his jokes and also have an eye for detail and help him as P.I.

#reader insert #requested #kurtbastianlover #ralph dibny x reader #ralph dibny & reader #ralph dibny imagine #the flash imagine #the flash fanfiction

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r00en · 4 years

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Still Good-Chapter 7

Midoriya what's to know more about the number three hero in America.

All Might / Reader (OC)

This one is mostly just Paladin talking to Midoriya about her quirk and fleshing out the differences between the US and Japan when it comes to how hero’s work. It also touches on quirk breeding and how quirks effect jobs and employment in society....a little. To make up for the fact that this is much more of a slow burn that I expected I’ll write part 2 of Caught.

"Hm? You want to know more about my quirk?"

The near violent bouncing of Midoriya pulled a small giggle from the nurse as she finished wrapping up his finger. Sure she was going to have to do it at least twenty more times before the end of the month at his rate. His legs kicked slightly under the cot he was perched on trying his best to contain that near aggressive fan boy excitement that was rushing through his body. "Yes please! You were the number three hero in America for almost five years without ever having beaten a villain yourself! I want to know how you did it!"

Paladin sighed and stood up, rubbing the back of her head in a bit of embarrassment. "Well when you put it like that it sounds more like an accident huh?" her nervous chuckle sent the young boy into another mild panic and wave of muttering. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend you! What I mean is your style of combat and fighting villains is unlike that of any other hero! I want to know how that's possible!" They both watched other for a moment at the old hero tried her best to think of a good response that might calm him down. "Alright, what sort of thing do you want to know?"

As if she had opened the flood gates the green haired student raced into a long winded stream of questions. His notebook and pen in hand ready to write down every word she said. "I know you're Recovery Girls granddaughter and quirks are often inherited but also mutate with each genetic passing from parent to child but what sort of change did your quirk go through that makes it so different from hers? For that matter Recover Girl is far from a front line fighter and is know as one of the best support hero's so what make you decide you want to fight rather than use your powers as back up and after combat care? Did you use any support items at all while you were a hero? Did they enhance your healing capabilities or give you an offensive edge in your battles?! what about-" A hand came down on Midoriya's head with a soft yet stern wack which quickly silenced his sudden outburst. "S-sorry! Sorry...."

After a brief pause to make sure he had gotten his ranting out of his system or at least had control over it, Paladin sat back in her seat and tapped her chin. "Well then let's see....my quirk is pretty simple when you think about it. It is generally just recovery. Like grandma I'm able to heal wounds rapidly on others. Though exactly like her's there is a limit to the amount of healing I can give someone without causing undo stress on their bodies and possibly killing them. Which of course means major life threatening injury's are out of my range unfortunately." The young student was already scribbling down in a page with her hero name painted in bold large letters at the top. Her her horror there was also a crude drawing of her in her old hero costume from years back. Hopefully no one else would be peaking into those books any time soon.

"If that's the case...then how can your own body heal so quickly during battle. In your fight against the Code Weaver you were impaled on iron spikes from the rubble of a building....and against Lady Dino she managed to rip your leg off TWICE! You can regrow your own limbs and different body parts so how come that doesn't apply to others." He spoke like this was such a normal thing to talk about. Horrible mutilation at the hands of villains. Perhaps in this day and age it was. Something Toshi was trying so desperately to avoid for years and something he still grew dark and somber about when it was mentioned around him. Now that she was also confronted with the cold facts of her time as a hero she understood why her dear 'friend' acted the way he did and seemed to want nothing to do with her old time as a hero. Outside of the nice press releases, interviews and seamless happy rescues that was. He adored those beyond belief and often replayed them while they ate dinner together. But major battles were off the table. She god it now.

Tapping her pen against the young students medical report she wondered if it would be best to explain her great strengths and weakness to a child. Then again he was meant to be learning after all and All Might held the boy in great regard. "Mmm...it's like this. Say I'm healing a broken leg on you, that uses life energy which drains quickly when the speed of recovery is increased draining to much can kill you...but my body heals itself so rapidly that the rate at which my life energy is replaced far exceeds that at which it's expended. Like a small crack at the bottom of a water bottle. I also don't have to direct my quirk to work to set parts of my body. As long as I activate it it will seek out the injury and repair it without any other help from me. When healing others since it's not my own body and one I'm accustom to it's better to use Grandmas techniques and assess the damage and distribute my quirk in smaller doses. Your body can't keep up the same way mine can so it's safer that way."

"Right...that makes sense! But You said something before about being able to tell what's wrong with a body but unlike Recovery Girl you never went to medical school....how-" "Well that's my father quirk." "You have two?!" "N-no quite....ah...you see it's not very uncommon for selective quirk breeding to come about accidentally." Midoriya gave a look that screamed confusion "W-what I mean is, often times you'll find in very select fields of work people will commonly have the same quirk type. You know doctors marrying doctors, construction workers with construction workers. These special fields often allow the use of quirks which draws the same kind together in large groups. Hospitals are often filled with support quirks that are pratical for anyone in the health industry to have." tapping her lip Paladin got a grave look on her face "Which is a bit of a downfall....now it's less likely for those without these special catered quirks to get into the fields of study and work that they wish. There are drawbacks to this hero society we created..." The pair of them kept silent for a moment. If Midoriya was honest he did never think of it that way. Some people weren't exactly free to decide what they did in life. Their quirk often dictated a path they might not have chosen for themselves. It also often shattered their dreams if it didn't line up correctly. A fact he himself knew all to well.

"B-but back to what I was saying! People in the same line of work often have the same type of quirk which will lead to accidental quirk breeding! The round about legal if not accidental way of breeding powerful advanced quirks! My grandfathers was being about to feel an injury or illness in a person. He couldn't correct it but he could often diagnose a problem given enough time." "And your father" "Ah...he could rewire the body to respond differently to things like pain and stress. He was a physical therapist. But my grandfathers works in favor with mine! As I said my quirk though the body I can feel the issues as it passes over injury. If you told me your shoulder hurt I might not be able to tell right away by looking exactly what part of your shoulder but if my quirk passes it it more or less reports back to me what it's doing to correct the issue. If it's not a wound or injury, something like All Might's muscle stress I can help him by telling his body to relax and pull pressure off the scar tissue around his trauma areas."

The boys hands clapped together as if he just recalled something important. "Oh yeah! I see All Might come by here all the time! Is that what you two are doing? Physical therapy?" The sudden rush of blood that raced it's way to Paladins cheeks was far to fast for her to hide or get a handle over. Spinning herself around in her office chair she faced the wall and started to laugh nervously. "W-Well he's a good friend of mine after all! O-o-of course I would want to help him with any pain he might be under! That's what friends do right!? Friends help friends!? He also comes to see grandmother too so it's not just me! There's no way he just comes here to see me or eat lunch together! That would be silly who would do such a thing!?" Her sudden outburst seemed to go over the boys head who just sat there with a serious look on his face.

"Your power seems incredible....maybe if you could reverse All Might's injury...." A hand came down to ruffle the body green hair. Over with her little panic session Paladin smiled down at him with an almost sad look of mourning. "I'm sorry Midoriya....no quirk in the world is going to be able to bring All Might back. Even when it happened it took three different quirk users just to keep him stable. The damage is far too great." They both shared a somber moment. As if once again reliving the time they learned that All Might was gone, at least the symbol of peace, was hitting them all over again. A somber air hung in the office and felt cool and damp. The young student was the first to snap out of it. "Oh yeah, we didn't go over your weaknesses. If that's alright I mean not all hero's like to disclose that sort of thing."

Ruffling his hair again Paladin sat back. "Nah it's fine. I'm not in the hero business any more and if I'm going to be taking care of you kids it's good that you know my limitations. Let's see, as I said before like Recovery Girl I can't heal others to great extents. My support abilities are handy but no replacement for major surgery and at times it's far better to let the body heal naturally over time. You know this stuff already after grandma filled you in during the entrance exam. For me personally there are a few major flaws in my quirk. For one thing some types of damage start to degrade the cells in the body. Fire is the first one that springs to mind. Burnt up cells can't regenerate properly with is why burn scars are normally so much more unnatural looking. They can't reshape correctly. It takes much longer for my healing to do it's job if the area is effected by a fire quirk. Same goes for chemical type burns. I'm no good against acid villains. But I would say my biggest is the fact that I need to activate my quirk. It's not something that happens naturally. If I'm knock unconscious I won't heal."

"But I've seen you get hit tons of times and get right back up! None of those ever knocked you out before?"

"Oh no plenty of them did! Most I'm guessing. But that's were my training comes in. I need to predict an enemy's move and determine if the impact will in fact knock me out and activate my quirk just seconds before the blow lands. If I'm able to do that my healing will rush to the head injury and often fix allowing me to wake up and finish the job myself!" "I see! So by reading your opponents moves you can cushion the blow AND preemptively heal yourself before any damage is done!" "Right! Smart kid! But this dosn't work with natural suppressants or drugs. If a villain is using a sleep gas my body won't respond to the attack as it thinks the effect is harmless. Like white blood cells and cancer. If there isn't something it deems a threat I can't target it to heal. I'll be out for the fight!"

"So while your power seems amazing and unstoppable it really does have some major down falls. I never even thought of these sorts of things..." "Every quirk has it's weak points. It's all about finding them and exploiting them in a fight if you want to win. I have next to no offensive abilities but my healing allows me to wear out criminals, assess their quirks and expose their weaknesses to other hero's. I'm sure you know in America most hero agencies work with team based hero groups over single hero's. You guys often team up in Japan but there are very few groups that work together full time. That's one of the big reasons I was able to be a front line hero! I don't think I would have stood a chance here in Japan." It was true, hero's in Japan often worked alone or with one to two side kicks at best. It allowed the agencies to spread hero's across the map without having to cluster them in smaller locations. But in America hero's were often paired into large groups of six or more. All large names with rather impressive statistics and track records. Of course there were solo hero's but since the cities were set up so different it made more second for a network of hero's to control a single city and allow smaller hero's to branch out into less hostile areas. It worked well enough and often the threat of large hero's with vast communication and skill working together as a group often scared away the larger criminals or networks if villains. Its easy to get past a hero or two but a large group with comparable quirks and skill working together was a far different thing.

Midoriya beamed up at the nurse as he snapped his note book shut. "This is great! Thank you so much Paladin! I had no idea your quirk was so advanced! What made you suddenly decide to work here at UA? Seem's like such a step down from your heroing..."

Her voice caught in her throat, fingers clutched tightly to her work skirt unsure how to answer. Instead she opted to ruffle his hair again and laugh. "Ah it just wasn't for me anymore! I would much rather help the next generation be the best they can be! Besides grandma asked for my help. I couldn't really refuse." The slide of the office door caused both of them to turn with a sudden startled jump.

"You ready to go Paladin? If we catch this next train I might be able to get the soup started sooner so we won't need to eat so- Y-young Midoriya!?" There stood as flustered and tired looking All Might. His face painted a light pink at the realization that he just outed the two of them with their dinner plans. "You two....eat together?" Both the staff members scrambled, looking at each other and waving frantically at the young student who sat ridged and shocked. "Wait All Might! Is this the staff member you were asking advice about on the beach?!" Paladin looked at Toshi with a sly expression, trying desperately not to tease him. This wasn't the time though she did get a rather warm and fuzzy feeling over knowing he was even asking students for advice about her. What ever that meant.

"T-T-That's! It's not! Y-young Midoriya this is hardly the time or place to be asking such personal questions from your teacher!" He tried his best to put on that stern authority voice but the tremble in it wasn't very convincing. "You should be heading home now, don't leave your mother worried!" As if remembering the time the student jumped up from the cot and shoved his notebook away in his book bag. "Shoot you're right! Thank you All Might! And Paladin! Thank you so much for the information on your quirk! I'll be sure to study it!" Both of them watched as he scrambled down the hall deciding at least for now that it was alright for him to run. Once he was out of sight they both let out a breath they didn't know they were holding. "I don't think he'll remember. I packed his head so full of hero facts that should keep him busy for a while."

Toshi chucked and rubbed his neck nervously. "Yeah? Sorry about that....I figured everyone went home already. Thank goodness it wasn't Aizawa." The thought of that dark looming man and his icy grin and knowing eyes set a shiver down Toshi's spine. "Small favors...." Paladin nudged his side softly to get his attention and the smile she gave him warmed him almost instantly. "Let's get going yeah? Now you have me in the mood for this soup you mentioned!" "R-right..." As the shut down her office, Toshi flicking the lights off and locking the door for her he thought of something.

"You were teaching Young Midoriya about your quirk?" "Mhm, he wanted to know exactly how it worked and how it's different from Grandmothers. We went over strengths and weaknesses and all that, I was sure to remind him that combat training even without a quirk is an important tool to read your opponents moves and react accordingly. I think I might have a hand for this teaching stuff after all!" The happy tone in her voice plastered a smile on his thin face. She didn't have to be so kind, go out of her way to help the students like she did and think of all the little ways to help them improve even outside of her designated job as school nurse. This was something so special about that light she carried within her that Toshi found himself drawn to it like a moth. Happy to just be dazzled by it from afar.

#MHA #All Might x Reader #All Might/reader #Toshinori Yagi #my hero acadamy #fan fiction #midoriya

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moonlight-frittata · 5 years

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I’m Not Drunk, You’re Drunk

@sailorsunspot gave the prompt, “Catra and Adora get drunk while they’re in the Horde together”

They’re about 16 or so in this (I put them at around 18 or 19 in the show).

Word Count: 1913

---

Adora twisted the cap off a glass bottle Catra handed to her with a shit eating grin. The harsh stench of alcohol assaulted her senses, forcing her to hold the liquor at arm’s length. She blinked over and over, trying to stave off tears caused by the strong fumes. The clear liquid inside was most likely Horde back alley hooch, but could just as likely be fuel for a Class B skiff from the smell of it.

“Where the hell did you get this?”

Catra leaned back against a crate, looking quite pleased with herself.

“I have connections. A few of the senior cadets have a still system somewhere. And one of them owed me a favor.”

The pair sat across from each other behind a pile of spare tank parts, holed up in a storage room of the vehicle hanger. It was one of the numerous hiding spots they snuck off to after dinner to unwind before curfew. Catra dropped hints all day she had a special surprise for this particular evening, keeping tight lips whenever Adora tried to needle the truth out of her.

“You sure this won’t kill me immediately?”

“Live a little Adora, no one lasts forever.”

“Not wanting to die is living plenty!”

“Helen assured me it’s safe enough.”

Adora sighed.

“Have you tried this before?”

“No.. but that’s why I thought we could do it together.”

Adora turned the bottle over in her hands one more time, the smell of alcohol still irritating the tip of her nose.

“I don’t know, Catra.”

“Come on, are you scared I can handle it and you can’t?”

Adora rolled her eyes as Catra snatched the bottle out of her hands and took the first swig. She tipped the bottle upright and swallowed a mouthful. The effect was immediate. Tears stung the corners of her eyes and her face scrunched up in pain. A rough, uneven cough escaped her lips from the burn in her throat that traveled to her chest.

“...yep!..*cough cough*..it’s...good stuff..*cough cough*..Adora!”

Catra shoved the bottle into Adora’s hands and continued coughing into the crook of her elbow. Despite the self induced pain, Catra’s mismatched eyes twinkled with mischief. Adora knew exactly what she was trying to do. A challenge had been issued. One that would be held over her head with unrestrained malace and taunting until the end of time if she refused to rise to the occasion. Adora turned the bottle over in her hands for a moment, weighing the pros and cons in her head while Catra recovered her composure and flashed a cocky grin.

“Ah, what the hell..”

Adora tipped the bottle in Catra’s direction, raising it in a gesture she once saw Shadow Weaver use with a goblet of wine at a banquet for Hordak, and swallowed.

There was no real flavor to the swill she somehow willfully ingested, except maybe an after taste of rusty metal and jet fuel. Adora’s torso hitched in a shudder as the bite of drink seared her tongue and back of her throat on the way down. The warmth of alcohol settled in her belly like hot embers in a furnace. She sucked in air through her teeth and nodded her head encouragingly at Catra before another shudder rippled through her body.

“Bleh. Okay, we did it. Now what?”

Catra took the bottle back and set it between them on the concrete floor. The clear liquid swished back and forth inside before it settled, the container still mostly full.

“Um, I don’t know. It’s supposed to make you feel different. Do you feel different?” Catra asked.

Adora ran her fingers over her chest where the lingering tingle of alcohol settled uncomfortably under her sternum. She felt like her insides had been cleaned out with hot metal, but other than that she didn’t feel anything in particular.

“Maybe we need to drink some more?”

---

“...ahahaha, how many reps are you gonna mess up until you finally fall over, Adooora.”

Catra lay sprawled across a bundled up tarp she pulled off a pile of broken turret parts. Her tail drifted slowly back and forth.

Adora swayed on her feet, one hand propped against the wall, the other holding the half-empty bottle of liquor. Every time she bent over to put the bottle down, the world rushed up to meet her eyes and she had to shuffle her feet to keep from falling down. Catra joked she looked like she was attempting a kettlebell exercise from training.

“You’re just jealous I’m super strong, and can balance real good and can do, other stuff, Catra. Ca-tra. Cat rahh.”

The usual lilt of her best friend’s name felt strange on her tongue. Cat..ra. Adora moved her lips in silence, trying to figure out the normal sound they were supposed to make. Catra. She lifted her fingers to her lips, noticing they felt numb and slow. Just like everything else floating on the fringe of her sight.

“I, think you are drunk. Adora.”

Catra fell back against the tarp and laughed in a raspy staccato clip. After a beat, she moved to sit up but without any of her usual feline grace and nearly tumbled onto her face. It only made her laugh even harder.

The point of Adora’s shoulder blades dug into the concrete wall behind her, solid and steady against the rocking motion of everything else in the room. She gave up the effort to place the bottle on the ground, deciding instead to join Catra on her tarp. Adora made it across the room in a few strides, falling heavily beside her friend.

She lifted a limp wrist and pointed her finger.

“I think you’re the one who’s drunk. Ca-te-rah.”

The glass container dropped between them with a soft thud against the canvas, the liquid inside too shallow to spill out when the bottom hit the ground.

“I mean, that was the point...”

Catra’s words slurred together, a drawl in her annunciation. She turned over towards Adora.

“I’m impressed you didn’t chicken out. Miss future force captain.”

Adora leaned back to close her eyes for a moment, thinking better of it as the world tilted too much.

“I’m not as good as you might think. I can be insubordinate.”

Catra watched closely as Adora sounded out each syllable like a foreign word.

“Pffft, when have you ever been insubordinate in your life?”

Adora’s eyebrows knit together, her blue eyes grey and cloudy with thought.

“I’m...I’m being insubordinate right now! I do stuff people think I won’t do. I didn’t tell Shadow Weaver when Lonnie cheated on her Geometry exam. I lied about Kyle’s one mile time so he wouldn’t fail for the fifth try in a row. I cover for you when you’re late to training, or when you piss off the instructors.”

“Oh yeah, you’re such a martyr, Adora,” Catra whispered. The reply came out sharp through the haze of intoxication.

Adora turned to her.

“Whaat’s that supposed to mean? You’re the one who’s always telling me to lighten up and not care as much.”

“That dumb stuff doesn’t mean anything, Adora. Geometry test? One mile? What does that even really matter. None of it involved you or could actually get you in trouble.”

“Are you serious??” Adora’s voice rose to a breathy shrill. “It could put any future promotions at risk if they knew I lied!!”

Catra shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, but her usual flippant tone was less convincing than usual. The tips of her claws dug into the soft skin of her palm at her side.

“Yeah right Adora. We all know you can get away with anything in Shadow Weaver’s eyes. Perfect Adora! Pride of the Horde! That old witch could walk in here right now with us piss drunk and I would be the only one to get the living shit beat out of me. Once for the drinking, and twice for getting you drunk.”

“That’s not..that’s not true!”

Adora’s head bobbed back and forth, the slur in her words growing more pronounced with every sentence. Her forehead wrinkled from how hard she seemed to be concentrating on the conversation.

“I would definitely get punished, are you kidding me? But I got drunk anyway! Because I always go along with your plans in the end.”

She flourished her arms and fell back dramatically. Catra scowled at her, then stared at a spot on the ceiling, annoyed by the turn of their conversation. Adora stayed silent for so long after her outburst Catra wondered if she fell asleep.

“And also Catra,” Adora said bolting upright. “If none of that stuff matters, why are you giving me a hard time about it?”

The hair on Catra’s back bristled. She stared at her knees and bit the inside of her cheek.

“Catra?”

Their shoulders were flush against each other where they sat on the tarp. Catra’s heartbeat spiked in her ears. The comfort of the closeness grew stifling and too much. Adora tried to place her hand on Catra’s forearm, but she moved it away. Nothing dramatic. A subtle shift of the elbow, but it said enough.

“Wait, are you mad at me?”

“We’re just drunk. Don’t read into something that’s not there.”

“Catra..”

Catra rolled to her side and onto her knees, leaning heavily against the crates around her for support as she rose to her feet. Everything moved back and forth like a pitching ship, no matter how still she held herself. Something screamed danger to where the conversation was taking a turn. The drunken cloud was not clearing, instead focusing on a place she was not interested in talking about.

“Come on,” Catra groaned between deep breaths, “we should get to bed before -”

Her ears twitched to the side as the inevitable sound of too much fun filled the storage room. Adora was on hands and knees, retching over and over off the edge of the tarp onto the concrete floor. Catra bit her lip, trying hard not to get sick herself from the sound. It wasn’t something she usually had an issue with, but she also wasn’t normally drunk off her ass when she held Adora’s hair back from a fever.

The dry heaving stopped almost as fast as it began. Adora whimpered quietly, crawling a few feet away from the puddle of puke on the floor. Catra sighed, her anger flickering out before it ever grew into something else. With slow, deliberate steps she closed the distance to help her best friend. Because even if she was mad at Adora, she’d still always have her back.

“Alright cadet. Let’s get you to your bunk.”

Catra held her hand out. Adora lifted her head, eyes glassy and lidded with drunken fatigue. She took the outstretched palm, but Catra still needed to half drag Adora to her feet.

As they turned to go, the back of Catra’s foot bumped into the glass bottle on the ground. It still had some Horde hooch left inside. She started to bend over and pick up the bottle, but her eyes swam and stomach flipped and she decided to leave the spoils of war alone. With one of Adora’s arms slung over her shoulder, the pair shambled back to their barracks.

“...so I guess we lived a little, huh?” Adora mumbled, barely coherent.

Catra chuckled.

“Oh yeah. And I won’t let you forget it for a loooong time.”

#catradora #she-ra #angst #fluff #friendship #look I actually published a thing I wrote!#it was lots of fun writing these drunk dummies ahaha #laura writes #moonlight writes #...I can't remember my writing tag...

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huntertales · 5 years

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Part One: Aren’t You Kids A Little Young? (Freaks and Geeks S08E18)

Episode Summary: The reader and the Winchester brothers investigate a recent set of murders that appear to be caused by a vampire, and are surprised to learn that teenage hunter Krissy Chambers is involved. Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Word Count: 5,676.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

There was never any rest for the wicked. The same analogy applied for you and the boys. After everything that unfolded a few days ago with searching for the angel tablet and finding out what happened to Meg after she disappeared over a year and a half ago, it all ended in the direction you tried to avoid. Cas ran off with the tablet and the demon you hated since your first year of hunting died at the hands of Crowley. You got back to the bunker to recuperate and decided the next morning of what you were going to do about finding your angel. It turned out Dean had other ideas.

He found a case for all of you, thinking it might be best to keep busy until Cas showed back up again. By the "we" he meant Sam and himself. The older Winchester thought you'd take the chance to sit this one out and take some time to treat yourself to some much needed rest. Kick your feet up and enjoy some alone time while the boys worked on this case. You hadn’t been up to your normal speed since you started the first trial. You could say you were feeling fine all you want, but the evidence was clear in your actions. And the part where you were coughing up blood on more than one occasion. When he told you were going to sit on this case, you laughed in his face. You didn't care what Cas said. You knew your body. And it felt perfectly normal. Well, good as one might feel in your position.

You were feeling more tired than usual and feeling sluggish as time went on from doing the first trial. It was hard to tell where the pregnancy symptoms stopped and the effects of the trial took over. Cas did say the baby was okay. You felt the normal symptoms of what a pregnant woman was supposed to be going through. So, you took it as him saying you were okay enough to take part of your normal life. You were going to be fine in the end of things. Your motto of going through all of this was no pain, no gain. You were going to do the rest of the trials and continue hunting like normal. Nobody was going to tell you otherwise.

The case Dean found was state bound after he mentioned something about the police finding a couple of dead bodies on the side of the freeway in a town a few hours away from Lebanon. You didn't get too much information out of him when you asked, but there was something about the case that sounded supernatural enough for his attention. You and the boys pulled up to the police station in your usual formal clothes, ready to interview a few police officers to figure out more details. You patted around your pockets to make sure you had your usual assortment of things; fake ID, phone, some money and a knife stashed in the waistband of your slacks. Your memory was starting to get a little frazzled from all that you were juggling.

"So, what are we looking at again?" You spoke up when you saw the Impala pull up to the police parking lot and stop, thinking it would be a good time to go over what it was that all of you were getting yourselves into. Dean grabbed the newspaper from the front seat and stretched him arm over his shoulder to hand it to you. You skimmed the article he found. “‘Two young women found on the side of the freeway with their throats ripped out.’”

“Sounds vampy to me.” Dean said, taking a guess at what might be to blame for these deaths.

“Yeah, maybe.” You agreed with him.

"Listen, Y/N." You glanced up from the newspaper you were still reading when you heard Sam speak your name. Hearing the tone of voice he was using on you made you lower the paper to your lap, you had a feeling you knew what he was going to say before the words came out of his mouth. Sure enough, you were on the right track. It seemed the younger Winchester was trying his attempt at getting you to sit this hunt out for the sake of your health. "If you want to head back to the motel because you're not feeling up to it, I'm sure Dean and I can handle this ourselves."

“What?” You asked him.

"You know,” Dean continued on with what his brother was trying to say, deciding to be more blunt to get their concerns across. “the trials, what Cas said, that you got what he can't cure."

“Which means what, exactly?” You questioned the both of them.

"Well, I don't know. You tell us." Dean said. "Are you okay?"

"For the millionth time, I'm fine. The real question is, are you two okay?" You deciding to turn the tables around on the brothers so it was them who was being bombarded for how their well being was. Neither one of them expected for you to switch the attention towards them. You raised your brow, patiently awaiting their answers. "Cas dinged you up pretty badly, Dean. And Sammy, you've been awfully quiet lately. I just want to make sure the both of you are okay.”

"What, like our feelings?" Dean asked you. You nodded your head slowly, biting your bottom lip to keep yourself from smiling from how he was reacting. "This isn’t a sharing circle, Y/N.”

"Of course it is. You two are constantly bugging me. It's only fair I return the favor. I mean, we could make a big thing out of it. You can get me some tea and rub my aching back. Sam can feed me bonbons.” You said, coming up with an idea better than theirs. Your over exaggeration was for them to understand even a fraction for how stupid it was when they bombarded you with questios about your constant wellbeing. “If you guys insist on coddling me, you might as well go all the way. Show me your vulnerable side. We can even watch ‘Steel Magnolias’ to get in the mood and have ourselves a good cry.”

“Okay.” Sam had enough with your sarcasm. He opened up the passenger side door started to get himself out, mumbling a remark under his breath from how you turned this all into a joke. “Eat me, Y/N.”

“And you know what. We’ll just talk it out.” You went on, trying your hardest not to laugh when Sam slammed the door shut behind him with his brother not too far behind. You got yourself out and followed after them to the station. “Good talk. Nay, great talk! Very healthy!”

Dean told you to shut up when you approached the police station and walked inside to the busy late morning rush of officers talking among themselves and shuffling around cases that needed to be solved. You flagged down an older sheriff when you saw him speaking to the receptionist you couldn’t quite catch the conversation topic of. The three of you introduced yourselves and flashed him your badges and fooled him into thinking you were federal investigators here on official business. Lucky for you, he had a clue why all of you were here this morning.

"FBI? You're here about the lady killer murders, aren't you?" The sheriff asked. You politely smiled at the ridiculous thing that came out of his mouth, taking you a moment to figure out he was talking about the two murders of the females from the article you read just a few minutes ago. It seemed he wanted to jazz things up to get the public’s attention. "I coined it myself."

"Congratulations. What can you tell us?" You asked the man.

"Well, both victims were female, under twenty-one, and here's the kicker—they were drained of all their blood." The sheriff explained the case details to all of you while he lead you through the station and back to his desk to continue going through the rest of the information left out of the article. Sam was intrigued with the detail, pretending he found it odd. "Exactly. We found that strange, also. But then last night, things got even stranger."

"Last night?" Sam repeated after the sheriff.

"Yeah. We set up a security cam on Fuller's point for safety purposes. It's where our local young people like to go make out.” The sheriff said. “Last night, things got crazy."

The sheriff turned around his computer monitor around to show you and the boys footage of what appeared to be another murder that took place just hours ago. You watched the scene unfold when he hit the play button; a grainy black and white video showed you a scene of what appeared to be a girl struggling to get away from a man that was dragging her out of her car window. Before she could get hurt, someone came up from behind and...beheaded them with a machete. You managed to act surprised at what you saw unfold. It didn't take an idiot for you to realize the three people on the security footage were hunters working your case. Rookies from your guess after they failed to set up a piece of bait for the vamp before they went in for the kill.

“Hell of a thing, ain’t it?” The sheriff asked.

"Uh,” Sam managed to keep his composure from what he witnessed, knowing it was more than what the sheriff was suspecting. “you I.D. any of these people?"

“Well, not yet. Crime scene was empty when we got there. No vic, no nothing.” He said. You had to admit these hunters were smart enough to clean up their messes before the cops got there, but the footage was enough for them to get stopped before they even tried leaving the state for another case. The sheriff pulled up the video to show a perfect shot of one of the hunters. A girl who had to be a teenager. “I’m thinking it’s some kind of cult or drug thing. So I put a statewide A.P.B out on these three about an hour ago.”

“We’re gonna need you to call that off. And we’re gonna need this footage.” Dean told the sheriff after finding the face on the screen all too familiar. The older man was taken back at the rather bold request. “Sheriff, why do you think we’re here? You just crossed streams with a federal investigation. Now, I suggest you cooperate, call off your A.P.B, or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of hurt.”

You didn’t know what came over Dean that caused his sudden outburst of authoritative tone of voice demanding things to shed some light off the three people that just committed a murder in the eyes of the law. The sheriff was a little speechless at how his case was being ripped out from his hands, but he obliged. You were out of the station not even ten minutes later with the search called off and the only security footage of that night in your possession. You made your way back to the Impala, still a little curious about Dean’s urge to cover this girl’s tracks. You were all for helping out a fellow hunter, but something about this seemed personal for the man.

“So,” You pushed open the door to the station and headed outside with the boys following right behind you. “What was that all about, G-man?”

"It's about someone we met when you were gone and got themselves messed up in all of this." Dean said. "Sam, you remember Krissy Chambers?"

“Yeah, the vetalas case, right?” Sam remembered why the name sounded familiar to him. “They were working that truck stop by the freeway. She and her dad helped us shut ‘em down.”

"Right, and then he promised to go civilian so she wouldn't grow up to be a hunter. Well, guess who the star of this snuff film is?" Dean waved around the DVD case in his hand. You listened to the conversation unfold while you headed to the backseat. Either Krissy’s father took back his promise to give his daughter the life she deserved. Or she wanted to play hunter herself.

“Come on.” Sam said, finding the first outcome a little hard to be true. “Maybe he doesn’t know she’s doing this.

“What, sneaking out in the middle of the night to go hunt monsters with the apple dumpling gang?” Dean asked his brother. “Is that what kids are doing for kicks these days?”

“Okay. Then maybe he knows.” Sam guessed what was going on. “And he’s helping her out.”

“What, get caught on ‘Candid Camera’?” Dean asked. It was an amateur move even you knew better than to make when you first started hunting. For someone who had a parent who was a hunter and was showing her the ropes didn't seem likely. Something was going on with that kid, and Dean was determined to put a stop to it. "Let's just go find her before she gets into any more trouble."

You opened up the backseat door and got yourself inside the Impala to track down this Krissy Chambers before she got herself hauled off in handcuffs. It brought up the debate of what the right thing a parent should do when they were hunters and they had a family of their own. Shelter your child and never tell them about the supernatural, or do you get them involved so they're always prepared for the creature lurking around the corner?

It seemed the route of parents trying to get their children to keep away from the dark side was the ones who want it the most. Your mother tried her hardest to have you never learn about such things. Jo Harvelle grew up with her father as hunter and a mother who constantly fought tooth and nail to never see her daughter follow in those footsteps. You wondered what kind of reason Krissy had to get herself involved in such a dangerous lifestyle. If her father was around, you had a few choice words for the man of letting his daughter put herself in danger like this.

+ + +

One of the perks about tracking down the Scooby gang in a small town like this was that they needed a place to crash while they conducted research and planned out their next move of attack. Night fell when you and the boys changed back into your street clothes and got a list of two available motels that were the only place for visitors to spend the night while they were in town. The three of you checked out the first one and ran by the description of Krissy to the clerk, making sure to flash a few twenties to get him to tell the truth. When he admitted that nobody of that description checked in over the past few days, it meant you only had one more place where she could be hiding out.

Sure enough, after sweet talking up the man at the front desk and handing over a small wad of cash, he gave you the exact room number of one Krissy Chambers after she flashed him a fake I.D. that made her older than she obviously was. Another rookie mistake on her part. When it doubt, use fake names to cover your ass and stretch the truth just enough to fool the person you were trying to pull a fast one on. You thanked the man and went on your way to find the room where she and her group of friends were using. Sam picked the lock to the room and quietly pushed open the door, you following right behind him as Dean lingered back.

You looked around to see it was abandoned from the lack of a soul at the moment, but it was clear they had been here from unpacked bags and their laptop sitting on the table still open. As you made your way over to see what they had been looking at before ditching, you felt yourself momentary pausing in your actions at the sound of a gun's safety clicking off. You turned your head to the side to see Krissy Chambers in the flesh, pointing a loaded gun at Dean. You and the boys were the least bit intimidated at the predicament you ended up in.

“Hey, Krissy.” Dean greeted the younger kid.

“What are you two doing here?” She asked, surprised to see two familiar faces standing in her motel room of all places.

"Saving your bacon, that's what." Dean told her.

“Does it look like my bacon needs saving?” She asked him a sarcastic tone of voice.

“If you don’t lower that gun, it will be.” You warned her.

Krissy turned her gaze away from the Winchesters and to you, a strange face she hadn't ever seen before until tonight. Her abrasive attitude and your requests didn't make for very good first impressions on one another. “Who the hell are you?”

"Y/N Y/L/N. I'm presuming you're Krissy." You introduced yourself to her. You pointed a finger to the weapon she was still holding she never made an effort to put away to make all of you feel just the slightest bit more welcome. "Aren't you a little young to be playing with guns?”

“That’s none of your business.” She replied. You scoffed at her attitude towards you, half tempted to rip the weapon right out of her hands to knock some sense into her thick skull. “Wait. How’d you find me? I paid cash everywhere.”

“Only two hotels within a twenty-mile radius, and we paid cash, too—just more.” Dean told the kid.

Krissy rolled her eyes in frustration when she was ratted out by the old man running the front desk. She thought the extra forty bucks she slipped him would be enough to keep his mouth shut. It seemed the little trick didn’t work. She clicked the safety to the gun back on and dropped her arm back down to her side. “Freaking clerk.”

“Krissy,” Sam looked around the motel room trying to find any trace of a parental figure staying with her. “Where’s your dad?”

“Dead.” She informed you. You were taken back at hearing what happened to her father. As you were about to tell her you were sorry about her loss, but Krissy’s grieving period was long over. Or she had one hell of a poker face she was giving you to get out of her hair. “Well, let's do this again, like, never. Now go. We got this.”

“We who?” You asked her. “And got what?”

Krissy answered none of the questions you bombarded her with all at once while you and the boys tried piecing together what kind of operation she and her friends were putting on. Krissy told you she was hunting a vampire, which made little sense to you considering you saw them take down one just the other night. You had a feeling there was a little infestation in town they were trying to take care of themselves. Krissy headed back over to her laptop and begin to watch something, you headed over to see she was overlooking a live feed of her friends while they conducted something on this hunt. From the looks of it, they were picking a lock to a motel room.

You watched as they gained access inside and cautiously headed forward, cautious about the chance the monster they were hunting was waiting for them inside. You noticed they even had audio to go along with their way of hunting. All though you weren’t giving out any props or congratulating them on choosing to hunt, you had to admit they were using technology to their advantage. Streaming the hunt and constant communication with one another for when things went south and needed some backup.

“We're in. The room's clear.” You heard a female voice come from the computer’s speaker as she narrated what she was doing. “Nobody here but a vic.”

You saw a girl come into view on the screen, she was tied up to the bed and gagged from letting anyone figuring out what kind of predicament the vamp left her in. You crossed your arms over your chest and watched as the kids work, letting them at least have the satisfaction of rescuing the girl before she got hurt. While things appeared to be going as planned, things quickly escalated to worst case scenario wen Krissy's hunting partners found themselves having unexpected company. You saw one of the teenager's cameras spotted the vamp that was standing in the motel room, looking rather pissed off when he saw them trying to take his food. You didn’t care if they were the most experienced hunters for their age, you and the boys bolted out of the motel after you saw Krissy make a run for it to help her friends.

The boys barged in first with guns drawn out to slow down the vamp at least enough for all of you to finish him off. You and Krissy were just seconds behind and managed to get into the room to overpower the monster in numbers with six against one. While it looked like there was no way he was going to get out of this alive, the vamp knew there was one way to escape and see another day. He used his abilities against all of you when you saw the vamp running towards the window. All that was left behind was broken glass after he jumped to the street below. Dean tried to get a clear shot at the vamp while he ran off towards a blue van parked right across the street with the engine running, but it was no use.

“I got him!” Krissy declared.

You turned your head at the right time to see the kid running out of the motel room and after the vamp, thinking she could take him all on her own. You didn’t waste a second following right behind her while shouting that she wasn’t going to do this alone. Dean heard your voice and saw the both of you disappear from his sight and after the vamp, making him become overwhelmed with anger. Krissy should have been nowhere near this hunt in the first place, and you were in no shape of running after a vamp. He let out a frustrated breath and found himself running after the both of you, hoping he was fast enough to catch up before anything happened.

Your body might have been going through all sorts of changes, but you were able to keep up with Krissy long enough to follow her down a flight of stairs through the motel and to the empty streets where you saw the vamp trying to make a run for it. You checked to make sure you had your weapon ready when you saw Krissy pull out what you thought was a gun, thinking she was going to shoot to slow him down. You caught up with her right as she took her aim and pulled the trigger, sending him dropping to the ground like a sack of flour. When you saw him suddenly groaning in pain at what she had done, you figured he wasn't shot with regular old bullets. Krissy had a trick up her sleeve to get him right where she wanted him.

"How about a heads up the next time you decide to run off?" You heard another pair of footsteps behind yours, making you look back to see that it was Dean. He had raced down the same path you had taken fast as he could to try and catch up with the both of you. You noticed he was slightly out of breath while you were composed after the run. Just a few days ago you couldn't fight a demon without becoming dizzy, now you were acting like you were fine. "How did you manage to keep up with her?"

"I got a head start." You said, shrugging your shoulders at the lack of answers you could provide for him. You turned your attention over to Krissy, slightly curious as to what she was holding in her hand if it wasn't a gun like you originally suspected. "How did you manage to drop him so quickly?"

“Darts filled with dead man’s blood.” Krissy told you.

"Huh. That's..." You found yourself honestly impressed with her idea of how to inject venom into a vampire's bloodstream without having to get close to them. You swore you saw the ends of Krissy's lips stretch into a smirk when you complimented her. "not a bad idea."

"Where's the blue van?" Dean asked the both of you. You furrowed your brow slightly from his question, wondering what he was talking about. You looked around the street to see that it was empty of a van that he saw from the window. "The blue van that he was bolting to."

You had no clue what he was talking about, you were more concerned at the vamp at your feet that needed to be taken care of before the dead man's blood wore off and he was hungry for revenge. You pulled out a knife from the back of your jeans, ready to take care of this for good. Before you could take a step, Krissy stopped you. You gave the kid a confused look at what she was doing.

“This is not your kill.” She said.

"What are you talking about?" You asked.

Krissy's friends came jogging over to where the three of you were with Sam following behind the both of them before you could finish the job. It seemed that the girl wanted to be the one to separate the vampire's head from his neck. And for a good reason why. She approached the vamp with her machete drawn with the blade pointing at him, ready to use it on him. “Three months ago, this blood banger snuck into a house and killed three people in their sleep.”

“What?! No!” The vampire shouted, trying his hardest to defend himself. “I didn’t do that!”

"One was a woman—never hurt anyone!" She went on, ignoring the monster's pitiful attempts at trying to gain sympathy with his blatant lies. The other two, a brother and sister."

The vamp shook his head, not understanding how this was connected to him. You looked away from him and to the girl standing over him, having a feeling she was talking about someone she knew deeply. The victims she thought he was responsible for. "I don't know what you're talking about."

“I came home from a friend’s house, and I found him. They were my family!” Her voice broke when admitting the people she was talking about was her own flesh and blood, viciously murdered at the hands of this monster. The vamp pleaded for his innocence to the five faces staring at him, letting this teenager hold a weapon near his face. None of you were falling for the crocodile tears, the girl he had trapped in his motel room didn't make you think he was above murdering a family for a quick meal.

You flinched when you saw a girl who probably wasn't even voting age take a machete and slice off a vampire's head clean. This wasn't a sight you wanted to be exposed to, for a child to be at the other side of the weapon and the one who beheaded a monster she shouldn’t know about at all made it worse. To the three teenagers, this felt like a sigh of relief. A horrible pain allowed to finally start healing. Krissy stepped forward to her friend and placed a hand on her back in support, whispering to her that everything was going to be okay. The grief she felt was over.

“We need to talk to you privately.” Dean told Krissy, pulling her away from comforting her friend.

Krissy didn't look too pleased from the conversation she knew was going to happen the moment she saw the Winchesters come back into her life and saw how it ended up. As she walked over you and the boys, her other friend stepped forward and stopped her from going over to you. He looked at the three of you suspiciously. "You know this guy?"

"Yeah." Krissy said. "We have a past."

You watched as Krissy and Dean decided to go somewhere more private to discuss how she ended up hunting after her father was killed, how was what the older Winchester needed to find out. You and Sam got to work of disposing of the body before anyone could figure out what was going on. While doing so, you learned the name of Krissy’s friends—Josephine and Aiden. The three of them were reunited together not only because all of their families were murdered by vampires, because of someone who took them in and looked after each of them like his own children. You listened to everything and how they ended up here, trying your hardest not to show your disapproval at how they got involved with something dangerous like hunting.

When you were their age you were studying for the SATs and worrying about college, who you were going to take to junior prom. Not tracking and hunting a vampire after they murdered your entire family. Well…for a short time you lived in that blissful world where the supernatural was just things you read about. Until your attention shifted to learning everything you could about the things that went bump in the night, helping the Winchesters track and find cases for them. A handful of years later you were out on the road hunting, but it was different. You were an adult when you made the choice of becoming a hunter. You took baby steps, getting your revenge on the monster that killed your parents years later.

Even then, that’s not why you got involved in the first place. Hunting wasn’t about searching for the thing that ruined your life and killed your family. There was so much more they still had to learn about. It was about helping others in time of need and making this world a little bit of a safer place. Dedicating your entire life knowing there wasn’t a chance you could ever get out and live a normal life. You had to cling to every scrap of happiness you could find, and constantly look over your shoulder in fear you might end up dead from an enemy you forgot. You found yourself having to stop thinking about the topic form the things crossing your mind. Because it went against everything you were fighting for to have.

You hoped Dean could talk some sense into Krissy before she and her friends were the ones you were disposing of their body after they found themselves a monster’s victim. While the boys grew up in the lifestyle and you were learned the ropes on your own, it seemed the kids had someone who was giving them something you never had. A balance of the hunting world, and a home to come to afterwards. It all felt too good to be true. But it seemed these kids hit the lottery on being able to balance both worlds.

You kept yourself busy and somewhat helpful when you offered to pop the trunk and get everything ready for when after Aiden and Josephine finished wrapping up the vamp's body in plastic and duct tape. When you saw Krissy brush past you from the corner of your eye, you turned your head to see Dean and her came back from their little talk. You and Sam decided to let the teens finish up the work in favor for a little talk of your own. They were the ones who wanted to be involved in this, they were going to—dirty work and all. You took one more glance over at them to observe how they worked together, knowing you couldn’t deny they were pretty decent for being only teens.

“What happened?” Sam asked his brother, wondering how the talk went.

“Teenagers,” Dean grumbled, still ticked off from the attitude he was given by Krissy when he shared his concern for what she was getting herself involved in. “That’s what happened.”

“She tell you about Victor?” You wondered.

“Yeah.” Dean said. “What do we think?”

“Well, didn’t we meet up with a hunter named Victor one time in Spokane?” Sam asked.

"That's a long time ago." Dean said, knowing that hunt was from a hunt at least a handful of years back. All the cases you took felt like they blended together at this point. The faces you met along the way and the connections you made with a hunter didn't stick in your head, which was the reason why the name didn't sound all too familiar. "I haven't heard about him since."

"All right," You said. "So, these kids are—"

"Dangerous and off their meds?" Dean guessed. "Yeah, no kidding."

"So, what?" Sam asked, wondering what your next move was going to be for tonight. "We go and talk with Victor?"

You weren’t going to oppose giving this Victor a piece of your mind about what he was doing for these kids and getting them involved in something dangerous as hunting, let alone running around looking for the thing that killed their families. A few minutes later the three teens were calling it quits on the hunt after a job well done. They stashed the body into the trunk of their car and decided to head home before it could get too late. You and the boys followed behind them, eager to see how all of this dynamic worked out for them. And if it was all too good to be true.

[Next Part]

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ilovemesomekillianjones · 5 years

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Happenstance 9/10

Rated T 2.3K ao3 ffnet ch1 ch2 ch3 ch4 ch5 ch6 ch7 ch8

A/N: Thanks to all you lovelies who have let me know what you think of this story, and as always, thanks @hookedonapirate for all your help! Just this chapter and then the epilogue!

The house was dark when Emma and Killian arrived home. She still hadn’t slept in her room since the night Neal had broken in. Emma grabbed a few things from her room and headed to the bathroom. After changing into her pajamas, brushing her teeth, throwing her hair into a messy bun, and washing her face she went to Killian’s room where she threw all her toiletries in the top drawer of the dresser.

“What are you wearing?”

“New pajamas,” Emma answered as if it should be obvious. “Mary Margaret gave them to me for Christmas, aren’t they cute?”

Cute wasn’t exactly how Killian would describe them. Sure the swan print was cute, but the rest? The shorts were aptly named as they cutoff right below her butt, and the tank top was magnificently form fitting. “Cute would be those fuzzy footie pajamas you wear sometimes. These are...”

Emma smirked as she realized how much Killian was enjoying the view. “Killian Jones, wordless?” Throwing her robe on and assuring Killian she’d be in shortly, she headed to Ingrid’s room. She knocked lightly on the door and waited until Ingrid’s soft voice called for her to come in.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Of course, Emma.” Ingrid patted the empty side of the bed. “So, I understand you received some pretty big news today?”

Emma watched as her foster mother hid her pain behind a forced smile and her heart broke just a little. “I did. I met my brother, my twin to be exact.”

“How wonderful. How are you handling it?”

“Well, I cried mostly when I first found out. I couldn’t even control it. I mean, my brother, I never dared to even hope I’d meet him after all this time.”

“I’m happy for you,” Ingrid whispered as her voice cracked. She brought the back of her hand up to her mouth to suppress the sob that was threatening.

“I know,” Emma said with a smile. “The Nolan’s offered me a place to stay, too.”

Ingrid nodded her head in understanding, unable to speak.

“But if it’s all the same to you, this is my home,” Emma murmured, hoping she hadn’t misunderstood the last two years.

The flood gates finally broke when Ingrid heard Emma’s last words. She leaned over and wrapped the sweetest girl she’d ever known in her arms.

“And I’d like to stay with you until I venture out on my own.”

“Of course, sweetheart, of course you can stay.”

“Were you upset today because you thought I would leave to live with the Nolans?”

Ingrid hung her head. “I know it’s wrong, he’s your family. But I was so sad that you might leave earlier than I’d prepared for. You’re special Emma, the closest thing I’ve had to a daughter since…”

“I know,” Emma said squeezing tighter. “I want you to know you are the only person whose custody I’ve been in that has ever treated me like family, like I matter.”

“Oh, Emma,” she sniffled. “I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you too.”

~~~

Emma climbed into bed next to Killian and immediately melted into the embrace he offered. “Mmmm you’re so warm.”

“Good talk with Ingrid?”

“The best. I explained to her that she’s important to me, that I won’t be leaving to live with Ruth, and that I intend to stay until it’s the right time for me to spread my wings and fly.”

“Who is this impostor Emma, master of her words and feelings.”

Emma wrapped her knuckles against his belly and told him to stuff it as she pulled his lips to hers.

“That’s one way to shut me up,” he murmured dazedly when they broke for air.

Rolling Killian to his back she quickly straddled his waist and pinned his hands above his head; peering down at him, Emma smiled wickedly when he groaned with pleasure. “I am not an imposter, I just happen to hangout with a very wordsy Brit who has rubbed off on me.”

“Love, I have never rubbed off on you, but if you continue to squirm I may have no choice in the matter.”

Emma laughed heartily, shaking them both. “Is that so?”

Killian struggled to lift his head and capture her lips as she continued to pin his arms. “Aye, that’s so.”

Having mercy on him, she leaned down so their bodies were flush from groin to chest, and captured his lips once more. Releasing his arms, she laced their fingers with one hand and ran her other into his hair.

Killian took advantage of having a free hand and gripped her hip, caressing her skin beneath his palm. He wanted to touch every inch of her, his mind was in overdrive and he didn’t know where to start. Sliding his hand upward he caressed the plains of her back, chuckling when she shivered in his arms. “Cold?”

“No, that’s just what your touch is doing me,” she whispered between kisses.

“Have mercy, Swan,” he pleaded. Killian continued his exploration of Emma’s soft skin, groaning into her mouth when she mumbled no and rubbed her whole body against his. He was certain he would embarrass himself now.

The two jolted apart when a knock sounded at his door. “May I come in?” Ingrid called.

“Aye,” Killian answered as they separated and concentrated on breathing normally and not looking guilty.

Turning on the light, the matronly woman entered the room, and the expression on her face immediately put Killian and Emma on alert.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“I’m afraid I have bad news. I just got a call from Detective Humbert. Neal has been released on bail.”

Emma gasped, realizing she hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Neal being out on bail. What if he came back? Now that she’d set him up to take his much deserved fall, how far would he go to hurt her?

“He was escorted home and warned about staying away from you two and our home.” Ingrid tried to sound comforting, but the worry was apparent in the waver of her voice.

“They really think a criminal is going to heed a warning?” Killian spat. “Bloody idiots.”

Thought after thought of what he was capable of flashed through her mind. The single cry that left her mouth did so unbidden, and Emma covered her mouth quickly, embarrassed by her outburst. Her body shook as Killian wrapped his arms around her and tried to comfort her.

“Emma, sweetie,” Ingrid cooed as she sat on the other side of the bed and hugged her so she was cocooned between her and Killian. “He’s not going to get anywhere near you, I promise. He will have to come through me and Killian.”

“I know that,” she choked out, “but all I can think is, not only was he deranged the last time he broke in, but now I’ve pissed him off, and he’s free.”

~~~

A week later Emma sat outside a courtroom with Ingrid on one side and Killian on the other, holding her hand and rubbing his thumb along hers. Mary Margaret, David, and Ruth had also come to support her. She had been subpoenaed to testify against Neal for the charges of criminal threatening, coercion, and intimidation. Those charges came among the others of grand larceny, assault and battery, grand theft auto, resisting arrest, and vandalism.

“What if he’s found not guilty?”

“Swan, he has over a half dozen charges against him, he can’t get away with everything.”

“Why haven’t we been called in yet?” Emma asked to no one in particular. Her nerves were eating away at her. The courthouse was damn near empty, there weren’t any other witnesses in the case, so what was the hold up?

“It’ll be over soon enough, sweetie,” Ingrid murmured, knowing that Emma just needed for this ordeal to be over.

All heads snapped to attention when the courtroom door creaked open. “Emma Swan?” The bailiff called.

Emma’s stomach turned over as she prepared herself to face Neal one last time. Everyone stood up and filed into the courtroom, only as they entered, there was a noticeable absence in the room. The defense table was empty. The judge, the bailiff, and Officers Booth and Humbert sat in the front row behind the prosecuting attorneys, but other than that, the room was empty.

“As you can see, in the case of The People Vs. Neal Gold, the defendant has failed to appear. A bench warrant has been issued for the defendant’s arrest. The court thanks you for your time Ms. Swan, you are free to leave until which time this trial can be resumed. Court is adjourned.”

Emma jumped when the gavel banged against the solid sound block. The finality she’d hoped for hollowed as the reality that Neal was out there somewhere hit her like a freight train. “What happened?” she asked, looking at the officers.

“We can’t help who gets out on bail,” Booth said. “And we need a court order to put a surveillance team on anyone.”

“With his father’s roots and business dealings here in the community we didn’t think he’d be a flight risk,” Humbert added. “Excuse me,” he muttered as he turned to answer his vibrating phone.

Emma turned to Killian, part of her wanted to panic, but part of her was pissed. It seemed this system was just as broken as the foster system. Something or someone always fell between the cracks; there had to be a better way. There had to be a better way to protect the world from the scum of the universe. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“Ms. Swan,” Officer Humbert called out as the group made their way to the large wooden door of the courtroom. “I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but the Gold’s are gone. We sent a unit to the house when we first found out he wasn’t here for trial.”

“How could that possibly be good news? He’s on the loose!” she snapped.

“Well, a preliminary search of the home showed that the Golds have fled. All of their personal effects are missing from the home, and some of the kids confirmed that they haven’t seen the family since the day after Neal’s release.”

“I suppose that’s not bad news,” Killian said. “If they’ve fled, they won’t be showing their faces around here anytime soon.”

A small breath of relief left Emma as she realized what Killian was saying was true. Neal was an idiot, but his father wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around if their intent was to flee as opposed to having Neal stand trial.

“The Captain said Gold’s jet was listed on the outgoing log at Bangor International for the day after Neal’s release.”

“Damn, how did they slip through customs. Someone’s losing their job,” August said.

“Well, when you have more money than God,

you can pay your way through customs,” David muttered. “It’s likely the person who let them slip through customs is no longer employed by Bangor international.”

Officer Humbert looked at the young officer in the making and nodded, “I think you’re probably on to something there, Mr. Nolan.” Looking back to the group he continued on, “The destination was logged as Belfast International in Ireland, but it never landed there. The Golds do have ties to Scotland, so it’s likely they will eventually head there. Either way, because the log shows the intent to enter another country, Interpol will be joining the hunt.”

The knots in Emma’s stomach began to loosen as the likelihood of Neal making any sort of appearance again significantly diminished with this new information. She squeezed Killian’s hand as hope bloomed that this ordeal could be over. She was still incensed that he’d escaped, but the relief of having him out of her life tempered the anger she felt at the system responsible for letting a criminal go free.

“We will notify you immediately if there is any reason to suspect that the Gold’s are back. You call us if he contacts you in any manner, whether it be physical contact, phone call, email, or text.”

“I will,” Emma promised. She turned to her family - yes, this was her family - and smiled, a real smile for the first time in days.

Although it wasn’t a victory, the outcome was enough to have everyone feeling a bit of positivity regarding the whole situation. They decided to go out to lunch where Ruth and Ingrid got to meet and chat at length for the first time. The two ladies became fast friends, commiserating of the young love the four teens surrounding them had found. David questioned Emma, with just a bit of awe and jealousy, all about the sting operation she’d taken part in. He also tried to convince her and Killian that maybe a life in law enforcement was in their futures as well. Mary Margaret could tell Emma was deep in thought, pondering what the future held for her.

“You don’t have to have it all figured out right now, you know?” she asked Emma.

“I know,” Emma sighed, “but I think I have a good idea of how I want to make a difference.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said confidently, nodding her head.

The two families bonded for hours over burgers, fries, love, and the impending future, setting into motion a lifelong relationship between them all.

Emma felt Killian’s arm around her shoulder and she leaned into his comforting embrace, closing her eyes as a relaxing vibe passed through her.

“You ready, love?”

Emma nodded her head then sat up and looked around the table. “I love you guys, all of you.”

A chorus of ‘love you toos’ surrounded Emma, and her heart felt fuller than it ever had. As they all stood up, readying to leave the restaurant, she looked to Killian and pecked his lips. “Let’s go home.” And as Killian pecked her lips back and repeated that one word, Emma marveled at how the word had never sounded so sweet.

@laschatzi @spartanguard @hollyethecurious@winterbaby89 @kmomof4@resident-of-storybrooke @artistic-writer@jennjenn615@snowbellewells@xhookswenchx@ultraluckycatnd @emeraldwitches @nikkiemms @galadriel26@roseyflush @a-faekindagirl@ @killianjonesownsmyheart1 @effulgentcolors@onceuponaprincessworld @captainswan-shipper88@andiirivera@teamhook@tiganasummertree@deathbycaptainswan@kday426@sherlockianwhovian@mayquita@captswanis4vr @welllpthisishappening@princesseslikepirates@officerrogers@therooksshiningknight@thisisforcs@freechoicedreamer

#cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan #lieutenant duckling #cs au

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themyskira · 5 years

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The Life of Captain Marvel - issue #1

So here we are. Issue #1 of The Life of Captain Marvel, the miniseries that was touted as a bold new origin story that would change everything we thought we knew about Carol Danvers.

And it starts strong by exploiting family violence, trauma, mental illness and traumatic brain injury for melodramatic effect, with no intention of dealing with any of these complex themes in any depth or sensitivity.

For all that, infuriatingly little actually happens in this first issue. No exaggeration, the issue actually includes a stretch of nine months wherein Carol essentially does nothing except mope and grow her hair out. The dang plot doesn’t even arrive until the final seven pages.

Content warning: This issue begins with a flashback to Joe Danvers verbally abusing and hitting his kids. I haven’t included any images, but I talk at some length about Margaret Stohl’s abysmal handling of themes of abuse and family violence. Just a heads up.

The story opens on a flashback to an idyllic childhood holiday in Harpswell, Maine. There’s a montage of Carol and her brothers flying kites, wrestling each other, splashing in the water and stuffing their faces with candy, while adult Carol muses that she used to think her family was perfect.

Then the flashback takes a turn. One of Carol’s brothers rips the kite from her hand, tearing it. Their father, Joe, descends on the boys in a rage and begins verbally abusing and physically beating them as Carol looks on, because — surprise! — it’s Traumatic Past Retcon time!

Goodbye Joe Danvers, well-meaning but hard-headed dad who’s never understood his daughter and whose approval always seems to be out of reach. Hello Joe Danvers v. 2.0, scary unpredictable drunk who hit his kids and terrorised his entire family. Aren’t comics fun?

The flashbacks are interspersed with shots of Carol in the present day, where she’s battling supervillains Tanalth and Moonstone. As the flashback progresses, present-day Carol lashes out violently, alarming friends and foes alike.

“That’s why fighting’s easier than remembering. I tell myself that if I’m strong enough… I’ll beat the memories down so hard they’ll never come back.”

What’s strange to me about this page is the way it deliberately draws a parallel between Joe, snarling and raising his fist to strike his powerless young children, and Carol, snarling and raising her fist to strike down a powerful villain. By implication, it places Carol in the role of abuser, indicating an intergenerational cycle of violence.

Which of course is never explored or discussed beyond this, because Stohl doesn’t want to actually talk about the lasting impacts and terrible toll of family violence, she just wants to exploit it for THE DRAMAS.

As Joe whales on his sons, kid!Carol tries to run to their defence, only to be held back by mother Marie, who tells her, “You’ll just make it worse. Now’s not the time.”

We will be told numerous times over the course of this book what an incredible, loving mother Marie Danvers is, and how she’s prepared to sacrifice everything for Carol. Her actions, though? Her actions consistently portray a woman whose number one interest is in not creating more work or emotional angst for herself, even when it means hanging Carol out to dry.

This is not to say that Marie isn’t a victim as well in this scenario: though she never fears for her life or safety (she could pummel Joe into the ground without breaking a sweat), it could well be that constant gaslighting and emotional abuse have left her feeling unable to oppose her husband in anything.

It could well be, but that is nuance that Stohl is not interested in exploring, and all we get throughout this miniseries is Marie making excuses for Joe’s abusive behaviour and prioritising her own comfort over Carol’s emotional wellbeing and safety.

So anyway, flashback!Marie says “Now’s not the time”, and in the present day Carol shrieks “WHEN - IS - THE TIME?!” while damn near beating Moonstone into a pulp.

The other Avengers are disturbed by this.

Iron Man: Hey, Carol? Could you maybe leave a little something on the plate for… you know… bad guy jail? Black Panther: Would you call that rage… disproportionate?

hellooooo unfortunate paternalistic implications. A female superhero has a hysterical outburst on the battlefield, while her almost exclusively male colleagues look on in bewilderment. (‘This is why women can’t be superheroes, they’re too emotional!!!’)

Cap and T’Challa have to physically pull Carol off Moonstone, as Carol begins to hyperventilate.

Adding to our list of things that this series has zero interest in exploring:

What it’s like to experience a panic attack or traumatic flashback

What it’s like to live with an anxiety disorder

What it’s like to live with trauma

The Carol of this story is not a woman living with trauma and mental illness, she is a woman who swoons hysterically whenever the narrative starts drag a bit. Her panic attacks are purely a plot device used to ratchet up the dramatic tension at convenient moments, and it’s some of the most insensitive handling of mental illness I’ve seen in comics for a while.

Next comes the obligatory scene of Carol getting a full medical in Tony’s lab, only for Tony to throw his hands up and declare, ‘welp, there’s nothing physically wrong with you, are you sure there’s not something else going on????’. Because apparently neither Tony — who has personal experience with trauma — nor Steve — who lived through a FUCKING WAR — know PTSD when it’s punching them (well, Tanalth and Moonstone) in the face.

I mean REALLY.

Tony: Look, the breathing thing is probably some kinda nervous tic.

hi, hello, person with an anxiety disorder here, please do not tell somebody having a full-blown panic attack that it’s just a ‘nervous tic’, you absolute insensitive fuckstick.

Carol: [sigh] It’s… Father’s Day. Not my favourite day of the year, you know?

waitwaitwait, so CAROL recognised that she’d triggered and experienced a traumatic flashback, but for some reason decided to play dumb about it until she’d after she’d had a pointless medical examination??

Tony tells Carol she needs to get herself sorted out or else somebody is going to get hurt, so she goes to visit her mother and younger brother Joe Junior at the family’s holiday home in Maine.

Carol flies into town past a sign that reads, “Harpswell Sound / Summer Home of Captain Marvel” Carol: [narration] Oh, brother.

‘Oh, brother’ is right. I guess at least it isn’t as embarrassing as the time Stohl introduced a D-grade Captain Marvel TV series.

“Sugar’s Donuts / Official Donut of Captain Marvel”

hoookay yep that’s a bit much now.

At the donut shop, Carol runs into childhood friend Louis Lee, who’s grown into a Designated Love Interest with an obnoxious phonetically-spelled accent

“Better keep that to yah self, Ms. Danvers. Wouldn’t wantitah get out that yah cheatin’ on us…”

I despise him already.

Carol goes up to the house and hangs out with her mother and brother. Over dinner, Marie and JJ ask her why she’s dropped by so suddenly. Carol evades and JJ blows up at her because apparently he’s been holding in some anger about how he feels she abandoned the family and didn’t even bother to come home when their dad was terminally ill. (Which, hey, here’s another potentially rich thread to explore — PITY IT NEVER COMES UP BETWEEN THEM EVER AGAIN.)

Carol shoots back that he knows full well she was avoiding home because of their abusive father, only to be interrupted by the door slamming as their mother walks out.

…eeeeeexcept apparently that was an art mistake, because the very next page is Carol chasing after her brother, the one who actually stormed out. She finds him at their father’s grave, drinking booze.

He offers his recovering alcoholic sister the bottle, and when she lightly turns it down he gripes that she’d always thought she was better than everybody else and she should feel free to piss off any time now. Then he gets into his car and Carol lets him drive home drunk like the responsible person she is.

“Part of me knew I should go after Joe Jr. I mean, nobody in my family was any good with a bottle.”

WHAT IN THE HELL, CAROL.

But nah, see, she has more important things to do, like scream at her dead father and desecrate his headstone, because that’s sure not going to upset her family further, nope.

Her little tantrum is interrupted by the sound of tyres screeching and a car plunging off a bridge because YOU FUCKING MORON you stood there and watched your brother stagger drunk into his car and made the conscious decision that ‘nah, I’m gonna let this one play out’.

and ohohohohoho how ~poetic~! He crashed right through the ‘Summer Home of Captain Marvel’

god I hate everything in this comic.

JJ is rushed to hospital, where he is diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, leaving him in a catatonic state.

And of course, Stohl’s Carol makes it all about her-fucking-self.

“In an instant, everything changes. You ruin someone’s life… it ruins yours right back. You’d give everything to have gone after him… and acted like the hero you’re supposed to be.”

Yes, JJ is in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, but let’s talk about how his near-fatal car accident ruined Carol’s life.

Anyway— NINE MONTHS LATER.

No, really.

We just skip over nine months.

Wherein apparently Carol has been doing nothing but poor-me-ing over her brother’s hospital bed.

Like.

She gave up her entire life and career.

Stopped saving the world.

Stopped interacting with everybody.

Just sat by JJ’s hospital bed looking melancholy and growing her hair out so that comic bros would stop complaining that she looked like a lesbian.

Tony tries texting her and she turns off her phone. So he appears beside her in an explosion of pixels.

which-- how?!?

There’s no visible technology at work here, nothing to indicate what’s projecting his image or enabling the two of them to communicate. Tony might as well be speaking to Carol via magic, for all we can tell.

Christ, it’s a superhero comic, it’s not like you have to work that hard to sell it to the reader. Two lines of dialogue: ‘What the actual hell, Tony?’ ‘Well, you wouldn’t return my calls, so I [insert technobabble here].’ That’s all you need. How lazy can you get?

Tony asks her to come back to the Avengers — we miss you, we need you, this isn’t good for you, etc. — and Carol’s like, ‘nah, I’m too busy wallowing in self-pity’.

And yes, like Carol’s PTSD and panic attacks, like the family violence, JJ’s brain injury exists solely here as a plot device. It’s not a disability he lives with or a trauma he survives, it’s a vehicle to bring melodrama to Carol’s story and a weakly-fabricated excuse for Carol to stay with the family and discover what she’s about to discover.

Because now it’s time to bring the still-catatonic JJ back home. And since the downstairs living room is more accessible than his upstairs bedroom, he’ll be taking the couch, where Carol has been crashing.

Yes, even though Carol has her own childhood bedroom in this house — we see it next issue — she has been couch-surfing for nine months. But now that somebody else has claimed her spot, she’s got to move into… JJ’s bedroom.

So she goes up the room and rather rudely starts going through her catatonic brother��s wardrobe and pulling his clothes out to make room for her own shit. Again, I cannot stress enough that she had her own bedroom in this house. She’s just… weirdly choosing to impose on everybody else.

In the wardrobe, Carol finds a box belonging to her dead father. The box contains a love letter, in Joe’s handwriting, addressed to a woman who is not his wife — along with what is obviously a piece of alien technology.

This is a comic with a goddamn identity crisis. It keeps tossing out plot hooks, only to abandon them pages later in favour of the next shiny idea.

It begins by announcing, ‘This is a story about Carol returning home and confronting her childhood trauma.’ Then it abruptly swerves: ‘wait, scratch that, this is a story about Carol struggling to hold her fractured family together after her brother is hurt in an accident she had the power to prevent’, and then, ‘hold up hold up what we meant to say was, this is a story about Carol discovering a hidden truth about her family and parentage’.

It’s like Stohl doesn’t know editing exists. Because spoiler alert: this story is not about either of those first two things. The first fifteen pages of this issue are a dead fucking weight. They do not need to be there, and in fact a lot of problems could have been solved by cutting them.

Carol decides to spend some time with her family because she’s working through some personal shit, and discovers a letter hinting that her late father was leading a double life. That’s it; that’s the story.

All these convoluted logistics around who gets the couch and who gets the bedroom? Not necessary. Again, Carol has a bedroom in this house. Since she’s not around much, it makes sense that Marie might be using it as a general storage space. So: Carol is staying in her old room and has to shift a few boxes to make space. In the process, her dad’s shoebox gets knocked loose from whatever nook it was stuffed into. THERE. EASY. DONE. PLOT UNLOCKED.

Like, the car accident actually makes it harder to get Carol to that point. The only reason I can see for it being there at all is to force the passage of time so that Carol can grow her hair out and dudebros can stop complaining that she’s unattractive. Because I guess it just never occurred to anybody that they could draw her with long hair to start with?

But ‘oh no, the aliens and the superpowers I can accept, but in the last comic I read Carol had short hair and I AM SORRY BUT there is NO WAY human hair grows that fast, this is BEYOND THE PALE’.

Oh, and can we talk about how Carol’s response to finding OBVIOUS ALIEN TECHNOLOGY is to go, ‘huh, I wonder what this is, let’s see if I can open it by smashing it repeatedly with a hammer’??

Carol: Huh. Let’s see if we can open it. [starts bashing the device wildly] Gah! Why — won’t — you— Marie: [off-panel] Carol! Can you help me with Joe’s tube? Carol: [wandering off as the device activates] Coming, Ma!

And then IMMEDIATELY GETS DISTRACTED AND WANDERS THE FUCK OFF, failing to notice that the OBVIOUS ALIEN DEVICE has suddenly activated and is now beeping ominously????

So while Carol blunders around obliviously, the obvious alien device sends a signal to a galaxy far far away, which in turn activates what is seriously and embarrassingly called a Kree Kleaner. A small spherical vessel orbiting a distant planet lights up and begin speeding towards Earth, while inside some kind of Kree cyborg gestates and grows to maturity at a rapid rate.

Meanwhile Carol sits by the sea with Digital Tony and mopes that “I knew my family wasn’t perfect… but I thought love was”.

you.

you fucking.

Look, I recognise that trauma is complicated and that family shit is even more so. I know people process and cope with things in different ways and at different speeds. And for Carol to suddenly discover that, on top of all the grief he was causing at home, her father was leading some kind of secret life with another women, must surely feel fucking horrible and bring up a lot of deeply painful memories.

But her reaction doesn’t gel with everything Stohl has told us about Carol’s relationship with her father.

We’ve been told that Joseph Danvers was a physically and verbally abusive alcoholic who terrorised his family to the point where, to this day, Carol struggles with PTSD and anxiety attacks. We’ve been told that Carol thinks of him as a mean, violent drunk who even in death haunts her family. She doesn’t understand why her mother stayed with him or why her brother still defends him, when all he ever did was make all of them feel small and powerless.

The idea that Carol would think all of this and yet still be totally blindsided to learn that Joe and Marie’s marriage was not a true-love-fairytale-romance is utterly, outrageously laughable.

Stohl presents the letter as bombshell that overturns everything Carol thought she knew about her family, indicating that Joe was leading a secret life she never knew about. It’s not. All it is is a confirmation of everything we’re told Carol already thinks about her father: that he was a cruel, self-absorbed bastard who treated his family like crap. You know what is a fucking bombshell?

The fact that Joe Danvers apparently had personal access to OBVIOUS ALIEN TECHNOLOGY.

AND AS FOR THIS LINE.

“And like they say, families were made to be broken.”

literally nobody says this.

I even checked, just to be fair to this comic, on the off-chance that it was in fact a thing.

One of the six search results is somebody on instagram quoting this comic. The other five are all related to the title of a single playlist on 8tracks.

But hey, like they say, Margaret Stohl is a fucking hack.

#comics talk #the days of our lives of captain marvel

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strangebedfellows-blog · 5 years

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Miscellaneous and chill little establishing headcanon dump for some of my l.oz people, because they’re delightful and since I’ve never actually interacted with this fandom I’m not sure what’s commonly accepted and what’s coming purely out of my own head, so here’s some kind of framework. Ones involving other characters or the world at large are just there to give myself context, and obviously nobody else is beholden to ‘em.

Also because I’m too lazy to get to bio pages left and they deserve something.

Cool edit: hey personals, don’t interact with this post. Don’t like it, definitely don’t fucking reblog it. Oh my god. Basic etiquette. It’s not tagged with their general tags for a reason.

VAATI

It’s indulgent of me, but for the record, I like to think he won the swordfighting competition largely of his own merit. I like to think he’s smart enough to know he could have just...magic’d his way past it altogether if he wanted, but it sounds like he actually competed.

I HAVE MORE BUT I’M JUST GOING TO EDIT THEM IN SOMETIME LATER WHEN I REBLOG THIS I’m typing at like four in the morning why must I dedicate this time to angry wind maus

ZANT

Comin’ in out of the gate: it’s silly personal headcanon but I generally peg the Twili as ancient Sheikah counterparts - part of the same community that split and cut ties firmly enough that by the time they were banished most people had forgotten, and the differences great enough that the latter was never in any jeopardy. They do have deific ties to Majora and the Fierce Deity, though it’s been so long there’s no telling if active worship...exists.

Is actually competent, and intelligent. Midna notes that he didn’t end up ruling the realm because people could pick up on his power lust, but no mention is made of the fact the dude is...a lunatic, and Midna seems to register it as something unfamiliar when he flies off the handle toward the end of the game. I think he kept an incredibly tight rein on himself at absolutely all times in the specific hopes of seeming collected and controlled enough to rule, and his outbursts only really started after he was passed over. They clearly kept him around for awhile despite knowing they wouldn’t be crowning him, so it stands to reason Zant is genuinely good at whatever his precise role was, and a magic user of some significant finesse. Not raw power, not until Ganondorf, but incredible dexterity when applied to delicate tasks.

In the same vein as viewing the normal Hyrulean royal family as one certainly responsible for performing or enabling some heinous things, I assume the same could be said of the Twili royals. While I believe Zant’s “served and endured in that depraved household” is an embellishment he’s making spitefully because he’s narcissistic and falling apart, there’s a kernel of important truth. There likely were goings-on that would seem shady to us. I can’t imagine specifics, but it’s worth mentioning that Zant was not the only of the Twili who wanted to return to the real world, and while he had violence on the mind, one could certainly guess there were others who would have been more than content just negotiating a return, and to share it. It’s nevertheless treated entirely as some unreasonable desire, despite...the fact...they were ejected from their home and left to their realm so long they’re markedly different, so much so their previous environment kills them. ( One can only imagine adapting to the Twilight Realm was unpleasant, for the first over. )

50% of the reason he loses is because he’s a moron and an indulgent moron, who just can’t sate himself with winning; he has to win and having a living loser to point at and laugh. He has to have someone he can personally lord over, living testaments to the power of his wrath. If he smartened up enough to just kill people, I...really don’t think he’d have lost that one.

The other 50% is that he’s so utterly unused to Ganondorf’s power, which is overwhelming in both volume and intensity. Zant can warp reality with it. He is, in some important sense, something of a god. And that’s so much that he, who is incredibly well practiced with making more efficient use of less magic, has no goddamn clue what to do with it. It’s difficult to channel and control, and the result are broad sweeps that are chosen for dramatic effect or specifically because they eat up enough to keep him comfortable, rather than practicality.

I’m not sure where I’m going with it, but it’s fascinating to me that most Twili seem to be pretty skin-baring whereas he doesn’t even show his neck under the helmet, and places such a clear focus on fabricating bulk that just isn’t there. I like to think parts of his outfit have weights, and it was partially an effort to physically restrain himself from any reactive-contorting at work. Sometimes you wanna break your spine but that would look most uncouth.

Not a physical fighter. Hit hard, hit fast, hit erratic, then collapse because you can’t breathe. Twili are in general much more inclined toward magic than traditional fisticuffs, but Zant’s exceptionally physically weak among even them. Reedy ‘n Dweeby.

SIDON

Incurably shy kid, believe it or not. The complete lack of dialogue of his in Mipha’s memory was actually entirely because Zelda was there; he would have been sheepish enough had it been any outside figure, but especially someone he understood to be so important - how could he speak? So small. Sheepish. A lot less confident in himself than he’d eventually become, and Mipha’s gentle encouragement ( and its legacy ) was definitely the biggest factor in changing that.

Really really really worried, constantly, that he’s a drain on people. It’s something of a holdover from his shy youth, but also backed up by a lot of what he can observe. He places a great deal more pressure on himself after Mipha’s death as the new heir ( he was never supposed to be, and would honestly be a much more sincerely at ease adult had it not come down to him ), more than, frankly, anyone around him has. As clearly beloved as he is, and with the fairly warm and encouraging person we can surmise his father to be, there’s some demanding little tug he feels toward inadequacy at all times. He’s incredibly empathetic and not being able to assist everyone all the time, despite the impossibility, hurts him.

He’s a little too warm-hearted and emotional, he feels, to be the ideal ruler. He’s far too dedicated to proving to others and himself that he could be, however, to fully indulge his personable and down to earth side. He’s caught teetering quite awkwardly on the edge where he can’t reap the benefits of his charming personality OR dedicated focus and work ethic.

His father never told him Mipha was dead, as he refused to believe it himself. Most zora were split, but eventually enough people seemed defeated enough while murmuring about the matter, the statue went up, and Sidon was first forced to put it together for himself that she really, truly wasn’t coming back. The single most devastating day of his life, and to think it was years after the fact. He hurts more for it, and it’s part of the reason his night visitations are so constant.

On a happier note, he absolutely does tiny swimming drills with little zora kids whenever he can find the time and get a gaggle together. Much whistle blowing, big exaggerated gestures, so much encouragement, it’s a great time all around.

Seeing Zelda and Link makes him regress, just the faintest touch; he certainly idolized Zelda as a child, and despite having some sister-stealing-related animosity towards Link, had spent the remainder of his youth looking up to him as well. It’s two childhood heroes perfectly preserved and dropped back in front of him, which is quite a happy and confusing shock. It brings a lot of Mipha back to mind, which is bittersweet, but he’s also...doggedly determined to try and prove himself to them, despite their approval meaning nothing at all for him beyond sentiment.

No you really don’t understand how cool he thought Zelda was

Definitely....accidentally....got more than a handful of Hylians killed, trying to run them through what Link did. This is actually why he has to stop and check on you every leg of the way -- he really is concerned, and it’s a self-reassurance as much as he hopes it’s just normal reassurance for Link.

REVALI

Doesn’t hate Link. Really. It would need to be coming from a much more intense, much more personal place to truly register as hate. He does, however, IMMENSELY DISLIKE him. It isn’t any kind of confused expression of affection -- I can’t stress enough, the antagonism is pure and genuine. Revali feels incredibly real bitterness toward Link, and to an extent that ever getting past it would be an entire arc in itself. An arc that’d literally be longer than his life, mind you.

I see it crop up a lot so it might be wide fanon? I wouldn’t know - I do generally believe he was an orphan, and Hyrule is so packed with ways to die I couldn’t begin to pin down a cause yet. That said I don’t imagine Revali himself would know, having lost his parents quite early in life and refusing information initially because it hurt, and after that because he convinced himself he was better not knowing. He was for the most part a fairly serious child, simultaneously aggressive and clingy. I imagine he was raised in a foster sort of setting, with an older guardian who passed naturally and with little fanfare when he was a young adult. They got on well enough, and they likely encouraged his at-first-shot adoration for archery ( as is Rito custom, but also Revali’s interest in its own right ) and let him have what space he wanted. Which was a lot. Solitary, even back then. He didn’t take many pains to involve himself with the community and was typically given a lukewarm reception.

A completely unimpressive shot, initially, but he took to flying at a little more impressive a pace. Not exceptional at either for a long while. He got exceptional by working at it on a daily basis for...honestly, the entirety of his life after he first picked it up. No exaggeration. Minimal breaks taken, and only to make sure he had minimal time to heal or rest his muscles when sorely needed, and never more. He had some small reserve of natural affinity, but by and large his success came entirely because he worked his ass of for it. He took it seriously, kept at it, stayed passionate about getting better; not for a particular reason, even. He had most of the village’s best archers thoroughly outclassed* in his late teens ( or Rito equivalent ) and though he was a ways from even conceptualizing the Gale, was a thoroughly adept flier. He didn’t care particularly much about warrior-ing as a career but assumed it was where he would end up, and in the meantime supported himself comfortably enough through inheritance and some horribly tedious job nobody recalls because he glared them into taking it to their graves. This was eventually swapped with competition winnings as his star ascended.

* I’d like to note I generally don’t think the Rito are actually renowned archers, and it’s more of a cultural thing than one of skill. Revali asked for a practice range to practice at more elevations, which sounds like the sort of thing they’d have to begin with if they were putting intense focus on archery in combat. Revali’s skill wasn’t notable or locally renowned as some kind of curiosity, it was because he was outperforming actual warriors and taking an icon of theirs to new heights, and at a relatively young age. Note that no one else can make physical use of his bow, after his death. It’s not just that he’s good, it’s that he actually IS better at it than anyone else in the area. And this is before he invents the Gale. Additionally, he was entirely self-taught beyond the rudimentary tips to help him start flying as a young’un. It was difficult, but he isn’t broken up about it. On the contrary, it freed him to go at everything at his own overintense pace, and work on outdoing everything rather than necessarily polishing his grasp of basics before he absolutely had to. He really values self-reliance in others, for reasons like this.

It’s small, but his ‘I...could get used to this’ is enough to convince me in addition to being more stoic in his youth, he was something approaching humble. It’s not entirely that the sudden onslaught of praise overinflated his ego - it did, but that’s not all of it - but also that he felt the amount of praise was proportionate to the blood, sweat, and tears he had put into getting so good. He had no friends, mind you, no family, and beyond the one mention of Rito children looking up to him and the general legacy he left behind as a visionary in his craft, he didn’t have much of a life. He certainly enjoys it in an annoying way, but I think there’s some merit to the zeal.

I get the vague impression Rito are fairly removed, and while not unfriendly are a little closed off from other cultures. Revali reflects this, partially in his implied low opinion of Hylians.

Of the champions, Mipha and Zelda are his favorites by a ridiculous margin. Not that it shows all that often. The Mipha smile though? Significant. She’s Theeeeee favorite. ( Not that this means he didn’t probably pick on young Sidon, just a touch. )

Died because...I mean, the plot, but also because he was tired ( the distance he had to travel to get to Medoh, and in one go, isn’t ideal ), more shaken than he would admit on pain of a hundred deaths ( at what he’d seen on the way there, surely more chaos than he was accustomed to ), and the corruption of Medoh hit him especially hard as he had REALLY bonded with it. The ‘winging it’ line is partially true; after all of that, he...panicked, a little.

The lack of living people that remember him? Eats at him way way way way way way way way way way way more than he’ll ever let anyone know. He’s a real sad bird, inside.

GHIRAHIM

His baseline ‘personality’ / set of functions is, at the core, largely a mirror of Fi. He is the version of himself that we know only because he refused to linger in his sword state -- ambition and initiative were things he had much more of than she did, and largely lacking in the tactful patience that’s more or less served her well. Being crafted rather than born and manifesting himself on his own, he at no point had anything resembling a guiding figure or much by way of...normal socialization. The lack of anything resembling a traditional foundation coupled with the RIDICULOUS amount of time he spent in incredibly mixed company seeking out whatever might help him locate his master, and the frustration that comes with such immense and ongoing failure, contribute as much to the end result as anything he was made / ‘born’ with.

He actually isn’t an astonishing combatant against someone intelligent who knows what they’re up against; he is himself aware of this, and takes what other advantages he can get. I typically view Link defeating him as fair integration of gameplay and story and not something that had to happen for the plot - it ultimately came down to the sword Link was using. Ghirahim isn’t at his most powerful unless he’s in sword form, as that’s what he was designed to be, and some substantial portion of his energy is likely wasted on manifesting physically at all, any magic he performs, teleportation, so on and so forth. He can read people, he has his magical origins on his side, and he’s certainly strong, and all of those things are enough to fell whatever unfortunate people or monsters initially tried to attack him, but up against non-laymen and in the name of cutting down needless-but-numerous future challengers it’s in his interest to blow himself out of proportion. He’s a fantastic talker, good at making an impression, and once the first crop is afraid of him, it just snowballs until he doesn’t need to do much of anything - I imagine ‘Lord Ghirahim’ was something he didn’t actually come up with himself, but heard once and liked it so much he went out and made everyone do it.

There’s some level of discontent with his ultimate fate, but it’s buried under his own resolute refusal to acknowledge or explore it consciously because he was made to serve and to serve one purpose, and was not intended for any higher aspirations, and because even on an unconscious level, his very being can’t accept it for long. During his impressive span of relative isolation and lording over scant surface-folk / monsters, he grew just a touch beyond his programming. Make no mistake, this doesn’t make him less of a threat -- has to or not, he is nothing short of a fanatic and would still do anything at all for Demise or to spite Hylia -- it’s merely that he briefly lets his mind wander, and suffers a somewhat human need to justify himself, which he has. ( In fact it makes him worse, because he’s gone from something of a mindless tool of cruelty to someone actively seeking it out, having convinced themselves quite firmly of its necessity and value. ) A general Thing I run with re: this whole series is that Hyrule’s actually a horrible place to live if you squint, and basically all the goddesses are horrible to the poor mortals below. Ghira’s owed a little frustration with his lot.

Related to the above? As delightful as it is to joke about, he’s not a sincerely sexual entity. Any and all weird tongue-waggling is done specifically because he knows it throws people off, and that’s what he wants out of a fight. He’s not socialized enough to know much of the nuance behind similar action, he just knows it gets a large reaction out of people, and typically that makes intimidation or murder even easier.

#WICKEDNESS IN THE HEARTS OF MAN ( vaati : headcanon )#NOR THE FAINTEST BLOOM OF DESIRE ( zant : headcanon )#ARISTOCRATIC AND OPEN HEARTED ( sidon : headcanon )#DON'T COME CRYING TO ME ( revali : headcanon )#A STRONG APPETITE FOR BLOODSHED ( ghirahim : headcanon )#the Vaati one's not dONE but it's late and I'll edit something in tomorrow

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wannawritefast · 6 years

Text

Iron Maiden

A/N: Hey, guys! This fic is my submission for @bionic-buckyb ‘s Birthday angst-writing challenge. I had an awesome time writing this and I hope y’all enjoy it! And a big early HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you, Kait! Xoxo, Echo.

Prompt: 37. “You need to stop yelling at inanimate objects.” “And you need to stop telling me how to live my life but things never go as we want.”

Pairing: Tony x Daughter!Reader, Steve x Reader (if you squint)

“Y/n, watch your 6.” Steve warned. You spun around swiftly and fired your blasters at the oncoming HYDRA guard behind you. The man was knocked down immediately, right before he could tackle you to the ground.

“Thanks, Spangles,” you breathed. He hated that nickname. You jumped right back into action. Slamming another guard into the ground you felt a bullet hit your suit at the base of your neck. Your suit, a replica of your dad’s but fitted for you, hummed lowly before whirring in a concerning manner. That didn’t sound good… not one bit.

“Uh… FRIDAY, talk to me. What happened?” You asked. Your limbs moved slowly, hiccuping as you tried to turn to fight another guard running at you.

“It seems as if the bullet hit your suit at just the right angle to mess up your limb calibration…” You could fix this… This was totally fixable. All you needed to do was turn on the back-up calibrator manually and-

“Everything ok, kiddo?” Your dad’s voice chimed in on the comm line.

“I’m uh- I’m fine, Mr. Stark. Thanks for-”

“Not you, Peter. But I’m glad you’re fine. Y/n? You alright?”

“Just having some technical difficulties!” You called as, this time, a HYDRA agent was able to successfully knock you to the floor. Your limbs still sputtered. The man began punching your mask and your display screen sparked.

“FRIDAY, what happened?”

“No! I have this-”

“Limb calibration: impaired and inoperational.”

“Dad, don’t you dare do what I think-!” You warned. All of a sudden, Steve’s shield knocked the agent off of you.

“She’s clear, Stark.” He informed your father of your status before pushing back through the line of HYDRA agents. Did he just help your dad?

“Hey! I-!”

“FRIDAY, activate ‘Pick Me Up. I’m Scared’ Protocol on Iron Maiden.”

“DAD!” You screeched. All of a sudden, your display went red and FRIDAY took over. Your arms shot to your sides, involuntarily, and locked in place. Any resistance was no use; the suit was in control now. Your launch jets turned on and your autopilot overrode your manual flying.

Within seconds you were programmed on a route to the Avengers compound in New York while the rest of the team finished the mission. You were going to have some words with your father and Steve when they got back.

You were angrily repairing your suit when the whir-stomp pattern of your dad’s suit and the collective footsteps of the team entering the compound’s armory and suit repair center interrupted your music blaring through the speakers. You stood from your stool and moved your goggles to the top of your head. Crossing your arms and popping out your hip, you watched your dad stop while the rest of the group, Steve included, moved to the armory.

You stuck your gloved hand out to ruffle Peter’s hair and you did your handshake with him, not breaking eye contact with your father. He opened his face panel first and then the rest of his suit before stepping out of it. Right as Steve thought he could avoid your anger by blending with the group you turned your head swiftly at the blue-suit clad super soldier.

“You’re not off the hook, Spangles,” you chided humorlessly. The man paused in the doorway and you swore you heard Clint snicker. “Get your ass over here.” Steve dragged his feet and walked to the middle ground between you and your father.

“The ‘Pick Me Up. I’m Scared’ Protocol? Are fucking kidding me?! Last mission, I had a millisecond delay in my left gauntlet. The mission before, one bolt out of the 50 in my helmet didn’t latch. Dad, you use it every GODDAMN time! I am a grown-ass adult.” You growled at your father. He only blinked at you calmly. “And you!” You directed your rage-filled gaze back at Steve. “I was handling everything just fine-”

“You were not,” Steve corrected you. “You were getting pummeled by a HYDRA agent. Your suit malfunctioning was doing more harm than good and you weren’t safe.”

Your jaw dropped and you blinked, flabbergasted by his words.

“I can’t believe we’re agreeing on something, Rogers,” your dad spoke up.

Steve rolled his eyes as he pulled his helmet off of his head. He ran his fingers through his blonde hair and let out an exhausted sigh. If you weren’t so pissed off, you would have been concerned.

“I don’t even know why I bother going on missions if you guys are going to just send me home before it ends.” You muttered as you went back to fixing your suit. You grabbed your blowtorch and pulled your goggles back on as you reset a panel along your suit’s rib armor, effectively and nonverbally dismissing them.

Steve and Tony each silently unwound from the mission, letting you work on your suit repairs in solitude. They knew better than to try to egg you on when you were this upset.

For the next few hours, you troubleshot everything. The blasters. The armor. The joint mobility. The display screens. The wiring. The rockets. The microphone. The AI pairing and connection. All to make sure that when you went on a mission next, your dad would have no excuse to take you out of the fight for stupid reasons.

You looked over at your dad’s empty and unrepaired suit. Grudgingly. It had bullet marks and chips in the armor where various weapons had clanged against it.

Every ounce of anger in your body told you to stay away from that suit and spite your dad by not fixing it… But as much as you were angry at your dad, you couldn’t put him at risk during the next mission.

So, grudgingly, you grabbed your tools and moved to where his suit was. He’d thank you later.

Thirty minutes of repairing your dad’s suit drove you to start talking to it. You weren’t crazy. You were just using an outlet.

“You are being too. Damn. Stubborn.” You snarled at a panel on the back of your dad’s suit. You had been trying to replace it for the past five minutes and you had reattached it 5 times. “If you’d be cooperative this would be way easier…”

You screwed it in again, gritting your teeth when you felt it tighten. If it didn’t stay this time you didn’t know what you were going to do.

You leaned back slightly with your palm cupped underneath the small piece in his armor, to catch it if it should fall. You waited for a few more seconds. With a satisfied smirk you pulled your hand away and moved onto the helmet of the suit.

Right as you set the helmet down on the table next to you, you heard a pop and the sound of a small piece of metal ringing against the floor. You turned around and beheld the sight of that goddamn panel on the floor.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” you asked aloud. “All I’m trying to do is fix you and you are refusing to let me help…” You jammed it back in place, not your finest workmanship but sometimes brute force worked the best.

It remained in its spot for about five seconds before falling off again and hitting the floor with a small clang.

“I’m honestly so done with you…” you trailed off. “I’ll deal with you later.”

You proceeded to focus your attention on your dad’s helmet. “You know. I don’t understand how you manage to get so dirty every single mission.” You applied soap to a rag and wiped down the external lenses. “It’s like you want me to clean you every day.”

You put on your dad’s helmet to check the inside display. It whirred to life as soon as it was on your head. “Hello, Y/n Stark,” FRIDAY greeted.

“Hey, FRIDAY. Just doing some system’s checks on my dad’s helmet.” You waved your hand in front of the screen to test the lag and everything moved just as it should. “Check life remaining on the bulbs.”

“Life remaining on display bulbs: 12%.”

“Jeez…” It was enough to get through another mission but just barely. Leave it to your dad to wait to the last minute. You pulled off the helmet and lifted the front panel away from the piece of metal. “FRIDAY, eject projector bulbs.”

With a click, a small carton of bulbs was pushed out of the bottom of the facial panel. You grabbed it and tossed it between your hands before throwing it into your ‘recycle’ pile. You pulled a drawer out and replaced the bulb carton in the helmet, like clockwork. You worked on the rest of the suit, purposefully and purposely saving that goddamn spine panel for last.

The time came for you to replace the panel on your dad’s suit. It usually wouldn’t have made you as angry as fast as it did but today was just not your day… especially with your dad pulling you out of your mission early again.

The first few times it popped defiantly out of place, you were able to control your temper. But after the 22nd time of it jumping away from its delegated spot… well…

“I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING AND YOU WON’T LISTEN!” You screeched at the piece of metal that was no bigger than 3 inches long and 1 inch wide. “I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP!” You chucked it at the floor with unbridled force. You thought you saw a chip in the concrete from your outburst.

It was only a piece of metal but you felt tears forming in your eyes nonetheless. “I only want to help,” you cried quietly. Your voice breaking filled the empty room pitifully. “And you won’t let me!”

“You need to stop yelling at inanimate objects.” Your dad was leaning in the glass door frame of the lab repair center. You didn’t know how much of that he had seen but you, honestly, didn’t care. It’s not like he gave a damn about anyone’s emotions besides his own.

“And you need to stop telling me how to live my life,” you sniffled before quipping, “but things never go as we want.” You turned back to stare at the glaringly shiny and undamaged piece of metal on the floor.

Your dad sighed. Oh boy, your waterworks were flowing… This was going to be harder than he thought. “There’s no sulking in this compound. If you want to be angsty, you have to check in with Barnes first.” He took a few strides into the lab.

“You should check in with me before you just decide to pull me out of missions but I can see tunnel vision runs in the Stark family and skipped a generation,” you gestured to yourself theatrically. You picked up a wrench and twisted it in your hand therapeutically. “I don’t get it… I just want to help.”

You looked at your dad with a puffy nose, red eyes, and tear-soaked lashes. Tony felt the pang in his heart at how similar you looked to your toddler self when you had watched your mother walk out the front door and never come back. That screaming match in particular between your parents had left your toddler psyche pretty emotionally raw and your mother leaving was the icing on the cake.

Tony gulped. He didn’t know what to say. He certainly had a reason for acting the way he did but he had know idea how to explain it to you. Or how to justify you never completing a mission. Because any sign of danger towards you, to him, was another way for one of the most important people in his life to be taken away from him.

“Well?” you snapped. “Nothing to say for yourself?”

“I think I was well justified in taking you out of the mission if you couldn’t even stand up, Tin Man!”

“I have the manual limb recalibration installed in my suit for this very reason, Dad! If you had just let me-!”

“‘Let you’ what? Manually recalibrate?” Your dad scoffed incredulously. “That takes 5 minutes to do! Do you think those HYDRA agents are going to wait 5 minutes for your suit to start up again and then fight you? Do you think they have an ounce of mercy or kindness for anyone?! For their enemies?!”

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t turn this on them! I could have stayed in the mission!”

“No, you couldn’t have!” Tony was about this close to ripping his hair out.

“Yes, I could-”

“Not without getting killed, you couldn’t have!” He yelled. Tony threw his arms out, he had nothing else to give you besides that.

That got you silent. There were very few times in any given Stark’s life that rendered one speechless. This was one of those times for you. So this was what it was about?

His eyes watered. Tony hated it when you had to see him like this. You didn’t need to see him at his weak points. He had to be strong for you, as both a father and mother.

“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you because the suit that I built for you failed you.”

“Dad…” your tone was no longer like a whip. “My suit is safe. You designed and built it. I only repair it after missions. This is your handiwork and yours alone.”

“You can’t put that much faith in me. I don’t even put that much faith in me.”

You shook your head at his stubbornness. “Well, maybe it’s time you did. Listen, machines will fail from time to time and-”

Your dad cut you off. “But that’s just it.” You pretended not to see his lip tremble a little bit. “Machines fail from time to time but the time that it does could mean the end for me… if you died.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” you took a deep breath as you stood across from him. “Machines fail from time to time and it sucks. But machinery failing is something that happens to the average engineer. And you’ve worked these systems personally. If there’s anything I know about your machinery, it’s that your work is high above average.” You grabbed one of his hands. “If you can make trillions of dollars on your successful inventions, then I trust a suit from the same successful designer. Especially my dad.”

Your dad pulled you into a hug. “Oh, kid…” he breathed. “You’re worth way more than trillions of dollars.”

“Believe me… I’m well aware.” You looked up at him.

He let out a deep breath, the top of your head crooked underneath his chin. “When you’re smarter than me, it makes me look bad.”

“Well, thank God it’s only you, me and FRIDAY here. You know,” you shrugged, “for your ego’s sake.”

The piece of metal glinted at you from the floor, reminding you of what you’d been working on before you and your dad had your heart-to-heart.

“So…” you prompted. “You’ll ease up a little on the missions… right?”

Your dad let out a reluctant groan. “Only if you can promise that you’ll leave a mission when it is no longer safe nor helpful for you to be there.”

You let out a sound similar to your dad’s. “Define ‘safe.’”

Your dad leaned back and raised his eyebrows at you.

“Okay, fine!” You put your hands up in surrender and stepped out of the hug to pick up the piece of armor off the floor.

With a few quick taps of your hammer the piece was secured. You even waited a few seconds and, much to your surprise, it held strong. And in place.

#tony x reader #tony stark x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #bionic_buckyb angst writing challenge #avengers x reader #avengers fanfiction #avengers fanfic

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sassycassie-s-writing · 6 years

Text

To Be Happy - Optional Epilogue

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam, SuperFam - Jason Todd/Red Hood & Conner Kent/Kon-El/Superboy

Rating: PG-11/T-

Original Idea: Part 1 Summer, Part 2 Autumn, Part 3 Winter, Part 4 Spring, Part 5 Summer (Fin)

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) @welovegroot practically begged me to let Starbeam end up with Jason in the end because apparently the relationship drama of the rest of this story wasn’t enough. XD If you liked the ending as it was, you don’t have to consider this “canon.” Also this one is long so there’s a Keep Reading option.

^^^^^

November 14, 4:27PM

Jason put his hand to his side. His glove came away bloody. He swore under his breath. “That's more serious than I thought,” he grumbled. He looked up through blurring vision. Where even was he? Where had the mission spat him out?

Was that...? Was that Mt. Justice?

He stumbled toward the looming mountain, blinking hard and losing consciousness. Before he could drop, he pressed the comm-link on the side of his helmet. “Call Starbeam,” he ordered the voice command AI.

“Calling Starbeam...” It rang for a few moments.

“Hello?”

Oh Hera. It was her.

“Stars,” he rasped. “I... I need your help. I'm close to the mountain. I... I'm losing a lot of blood.”

“Oh my gosh. Jason?!”

“That's me,” he mumbled.

“Oh crap. I'll be right out. Stay on the line. I'll have Robin trace the call. Hold on Jason. I'll be right there!”

“Stars... I still... love you...”

Jason listed forward and fell face-first onto the pavement.

^^^^^

November 16, 8:41AM

He came to in an unfamiliar place. Not the mountain. A small apartment. His wound was bandaged, and the top half of his suit was draped over a nearby armchair, along with his leather jacket and helmet. He felt better. More rested than he’d been in a while. When he’d fallen his nose hit the inside of his helmet and started bleeding. Someone, presumably Starbeam, had cleaned him up.

Thud. Jason froze. He could hear movement—and then talking.

“—he doing here, Stars?” That was Kon's voice.

“He was bleeding out on the pavement, Kon. What did you expect me to do? Leave him there to die?”

“No. But maybe you could have… I dunno… not brought him here? He's a killer, babe. He's not the Jason you remember.”

“He's still Jason,” Stars insisted. “And he's one of my oldest friends!”

“He’s a murderer! Did you hear what he did in Gotham? Eight decapitated heads in a duffel bag!”

“Imagine if you died and got dragged back to life, Conner,” Stars said. “What if he didn’t want to come back? He has plenty of reasons to be angry. But he doesn’t have anyone else to turn to and he needs help.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he came back to help us with the warehouse and then returned now because he’s trying to win you over?”

“Of course it did. But this is Jason we’re talking about, Kon. One of my best friends. He’s not pursuing me.”

“You don’t know that for certain. Who says he’s not trying to tear us apart?”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Conner. You don’t know him as well as I do.”

“As well as you did,” Conner returned sharply. “He’s not the same!”

“I'm not going to stand here and argue with you about the philosophy of coming back to life when neither of us have done that,” Starbeam retorted. “Jason was a good kid who was trying his best with what he had to work with. We’ve all had crappy lives and he’s not the only one to lash out because of it. Very little in this life could be considered worse than dying and coming back to life and digging yourself out of your own grave.”

“Wait,” Conner said. “He’s awake.”

Jason heard Stars take a deep breath and emerge from the bedroom where they’d been arguing.

“Hey Jay,” she greeted, approaching the back of the couch and resting her knuckles on the back cushions. “Gave me a good scare there. I found you bleeding out on the pavement and on the brink of death.”

Conner left the bedroom a moment after, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. He stayed silent.

“How are you feeling?” Starbeam asked quietly. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Surprisingly no,” Jason said. “What’d you give me?”

She shrugged. “Nothing special. Some mild painkillers. We don’t keep heavy-duty ones here. Do you mind if I…?” She nodded to his injury.

“Go ahead.” He shifted as she circled the sofa to the front and peeked under the bandaging.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s healing really well. You bats never fail to surprise me.”

Jason grunted and adjusted his position. “It’s a side-effect of the Lazarus Pit. After the Madness faded I still heal pretty fast.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Starbeam remarked, fixing his bandage.

“Long story. Listen. Thank you for helping me. I just… I didn’t know… who else I could turn to. Dunno if you’ve noticed but I don’t have many allies at the moment,” he said.

Kon scoffed. “Whose fault is that?”

“Kon,” Starbeam warned. She gave Jason a soft look. “Ignore him. He’s just worried. And he has every right to be but I know you better than that.”

“You did,” Conner grumbled.

Starbeam straightened up and gave her boyfriend a Look. “We’re not having this conversation anymore, Conner,” she said with her hands on her hips. “It’s rude to argue in front of guests.”

Another scoff from Kon. “He’s not a guest, Starry. He’s a threat.”

“Conner!” Starbeam snapped. “Babe, I love you, but you have got to chill.”

Jason’s wound throbbed as his heart ached hearing her love someone else. That crush from his adolescence never went away, that much was certain. He winced and put his hand over his injury but stayed silent.

Conner’s jaw was set and his arms were still folded, but Starbeam wasn’t at all afraid of him. She’d never been afraid of anyone on the team. Jason had always admired that. Surrounded by dangerous and powerful kids, she’d started shy but unafraid. She stood her ground against all of Kon’s most livid outbursts when Jason was Robin and wasn’t backing down now.

^^^^^

Kon glared at me. “Why can’t you see that he’s dangerous?” he asked sharply.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “We’re all dangerous. You get used to it after a while. And Jason is nothing I can’t handle.” I glanced down at Jason on the couch. He was watching Conner and I talk like it was a tennis match.

“Remember the duffel bag full of heads?” Conner reminded me.

I rolled my eyes. “You won’t let me forget it.”

“Then why are you helping him?”

“Because he’s my friend!”

“Well your friend is tearing this—” He pointed between himself and me. “—apart at the seams. I don’t trust him and I don’t understand why you do.”

“Jason won’t hurt us,” I said quietly. “That’s why I trust him.”

“No,” Kon snapped. “He won’t hurt you and you know it, because he’s still in love with you. The rest of the team, though? I have no doubt that he’d mow them down without a second’s hesitation if he felt threatened by them or thought they were in his way. Even Nightwing. He’d take out his own brother.”

Jason opened his mouth as though to say something, thought for a moment, and closed it again.

Just as well because Kon shot him a glare that could stop a ravenous animal in its tracks. His glares were scary, even if they weren’t as bad as that one time Batman glared at me for being disobedient to something.

Kon took a deep breath and leveled his gaze at me. “So. Choose, Stars. Stay friends with him, or stay with me. I can’t trust him and refuse to expose the team to him.”

“Kon it’s not as simple as choosing sides. Jason is my friend but I still love you. I don’t want to choose between one or the other because you’re paranoid that something bad will happen,” I argued.

“He is a criminal, Starbeam!” Conner exploded. “And if you want to still hang out with him, you’re going to have to choose. Or I’ll choose for you.”

My expression went slack. “Kon. Babe. Think about this. Don’t be irrational. Everything’s fine. I helped him because he called me when he was in the act of dying. And because he’s my friend and has been since we were fifteen. We don’t have to get this extreme because of this. Just… think for a moment.”

“Babe. If you want to keep being friends with a criminal, I can’t… I can’t. I just can’t.” He went over to the living room window and pulled it open. “So. Make a decision. Decide where your loyalties are. I’ll be back later.”

He flew out.

“Yikes. Has he always been like that to you?” Jason asked.

I sighed and plopped onto the loveseat next to the couch, burying my face in my hands. “No,” I said. “We’ve been together for four years, Jason. Four. Years. I know him better than I know myself. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“I do,” Jason said.

I looked up from my hands. “Oh yeah?” I challenged.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me. The thought of me has gotten under his skin. A mixture of somewhat-justified righteousness and jealousy. I heard you two in your room. Asking if I came back to the warehouse and the harbor to win you over. I didn’t, by the way. Thought about it before the warehouse, I’ll admit, but I always just wanted you to be happy. Even if it meant not with me.”

Slowly, he moved to climb off the couch. His movements were ginger and he winced several times.

I got up and helped him to his feet. “Thanks, Stars. For… everything,” he said. Standing so close to me, I could see a ring of green around the pupil of his blue irises. Those weren’t there before. Or if they were I’d never noticed.

My breathing was heavy from pulling him to his feet—he was significantly bigger than he’d been as Robin—and I couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment. He’d grown into a handsome young man. I took a deep breath to steady myself and gave him an awkward grin. “You’re welcome, Jason. I'm… I'm sorry about Kon.”

He shrugged. “Never liked me anyway.” I helped him into the top half of his suit. “Hey, so, listen Stars. How about you come with me? Get away from this town for a little while. Give your big scary boyfriend some time to chill out.” He shrugged into his brown leather jacket and picked up his helmet. “Can’t guarantee it’ll be as exciting as living this close to Mt. Justice and the team but… I guarantee that we can still get into all kinds of shenanigans.”

“Jason I can’t condone the things you’ve done.”

“But I'm done with them. I was bent on revenge but once I got over that I… What I’ve done is inexcusable. I know that. Maybe what I'm really asking is for you to come keep me in check. Because I know I wouldn’t listen to… anyone else.” He gave me a smirk. “You wouldn’t even have to tell Conner that’s where you went. Just say you want to go find yourself or something and meet me in National City.”

“He’ll know,” I said. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t listening to this right now.”

“Doubt it. He’s too frustrated.”

I bit my lip and glanced at the open living room window where Conner had flown out. Then I looked back at Jason, who was giving me the crooked smile he always gave me when convincing me to sneak out of the mountain and make mischief. He pulled his gloves on and offered me his hand.

“Whaddaya say, Stars? Wanna live a little? See who you are away from this team? Away from him?”

I took a deep breath, thinking about it. The glint of playfulness in Jason’s eyes was almost green. It was an inviting look. I almost wanted to grab his hand and run away from everything with him. Get away from whatever was plaguing Kon… try to survive on my own… only come back when I missed the team…

I grabbed his hand. “Let’s go,” I said.

“Pack your suit. I guarantee you’ll need it.”

^^^^^

Approximately Eight Months Later…

^^^^^

July 7, 10:26AM

Jason took my hand. “Race ya to the rocks!” he said. I laughed. If he was holding my hand then it wasn’t really a race. He just wanted to make it sound like a competition.

We both kicked off our shoes and ran down the beach, hanging onto each other so I didn’t fall behind. I hadn’t grown since before he and I met but he certainly had. He was bigger and taller than Nightwing and his legs were so long there was no way I’d be able to keep up.

Our free hands slammed into the rock at the same time. A wave rushed up the beach and soaked our bare feet. We both laughed.

Then stopped.

I licked the sea salt off my lower lip and glanced up at him to find he was already staring at me.

It felt like the year I crushed on Kon all over again. Charged looks and moments where the atmosphere is so tense I could cut it with a rusty spoon. Kon and I had never officially broken up but… I doubted we could be considered a couple at this point. I hadn’t been back to Mt. Justice in ages and Red Hood and Starbeam had kept out of the news so no one knew where to look for us.

“Jay…” I began. “I…” I shook my head. “Screw it. I'm falling for you. Hard.” I cradled his neck with my hands and brought it down to me. He closed his eyes. I did too. We sealed our lips together.

It only lasted a moment before we were running out of the way of a wave crashing up the beach, squealing and cackling as our trousers got wet.

“Stars?” Jason asked, hand resting on my forearm and sliding down to my hand. “You alright?”

I couldn’t help but snort bitterly. “You always could tell when something was bothering me when no one else could. Not even Conner.” I sighed. “Kon and I talked about getting married once,” I said. “We were together for four and a half years. Figured if we still were together for five, we could make it through anything. We’d be old enough to get married. After you died we never counted on something being able to break us apart. Now I'm falling for my best friend and… I almost feel guilty. Four and a half years.

“For the first month I traveled with you I thought every day of going home to Mt. Justice. Play the ‘kiss and make up’ game with Kon. Maybe get back on track. Apologize for our fight. And then I… I never could. I couldn’t leave you. Then I… I found myself falling for you so intensely that I definitely couldn’t go back to Mt. Justice and I didn’t want to.”

“And now?” Jason prompted.

“Now I want to stay with you through everything. As both my best friend and the current subject of my feelings.”

“Stars, you’ve been the subject of my feelings since I was fifteen. If you’ll have me, I’ll be with you through everything too.”

“I’ll have you, Jason. All of you.”

He bent down and kissed me. I kissed him back enthusiastically. “I love you, Starbeam,” Jason whispered. “I’ve waited years to say that again.”

“And now you can have the feeling returned. I love you, Red Hood,” I replied.

#To Be Happy Epilogue #To Be Happy #Epilogue #Jason Todd #Jason Todd Imagine #Jason Todd FanFiction #Red Hood #Red Hood Imagine #Red Hood FanFiction #DC #DC Imagine #DC FanFiction #Conner Kent #Conner Kent Imagine #Conner Kent FanFiction #Superboy #Superboy Imagine #Superboy FanFiction #Kon-El

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felixthekoala · 6 years

Text

I Can Be Your Hero ~ Chapter 11

Group: Stray Kids

Pairing: Stray Kids x Reader

Description: One night you get sucked into your favorite superhero comic, Stray Kids. What will happen when you get swept up in their battle against evil?

a/n: I’m sorry this took so long to update, hopefully I’ll be able to write the final chapters more quickly!

Read the previous chapters here: {1}{2}{3}{4}{5}{6}{7}{8}{9}{10}

Felix threw his arm back, green flames dancing across his palm. He directed his attention at Changbin and the flames shot out, heading directly for him. Right before they made contact, Changbin surrounded himself in a large bubble, acting as a force field. The fire spread out across the barrier, but failed to find a way in. Frustrated, Felix turned to you. Before you could process what had happened, the green flames flew from his hands and made contact with your torso. Immediately you wailed in agony as your clothes melted off of you, leaving nothing in between you and the flame. It felt different from a normal flame. A pain worse than anything imaginable travelled across your entire body, despite it only hitting your torso. You writhed in pain on the ground, screaming at the top of your lungs. The boys ran over, desperately trying to put out the flames.

"Y/n! Y/n! Can you hear me?! Oh my god!" Chan cried as he saw your face contorted in agony. You saw through blurred vision as Woojin, or Siren, began to sing, sending Shade and Hellfire into a trance.

"Hurry up and get her out of here, I can't hold them for long!" Woojin explained, his face strained with effort.

"We have to put out the flames first!" Hyunjin screamed back, frantically patting your torso with his shirt in a failed attempt to snuff out the flames.

"These aren't ordinary flames, Chan! I don't know what to do, they're not dissipating!" He clamored, voice cracking. You couldn't do anything but shriek as the pain failed to cease, eating away at your entire being.

"Let me try something," Seungmin said, quickly shoving Hyunjin out of the way. A stream of pure white water shot from his hands, landing on the fire. It immediately fizzled out with a hiss, and the pain was replaced with a deep calm.

"What-" you started.

"I don't know, I just tried to put out the fire, but I didn't expect it to be that color, or work like magic…" Seungmin looked as confused as you.

"Well, we can discuss this at home, right now, we got bigger things to deal with," Chan said, gesturing to Woojin, who turned to you in panic.

"They're gone. I don't know where they went," he explained worriedly.

"Let's just get out of this open area and back home," Chan instructed. Without hesitating, Hyunjin scooped you up and carried you as the boys walked back.

"I've been thinking," Chan started as the group congregated in the living room. You curled up against Hyunjin, desperate for some comfort. That fire was no ordinary fire and it took something from you. You couldn't get that feeling of excruciating pain out of your mind, but what was worse was the feeling of it spreading across your body, a feeling of such strong darkness. You couldn't understand it, but you knew it was something strong and powerful and you couldn't let the boys be struck with it.

"Thinking about what?" Changbin asked. His face was so solemn and broken, you couldn't help but wince at the pain he must be going through. He just lost his best friend in the worst way possible… now he would have to fight him.

"About Felix. And Seungmin. What must be going on," Chan clarified. "So Felix called himself Hellfire, right?" You all nodded. "But his superhero name is Inferno. So why didn't he call himself Inferno?" You all gave blank stares, no idea where he was going with this. "I think it's because he was exposed to the Darkness when Minho… sorry, Shade, struck him. It didn't kill him though, because the blast of dark energy collided with Felix's flames, so he absorbed the Darkness," Chan explained.

"That still doesn't explain the name change or Seungmin's new powers or anything," Jisung pointed out.

"I'm getting there. I think when he absorbed the Darkness, the Darkness gave him new, darker powers. Hellfire. I've read about it in books. The specific effects vary, but it's basically different from normal fire in that it spreads destruction, not just physically, but to the soul of anyone it touches." You shivered at the thought. That explained it. "Felix always used Inferno when using his normal fire powers, but I think since he hadn't been exposed to the Darkness, when he was, it changed his abilities as well as who he was. Minho has always been exposed to the darkness, that's where he got his powers in the first place, so Shade was always there. Hellfire is completely different. Does this make sense?"

You all nodded your heads slowly.

"So this dark force is giving dark powers, but we are creatures of adaptation. So when the dark grows, there must be a growth of light. And what is the opposite of hellfire? Holy water. That must be what Seungmin conjured and what immediately destroyed the hellfire. I think we're developing new powers as a result of this," Chan concluded.

"This is a lot to take in," you spoke up from the silence. "Chan, can I talk to you for a minute?" He nodded and followed you up the stairs. At the top step, your balance wavered and you teetered precariously. Chan's strong arms gripped your sides, stabilizing you.

"That hellfire must have really taken a toll on you. Are you sure you're okay to walk?" he asked, concerned. You nodded.

"I'm fine. It feels better when I'm with you guys. But I don't think I can be alone for a while."

He nodded in understanding.

"So what was it you wanted to talk about?" he asked as you entered your room and closed the door. You turned to him and sighed.

"Chan, you don't have to be like this. You don't have to be strong and logical every second of the day. I know it'll end up hurting you more to keep it bottled up," you told him, placing your hand on his shoulder. He gave a tight smile.

"What do you mean?"

"You went to that field tonight to get your friend back, and instead you lost another. But instead of crying about it or giving in to your emotions, you remained a leader, trying to think through what was going on and stayed logical, straying from emotions."

"y/n, I am the leader, this is what I have done and it's what I should do. You and the boys need a leader, not someone who breaks down at defeat," he countered, plopping onto your bed in a huff.

"But you can't hide all your emotions. It'll eat away at you. Look at Minho-"

"I'M NOT MINHO!" he burst out, causing you to flinch. "Believe it or not, you don't know everything about what's right for this team! Stop trying to tell me how to lead my team, I will do it my way!" Tears brimmed your eyes as you backed away from him, hurt by his sudden outburst. His face softened. "I'm sorry, I guess I really can't handle th-"

You were out the door before he could finish.

Running down the stairs, you made your way to Hyunjin, wiping tears from your eyes.

"Hyunjin? Can I stay at your place tonight?"

"y/n?" he asked worriedly, face etched with concern as he noticed your puffy eyes. "Um, yeah, of course. Let me get my shoes on and we'll leave."

You followed him out the door, not looking back once at Chan watching from the window of your room.

#stray kids #straykidznet #networkstraykids #sk-writersnet #straykidsdirectory #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fluff #stray kids angst #stray kids fics

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