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fckwritersblock · 3 years

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More Than Therapy

Bucky x black!reader

Warning: sooooo there is smut ahead. Okay like, not complete filth but it’s there! Who even knows what this is, but enjoy it!

Pic below from post by @afriendlyblackhottie

(Unedited.)

“Look, I’m not saying that she’s not a great therapist, I’m just think that she’s not your style.”

Bucky didn’t hide his eye roll.

For the past 2 weeks, Sam had been trying to convince him he needed a second option. Ever since he had his own encounter with Bucky’s therapist, which consisted of being forcefully included in one of their sessions, he could see it wasn’t really helping Bucky at all. Not that Sam was an expert or anything, he just knew his.....friend.

“Alright Sam, fine.” Bucky sighed tossing the wrench to the side. “So what. I kick my therapist to curb, then what? You got some kind of recommendation or something?”

Sam just smirked before turning and making his way off the boat.

“Actually I do.”

Now here Bucky was, waiting on another person to come and try to break down all his walls and get in his head and help him with through his ‘issues’.

“Waste of time.” He mumbled to his self.

However, when she walked in the door, that thought quickly left.

“I’m Y/n.”

“James”

“It’s nice to meet you James.”

For the first time in a very long time Bucky felt comfortable almost immediately. The conversation didn’t feel forced, he didn’t feel pressured, it was just easy. Y/n didn’t push and pry. She simply let him answer the way he want and what he wanted. She let him sort of control the conversation. It was refreshing.

From then on, he saw her twice a week. Their first two weeks together was just them getting to know one another. Establishing trust on Buckys end. He appreciated that for once the woman so much pressure for him to be OK so soon. Finally, after about a month or so, they were doing a little exercises here and there to work through his trauma. The first assignment, it was actually pretty similar to the last psychiatrist he had seen. To get out and make at least one friend. Find an activity or something that he enjoys.

“So have you been getting out like we discussed?”

“Yeah I’ve gone out.” He nodded carelessly with a grin as he sat across the table from her.

Y/n raised an eyebrow. “To places besides the bar.”

“Yes.”

“Liar.” She said and it was her turn to grin as she held her hand out.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, handing over his phone. Bucky watched her click a few buttons knowing she was checking his contacts. This was like Deja vu.

“You have the same amount of numbers in your phone as last week Barnes.”

“Not true Doc, I have you.” He smiled sheepishly.

“I hardly count Barnes.” A small smile graced her face nonetheless.

She was quiet for a moment and he took that opportunity to study her. In deep thought. Y/n had a tell. She’d bite the corner of her bottom lip on the right side every time she was trying to figure something out. Usually before she came up with his homework before the next session.

“I have a thought but you’re not gonna like it.” She began after while.

“Lay it on Doc.”

“I don’t feel like you are actively trying to be a part of society. What you’ve been doing, trying to right your wrongs of the other guy...” she drifted for a moment. “It’s futile. You don’t need to do that. That-“

Y/n paused taking a deep breath.

“That’s not you.” She spoke softly.

“But that is me! I am winter soldier!” He yelled on his feet quickly.

Anger. He was familiar with the feeling. Angry was something he just couldn’t seem to stop feeling. Even if he didn’t show it, it was like he was angry all the time. However feeling it with her was unfamiliar. And he could feel the inner turmoil of him taking his frustrations out on her as he tried to push that anger back down.

“Were.” Y/n stated with finality, voice strong. “You were the winter Solider. And that wasn’t you. That’s just a couple of dark chapters in the book of your life. That’s it.

“You don’t know m-“

“But that is not you.” She repeated a little louder commanding forcing him to look her dead in the eyes. “That’s not who you are, James. And while I may not have known you pre-hydra, or during, but I’m knowing you now. And that’s just not you.”

Y/n leaned back in her chair.

“I know that here, Bucky.” She grinned a little placing her hand over her heart and tapped twice. “And deep down, so do you.”

“. You, James Buchanan Barnes, you are not the bad guy.

The anger he had been feeling had subsided and I was replaced with something that was completely unfamiliar to him. Something he longed for couldn’t quite the grass. Something that he didn’t even realize was in within his reach until noon.. The feeling, regardless of how unfamiliar it was with something Bucky didn’t think he wanted to go away.

The silence between them was comfortable. Y/n could tell that he was processing her words. It was a good thing, she could because he was no longer good tense and his stance was relaxed instead of defensive.

“You know what? We’re finished for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She declared.

“What?” Bucky snapped out of his tranced and frowned. “Doc, come on. I shouldn’t be seeing you til Thursday.”

“Yeah tomorrow,” she nodded with a smile. “I want to try something different.”

The next day but he showed up at their usual time, 11 AM. When he stopped at a reception to ask for Dr. Y/n they informed him she was out for the day. He frowned and turned to leave only to find her approaching him from the elevator.

“Hey! You ready to go?” Y/n offered a gentle smile.

“I thought we were-“ he asked went fo point back toward her office but she stopped him.

“We are. We’re just doing things differently today.” She informed him, before nodding her head toward the elevator. “Let’s go.”

Their day together was eventful to say the least. Their first stop was her favorite coffee spot. It was actually a little hole in the wall called Hippies Brew in the downtown area. A cool modern place full of friendly and eccentric individuals. It was comfortable. Homey. It wasnt one she’d typically recommend clients, but she would recommend it to friends. After that they were too the aquarium followed by the park where they sat on a park bench for lunch. Lunch being tacos from the El Gordo’s taco truck parked near by. Well a lot of the time at the park or spit in silence, it was still comfortable as a people watched together. While Bucky hated to admit it, this is the first time he really just felt at peace. There was no one looking over him with some unrealistic expectation of him to be Steve, and become so hero he wasn’t. There was no pressure to get his shit together right then and there. He was just simply allowed to be Bucky. Unapologetically.

“Walk with me?” He asked.

Y/n raised an eyebrow, surprised he initiated doing something together, but agreed with a smile.

Soon enough they easily fell into conversation of as they began to walk the lake.

Before they knew it, the sun was beginning to set. Their time together lasted longer than Y/n planned but either was it was nice. She enjoyed today, as did he. Bucky’s offered to walk her back to her car, savoring their last few moments together.

“Are you sure I can’t give you a ride home?” Y/n asked as they got closer to her car in the now empty lot.

“Yeah, Doc, lm sure.” He smiled back at her, her smile and laugh being infectious. “I like walking. It gives me time to think. it’s peaceful. Kind of like today.”

Y/n’s smile widened at his confession. So her idea did work. He was making progress.

“ That’s what you deserve James peace. I can’t promise every day is gonna be like this.” She turned away approaching the driver side door. “I mean, it is life there are going to be some bad days. But you do deserve some peace. Some happiness.

She turned to see that he was a lot closer than she thought saying that he was preparing to open the door for her. She swallowed, suddenly feel in the air around them shift. As she ran her tongue over her lips, Bucky’s eyes zeroed in on the action.

“You just have to let yourself have it.” She said softly.

It was in that exact moment where James decided he was going to do just that; let himself have happiness. And without thinking, he leaned forward and connected his lips with her.

He pulled away almost as soon as it happened eyes wide.

“James…” y/n finger tips traced her lips as she stared at him.

“I am, i, I don’t know-“ Bucky stuttered.

He went to take a step back but was stopped. This time it was her who initiated the kiss.

What started off as gentle, turned into her fisting a handful of his shirt put him closer with his hands wrapped around her waist. The heat that washed over them both, was like a moth to a flame. The passion poured into the kiss from both ends quickly consuming them both. The two fighting for a dominance, it wasn’t until they both harshly pushed against her car setting the alarm off that they snapped out of it.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry wh-“ Y/n’s eyes were wide as she looked around anxiously.

Bucky could sense her panicking.

“y/n-“

“ I am so sorry. That was highly inappropriate of me-“

“Breathe for me doll-“ he reached for her but she pulled her hand away shaking her head vigorously.

“I can’t, we can’t, I have never.” She took a deep breath, her next words still coming out shaky. “I’m so sorry. To take a vantage of you like that-“

“I was the one who-“ he attempted once more to no avail.

“I have to go. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” She rushed out, flinging her door open and getting in the car.

All Bucky could do was watch as she wasted no time peeling out of the parking lot.

That was the last he had seen or heard of her. It had been almost two weeks and she had canceled both his weekly sessions and hadn’t answered any of his calls or returned any of the messages he left both at the office and on her cell phone.

And boy, was he stressed about it.

He had never felt that kind of passion before. To be honest it was something he didn’t think he was capable of feeling. He had been consumed by anger for so long, he wanted to cling onto whatever else, anything else. Bucky would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t feel the chemistry between them. He came to the conclusion he’d been falling for her for a while, and was clearly in denial until that day they spent the day together. It’s not like he was trying to fall for his therapist. But now that he had...Ge had to at least try. Make sure what he was feeling wasn’t one sided.That spark. It was a feeling, a high he had never felt. One he knew he’d forever be chasing and he wanted it again and again and again. So when the third week approached he decided to take matters into his own hands.

A knock her door tore her away from Grey’s Anatomy.

“Coming!”

Pulling her dress down, she went and answered the door.

“Bucky.” She said his name breathlessly.

“Y/n.” He breathed out, happy to be in her presence even though it hurt slightly to hear her suddenly calling him Bucky.

He quite liked when she called him James. He liked the way she said his name.

“What are you-, how.” She tried to control her breathing. “You can’t be here.”

“I need you,” he signed. “To hear me out.”

“Bucky-“

“James.” He corrected her. “Look, I know this totally inappropriate but I-“

James paused taking in her appearance, noticing the purple bruising around her lower right eye above her cheekbone.

“Who?” He questioned through gritted teeth.

“Huh?”

He huffed pushing past her and moving in and around the apartment as if someone would come out and confess. He turned toward her a wild look in his eye.

“Give me. A name, Y/n.”

“James....” she signed.

While he knew she was talking seeing as her lips were moving, It was like he could hear her but he wasn’t hearing her. Bucky couldn’t focus on anything other than a bruise on the side of Y/n’s beautiful face. It had been along time since Bucky had thought of actually hurting somebody, save for John Walker last week which was another story entirely, whoever did this to her face though, he wanted to hurt them bad and he was going to enjoy it. His eyes traveled down toward her lips and he still couldn’t hear her. All he could hear was his fist repeated smashing into said individuals face. Over, and over, over-

“James!”

The sound of her voice finally resonated and he finally focused on her words.

“Come back to me James.” Her voice was gently. Inviting.

Everything he noticed both her hands on the side of his face, her thumb rubbing soothingly.

“It’s fine.” She said slowly removing her hands away as she explained. “There’s no need to hunt anyone down. Just a regular 50150 patient and things got out of hand. It happens.”

“No one should touch you.” He stated with seriousness.

Y/n stared at him for a moment, the right side of her lip pulled between her teeth, eyes pooling with something he hadn’t seen in her before. She shrugged nonchalantly.

“I kind of like it when you touch me.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper but he heard her loud and clear.

Just like before, it started off with light kisses, which soon turned into a bit of teasing, a little lip nipping, before things got extremely heated. Both his shirt had been discarded while the straps of her dress were pulled down revealing her black Savage Fenty bra. They had somehow moved from the living room to the kitchen island. Bucky stood between her legs one hand tangled in her braids while her hands held the sides of her face, gently caressing the stubble. Her legs were wrapped around his middles as she began grinding her hips into him. He pulled her closer, the both of them on a high from the friction. Bucky’s metal hand traveled up her bare back giving her goosebumps. They broke apart for air and as soon as Y/n had enough oxygen in her lungs, she went back to licking, kissing and sucking on his neck.

"Shit, Y/n.” Bucky unconsciously tilted his head back giving her better access, his hands palming her ass as his hips bucked into her.

"James." Y/n pulled back panting, lips swollen. " I want you. Now."

Bucky made quick work of removing her panties that coated in her juices , and in return y/n quickly unbuckled his pants using her feet to aid her in pushing them down.

“Shit.” He groaned immediately as she whimpered slightly at the feel of him sliding into her.

Her arms were wound around his neck while his hand gripped the top of her ass to keep her in place as he begin to slowly thrust in and out of her.

Bucky was on a high. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this level of intimacy. Euphoria. He was sure this feeling should be illegal.

The way she were wrapped around him, he knew if he didn’t take it semi slow he wasn’t going to last.

“James,” she moaned, clawing at his back, walls clenching.

He wasn’t sure what sounded sweeter; her moaning or his name leaving her lips.

“Doll?” He responded, kissing the at the base of her neck.

I’m clos-“ Y/n sucked in a breath of air. “Right there.”

“There?” He asked spreading her ass cheeks apart so he could go deeper.

“Yes! Right there!”

It was a bit sloppy from there as Bucky shifted for a better angle. Her ass halfway off the table as he picked up the pace bit her her closer to the edge. He was bouncing her up and down on his shaft effortlessly. Her arms wrapped right around his neck, kiss sloppy as she bit her lip to keep her moans at bay.

“No,” he breathed out, reaching up with one hand forcing her to kissing him, her moans filling his mouth instead. “I want to hear you.”

“James, I’m-“

“I know.”

The sight of Y/n coming undone before him was a glorious one . He couldn’t wait to make her cum again.

Once she came down from her orgasm, she placed her lips back on his, tightening her legs around him once more. He shifted their position a bit and begin again when suddenly the front door opened and in walked Sam.

“Oh shit!” Bucky pulled out of her and struggled to pull up his pants and turned to shield her half naked frame.

“Sam!” Y/n squealed pulling her dress up to her chest as best she could.

“What in the entire fuck!” Sam screamed while covering his eyes.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Y/n yelled.

“You told me toy were off!”

“I’m am off!”

“Well I thought I’d bring you dinner! I didn’t know id find this!” Sam said exasperatedly.

Y/n and Bucky were decent informing Sam he no longer had to cover his eyes. Immediately he pointed an accusatory finger at Bucky.

“You! What the fuck did I tell you about my sister?”

Bucky stared at him confused.

“You said not to flirt with your sister.” He repeated Sam’s words. “Sarah’s not..”

He then turned toward Y/n, things finally clicking.

“You’re Sam’s sister.” Bucky concluded.

“Baby sister.” Sam. added.

“I’m grown as hell Samuel!” Y/n fussed.

“Really bruh, my baby sister?!”

“Well how i suppose to know you only refer to her as baby!”

“Once again! I’m grown as fuck-“ she stopped hearing the front door creek open again.

“Who’s that?!” The woman’s eyes were wide with horror as she whispered.

“The boys!” Sam exclaimed in a whisper.

“Why didn’t you say they were here-“ she began frantically washing her hands.

“I’m sorry I was a little fuckin preoccupied with the fact my sister is fucking an assassin-

“Former assassin!” Bucky corrected.

“Hey TT!” Sarah’s boys greeted simultaneously with smiles as they bent the corner.

“Hey my babies!” Y/n instantly put a smile on her face pulling them each into her arms.

“Hey Bucky!” Cass waved

“Hey Bucky!” AJ addressed the solider as well before turning back toward his brother, “Cass , come on.”

“Wait let me put the pizza on the counter-“

“No!” The three adults exclaimed together.

“No boo, I’ll take it.” Y/n smiled again at her nephew taking the pizza.

“why don’t yall go in the living room and get the game set up?” Sam suggested.

“Yes! Let’s take the pizza in there while they bleach the kitchen?” Y/n hinted at the men while telling the kids to follow her.

“Oh yeah! TT, Uncle Sam got us two new video games!”,AJ informed her. “He also said we can watch a scary movie tonight since moms not here.

“Yeah! Andddd, he said we can door dash ice cream!” Cass added as the two kids followed their aunt into the living room.

Though he was silent, throughout the entire interaction but he couldn’t help but want you living room interact with the two kids. Back in the day, if you would’ve asked him if he believed in love at first site he would’ve said no. But he was pretty sure he was in love with Y/n already.

Once out of sight, Bucky took that opportunity to speak after a beat.

“Have I ever told you I’m glad you treat your nephew’s so well, Sam?” He asked after clearing his throat.

Sam sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Bucky turned to him with a huge grin on his face.

“Cuz I’m gonna give you another one.”

Slowly Sam began to laugh, albeit one full of sarcasm, Bucky joined in sincerely. They laughed together for a moment before Sam ceased, his face expressionless.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah Sam?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

#the falcon and the winter solider spoilers #the falcon and the winter solider #tfatws #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #fatws bucky #Sam Wilson #bucky x black!reader #sam wilson x bucky barnes #sam wilson x reader #black!reader #marvel imagine #marvel #bucky x y/n #sarah wilson

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ibijau · 3 years

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Counterfeit AU pt6 / On AO3

Meng Yao makes himself useful after losing his job, and discovers something unexpected

Names are funny things, Meng Yao thinks as he stares at the sheet of paper in his hand.

Funny things indeed.

After everything that went down in the Hanshi, it's Beastie that saves Meng Yao from himself.

Left to his own devices, he would have either wallowed in misery, or waste time proving to himself that everything that happened wasn't his fault, the way he knows he's done in other lives. But when he comes home after having his past lives thrown into his face and losing a job he loves, Beastie’s mother corners him just as he puts his key into his lock. Her daughter is on school holiday, she explains, and was supposed to be looked after by a friend with children of a similar age. But one of the children came down with something contagious, so the whole plan fell through, and the poor woman now desperately needs help finding someone to look after her daughter.

She’s not asking for Meng Yao to play the babysitter, but he knows so many people, he has so many connections, maybe he could pull a favour somewhere, help her out again.

“I can take care of her for a few days,” Meng Yao offers without thinking. “I’m jobless as of today.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! What happened?”

“My employer died,” Meng Yao replies, which is close enough to the truth. He doesn’t think Nie Huaisang will continue using his Shanzi alias after this, and they’ll never meet again. He might as well be dead. “I don’t plan on looking for a new job right away, so I can babysit for a while, it’s no big deal.”

She tries to insist that he doesn’t need to be doing that, but quickly agrees after some reassurance that Meng Yao doesn’t mind. She looks so relieved she could cry as she says she’ll drop Beastie in the morning. Meng Yao smiles, certain that his mother would be proud of him for doing what’s right.

Having Beastie around is definitely the best choice he could have made. She’s a good kid, but she’s also high energy and needs to be entertained, which means he doesn’t get to think too much about how much he misses Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen.

They watch movies together, as they’ve always done when he picked her up after school. They go for walks to a nearby park, and once to a museum to look at old armours and swords. He buys Beastie a fake sword, though they agree to keep it at his place, since her mother already despairs that she so strongly favours boy’s toys. In fact, Meng Yao ends up just spoiling that little girl, the way he would have loved someone to do for him when he was her age. He even has Nie Huaisang’s console repaired so she can play on it, instead of selling it as he’d intended.

The video games are a big hit with her. She’s particularly in love with the same game Nie Huaisang spent too many hours on, that weird little terraforming thing which Meng Yao can’t see the appeal of. He liked that it made Nie Huaisang happy. He likes that it also makes Beastie happy, and that she’s very careful not to ruin the work previously put into it, focused instead on maintaining it and planting flowers

“It looks like home,” she explains when Meng Yao asks about that, and lifts the console for him to see.

It doesn’t look like a homely place, he thinks, and more like a military fortress right out of a wuxia drama. But Meng Yao doesn’t get to make that remark, because his phone vibrates, demanding his attention. Beastie, sitting crossed legs on some cushion on the floor, goes back to watering virtual flowers, while Meng Yao checks some news from his bank account. A lump sum has been sent to him, a good deal more than his usual salary, coming from an account registered under a name he doesn’t recognise.

It has been a week since he was fired.

Nie Huaisang kept his promise.

It really is over.

Not that Meng Yao really doubted it. Nie Huaisang has many faults but indecision has never been one, though he’s always been good at pretending otherwise. Once his choice is made he toys with expectations but rarely ever changes his mind.

Rarely, of course, isn’t never. Meng Yao, foolishly, hoped to be one of those few exceptions.

Those new zeroes on his bank account feel like a divorce, and he never even got a honeymoon.

That night, Meng Yao allows himself a few hours to wallow in misery, after Beastie went back to her mother. He is only human, and it does feel good to eat take-away in front of a cheesy romance. The film's hero doesn't get the girl, who was dead all along. Meng Yao cries, even though he's seen that movie before.

By morning, he's in control again, and takes Beastie to the park so she can run around in the sun, and scare pigeons with her sword.

Those holidays are all great fun, until Beastie’s mother reminds them that she has homework to do.

Beastie is a clever kid, there’s no doubt about it, but she doesn’t much like doing her homework, least of all when she feels she could be playing. It takes all of Meng Yao’s negotiation skills to get her to even look at her school books, and he almost resorts to bribery to make her pick up a pencil. But she works hard once she starts, and Meng Yao, wanting to encourage her, sits with her at the kitchen table to update his resume. Beastie will go back to class soon, and inactivity just isn’t in his temper.

When Beastie is done with her work, she gets permission to put on whatever movie she likes while Meng Yao checks what she’s done in case it needs correcting.

But when he picks up the sheet of simple maths she’s expected to give her teacher on monday, all Meng Yao sees is her name.

It’s really funny. He knows her name of course, though he hasn’t heard it in a while. Even her mother took up to calling her Beastie after he nicknamed her that. It just fits her so well, that active little girl who prefers trousers over dresses because they're easier to move in and always wants to play at fighting. She’s a real little monster, and Meng Yao loves her like that. She’s just Beastie.

But according to the homework she’s spent the afternoon on, she’s also Nie Mingjue.

It could just be a coincidence. Names are funny like that, they pop up in unexpected places, they get forgotten and reused. Perhaps in another life, Meng Yao would have just dismissed it as a random incident.

In another life, he wouldn’t have been called Meng Yao.

It’s the first time this happens since that first life they all shared. He’s Meng Yao again, Lan Xichen bears his old name too, and now he’s found a Nie Mingjue, hiding right under his nose. A Nie Mingjue who likes fighting, and claims that her toy sword is actually a sabre, and who always insists a lot on things being fair, even when Meng Yao tries to give her the biggest share of a food she likes.

It can’t be a coincidence.

Meng Yao needs to tell someone.

He needs to tell Nie Huaisang.

He tries, of course, and without surprise his former employer’s number has been terminated. He has the same luck trying to send an email. Nie Huaisang might as well never have existed. Meng Yao feels helpless, torn between tears and laughter. After spending centuries looking for his brother, Nie Huaisang just might have lost his chance due to being so damn dramatic. Serves him right, Meng Yao thinks, still bitter about being discarded so easily, and never getting a chance to see if things might work better in this life.

Bitterness doesn’t last. Meng Yao cares about Nie Huaisang, more than he should if he were a little smarter, and he knows how important finding his brother again would be for him. And if Nie Huaisang can’t be directly contacted, there’s always indirect ways.

It’s not that Meng Yao misses Lan Xichen, he tells himself that night, when Beastie is back with his mother and he starts writing a long text message on his phone. Well, it’s not just that, anyway. He does miss Lan Xichen, sweet and funny and so eager when talking about art. But more importantly, Lan Xichen probably has access to Lan Wangji, who clearly must know how to contact Nie Huaisang.

Texting Lan Xichen is a strategic choice.

The way Meng Yao's heart jumps inside his chest when Lan Xichen immediately replies is… it's strategic too. He's just glad that his plan is working.

How have you been? :)

I could have been worse. I've just realised something and I think it concerns you. I've told you about that kid I babysit, haven't I?

Little Beastie? Is she okay? D:

She's Nie Mingjue.

This time, the answer isn't immediate. Meng Yao stares nervously at his phone, wondering if Lan Xichen thinks he's lying, or planning something. Considering their first life, who could blame him?

But after a few minutes, his phone vibrates again.

Sorry, I dropped my phone and couldn't get it back from under the couch. Are you sure?? (⊙ˍ⊙)

It all fits. You could come meet her if you want. But it's him, I'm sure.

Did you tell Nie Huaisang???

I can't contact him. Are you in touch with Lan Wangji? Maybe he can warn him.

I have his number, I just texted him! I'll keep you updated! It's so wonderful if it's da-ge!! Can I really meet him? ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Her*?

I'll send you my address. If you can come tomorrow, she'll be there.

Are you sure? I don't think da-ge would still want me around. (≧﹏ ≦)

Meng Yao gives that question the consideration it deserves. It's not an unfair worry to have, and he'd be wondering the same if he hadn't known Beastie for so long.

I literally killed him, and he killed me. If she had to hate anyone it'd be me, but we get along great. We're no longer the same people we used to be. It's the same for her.

If you're sure, then I'll come! (❁´w`❁)

Meng Yao is very sure indeed.

So Lan Xichen comes.

It's odd to invite someone to his flat. It's a small place, a bit messy, full of trinkets and DVDs that Meng Yao would never admit to owning, not with the image he wants to create. He's always avoided guests. But having Lan Xichen over is as rewarding as it is terrifying. Lan Xichen brought some charming little cakes, as if he's visiting someone important, and he smiles at the sight of a movie poster on the wall, confessing he watched it so often as a teenager that the tape broke one day.

"It's my favourite too!" Beastie exclaims. "Meng-ge has it, you know! Can we watch it now?"

Normally, Meng Yao would point out that it's a little rude to ask that when they have a guest. But he can see that Lan Xichen is nervous and unsure how to act around Nie Mingjue, and maybe a movie will let them all relax.

In the end, they spend a pleasant afternoon, the three of them. Once Lan Xichen stops worrying that the Nie Mingjue of old will appear and shout at him for getting him killed, he starts chatting with Beastie about her favourite movies, what she's learning in school, what she wants to be when she grows up. She's very happy to answer, and very impressed when he explains he's a teacher, even though she's finding it hard to accept that most of his students are fully adult.

And when Beastie is back with her mother, Lan Xichen lingers for a while, tempted by the offer of Meng Yao's favourite takeaway.

“It’s amazing how much like him she is,” Lan Xichen says as they sit on the sofa to wait for the food to arrive. “It’s the first time he reincarnates, you know. At least, Wangji told me they’d never found any trace of him before.”

Guilt shoots through Meng Yao. It’s his fault if Nie Mingjue’s soul was so fractured it took him this long to be reborn. Or at least, it’s the fault of someone he was, once, which is nearly the same, and yet completely different. Meng Yao has learned from living and dying several times, and he’s lucky enough to live in a kinder world than Jin Guangyao did. It helps.

“She’s also different from him, though,” Lan Xichen continues, moving just a little closer, until they’re almost touching.

“We’ll, for starters she’s a kid,” Meng Yao points out, wondering if he should take the other man’s hand. If this had happened before the Hanshi, he would have, but he’s not sure where they stand now.

“It’s not just that. In that first life, I knew da-ge as a child too and he was…” Lan Xichen sighs and makes a vague hand gesture. “He was a lot. Way too serious sometimes. We all were, I suppose, but him most of all. The Nie tended to grow fast, to compensate for dying young. I’m… I’m glad that he gets to properly be a child this time. That she gets to be a child.”

“The world has changed,” Meng Yao says, finding the courage at last to brush his fingers against Lan Xichen’s. “Things aren’t always easy but they’re… easier, I suppose.”

Lan Xichen’s returns that touch, gentle and careful as always. This, too, is easier now than it was back then. It’s not easy, but there’s less pressure to conform, less demands to be good dutiful sons, and just a little more space to be their own people, to make their own choices.

Maybe in their next life they’ll meet again and it’ll be even easier to be like this. But even now, Meng Yao is ready to take the chances that his past self wouldn’t have dared to dream of. He leans toward Lan Xichen, hoping to kiss him, but a knock on the door interrupts them and he jumps to his feet to go get their food. The delivery man looks at him a little funny, but makes no comment. If Meng Yao is half as red as Lan Xichen, he deserves those odd looks.

Nothing happens again that night. The moment has passed, and after eating, Lan Xichen has to go home because he has engagements the day after that he can’t cancel.

It's not a date that night, no more than any of their previous encounters were.

It's not a date then, but next time, when Lan Xichen invites him to a restaurant, Meng Yao is informed in no unclear terms that this is, in fact, a date. They go see a movie after, and Meng Yao gets to kiss one of the two most handsome men in the world.

Life is good.

Life is really good, and yet Meng Yao wants more.

In spite of their efforts, Lan Xichen and him can't get in touch with Nie Huaisang to inform him that his brother has finally reincarnated. Even Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are getting worried. From what they told Lan Xichen they haven't had any contact with him since the day they picked him up at the Hanshi.

"They say he's done that before," Lan Xichen tells him. "They think he'll return in a decade or two, maybe a little longer. Time is hard for immortals, they lose track easily."

That's all very well for them, but Meng Yao doesn't have a few decades to waste, and neither does Nie Mingjue. They're not immortals. One bad illness, a reckless driver, just tripping in the stairs, and it's all over until they reincarnate again, and Meng Yao is done with missed chances.

If he can't directly get in touch with Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao can make a few discreet calls to former buyers, and advise them to get their purchase asserted again, just in case. He makes sure to only contact people who bought legitimate artworks of course. He wants to make a wave, not get in trouble. If Meng Yao knows Nie Huaisang even half as well as he thinks he does, then even in hiding Nie Huaisang will be checking what’s happening in the world of art collectors, and he’ll hear about some of his buyers suddenly becoming fearful of fakes.

It’s a little mean perhaps, when Nie Huaisang is so proud of his counterfeits, but kindness has never been Meng Yao’s greatest quality.

Besides, it works.

One afternoon, when Meng Yao is alone at home, checking a job offer that he’s probably going to reject because he deserves better, there’s a knock on the door. Meng Yao considers ignoring it, but some of his elderly neighbours have been coming to ask for help with their phones or whatever new fancy blender their kids got them to make life easier. Usually, five minutes of easy work means free homemade food for his next meal, which is always a great deal.

When he opens the door, there’s a very old man waiting in the corridor alright, but free food is probably out of the question.

“Well, I’m here,” Nie Huaisang says. “Whatever is going on, it’d better be important.”

#xisangyao #xiyao #sangyao #xisang #counterfeit au #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes

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michellejackson · 3 years

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Prompt by @xphrnzrjh 💞

Fandom: Druck

Pairing: Fatou Jallow/Kieu My Vu

Wordcount: 2434

Acquaintances to study partners to friends to lovers AU

Chapter one

So, Kieu My never meant to go this far. Too bad she was a hopeless slash desperate romantic with horrible, horrible ideas which she just happens to be stupid enough to follow through with.

Being at school after hours wasn’t unusual, many would use the library and study rooms for homework or to work on group projects. So no, that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual however, was stealing keys from the teachers’ lounge, sneaking into the classroom reserved for the English class, finding the paper where the English teacher has partnered up the students for a future team project, stealing it, sneaking out, copying it, swapping around the names in a way that won’t be noticeable, sneaking back in and leaving the altered paper.

Kieu My could admit that that was an out-of-character move for her, but hey, it worked didn’t it? You might think, that’s kind of drastic, don’t you think? Well, yes, but also… let’s just start from the beginning.

Kieu My was about a week into the school year when she noticed her. She was skating around the schoolyard in khakis, a thin purple see-through sweater and a yellow and purple Hawaiian shirt, looking like she owned the place. The look really shouldn’t have worked, but it did, and she looked so damn good. The sight of her had stopped Kieu My in her tracks, forcing her to pay attention as she swiftly skated through the crowds of students until she stopped before a familiar blonde. Nora. Zoe’s sister. Interesting…

Later that day, during lunch, Kieu My tried her best to subtly ask Zoe about her sister’s friend, but she didn’t seem to catch on. Like at all.

“So... how’s Nora? She settling in okay? Got some new friends?” subtle, Kieu My, real subtle.

“Oh, she’s great! She got this new boyfriend, have you seen him? His name is Josh, and he is hot, seriously, wait let me show you a picture.” Turned out it was subtle. Too subtle.

“Oh, good for her, uhm, how about-”

“He’s just the sweetest guy, she’s really happy-” so she spent the next ten minutes looking at pictures of Nora’s boyfriend and listening to her best friend talk him up. Not the way she planned this lunch to go. Before she knew it, they parted ways and she was none the wiser.

She did contemplate asking Nora personally, but decided it would be weird considering she didn’t know her that well. So instead, she spent the rest of that day daydreaming. None of her classes got as much of attention as the skater did. How had she never seen here before? School had been in full motion for a week, and she hadn’t seen any traces of the girl before today, which would mean that they had zero classes together. Sigh.

The weekend was spent trying to find her on Instagram, which was a tedious job. First, she went to Zoe’s account to find Nora’s, which was easy enough, but as it turns out, Nora has a private profile, so she had to improvise further. She spent half an hour trying to remember her boyfriend’s name, and when she remembered that his name was Josh, she looked through the people Zoe follows to find him.

Bad news: Zoe doesn’t follow him.

Good news: Zoe did show her his photos on Instagram, which means he has an open profile.

Bad news: She had to actually find that profile.

Initially, she was going to just write in the name Josh and look through every profile Instagram recommended, but then she came to her senses and realized that that’s a shit idea. So, she logged into the school’s website and looked up the list of current students to go through until she found every single person named Josh.

And bingo. Josh Zimmermann.

Kieu My let out a cry of happiness when she finally found his profile but was again let down when she didn’t see any pictures of the girl. She knew this had been a longshot, but she was still disappointed.

So yeah, she gave up. She took her defeat with stride, and started look through Josh’s pictures, because let’s face it, she had nothing else to do. Maybe she’d find a comment left by the girl or something. Josh was cute, she’d admit. If she wasn’t so hung up on a girl she saw once for five minutes, maybe she’d spent more time admiring, but she was, so she didn’t.

She stopped scrolling when she landed on about the fifth picture Josh had posted of this one girl, a pretty brunette woman. The curiosity got the best of her, so she clicked on her tag. Her name was Yara, and her profile was filled with pictures of her with Josh, and some other girls. Her heart skipped a beat. She had a picture with Nora and another brunette. She was friends with Nora.

She quickly scrolled down her profile, continuously looking for the skater girl. She found it almost at the bottom. The picture was taken from the side, but it was without a doubt her. She was wearing glasses and had white locks in her hair, and she was holding a tortoise in her hands. The caption read “meet Maike” . It took an embarrassingly long time before Kieu My realized that Maike was the name of the turtle, and not the skater girl, but let’s not dwell on that.

Yara, bless her soul, had tagged the girl. Kieu My was in such a rush to click on the tag, she accidentally liked the picture. A picture from four months ago. The only picture of Fatou on Yara’s profile that was posted four months ago. She’d liked it. She wished she could say that she unliked it right away, but she was frozen for so long she was sure Yara had gotten the notification. Well, better late than never, right?

She unliked the picture as she cursed herself, and proceeded to click onto Fatou’s profile, which of course, was private. But she wasn’t mad, nor that disappointed, because she had a name now. Her name was Fatou. She’d found her! Fatou. Fatou.

She went back to the list of students.

Fatou Jallow. She continuously spun the name around in her head in English class the following Monday, she’d chosen a window seat this time, which she looked out of while daydreaming yet again.

So when someone sat down next to her, with a quick hello, she was startled to say the least. She was even more startled when she looked up to see the girl. The skater girl. Girl of her daydreams. Fatou. Fatou Jallow.

She just looked at her, in shock mostly, did she just manifest this? Is she starting to have visions now? Is she going crazy? And while Kieu My came up with a hundred reasons to how this could’ve happened, Fatou seemed to shrink under her gaze, seemingly backing off. Wait, no, no, no, no. Goddamn resting bitch face.

She was just about to speak up when the teacher clapped his hands, demanding attention as he started the class, and she was left looking like an asshole. She would’ve physically banged her head into the table if that wouldn’t turn Fatou even more off her.

“And you must be Fatou, nice of you to finally show up-”

Five seconds ago, Kieu My wouldn’t be so sure that Fatou could get any smaller, but the teachers comment seemed to make her especially uncomfortable, and Kieu My found herself wanting to chop his head off. Respectfully.

But Kieu My didn’t say anything, she never did, and she always cursed herself for it. Instead, she found herself looking at Fatou’s hands, placed on the desk next to her. She was fumbling with her thumb ring, which was yellow, and while focusing longer on it, Kieu My realized it was a mood ring. She had half a mind to whip out her phone right then and there to look up the different colors and their meanings, but instead made a mental note to do that later.

“Kieu My? Are you paying attention?”

Her head whipped up as the teacher said her name, and she blushed as she looked to Fatou who had clearly noticed where her focus was as the teacher called her name. The girl displayed a knowing smile, and instead of looking bashful as she did before, she almost looked a little smug. Her ring had turned into a blue-green color and Kieu My’s blush deepened as she caught herself looking at her hands once again.

She just nodded to the teacher, willing him to move on.

“So, as I was saying, I’m pairing you up to work on a project that’s due at the end of the month. You and your partner will be tasked to pick a classic work, rewrite it, and then perform it in front of the class. Got it? Great. Before anyone asks, you will not get to pick your partner, I have already paired everyone up randomly-” he pulled out a paper from under the desk, quickly displaying it before putting it back into the drawer. Fatou groaned and Kieu My rubbed her forehead, already hating this assignment.

“You’ll get more info on Wednesday, but if you go onto page 16-”

Kieu My made sure to pay extra attention to the rest of the class and when it was over, she had almost forgotten about the girl next to her.

That was a lie, she didn’t forget, quite the opposite actually, but she wasn’t about to flaunt that. She took her time packing up her stuff, seeing if Fatou would try to talk to her. She couldn’t be sure if Fatou had left yet, seeing that Kieu My had used up all of her will power to not look her way, but when she’d finished packing up all of her stuff and went to leave, she could see Fatou spending even more time than her to pack her bag.

Fatou looked up from her bag when she finished, smiling at Kieu My. God, she had a beautiful smile. As she stood up to leave, she looked into her eyes and said, “too bad we can’t pick our own partners” . Kieu My doesn’t remember how she reacted, all she remembers is the heat taking over. However, the way she’d reacted had seemed to delight Fatou though, who grinned at her as she left the classroom.

At lunch she sat with Ismail, Zoe being off somewhere with Finn. Kieu My didn’t say much, her mind somewhere else, but that didn’t stop Ismail from talking their head off. As they were talking, Kieu My was only half listening while looking up mood rings on her phone. She looked through different type of mood rings until she found one that looked like Fatou’s, and quickly found the color chart.

So, it seemed like her mood ring consisted of seven main colors, black, gray, yellow, green, blue-green, blue and violet. She thought back to this morning, and what colors Fatou’s ring had been.

At first it had been yellowish, when Kieu My had accidentally blown her off with her deadpan. Okay, yellow; “nervous, mixed emotions, unsettled”. Great. She had unsettled her. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she reminded herself that mood rings weren’t necessary correct. She’d get a chance to fix it, it was fine. It’s fine.

“and you have English with Mr. Strauss, too right? That paired up assignment is already enough for him to be my least favorite person in the world-”

“yeah, and we can’t even pick partners…” Kieu My adds absentmindedly, just to keep them going. She thinks about what Fatou had said, and her smile.

The second color she’d seen on her finger was blue-green, after she’d caught her staring at her hands. Kieu My cringed at herself just thinking about it. Blue-green; “inner emotions, charged, somewhat relaxed” hmm…

“Right?! What an idiot. God, I swear, we should break into the classroom and swap the papers or something…” Ismail joked with a laugh. This got her attention though. She looked up from her phone as Ismail just kept on rambling, further joking about hacking into the school system or something, but she again wasn’t paying attention, because now she was stupid enough to form an even stupider plan.

And that’s how she ended up here. Broken into the classroom, swapping the papers. It seemed like a bad idea when she thought about it after Ismail had said it, and now that she’s doing it, she knows it’s an even worse one than previously imagined.

Kieu My wasn’t one to speak up when she wasn’t called for, or to do anything that would incriminate her, so to say that her hands were shaking and that she was freezing cold out of her own skin was an understatement. She cannot afford to be expelled. But the worst was over now. On the way out she didn’t even bother to drop the keys off where she found them, she was too scared to, so she simply dropped them right outside of the teachers’ lounge and didn’t stop running before the school was too far away to see.

That following Wednesday Kieu My was so paranoid and so sure that she would be found out. When the time for English class came around, she seriously contemplated skipping class for the first time ever. She didn’t though, but she purposefully came just a little late so that the teacher wouldn’t have time to speak to her before class. She was freezing and her hands were shaking.

When she entered the class, the only seat available was the same she sat in last, and she was confused at first, because Fatou sat at the same place at last too. Not the window seat, but the one next to it. She hesitated towards the seat, not sure if it was held off for someone or something, but when Fatou saw her she smiled. And Kieu My melted onto her seat.

The class was surprisingly uneventful, and towards the end she found herself relaxing. Or that was until the teacher decided to announce the partners. As he went through the list, she didn’t blink once.

“Kiey My and Fatou-” …he didn’t even flinch. Kieu My waited just a little longer before letting out a huge breath. Oh my god. He didn’t even notice.

She looked to Fatou, who was already looking at her, smiling.

This time Kieu My smiled back.

#druck #please this is so chaotic idek #read this with a grain of salt #or like a lot of it #kieutou #fatou x kieu my #druck fic #kieutou fic #druck fanfic

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keanureevesisbae · 4 years

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The alluring charm of Henry Cavill - Chapter 1

Summary: Adelaide Park meets Henry Cavill for the first time and she is obviously very nervous.

Henry Cavill x Adelaide Park (ofc)

Wordcount: 3.5k

A/N: If you want to be on the taglist, just let me know. And please let me know what you guys think. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it 😘

Masterlist // Introduction // Next chapter

I’ve never been to Italy before. Actually, before I was a renowned actress, I never came outside of LA. Growing up, my parents never had the money to go to a different city, let alone other countries. My vacations were spend solely in our small one room apartment back in Los Angeles by myself.

My parents were never rich. My dad worked long hours in a factory every single day, but earning just enough money to pay the rent and for me and mom to eat. One night, I saw him scraping the packages or our plats clean, so he had something to eat as well. After I saw that, I never ate all the food off my plate, because I realized that my dad was working the hardest, but was eating the least.

It always broke my heart to see both of them struggle. My mom used to be a cleaning lady, but after she got fired, she became a live-in nanny, which basically meant that from my sixth birthday, she was barely home anymore and I had to raise myself.

Hours on end I was alone. Back in school I barely had any friends—correction: I had no friends at all—and when I came home from school, I’d sit outside to do my homework, because dad didn’t have enough money to get a second set of keys.

I never complained about it, because I knew they were trying and I learned all too well from that one time when I asked for a Barbie doll back when I was five and I kept crying about it, because other kids had Barbie dolls and I was the only one who didn’t. My mom got so mad, that she grabbed my empty plate and threw it against the wall, while she was screaming something about how ungrateful I was. Mom never got mad, she was always admirably calm and collected, even when life got in the way like it did with us. Seeing her like this, meant she was serious and I never said anything about something like that anymore. I never asked for anything, at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and I am so thankful for everything they taught me and did for me. It may have been a hard time, but every year for my birthday, they gave me something. It was always something I really needed, but I always appreciated how they went out of their way for me, wondering how many meals they skipped for this present.

It all became worse when I finished high school at the age of nineteen. I was older than everyone else, since I read so slowly and didn’t even understand it most of the time, causing me to get behind on many classes over the course of the years. Besides, our school wasn’t known for having the best results overall, so the fact that I didn’t score well, meant I was blending in with the rest.

I was working in a diner, because I wasn’t smart enough at all for a scholarship, when my mom got in a terrible accident, when she walked back home and she was hit by a car who ran through a red light. She was paralyzed from her waist down and besides the high hospital bills, she also needed psychical therapy, something that unfortunately isn’t free.

With what my dad and I were earning together, we couldn’t even pay two percent of those costs. I was thinking about putting myself up on a sugar daddy website, but I know I couldn’t lie to them, when I would come back with a lot of money. Besides, my dad was always very strict about what mom and I could and couldn’t do to make money and sugar daddies were off limits. He told me multiple times—even after mom’s accident—that we had nothing to worry about. That he would take care of it.

But I had something to worry about, because my father wasn’t getting any younger. He had been working too hard for too long and all he wanted, was staying with his wife, who he still loved so so much, despite everything they had gone through. I took up more shifts at the diner, only slowly coming to terms that, even with the tips I was receiving, it was never enough to cover the bills.

In about two months, my mom would be discharged from the facility, if we hadn’t paid at least something significant.

One day, I was walking back home from work, when I saw a huge billboard, with a message that a studio was looking for someone to star in one of the biggest sitcoms of that time: Remembering High School. Apparently, one of the new main characters (who was an adult) was having a flashback from when they were in high school—the main premise of the show. And that character happened to be an Asian lady.

I went in and decided I would try it out. I mean, I had no acting experience and solely did it to earn some money, but being Asian American was apparently enough and that was the beginning of my acting career.

At first the amounts of money I made were not enough to cover the medical costs, but it was enough to delay further payment and my mom could stay in the facility.

For years I had difficulty with reading, let alone reading out loud, with an audience, but somehow on the set, I could forget about that. I could finally be someone I really wanted to be. For a few moments I could forget all the sorrows and worries I had resting on my shoulders.

The first five weeks, I’d combine my new acting career with my job in the diner, but after awhile I became a recurring character and for a whole year, I was part of the cast. I remember walking into my mom’s room, showing both her and my dad the first episode I was going to star in. ‘I’m from Minnesota,’ was my first line and the beginning of a very promising career.

My parents were so proud of me. My dad didn’t even care about the money I made at first, because he was so happy that I was doing something that from the looks of it, I actually enjoyed.

Over the years, I’ve come to love acting, but no one knows I do it because of my family. Actually no one knew about my family situation and since I have zero friends, even in the industry (because I barely talk about my personal life and I never budge, even when the try to pry information about it. My co-stars are acquaintances, almost like neighbors: you know one another, but you don’t know them), no one is aware that every penny I earn, goes directly to my family.

Nowadays I make millions, but I’m mainly spending it on my mom, but also on other people who are paralyzed and need psychical therapy, but were in the same boat as my family and my parents met over time in the facility. Money doesn’t mean a lot to me and these people can use it a lot better than I can.

Besides, my parents worked so hard for me growing up, this is the only way for me to pay them back. Despite not having any money themselves, nor stuff, they always taught me to share, to make sure that other people are well taken care off.

The flight from Japan to Italy moved along pretty quick, but maybe that’s because I was traveling first class. My latest movie took place in Japan and though I loved it there, I really want to see what Italy is like, after spending eight months in a lousy hotel in Japan.

After becoming an actress, I went to a lot of great places for shooting movies. I went to Suriname, Canada, Spain, Australia and this time it was Japan. I’m so blessed that I get to travel, knowing really well that other people are still struggling with what I used to struggle with. Sometimes I donate the earnings of a movie to movements that catch my eye, that help kids in certain areas of California with their school work, and with access of clothes and food. I always donate anonymously, not wanting to seem like a philanthropist who is doing this solely for her own image.

I always think that if you really care about something, you would do it without earning praises.

Participating on ‘The Celebrity Project’ wasn’t something I would normally do, but when they reached out to me, I was actually delighted that I was going to be part of this. Maybe I could finally show the world that I’m not as stupid as I appear in interviews.

Being a loner, a slow reader and probably has multiple learning disabilities (if I actually got tested, but the tests were too expensive and no one at school seemed to care and I’m actually too embarrassed to get myself tested now I’m a twenty-five year old), I often come off as an airhead and it’s my own fault really. I do give them enough stupid material to go on about that accusation.

However, I’m really nervous. I mean, I’m going to work together with Henry Cavill. He is charming and sounds so intelligent. When I was done filming and back at my hotel room, I’d watch his interviews, because I wanted to know what I was going to work with. The way he is so articulate and he obviously knows what he is doing, makes me feel even worse about myself. I’m a total disaster and already a burden to him I presume.

I’m sitting in a taxi, waiting for traffic to calm down a bit. It’s early in the mornings and thankfully I got to make myself a bit more presentable in the plane already. I notice the tiny camera’s being strategically placed in the car. It really begun, I think to myself. I’m part of a reality show now. ‘How are you feeling, miss Park?’ the taxi driver asks. ‘I recently heard about this program.’

‘I’m a bit nervous,’ I say, wondering whether or not he is payed to to talk to me about this. I rummage through my purse, hoping I can find my lip balm.

‘Are you looking forward to work with Henry Cavill?’

That name alone makes me nearly make me shit my pants already. ‘Yeah, he seems like a nice man, so I really look forward to work with him.’ And I sure as hell hope that I won’t let him down.

The drive to the hotel is about an hour, but it feels like time is going by a whole lot faster. The chauffeur talks about his family and how his wife is actually a fan of my movies and has watched every single one of them. I took a few pictures with him and signed the inside of the cracker box, because that was all he got with him for me to write something on.

After I said goodbye to him, I’m told that I should go to room 346. With my suitcases with me, I step into the elevator, a cameraman close by. They told me that at one point, these cameramen would just be invisible to me, but I highly doubt it. They are only with us during the assignments. In the cars and at the place where we’re staying, the camera’s are hidden.

When I’m in front of the door, I take a deep breath.

I can do this I think to myself. I have starred alongside other talented people. My first real role was playing Keanu Reeves’ daughter, I was Angela Bassett’s assistant and I also had some pretty steamy scenes with David Castañeda, after his Umbrella Academy days. I can handle being around Henry Cavill, right? I knock on the door three times and I open it a bit, peeking my head around the door.

I can conclude that I’m severely underdressed. I’m wearing a simply jean short, white crop top with some lace on the borders and socks with the same lace details as my top, paired with white sneakers.

I look like a slob, compared to Henry, who seems like he stepped out of a Disney movie. His white blouse, off-white pants and those loafers. The only thing that is missing, is his yacht with the name Serenity.

A smile creeps up on my face, as I step into the room, rolling my pink suitcases with me, because he actually looks approachable.

‘Hi there,’ he says with a small smile on his face. He walks up to me, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Henry, nice to meet you.’

I can’t help but blush. He is so charming and his accent makes him so posh. I place my hand in his and it almost disappears. Not to be that girl, but my size kink is activated right here and now. ‘Adelaide,’ I say. ‘Uhm, it’s nice to meet you… Too.’

I curse my tongue.

‘How was your flight?’ he asks, as he gestures to the couch for us to sit on.

I take place right next to him and I feel like a child sitting next to her dad. Why is he so massive? ‘It was okay. Yours?’

‘It flew by.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Was that… a pun?’

Henry chuckles nervously. ‘Maybe, I’m sorry.’

I look around me. The hotel room seems okay, but I bet we’re not going to stay here for long. I stare at the silver tray in front of us, with a set of keys and an envelope with our names on it.

Henry takes the envelope from the tray and holds it in front of me. ‘You want to read it?’

I shake my head. ‘No, you go.’ The whole idea of reading out loud without practice, makes me want to vomit. Before the table reads, I use this program that will read everything for me, even using the right intonation. I stay up for way too many hours for that, because once I’ve heard it, I made notes, I can better read it.

Back when I was doing ‘Remembering High School’ I had the woman who played the adult version of me read it to me, because I had to portray the young her and keep her character in mind. Since she was an established character on the show, she had certain ways of saying things I had to copy. She never knew the real reason I wanted her to read it out loud for me.

He cocks an eyebrow, but then opens the envelope. He clears his throat, before a dramatic reading of our first assignment rolls out of his mouth. How can he make a simple note sound so… Sensual, almost? His deep and dark voice, making it sound way more intense than it actually is. I wouldn’t mind if he read my scripts out loud for me.

‘Dear Adelaide and Henry, the adventure of ‘The Celebrity Project’ has officially started,’ he says, tilting the card a little, so I can read a little bit with him. It’s a nice gesture really and I appreciate the thought. ‘We have provided you with a nice car, to drive to the little cottage, specially arranged for the two of you. Tomorrow will be a nice day for you to relax (because you two are both severely jet lagged we presume) and the day after that, you’ll be expected for your first assignment. Enjoy the car ride and remember: look out of your window every now and then. We are aware that Henry is really handsome, Adelaide and you’ll be forced to only look at him, but nature can be beautiful too.’

I scrunch up my nose. That last sentence seemed so forced and this is exactly the reason why I don’t like these types of survival, borderline reality shows. It’s not reality. It’s this forced setting, hoping to get people to believe that this is how real life should look like.

And I don’t like deceiving people like that. I almost regret participating.

‘Right, well, we might as well just go,’ he says, his tone flat, maybe just as annoyed with that last sentence as I am. Probably even more so.

◎ ◎ ◎

Why is there a pink carseat in the passengers seat? I mean, I’m not the tallest, but I’m definitely not that tiny. I look around us, only to see no member of the crew around. This is great. I want to take the seat out, because I don’t want to sit on it, but it’s securely fastened and only with a different set of keys, I can undo it.

And of course I don’t have that.

I really regret being here.

However, I still sit on the carseat, because I don’t want to sit in the back because I’ll get carsick and when I see Henry’s cocked eyebrows and a poorly hidden smirk, I simply say: ‘Don’t.’

Okay, maybe I do understand why they put me on a carseat, because this man looks so enormous and otherwise I’m simply non existent. He starts the car and simply drives off. I don’t know whether or not I should say something to him, because I feel like we should talk. I mean, that’s why the camera’s are here right?

‘What is your newest movie about?’ Henry asks.

‘About a woman escaping from her past and she moves to Japan, when one day an old friend becomes her new manager,’ I say.

‘Romantic comedy?’

‘Of course.’

He nods. ‘You don’t get tired of doing those?’ he asks.

Yes, I do get a bit tired of them, but there are two things: for starters, just like those romance books (that I would buy my mom one for her birthday every year, because I knew how much she loved those), romantic comedies sell really good. And no one wants me for something else. I feel like directors don’t trust me with big roles, like Rose in Titanic or someone else major. Besides, I’m Asian American, when was the last time one of us got a major part in a movie that’s not a romantic comedy?

But I don’t want to seem ungrateful and it’s a nice stream of money coming in every time and that’s basically all I want.

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s okay. You shot something new… new movie… Right?’ For fuck sake, Adelaide, you were doing so well.

‘I did, actually,’ he says. ‘It’s something I’m very excited for. It’s more of a dramatical part.’ I listen to Henry, as he is talking about this movie. How he plays a single dad, trying to figure out this parenting part with his daughter, when his brother and sister-in-law pass away and he has to take in four monsters of boys in his house. The way he talks about this, I notice a shimmer in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologizes. ‘I let myself go there for a second. It’s just I’m really excited about this movie.’

‘No, I get it,’ I say, as I look out of the window. I let out a deep sigh, as we drive over the sandy roads. Before I can say something else (as if I knew what), Henry hits the break and like the cliches in the movies, he holds out his arm in front of me, as the car comes to a halt.

There are four dogs and one owner on the road and the man screams something in Italian to us. Clearly we were supposed to stop for him. ‘Shit, sorry,’ Henry mumbles, as if the man could hear that.

His warm hand dropped to my bare thigh and with my pointer finger I tap him on the back of his hand. ‘Excuse me,’ I say.

‘Oh no, terrible sorry,’ he says quickly, retracting his hand. ‘What do you think the cottage will look like?’ Henry asks, when he pulled up again, not driving as fast as he did before.

Shrugging I play with my water bottle. ‘I don’t know, but I think I know one thing.’

It takes me a while before I can get the words out of my mouth, but Henry doesn’t force me to say anything, by asking something like: ‘Care to let me in?’ He actually lets me find the words and it feels nice not to be rushed into saying something.

‘I bet there is one bed that is large and comfortable. However, there is also one uncomfortable couch, too small for you. So people want to see whether or not you are a… gentleman and offer to sleep on the couch.’

‘You think?’ he asks frowning. ‘A bit far fetched, don’t you think?’

When we arrive at the tiny cottage, we walk inside. It’s nice decorated, warm colors mixed with nice hints of different pastel colors. My eye falls on the very uncomfortable looking couch that is pretty tiny if Henry is supposed to be sprawled out on that, but we don’t know what the rest looks like.

After a small tour through the house, we have come to the conclusion that there is indeed only one bed. I look over my shoulder, my eyes meeting Henry’s. ‘See?’

Taglist: @thelastsock // @jolly-polly // @henrythickcavill // @maan24 // @diegos-butt / @agniavateira //

#henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill #henry cavill x oc #henry cavill fanfic #the alluring charm of henry cavill #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill x actress #henry cavill x adelaide park

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bellylivesthepoguelife · 3 years

Text

Overwhelmed. John B x Sarah

Request: Hi! How about a college related drabble? Sarah is super overwhelmed with exams coming up and calls John B starting to panic. He comes to see her and plans a whole night to distract her and comfort her 🥰

Word Count: 1.7K

A/N: I know that I didn’t QUITE follow the whole request on this, but it was getting a bit long, so I hope that makes up for it! I wrote this after I wrote the 500 words of pure angst for these two, so I apologize if it’s a little too angsty. Also, I’m still trying to get comfortable writing the comedic/banter parts of a lot of the pogues relationships. (I’m just not naturally witty so I really have to try!) Anyways, I hope you like it! Please let me know what you think!

Heroes and Villains of the Middle Ages was not a class that Sarah Cameron would have ever taken for fun. But when it satisfied one of her General Education requirements, it's not like she really had much of a choice in the matter. The fact that the professor was about as fascinating as the girls from high school that messaged her saying she'd be a "perfect fit" for joining their pyramid marketing business didn't help. So having to write an essay on 4 chapters of her "textbook" (each chapter ranging anywhere between 30-50+ pages long) was grating her brain, as she legitimately has zero desire to complete it.

An hour into her attempt to read the assigned chapters had her overwhelmed. She couldn't even pretend to find the content interesting, she had no clue how she was going to write a 1,000 word essay on it, and to put the icing on the cake: this was one of four that needed to be completed in the next two weeks as part of her final exam. Exasperated at the thought, she throws the book half way across the room as she finished the second chapter. Making it halfway through warrants a break, right?

She scrolls through instagram to allow her brain to run on auto-pilot for awhile. She scrolls past a photo JJ posted 43 minutes ago, of him, John B, and Kie hanging out at the Chateau. JJ snapped the photo, Kie leaning into him, laughing, while John B is in the background making a "you-caught-me-doing-something-I-shouldn't-have" face, no doubt saying something resulting in the laughs from the other two.

The picture makes her smile. Not just because it's of her friends, but also because between John B and JJ, they'll do just about anything to make their friends laugh. It causes her heart to flutter, and she decides to call him to further distract herself.

It doesn't take long for him to pick up, but it's not John B who answers the phone, it's JJ. "Hey Princess! How's college treatin' ya?!"

"Busy, boring, and yet still somehow not captivating enough to keep me from missing you."

"Oh, so you do miss me."

She rolled her eyes, "of course I do JJ."

"Not as much as you miss JB though, I'm sure." There's a pause, but before she can respond he's rushing out the words: "Oh, speaking of! Okay, Here's John B, I'll talk to you later, love you bye!"

She can tell John B is pulling the phone away from him by the decrescendo of his voice as he gets farther from the microphone. However, the sound of her boyfriends voice filling the speaker at her ear makes her smile even more.

"Hey Val." He greets, and she can tell he's smiling.

"Vlad. I must say it is nice to know that JJ misses me. Even though he won't admit it in as many words."

"Yeah, I think it's safe to say we all do."

"Is Kie still there?"

"Nah, she has to work tomorrow so she went home about 20 minutes ago. How did you know she was over?"

"I saw the picture JJ posted on instagram."

"Ahhh, yeah, that would explain it." She heard him walking around, saying goodnight to JJ before closing what she assumed was the door to his bedroom.

"Did y'all have fun?"

"We did- JJ what the hell, I just told you goodnight." He must have opened the door to John B's room.

Sarah could hear JJ say, "yeah but I didn't say goodnight to Princess! Night Princess!" He calls louder, making sure she can hear him.

"Goodnight JJ!" She calls back, knowing she was more than likely on speaker phone.

"Night Birdshit!" is the last thing she hears before she hears the door slam.

John B is back on the phone in an instant. "I swear, I might actually kill him tonight."

She laughs at their antics, and a bittersweet feeling settles in her chest as she realizes just how much she misses her friends.

"So," John B starts again, "How's your homework coming?"

Sarah scoffs. "Don't remind me."

"That bad?"

"It's just this class is so boring!" He's heard her rant about it a million times, but he lets her do it again. "I mean, it's a 400 level class. And I understand those are the more difficult ones, but--fuck--this is hard, and it's not even interesting in the slightest!"

"Which makes it only about a million times worse."

"It does!" She agrees, thankful that he's empathetic to her suffering. "And I have my Chemistry final next week, and my English 102 research paper due the week after. Nevermind the final project for my Geology, and Quantitative Reasoning class that I've only just started on--" She's ranting, and she knows it.

"Woah. Easy there, Val." He chuckles despite her. "You'll work yourself up."

"I am worked up!" The more she talks, the more overwhelmed she gets, and soon she realizes she's pacing her small room. "I just want to come home." The confession almost stuns her as she's catapoulted into a sea of homesickness, and even the knowledge that she'll be home for the summer in two weeks time doesn't even begin to calm the waves.

"You'll be home in a couple weeks, babe. Just 2 more, and then you're mine for the summer."

She knows he's trying to change her perspective, but she's not in the mood tonight. She's sad, and wants the space to allow herself to be sad. A half-hearted "yeah" is all she manages.

"Hey," John B doesn't miss the dejected tone of her voice, realizing how upset she truly is. "It's gonna be alright, Val. 2 more weeks is a piece of cake after the past seven months."

They'd seen each other since she started college, of course, but even then, the last time they were together was when she came home for Wheezie's lacrosse game 5 weeks ago. And after spending almost every day of last summer together, the distance began to do it's damage. Not on their relationship, no, their relationship was still so, so good. It was just on nights like tonight, when she was so overwhelmed that no matter what she thought of, it only made the drowning feeling three times worse.

She feels her throat tighten and before it even registers that she's getting emotional, she feels the gentle pricks behind her eyes indicating it won't be long and she'll be crying. "It's just really hard right now." She confesses, annoyed with how her voice is full of emotion, which is going to cause John B to go into his protective, "I'll-be-your-hero-and-fix-everything" mode.

And sure as shit, his tone becomes softer, and he's building her up. "I know it is, Sarah, but you're doing so well. I know this has been an adjustment for you, and for us, and it hasn't been easy, but you've been doing so well. You're killing it at college, and you only have these last two weeks, these last exams and projects and then you're home for the summer."

She nods, knowing that he's speaking truth, but still feeling discouraged. "It's just, everything's happening at once right now, and I'm just so overwhelmed, and there's just so much pressure riding on these last projects, and--I just want you."

"What do you mean?" She can tell he's laughing at her rambling confession.

"I mean I just want you. I miss you, John B." Great, that broke the dam, and now she's really crying. "I miss hugging you, and kissing you, and just being next to you. Because at least when I was home and busy, we were still together. Now I have to do all of this by myself, and I just feel so alone, and I just want to come home." She didn't intend to share all of these subconscious thoughts and feelings when she called him on the phone. She had initially just called for a distraction, and to see how JJ and Kie were doing. But sometimes the breakdowns come when you least expect them.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" The question is not how she expected him to respond.

She sniffs, thinking through what her Saturday plans were. "I'm- going to finish this essay, probably work on my projects, and study?" She phrases it like a question, even though she's answering his. After hearing silence for a little too long, she adds, "Why?"

"I'm on my way."

"What?" If she wasn't expecting him to ask what she was doing tomorrow, she REALLY doesn't expect him to say he's coming to see her at 10pm on a Friday.

"What do you mean you're on your way."

"I'm coming to see you." He answers as if it's the simplest thing in the world. She can hear his smile as he talks, probably patting himself on the back for being the hopeless romantic, her knight in shining armor, coming to distract her from her scholarly obligations.

"John B, you don't have to do that." Of course, she wants him to. But it's a ways to drive, and she knows his van isn't cheap to fill with gas.

"Shut up Val." He laughs. "I'm going to spend the weekend with you. But on one condition." He thinks, and then doubles back. "Okay, two conditions."

She rolls her eyes, always thinking there's no way she can be more in love with this man, and then he does stuff like this to prove her wrong. "And what are your conditions?"

"One. You have to write your essay. And I'm going to help you study. You don't just get a 'get out of jail free' card just because your man is coming to see you." He gets her to laugh with that one.

"My man?"

"Yes. That is what I am, isn't it? Your man?"

"Sure. And what's the second condition?"

"You have to buy me my own bag of Skinny Pop." Her eyes automatically roll for probably the 15th time tonight. "Okay, agreed. I will go to the store, and buy you your own bag of Skinny Pop."

"And you can't have any of it." He ammends.

"Alright, fine. And I won't have any of it." She grudgingly agrees.

"Deal."

"That settles it then! I'm on my way!"

"Drive safe, loser."

"I love you, Sarah."

She smiles to herself. "I love you too, John B."

"I'm serious though, don't eat my Skinny Pop before I get there."

#jarah b #john b x sarah writings #john b x sarah #obx writings #sarah cameron #john b routledge #jarah b requests #writing requests #obx requests #outer banks writing #college sarah cameron #long distance jarah b

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

Text

April Contest Submission #4: Stupid For You

Words: ca. 6,100 Setting: Modern AU Lemon: No CW: None

Anna adjusts her car visor to block out as much of the sun as possible. Just because the weather feels nice enough to keep her windows down, doesn’t mean she’ll allow the sun cook her through the windshield.

It’s 2:25 PM on a Friday. Back in college, she would have been powering through her final class of the week, racing back to her dorm on her longboard, changing into her pajamas, and replaying the entire Mass Effect trilogy for the fifth time. Now, she spends it idling in the parking lot of West Arendelle Elementary, breathing in exhaust fumes from other idling cars, and pitifully swiping through a dating app.

And to be honest, she might like this routine a little more.

But only because, in a couple of minutes the bell will ring and her favorite ten-year-old will burst through the front doors, skip down to her car, and tap on the passenger windows with both hands.

Not that…she knows any other ten-year-olds, she only knows this one. She doesn’t have like a top ten list of favorite children.

Anyway yeah.

Anna presses against the corner of a parking sticker peeling off at the bottom of her windshield, knowing she’ll have to get a new one soon. The sound of her phone buzzing grabs her attention, and a little bit of hope rises in her as she checks the notification. Unfortunately, it’s just a text from her mother saying not to park behind her when she gets back home.

Anna grumbles, “I swear there’s like zero lesbians in this entire freaking city.”

She’s saved from her petty lamenting by the forementioned bell, and suddenly the barren entrance of the elementary school is buzzing with activity as children pour out of the doors in droves. Some are running, some are walking slowly with their group of friends, but only one of them is skipping.

Or at least Anna could only see one skipping since she wasn’t focusing on any other kid.

Gleefully making her way to Anna’s car is a little girl in a bright-blue skirt, a clean white polo, and a messy braid. Her hands are clutching the straps of her glittery backpack and her lunch box is hanging on for dear life around her neck.

Serah Langford, the self-proclaimed “cooliest” ten year-old in Arendelle.

Serah predictably taps her knuckles against the passenger window and Anna rolls it down. “What’s the password?” she asks.

“Fart Sniffer,” Serah says confidently.

Anna shakes her head, “That was last week’s password. What’s this week’s?”

Serah looks off in the distance and purses her lips. A second later, she says, “Alright I said it!”

“Say it out loud.”

Serah rolls her eyes and says in a dramatically bored voice, “Anna de Milo is the greatest, prettiest, most wonderful babysitter in the world and deserves a million dollars.”

Anna unlocks the door and grins, “That’s the one!”

The embarrassed fourth-grader shuffles into the car, placing her bag by her feet, her lunch box in her lap, and her phone plugged into the AUX cord. Anna would be offended if they didn’t have the exact same taste in music.

A babysitting job wasn’t at the top of her list after she graduated, but when months passed and she exhausted all the search results for “Writer” on Indeed, she was starting to get desperate. Her mother advised her to look for any job so at the very least she could have a steady source of income while she continued to look for writing gigs.

That’s when she found Bizzybee.

Bizzybee is a company that prides itself on being “Tinder for babysitters”, which is a horrible vision statement but she kept from mentioning that during her interview. After a surprisingly long assessment process, Anna was placed into their system and she was free to take on any babysitting/housesitting job she wanted based on the profile of the parent and their needs. Everyone started with the same hourly rate, but with enough good reviews she would be eligible for raises.

The first five families she worked for weren’t a good fit for different reasons (one of the fathers actually tried to make a move on her, which is an entirely different, creepier story). She was beginning to lose hope until she stumbled on the profile of a recently divorced mother named Elsa Langford.

From the very first interview with Elsa, Anna knew she’d finally found the right babysitting job for her. She and Serah hit it off right away, and they worked out a Monday-Friday schedule which allowed Anna to continue searching for jobs while still getting great hours.

Six months later and, despite a couple of job offers, Anna decided to stay on as Serah’s babysitter. It was risky and not at all the path she set out for herself after college, but she found herself enjoying babysitting much more than she thought she would. And because of that, she stayed.

Well…that, and another reason.

Anna snuck a peek inside the lunch box at a red light and frowned at the unopened bag of cookies inside. “Seriously?! I thought you liked Chips Ahoy!”

“Only the chewy ones,” Serah argued.

“They can get chewy if you dip them in milk.” Anna waved the bag obnoxiously close to the little girl’s face. “These things are expensive, you know.”

“They’re $20 on Amazon if you buy them in bulk.”

“$20 is still a lot of money.” The light’s turned green, so Anna has to open the bag with her teeth. When she does so successfully, she pours a couple of the cookies right into her mouth. Chewing with righteous indignation, she says, “You know what you can buy with $20?”

“Dinner with my mom?”

Anna almost chokes on the cookies.

She hears Serah giggling up a storm while handing her a water bottle to keep from dying. After downing half the bottle, Anna takes a deep breath and gets back into the center of her lane to ensure neither of them is going to die. “Serah! What did I tell you about saying that kinda stuff while I’m driving?!”

Serah bounces proudly in her seat, “Well maaaaybe if you didn’t have a crush on my mom, I wouldn’t have to bring it up.”

“It’s not…I’m not…” Anna slumps in her chair, wondering why she even bothers denying it. “Whatever.”

Yes, she has a big, stupid gay crush on the mom of the kid she’s babysitting. But have you seen Elsa Langford? She’s gorgeous. Pale skin, light blonde hair always in a neat, tight ponytail, eyes like calm pools of water, and a killer body she worked tirelessly on after giving birth to Serah. Anna had to drink three glasses of water just to get through the interview with her.

But there’s nothing to it, and nothing’s gonna happen anyway. It’s just a crush.

A stupid, dumb, big, stupid, fleeting, doesn’t-mean-anything, stupid crush on a stupid, sexy mom.

It’s stupid.

[Line Break]

Anna pulls right into the driveway of the Langford’s small, one-story house. It’s in the middle of a long suburbian row of houses that look nearly identical in their mundanity, but this one always stands out to Anna. Not because she’s been to this house countless times, but also because it’s got a vibrant feel to it; like you can feel two main characters live here. Serah skips over to her front door with Anna close behind. She notices the grass is getting a little tall and wonders if Elsa might need some help mowing it this weekend.

She unlocks the front door and Serah immediately takes off her shoes by the front door, places her lunch box on the kitchen table, and hums to herself while she walks to her room. The schedule used to be on the fridge, but by this point Anna’s memorized it.

Make a light snack for Serah, help her with her homework before dinner’s done, clean around the house (that’s not a requirement, Anna just does it), make sure she doesn’t watch the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix yet, and then kick back until Elsa gets home. In between this time, Serah continues to tease her about her crush.

It’s been like that for weeks now, ever since Serah stole her phone one day and read the text Kristoff sent to her about Elsa. The subsequent conversation about what a “MILF” was didn’t exactly help things either.

This time, however, is different. Around 7 PM, while they’re watching an episode of American Ninja Warrior, Serah says something that doesn’t sound like a joke.

“She’d say yes, you know.”

“What are you talking about?” Anna asks cautiously.

“If you asked my mom out, she’d say yes.”

Unsure of how she’s supposed to react, Anna goes with an uncomfortable snort/laugh, “Wh- stop it. Stop kidding around, that’s…that’s silly.”

Serah shrugs like she didn’t say something crazy, and then she proceeds to say something even crazier, “She talks about you all the time.”

“Well yeah, I mean duh. I’m the babysitter,” Anna says like that’s supposed to be her superhero identity.

“No, she doesn’t talk about babysitting stuff.”

Finally, unable to help her curiosity, Anna asks, “What does she talk about then?”

Of course, she doesn’t get a chance to hear the answer. The front door unlocks and the woman they were just talking about arrives from work. Serah rushes to greet her mom and Anna stays sitting to let them spend their mother-daughter time together. And also because, like usual, she’s trying to figure out how to greet Elsa.

She decides on a cheerful “Hi!” followed by asking how work went; it’s casual and unassuming, but shows she cares about her. With that game plan prepared, she takes a quick breath, stands up, and walks over to the happy, little family.

“Hi!” she says with a practiced wave of her hand, though her voice is a little higher pitched than she’d like it to be.

Elsa’s clearly tired by the look of her, but when she smiles at Anna it feels like she’s genuinely happy to see her. Which of course makes Anna’s stomach do backflips, especially when Elsa walks over to her and gives her a hug. Even after taking off her heels, the exhausted banker still has a couple of inches on her.

“How are you?” she asks with her sweet, caring voice.

Anna tries to ignore the faint, flowery scent of perfume on Elsa’s neck, and the intrusive thought of wanting to hold her until all of Elsa’s troubles melt away. “Doing good,” she finally answers with her voice still an octave too high.

Elsa pulls away far too soon, keeping Anna at arm’s length while the younger woman is trying her best to pretend she doesn’t want to know how those lips would feel against hers. “Well let me write you a check and you can head out.”

What? No! Thinking fast, she replies, “No, you look exhausted. You can just rest, you don’t need to pay me right away.” Which is a lie, she has bills due next week.

“No I’d feel terrible if I let you go empty-handed. Trust me, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Ms. Langford, it’s okay. I’m in no rush tonight. Give yourself a minute to breathe, at least.”

Elsa frowns, but whatever she’s about to say gets interrupted by a long yawn. “Okay fine, if you can give me half an hour, I’ll have your check ready by then.”

“Sounds perfect!” Anna squeaks.

“And again, you don't have to call me Ms. Langford. Elsa’s fine.”

Elsa pats her on the shoulder and walks over to her room, Anna gets a glimpse of it before the door shuts and she can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be in Elsa’s room one day. Her shameful thought is interrupted by someone bumping her hip.

She looks down and sees Serah with a smug grin on her face.

“Oh hush,” Anna says.

[Line Break]

Anna hates taking breaks, and she especially hates days off. Not just because that’s one less day she gets to see Elsa, but also because that’s who she is as a person. Days she isn’t working provide zero structure, and she forgets how to be a human being without a structure.

The weekends, then, are a tumultuous time for her. If she doesn’t have pre-made plans with her friends, she’ll spend the days thinking about doing everything, inevitably end up doing nothing, and then dragging herself out of the house to do something.

This particular Saturday, that “something” happens to be grocery shopping. With a list that only has “Eggs?” on it, she ventures through every single aisle, wondering if she could get herself hungry enough to buy whatever she’s currently looking at.

So far, aside from the eggs, there’s only one other thing in her cart. And it’s not even for her.

“Pop-Tarts…I don’t know, they might sound good later.” She reaches to grab a box of the frosted strawberry ones but waves it off at the last second. Maybe the next aisle will have something she thinks absentmindedly as her cart almost hits the person in front of her.

Who somehow happens to be Elsa.

“Hi! Hey! Wow hi!” Anna says while Elsa looks at her like she’s genuinely startled. “H-hey there, Ms. Langford.”

After registering that the person yelling at her isn’t a threat, Elsa smiles. “Anna! It’s so wonderful to see you.” She looks as if she’s going to take a step towards Anna, but changes her mind at the last second.

Unfortunately, Anna took that as a cue to also step forward and didn’t move back fast enough. So now, she’s just standing between both carts like she’s commandeering both. “I-I didn’t know you went grocery shopping. Here, I mean. I’m sure you shop, but like…I live near here. Like five minutes away actually.”

Elsa chuckles, and honestly it sounds like honey-dipped guitar strings. But less sticky, and more sexy. “Well I was in the area dropping Serah off to her karate lesson, so I figured I might as well do some shopping while I wait.”

Right, Serah started her lessons last week. She told Anna that she was super excited about “getting to punch bricks and stuff”. Still unsure if she should move yet, Anna adds, “Well I like this place a lot. It’s like one of my top ten places to be- to go. Maybe top five.”

“I’ll make sure to keep that in mind,” Elsa grins like she really is happy to have run into her. She shifts her gaze down and remarks, “Oh, that’s a really nice chopping board.”

Oh. Right. The chopping board’s…still in her cart. Anna lifts it up and holds it like she’s showing off the finest new features in chopping board technology. “Yeah thanks, it’s on sale actually.”

“That’s good news, I’m looking to replace the one we have. I’m tired of scraping plastic off my chicken when I’m cutting it.” Anna knows this, of course, because Elsa’s muttered it to herself every time she’s in the kitchen. “Which aisle did you find that in?”

Forgetting why she has the chopping board in the first place, Anna holds it out and says, “Oh it’s okay, you can just have this one?”

“Are you sure? Don’t you need it?”

Now remembering why she has it, Anna shamefully pulls it away, “Yes. I mean no. No I don’t, I don’t need it. It’s in my cart, but I don’t need it.”

Elsa’s eyes narrow, “I-I’m sorry, I’m confused.”

Well this is happening. And it’ll be even more awkward to explain things if she shows up with the chopping board on Monday. She sighs, finally admitting defeat, “I…I heard you mention you needed a new chopping board, so I wanted to get one for you. This one, actually. This is the one I was going to buy. And then give it to you on Monday.”

Elsa goes from confused to flattered in a second, and much like all of her expressions there’s an inarguable authenticity to it. There’s no exaggerated gasp or a drawn-out “Awww”, instead there’s a smile that could melt a million hearts and a casual touching of Anna’s upper arm.

“I knew I picked a good one,” Elsa says, oblivious to the screaming and fireworks occurring in Anna’s head.

“Ah, i-it’s nothing really. I’m using my paycheck, so in a way you’re buying it yourself haha,” Anna tries to laugh but she squeaks like someone’s just pumped her full of helium.

“Nonetheless, you’ve helped lift so much stress off your shoulders and I want to show how much I appreciate you.” Elsa straightens up a little and looks at the frazzled redhead curiously, “What do you think about coffee?”

“You mean like a coupon?” Anna shakes her head. “I mean a gift card?”

Elsa opens her mouth to respond, but another thought seemingly goes through her head and she purses her lips. A second later, she smiles again, “Yes. Like a gift card. Young people still drink Starbucks, right?”

Anna scoffs, “Ms. Langford, you’re only nine years older than me.”

“And yet you still insist on calling me ‘Ms. Langford’, which always makes me feel much older than I actually am.”

A ton of bricks falls on Anna as she realizes her grave mistake. “Oh my goodness, Ms. La- ah I mean I uh…I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I mean that wasn’t my intention. You’re young, a-and beautiful, and still in your prime. No you haven’t even reached your prime yet! If I made you feel like you weren’t, I’m-”

She’s silenced by the feel of Elsa’s hand coming to rest on…her shoulder? Well that’s new. And exciting. Anna focuses half of her mind on calming down and the other half on what Elsa’s saying.

“Relax Anna, it was just a joke. You can call me whatever you want.” Though Elsa’s voice is reassuring, her smile has a glint of proud mischief from catching her off-guard. “I’m not about to police my favorite babysitter on what words she can use.”

Anna tries to speak but finds her throat too dry. She clears it and tries again, “Really? I’m your favorite babysitter? You’re not just saying that?”

“I went through far too many babysitters before I found you,” Elsa lets out a breathy laugh, eyes glancing to the side as if she’s remembering back to the years she’d had to find the right fit to take care of Serah. Anna wonders what makes her so different from the others, but thinks that’s too invasive to ask. “You’re the best.”

The casual yet loaded compliments and the feel of Elsa’s fingers so close to her bare skin combine to create a dangerous, stomach-churning reaction in Anna. One that sets all her impulses alight, screaming at her to kiss Elsa.

Before she even has the chance to compose herself, Elsa’s already pulled away and is back by the safety of the handrails on her cart. “Well I think I’ve used up enough of your time this weekend. And besides, I need to find something for dinner tonight. I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

Anna blinks, still trying to register things that happened five minutes ago. “Uh yeah, no problem. Sounds great,” she replies without knowing what she’s saying.

Elsa smiles at her and turns the corner, disappearing from direct sight. After an eternity of standing at the end of the aisle like an idiot, Anna groans and covers her face with her hands.

“Stupid,” she mumbles to herself.

[Line Break]

“The evil scientist shouted, ‘This ain’t over, Super Gal! One day-”

Anna presses the buzzer she bought at a dollar store. “There’s no such thing as the word 'ain’t’,” she corrects.

Serah groans, “You’re the worst.”

“You asked a girl with an English degree for help with your story. What did you expect would happen?” Anna taps against the table like an evil villain.

’“I didn’t expect you to not go easy on-”

Anna presses the buzzer again. “Double negative!”

“I’m not even writing!” Serah protests.

“My buzzer, my rules.”

The sound of the front door opening interrupts them bickering like long-lost sisters. Instead of running over to greet Elsa by the door, Serah shouts with exasperation, “Moooom! Anna’s being a jerk!”

“Well that’s what happens when you ask an English major to look over your story, honey,” Elsa replies.

Anna gives Serah a smug grin, the little girl sticks her tongue out in response. Elsa joins them at the dinner table, the tiredness on her face is less concerning tonight but Anna catches her wince when she sits down.

“You okay?” she asks.

Elsa smiles, “Fell off a ladder at work.”

“Oh my gosh, how bad does it hurt? I could-” Anna has to take a pause to let the unhelpful thought of massaging Elsa’s back go away. “-get you some ibuprofen or an ice pack.”

“Thank you, Anna, but I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning once I sleep it off. After all, I’m not even in my prime yet.” Elsa winks at her, and Anna has to pretend her insides haven’t turned to jelly.

“Is this like that time you fell in the bathroom while trying to pull your pants up?” Serah asks.

“Serah!” Elsa hides her face in her hands, though it’s still possible to tell the remorse she feels through her voice. “Why did I even tell you that story?”

Serah feigns innocence and shrugs, “Because I’m your daughter and you like telling me things?”

Elsa sticks her tongue out in response and it’s much cuter than it has any right to be. Unable to help herself, Anna asks, “Are you sure I can’t do anything for you? I mean like with your back…or whatever.”

Elsa rests her head against one of her hands and doesn’t try to hold back the tiredness in her smile this time. “You’re very sweet, Anna, but I’ll be okay. Just need some rest.” She mumbles afterward, “And a vacation…”

Anna lets her mind wander for a second, thinking of what it would feel like to take Elsa somewhere she could unwind. Like to a spa, or a lake. Elsa feels like the kind of person who finds solitude near water. In her mind, she sees Elsa in a baby blue sundress and a wide brim hat, looking out at the crystal clear waters from a creaky, wooden dock. She sees herself walking down the same dock and Elsa turning to her with a smile, holding a hand out and beckoning her to come over.

“What do you think, Anna?”

The wishful thought dissipates, and Anna’s pulled back into reality by a question she’s not ready for. “Sorry, I was uh…thinking of a story idea. What were you guys talking about?”

Thankfully not asking where Anna’s mind was really at, Elsa repeats herself, “Serah was wondering if you wanted to go to her play tomorrow.”

“I’m playing a tree!” Serah says proudly.

This invitation comes as a wonderful surprise. Serah’s been hyping this play up for forever, but Anna always assumed she would want Elsa to be there. “Oh, I…did something happen? Can you not make it?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare miss seeing my little girl play the part of Tree #2. But I really-”

Serah clears her throat obnoxiously loud.

“Right. We would really love it if you came. Tickets are free, but they’ll be selling popcorn and soda for $2.”

“You can sit next to my mom!” Serah adds, and her failed blink shows she knows exactly what she’s implying. It feels odd having a ten-year-old be her wing woman, but Anna’s learning to roll with it.

“No pressure, though,” Elsa says while wringing her hands together. “It’s on a Friday night, and I know you might already have plans.”

“I don’t,” Anna responds far too fast.

Elsa’s eyes widen in surprise, “Oh. Then do you want to go?”

The chance to sit next to Elsa for an hour in a dark auditorium? Anna would be an idiot to pass that opportunity up. And it isn’t lost on her that it felt like Elsa was about to say she would personally love it if she went.

“Sure, I’d love to go.”

[Line Break]

Far too many questions are still punching Anna in the brain as she pulls into West Arendelle Elementary’s parking lot and walks towards the auditorium. Should she have eaten something beforehand? Is she overdressed? Is she underdressed? Should she have texted Elsa to coordinate outfits? What if this is all some elaborate prank to make fun of her for her stupid mom crush? Did she sweat through her shirt? Is it noticeable?

Her crazy thoughts are interrupted by her phone buzzing. She pulls it out of the back pocket of her jeans and sees it’s a text from Elsa. She’s waiting by the door so they can find some seats together.

Well, that eases her worry about trying to find Elsa in a crowded auditorium. Though crowded might be an understatement. It’s a fourth-grade play, not an opera at The Met.

Once inside, Anna takes a second to admire the impressive renovations of what used to be a musty, old gymnasium (they even put in carpets and sound dampeners). But she’s not here to appraise this place, she’s here to root for her favorite fourth grader/tree and keep the ogling of Elsa to a minimum-

Holy baloney, Elsa’s wearing a dress.

It’s got blue-and-white stripes, short sleeves, and a similar colored waist sash. And instead of her hair being in a tight ponytail, the nearly silver locks fall across her shoulders and down her back.

It’s casual, it’s cute, it’s gorgeous, it’s beautiful, and it’s a stark reminder of how absolutely smitten Anna is.

“I was getting worried you might not show up,” Elsa says with a smile akin to the one she showed off at the grocery store.

Up close, Anna also notices a thin, snowflake necklace around Elsa’s slender neck and she’s already failed in keeping her ogling to a minimum. “You can always trust me to keep my promises, Ms. Langford,” she says with a goofy grin meant to reflect something called confidence.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Elsa responds.

Feeling like she has to mention it, and also because her brain’s still currently fried from seeing an angel, Anna adds, “You look beautifuller. I-I mean not like fuller, I just mean you look more beautiful than usual. Oh gosh, not that you usually look bad because you don’t. You never look bad, you’re-”

Elsa lays a hand on Anna’s shoulder again, which might as well be her reset button. “Anna, do me a favor and take a breath.”

Anna takes a breath.

“Good job. Now let’s go find some seats, okay?”

Anna follows her, too caught up on the feeling of being told she did a good job.

They find a spot at the end of an aisle and close enough to the stage that Serah will be able to find them without looking too hard. Elsa takes the seat on the left, Anna takes the seat on the right. They don’t start talking again right away, not until the conversations all across the auditorium become a blanket of white noise.

And then Elsa lets out a breath, “This feels nice.”

Anna turns to her and notices her eyes are closed, but she still commits to perfect posture so it looks like she’s meditating. “What do you mean?” Anna asks.

“Being…present. Not having to rush to make dinner or beat traffic or anything like that. It feels nice to have a break and just be.”

Anna finds it hard to understand what constitutes this as a break, but then again she isn’t a mother. And she doesn’t know much about what it means to take a break anyway.

Elsa tilts her head like she’s about to rest it on Anna’s shoulder, but instead, she turns to look at her. “Thank you again.”

“For the chopping board?”

“For the chopping board, for taking care of Serah, for being someone I can trust…for everything. It’s hard to- I mean you know it hasn’t been easy for me relationship-wise.”

Anna nods. Learning about Elsa’s divorce and her subsequent failed relationships was a part of why she took this job in the first place. She sympathized with the single mother and knew even then that Elsa could really use someone to have her back too.

“So thank you, for being my…the person I needed through all this. My knight in shining armor.”

The lights haven’t dimmed yet, so she needs to hope the blush on her cheeks isn’t too noticeable. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too wide, and then says, “Well, outstanding service is the Bizzybee guarantee.” It’s supposed to be a playful joke, but Elsa doesn’t seem to take it as such.

She frowns, “Do you really only see this as a job?”

This is different, but it doesn’t feel like a good different. Elsa doesn’t usually look like she’s staring into her soul, and she hasn’t asked anything this personal since the initial interview. To Anna, the answer is obvious, but she’s also caught up on wondering what answer Elsa wants to hear. If she says the wrong thing, will she lose her job? What’s the right thing to say? When did it get so warm? And is that citrus she smells in Elsa’s hair? Gosh, why is she so weird?

Shrinking further underneath Elsa’s stone-cold curiosity, Anna finally decides to approach this with honesty. “No,” she starts far too softly. “No, I think I would probably do anything for you…r family. You mean a lot to me. Y-you and Serah, I mean.”

She really hopes that doesn’t sound like a confession. The last thing she wants to do is get fired and have to run out of an elementary school auditorium in tears.

A soft, warmth presses against her hand that’s been resting on her seat. Anna looks down and sees Elsa’s hand on top of where hers should be. If this is a dream, then she never wants to wake up.

“Thank you for saying that,” Elsa replies just as softly.

Finally, the lights dim and the principal is on the stage talking about how hard the fourth-graders have worked on this rendition of The Giving Tree. And maybe it means nothing, but Elsa still hasn’t pulled away. Anna pushes away the thought of her own hand being too sweaty, and the notion that this could be a fulfillment of her craziest wish. Right now, she just tries to enjoy the feeling.

Serah turned out to be an excellent Tree #2.

[Line Break]

Next Monday, everything falls apart.

Or at least that’s what it feels like is going to happen when Elsa gets back from work and immediately asks Serah to go to her room so they can talk alone.

Anna’s never seen her this distraught before. Her ponytail is poorly put together, she’s not wearing any makeup, and there’s a coffee stain below her collar. When she asks if she can do anything to help, Elsa’s response is a quick but harsh, “No.”

She stiffens up. “Oh. O-okay, I’m sorry.”

Elsa shakes her head, places her hand on top of one of the kitchen chairs, but then pulls back like it’s hot to the touch. “Could we maybe sit on the couch?”

Right now, Elsa could tell her to cut off her hand and Anna would do it. She nearly trips walking the five feet from the kitchen to the living room couch, and tries to take up the least amount of space as possible when she sits down. Elsa sits on the far side, clutching a pillow to her chest with her mind probably anywhere else but here.

It’s not a good sight, and Anna’s not only worried about the safety of her job, but Elsa’s condition. She purses her lips to keep from saying anything stupid, and hopes this isn’t the horrible nightmare she’s expecting it to be.

Elsa closes her eyes tight, “I’m afraid I have to let you go, Anna.”

Anna completely deflates. Had she not been expecting this, it would have come as a greater shock to her. But when she pushed her luck at the play by trying to hold Elsa’s hand…she knew her days as a babysitter were numbered. “I understand,” she says sadly.

“I don’t think you do,” Elsa replies, quickly turning to look at Anna. Her eyes look like they’re pleading with her, like she doesn’t want to do this. “You were amazing, and I will give you the best endorsement for any job you apply for. But after the play-”

“I know. I was out of line.”

There’s a tense, awkward second of silence where the two women are looking at each other with equal levels of guilt and remorse. Though their reasons are vastly different. Elsa sighs and places the final nail in the coffin, “No, you weren’t.”

…what?

“Anna, I wanted you to hold my hand.”

What?

“You did?” Anna asks, trying her best to curb her optimism. This can’t possibly be going the way she thinks it is.

Elsa nods, “I’m not- well okay, first of all, I don't want to fire you. Serah, she thinks of you as her big sister, and the thought of separating you two tears me up. But this needs to happen because I…having you around…I feel something for you.”

“Feel something?” Maybe someday she’ll be able to say more than two sentences again.

Again, Elsa closes her eyes. A sternness falls on her face which Anna can tell she’s had to use a lot “Say it out loud,” Elsa mutters.

“What’s wrong?”

One agonizing moment later, Elsa reopens her eyes, and the guilt in them has worsened. “I-I’m attracted to you, Anna, and it’s getting to me. Really bad. I can’t sleep without thinking of you, I got a ticket for speeding a couple of weeks ago because I couldn’t wait to get home to you and Serah, and when you held my hand? Gosh, I felt something I never felt with anyone I’ve ever been with. I have feelings for you, and I have to let you go before I do something I might regret.”

She’s not dreaming, Anna knows that for sure because there’s no weird fog around her and Elsa doesn’t have a horse head. Yet she still can’t wrap her mind around the fact that this is happening.

Elsa Langford, the most beautiful mom- hell, the most beautiful woman- she’s ever known has just confessed she has feelings for her.

But she has to know for certain, so she finally musters up the lucidity to ask more than two words. “Do you really mean that?”

Elsa laughs. But it’s not a “gotcha” laugh, it’s a deeply embarrassed, caught-in-the-act laugh Anna’s far too familiar with. “Yes. I like you a lot.”

That’s all the confirmation she needs. With all the social grace of a bowling ball tumbling down the stairs, Anna responds. “I like you a lot too. Like attractively, I-I mean romantically.”

Elsa’s eyes widen, “Really?”

Anna shows off her expertly crafted awkward laugh. “Of course! You’re sweet, caring, and you’re so beautiful I bet a potato sack would look good on you. When I look at you or even think of you, I just see like rainbows and flutes and warm stuff like blankets or bedrooms- I uh, I mean like…soup. It was just a stupid crush at first, but honestly I don’t think I’ve ever felt this strongly for anyone before. Elsa, you’re a dream come true.”

Elsa’s pale complexion makes the redness that appears on her cheeks much brighter and more beautiful than Anna could ever imagine. This magical moment…it’s something she’ll always cherish and will never forget.

“I love the way you say my name,” Elsa says quietly.

“It’s a very pretty name,” Anna adds.

“Gosh, just kiss each other already!” Serah shouts from the hallway.

They talk for another hour. Despite the looming threat of being fired disappearing, Anna still agrees it’s best she stops working for Elsa. There’s now a conflict of interest, and the last thing they want is for either of them to get in trouble. Which means it’s back to job hunting. On the bright side, however, Anna can now come over whenever she wants so Serah will still have her “big sister”.

As for her and Elsa, they both agree to take things slow to make sure they won’t drive each other crazy. In a bad way, obviously. They both have big, stupid crushes on each other, but with Elsa’s track record for relationships and Anna’s overall social awkwardness, it’s clear that attraction will only get them so far. They have to work for this, if this was something to work for. Nonetheless, they remain optimistic and their first date is set for next week.

Elsa just needs to find a babysitter first.

#elsanna #submission #April 2021 contest #prompt: break

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ophiexb · 3 years

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Defensive

Based off a prompt from @jatpficprompts from this Prompt Here.

“While the boys are alive, Luke is always the one to get sent to the principal’s office, in school. He’s not actually a bad kid, though. He just gets really angry when people are mean to Alex or Reggie and has gotten into more than a few fights with the bully. He even once broke a boy’s jaw (who ended up having to get it wired shut) for calling Alex some not so nice terms for being gay.”

-------------------

Luke...probably had the worst record out of all of them, and by probably he did. Between his grades and his disciplinary record there was no way the other was going to graduate without some serious intervention that he did not want. Better grades meant cutting way more back on practices and music, it meant less time to write, and less time to work on the things that actually mattered. This place was equivalent to a prison in his mind.

“It’s not that serious.” Alex said shutting his locker once all his books were packed up. “Bobby, Reggie and I all manage to keep up our grades and balance the band-and yes before you say anything I know you write the songs but Luke. They're not going anywhere.” Alex hummed. “The music is going anywhere, we aren’t going anywhere. You’ve got to graduate next year man.”

“None of that’s going to matter! No ones going to care about any kind of diploma if they're famous! My music speaks for itself.” Luke countered. “And our band speaks even more and we’re going places.” He gestured dramatically as they waited for their other two band members. “And we’d be even better if school wasn’t in the way.”

“You might not have any interest; but at least let us graduate.” Alex protested leaning against the wall of lockers as the people spilled into the halls and moved around. He could see them coming down and smiled waving the duo over. “I’m serious Luke, I actually really care about my grades.” He huffed.

“Man; Ms.Hart assigned another paper. At this rate my hands are going to fall off.” Reggie groaned holding his hands up dramatically. “My wrists can only take so much more it’s going to impact my bass.” He added pitifully and Alex rolled his eyes with a gentle laugh.

“Come on enough enough the papers can wait its Friday!” Luke beamed Friday meant band practice, it meant no homework and no studying that could wait for Sunday. He was radiant, gesturing for Bobby and tossing his arm around the other to pull his close.

“Alright alright-“ Bobby groaned, moving Luke off of him almost instantly to get to his locker. “I already told my Mom you guys were staying over and she's going to pick us up.” He laughed, the four of them heading out together with the rest of the school.

Monday found Luke back in the office, his arms crossed over his chest and staring at the window with a blank expression on his face. “Lucas.” The man said slowly fiddling with his file. “This is the third fight this month.”

“It’s Luke.” He countered, finally giving the man some attention. His lip was split on the other side but overall he didn’t have any outward damage. “So what am I supposed to do Sir. I told you last week that these guys keep hassling Reggie when he’s coming out of gym. Pushing him around and taunting him. I’m supposed to stand there? Just watch them?”

“Well of course not, but violence isn’t the answer. You could go and get a teacher-Mr.Dennis was right in the locker rooms with the other boys….Mr.Patterson we’ve talked about this last time as well.” Luke could only roll his eyes.

“With all due respect sir; Mr.Dennis is useless. He lets them do whatever they want! He knows they’ve been coming after Reggie and he just tells them to stop and turns his back. I’m not going to let some punks keep hurting my friend.” He countered his fingers curling against the arms of the chair. He wanted to say a whole lot more but he was in enough trouble as it was, and the main anger had left him after the fight.

“Well I don’t know about all that, but this is your third fight this month Lucas, and don’t make me count up this year. You're treading a thin line to getting kicked out. I don’t want to see a bright future like yours ruined for something so simple such as using your words, and getting another teacher to help.” Luke’s mouth tightened into a thin line and he turned to stare back out the window again. “Your mothers here to pick you up. You can return Wednesday.” He sighed, climbing up to grab his bag tossing it over his shoulder and walking right past her to the car.

It gave him more time to write songs anyway. What did he care? Though-now the nagging feeling in the pits of his stomach came the entire time he was home. Because that was the downside to fighting. He couldn’t protect his friends anymore from home. No one would be there to stand up for them. It sure made it hard to focus on his songs until Alex called him after school to update him on the day.

Luke got better at hiding it after that, his attacks were more subtle and more calculated. He couldn’t get suspended because then who would protect the guys? Who would make sure no one messed with his friends if he was out? So he got better. He got smart about how he defended the moment, and sought his revenge later. The rumors were more than enough that much of the bullying and teasing had come to a halt for fear of Luke’s wrath. They were smooth sailing and Luke hadn’t had to have that stupid make better choice meeting in weeks.

Of course it didn’t last long; it never did for him. Something always had to happen and so damn close to their winter break. They were almost there and someone had to go and start something. At first it wasn’t a big deal, nothing serious. Until he started hearing the whispers. His mind zeroed in on the words from the other students before he was quickly moving through the halls. Ignoring their looks until he found them, laid eyes on them and that they were okay. Well physically okay. Alex was curled up, his fingers curled in his blond hair almost painfully. Reggie whispering softly to him and gently trying to unpry his hands from hurting himself. Bobby sat quietly to the side just rubbing soft circles on the drummers back.

“How’d they find out?” He demanded his voice sharp and Alex flinched slightly, and his anger left in a swoop. It wasn’t at Alex. It wasn’t at them and they didn’t deserve this side of him. “Lex…” He said softer moving to kneel in front of the other. “We can just-We can deny it. No one has any proof…”

“They do.” Bobby said softly looking down for a moment and Luke’s brows furrowed looking at him and back at Alex. “A picture. Half the class has seen it.” By the end of the day they all knew the whole school would know.

Alex's breathing hitched and Luke shook off the trail of thoughts, his fingers gentle with Bobby’s to rub over the others shoulder a little. “Come on…” He whispered. “Deep breath Lex. We’ve got you.” He soothed, and Reggie finally got his hands to let go of his hair, and Luke quickly caught them before they could fly anywhere else. Before he could hurt himself. Pressing the others palm hard against his chest as they coached him slowly down.

They’d already missed more than half the day by the time Alex calmed enough to talk. His head laying on Bobby’s shoulder and face red. He looked worn, exhausted. “It was Tyler. From Science.” He whispered. “We’ve been lab partners since the start of the semester and he-“ He hesitated but Luke already knew.

“The guy you liked.” He supplied softly. “The one who...who you thought liked you to.”

“He asked to meet up after school yesterday.” Alex whispered his hands fidgeting but Reggie caught them curling his hands around his. “I said yes, foolishly. I should've known better, we were in his room and he asked me if I liked him. And I said yes.” His voice cracked. “He had his stupid baseball buddies in the closet.” He whined. “Luke my parents are going to find out there are friends with Tyler’s parents.” He rambled edging on the hysterics again. “Everyone’s going to find out-“ Which...was not great. Sure no one wanted for Alex to have to pretend and fake day in and out. But...but it was just a fact. A fact of life right now that being gay was dangerous.

“I’m gonna kill him.” Luke hissed almost growled standing up abruptly.

“Luke.” Alex protested quickly, his watery blue eyes looking at the other. “He’s not worth it. The damage is done already-It’s...you get in another fight there going to expel you it’s not worth it.” He shifted trying to untangle himself from the guys, but Luke could see. See the absolute distress and misery on the other face and knew he wasn’t going to let it go. For now he would. Only for now.

They got Alex to the studio, figuring the day was wasted anyway they’d take the detentions for missing a day and deal with it all later. Right now the focus was their friend, and his comfort making sure he didn’t see anyone else and he could fully calm down before going home. To come out. Because this whole ordeal jump started any plans or ideas Alex had for telling his parents he was gay. It had to come from him. Not some rumor-which mean right now….

Luke was going to kill Tyler Moore.

It really didn’t take much to set him off all over again. Coming into school the next day to see Alex. Trying to keep his crumbling life together because of this one asshole. It’s not a prank, it’s not funny. In Luke’s mind all he can think is this asshole has put Alexs life in danger. They watch the news, they see the media. It’s not funny-it’s real life and he’s pissed.

Apparently the anger rolling off him is not enough to deter the other teen from approaching them in the hall. They’d been gathered around Alex trying to get an idea of how his coming out went, how he was doing when he heard the others' voices.

“Luke.” Alex was already protesting.

Luke was already moving, his eyes set on that smug face. With his letterman jacket and his group of friends behind him acting like they were better than the world around them. Like they weren’t slowly destroying an entire person. Not a care in the world for laughs right? Not on Luke’s watch.

“What you got feelings-“ Tyler didn’t even finish his sentence Luke was punching him hard across the jaw. Hard enough he felt the crack, saw the blood and he wasn’t done jumping onto the other and hitting him again. His group wasn’t behind him anymore-people like that aren’t real friends. All of them fled the moment Luke was on him. It took two teachers to pry him off the other boy, and Luke was yanking his bag up off the floor, shoving their hands off him.

“I’m going I’m going.” He snapped his eyes moving over to his friends. The wonder and amazement on Alex's face, on Reggie and Bobby’s face. Despite their protest Luke knew they appreciated it. That they could never tell him for fear of encouraging him getting in trouble. But having someone defend you to the lengths Luke went? It was pretty special.

It’s also how he ended up expelled the day before winter break. The catalyst to his relationship with his Mom finally dissolving and crumbling away. But his focus was pinpointed. It was zeroed in on his band, and his friends. He didn’t need anything else.

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #Reggie Peters #luke patterson #Alex Mercer #bobby wilson #Jatp fic

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bored-storyteller · 4 years

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Okay, I humbly apologize. I had a bad time - and unfortunately it's not over 😩- but here's the second part with three other leaders. I know I know I know! Malleus is missing! I'll try to post Mal today too- tomorrow, it depends on where you are - I promise.

Please I know you love him so much but love me anyway 🥺

14- Dorm leaders x down!s/o pt.2

Kalim Al-Asim

· Kalim is magical and exhausting at the same time. Yes, s/o love him from the bottom of their hearts, but dealing with him in times of stress is exhausting.

· The young nobleman does not really know the stress, at least, for what s/o can see, and this leads him to overcome any worries. It's not that he doesn't want to see other people's problems, it's just that he can't think of them.

· S/o as the days go by they feel worse and worse. The head often hurts and tiredness brings them into a state of almost half asleep. If Kalim saw this he would be very worried about them, but their presence for him is a fact. He is convinced that if something went wrong s/o would tell him, right?

· But no. How could they say no to his requests? That is, actually there is not even time to refuse.

· Jamil is worried. He sees what is going on and tries to marginalize the problems. S/o should rest, they could ask him for help - as if he wasn't already doing everything in the dormitory-. But s/o know that the vice leader is already very busy, burdening him with their study problems and their worries is not the case.

Having to deal with Kalim really means having almost never breath. Even his affection can sometimes be a problem.

Yes, s/o certainly love him, but three days before the start of the test session, the thing more than making them happy is shaking them.

They have studied practically nothing and really feel their strength failing. While everyone is studying carefully, they are struggling to finish their homework for the next day.

The nights for s/o are now nothing more than a staring at the ceiling in desperate search for information that does not exist in their head. And the lessons are so heavy in the morning that their hope of getting through the year is almost zero.

Sometimes the idea of dropping out of school even went through their mind. They would certainly be freer.

Right now, s/o they are hiding in the bedroom, surrounded by study books.

It doesn't matter how much they read and reread those words, their overfull mind wanders over their fears, not making them memorize anything.

There is no way they can overcome this. They curl up on the bed, clutching their knees to their chests and doing everything they can to keep from crying.

Suddenly the door swings open. Kalim comes in with his cheer, filling the room with his happy voice.

It seems that he is excited about something, but s/o can’t help but look at him with wide eyes without understanding.

His exclamations echo in their heads as if it were empty, breaking the delicate crystal walls.

"Stop!" They cry when even the last fragile column of their sanity is brought down.

"Stop!" They repeat, bringing their hands to their faces and collapsing supine on the bed.

"Stop it! I can't take it any more! If I continue like this I will go crazy!"

The arms cover the face wet with tears. They are not really shouting at Kalim.

He stops suddenly, a little frightened by that reaction.

What happened? Where did he go wrong this time?

When the silence weighs too much, they still speak: "I ... I need to get out of here, I... don't want to be in this school anymore. "

Kalim listens in silence for a few moments to their sobs, then slowly, shyly, sits beside them on the bed.

"No ..." he murmurs, "I will help you, whatever your problem is." His voice is that of an injured child, but his arms raise s/o to his chest, to hold them against him and protect them.

"Everything will pass, I promise you. But I can't be without you."

The fingers pass slowly through the hair of s/o while his crimson eyes scan the books around them.

Kalim's arms hold them desperately. Right, how could they leave him alone? In short, who would help Jamil then?

That thought makes them smile, and while s/o get up seated they give to the boy a simple and light "ok", and then they resume the study with a quieter mind.

Kalim no longer talks, but neither does he leave, he simply remains close to them a little to comfort them, a little for the fear that they will move away from him, until he ends up falling asleep on their lap.

Vil Schoenheit

· Here, another guy who made stress his life. Some type of stress. Obviously, he must meet expectations.

· This also applies to those around him, or rather, to those who are close to his heart. If he demands so much from someone, it means that he cares about them. In a sense, even his insult when it is constructive is flattering.

· But for an already stressed s/o, dealing with him is extremely anxiety-provoking. You have to be perfect, everything has to be in order, and for an already fragile mind, well, the step to break is not far away.

· Still, he bears a great deal of stress on his shoulders without showing it, but he doesn't notice that others can sometimes be overwhelmed, and his manners aren't exactly delicate when it comes to appearances.

· S/o are almost afraid of him every time his eyes meet them. What will he say? What's wrong with them?

Yes, they know how important the smile is, but they can't do it. In the library they leaf through the book they hold in their hands with empty and dull eyes.

They don't have to look good, on the other hand disappointment for themselves keeps them up all night.

There is no way they can get through this period, not for how they are.

They sigh, placing the book on the shelves and giving up. They fold their arms on the table as they sit, and there they hide their tired faces.

S/o would like to go into hibernation, everything would be easier. No commitment, no judging eye ...

"S/o, my dear." The firm voice of the Poemfiore leader makes itself heard. It is firm, severe even if placid.

What's up now? Oh sure. They are not sitting upright with their backs. Hair is probably a mess and their eyes have been ruined for days. They already know to suck, there is no need for him to say it. They already hate each other, and there is no need for him to see how ugly their sticky face is with tears.

S/o do not move, as if he were not there, they remain closed inside themselves, in such a state of surrender that not even Vil can grasp immediately. But he understands that something is wrong. It never happened that they ignored him.

“S/o.” the name is repeated again, but this time it is accompanied by the delicate hand of the leader who touches the hair of s/o.

As soon as the fingertips touch the head, as if they were of fire, s/o spring back, scared as if they had a ferocious beast in front of them.

Vil stares at those eyes so full of fear. Afraid of him.

In their dark circles he sees all the suffering of those days, all the dozing sadness. And in that situation of desolation, they feared him as if he were their enemy, the one who wants to harm them.

"No… Please..."

A prayer comes out of their fragile lips as if he is ready to kill them. He's not sure if they're clear-headed... no, they seem to be in another world. A dark and lonely world.

Vil's white fingers caress s/o's chin. They do not retreat, but tremble as if they were blades.

"I won't hurt you. I'm just worried about you."

His words are clear, as always, but a little sweeter than usual. He patiently sits in front of them, without losing contact.

"You can tell me what troubles you."

Finally the gaze of s/o meets the beautiful eyes of the boy. Eyes so beautiful, admired, and at this moment sincere.

S/o they bend down again, resting their forehead on Vil's hand while holding it with theirs. There they cry, for once without the weight of the angry gaze, but only surrounded by affection, while Vil gently caresses their head.

Idia Shroud

· Ok, how to say, this guy is made of stress.

· Idia fears the social relationship, people stress him, what is not his room and his computer stresses him. He is not an easy person to manage.

· S/o are practically elected. They are fortunate to be admitted to his. In short, they can remain curled up on his bed without him saying anything.

· Usually are s/o who take care of him, who try to support him and calm him down, but sometimes of course they are the ones who need support ... but well, Idia practically doesn't exist.

· It is not his fault, but even if he cares about s/o in a way that even he did not believe possible, he is not good at social relationships. Very often he will limit himself and stay next to them, still connected to the internet. They don't mind, usually.

But this time the boy's body isn't even close to them. He is far away, in the darkness of the room, illuminated only by the screens. Yes, they are not even totally sure that he is aware of their presence.

Ortho, to their disappointment, is not present.

S/o don't need to be there, but for some time now they have felt a lump in their throat that they can't swallow. They have failed a test, and there is no way to recover it, or so they believe.

The truth is that they are nothingness.

They have to study, but loneliness echoes in their head. Nobody wants them.

So they slipped from the leader of Ignihyde to find comfort. It would have been fine even if he had been silently beside them, but no, he was elsewhere. They had seen an excited light in his eyes when they arrived. Maybe chat with someone online? Of course, those friends are better than them.

A failure, a weight, that's s/o.

Small tears wet the already dimly lit page.

In the darkness in which they find themselves, they sink into the anxiety and fear that they have been holding inside for weeks.

That horrible feeling of emptiness that causes the brain to tilt.

Idia does not notice the sobs. S/o are hidden, curled up into a ball on the boy's bed. Nothing makes sense to them anymore. More they cry, more they lose consciousness of their surroundings, and everything disappears.

Idia is too caught up in his game. He does not really notice that s/o are not well.

Only when he turns enthusiastically to communicate something to them does he hear them.

Sobs are louder now, but they don't know it.

Heart breaks in Idia. How long have they been crying? Two hours will have passed since they arrived. Why didn't they speak?

Oh God, it's his fault ... he sucks with people so badly, and he always ends up hurting them.

Maybe they came to him because somehow they believed he made them feel good, didn't they?

He gets up from his chair, unsure of what to do. Embarrassed he approaches them.

God, they seem so fragile. Will he break them if he touches them?

Slowly, as if he were dealing with a kitten, he places his sweatshirt on them, and then, a little scared, he sits next to them.

They seem lost, s/o don't react.

Idia feels the butterflies in his stomach from agitation. Suddenly, it seems to him that the figure of s/o is fading away in the dark of the room. It's scary.

Shyly he stretches his arms around the small figure and carefully pulls them into his chest.

He feels their sobs freeze for a moment, almost frightened, and then finally the muscles relax, while they abandon themselves to him.

"Sorry, I'm a delusion..." They murmur, clinging to him.

So is this what they think?

"No ... you ... I ... find you beautiful ..."

He speaks shyly. He's not exactly that these words are what they need, but that's what he really thinks.

His cheek is warm against their head. Maybe he's blushing.

How can they not smile at this?

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #kalim al asim #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #twst kalim #twst vil #twst idia #twisted wonderland idia #vil schoenheit x reader #kalim al asim x reader #idia shroud x reader #twst headcanons #scenarios #headcanons #request

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fourdaysofrain · 4 years

Text

Tests of Strength

Summary: Tony helps Peter test his powers.

(This is my Irondad Fic Exchange fic for @clickbearr! The prompt I chose was, "Tony doing tests on Peter's powers (how much weight can he lift? can he stick to a non-stick pan? etc.)” I hope you like it!)

Read on AO3

“Kid, do a backflip.”

Peter looked up from his AP Chem worksheet. He was in the lab with Tony, and up until now, they had been working quietly at their own separate desks.

“Um, sorry?” he said, a nervous laugh bubbling out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“I’m pretty sure those spidery little ears of yours heard me the first time.” Tony walked over from his desk and leaned on a counter facing Peter. He raised a nonchalant eyebrow. “Do a backflip.”

Peter looked over to Tony and then down at the chair he was sitting in.

Tony sighed. “Obviously, stand up first.”

Duh, Peter thought as he stood up. Of course, you need to stand up before doing a backflip in Iron Man’s lab. What else would you do?

He stood up, pushed in his chair, and shuffled a few feet away from the desk. He looked at Tony again, and upon receiving a set of raised eyebrows, he jumped and did a succinct backflip, his feet landing only a few inches from where they started. He looked for a reaction from Tony, but he remained unaffected.

“Was there a reason for that?” Peter asked.

“Suprise single-blind study, no questions.” Tony took off his tinted glasses and set them neatly on the counter behind him. ”Close your eyes.”

“Um, okay.” Peter scrunched his eyebrows together as he shut his eyes. “Will this hurt?”

Peter felt Tony gently put a hand on his shoulder. “Course not, I’m not a maniac.” The hand on his shoulder started to tug him away. “Come here.”

Peter let himself be led blindly around the lab. After a minute or so, they came to a stop.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Tony warned. Peter heard him step back. “Do another backflip.”

Peter moved a few steps to the right and then did another backflip. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“Go ahead.”

He opened his eyes and looked around. Tony had led him to the workshop portion of the lab, where they were currently taking apart the engine of one of his cars in their spare time. He frowned at the oil spill he caused last week. He’d have to clean that up soon. He looked up and shrugged at Tony.

“Had a theory. It panned out,” Tony cooly stated.

“What was your theory?”

Tony picked up a screwdriver and tossed it up in the air a few times. Peter tracked it with his eyes, watching it go up and down, the handle spinning over and under the head.

“Close your eyes again.”

“Um, I’m not sure I like where this is going, Mr. Stark.”

Tony looked at the screwdriver and then back to Peter. Suddenly, as if just now realizing what he was about to do, he barked out a laugh and set the screwdriver down on the countertop next to him, his hand resting on top of it.

“Right,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Right, I’m being eccentric. Ignore me, head back to your side of the lab.”

Peter muttered something indecipherable in response. He peered at Tony from the corner of his eye as he turned around to go back to his desk.

After a few seconds of walking with his back turned, he jerked to the left, just to see a screwdriver fly by where his head was a moment before. He spun around and gaped at Tony.

“Holy shit, what was that for?” he sputtered.

Tony had the decency to look sheepish. “Okay, I admit that was a little much. But check it!” He pointed at Peter. “How’d you know to move your head?”

“I, uh--” Peter looked down at his hands, at a loss for words. “I just did.”

He couldn’t explain it. There hadn’t been any noticeable warning. It had felt like someone was pulling his head on a string to the left. He probably could have fought it, but he didn’t see any reason to. Besides, if he had fought against it, he’d probably be nursing a goose egg for the next couple of hours.

“Enter my backflip test,” Tony started. “You moved to the right before doing your second backflip. Any reason why?”

Peter thought back to a few minutes prior. “I did,” he said. “Was that wrong?”

“No right or wrong answers in this place, kid.” Tony walked past him to pick up the screwdriver. “But you were right to move. I put you in the middle of a puddle of oil, you would have slipped if you tried to land a flip.” Peter’s eyes widened. Tony grinned sarcastically at him. “I would have caught you. Probably. Maybe not, actually. Don’t want to get any oil on my clothes.”

“No offense, Mr. Stark, but why did you do all this?” Peter decided to ignore the possible child-endangerment. He was almost 16, after all. He could handle himself.

Tony tilted his head and gazed at Peter through relaxed eyes. For a moment, he felt as if he was one of Tony’s projects, as if he was breaking down into ones and zeroes in front of his eyes.

“As I said, I had a theory.” Tony spun on his heel and went back to his workspace.

Peter followed him. “Hey, man,” he pestered, only feeling a little like a bothersome insect. “Can you tell me the theory?”

“Patience is a virtue, young spider,” Tony cajoled as he motioned his hands to wake up FRIDAY.

Tony’s workspace blew up in an explosion of holograms. Once Peter’s eyes adjusted to the blue light, he could see quite a few pages about spiders open from various sources online. He skimmed a few, making out a few keywords. After a moment, he looked at Tony, waiting for an explanation.

“You got your powers from a spider bite, obviously. So I did some research on spiders.” Tony waved through the holograms and expanded one so Peter could easily read it. “Did you know that there’s a species of spider that knows when it’ll be in danger?”

Peter’s eyes widened. “What, really?”

“Yeah, really. Some science-y combination of hormones and feeling vibration through their leg hair.” Tony paused to let Peter process. ”Given you’re wearing pants, it’s probably not the latter. But, you are filled to the brim with a hormone soup right now, so…”

Peter scrunched his nose. “Ew.”

Tony leaned back in his chair. “It’s your weird spider powers. Anyways, turns out you have it too.”

Peter sat down in a nearby chair to think about it. In his previous fights, he had avoided almost all of the hits anyone throws at him. He had always assumed that he had better instincts than the attackers.

“That sucks, man.”

“It--” Tony looked over at him. ”It sucks?”

“Well, I mean,” Peter said, rubbing his neck. “I just thought I was really good at fighting.”

Tony barked out a laugh. “At least now we know how you were able to stay in the ring with Happy for so long.”

Peter huffed and looked away. Since May found out about Spider-Man, she had wanted him to spend more time with Tony as a sort of job shadow so he can learn how to be safer in the field. So far, he’d trained with Rhodey and Happy. Tony typically stayed out of the physical training, keeping himself in the lab most of the time. Peter got it, he did, but it’d be cool to train with Iron Man for once.

“Which brings me to my next point,” Tony continued, closing down the holograms. “We’ve got some tests to do.”

“Tests?” he asked, voice involuntarily jumping up an octave. When he was first bit, he was worried about government scientists poking and prodding him with needles and keeping him away from his family.

Tony seemed to notice his discomfort and waved a hand noncommittally. “Nothing your weirdly-hot aunt wouldn’t approve of. Just some standard measurements. Lift a few weights, leap over a few tall buildings in a single bound, the usual.”

“Okay.” Peter snorted. “Yeah, sure. I mean, it’d be cool to know all that anyway, so…” He trailed off and looked up at Tony. “Did you wanna do it now?”

“Yeah.” Tony grabbed his tinted glasses and put them back on in one smooth move. “Unless you’ve got something better to do?”

Peter gave his AP Chemistry homework a forlorn glance. “Nah, I’m-- I’m pretty free. Nothing going on right now.”

“Great,” Tony said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s head downstairs.”

Peter followed Tony out of the lab and into the nearby elevator. He’d been to the gym a few times before, mainly to train with Happy. When he trained with Rhodey, they’d normally stay outside. He was excited to finally visit the gym with Tony, some childish part of him still wanting to show off. He tried to get his nerves under control as the elevator slowly lowered.

Finally, the elevator doors opened to the gym. There were machines lining the walls. Some of them looked familiar to Peter: there was a line of treadmills to his left, and some of those benchpress things lining the wall across from him. Most of the machines just seemed like weird chairs or benches that were slightly warped.

“Don’t worry about the machines,” Tony said, waving his hand at the various machinery. “They’d all be too easy for you.”

“Oh, yeah.” Peter ran his hand along one of the nearby weights. It was labeled 40 pounds. “This is easy. I lift weights all the time.”

He shook his fingers off the weight when they stuck nervously to the side of it. He smiled sheepishly at Tony, who was looking at him with a quirked brow.

“Cap’s old stuff is over here.” He motioned for Peter to follow him to the back corner. “We renovated recently, so he’s in the corner of shame for the moment. Figure it’s a good enough place to start.” He patted one of the punching bags that looked like it belonged in an arcade. “This one will give us a readout of how strong your punches are. Go ahead and hit it.”

Tony stepped back, giving Peter ample space to hit the punching bag. He shifted his weight from side to side and shook his right hand. He punched it casually. The bag didn’t even move.

Tony looked at the side of the machine and clicked his tongue. “113 pounds of force. Forget to eat your spinach?”

Peter glared at him half-heartedly out of the corner of his eye. He punched it again with a bit more force.

“780. Now we’re getting into enhanced range, kid. Give it another shot, come on!”

Peter gritted his teeth and punched the bag with all his force. The bag split around his knuckles and he ended up with his arm halfway submerged in sand and fabric. He looked over at Tony and raised his eyebrows. Tony rubbed his forehead and checked the side of the machine.

“Error.” Tony sucked air through his teeth sharply. “Guess that settles that.” He looked away and scratched his temple. “Can’t even remember what the max was.”

Peter pulled his arm out of the bag and tried not to grimace as a few grains of sand fell to the ground.

“Sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean to, uh…” He trailed off as he looked at the gaping hole in the punching bag. He cleared his throat. “Do that. That’s… my bad.”

“Y’know what, kid?” Tony chuckled. “It was about time that thing kicked it. Don’t worry about it.”

Peter felt his cheeks flush as he smiled awkwardly back. “Alright. Okay, uh-- What else did you want to test?”

“What do you want to find out?”

Peter thought back to when he tried to test his powers on his own, the extent of which was done secretly in the bathroom. He knew he was strong enough to break the sink and sticky enough to stick to the medicine cabinet, but that was about it. He was enhanced enough to survive all of his fights up till now, at least.

“Um,” he said after thinking for a moment. “I kinda want to know what I can stick to?”

Tony smirked. “What a coincidence, kid. So do I.”

“Should I just start testing things?” Peter asked, hand halfway to the nearby wall.

“Why not?” he replied. “But let’s do stuff you haven’t tried yet. Walls are old hat.”

Tony patted his pockets and pulled out his phone from his pants, holding it out towards Peter with his head tilted slightly.

Peter’s eyes widened. “You want me to stick to your phone?”

“No, I want you to take a selfie,” Tony quipped.

When Peter didn’t make a move to grab the phone, Tony grabbed his hand and slapped the phone in his palm, screen down.

“Okay, now turn your hand upside down without letting the phone fall.”

Peter clutched the phone with his fingers. “Do you not have a phone case?”

“Look who you’re talking to,” Tony said. “If I crack my phone screen, I can just buy a new Apple store.”

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

Peter’s grip slightly loosened as he tried not to think about his own phone screen that looked more like a spider-web than a piece of glass. He flipped the phone over in his hand subconsciously, which caused the phone to turn on. The lock screen background made him smile. It was a picture of Pepper, taken in Tony’s workshop. Pepper was holding one of the nanotech units in front of her chest with one hand with her other arm stuck towards the camera with the palm out. She looked like she was in the middle of laughing.

It was kind of weird to think about what Tony and Pepper did while they were alone, but apparently it involved Pepper making fun of him while he was working on his suits. It was sweet, Peter thought. He knew that Tony and Pepper weren’t together during the trip to Germany, but they announced their engagement just a few weeks ago. It was good to see they had fun together. Or maybe he was reading too much into a phone lock screen. But Tony seemed much happier now than when they first met, at least from his see-for-a-few-hours-every-week-or-so perspective.

“Have you met Pep yet?” Tony asked, following Peter’s line of sight.

“Uh, no. No, not yet.”

Tony smiled. “I can introduce you next time you’re both in the same building. Should happen eventually.” His focus went back to the task at hand. “Don’t be embarrassed if it slides around. Happens to the best of us.”

Peter screwed up his face and focused on sticking. It makes his head hurt if he thinks about it too much; the sticking is much easier when it’s done instinctually, when it’s either stick or die. In this case, it’s either stick or maybe break Iron Man’s personal phone, which has almost the same effect. He slowly turned his hand upside down and splayed out his fingers, leaving the phone remaining flush with his palm against all odds.

Tony poked the phone. It stuck.

“Alright, kid, keep sticking. I’m going to mess with it.”

Peter snorted as Tony kept trying to wiggle the phone. “This is glass. Glass is sheer. It should be sliding around.”

“I don’t know, man.” Peter flipped his hand back over and held the phone out to Tony. “I’m just sticky.”

Tony took the phone with a quick snap of his wrist and slid it back in his pocket. “That’s the fun part: you’re not sticky. It must be some…” He wiggled his fingers off to the side. “Electrostatic… Something.”

“I have it on my feet too,” Peter added helpfully.

Tony sighed and motioned to the window behind him. “Do your thing.”

Peter walked past Tony to reach the window. He looked over his shoulder once, and then crawled up the window. He stood up straight, effectively parallel with Tony’s line of sight. Tony walked up and pushed his shoulder. He didn’t move.

“I give up,” he said. “You’re even wearing shoes! This is worse than Thor’s hammer.”

Peter snorted and turned his neck to make eye contact with Tony. He said in a deep, gravelly voice, “Whosoever pushes this spider, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Spider-Man.”

Tony sighed again. His lungs would probably fall out by the end of this day. “Alright. Day one results: super strong, super sticky. Anything else?”

“Um…” Peter cringed as his stomach growled. “Can we test my metabolism?”

Tony checked his watch and huffed. “Time flies. Sure, kid. What do you eat these days, pizza? Dead flies?”

“Chinese?” Peter countered, lowering himself down to the ground and wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Here, I’ll show you where we keep the takeout menus.”

Tony led Peter back to the elevators. They made their way to the kitchen area and ordered some dinner without any trouble. After a bit of chatting, Tony went down to the entrance to the compound to pick up the take-out. He returned promptly, and they started to chow down.

After a few minutes of silence, Peter got hit in the head by a chopstick. He gasped and looked up to Tony, who was shamelessly acting as if nothing happened.

“Again?”

“Just testing your…” Tony snapped his fingers as he tried to come up with a name. “Spider hormones. Turns out you’re vulnerable while you’re eating.”

Peter picked up the chopstick. “I was in the middle of chewing, man!”

He put the chopstick in the middle of his palm and flipped his hand upside down, showing off a little. Tony tried to nonchalantly tug it off, but it was stuck.

“Very funny. This place is filled with forks, I don’t need that.” Nonetheless, he was still trying to get his chopstick back. “Alright, please?”

At the magic word, Peter unstuck from the chopstick. Tony jolted back slightly at the sudden change of resistance.

“Mess with the spider, you get the webs,” Peter retorted.

Tony laughed. “Remind me to not get on your bad side.”

When Peter left the table to throw away his empty box, he eyed the pans hanging on the kitchen wall.

“Are these pans non-stick?” he called over his shoulder.

“Pretty sure. No one uses them anymore, so they might be a bit dusty.” Tony trailed behind him and leaned on the wall. “Why, still hungry? I can cook up a mean omelet.”

Peter stuck his hand to the center of one of the pans and pulled it off the rack. He looked at Tony, the pan flush with his hand.

“Not very non-stick after all.”

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “You better not get spider-fingerprints on everything now.” He warily watched as Peter eyed the ceiling. “Or spider-footprints on anything you can’t clean up.”

Peter sighed and mumbled something that almost sounded like arachnophobe. Tony threw his other chopstick at him, which he caught with his free hand without looking. He threw it back at Tony, who fumbled with it before getting a solid grasp.

“Elder abuse, I’m telling your aunt,” Tony threatened.

Peter laughed. “She’d be on my side.”

“You Parkers.” Tony sniffed theatrically. “Always ganging up on me.”

Peter smirked and put the pan back on the rack.

It was a fun day, he thought. And then he stuck his hand to his phone, just because he could.

Tag List: @ironfamjam @addi-is-amazing @mysterio-is-a-little-bitch @wellplacedbanana @night0seven @unfathomable-universe @bibbidi-bobbity-booyah @spideynamu

#this was a day late thats my b!#but bone app the teeth nonetheless #art writes #spiderman #spider-man #iron man #irondad #iron dad #mcu #marvel #wooo #not super confident about this one fellas #irondadficexchange

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writingpaperghost · 3 years

Note

hello will u pls write more ultraman zero content? doesn't even have to be anything important man I just love him maybe he'll befriend the reader and go explore earth together at night or something thank u I've fallen down the zero hole lmfao

I think everyone has, in some capacity, fallen down the Zero hole. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do for this, and I lost half of it and had to rewrite it, so I hope it’s okay and not too random in what happens.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678292

---

The day started pretty normally, as far as you were concerned. You were going about your daily activities, as usual, and were now grading homework. It was a tedious part of the day, but it had to be done. As you read through the answers on this current question, you had to wonder how your students came up with such responses.

Q: What topic will you write your essay on next week?

The answers came in many varieties, from how paper was made to the history of baseball. Then there was the one that you found the most interesting, “Why It’s Wrong to Attack Monsters Unprovoked”, You knew without looking who’s idea this was, one of your students, Koki, had very strong opinions about the treatment of monsters. Which was fine, it was good to have opinions. And flipping through the rest of his homework, you found that he already had a good foundation for his essay and a good plan for it. You rolled your eyes but smiled, you were pretty excited to see what he could come up with.

As you were heading home for the day, though, was when the odd things began to occur. The first wasn’t exactly surprising, another Kaiju seemed to have wandered into the city, which wasn’t really unusual. It happened a lot. It made you think about Koki, as you were speed walking to a less crowded area, farther from where those fleeing the monster was. Koki felt very strongly about monsters, to the point that he got into a lot of arguments with other students about it.

The next thing that happened was a little different. A giant appeared in front of the monster, the news was showing it. The giant looked mostly humanoid, barring the strange fins on his head and was blue, red, and silver. You frowned. You’d never really seen something like it before...

It began to fight the monster, using the fins on its head a weapons. You weren’t sure what to think of it. On one hand, it was stopping the monster, at the very least. On the other hand, who knew what it was, it had simply appeared from the sky in a flash of light. Although the whole “stopping the monster” thing was a bit debatable. While you didn’t know much about fighting, you were pretty sure the giant was only barely winning.

Then, once the monster was defeated, as soon as the giant had appeared, it disappeared in an equally bright flash as its appearance. You stretched, deciding the funny feeling that had just come over you was just something like a headache or something. The stress of whatever the hell that was fighting the monster. Maybe you were coming down with a cold. It didn’t really matter to you, the point was that you brushed it off.

At least, you brushed it off until you were getting off the train nearest to your home and finally you hear someone say. “I, uh, hope you don’t mind me hanging out here for a while.”

You look around, trying to figure who was talking, and if they were talking to you. The strange part was, you couldn’t really figure out who had said that. It didn’t really seem like anyone had spoken, let alone to you. Of course, you supposed that you weren’t the person the voice had been talking to, but it sure felt like it.

“No, no, I’m definitely talking to you.” You heard again - it was the same voice.

Feeling your forehead, you quietly mutter, “Do I have a fever? Is this a fever dream?”

There’s quiet for a moment before the voice responds again, “Uh, no, you don’t seem to be sick...” Then, as though he’d finally realized the source of your distress - namely himself - he adds, “Oh, uh sorry? You can’t really see me... I’m kinda just hanging out in your head, so to speak. I’m Zero, Ultraman Zero.”

Ultraman? You’d never head of that before. It sounded like a hero in a TV show or something. You continued walking, hoping that whatever this guy was, he’d go away.

“Well, I can’t, really. At least not right now.” What? How’d he known what you were thinking? And why couldn’t he leave? The voice continued after you thought that, “Since I’m in your mind, I can hear most of your thoughts. And the reason I can’t leave yet is ‘cause I’m still recovering from my fight with that monster.”

That was enough to stop your walking, brain turning over his last few words. Finally, you blurted, “You were that giant fighting the monster?” You hadn’t exactly meant to say it out loud, but quickly glancing at your surrounding showed that there was, thankfully, no one around to hear it. You had, though, gone off course on your way home.

“Oh yeah, I forgot, you guys probably haven’t seen an Ultra before,” The voice - Zero - mutters. You don’t think it’s directed specifically at you, but you hear it regardless.

“Right,” You grumble slightly, “So uh, how long are you gonna be sticking around?”

“Uh...” Zero takes a moment to think, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence in you. “No more than a week, probably?”

“Probably?”

There’s a moment of silence before Zero responds to your question. You can’t tell if it’s because he really wasn’t entirely sure of his answer or if he just really didn’t want to answer. Either way, he does respond, eventually, “Well, I’m not sure how long exactly it’ll take,” He says, “But there’s no reason it should take longer than a week, I’m not so hurt that it would.”

“So I just have to deal with you for a week?” You sighed, returning on your trek home. It would be a bit harder now, you weren’t familiar with this part of the city, but you thought you’d be able to manage. “I mean, I guess it could be worse.”

You’re pretty sure Zero is pouting when he responds, “Aw, come on. Don’t think of me so much as a nuisance as a...” He pauses to find a word to describe himself as, “As a cool new friend you get to have around for a week.”

“Yeah sure,” You roll your eyes and look around. You figure you could probably get home if you just turn around, but you’re not entirely sure that you walked in a straight line, either. With a frown, you note that the sun is starting to go down. You were a paranoid sort of person who didn’t like running around at night alone - even if Zero was here, he wasn’t exactly going to be able to do something - so you really wanted to get going. With a shake of your head, you turn around and begin walking back the way you came.

After walking for a minute or so, Zero speaks up again, “Ah, isn’t this the way you came from?”

Once again, you roll your eyes, “I was so distracted by you, that I took a wrong turn.”

“Whoops,” He chuckles, “I didn’t think I was that distracting.”

You laugh slightly at his response, “Yeah, well it’s not everyday that a voice just pops into your head.” Then you stop walking, “How do I know you’re not a figment of my imagination?”

“Do you really think yourself that creative?”

“Not really,” You say as you start walking again. “I don’t even think any of my students could be that creative.”

“Students?” Zero echoed, “I didn’t take you as the type to teach.”

“Well I do,” You say as you adjust your bag on your shoulder, “Now what about you?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your job? Or is fighting monsters considered a job for you?” You clarify your question.

“I mean, it is.” He responds, “I guess I do have a student myself. Kind of. Sort of.”

“I didn’t take you as the type to teach,” You echo with a laugh, “But in all honesty, how do you ‘kind of. sort of.’ have a student?”

Zero himself chuckles, then answers your question, “Well, I mean, he’s my student, yeah, but I’m not exactly a teacher. I don’t really know what I’m doing - not that I’m going to tell him that.” You’re pretty sure you’re close to being home now, thank goodness. It was getting a bit too dark for your taste. “I know he’ll do great things, I just hope my lackluster teaching skills don’t mess that up.”

With a hum you decide to respond with what you hope might be something he finds helpful, “I’m sure that so long as you do your best, that’s all that will matter.”

“Eh, I’m not so sure of that,” Zero really doesn’t sound all that convinced, “But I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

You finally got home, after having sped walked most if not the whole way back. Thankfully, nothing had happened, and you were now significantly more relaxed. It seemed that Zero had noticed your change in tension.

“What, do you not like the dark?”

Taking your bag off your shoulder, you groaned in response, then said, “I don’t like being out at night. And certainly not alone.”

“But you’re not alone,” Zero responded cheekily, “I’m here.”

“Alone.” You repeated, “You really don’t count.”

“Fine, fine.” You were pretty sure that Zero was pouting when he said that. If he could even pout, which you weren’t entirely sure about.

---

Six days have passed since Zero appeared, almost a week, and you’d found that he was actually pretty good company. The two of you seemed to get along pretty well, even if his constant prescience occasionally grated on your nerves.

So as you walked home that evening, Zero speaking up wasn’t that surprising, though what he said was out of the blue. “You should do something tonight.”

“What?” You asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Zero began, “You should go out tonight. See what this place is like at night.”

“No,” Was your flat response, “No way.”

After a few more minutes of back and forth about it, it became very clear that he wasn’t going to drop the subject. So finally, as you were almost home, you just sighed and gave up. “Fine,” You said, “Fine, I’ll go out tonight. I don’t know the point of it but fine.”

Which was how you spent the rest of the time after you got home before dark mentally preparing yourself. You really weren’t sure what Zero wanted, why he wanted you to go out. You didn’t even know what you would do. But at this point, you knew you weren’t getting out of it.

When you finally walked out during the night, you could already feel discomfort. You looked around, then asked Zero, “So what are we going to do.”

“I don’t know.” He responded, “Your the one who’s been here.”

“Yeah, but this was your idea and I don’t go out at night.”

Zero doesn’t really respond to that, he just starts talking with you about various things. While he does so, you just wander. The world seemed so different at night, you were trying to make sure that you didn’t get lost. After a while, you find yourself at an overlook in a park, looking out on the city. You blinked, taking in the lights of the city and the stars above it.

“Oh,” Zero intones, abruptly cutting off his previous sentence, “So that’s what they look like from here.”

“What?” You wonder aloud, “The stars? Or the lights?”

He takes a moment before he responds, “Both, really. Stars look different in space than down here. And so do the lights of cities.” His tone is thoughtful, perhaps a bit contemplative.

“Hm... Yeah, they do look very nice,” You say, “I guess it’s been a while since I really looked at them.”

“Too scared of the dark?” It wasn’t a mocking response, it was really meant to be more humorous, if anything. Or maybe it was just understanding.

“I guess so,” You chuckle, “Thanks for getting me to come out here. I wouldn’t look at this if it weren’t for you.”

Zero laughs, “Aw, come on, I just really wanted to see this place at night.”

“Oh really?” You smile, drumming your fingers against the railing. “Well I guess this is just a happy coincidence.”

“I guess so.”

---

The next day came far too quickly for your liking. Zero sticks around through most of the day, but his initial guess of only needing a week to recover turned out to be correct. You’re a bit sad that he has to leave, but you understand that he has other things to do. You stand in a park, now, the one that you were at the night before.

You lean against the railing as you and Zero say your farewells.

“Well, I guess it’s time for me to go,” He said after a few moments of silence.

“I guess so,” You echo quietly, “If you’re ever nearby, you should stop by and say hi.”

Zero gives a slightly awkward chuckle, “Yeah, I will.”

You’re not really sure what else to say. So you settle for a lame “Bye,”

“Yeah, see ya, I guess.”

Clearly goodbyes were neither of your strong suits. Still, you feel the odd feeling that you’d become somewhat accustomed to the past few days leave. There’s a bright light, Zero, and then he’s gone. You just wave, a small smile on your face.

Honestly, you hoped you’d see him again, at the very least because he was your friend. If he thought he’d avoid that, he chose the wrong human to hang out in the body of.

#ultraman #ultraman zero #reader insert #my writing #request

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padfootagain · 5 years

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Webs And Snowflakes

Okay, I know this request was sent a long time ago, but I felt in the mood for a cute set of prompts! So here we go with some adorable Peter Parker in the snow!!!

This request was sent by @random-ffandom, with the wintery prompts :

24. "It's snowing!"

31. "This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Let's do it."

39. "You have snow all over your hair. It looks cute."

Hope you all like this!

Gif not mine

Word Count : 2505

It wasn't so much because you now knew he was Spider-man. It wasn't so much because you knew he never had an internship at Stark Industries, but was actually teaming up with Iron Man. It wasn't because you had actually met Iron Man by now, along with his wife and daughter. It wasn't because you and Peter had been brought back from the dusted dead. No, the shift in your friendship had nothing to do with all that. It had to do with the incident.

The incident. Three days before. It was night, in the little cottage Stark had let you and Peter borrow for the holidays. Ned should have joined you, but he had tripped over some Lego while you completed your Millenium Falcon, and had earned a sprained ankle. The trip to the snowy mountains was thus out of order for him. Tony and his family were to arrive a week after you, and would spend one week with you. You were expecting the moment when Peter would call Tony 'dad', to be fully honest.

That's how you had found yourself alone with Peter in the Stark cottage, in the mountains, surrounded with snow.

Now… the incident… three days before, it was night, you were hungry in the middle of the night and went venturing to find some snack in your pyjamas.

Only, Peter was looking for a snack too. He had opened the fridge and was looking inside. And in the pale light of the refrigerator, you could see that Peter was not wearing pyjamas. He was only in his underwear.

Obviously, it didn't reveal more than you seeing him in a swimsuit at the pool would have revealed. But the matter of the fact was that you were not in a pool. Or on a beach. And it was not a swimsuit. It was his underwear. Black boxer-shirts. And the rest of his body was all bare skin.

And that was enough to give you a heart-attack.

Because he was handsome, his back turned to the dark but face and torso and thighs in the white light. He was narrowing his eyes a little as he scanned the interior of the fridge. He hadn't heard you yet. But you knew his Spider tingle would soon detect your presence. You were only in the doorway after all, six meters away from him, and it was late at night, and knowing him you knew he was hesitating between the last piece of chocolate cake and some ice cream.

You noticed the frown forming on his face and the way his bicep tensed, and you knew he would soon see you. You could still try and make a run for it. But before you could run away, he had turned dark brown eyes towards you, his lips parting a little in surprise to see you standing there.

And the rest of the moment was just awkward and you still, to this day, wanted to bang your head against whatever surface was close to you rather than relive the memory. When he had asked you what you were doing up, all you could answer was that you had heard something and thought there might be an alien invasion or something just as dangerous and wanted to check if you would be dusted again or not.

To which he had answered with a confused chuckle.

You were pathetic.

You hit repeatedly your forehead against the table before you to wash the memory away.

Why did you have to always be so socially awkward? Why? WHY?

"Hey, Y/N! Are you alright?"

You jolted upright on your chair, looking up at Peter with wide eyes. You hurried to find back some composure though – or so you thought.

"Hey! Peter! Yeah… I'm fine! Totally fine! You? You're fine? All rolling?"

All rolling?! What was that even supposed to mean?

"Errr… yeah. I'm great."

He blushed, rather fiercely, and you thought it was simply because, once again, you hadn't failed at being ridiculous. Actually, he was just thinking about the incident again.

He couldn't manage to see you as a mere friend since the incident.

It had happened before you left for the cottage. You, Ned and Peter were finishing up your homework to be sure that your holidays could be focused on skiing and nothing else. And that's when he had seen it.

You were laughing like mad at one of Ned's nerdy jokes, and twisting on your chair in that adorable way you had to laugh with your entire frame, and then he saw it. Your t-shirt going up a few inches, enough for him get a glimpse at your waist.

And hell, these few inches of skin had been haunting him ever since. As if his crush on you had not been strong enough before, after that day, it was simply uncontrollable. There was no denying anymore.

And now he was at a loss for words when he had spent fifteen minutes in his bedroom repeating this conversation with himself.

He forced his brain to focus on the task at hand again.

"Hmm…" he cleared his throat before continuing. "What would you think about getting out a little? There's a nice slope nearby I saw yesterday. And we have sleighs. So…"

He forced himself to shut up before he would babble too much. He was such a fool…

"Oh! Yeah, that sounds fun! Let's do it!" you answered with an excited grin, already getting on your feet.

He gave you a bright smile as you both reached for your warm coats. Indeed, there were two sleighs outside, right on the porch. The cottage was a few hundred meters away from the little town lost in the American mountains, but it was enough to make it feel like it was lost in the deepest parts of a mysterious forest taken directly from a fairytale. You almost expected a wolf or a little girl in red to jump out of these bushes…

There were spare trees all around you, as the cottage was set at the edge of a denser forest. A deep layer of white, pure snow covered both the ground and the leaves of the evergreen trees. Branches too wore hats of snow. Few birds were brave enough to sing in such a cold, it was a few celsius degrees under zero, after all.

It was late morning, and the sun, although the cold air made the sky paler than usual, was shining without the bother of clouds hiding its light. Through the cold wind, your breath escaped in tiny puffs of smokes carried away as soon as they were created.

You followed him through the trees, silence settling between the two of you. It was a little uncomfortable, as if none of you knew how to start the conversation. Which was insane, as the two of you had been friends for years.

Your friendship had resisted years passing by, the end of the world, being dusted and brought back, him becoming a super-hero… and it was shaking because of a crush. How ridiculous was that?

Your hands were wet in your gloves, and you kept your eyes fixed on your shoes. How could your friendship find its rhythm again? And… did you really want your relationship to be back as it was?

You shook yourself out of your thoughts and focused on the real world again as Peter came to a stop before you.

He proudly grinned as he pointed at the slope in front of him. Rather clear of trees and just steep enough to make sure you would have a laugh. It was a great spot, you had to admit it.

“Race to the bottom, Parker?” you teased him, a playful smile on your lips that made his heart miss a beat.

“Get ready to lose, Y/L/N.”

“We’ll see about that!”

You raced a few times - and you lost for most of the races, but didn’t really mind. You had pulled your sleigh up the slope again, laughing hard at Peter, when he made you a crazy offer.

“Let’s go down together. We tie our sleighs together with some of my webs, and go down.”

You blinked a few times as your brain processed his mad offer, your eyes travelling from Peter to the sleighs and then back to Peter.

“This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” you answered with a wicked smile. “Let’s do it.”

In just a moment, Peter had tied up the sleighs together. As you took place in your own seat, you couldn’t fail to notice how close you were to him, how your arms brushed, and the contact, even if only through several layers of clothes, made both your and Peter’s heart stammer. You both avoided eye contact. You both struggled to hide your messy breathing and blamed it on the sleighing and excitement. It was better to push it all away…

“Ready?” Peter asked in a whisper that turned a little shaky.

You merely nodded in response, and helped him pushing the sleighs over the edge…

And you were sliding down in the snow, your trajectory distorted by the two weights tied together, and both you and Peter were soon shouting and laughing like mad. Cold wind hitting your cheeks made your skin burn.

You had almost reached the end of the slope when you felt the situation get out of control.

"Watch out!" Peter shouted in warning, but none of you were capable of taking back control of the sleighs… and you were soon falling over, face first in the deep snow.

You rolled on a few meters, the soft snow preventing you from getting hurt. You had barely come to a stop when something rather heavy bumped into you.

"Sorry," Peter groaned, coming to a stop right against you.

You were lying on your belly, face in the snow, while he lied on his back. You were the first to explode into laughter as you rolled to your side, and Peter's laugh soon joined yours.

For as long as you kept on laughing, none of you noticed how close to each other you laid, how your breath mingled into one between you, how your finger almost brushed… But then the laughter waned, carried away by the wind, it seemed, and you were left with only silence again. And silence was far from good enough to distract any of you from the nearness of the other.

You caught him glimpsing at your lips, and he started as he realized his movement, staring back into your eyes with a panicked expression painted all over his features, his mouth dropping a little in shock. He waited for you to move. His heart was beating faster than ever, and he was so terrified that adrenaline had frozen his muscles. Which was unusual for him. He had fought monsters and aliens and was more terrified by you than any of them. Or well, he reckoned it was simply not the same kind of fear.

He was so afraid of your reaction. What if you slapped him? What if you never wanted to speak to him again?

Or perhaps you wouldn't have noticed. It lasted only a few seconds after all, perhaps you hadn't payed attention to his look at your mouth, and perhaps all would be fine…

Yes, yes, all would be fine.

Meanwhile, your brain was working at full speed, so fast indeed that you wondered how you could keep up with your own thoughts.

You wanted to yield to an amazingly crazy impulse…

… would you?

You weighed the pros and the cons for a couple of seconds, but then, you were the one glimpsing at his lips, and any rational thought was thrown to the wind.

Instead, you decided to listen to that spontaneous shout that screamed so loud through your soul at this moment, that every other sound in the world was shushed, falling in a motionless quiet only your own movement could break.

And so you moved. You moved fast enough to flee from the fear of rejection that was lurking on the edge of your mind. You effortlessly distanced all thoughts of consequences, and instead, leaned forward until your lips met his.

It was barely more than a peck, really. It lasted but a second or two, but it was enough to make your very soul tremble. You could forget about the legendary butterflies in the stomach, what you felt were more like explosions, fireworks spreading through your veins.

As you pulled away, you stared at him with wide eyes, waiting for his reaction. The lack of contact and sudden cold hitting your lips again had the effect of an electroshock on you. Your brain was back at swirling with thoughts, and screaming in the void. Suddenly, all the consequences hit you at once, and it was unbearable. The most torturing part of it was that, besides waiting for Peter to react, there was nothing you could do.

But Peter's brain was on overload-mode at the moment, and it seemed that it had stopped working quite altogether. Waiting for a reboot of the thought system, he could merely stare right back at you with wide-eyes that matched yours.

Finally, he moved his lips to open and close his mouth a couple of times. You reckoned that he was looking for the right words. After all, it was Peter. If he were to break your heart, he would try to do it delicately.

Could one do that? Delicately break a heart?

You couldn't just wait for it anymore. You reckoned that if he were to push you away, then the sooner the better.

"Peter, I…"

But the rest of your sentence remained trapped in your mouth. Not because you couldn't find the right words, but because he was pressing his lips against yours now…

This time, it was a little more than a peck though, it was enough to make time stop, and your heart stumble in your chest in such a way you were certain it would either stop beating either explode. And when you broke apart again, none of you had fear in your eyes. There were no doubts left that the other felt exactly the same. Instead of frightened figures, you turned into smiling ones.

It felt a little surreal, a little high, a little too heavenly. You didn't mind the feeling though.

You finally noticed the snowflakes falling on your cheek, cold against your flushed skin. You looked up to the grey sky, a laugh on your lips.

"It's snowing!"

Peter let out an adorable giggle, raising a shaky hand to brush some of your hair out of your face.

"You have snow all over your hair. It looks cute," was the only answer he thought of.

You shied away a little, but in a way that made his heart melt.

You stayed there, lying in the snow for a rather long while. After all, why move away from heaven, huh?

********

Taglist : @ponycake27 @horsesreign @xinyourdreamsx @jbluevelvet @notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss @stuckupstucky @snek-shit @suchatinyinfinity @i-padfootblack-things @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi @rishlo @theshortegg @madamrogers

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker imagine #spider-man #spider-man fanfiction #spider-man imagine #mcu #mcu fanfiction #mcu imagine #imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

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quatregats · 4 years

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How to feel less bad about Everything: Part the First

I thought that in these trying times I would try to write a sort of explanation for how to (maybe???) start getting yourself to feel better. I've seen plenty of advice floating around for how to be productive and lift your mood, but a lot of it has just made me feel worse because I feel like I'm not doing enough, which just makes me want to give up on everything. If you've been feeling the same way, this guide is for you.

In the past almost-year I've found out that it's not actually being productive that makes my mental health feel better. I've gone through a lot of periods where I'm getting stuff done, but I still feel terrible; conversely, I've also gone through periods where I feel great and like I'm doing lots of things, and actually I'm just doing my normal amount of work. So simple productivity isn't the whole solution here – it's doing things and making your brain recognize that you're doing them.

That's actually a lot more complicated than it sounds, because if your brain doesn't want to believe something there's not a lot you can do. But one thing that's helped me feel better when mental health things crop up is to try to rebuild my confidence in myself. The way I do this is to set smaller goals and to try and be consistent, two things which are also a lot more complicated than they sound. The following guide is a way to get yourself to do that, and hopefully it can help!

aaaaaand on to part 1.... the Baseline! (takes your baseline and throws it out the window)

(under the cut b/c this is Too Long)

Setting reasonable goals is weirdly difficult, especially if you're like me and always want to do 20 million different things at every opportunity. The first thing that you need to do, and this is very important, is just let go of feeling like you have to be doing something, relaxing your expectations for yourself to absolute zero – literally absolute zero, like existing-on-this-earth-right-now-is-an-achievement absolute zero – and ignoring anything and everything that's giving you some standard to meet. Get rid of feeling like you have requirements, because you don't. And stop feeling guilty about things. No guilt. If you feel guilty I will fight you, you have nothing to feel guilty about because you exist and therefore you did all you need to do. Once you've managed to let go of feeling like you need to be doing things (or at least sort of managed to, it’s hard to completely throw it out of the window if you’ve had it ingrained into you all your life), you’re ready to move on to the next paragraph.

Pick 1-3 things that you want to work on. If switching activities or focus is hard for you, pick 1 thing. If you need variety, pick 3. But don't pick a lot of things. There is lots of advice out there for what to do when you're not in a good mental state, but if you're not in a good mental state, it can, rather ironically, be super overwhelming and just make it worse. If you're trying to deal with feeling depressed, anxious, or even just unproductive, focus on one thing that's making you feel really bad. That is the only thing you're going to be worrying about now. Not your chores, not your messy room, not the bazillion messages from your friends that you haven’t read. Convince yourself that absolutely nothing else matters, even if you feel like it does, because it doesn't.

Say, for example, that you're going to try to focus on self-care. That means that taking care of your body and mind is the only thing that you need to be thinking about during the day (of course you can think about other things too, but you don’t need to). Set 2-4 tasks that you can easily achieve – they might take a bit more effort than lying in bed but you think you could muster the strength to do them if that was all you had to do. If you're feeling really depressed or anxious, for example, you could set 2 simple goals: drink 2 glasses of water and get out of bed to open the curtains. Or maybe you're just feeling jilted out of your routine, and so you want to try to take a shower, eat 3 meals a day, and go for a walk – these might all be things you more or less do, but you haven't been good at sticking to all of them lately. The key is that whatever you're trying to do needs to be something you can do, and it needs to come from you, not some weird nebulous feeling of guilt. If you're not up to eating 3 meals a day right now, that's fine. Do what you can.

If you need to focus on more than one thing to keep yourself entertained, only set 1-2 goals for each thing. For example, if you're focusing on self-care and school, then you'll have a self-care goal, like drink 2 glasses of water, and a school goal, like sitting down and doing 15 minutes of homework every day. Keep the number of goals down! Only make more if you think you can actually achieve them, but having more than about 3-4 specific goals is too much to start with. We're doing the bare minimum here. Don’t overcomplicate it. Nothing else matters outside of these few things, stop acting like it does.

Now that you've set these goals, write them down somewhere. Multiple places, if you want. Make a sticker chart and write them on a post-it note and set them as reminders on your phone. The goal here is as much positive feedback as possible, so the more things you can check off and star and cover with stickers, the better. Show yourself that you're doing things, so that your brain has to believe it. Offer yourself rewards if you need to – watching a show, scrolling through the internet, eating a bag of cookies, literally anything you want. If you're still feeling guilty about anything, stop. You're doing things, remember? You're doing your 2-4 things, and nothing else matters.

Okay, this last step is the most important: stick to it. You need to hold yourself accountable, because if you don't it's going to be really hard to get started, and also to keep going after more than a couple of days. A plan is nice and all, but it's not much good if you don't do it. Remember, you only have a couple of things you need to get done every day. Just do them. But also make sure you remember to do them, and motivate yourself to do them. Rewards and stickers are all good, but sometimes inertia holds you back from starting. A lot of times, I'll have a reward, but then feel like the thing is impossible so it isn't worth it to bother trying. Even if the reward is something I really want, I can't motivate myself to start. So make a promise to someone you can't let down. Promise your stuffed animals, your best friend, your 5 Tumblr followers, literally anyone. And then tell yourself over and over again until you do it: I just have to do this one thing, and then I'm finished. I just have to do this one thing, and then I'm finished. I just have to do this one thing, and then I'm finished. It won't take that long to do it, I promise. But you have to get it done, and the sooner the better.

Finally, if you stumble, that’s okay. If you miss a day, the world doesn’t end. If your goals are too hard, bring them down a notch. But don’t give up. Keep trying until you get it right, because I can promise that you will get it right. Remember, you’re not trying to be productive, you’re trying to remember how to believe in yourself. Make sure that you truly have let go of all of your expectations for yourself, because that’s your #1 enemy. And most importantly, be kind to yourself. If you do something, even if it’s not the whole list, celebrate it. If you didn’t do anything on the list that day, tell yourself what you did do. Even if it wasn’t ““productive””, I’m sure you did things. Heck, even staring at the ceiling is something. You’ll try again tomorrow, and you’re not going to give up without a fight.

That’s it! If you want to, try it out (and by that I mean actually do it) >:’0 Next week, I'll do a follow-up post for how to keep moving upwards once you've gotten here, but I’ll leave it at this for now, because I don't want to spoil the surprise before you guys have started :)

#ahaha this is so long #does it need a tldr?#probably #i will try to shut up more for the next one #anyway yeah if you need someone to hold you accountable i got u bro #the key is not making it be about getting things done but rather making you feel like you're getting things done #so it doesn't really matter what the things are #that's the secret to life folks #perce rambles

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Got my nightmare professor fired, might've indirectly gotten him deported too

Before this tale even begins, this is obviously a throwaway account. This is a big bitch of a story spanning two semesters, so I'm putting the tealdeer at the beginning and at the end for those who are short on time.

TL;DR - My French professor was so terrible that I decided to get him fired on behalf of my classmates. After he got fired, my partner that I worked with to do this tipped him off to an immigration agency to get him deported.

Last semester, I enrolled in an introductory French course at my university. This was to learn at least a little bit of French so that I could read French papers about French filmmaking techniques since I'm a pretty hardcore film student and I really love film as an art form. Plus, I needed some gen ed credit for my degree, so it made sense to take the course.

I went to the first lecture kind of dreading the course. I was in 19 credit hours, which is taking six classes in a single semester, and the class was 4 credit hours, meaning we met four days out of the week, every week. Very overwhelming schedule, indeed. Needless to say, I didn't work a single job that semester.

The professor, who will be referred to as Baguette because it's one of the few French words I actually know, began to go through the syllabus and I watched as the excitement that is usually present in students on the first day slowly left everyone's faces. Before I explain why, I have to address that this is the most basic French class that the university I go to offers and is really meant for people who never took a lick of French in high school. Like me.

Baguette announced that not only would he be teaching the entire class in fluent French with no English whatsoever, he wouldn't be answering questions in English at all, and if you asked him a question in French but got even a word or a conjugation wrong, he wouldn't answer you either. Attendance was mandatory as well, and you could only miss 4 class periods before he started dropping letter grades. Now, this attendance policy is unfair bullshit because we met for class just under 60 times that semester, meaning you would fail the course if you missed 8 class periods, which is only about 7% of the total course. I was looking around the class and people looked like they couldn't drop this class fast enough.

Then, he announced that not only would we not be using a physical book, we'd be using a free website online, a site called Francais Interactif. Now, this got some excitement back in the air. Textbook prices suck, and anything to lower the cost of education for students is great. You can even use the site yourself to practice your French skills, if you want. It's open source, knock yourself out.

That said, the site isn't meant to replace a textbook. There's a free workbook and audio files to help with aural comprehension on it, and that helped me and some of the other students pass some of the exams, but the site's equivalent to the part of a textbook that actually teaches you the material is extremely lacking, sometimes only having a couple of paragraphs about a really important concept in the language. In short, it gives you a ton of ways to practice concepts but almost no ways to learn them in the first place.

This would have been totally fine if Baguette would have explained things better in his lectures. But, as you'll recall, he gave them entirely in French, and in fast fluent French. So, picture this; you have to sit through four classes a week that you understand literally nothing of for an hour at a time while the professor rambles on in a language that you don't understand but are desperately trying to learn, and on top of all that, you can't even ask him any questions in English because he won't answer you and you can't ask him any questions in French either, because you don't know how to do that properly yet, and you won't for 3/4ths of the semester, because the unit that covers question words and phrases was arbitrarily put a few weeks after midterms, and on top of all that, you can't even really do your homework or study for exams because you have no fucking idea what any of this nasally shit means. Naturally, we, as a class, slowly started to get more and more frustrated as time went on. A few of us decided to band together and be friends and study partners to weather the storm. I'll call the important ones to the story R and S.

S was a foreign exchange student from Spain who spoke perfect Spanish and was taking the class to learn French for when she goes back to Europe. Now, we dug into what all other classes Baguette taught and found out that he taught Spanish, too. Perfect. We found a loophole. We could ask S a question in English, and she could ask him in Spanish, since it wasn't asking him in English, and he could answer in Spanish and she could translate that back to us in English. Now, you might be saying to yourself that this a fucking stupid and no self respecting educator should teach in this broken, shitty, ass-backwards way. You're right.

This worked for a bit, but he started answering S's Spanish questions in French to combat our little exploit of the rules. We were defeated and back to square one. We needed to devise a new plan, because most of us were failing at this point and we were stressed beyond belief.

R, a frat lad, and I, decidedly not a frat lad, became unlikely friends. He was a pretty naive kid, and he was a hardcore drinker. It visibly took a toll on him. He had a beer gut at 22 and addiction kind of mentally hollowed him out and made him flippant and emotional. The guy was super easy to piss off and he overreacted to everything. I felt bad for the guy and even outside of the struggle in class, I tried my best to be there for him. We were talking one day and we decided to meet up at the library and just theorize ways to crack the class to get at least a 60.

At the library, R was playing around on Francais Interactif trying to find the videos the professor would use for the aural part of the exam (basically, you'd listen to the video and copy down whatever the person was saying for credit. problem was, it was hard as shit and it was easily the part of the exams that took the biggest chunk out of the class's grade). He couldn't find them on the site anywhere and he got frustrated and gave up, so he started filling in the slots where you put answers on the homework pages of Francais Interactif with random words.

That's when we realized that when you do this, the site gives you the right answer regardless, no matter how wrong you are. Essentially, we now had access to the entire course's answers for the homework section and all we had to do was put one character into the answer boxes and, since all we had to do for the homework assignments was copy and paste our answers into a Word document and submit them online, we could theoretically do all the homework while knowing zero material whatsoever if we just changed the answers in Word. We sat for about 45 minutes and did the rest of the homework for the entire course this way in one sitting.

We agreed to not turn it all in at once so we couldn't get caught and we agreed to keep our mouths shut and only share this with people who wouldn't rat on us. Obviously, we told S.

One of the things I'll never forget about that first French class was that, during the final, one of the students started to quietly weep. Then, the weeping got louder, then louder still. The student was clutching his head in his hands and you could feel the palpable impotent frustration at his inability to do French correctly. After I finished the final, I saw him outside the class staring out a window in the hall. I asked if he was alright and what he was crying about and he told me he couldn't answer even the most basic questions asking for words for things like left and right and up and down and that was thing that finally broke him. That got to me, man.

Most of the kids failed the course, even some of the ones who used the homework exploit. R and S passed with a D and I passed with a C, surprisingly. The professor actually liked me, for some reason, and graded my exams a bit more fairly. Even still, I'm an A/B student, one in the Honor's Program at my university, so a C kind of stung my GPA. But, seeing as more than half the class failed, I counted my lucky stars that I got off easy.

I went to enroll in my classes for the next semester, and I had completely forgot that I still had to take another French class for my degree. I checked the class list and the second class you're supposed to take in the progression was only taught by Baguette. No other professor taught Beginning French II, apparently. This struck me as kind of odd, so I checked the rest of the French classes that were available. All of them, all 6 courses in the French department, were taught by Baguette. He was the only fucking teacher the department had. My stomach dropped as I realized I had locked myself into yet another class taught by the worst professor I've ever had, to this day.

This is class where the revenge begins, and I'm sorry if that preamble was too long, but I had to give context as to how horrible Baguette was. Even still, I'm frankly not doing him justice. His class was an artful trainwreck of incompetence, in the slowest slow motion available over nearly 60 class periods. And I had to do it again, only this time with harder material.

I had been keeping up with R and S over the winter break and S was going back to Spain, so she wouldn't be in the next class with me. But, I got R to enroll in the same section of Beginning French II as me.

Baguette passed out the syllabus to Beginning French II and it was the exact same as French I, down to us using Francais Interactif again, just in the higher chapters instead of the basic chapters. Now, here's the thing about learning a foreign language; you have to build from the basics, or else none of the other stuff makes sense. None of us in that class, not one person, knew any of the material past maybe Chapter 3. Most of us didn't even know how to ask questions. I did, so I asked questions for people who didn't, since S wasn't there.

Well, if you thought we bumbled through the basic material, no harder bumbling took place then when we started on things that have no direct English translation like y and en. When he asked students questions in this class, they'd just kind of look at him dumbfounded and shrug.

We got a study guide for our first exam and I was going to study my ass off so that I could get a better grade than a C. Besides a brief stint with depression my first semester that made me not be able to go to classes and fail one of my courses, a C was the lowest grade I had gotten at university. I must've studied for twenty hours over the course of a week before the exam. I hadn't even put that much effort into classes for my major. I got into class on the day of the exam, and nothing that I had spent all that time studying was on it. I bombed that test spectacularly, getting a 30%.

At this point, I was pretty much done. I was willing to go to my professor's office hours and ask him how I was supposed to study for his exams effectively, and his response is what began my quest to get revenge on him. He told me to watch YouTube videos. I don't know what it was about this that got me so pissed, but I was fired up.

But, that wasn't all that drove me to take the revenge I took on this fucker. No, what drove me to go after this guy was R calling me up crying after getting his exam back. He did worse than I did. He got a 15%. He kept repeating through sobs that he just wanted to be a good student and that he didn't want to disappoint his mom again. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried at this. I thought back to that kid in French I after the final, about my peers and about R and something inside me snapped. I was going to get this guy fired and peacefully do anything else I could to ruin this guy's life one way or another, and R was going to be my Right Hand Man.

We met at his dorm and started brainstorming. It was about halfway through the semester, after our midterms. We both had a job, a significant other, extracurricular activities and I was taking 19 hours again this semester. We were going to need time on our side, a commodity that neither of us had, and we were going to need it quickly. We knew that the professor was going to be gone for a week at a conference right after spring break, so there was a two week window there. But, even still, we needed more time for what we started planning to do. I faked a doctor's note for two weeks absence and R agreed to use all four of his absences to meet at the same time French was supposed to occur and plan our peaceful academic coup.

Now, I knew I was eventually going to get caught from word go. But, I was so confident that I could get this guy fired before I would have a disciplinary hearing that I took the gamble, and Baguette took the bait. He excused me for two whole weeks.

So, you're probably wondering what we actually did. Well, the reason we needed so much time is that we needed time to both conduct interviews from the class as well as collect data on scores. We got a total of thirteen out of the seventeen students to make a statement about Baguette's performance in his Beginning French II class and all of them were negative. This was just in one section of the course.

Then, we asked if we could have their exam scores so that we could have some hard data to nail this guy with. All but two complied. We did some quick maths, and determined that more than half the class failed the exams, with most scoring between 30 and 50.

But, as it turns out, we didn't even need the exam scores given to us. We figured out that the online grade database site that our school uses so students can monitor their grades without asking their profs has a built in feature that shows the class average of every assignment that's put into the gradebook. Not a single assignment had a class average above a 50 except for the homework, which had a class average of around 80, no doubt thanks to the stupid exploit in the website.

Sure enough, I got tagged with a notice that I broke the discipline code of the university because obvious shop is obvious. But, it didn't matter. I had everything I needed to go to the Foreign Language department chair and sort this shit out. So, I did.

I showed the department chair all the data, let him listen to the audio from the student testimonies as well as gave my own testimony on the course. After showing him all this, he was dumbfounded. Not only did the chair not know that Baguette was a shitty teacher, almost nobody did course evaluations for French I, so he thought that Baguette was doing a decent job. He took all my evidence and gave it to the dean of arts and sciences and a couple weeks later, I get an email saying that Baguette was Bag-gone and that I was going to be withdrawn from the course along with everyone else who would've likely failed. Those who would've passed got to get a Credit Received grade without having to take the final. He got fired one semester before he qualified for his tenure.

But, that's not the juiciest fucking morsel of this tale. You're probably wondering how he got deported and how I found out that he got deported because of his firing. Well, after my disciplinary hearing got thrown out because the complainant was no longer affiliated with the university, I got more than I bargained for.

During his lectures, one of the few times he spoke English was after he introduced the syllabus on the first day. He had everyone introduce themselves and he started the exercise by introducing himself. Well, in his introduction, I remember him saying something about him being an immigrant from Venezuela. I live in the States (Etats-Unis for you Bonjour Bois), and some of you might know that we have pretty strict visa policies.

Well, R is pretty conservative. After our work got Baguette fired, we celebrated by getting some beer and shooting the shit. We talked about random aspects of the course and the fact that he was an immigrant got brought up. Apparently, R didn't know this and he was pretty upset about it. I tried to calm him down, but he went on a rant that I tried to politely nod along to while tuning out since I'm not really about that. I didn't think anything of it until a couple of days later.

He called me up and told me that he tipped Baguette off to a certain immigration agency for a "visa check" (his words, not mine) and that now all we had to do was wait. I was shocked. I didn't think this would go this far. I feigned that I was pleased with this but in reality, I was kinda bummed. Since he was probably here on an academic visa since he was a professor, he probably is going back home to Venezuela. I am glad, though, that he won't be teaching any more of my fellow students at my uni, because I wouldn't wish his classes on anyone.

edit: formatting

(source) story by (/u/ouiouirevenge)

#prorevenge #by /u/ouiouirevenge #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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baeklooming-day · 5 years

Text

Believable | Baekhyun

Summary: What happens when you and your best friend pretend to be dating only to help out a friend on a double date?

ft. Hoseok, Jimin & Namjoon of BTS ♡

Genre: best friends!au, college!au, fluff, barely there angst

Word count: 8.7k

A/N: This fanfic is for my friend Sarah, which is pretty much based on a dream she had one night. The events in this story occur in my beloved city, shoutout to Tokyo! I hope you enjoy <3

You promised yourself that today’s lunch break will belong to you all alone.

So as the bell rang, you quickly collected all your notebooks and rushed out of the classroom heading to the library.

You wanted to repeat the notes you took during the last lesson, study a little bit in peace for once.

Peace, that is.

Peace was the thing you needed the most right now. Being in the position you were in and always surrounded by your friends who were really loud most of the time, wasn’t exactly the calmest thing you could think of.

Not that you were complaining, though. Your brother was pretty much the most popular guy in school, you were his pretty sister adored by everyone.

Others would also say you had tones of friends, but that wasn’t entirely true. Sure, you liked hanging out with Namjoon’s friends whenever they planned something, and you often did so. But to be honest, there were only two people you would call stable friends.

One of them was your best friend, Baekhyun.

Although he was your total opposite, you somehow always manage to get along perfectly. You knew that people often wondered how you two even ended up being friends. He was loud, bubbly and colourful, while you on the other hand, always dressed in black and white and weren’t particularly amazed by a rainbow cotton candy.

Maybe that’s why you got along so well with Sarah.

You befriended her almost right away when she came to your school. Soon after, you discovered that you two had a lot of other things in common besides the same taste in music and being crazy about ramen.

You could say you were just any other regular girl friends who just happened to click so well, but, maybe that was the point and that was enough.

Just when you were about to enter the library, your phone screen lit up with a new message from Sarah.

Queen Sarah:

y/n!!! throw everything you’re doing right now and meet me at the library! VERY IMPORTANT or i’ll punch someone, COME NOOOW

What on earth, you thought. The library? Did she know you will be heading there after your Japanese class, or what?

So I guess that was it with studying in peace, you thought again.

You sighed and entered the library. You didn’t have to look for Sarah, as she was already sitting by one of the tables alongside the windows, together with Baekhyun who was shaking his head vigorously. Him too? Oh god, you just hoped that those two didn’t combine anything funny again and needed you to get them out of trouble.

They could be troublesome sometimes, to say the least. Like back then, when they decided it would be a great idea to collect some earth from your garden, shape it cupcake-alike, cover with sweet cream and give away to all the students as well as teachers they couldn’t stand. Although it actually wasn’t that big of a deal according to Baekhyun, they almost got suspended for the rest of the week if it wasn’t for you quickly coming to their rescue and telling the principal that they mistook it with actual cupcakes, while the earth ones were for a decoration. Maybe it wasn’t the best and most believable excuse, but in the end it worked.

“Hey you idiots, what’s up this time?” You said as you approached their table, putting your yellow bag on the seat next to Sarah.

“Certainly not my hopes” she mumbled.

What’s going on, you mouthed to Baekhyun, but he only sighed deeply in response.

You plopped on the chair. “So, spill the tea girl.”

“The thing is” Sarah began, interwining her both hands. “that I don’t even know what I did for him to obviously dislike me.”

“I told you to just stop wasting your time on him” Baekhyun shifted in his own seat.

Sarah only glared at him in response. “Not helping.”

“Well, I still don’t really know what the problem is” You leaned forward looking at both your friends.

“Hoseok is the problem!” Sarah helplessly threw her hands in the air. “I finally got the guts to properly ask him out and tell him I like him, okay? So imagine me, oh-so-confident, walking up to him and hoping for the best, only for him to turn around and, I swear I saw how his smile disappears exactly in the moment when he saw me approaching him. And guess what, the only thing I managed to say to him was ‘hey Hoseok’, because he mumbled a quick ‘hi’ and ran off. Ran off! And now you can both imagine how stupid I felt being just apparently rejected like that, standing in this corridor like an idiot.” She rested her chin on her hand with a miserable look on her pretty face.

“He didn’t-” You rested your arm on the table, still looking at her.

“Oh yes, he did.” Sarah straightened. “And then before I got here with Baekhyun, we saw him laughing with that bitch Sua in the doorway of your brother’s classroom.”

“That’s definetely not nice at all. “You crossed your arms. “But right now don’t think too much about Sua. You know she is always all over all the boys here. Maybe he just didn’t want to be rude or something.”

“Didn’t want to be rude? And what would you call his previous behaviour towards me? Because I personally think it was kind of rude.” She paused for a brief moment only to add: “There’s clearly something going on between them. I will just have to accept that I have zero chances with Hoseok.”

You and Baekhyun exchanged looks.

“Ah, come on, don’t say that.” You placed your palm on her shoulder in a comforting gesture.

Short after that, you noticed two boys entering the library.

You immediately recognised them. It was your older brother Namjoon, together with one of his new friends, Jimin, a blonde-haired boy with a dazzling smile.

They sat by a table on the opposite site of the library. You looked over to them waving to Namjoon, to what he responded with a grin. What a sweet brother you had.

You continued talking with Baekhyun and Sarah, only for her to stop at some point and whisper to you. “Y/N, do you know this guy?” With her head she pointed in the direction where Namjoon and Jimin seemed to be thinking hard reading something in their notebooks.

“Who, Jimin? Yeah, he’s friends with my brother, why?

“He keeps glancing at me.”

You turned your head to see yourself. Right now, Jimin was playing with his pencil, in fact sending glances at Sarah.

“Maybe he thinks you’re cute.” Baekhyun grinned like a little boy.

“Shut up, Byun.”

Sarah turned her head again to look at the other two boys, catching Jimin’s eyes. He instantly blushed and looked back into his notes.

“Yep, he definetely thinks you’re cute.” Baekhyun’s grin was even wider now.

You rolled your eyes at him.

“Oh, I think they are walking over.” Baekhyun shifted in his chair once again.

“Oh hell no” Sarah didn’t seem to like the idea. “I don’t want to deal with this right now, if he keeps staring at me like that I will-”

“Sarah, sit back and be nice.”

“You won’t tell me what to do, Baekhyun!” She threw a paper ball at him, which hit him right in the nose.

“You wanna fight? Tell me if you wanna fight” He was now crumpling a whole page from his own notebook.

“God, just quit it you babies.” You rolled your eyes once again.

In that moment when Sarah and Baekhyun were just about to start a paper war, Namjoon and Jimin approached your table.

“Hey big bro!” You kissed your brother on the cheek.

“Hey little sis” Namjoon plopped on the chair next to Baekhyun, with Jimin taking a seat on his left.

“So he always gets a hello kiss and me not?” Baekhyun shot you an offended look.

“Well maybe she doesn’t want to be linked with you more than she already is” Namjoon turned to face him. “Besides you look like you just came out of a circus.”

“Says a guy with pink hair.”

“It’s rosy purple, you jackass”

“Are they always like this?” Jimin asked you, failing to hide a smile that was appearing on his handsome face.

“You could say that, yeah” you laughed in response. “Just let them argue, they will eventually settle down.”

You couldn’t help but notice Jimin still glancing at Sarah. Suddenly a thought popped up in your head.

“Anyway Jimin, I think you don’t know my friend Sarah yet” You put your arm around her. You saw her terrified look which screamed ‘no’ but decided to ignore it.

“I didn’t have the pleasure” He smiled cutely. Oh boy, was he a cute one.

“Very well then” You continued with your arm still around her. “Jimin - Sarah, Sarah - Jimin”. Then you quickly glanced at Baekhyun. “I believe you already know my annoying best friend Baekhyun?”

Jimin chuckled. “Yes indeed, we have one class together.”

“Oh really? He never told me. Which one is it?

“English.”

“Oh my god” You laughed. “Well, then maybe you can teach him a little, because I’m sure you already noticed that he totally sucks at it.”

“I could if I was good in English myself” He smiled shyly, running his hand through his gold locks.

“That’s actually not bad! I mean-” You already had an entire evil plan in your head. “Sarah is an ace in English, she can help you.” You turned to your friend. “You will help Jimin with his English homework, right?”

If only looks could kill, you would be already lying there motionless on the floor.

“That... that would be amazing” Jimin blushed once again, looking at Sarah with eyes full of hope, and... admiration?

Sarah finally woke up. “Uhm, yeah, I guess I can do it.”

“Great!” You happily clapped your hands. You caught Sarah’s glare. I will end you later, that’s what the look in her eye told you.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go and try to kind of set her up with your brother’s friend so unceremoniosly, but in your opinion she needed a little distraction from all that Hoseok drama. After all it was because you cared, what else?

A week passed since your little ‘meeting’ in the library. Ever since that day, Sarah has been regularly meeting up with Jimin to help him with his studying. You were quite proud of your little ‘achievement’, to say the least. She still was whining about Hoseok sometimes, but it seemed to you like she actually enjoyed spending time with Jimin.

Those two would make an adorable couple, you thought to yourself. But then you immediately shook that thought off, as quick as it appeared. You didn’t want to play matchmaker any further - you didn’t really like it yourself when other people did that.

You were so occupied with your own thoughts that you completely missed Baekhyun’s irritated expression.

“Hello, Earth to Y/N, still online?” He waved his hand right in front of your face. “I just asked you the same question two times.”

“Uhm? Sorry, I was just daydreaming.”

He smirked. “Daydreaming? I hope you were daydreaming about me.”

“What? Ew, no.”

“Ouch, that hurt.” He put his palm on his heart with an exaggerated offended expression.

You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Then what were you actually daydreaming about if I may ask?”

“I was just thinking that Sarah and Jimin would be really cute together.” You shrugged. “But nevermind.”

Baekhyun grinned. “You really wanna set them up, don’t you?”

“No, I’m just saying what I think.”

“Sure.” He was still grinning like an idiot.

You never understood it how someone could be so happy all the time. Baekhyun was like a literal puppy - he always found something to smile about, got overly excited and pretty much jumped around like a kid. Like a kid, he apparently still was. But being completely honest, you envied him for being so enthusiastic about life. You, in the opposite, tended you overthink and worry about things in advance, so at least being with him could… relax you, just a little? Baekhyun always tried to maintain the high spirits and, for once, you were grateful to have him as your best friend, although you would never admit it directly.

“How do you do that?”

“How do I do what?”

“Being always so happy.” You raised one brow at him.

He only shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just the way I am.” He paused for a brief moment before adding: “Somebody has to, seeing that you are grumpy everyday.”

“Excuse you?” You raised your voice to protest. “I’m not grumpy at all everyday!”

“Right. Every two days.”

You shot a glare at his still grinning face. What an idiot. You halfway knew that he merely enjoyed annoying you in such stupid ways, yet it still managed to unnerve you. You huffed and fastened your pace.

“Aish, you’re so cute when you’re annoyed” He laughed, keeping up with you.

Did your idiot of a best friend just call you cute?

You stopped and turned to properly face him. “Cute?”

He only looked back at you, scanning your face. “Yes. Cute.”

You couldn’t stop the blush that was creeping up your cheeks. Why were you blushing? It was just Baekhyun.

“Come on, or we will never get to that ramen place.” You brushed it off and started walking again.

You only heard his chuckles from behind. Please, laugh, you thought to yourself. Sometimes as much as you wanted you just couldn’t even think of what might be in that boy’s mind.

Later that evening just as you arrived at your place, your phone started ringing with an incoming call from Sarah.

Was she finally coming for you for putting her in those study sessions with Jimin? You slid your finger across the lit up screen.

“Yeah?”

“Y/N, problem.” She began without any preword.

“What’s going on?”

“Uhm, how to explain that” She seemed to be searching for the right words. “So I was doing English with Jimin today, right. And, ugh, just as we finished the last vocabulary on the list he just came with this question out of nowhere.” She sighed. “He asked me out on date.”

You froze. “God, please, don’t tell me you rejected him-”

“No, wait, let me finish! I didn’t reject him, and honestly I think this is the actual problem.” She mumbled more to herself than to you. “I panicked, so I might have said something about you and Baekhyun, and...” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I might have said something about you and Baekhyun, that maybe you two could tag along. I don’t know how this happened but now Jimin thinks that you both began dating past this week and we are all going on a double date next Saturday.”

WHAT?

“WHAT?” You thought you misheard her. “You told him what?”

“Like I said, I panicked, okay? Besides you owe me that one!” Sarah raised her voice a little. “You got me into tutoring Jimin, so you might as well help me out now! I didn’t mean any of this to happen. And I don’t want to be left with him alone!”

“Sarah, you are alone with him when you study together.”

“This is different! He asked me out on a date, heck.” You could hear her facepalming herself on the other line. “And before you tell me anything - I know, I know. But one date isn’t going to change much. I still have feelings for Hoseok, even if he’s dating Sua or hates me for some mysterious reason.”

“One date can change everything, you know.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it for me. This is just unfair towards Jimin. And it’s too late to call it off. So please?”

You groaned. “Do you really expect me to make a show with Baekhyun there? And you are a grown woman, why do you need backup-”

“Y/N, I’m reminding you that it was you who got me into this. And I’m not asking you to do it with some random guy, but with your very own best friend. So can you please pretend to be a couple on that day? Please?”

You didn’t even realise you were walking in circles around your room. Pretending to be dating Baekhyun? Sarah did have a point, at least it wasn’t some stranger but your best friend. You could totally survive this.

But what would Baekhyun say about that?

“Fine, I’ll do it.” You told her. “But you are telling Baekhyun.”

“Okay, alright! I’ll tell him.” She sounded a little calmer now. “I can even call him right now if you want.”

“Please do. And also, where are we going on that ‘date’, if I may ask?”

“Oh, right.” Sarah held back a chuckle. “Actually I think Baekhyun will like it. We’re going to Tokyo Disneyland.”

“Seriously right now?”

“What? Jimin said he’s never been there, besides I think it’s good because there will be a lot of people there, that means little probability of any awkward, unwanted scene to eventually happen.”

You laughed. “You sure it was Jimin’s idea and not your own?”

“It was Jimin’s idea.” She sighed again. “Okay, I’ll go call Baekhyun now and let him know about our, uhm, plans. Hang in there, girl.”

“See you tomorrow girl” You hung up.

What on earth did you just get yourself into?

In these two days after getting the call from Sarah you were careful not to end up being caught between Baekhyun and Jimin. Your school was quite big, so it actually wasn’t that much of a problem. You luckily managed to never find yourself in the same room as the two boys. Maybe it was stupid, but you just wanted to spare yourself the awkwardness. Otherwise you would have to act like ‘a girlfriend’, which didn’t really amuse you. You were lucky enough that Jimin wasn’t the type to spread things around, because if he was, in the worst case the entire school would think that you and Baekhyun were dating.

You caught yourself wondering why that thought of dating your best friend occupied you so much. He was an annoying clown most of the time, but as well was the object of adoration of many schoolgirls. Maybe it was because he was just unique - he always dressed in lively colours, heck, even used colorful eyeshadows from time to time. He also liked wearing lenses, mostly green. Back then, at the beginning of your friendship, you remembered him being absolutely amazed by your bright eyecolour. Short after that he started showing up at school with green eyes. And when he dyed his hair red, you couldn’t disagree that the complete look was worth stopping an eye on it.

About the double date, he didn’t even try to bail out of it, to your surprise. After all he really had nothing to do with the whole thing both you and Sarah pulled, and was practically dragged into it.

You were also surprised when on Saturday morning he knocked on your door.

You got downstairs to answer it.

“Baekhyun?” You furrowed your brows when you opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Today is Saturday, remember?” He flashed you his signature smile.

“Yeah, and? We are supposed to meet with Sarah and Jimin before Disneyland first in three hours.”

“I know.” He leaned on the doorframe. “But I thought I might come pick you up as well, and make sure you don’t run away.” There he was, grinning again.

“Would you stop? Why do you always have to be stupidly grinning like that?” You shifted to the side to make space for him to enter.

“It’s not my fault you bring out my best smiles.”

How cheesy.

You rolled your eyes at him.

“Besides Baekhyun, I could just go by bus. You didn’t have to come all the way here.”

“We have to be a couple there today, right? What boyfriend lets his girlfriend go alone to a date?” He sat on the couch and leaned his head back. As he did that, some of his red locks fell onto the soft pillow.

“We have to just ‘pretend’, my dear. Why take it so seriously?”

Baekhyun straightened to look at you. “Just make it believable.” He shrugged.

“Honestly, this whole situation seems so ridiculous to me.” You looked back at him. “It’s like Jimin was some guy from your or my past who we have to lie to and convince we are one super happy boyfriend and girlfriend acting all lovey-dovey just because Sarah decided she needs backup.” You paused. “I mean, what difference is it supposed to make? And when it’s done, do we have to tell Jimin we ‘broke up’, or whatever?”

“Really, stop thinking so much for once.” He smiled again. “It can be fun.”

“Whatever. I’m going upstairs to prepare myself.”

With that, you turned on your feet and walked up the stairway, straight to your room.

You didn’t really have an idea what outfit you should go for. In the end, you chose a nice pair of light jeans, black off-shoulder top which exposed your collarbones just perfectly - and pale pink sneakers, which had fluffy fur in the same colour attached to them. You straightened your hair and let it loose.

For makeup, you went for your usual look. After cleaning your skin, you applied some essence and put on your favourite BB cream. You absolutely loved doing your eyebrows - actually there wasn’t much to do since they were already pretty full, but you liked defining their natural shape with some coloured eyebrow gel. After that, you applied a generous layer of mascara to your long lashes and stopped by the lipsticks and lip tints. You were dressed in rather neutral colours, except for your pink sneakers. Anyway, you decided to use a darker lip tint in berry-ish tones. You gently applied the tint on your plush lips and looked in the mirror.

Yes. Perfect.

You took a little black bag and went back downstairs where you found Baekhyun playing with his phone.

“I’m ready.”

“It sure took you a while.” He said without looking at you. He seemed to be very absorbed in something on the screen.

“We still have one hour to go.” You glanced at the clock hanging on the white wall. “Come on, move. I want to buy some matcha chocolate before we meet with Sarah and Jimin.”

“Seriously, you are always so needy for choc-” He stopped in the middle of his sentence right when he finally looked at you, or you were just imagining it. “Oh.”

You looked at him confused. “What? Do I have lip tint on my cheek?”

He still just stared at you with his mouth open for a couple more seconds before speaking. “Eh? No.”

What’s suddenly gotten into him?

“You’ve got everything?”

You nodded.

“Okay, so let’s go.”

He quickly stood up and directed himself to the door. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that Baekhyun, your best friend, just went a little red.

No, you thought. Baekhyun never blushes. Not alone because he saw me right now. He’s seen me dressed in other things than school uniform many times.

You decided to ignore it and followed right behind, getting on the other side of the street to his car.

You arrived at Disneyland exactly at fourteen o’clock. As you walked towards the main entrance of the park, you spotted Sarah and Jimin already standing there waiting.

You jumped when you suddenly felt Baekhyun’s hand clasping around your own.

“What the-” You tried to free yourself from his firm grip.

“Shh” He scolded you with a look. “They already saw us.”

“I don’t care, let go of my hand Baek-”

“Ey, Sarah, Jimin!”

You noticed the slight surprise on Sarah’s face. You really, really wanted to snatch your hand away but in that moment when Jimin also was looking at the two of you - or rather Baekhyun dragging you along - you just sighed and let it go. Pretend, huh? Somehow you imagined it a lot less easy. But forget it. Now you didn’t have a choice, you had to survive this.

“Hey, you made it!” Sarah opened her arms to give you both a hug. “You look good.”

“You too.” You smiled at her.

“So” She began. “We thought that maybe we could go on some rides and other stuff first, then go get something to drink or whatever, and when it gets dark there will be fireworks. You good with that?” She looked at you, waiting for a reply.

“Yeah, of course.” You adjusted your bag on your side. “Shall we?”

Finally, the four of you directed yourselves to pass through the mint green entrance with red Tokyo Disneyland above.

You looked up in the sky. The weather was lovely - it was partly cloudy, but the sunbeams still shined through reaching your faces. It wasn’t too hot - just fine for spending an afternoon at a place like Disneyland.

You quickly glanced at Baekhyun. Wait, you thought. He was still holding your hand, still in a firm grip, even though now Sarah and Jimin were walking before you, Jimin vividly telling her some story about his English teacher from the previous school. You could easily release hands right now, when they weren’t even paying attention to you. But surprisingly, and to your horror, you had to admit that... you liked it. It was funny how perfect your small palm fit into Baekhyun’s, it almost felt natural.

Wait, nooo, nonononono.

You felt your cheeks becoming hot, the second time in this week.

You were just being weird. There must have been a logical explanation for your unusual reactions, right?

As you walked in, you just started to go on every ride and to every other attraction that caught your eye. To your surprise, you found yourself really enjoying the time. It sure felt like being eleven again, the four of you must have really looked ridiculous to some adults with their children there, all four laughing loudly, running around and talking about everything and nothing, but you didn’t care. And when you saw the Cinderella Castle from afar, you were the one to excitedly rush the others to go in there.

“Hurry up you losers, or I will run ahead!” You shouted at the three of your friends who stayed a few metres behind.

“And thinking that you were whining because ‘Disneyland is for little kids.’“ Sarah shouted back to you.

You only laughed in response. Not your fault that Cinderella has always been your favourite Disney princess.

The castle in fact could easily be a dream place to live for every little girl.

After exploring some rooms in the castle, you all decided that you’re slowly getting thirsty from all that running.

“I have to get some ice cream too, or I’ll die.” Sarah ran a hand through her black hair.

“We could all use some” You agreed.

As you walked through the park to find some nice café, you heard your name being called from behind. You turned around only to see your brother, Namjoon, running up to you, waving like a child.

Wait, hold on a second. What the heck was Namjoon doing in Disneyland?

“Namjoon?” You looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “What are you doing here alone?”

“I’m not alone, I’m with Ho-” He quickly stopped himself, as if he already said too much. “I’m with a friend, we were bored and the weather is super nice today, so...”

“Okay...” You were a little confused. You looked past Namjoon’s shoulder in the direction where a merry-go-round was.

You could swear, you saw a head of brown fluffy curls quickly disappearing behind a tree. Brown curls, you knew exactly one boy who wore his hair like this.

What did Namjoon say? He was there with Ho...?

Did he mean Hoseok by any chance?

“What a coincidence.”

You didn’t even want to think about it any further. You and Namjoon almost always knew about each other’s plans, usually. You couldn’t remember him mentioning anything about going to Disneyland as well. Wait, did he actually know that you and Baekhyun were pretending a couple? If he didn’t, he would have certainly given you a lecture on how much he disapproves and what are you even thinking, which he didn’t. You thought that Jimin would tell him about the date - wait, was Namjoon also doing the ridiculous backup thing? After all those two already were very good friends.

You felt your head spinning slightly from all that thoughts that came up in your head at once.

And then that, if your eyes didn’t mistake you, you just saw Hoseok hiding behind a tree.

What was this all about? And you thought it couldn’t get any crazier.

“Anywayyy, I’ll get going back” Namjoon adjusted his cap and started to jog back from where he appeared before you could stop him and ask questions. “Have fun!”

As he disappeared from your sight you looked back at the others. “What did just happen? He never goes to places like this.”

“Maybe he’s secretly one of those overprotective brothers who have to stalk their sisters on dates” Baekhyun was gazing at some point in the space.

You lightly hit him in the shoulder. “Not at all!”

“Guys, come ON, I really want that ice cream” Sarah tilted her head to the side before turning on her feet and starting walking again.

You decided that you will ask Namjoon about it when you get home. All that looked a little suspiscious to you, but there was no point in dwelling on it any longer right now.

You tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear and followed behind Sarah and Jimin.

“When I say cookie flavour is the best, then it’s the best” Sarah practically shoved a spoonful of her cookie ice cream into her mouth.

“So you weren’t lying when you told me you loved cookie” Jimin was holding his own walnut cone closely to his lips.

“And when you told me your favourite was walnut, I was seriously hoping you were joking.” She looked it up and down. “Like, really, walnut.”

“What’s wrong with it? Every time I say I like the walnut ones best people are looking at me exactly like you do now.”

Sarah brought her attention back to her cookie ice cream. “Disgusting.”

The four of you were sitting at a lovely spot by a small, round table under large umbrellas patterned in white and orange stripes. The sun was already slowly setting, and the light that fell on the warm-coloured material on the umbrellas was creating a very pleasing and relaxing atmosphere.

You and Baekhyun took the usual flavour you always ate - chocolate. This day will soon be over, you thought. You peeked at Baekhyun. The rays of sunshine managed to catch a side of his face, his red locks were now shimmering in the warm light. He looked like some prince of an exotic country, and when he turned his eyes on you and caught you starring at him, he smiled.

You felt something in your stomach. You couldn’t really name it, did you eat your ice cream too fast?

No, it wasn’t the ice cream. It was something different.

It felt like... something fluttered. Fluttered, and then quickly washed away as fast as it came.

What was wrong with you? Why were you starting to feel like this around your best friend? The thought alone made you nauseous.

It was Sarah’s voice that snapped you out of your trance.

“Why are these portions so small” She was holding an empty cone now. “I’ll buy myself another one, I’ll be right back.”

Before she could stand up, you unzipped your bag in a lightspeed taking out your wallet and standing up yourself. “Stay, I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh, okay.” She must have noticed the sudden rush in your tone, but if so, she didn’t show it.

You just wanted to let yourself breath for a moment, in that case going somewhere away from Baekhyun. You couldn’t, or simply didn’t want to try to understand what was going on with you. He was your best friend, for crying out loud. You couldn’t just start blushing around him and feeling fluttering in your stomach when he smiled at you. It just wasn’t supposed to be like this, and you didn’t like it in the slightest.

As you walked back up to the ice cream stand from before, you heard a chair being moved and footsteps behind you. No, you thought. Don’t tell me-

“Are you taking another one too?”

Why did he even follow you?

Dammit. So it looked like that was it with getting a little space from Baekhyun.

“Uhm, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You took your wallet.”

“How else am I suppose to pay for that?”

“I was paying before, remember?”

“God, Baekhyun, I already told you we don’t have to pretend everything like that every second. Right now they can’t even hear us, so please.” You made a face. Why was he still taking it so seriously?

He glanced back at Sarah and Jimin. “Yeah, but they can see us.”

Then, you too looked in the direction where your two friends were still sitting. They were both watching you, Jimin with slightly furrowed eyebrows said something to Sarah, who started to seemingly explain something to him, rather nervously.

Then you heard Baekhyun’s voice again.

“Kiss me.”

“Excuse me, WHAT?” You almost choked on your own saliva. The things were getting a little overhelming now, didn’t they?

“Can’t you see he isn’t buying it at all?” He hissed. “Just kiss me, for god’s sake.”

“Alright, now you are crossing the line Baek-”

You didn’t get to finish the sentence when he captured your lips with his own.

The kiss lasted for only a couple of seconds, but it was enough to totally disorient you. And when he pulled back, your head started spinning for real this time.

You just stood there, waiting for your turn in the ice cream queue with your mouth forming an ‘o’.

So many thoughts were running in your head at that very moment, that you completely failed to hear Sarah coughing loudly in the distance.

You also didn’t even realise when it was your turn to order, so when you didn’t speak a word, Baekhyun very gently pushed you aside and got both Sarah’s and your ice cream himself.

The rest of your evening passed, thank God, rather quickly. You sat at the same table for another hour, Sarah still not having enough of cookie ice cream. You were zoning out most of the time, avoiding Baekhyun’s eyes.

Make it believable, he said. It can be fun, he said.

You still were the opinion that it didn’t make any sense from the beginning, but none was willing to listen.

Now you were just angry at yourself. Why were you such an idiot to set Sarah up in the first place? Because after all it was crystal clear to you that she liked only Hoseok, not Jimin, no matter how sweet he was.

And Baekhyun? You really, really wanted to say that the kiss was wrong, very wrong.

But it wasn’t. It felt right.

It felt almost natural.

You recalled the moment when he took your hand by the main entrance to Disneyland. It felt natural, just as if it was the way it was meant to happen.

“Hey, Y/N, are you listening?” Sarah’s voice brought you back to the reality. “It already got dark, the fireworks are supposed to start soon.”

“Oh, yeah. Do you want to get going now?”

As she nodded, the four of you gathered your things ready to head to the direction where the said show was taking place. And when you nearly bumped into Baekhyun’s chest as you rapidly stood up and took a glimpse of his eyes fixed on you, you felt as if the fireworks erupted in your stomach instead of the nightsky.

It was almost 21:00 when you left, looking for your cars in the parking lot. All you wanted was to finally be alone, in the silence of your comforting room. You just had to survive the awkward ride home with Baekhyun, during which you sincerely hoped that he won’t bring up the topic of the kiss occurence from earlier.

You hugged both Sarah and Jimin goodbye and followed Baekhyun back to his car.

Please, you thought. Don’t talk to me.

The ride was silent so far. Maybe he feels stupid himself for doing this and regrets it, you thought.

However, you didn’t dare to look at him. You didn’t want to meet his eyes again, because you were sure you would just start blushing all over again.

You were more than relieved when you arrived at your place, and just as Baekhyun pulled the car to stop, you grabbed your bag ready to get the hell out of there.

“Uhm” Suddenly you found it extremely difficult to properly speak. “See you at school?” Without giving him a chance to reply you opened the door and rushed outside.

Drive off, drive off, drive off-

“Y/N, wait.”

Shit!

“Yeah?” You were midway to your front door when he opened the door on his side and got out of the car.

“Do you...” He started, coming up to you, without looking at you first. “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

“You mean... the kiss?”

He nodded.

“There isn’t much to talk about.” You said in a weak voice, almost whisper. “It was wrong, and it will never happen again.”

His face changed into a hurt expression. “Wrong?”

“Yes, wrong!” You snapped. “What on earth were you actually thinking? You seriously don’t know your limits!”

“Will you stop behaving like that? God, why is it so difficult talking to you” He was now getting irritated himself.

“Well, then don’t talk to me.” You crossed your arms on your chest. “I just fail to understand why you did that. Was it so important to you to make things weird between us?”

“It was important for me to finally get you to notice one thing you also always failed to undertand.”

“Oh really, and that thing is...?”

He gave you a look, shaking his head in bewilderment.

“Are you really that blind? Can’t you see that I like you? That I have liked for a long time now?” He bit his lip. “I was always giving you hints, but looks like you missed them. Or ignored.” He added before taking a deep breath. “I thought that maybe today you will eventually open your eyes.”

What was just happening? Your best friend just confessed to you straight in your face out of nowhere.

Were you even still awake?

“Baekhyun-” You were too tired and way too confused to think clearly any longer. “Let’s just forget about today. Forget all this ever happened, and let us get back to normal. It doesn’t make any sense to me-”

“Okay, fine!” It was his turn to snap. “Forget about it, huh? Fine.”

He rapidly turned around walking back to his car.

You watched as he started the engine and drove off, without any further words.

You were convincing yourself that it wouldn’t make any sense if you eventually let something bloom between the two of you, so why did you feel like the things you so harshly said to him just a couple minutes ago were the real nonsense?

The next day on Sunday, you just locked yourself up in your room. You didn’t feel like doing anything. Namjoon was out on a trip with some friends, so you also didn’t have an opportunity to ask him about his appearance in Disneyland the other day.

A loud sound from your phone signilising an incoming call stopped you from getting lost in your thoughts again.

Queen Sarah calling...

“Hello?”

“Hey girl, how are you feeling?” Her voice sounded concerned. Was she some magician or something? Did she already know you were hating on yourself for what you did yesterday night?

“Are you actually asking how I’m feeling or are you referring to what you witnessed yesterday by that ice cream stand-”

“I CAAAN’T!” She yelled into the speaker. “What was that??? I mean, I wanted you to pretend you were dating but to that point? I’m impressed, I’m impressed. And shocked, and surprised.”

“Sarah, he fucking confessed to me yesterday as he brought me back home. Baekhyun told me he likes me.” You said in a barely audible voice. “When did it all become such a mess?”

“Wait, what???” She seemed honestly surprised. “Like, for real? Are you saying that Baekhyun has feelings for you?”

“That’s what I’m saying-”

“What did you tell him?”

“That he should forget it and that it doesn’t make any sense.” You suddenly felt like an idiot again. “I told him that kiss was wrong. But it felt so right, and let me tell you, so right.” You thought you were about to cry because of your stupid actions. “And the thing is, I think I might have feelings for him too. I was always pushing that thought away from me, but maybe those feelings have always been there. I just always denied it. And now I don’t have a single clue how to get through tomorrow at school.”

“Girl” Sarah spoke up. “You totally need to talk to him then. Try to make things right again. I’m sure it will all end alright. I saw you too holding hands when you thought me and Jimin weren’t looking” You could hear the smile in her voice. “You will be the cutest couple in our school.”

“I don’t know if I can do this” You told her. “But I can try. If he tells me to go get lost-”

“No, he won’t!”

“If you say so.” You paused for a moment. “And what about you? Jimin drove you home, right? What were you talking about?”

“Ah, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk about. I know, I know you had good intentions with all of that, Jimin is probably one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever met, but-” She sighed. “I can’t stop thinking about Hoseok. I just can’t. I may be stupid and hopeless, you name it. I told Jimin the truth about how I feel, I didn’t want to be more unfair to him than I already was by agreeing to that date in the first place and getting his hopes up. He said he understands. Y/N, seriously, how can he be so calm? He said he understands and if that’s so, then he at least hopes that things will somehow get clearer with Hoseok. And at the end he gave me a kiss on the cheek and said that if he doesn’t treat me like I deserve to be treated, I know where to find him.”

“Oh my god, GOLD, gold not human-”

“Right?” She sighed again. “Ugh, let us settle down today and cool off. Tomorrow is Monday. We can get through this, whatever it is.”

“I genuinely hope so. See you tomorrow. And think positive.”

“You too! Fighting!”

You hung up. Oh god. You somehow had a feeling tomorrow will be a long day.

And a long day it indeed was. You felt like the time wasn’t passing at all. You also weren’t really listening to your teachers during the lessons, because all that was on your mind was Baekhyun.

You ran into him a few times during the day, and he pretty much completely ignored your existence, to say the least. You had no idea and no plan on how to approach him and try to effectively talk to him.

That’s why you ended up wandering around the school building during your long lunch break. Sarah was nowhere to be seen - oddly. You needed some time to make up some lines to say to Baekhyun, so you decided to look for an empty classroom where you could think.

You remembered that the Japanese classroom on the second floor, that one with huge windows, was always free of any students during the break, so you immediately opted for this one.

You fastened and got to the door, which you swiftly opened without thinking much. It was just then when you noticed someone already sitting there by the window.

It took you a few seconds to recognise him.

“Hoseok?”

The boy turned to look at you. “Oh, hey Y/N.”

“What are you doing up here all by yourself?”

“Ah, nothing. Just thinking, I guess.”

You took a few steps towards him. “Mind if I sit?”

“Not at all.”

And you did so. You took a glimpse at him. He looked... miserable. Something was obviously bothering him.

“Hey” You spoke up again. “You look sad. Maybe you will feel better if you let it all out.”

He sadly smiled at you. “I don’t want to bother you with my drama...”

“Ah, come on. I’m here to listen.”

“Uhm, okay.” He ruffled his dark brown curls with both hands. “I know it might come out creepy, but... On that Saturday... I know that you, Baekhyun, Jimin and-” He paused. “-and Sarah were in Disneyland. I was there too, with your brother.”

So it was Hoseok! And there you were, thinking that you started hallucinating.

“I just-” He rested his forehead on the window. “I’m really an idiot you know? I’m sure Sarah told you all about it how I ‘escaped’ from her, am I right?”

You raised your eyebrows. “Oh, that. Yes, she did. She told me you ran off as soon as you saw her approaching. She was really miserable after that.”

Now the look on his face appeared almost tormented.

“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t, really.” He looked at you again. “The truth is, I had the biggest crush on her pretty much since she started attending our school. And it didn’t fade away. Not a bit. I know I’m usually not the shy type, but it changes when she’s around. You can laugh at me, but I’m just afraid of actually talking to her in person. Initially, I thought that I would simply mess up if I open my mouth, but clearly, I did mess up by not opening it, ironically.” He paused for a brief moment before continuing. “She makes me speechless. It’s like as if I saw an angel walking down the school corridor.” Now he started smiling to himself. “But that day when I saw you four in Disneyland, and her with Jimin talking and laughing... Well, guess what, I got what I deserve. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Jimin, we are all friends. But-”

“Wait.” You interrupted him. “Hold on. So you are telling me you like Sarah?”

“Yes-”

“Oh dear, Hoseok...”

“I know, I fucked up-”

“No, you didn’t.” You straightened. “ At least not to that point where you can’t fix it.”

He looked at you confused.

“You can believe me when I say that Sarah has eyes only for you.” You smiled at him. “We were talking on the phone yesterday. She said she told Jimin that she can’t date him because she still likes you. I hope she won’t get mad at me because I just revealed that information to you but-” You tucked your hair behind your ear. “I’m doing you both a favour. You still have a chance. Take it.”

“I wouldn’t know what to tell her...”

“The same what you just told me. Just tell her the truth about your feelings, and I’m sure you will be fine. You can totally do this!” You tried to motivate at least him, because you yourself were rather far from being particularly motivated for what was awaiting you later.

“Alright. Okay. If you say so, it must be true then.” He shifted in his spot. “And what about you? You also looked worried.”

“Eh, this is even more ridiculous than your thing.”

“Come on. The least I can do in return for listening to my blabbering is to do the same for you. So tell me.”

You took a deep breath. “I won’t tell you the entire story because there would be really way too much to tell, so in a shortened version, Sarah kind of told Jimin something about me and Baekhyun, Jimin thought that me and Baekhyun started dating and we had to pretend to be a couple there in Disneyland.” You glanced at Hoseok. He seemed to fight back a laugh.

“I’m sorry.” He said. “Did you really pretend all along?”

“Yes! And Baekhyun was taking it too seriously. He held my hand and stuff. And then, as if it wasn’t bad enough, he just kissed me in front of everyone. Kissed me!” You flipped your head back. “And then again, when he brought me back to my house, he confessed to me. And I was being the biggest idiot of the world and rejected him.”

Hoseok seemed to think, analyzing your face. “Do you like him too?”

You sighed. “Yes. Y-yes, I think I do.”

“I think you do, too. You should as well talk to him and tell him how you really feel.”

“I might as well throw up.”

“Come on, if I can talk to Sarah, then you can totally talk to Baekhyun. We have to believe in our dumb selves.” He jumped off the window sill you were both sitting on, offering you his hand to help you down.

Hoseok was right. Sarah was right too. You could do it.

With that thought accompanying you, you confidently walked out of the classroom, ready to find Baekhyun and get it done before all the confidence abandoned you.

After running some errands in the school building, you finally found him.

He was just about to walk into his full classroom when you quickly ran up to him and yanked him away from the door before he could even touch it.

“What-”

“Baekhyun, I need to talk to you.” You let go off his arm where you were grasping him.

“Didn’t you tell me yourself there is nothing to talk about?” He was looking you right in your eyes.

“But there is. Please listen to me.”

He gave you a sign to talk.

“I-I was wrong. I was fully, entirely wrong. And I handled the situation like a total fool, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t look a tiny bit convinced. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

“No.” You tilted your head to properly look at him. “When you told me you liked me, I was just very surprised. I never thought you would, after all we are best friends since, like forever. And I guess I was making myself believe some stupid convictions I only thought were right. Because the truth is, I don’t know yet what that feeling is that I get when I look at you.” You quickly glanced at his lips. “But I know one thing for sure. Remember when I told you that kiss felt wrong? I was lying. It felt right like nothing else before. And I don’t want to be kissed like that by any other boy.” You finished, looking at him with your eyes full of hope.

His eyes were fixed on your own.

“You don’t?” He asked, a slight disbelief audible in his tone.

“No.” You decisively took one step closer to him. “I don’t.”

And then there he was, cupping your face and gently pressing his warm lips to your soft ones.

This time, the kiss lasted longer than the first one. It was careful, but with passion, just as if he longed for it to do it again.

And when you pulled apart and opened your eyes, you knew that this time you didn’t do any mistakes.

A/N: Aaand, the end! The ending came out so bad, I’m sorry ;_; Actually I was super happy with the results as I was writing, but then I was like what the fu. Anyway, if you made it till here, thank you so much for reading, leave a heart if you liked it, feel free to reblog and leave me your thoughts on that, I’m curious about your opinions! xoxo <3

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