#to clarify I tried to word the post in a way that got this across but I’ll say it down here too
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Okay this one might be a bit of a weird thing to discuss (and will be much less relevant if there’s a time skip on Remnant) but I wanted to talk about Ruby and Oscar’s height difference and how much it means to me in light of this recent episode.
I’d like to start this off by saying that I’m actually (conveniently) Ruby’s height. One source is saying 5’4” and ones saying 5’2” and I’m about 5’3”, and something I’ve been noticing a lot recently as I accept that I’m done growing and this is my permanent height is that there’s always going to be something that intimidates me about the majority of the population. As much as I want to think that I’m a confident, capable person, it really takes away from your confidence when you have to look way up at someone to have a conversation with them. On top of that, I’ve noticed that 1. People tend to get really close to me when having conversations, much closer than I’d like, possibly because they’re trying to make up for the fact that there’s about a foot between us that wouldn’t be there normally, and 2. This is a problem, because a) it’s intimidating to have someone larger than me get in my personal space, and b) it just makes me so much more aware of how much taller they are because I have to really lift my head to look at them, only to see them looking down on me.
My point in saying all this? The last few volumes have been really leaning into that with Ruby. This happened a lot in V 7, where Ironwood would be framed as looking down at her, and it really jumped out at me in this last episode with that one shot after Jaune yells at her and she’s left staring up at him with tears in her eyes as he gets up in her personal space.
This scene to me really highlighted how small Ruby is compared to most of the people around her who are supposed to be equals to her-Jaune, Ironwood, Qrow, Robyn, Clover, any of the ace ops-but not Oscar. Oscar is one of the few characters in the show that Ruby is taller than. And speaking from personal experience? It’s so much more comfortable interacting with people who don’t use their size to physically intimidate you (even if that’s not at all their intention).
I know realistically, Oscar is probably going to get taller than her (and when that happens I will find it cute) but right now it’s just so incredibly important to me and really serves to (once again) emphasize how good Oscar is for Ruby and how much his very existence supports her and takes stresses away. In a world where ticking time bombs like Ironwood, Jaune, and the ace ops can turn on her and use their size as a weapon, Oscar can’t (and wouldn’t) do that. Oscar has Ruby’s back, and she trusts him in a way that I don’t think she trusts anyone else in the show.
#rwby#rwby spoilers#its weird how the volume with literally no canon Rosegarden stuff is doing so much to back it up#at least for me#rosegarden#ruby rose#oscar pine#to clarify I tried to word the post in a way that got this across but I’ll say it down here too#im not talking about *everyone* when I say Ruby is small compared to people#obviously we have weiss and nora and even blakes not that much taller#im specifically referring to the people who are supposed to be on the same level as her power wise but in that one small way are higher up#hehe puns#and not to worry my fellow Rosegarden shippers I’m not advocating against the Ruby realizes that Oscar is taller than her scene we all want#im just saying I like the way it is right now#mine
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Medwhump May 1 // Under Anesthesia
Simon’s never had the best experiences with surgery. Luckily, Captain Dad is there to help.
w/c: 1,194
pairing: ambiguous John Price/Simon “Ghost” Riley (can be read as platonic or romantic)
tags/warnings: surgery, hurt/comfort, simon needs a hug, good dad john price
For @medwhumpmay <3 cross-posted to ao3
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“It’s gonna be okay, son.”
John squeezed Simon’s hand tight, fingers stroking over his bare skin in an attempt to comfort his lieutenant. Simon wasn’t having any of it, though, turning his pleading brown eyes on his Captain.
”Please, sir,” he begged, “Please don’t make me do this.”
”Simon…” He flinched when John’s free hand rose, hated how much of a burden he was being in the moment. His captain had never raised a hand in anger, there was no reason for him to be so terrified. “It’s gonna be okay.”
”No…” Simon’s low, weak moan, coupled with the tears gathering in his eyes, prompted John to slowly stroke over his short blonde hair. “Please, please, please…” he chanted.
John squeezed his fingers again, thumbing over scars and veins across the lieutenant’s skin. Why was he being so weak and pathetic? His captain had better things to do than console the man who’s name struck fear into the hearts of their enemies. Mentally, he scoffed. He needed to be stronger, shouldn’t be afraid of something so trivial. He shouldn’t have been sobbing like a child!
Simon had shed that skin years ago, hadn’t he?
(He had, but this was one of many moments where he so desperately wished John had been his real dad.)
”Simon, let me help.” John swiped the tears from his cheeks. “What’s going on?”
Simon’s mouth went dry, trying and failing to formulate words. How could he even explain? He shouldn’t fear pain, not like this.. not with what he’d gone through… not with what he’d put others through.
But it wasn’t just the pain.
It was the feeling of being trapped again.
A shudder wracked his body, mind dipping to those months spent isolated and afraid—
John’s arms wrapped around him the same moment he let loose a fearful, mournful moan. Startled, Simon didn’t react for a few moments before he sagged against his captain’s chest, sobbing weakly.
”I’ve got ya.”
”I… know,” Simon choked out.
”What’s scaring you?” John pulled back to look the man in the face, forcing Simon to meet his gaze. His voice held no judgment, only calm concern. Like he could fix anything Simon threw his way.
Could he?
Would he?
”It’s the anesthesia,” he finally warbled. “I can’t… last time…”
John’s eyes softened, encouraging him on. “You can tell me, Si.”
”It didn’t work.” Simon’s hands plucked frustratedly at the scratchy hospital sheets, glaring down like they’d personally offended him. Though, if he was being honest with himself, this entire goddamn place offended him. “Last time,” he clarified, watching John’s confused expression. “They tried to put me to… to sleep. It didn’t… take.”
John’s voice held soft horror. “You were awake during your last surgery?” At Simon’s nod, his hug tightened.
“Yeah,” The next words spilled unbidden from Simon’s mouth. “They told me to count back, and when I woke up it’d be all over. But I.. I felt them digging into me, poking and prodding and I couldn’t move—” he broke off with a loud sob, voice catching hard on the next words. “I couldn’t… escape… kept thinking back to… to—”
Words failed him. At the same time, John’s hand curved up to cradle the back of his head, carding through the unruly blonde strands. Simon gave himself over completely, slumping into John’s arms as his terrified cries continued.
God, he was weak. He didn’t deserve the name Ghost.
“Shh, easy lad.” John soothed. “I’ve gotcha, I’ve gotcha.”
”Please—“ Simon gasped. “Please don’t… be angry, sir, I’m… so sor—“
”None of that now,” John commanded. Simon stiffened in his arms, attempting to pull back with a silent sniffle. John only tightened his grip, smiling sadly. “At ease, son. Focus on me. You’re safe.”
”Please don’t hit me,” the words fell from his lips before he could snatch them back. “I’ll be good, I promise!”
His vision tunneled, breaths coming in short, heaving gasps as he tried to shove John away. The need to flee consumed Simon’s mind, overtaking every other thought as he struggled and cried in pain and desperation. He heard John bark something over his shoulder before returning to holding his lieutenant close. Big hands stroked down his back, warm and soothing and loving as John caught Simon’s limp form once more.
”Shh, Si, you’re safe. You’re safe, Simon,” John squeezed gently, careful to not hurt the man in his arms.
”I’m so scared,” Simon hiccuped. “I can’t—“
”Yes, you can.” John’s firm voice held so much conviction, Simon couldn’t help the plaintive whimper that he replied with. “You can. I won’t leave your side. I’ll be with you the whole time, last thing you’ll see before your nap is this ugly muppet’s face, and it’ll be the first thing you see when you wake up.”
”Captain Price?” A nurse poked her head in, voice no more than a squeak. “We need to prep the lieutenant for—“
”I’m coming with him.” John declared, leaving no room for argument.
And he did. Through the hallways, into the elevator, down to the operating theatre, John’s hand never left Simon’s. The string of gentle, soothing words never let up, those big blue eyes the only things Simon could focus on for fear of coming undone once more.
As soon as the doctors approached, however, Simon went stiff. A low whine built in his throat as they began their prepwork, gaze desperate as he lost sight of John for a moment—
“I’m here,” John, now donned in a surgical gown and cap, appeared above his head, hands grazing Simon’s temples. “Look at me, alright? Don’t look away. Just focus here.”
Simon helplessly stared up at his captain’s brilliant blue gaze. He tried—and failed, once more—to suppress a fearful whimper as a mask descended on his face, eyebrows knit together. John stroked his hair softly, the firm pressure keeping him grounded as the nurse hovered to his left.
”Count back from 100 out loud for me please, Lieutenant.”
”You’re gonna be alright, Si,” John assured. “Focus here.”
”100…” Simon couldn’t help the tremble in his tone.
”99…” Already his mind was fogging over.
”98…” Everything felt so far away, his body felt so heavy…
”Atta boy,” John murmured, sounding so distant to his tired ears. “Doing so well.”
”97…” His eyes were so tired, closing them couldn’t hurt, right? His captain would keep him safe…
”9… 6…” His voice slurred.
”9…” Simon never finished the end of the sentence.
John’s hand ended up being the first thing he could feel when he managed to pry his eyes open. Simon’s head pounded, vision swimming and thoughts scrambled. Groaning, he went to sit up, before another hand pressed down on his chest.
”Easy, son. Don’t move, just relax… that’s it…” His da—no, John’s—low voice soothed him.
“I—“
”It’s all done, you did brilliantly. It’s only been a couple of hours, just rest. You’re alright.”
”Thank you…” in his mind, he supplied the word ‘dad’ once more, mind still cloudy.
John chuckled softly as Simon’s eyes slid shut again. “Y’know, Si… I’d be proud to call you my son. Just sleep, your dad’s right here. I’ve got you.”
#medwhump may#under anesthesia#simon riley#simon ghost riley#ghost#price#john price#captain john price#simon ghost riley/john price#simon riley/john price#simon riley x john price#ghost x john price#hurt/comfort#one-shot#lio writes#crossposted to ao3
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The First Time, Every Time: Lazarus
Rated X / 2231 words / Posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic
Scully’s been glued to her couch for hours, lost in the melancholic churn of regret. She can’t help but feel partially responsible for Jack’s death, in some tangential way. Perhaps the vacancy left by her departure was too vast to be adequately filled, even three years later. Perhaps he never really got over her. Just as soon as she has the thought, she dismisses it as terribly self-important.
The phone rings, and she half expects it to be Jack on the other end of the line, admitting that it was all a prank that went way too far.
“Hey, it’s me. Just checkin’ on ya.”
Scully smiles and moves the phone to the other ear.
“I’m okay,” she says with a sigh.
There’s a stretch of silence that begins to make her nervous.
“Most people wouldn’t be okay after going through what you just did, you know. It’s okay to…not be okay,” Mulder says gently, and Scully cringes and closes her eyes.
“I know, Mulder,” she tells him with just enough insistence that he’ll drop it. “I really am fine, though.”
“Okay,” he relents. “Message received. What are you up to?”
Scully looks at the open box of photographs strewn across her coffee table and the half empty bottle of wine sitting in the middle of them.
“Not much,” she says, leaning forward to pick up a candid shot of Jack with a cigarette dangling from his smiling mouth. “Just…thinking, I guess.”
“About Jack?” It’s a rhetorical question, one she responds to with only a hum. “He seemed like a good guy,” Mulder comments, somewhat detachedly. It’s the kind of thing you say about people you didn’t know well after they die. The kind of thing that’s said more for the comfort of the living than the benefit of the dead.
“He was,” she agrees, equally detached.
They are both quiet for a beat, but it’s a comfortable silence.
“I reviewed his case notes,” Mulder says carefully, like he’s unsure whether she’ll find it intrusive. “He had some interesting insights on Dupre and Lula’s relationship.”
“Such as?” Scully asks, curious but guarded.
“He said that he envied their devotion to each other. That they lived in a world where nothing mattered but their own needs, which he found intoxicating,” Mulder recites without much affect, leaving his opinion on Jack’s musings up to her interpretation.
Scully thinks back to the desperate, lovesick way Jack carried himself through their relationship, like he could never quite get enough of her. At first it had been exciting and addictive, but soon became overwhelming and burdensome. The more she withdrew, the harder he tried to get back in her good graces, and she finally came to the conclusion that he wanted something from her that she was simply unwilling to give.
“That sounds like Jack,” she says, tossing the photograph back on top of the haphazard pile.
“I hope you don’t take offense to this, but I was surprised to learn that you’d been romantically involved with him.”
“Because he was my instructor?” she clarifies.
“Not necessarily,” he tells her, pausing to consider his words. “I guess I just…wouldn’t have thought he’d be your type.”
This makes Scully smile.
“Oh? What did you think my type would be?” she asks, somewhat playfully.
“I don’t know,” Mulder admits. “Somebody less…intense. Obsessive. Single minded.”
Somebody less like you, she thinks to herself.
“I’m not sure I have a type,” she says, knowing it’s a lie even as it leaves her lips. Her type is older, assertive, and unavailable. Bonus points if they make her work to earn their affection.
“Well,” Mulder says in a markedly more upbeat tone, “my type is canadian bacon and pineapple. You hungry? I was thinking about ordering a pizza.”
“I could eat,” she says, and her stomach growls in agreement. “But you don’t have to drive across town, Mulder; I can feed myself,” she adds, feeling undeserving.
“I need to return a movie, so I’m going out regardless,” he says, and she can hear in his voice that he’s already up and moving around his apartment.
“I’m sure the late fees at the adult video store are steep,” she teases, and he humors her with a wry chuckle.
She tidies her apartment while she waits for him, stashing the photos of Jack and corking the rest of the wine for another night. When she hears his “shave and a haircut” knock at her door, she answers with a “two bits” rap of her knuckles before she opens it and takes a pizza box from his hands.
“I got a movie,” he says, kicking the door closed behind him. “I know it’s a school night, but I’m feeling reckless.”
“When are you not feeling reckless?” she says mirthfully, gathering plates and napkins.
The movie is something silly that neither of them pays much attention to. It’s clear that Mulder’s intention in coming over was to lift her spirits, and he hits it hard with little self-deprecating quips that make her feel equally entertained and sad for him. She can’t help but see the similarities between Mulder and Jack, their shared restlessness and obsessive nature. Their stalwart belief that if they could just solve this one case, the world would tip back on its axis.
At one point she turns away from the TV and catches Mulder looking at her. He does this sometimes, perhaps much more frequently than she’s privy to. He’s quite good at averting his eyes almost immediately, but she still catches the tail end of the pained, longing expression on his face, and it makes something warm blossom in her belly. She can’t help but wonder why she’s so drawn to these broken, chronically unfulfilled men. She can’t help but wonder why they are so drawn to her.
The movie ends, and he helps her collect their dirty plates and cups and move them to the kitchen sink, offering to take the pizza box to the dumpster on his way out. While prone to thoughtlessness when he’s chasing down a lead, he’s the most considerate man she’s ever known, and she wonders for the first time if he’s like this with everyone, or just with her.
“Thank you for dinner,” she says, following two paces behind him as he moves toward her front door reluctantly, shuffling from one shoeless foot to the other like he has something else to say.
“Anytime,” he tells her.
They stand there awkwardly for a beat, and an uncomfortable smile stretches across Scully’s mouth.
“What?” she asks, and Mulder laughs and looks at the floor.
“Sorry, I’m being weird,” he says, running his hand across the back of his neck. “I was just going to say…I just felt like I should tell you, or that you should know…” He lifts his head and meets her eye with a level of intensity she wasn’t prepared for, and her stomach drops a little. “I was really scared when you went MIA,” he says. “Just thinking about the possibility that we wouldn’t find you alive was…” He stops and swallows, pausing before he speaks again. “I’m really glad you’re okay,” he finally says.
She steps forward and opens her arms to him and he greedily accepts her embrace, scooping her up into a bear hug that nearly lifts her feet off the floor. It feels like this is what he came here for, to ease his own mind and see for himself that she continues to be alive and well. She feels the beat of his heart thrumming against her rib cage, hard and fast, and her own heart follows suit in anticipation. He holds her for much longer than is customary, and when he finally loosens his grip enough for her to pull away a little, she presses her lips to the corner of his mouth without giving it much thought. It just feels like the natural thing to do.
Mulder stiffens, but doesn’t let go of her. A bolt of shock at her own out of character behavior makes her ears ring, and for a moment she doesn’t move at all. Mulder turns his head slightly, which makes his bottom lip brush across hers, and an involuntary little whimper escapes the back of her throat.
His mouth tastes like sweet pineapple and acidic tomato sauce, and it’s so abundantly clear that he’s wanted to kiss her since long before tonight. She’s wanted to kiss him too—of course she has—but they can’t. They can’t, but they are, and she’s not sure why she’s doing this but she knows she doesn’t want to stop. His tongue is in her mouth and they’re pawing at each other like horny teenagers, and she doesn’t want to stop more than she doesn’t want to find out what will happen if they don’t stop.
“Wait,” Mulder says, grabbing her hands to stop her from unbuttoning his fly right here in her foyer. It hits her like a ton of bricks just how stupid this is. How reckless. “What are we…what does this mean?” he asks, his eyes questioning and his cock visibly hard.
Scully shakes her head softly, dazed and aroused beyond rational thinking. “I don’t know. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she says, and she means it. She knows he has nothing more to give her, and she knows that she is unwilling to sacrifice a larger slice of her life to him than she already has.
He stares at her for a beat, debating, and then his mouth is right back on hers.
When she was with Jack, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. His arms around her waist were an anchor, and his kiss stole the air from her lungs. His love was an obligation. Being with him felt like drowning, and she had to swim for the surface to save herself.
Mulder is nothing like Jack. She’s never felt as safe in anyone’s arms as she does in his, and when she kisses him her whole body lights up. He’s not asking her to love him, though she thinks she could. He’s not asking anything from her at all, and yet she desperately wants to give herself to him. Give him her mind, her dedication, her body. He treats each of these with equal reverence, and whatever the opposite of objectified is she’s feeling it now as he peels the clothes from her body and lays her down gently on top of her bed.
He crawls over her, nude and stiff to the point of leaking, and nudges her leg to the side with his knee. He watches her face while he touches her with two gentle fingers, mapping her body by feel, and his undivided attention is the most erotic thing she’s ever experienced. He makes her come embarrassingly quickly, first with his fingers and then his mouth, before she manages to get her hands on him. He tucks his face into the crook of her neck while she strokes him firmly, murmuring little words of pleasure and affirmation that make her feel like a goddess.
It’s been so long since she’s been with anyone that she doesn’t have a condom, but she trusts him enough to rely on her birth control and his promise to pull out. He pushes into her slowly, kissing her all the while, and the stretch of him makes her gasp with surprise and pleasure.
“Am I hurting you?” he asks quietly, his hips stilled.
“No,” she whimpers, wrapping one leg around his hips to pull him closer. “You’re not hurting me, Mulder.”
Somehow it feels like fucking and making love at the same time. His mouth on her neck, his hand clasped with hers, his cock buried deep inside her. Being with him feels like flying, like an endless endorphin rush. She may never be able to get enough.
“Shit, I’m gonna come,” he sputters.
Suddenly his slippery cock is laid out on her belly, streaks of hot white cum shooting up onto her breasts. She wraps him up in her fist, stroking him through the final few throbs until he begins to grow soft in her hand. He looks up and smiles at her, a kind of uncomfortable was that a mistake? smile, and she smiles back at him.
“I’ll get you a towel,” he says, and she averts her eyes out of habit as he makes a run for the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later they are back at her front door, fully dressed. Scully picks the pizza box up off her dining room table and hands it to him sheepishly, and he drums his fingers against the thin cardboard lid as he tries to think of something to say.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” she says casually, like they just ate pizza and watched a movie, nothing more.
Mulder sighs, potentially with relief, and nods.
“I’ll bring you a coffee,” he offers.
“That’d be great,” she says casually, opening her front door for him.
They wave at one another awkwardly, and she watches him walk down her hallway and out the building before she closes and locks her door.
Mulder is nothing like Jack, she’s sure of it. And she’s not going to run away this time—she’s going to see where he takes her. Where he takes them both.
She’s never felt more excited in all her life.
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I just got to know you recently but I'm really impressed with your posts! May I ask you for a scenario where class 1-A finds out one of her classmates is taking a hero course at UA because she, like, lost a bet with old friends ? (you can say that she is really talented and kind but sometimes a bit apathetic, not interested in being a hero or UA sports so it made Izuku or someone a little curious) ( •̀ ω •́ )y btw, have a nice day !
Class 1A x gn! reader, fluff
Notes: This has been in my drafts for MONTHS... new year new me? doing some spring cleaning if you will ✨
Each person in class 1 A knew y/n was something special. Anyone could see how strong they were even without really trying
Most people in the hero course had a reason to be there. May it be because they want to help others, be the best hero the can be, the money and fame,
To y/n being in the hero course was a way of proving to her old friends that they were capable of anything if they really tried
In your final year of middle school your old friends placed a bet to see if you would be able to get into the U.A hero course since the chances of being excepted were slim to none unless you got in through recommendations
You weren't asked why you wanted to become a hero yet by any of your classmates. That was until one curious green haired boy asked you during lunch one day
"so L/N, why did you want to become a hero?" Midoriya asked straight out as he put a piece of carrot in his mouth
You looked at the boy across from you at the lunch room table as you decided whether or not to tell the truth,
"I lost a bet" you put it simply as you moved the food around in your bowl with your chopsticks, You could feel their curiosity radiating off their bodies
"huh? you lost a bet?" Kaminari asks in a confused tone. Everyone agreed with him by nodding and mumbling with their mouths full of food waiting for you to continue
you sigh realising you would have to explain the whole story. You just wanted to eat your lunch to be honest
"so that's really it I guess, I'm not that fussed about being a big time hero once I get my full licence" you say eating some of your lunch as you fail to see the look of surprise on your classmates faces.
The whole story didn't take long to explain as everyone was listening intensely hanging on to each word you said
"so yer tellin me you didn't come here to be number one?!" Bakugo states angerly at the new found information, pissed at the thought of you not caring to beat him. Well that's how bakugo sees this
"So you are so good at controlling your quirk, you managed to pass and get into class 1-A like a breeze since you didn't have much time to train?" Sero asks to clarify, you nod as he looks back at Kaminari with a shocked face
"I'm glad to see you finding a passion for heroism now L/n!" Iida says cheerfully as you smile back at him
They continue to ask about why your not friends with your old friends anymore, after they hear because you found out they wanted to use you for clout and money once you became a pro, you dropped them.
Nor very god friends if they only wanted you for money and fame..
-> masterlist
#bnha#little fairy forest#bnha imagines#mha headcanons#mha fluff#mha x y/n#bnha headcanons#class 1 a x reader#bakugou katsuki#mha kaminari#sero x you#deku midoriya#bnha shoto todoroki
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Fic: Authority
Fandom: Glee, Kurt/Blaine
Event: december klaine fanworks challenge 2023
Words: ~ 900 words
Rating: Teen and Up
Summary: In 2015, the Lima bishop tries to ruin the Hummels’ Christmas. Kurt won’t let him.
Notes: This is part of my Mormon!Klaine universe. It takes place after Out of Eden, which I am still in the process of posting to AO3. Should you read this if you’re waiting to see what happens in Out of Eden? IDK. But what I can say is this might be part of Kurt and Blaine’s in-verse “canon” future, or it might just be one of many possible futures. Fanfic of fanfic, if you will.
*
Kurt didn't want to be fatalistic. He didn't want to assume the worst of people. He was trying to learn at least that much from Blaine.
But he wasn't naive. And the signs pointed toward a confrontation: The new, uninspired policy, of course. Elder Nelson declaring that it was a revelation from God—the same Elder Nelson who believed that God was incapable of loving unconditionally, and therefore could not be trusted to tell God or God’s revelations from the inane clamorings of his own ego. The bishop’s questions to Kurt’s dad after the wedding invitations went out. Kurt’s membership records still being held up in Lima, even though his new bishop in L.A. had put a request in several times to get them transferred to the new ward and was just as frustrated as Kurt over the delay.
Still, he had hoped the Lima bishop believed enough in the sacredness of family that he wouldn't inject himself into Kurt’s visit home for Christmas.
He had hoped, but he hadn't assumed. So when he went out for the mail on Christmas Eve and saw the ward secretary’s car parked across the street, he knew what was happening. He headed straight for the driver side window and knocked. “You do realize you two look like stalkers, don't you?”
The ward secretary smiled as he got out of the car. He held a business-size envelope in his hand. “Sorry to startle you. We just got here and were taking a moment to pray first.” On the other side, the bishop’s second counselor emerged.
“So, did it work?” Kurt said.
“I’m sorry?” the ward secretary said.
“Did the prayer work? Did you convince God that you’re doing the right thing? Or at least convince your own conscience?”
“Kurt,” the ward secretary frowned. “This brings me no joy. You've been called to a disciplinary council.” He held the letter out for Kurt.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Kurt said. “But you can keep that.”
“I’m required to give it to you.”
“I’m not required to take it.”
The ward secretary stepped forward. He put a hand on Kurt’s front coat pocket and made to shove the envelope in it.
Kurt stepped back. “Watch it. That's assault.”
“Kurt—” The second counselor chimed in. “We want to help you. The church has clarified that those who enter into same-sex marriage are in apostasy. But you haven’t done it yet. The disciplinary council is an opportunity for you to change course. You've been such an important member of our ward. I've always been inspired by your faith and your commitment to the truth. But this is a blind spot for you. And maybe it is for me, too—the natural man in me keeps questioning it and wondering why it has to be this way. But that’s why we have prophets and apostles—because we can’t trust our own feelings. And they have spoken. Elder Nelson said it was a revelation—”
“Elder Nelson is in apostasy,” Kurt said.
The two brothers looked as if they'd just been bitten by a snake.
But they hadn’t. Kurt was the one who had been bitten, over and over again, and now these two representatives of the priesthood were here to bite him once more in the name of God. And he was tired of it. “Elder Nelson usurped the prophet. Did President Monson tell us this policy change was a revelation? Have any of the other apostles confirmed it? No. It’s unclear if they were all even there to vote on it. And if it is revelation? True revelation? Then he would bring it to the next general conference for a vote of common consent, because our scriptures themselves tell us that a revelation is only true for the whole church and can only bind the whole membership of the church if we have a chance to vote on it. But we haven't had that chance, and there's no sign that he's planning to give us that chance. He thinks he can just say a thing is a revelation and we're all supposed to fall in line? What is that, if it's not apostasy?”
They continued to stare at Kurt. Then, the ward secretary spoke up. “Kurt, don’t make this worse.”
Kurt laughed. “How could something I do possibly make this worse? The bishop sends you out as his goons on Christmas Eve, away from your families, to come to my father’s home and threaten me with excommunication—which, if you actually believe everything Elder Nelson says, will separate me from dad and my mother and Carole and Finn and the rest of my family for all of eternity. Is that the Christmas present you wanted to deliver to my father? Is that your idea of Christlike love? Because it's not what I was taught in Sunday school, and it's not what the scriptures say. And you can keep that letter. I'm not going to come to a disciplinary council held by a bishop in a ward where I don't even live anymore and plead for forgiveness because I refuse to forsake the best gifts that this church has given me: love and grace, charity and forgiveness. Even of this bishop who is trying so hard to make himself my enemy. I feel sorry for him, that this is what he thinks God wants him to do. That he thinks God's love is conditional. That he thinks the love I have for Blaine, one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me, is depraved. That he thinks he has the power to separate me from my family and the people I love in the eternities. It’s so sad, and I pray for him every day that he will stop living in fear. I pray for him, and I love him. But I don’t recognize his authority over me.”
#plead#december klaine challenge 2023#mormon!klaine#wowbright writes fic#klaine fic#klaine fanfic#klaine fanfiction#day 1: plead
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turn my headphones up real loud
i yapped more about this post because i couldn't stop thinking about it
2345 words of me projecting onto rain coming right up 😼
under the cut or on AO3
being topside for the first time is most definitely a huge adjustment. especially for rain. his first most hated thing about being topside is the fact that he cant live in the water full time anymore, meaning he was drying out way quicker than he would have liked. not even the lotions that mist had given him really helped sooth his dry and cracked skin. at least there was a lake nearby.
second on the list of rain's current most hated thing about being topside is the amount of freedom he has to do basically anything he wants. he's still trying to get used to the fact that he can just eat whenever he wants, wherever he wants, and he gets to choose what he eats. because of his new found freedom, the pop tarts have been hidden for his safety.
the final thing rain hates the most about being topside is how much stuff he has to figure out so he can build a personality around it. all those ice breaker questions on the piece of paper copia handed out to help the ghouls get to know their new pack did absolutely nothing for him. he had no idea what his favorite movie was. he didn't even know what a movie was. he was clearly falling a little behind the swiss, who came crawling from the pits with him. swiss had accumulated to topside life very quickly, although hesitantly. and all rain could do was sit in the lake and maybe learn a bit of human manners from mist.
despite all his hatred for being topside, rain wanted nothing more than to find something he liked so that he could be just a bit more interesting, because as of right now, he was about as interesting as a piece of cardboard. he didn't count the fact that he took an interest to bass as a part of his personality because thats what basically all water ghouls summoned topside are here to do.
he started by trying to find a favorite color, but quickly found that he was to mesmerized by the way zephyr dragged the paintbrush across the canvas to get a good look at the colors of the paint. so he abandoned color for now.
then he moved on to movies. he tried to sit through the whole hunger games series with mountain, he really did. but yet again, he got distracted, this time by how shockingly beautiful finnick odair was. so he abandoned movies for now.
he tried to find a hobby next, which went well for the first few days. he got pretty okay at stick figures and cats, but backed away from drawing when he learned he would have to use color eventually to learn more about art. and seeing that he abandoned color for now, he abandoned art as well.
rain stopped himself after about three weeks of coming up empty on things he liked. so he sat in his room, staring at the blank walls. he tilted his head to the side, trying to imagine his walls covered in stuff he found interesting, like ifrit's room was. but all he could envision was the miserable looking cat drawing he had kept after he had given up on art.
he laid his head against his pillow and looked up at the ceiling, head empty. until something hit his ears. music. obviously he knew what music was, he was summoned to be in a band. but he had never truly listened to it.
rain stood up quickly, following the sound into the greenhouse. he found mountain there, jamming to whatever was playing out of the speaker. he silently sat down on the little bench in the corner, watching mountain curiously.
"what are you listening too?" rain asked, effectively startling mountain, who hadn't noticed his arrival.
"queen," mountain replied simply, going back to whatever he had on his work bench. rain tilted his head to the side.
"queen?"
"yeah, it's a band." mountain looked back at rain, smiling at his confused face.
"a really good band," he clarified, reaching over to the speaker to turn the volume up. rain sat there for a second, just listening to the music. it was good, sure, had a nice melody, but it just wasn't it.
it didn't tickle his brain the way he thought it would. he sat there with mountain for a while, getting up once to help water some plants. eventually mountain turned off the music and looked back at rain.
"did you like it?" he asked, wiping the dirt on his hands onto his jeans. rain shrugged.
"it was okay," he mumbled, watching mountain wipe the dirt off his work bench. he stared at mountain unintentionally, lost in thought. he wanted to give up looking for music he liked, wanted to find something else he liked before eventually circling back around to music again. but something about it was different. maybe it was the musician piece of him that was programmed into his brain upon his summoning. maybe it was desperately longing for something to attach itself onto to make itself useful.
"you okay?" mountain asked, snapping rain out of his thoughts. "you spaced out there."
"im okay, just thinking," he responded, standing up from the little bench. he followed mountain out off the greenhouse, trying to figure out how he could find the music he liked.
after two full nights of thinking about what he should do about his music problem, rain decided to go to dew. the fire ghoul seemed like he knew his way around music, so he seemed credible enough in rain's journey to find something he liked.
he snuck into dew's room one evening, cautiously sitting on the fire ghoul's bed as he waited for him to get out of the shower. he could hear the music from here, and he was absolutely, positively confused. maybe it was just the sound being muffled by the wall, but rain was sure that he couldn't understand a single thing being sung. was it even singing? is he watching a horror movie in there?
rain sat for a little while longer, anxiously waiting for dew to get out of the shower so he could ask his questions. finally, dew walked out of the bathroom, sopping wet hair sticking to his bare chest.
"unholy fuck, rain, you scared me," was the first thing he said upon noticing rain sitting there.
"im sorry, i, uh...." rain trailed off, trying to find the words he wanted to say without coming off and rude or weird.
"do you need something?" dew asked, looking back at rain curiously as he worked on putting his laundry away.
"i just wanted to ask what music you were listening too," rain replied, biting the inside of his cheek. dew threw his phone on the bed, which was opened to his playlist.
"you can skip through it, see if you like any of it." so that's what rain did. he skipped through dew's playlist, concerned by the amount of screaming their was. he wanted to ask if dew was okay, but he didn't have the emotional capacity to listen to the smaller ghoul vent at the moment (if he was going to).
eventually dew flopped down on the bed next to rain, his hands behind his head. "what's that face for?" dew asked, looking up at rain. rain blinked and looked over at dew, shrugging slightly.
"why is there so much... screaming?" rain muttered, his brows furrowed. dew laughed and sat up.
"that's what makes it good," dew replied, wrapping an arm around rain's shoulders.
"oh," rain murmured, looking over at dew curiously.
"do you like it?"
"it's okay... just really loud."
dew laughed again and squeezed rain's shoulders.
"you'll get used to it."
he did, in fact, not get used to it.
rain's next target was copia. the cardinal was an interesting man, so rain assumed he had an interesting music taste.
he was not wrong.
when he tried to get music recommendations from copia, he was subjected to listening to the entire hamilton soundtrack, the entire little mermaid soundtrack, 15 different instrumentals from various movies, and the occasional 80s song. rain has never wanted to pull his ears off more in his life.
so now he sat in his room, on the brink of giving up on trying to find the music he liked. it had been two weeks, and it was slowly eating away at his mind. the urge to give up and try something new was strong. so so so strong.
one more day, he told himself before falling asleep, one more day before i find something else to do.
rain awoke the next morning to the smell of pancakes and the sound of music. but it wasn't what mountain had on in the greenhouse. it wasn't what dew damaged his eardrums with. it wasn't copia's eccentric playlist. it was something new, and different. groggily, rain sat up and rubbed his eyes, eager to find out what the hell he was listening to right now.
when he finally reached the kitchen, rain was met with the sight of aether and ifrit dancing around each other as they prepared breakfast. he sat down at the counter next to swiss, his eyes darting to the speaker sitting a couple feet away.
"you're up early," swiss commented, looking over at rain with a wide grin on his face. rain rubbed his eyes before smiling back at swiss.
"i heard the music and wanted to see what it was," rain replied, absentmindedly picking at his semi-glamoured nails.
"oh, was it too loud?" ifrit asked, looking up from the pancakes he was flipping.
"did we wake you?" aether chimed in. rain shook his head quickly.
"no! i mean yes- but i don't mind," he stammered, "i kinda like it."
aether smiled. "good!"
the kitchen fell back into a comfortable silence, aside from the music playing from the speaker and the occasional clinking of dishes. rain looked over at the speaker, trying to figure out what the hell it was playing. it was kind of like what mountain listened to, just with more guitars. but it wasn't as screamy as dew's music. after a few more beats of silence, rain spoke up.
"what are you listening to?"
"hm? what'd you say?" ifrit lifted his head up, tilting it to the side.
"oh, uh, what are you listening to?" rain repeated a little louder, cracking his knuckles nervously. he didn't know why he was nervous. he had no reason to be nervous. but the feeling was still there, lingering. however the feeling diminished as aether tapped his phone to see the song that was playing.
"it's called never to late, by, uh, three days grace," aether replied. rain nodded silently, processing what he was hearing. it was just the right pace and just the right volume for him. and suddenly everything clicked.
oh.
this was it. he finally found something he liked. he finally had something to say when someone asks about his interests. he can finally make playlists like ifrit does. he can finally ask ifrit to make a playlist for him.
throughout the rest of the breakfast preparing process, rain listened intently to the music playing, occasionally asking what the song was called. aether and ifrit were happy to provide answers, smiling every time rain asked.
"whats this one called?"
"november rain, it's by a band called guns n roses. you should check em out."
"how about this one, whats this one called?"
"it's called before i forget, by slipknot."
"what's the name of this one?"
"save today, by seether. one of my personal favorites."
eventually, aether just handed the phone to rain, not wanting to have to look at it every three minutes anymore. rain was content with this idea, curiously tapping at the screen every time a new song came on. this continued until everyone filed into the kitchen when aether called out that breakfast was ready. unfortunately, that meant the music had to go away. rain sighed, quietly passing the phone back to aether before moving to grab breakfast for himself.
he sat down in between mountain and cumulus, smiling at both of them before shoveling the pancakes into his face kirby style. he was to busy thinking about all the playlists he could make his pack mates with his new found music taste to care about whether or not he would get a stomach ache.
rain was the first to leave the dining room after everyone stood up to clean their dishes, darting to his room. his thoughts were running in circles, filled with all the happy tingles he got from the music. he immediately pulled a piece of paper out of his desk drawer once he got into his room, writing down all the songs he could remember hearing.
finally, he had something about himself that was interesting. he was practically vibrating in his seat, just staring at his list of liked songs. im not a piece of cardboard anymore!!
as the days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned into years, rain listened to more and more of the bands he liked. he occasionally went to mist or aether if he needed more recommendations. he even went to dew once, who showed him some not so screamy music that he could actually get into. he made playlists that reminded him of his pack mates and playlists for his pack mates. and nothing makes him happier than returning to his room after a long day of chores to listen to music.
now he waits nervously as they prepare to summon new ghouls. he wants to be the one to show them music first. because nothing would mean more to rain than the music he listens to being the music that gives the new ghouls that tingly feeling in their brains. that oh, this is it, feeling. the feeling that altered his brain chemistry for life.
rain just really likes music.
#v writes#the band ghost#rain ghoul#ghost bc#mountain ghoul#aether ghoul#ifrit ghoul#dewdrop ghoul#ghost band#nameless ghouls
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The Only One - Part 7: Immoral Comfort
Welp...Part 7, here we are. This is the part I started way before I even wrote Part 1, because I was in a Mood™. I originally thought this was going to be a 3 part story, but it looks like it's gonna be something closer to 12. Tbh, I didn't expect anyone to be interested in this fic because it was such a niche, back-of-the-brain thought. So, thank you to everyone who's made it this far with me and taken the time to leave comments!
I know it's been forever since I updated this, but I hope there are at least a few people who are still interested. I had a very specific way that I wanted things to happen in this chapter and I was being a little too picky about the details, so my apologies for the delay! If you want to be added to or removed from my taglist, please let me know!
*Dominionese language pulled from @dominionese-resource and their Dominionese dictionary. If you want me to clarify where I got certain words or phrases, or how I tried (clumsily) to piece them together myself, please feel free to ask. I probably conjugated a few verbs incorrectly or structured things wrong in places, but I tried. Also, the signature mentioned was based off this post on their blog.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Cross-posted to AO3 here.
~*~
Weyoun (ST:DS9) x Reader
[A/N: This has smut, so 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI!!!]
Warnings: Interspecies sex, Vorta/Human sex, fingering, jealous Dukat, drunkenness, romantic Weyoun, telepathic/empathic connection, mild existential crisis, crying, sorta hurt/comfort? but mostly just stress/comfort, spoilers for S6E4 "Behind the Lines."
~*~
Nearly a month passed from that long, odd day when I met Keevan and his men. I hated having to conceal part of my motives from Weyoun, but I didn’t have much of a choice. There was no way in hell I’d sit idly by while the Changelings took over my home. Major Kira, Odo, and a few others had begun a small resistance cell aboard the station, and so that they wouldn’t jeopardize my mission or I theirs, Kira had ordered me not to attend meetings. I was to keep my ears open and report to her as usual. She was allowing me to help but only in minor ways. Yes, it was important to cause chaos for the Dominion while they were occupying the station, but a position of influence and confidence like I currently held was insanely important for the intelligence gathering task that Starfleet had given me. Hell, I didn’t even know who all the members were.
That was definitely for the best. With the intimacy of the connection that Weyoun and I shared, my lack of knowledge kept myself and the rest of the resistance members safe. I’d have to be content helping in my own little way. Thus far, Dukat trusted me almost as much as Weyoun did, and Damar was slowly coming around to the belief that I wasn’t his enemy. All I had to do now was keep it up and find a way to contact Starfleet Command. Discreetly.
Seated beside each other one evening, Weyoun and I worked on our respective reports. I wasn’t particularly curious about the file he was reading until he picked up a stylus and wrote something. It was an odd group of symbols and marks that I’d never seen before. Without much thought about how rude it probably was, I tilted my head and watched how fluidly his fingers drew the stylus across the data PADD.
“What is that?” I asked quietly, and Weyoun gave me a perplexed look.
“A report about troop movements...?”
“Oh, not the report, I mean this,” I said pointing to the symbols he’d drawn out beneath the final paragraph. A look of understanding washed over him, and he gave me a small smile.
“That is my signature,” he answered simply, and I felt my eyes widen. “Have you not seen Dominionese written out before?”
“I’ve barely heard Dominionese, much less seen it. Is that really your name?” I asked unable to keep the wonder from my voice. I examined the markings a bit more carefully, wondering what each meant in order to form a name as precious as his.
Weyoun set the data PADD aside, picked up an empty one, and wrote the symbols a little neater this time. I watched the way his stylus glided over the PADD’s surface in practiced, fluid movements. When he was finished, he tilted the screen toward me to show me his handiwork, and I couldn’t stop a smile from splitting my lips. The more I looked at the symbols, the harder it became to shake the feeling that I’d seen something like them before.
The pendant! I pulled it out from beneath the collar of my uniform and sure enough, the symbols were similar. The engravings were in Dominionese.
“Weyoun, the pendant you gave me...what does it say?”
“Would you like me to tell you, or would you like me to teach you to read it yourself?” He asked with a twinkle in his eyes, and I felt myself perk up at the implication.
“Would you? I-I mean, are you willing to teach me? I know you’re busy with the station and the war, so I understand if you don’t have the time–” He cut me off with a quick kiss and set the PADD aside as he took my hands in his.
“My dear, I would be honored to teach you the language of your people,” Weyoun murmured. “I’m sure you’ll take to it quite easily. You’ve always been a fast learner, at least from what I’ve seen.”
‘My people.’ Both of us knew they weren’t anything of the sort after what they’d done, but I still appreciated his sentiment. Besides, the hope that he held about a potential reconciliation between myself and the Changelings, while utterly futile, was also incredibly sweet. After all that he'd been through, the fact that he still had hope was just a testament to the strength that the Founders chose not to see in their Vorta followers.
Giving his hands a gentle squeeze, I looked up at the gorgeous purple-eyed being on my sofa. How in the stars did I get so lucky?
Purple blush spread quickly across his cheeks, and Weyoun let out a shy little laugh. Right, the feelings. It had become more natural over the duration of our relationship for us to share our emotions through the strange telepathic connection we'd been granted, but there were still moments where it caught one or both of us off guard.
"As much as I wish I could keep you all to myself tonight and demonstrate exactly how much I adore you, didn't you say you were meeting a friend tonight?" His question pulled me from my reverie, and I blinked in comprehension.
“Computer, what time is it?”
“The time is eighteen-thirty hours,” it responded, and I got to my feet. Shit, he was right, and I was going to be late at this rate.
“Meeting Damar again?” Weyoun asked as he stood, too, and grasped my waist lightly. When I nodded my head, he gave me a gentle smile. “I’m so glad you’re making more friends. I know you were already acquainted with some of the Bajoran officers, but knowing that Keevan and Damar along with some of their officers have become close to you...I’m overjoyed! To tell you the truth, I thought you might feel isolated here given the personnel changes. I-I thought...you might regret staying.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I wrapped my arms around the Vorta’s neck.
“Well, I still feel a little out of place at times, but there are a few people here who’ve been kind to me," I murmured placing a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose. "For the record, you make staying here worth it. As long as I have you, I won't regret leaving Starfleet."
I knew this was only temporary - that as soon as the Federation regained control of the station I'd be back to being a Starfleet officer - but I was going to make the most of this while I could. Sure, I still had my mission and a very important job to do, but I wasn't about to waste my opportunity to soak in Weyoun's presence while I could.
A beautiful, joyful smile stretched his lips, and he pressed his forehead lightly against mine.
"Good, because running this station and protecting Bajor for the Dominion...it would be mind-numbingly dull without you, my dear." That brought a smile to my own lips, but probably for different reasons than he would've anticipated. The Founders would likely have blown a gasket hearing that one of their Vorta toys was bored with the job they'd been created to perform. If that wasn't proof that the Vorta were capable of being so much more than the Changelings thought, I didn't know what was. "Don't be late, now. I'll be here when you get back."
I nodded my head quietly and gave him a tender, parting kiss before making my way toward Quark's.
The Bajoran station was humming with the partially-exhausted crowds that naturally accompanied the end of a shift. Used to the tired throng of people either going for a meal or heading back to their quarters, I used a few of the back corridors - less-traveled areas, of course - to make up some time.
Rather quickly, I found myself slipping into the doorway to the Ferengi's bar and zeroing in on the seat that was held for me out of habit by Dukat's right hand man. Without preamble, I plopped myself on the padded stool and gave a polite nod to the Cardassian in question.
"I was wondering when you'd get here. Usually you're early," Damar said as he brought his glass of kanar to his lips. He seemed in unusually high spirits tonight. Either something minor and gossip-worthy had happened, or I should be very concerned about the state of the war.
"There was a lot of foot traffic tonight. Apparently everyone decided this was the night to be in my way," I said with a dismissive giggle. Quark caught my eye and nodded in acknowledgement. "You look like the cat that got the cream, Glinn. What's got you in such a good mood?"
The Ferengi bartender set my drink in front of me with a wink - I knew for a fact that he flirted with all the patrons who wouldn't kill him in the hopes that he'd get a bigger tip - but before he could leave, Damar's hand landed on his forearm.
"Anything the Lieutenant drinks tonight is on me. This is a celebration," the Glinn said with a smug smirk. Looking at him in surprise, I lifted my glass of kanar in salute.
"Why, thank you, Glinn. If I may ask, what's the occasion?" He tapped his glass against mine, and after we both took a generous swallow - clearly not his first of such this evening - he turned to face me on his stool.
"My impending promotion!" He said puffing up his armor-covered chest.
Uh oh.
"Wait a minute," Quark cut in as he polished a glass, "you started a fight in my bar and they're making you a Gul? What kind of way is that to run an army?"
Weyoun had mentioned the fight only a couple of days before. Apparently, it had been between Cardassian officers and Jem'Hadar soldiers. Quark's concern was completely valid. How the hell did that track?
"Dukat wasn't happy about what happened," Damar started refilling his glass and topping mine off, even though I'd only taken a single sip. "I had to find a way to make it up to him."
"I hope it was something big," Quark chimed in.
"Must've been a hell of a blowjob," I teased, and the tipsy Cardassian let out a raucous laugh.
"Nothing so personal. Let's just say it will change the course of history," he said before draining his glass once more. Quark's eyes met mine. This reeked of trouble.
"As a businessman," the Ferengi started, refilling the Glinn's glass himself, "I'm very interested in the course of history. This one's on me."
Damar accepted the drink with a nod and a raised glass.
"That's very kind of you, Quark, but I can't talk about it." Down the hatch went that drink, and I sipped slowly at mine as I formed a plan. Quark looked over at me, and sighed as he grabbed a third glass.
"Of course, I understand. Have another," he offered, refilling Damar's drink, topping up mine, and pouring one for himself. I'd never imbibed heavily before, but there was a first time for everything.
--
Making our way to Kira's quarters while intoxicated was more difficult that I'd anticipated. Not only did I have to keep myself upright, but I had to try and steady Quark as well. The dirty bastard's hand roamed several times, but a threat to remove them at the wrist seemed to sober him up just enough for him to process how bad of an idea it had been.
We were practically dragged into the Major's quarters when we got there, having seemingly stumbled our way into a meeting of her resistance group. So much for me not knowing who was involved. She'd clearly bet on the probability of me forgetting the night's events by the morning, otherwise she wouldn't have let me in at all.
After several rambling attempts at conversation, Quark got a little agitated, and Kira tried to drag him back on course.
"How can I relax when there are thousands of Jem'Hadar ships are sitting on the other side of the wormhole, waiting to come through?" He slurred, and Jake shook his head, trying to placate him.
"Don't worry about it. They're stuck there." He sounded so confident - so naïvely certain.
"Noooo, Jake. They're coming," I said, clutching at his arm as if I could make the young man understand. "If Damar was telling the truth, they'll be able to get through soon."
"What are you talking about?" Kira asked, and together we managed a somewhat intelligible, if slurred, explanation of what happened. Odo and Kira shared a look, and I was ordered to head back to my quarters.
How I got back, though, was a mystery to everyone, myself included. All I recalled the next morning was the vague impression of Weyoun helping me into clean clothes and letting me cuddle him until I fell asleep.
I really hoped that I'd dreamed saying how pretty he was so many times. He deserved to know he was handsome, but I didn't exactly want to sound like such a moron when conveying that to him.
Gentle lips against my cheek brought me back to consciousness in the morning, and I burrowed farther into my lover's embrace. My head ached and everything felt dry and scratchy and too loud.
No wonder I heard so many people warning about how strong kanar was. If this is how it felt the morning after, I was quite happy never to taste that syrupy shit again.
"Come, my love. It's time to get up," Weyoun crooned in a gentle, careful whisper. An involuntary groan escaped me, and he ran his fingers softly through my hair. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts. I have something that'll help, though."
"I don't think even your gorgeous cock can fix this," I rasped as I forced myself to sit up - an utterly monumental task in that state.
"As honored as I am that you view me as a potential cure to many ailments, I was talking about this," he said reaching for a hypospray sitting on the bedside table. "It'll take away the majority of your symptoms."
I tried to nod my head, but it just ended with me wincing and lying back down. A quiet hiss sounded against my upper arm, and a few moments later, the pain melted away as if Weyoun's fingers trailing over my scalp had behaved like a poultice, absorbing the Evil Hangover straight from the source.
Featherlight kisses landed on my closed eyelids, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief at the sensation.
"I take it you and Damar had fun last night?" He teased, and I groaned.
"For your own health, never ever try to match drinks with a Cardassian soldier." I cautioned, but before I could say more, the comm system chimed.
"Dukat to Weyoun. There is an urgent meeting in thirty minutes. Bring the Lieutenant with you. She'll want to be a part of this." He didn't wait for a response, simply stated the message and cut the line.
A long-suffering sigh escaped my lover's lips, and he fixed me with a stare. Those soft, warm purple eyes of his filled with a playful sort of calculating stare. He then picked up a glass of water and gave me a wink.
"Computer, deactivate Universal Translator in this room," he ordered, and my eyebrows shot upward. The acknowledging chirp from the computer stirred my curiosity. Holding the glass of water between us, he pointed at it and murmured a single word. "Na."
I blinked, and he, noticing my blankness, smiled and repeated the word before gesturing a hand at me. I repeated the word, still mildly confused, but it pleased him, and just like that something clicked.
Apparently, this was my first lesson in how to speak Dominionese. My pronunciation had been right on the money, but I didn't know if he meant the cup itself, or what was in the cup.
"Na?" Reaching forward, I tapped the glass as I asked, then I dipped a fingertip into the liquid, "or is this na?"
A look of comprehension flickered across his face, and he touched the liquid as I had, repeating the word confidently. He had me say it once or twice more, and offered me the glass with a cheerful little kiss on the forehead.
As we dressed for our meeting with Dukat, Weyoun tapped items of clothing and various objects around the room, giving me their names in his language and having me repeat them until my pronunciation was satisfactory. By the time that the translator came back online, I couldn't help but feel proud that I'd absorbed so much while recovering from a hangover.
--
The Changeling standing in the wardroom sent a bolt of anxiety rocketing through me. Why was a Founder here? Wasn't it enough for the Vorta to keep their people informed? Odo stood at her side, looking confused, a little suspicious, and...was he happy? I supposed that he must be. After all, he wasn't the one who'd been exiled from ever returning to their homeworld. The slightly guarded yet curious glances he threw her way said more than words ever could.
How long had she been on the station? How deeply into him had she sunk her claws?
I had my answer when I glanced at the table and noted that Major Kira was conspicuously absent. For the safety of the resistance and the Federation's future, I had to assume that Odo had been compromised.
"Founder, it is an honor," Weyoun said sinking into a low bow at my side. His hand still rested squarely in mine, but I didn't copy his actions. Lifting my chin in defiance, I merely looked at her as her hawk-like eyes watched us - or rather, me. She didn't seem to even notice Weyoun, choosing instead to stare at me.
"We meet again, child of Meris," she said, but I just lifted an eyebrow. What sort of response could I possibly give after she banished me? I'd chosen Weyoun over my people - a decision I could never regret - but I had no intention of discussing my logic with one so cruel that she could not comprehend that what she'd almost done was wrong in the extreme. "Have you nothing to say to your kin?"
Glancing around the room in faux contemplation, I shook my head blankly.
"I see no kin here. Besides, the last time we spoke, you made your opinion on my existence quite clear." I was proud of how calm and logical I sounded despite the anger boiling within me.
"Perhaps our opinions of you have changed," she said taking a few steps toward me. Looking away from her, I spotted Dukat and was, for once, grateful for his presence.
"What did you call us here for, Gul?" The smirk that met my inquiry sent a shiver down my spine. "I trust it wasn't just for this...reunion?"
"Come, Lieutenant. Have a seat by me. We have a breakthrough to discuss," he called, and I did as he suggested. Pulling Weyoun gently along, I ensured that the Founder wasn't given the chance to sit on either side of me. All the meeting gave me were specifics on the plan to remove the minefield. Nearly everything Dukat and Damar said were things I'd heard from the latter the night before, and I forced myself to act surprised.
I caught Damar looking at me a few times, doubtless trying determine how much he'd said the night before and how much I remembered. When I gave him an innocent smile and acted engrossed in Dukat's speech as if it was all new, he seemed to relax.
Very well. Let the drunkard believe that he'd averted a crisis. The more his people underestimated their opposition, the easier it would be to catch them off their guard.
"You will keep me informed," the Founder said rising to her feet as if she was a queen. Without waiting for an answer from Gul Dukat, she turned to Odo. "Come. I wish to speak with you alone."
I expected him to toss out an abrasive comment, but instead, he followed her like an obedient puppy.
What the hell was going on?
Before I could say a word to Weyoun, though, the Founder tossed a glance over her shoulder.
"Come, Weyoun. We require your service," she called not waiting for an answer as she swept out of the room. He gave me an apologetic kiss on the cheek before rushing after the pair of Changelings, and then I was left alone with the two Cardassians.
"Well, well, that wasn't exactly what I was expecting," Dukat murmured, and I let out a heavy sigh. I still had the edge of a headache from this morning's hangover. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the headrest of my seat. "Oh dear. You do seem stressed."
It was all I could do to keep my eyelids from snapping open when one of his large hands rested on my thigh, squeezing the muscles there in what I guessed was supposed to be a soothing gesture. I hummed low in my throat - the sound's meaning was one that I let him interpret on his own.
"Did I wear you out last night?" Damar asked with a huff of laughter, and Dukat let out a scandalized gasp. I could imagine just how wide his eyes had grown as he looked between his officer and me.
"Don't tell me you were with another Cardassian!" He sounded sufficiently playful, but still just jealous enough to bring a smile to my lips. Good. I had him hook, line, and sinker.
"Only for a drink," I replied, and Damar took that as his cue to leave. The door hissed closed, leaving me truly alone with Dukat. Why shouldn't I use this as an opportunity to deepen his trust in me?
"No wonder you look so tired," Dukat murmured sounding much closer than before. His other hand touched my forehead and his lips met my cheek. "Poor girl. I can massage that headache away if you like...?"
Letting out a harsh, skeptical laugh, I finally opened my eyes and tilted my head to face him.
"And trust your hands not to wander? Forgive me, Gul, but I've heard stories of your dalliances during the Occupation–"
"Are you truly telling me that after all we've been through over the years, you wouldn't enjoy a little...dalliance of our own? Especially considering that your pretty little Vorta toy will likely be busy serving the Founder's wishes while she's aboard. We wouldn't want you to grow lonely, would we? I could keep you entertained," he challenged as he skimmed his fingertips down the side of my face. After seeing the Founder in the flesh and how unquestioningly obedient Weyoun was to her, suddenly Dukat didn't seem so bad.
Relativity, indeed. Tilting my head, I skimmed my lips ever-so-lightly over the palm of his hand and looked up at him - a nice touch, if I do say so myself.
"You wish," I breathed, and a devilish smirk stretched his lips. Oh, I was playing with fire.
"Would such a wish really be so surprising?" The Gul's voice was low and intimate - soft, as though he thought that was what I needed.
I did. I needed gentleness quite badly. Just not from him.
"Coming from you? Not in the slightest." I put as much condescension in my tone as I dared, hoping he'd take it as a clumsy attempt at Cardassian-style flirting. A raspy chuckle vibrated deep in his throat, prompting me to get to my feet.
"You're not leaving so soon, are you?"
"I should. After all, Weyoun–"
"–will be busy with the female Founder and Odo for quite some time. You are free to do as you wish," he argued, but I shook my head quietly.
"I have duties."
"You don't. I took the liberty of having Major Kira clear your schedule for the day." I froze, and obviously didn't hide my surprise well, because he continued in a more amused tone. "Initially, I believed that you'd want the time for a family reunion, but given your reaction to your long-lost relation, you could use the time for something more...enjoyable. Improving interstellar relations between Bajor and Cardassia, perhaps...?"
He stood and moved in front of me, tilting my chin up so that eyes met his.
"There's no need to be coy," he whispered. "Obviously, we both want this..."
"You want me?" I asked, attempting to sound as innocent as I could while my hand slid up to his neck ridge. He practically moaned out a 'yes,' and I grabbed the section of his ridge that Kira had taught me was a weak point for Cardassians. Dukat let out a pained hiss, but the delighted smirk on his face spoke more of arousal than discomfort. "Then work for it. I'm not one of your comfort women from the previous occupation. If you want me, then you need to earn the privilege. Understood?"
"Oh yes, Lieutenant." Though strained, he still managed to sound flirtatious. I released him and spun on my heel. Sparing him a single glance over my shoulder as I walked out, I noted the tent in his uniform trousers.
--
This was a mess. Everything was a mess. If the Federation didn't retake the station soon, the resistance might be in shambles. Damar was clearing the wormhole, Odo was wrapped around the Female Founder's little finger, and Dukat's actions today might have finally convinced Major Kira that I wasn't worth trusting...that I'd truly betrayed the Federation and Bajor. Besides that, I might have to close my eyes and do something I'd very much regret with Dukat.
Guilt wound through me every time that I acknowledged how much I'd encouraged his attraction. I knew I needed information for the Federation and the Resistance, and I needed the Gul to trust me, but was flirting with him even the right move considering everything at stake?
I had no idea how long I was stuck in my thoughts, but at some point that evening, I became vaguely aware that Weyoun had returned to our quarters. His voice washed gently over my ears, but I didn’t hear a word. My eyes remained lost in the stars just outside the window, and my arms had been crossed protectively around my middle for goodness only knew how long.
What could I do to stop the minefield being removed when I hadn't even found a way to communicate with Starfleet Command? I mean, what had I been doing all this time besides playing house with a Vorta?
A wave of concern flowed from Weyoun to myself through our odd link as he sensed my emotions, but I didn’t move a muscle. Even when his hands took up careful residence on my shoulders, I couldn’t bring myself to do more than blink.
“Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Weyoun’s smooth, concerned voice asked from behind me as I stared out into the oblivion of space. He could read people better than they could read themselves, and I was certainly no exception, not that I was making it particularly difficult for him at the moment. Even if we hadn't been empathically linked, it wouldn't have been hard to see how wilted I felt. “You’ve been quieter than usual since you returned from that late night with Damar, and now with Founder here... You’ve been preoccupied. I realize that you don’t want me to think of you as the offspring of a deity, but...I live to serve you in whatever ways you may require, my love. What can I do to help you?”
I felt too vulnerable and too closed off all at once, like a frayed wire being strangled by what little remained of its casing. Who else could I say anything to? Who else cared about what I said, even if this all turned out to be a ruse - a long game that he'd been playing so patiently - in the end?
Weyoun was the only one. I couldn’t trust anyone on this station, not anymore, not where it was important. Hell, I shouldn’t even fully trust him, but what other choice did I have?
For this...could I risk it just this once? He thought of Changelings as gods. He regarded the being who was my biological father as a god, and I myself as a demigod of sorts. Would this be taking advantage of the programming the Founders had included in his genetic makeup? Would he feel obligated to listen to me drivel on without regard for his own feelings despite my protests that I wanted only his honesty?
When I turned and my eyes met his, I felt something in me break. Weyoun looked so worried. Precious man. His almost neon purple eyes were moist as though he were on the verge of tears like I was - he truly was distressed over my current state. I knew my own eyelids were most likely puffy from the tears I’d shed - the emotions threatening to spill over again at any moment - and I knew that he’d have noticed that by now. He was much too clever for his own good.
A low whisper of my name brought me out of my thoughts enough to notice that the Vorta’s brow had furrowed just a little bit more than before.
“Please...it pains me to see you like this. I beg you, please let me help,” he said barely above a whisper, and whatever cracks had formed in my defenses extended far enough that I could no longer keep up my flimsy facade. My eyes burned, my vision blurred, and tears began rolling down my cheeks. A flicker of fear passed over Weyoun’s features and through our bond, and although I wanted to comfort him, all that escaped me was a quiet sob. There wasn’t much space left between us to begin with, but he still stepped forward as much as he could and lifted his hands, allowing them to hover on either side my face as if he was afraid to touch me. “H-How do I help you?”
In answer, I reached out and wrapped my arms around him. Pressing my face quietly against his shoulder, I felt his own limbs envelope me without hesitation - one around my middle and one around my upper back - holding me close to him. Weyoun was nearly trembling from how fiercely and protectively he was embracing me.
“I’m here,” he murmured against my temple in that soft, comforting voice. This time instead of it being filled with steady lies as it so often was in meetings, I could hear it wavering with emotion just as it had so long ago on that Dominion ship and when he found that I'd remained on the station despite its occupation. “You are not alone. You have me; you always will. I promise. No matter what happens with the Dominion, the Alpha Quadrant, the Gamma Quadrant...you will always have me. I know what it is to be alone, and I swear you never will be again.”
Safe in his arms, I found myself no longer caring whether this was just a ploy or not, because I so desperately wanted to believe that I wouldn’t be alone anymore. He'd been here, but I hadn't allowed him to see just how stressed I was trying to toe the line between the Dominion and Bajor. I wanted to believe he was telling the whole truth. Just this once.
Just this once.
So I nodded my head against his shoulder and simply let myself be comforted by his embrace, by his promise, and by this one act of kindness, dangerous though it might eventually prove to be.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to get out around my stuttered breaths. I was. He didn’t deserve to have someone sobbing all over him for no reason. He was the one who needed kindness, especially after the way I’d seen that Founder treating him. He wasn't some pet for them to order around. He deserved so much more kindness than he was being shown.
Yet he was the one showing it to me. Whether incited by genuine concern or by his programmed devotion to the Founders - and myself by extension - Weyoun had never been anything less than sweet and gentle and courteous to me.
But how could I allow a shred of doubt into my head? Just thinking back to the first time I'd felt the extent of his love for me, I remembered how different his emotions had been compared with those he'd felt for the beings who had cloned him.
Shame wove hot and heavy through the ravages of my sorrow.
“You of all people have no reason to apologize to me,” he said before pressing his lips against my forehead in a tender kiss. “What could you possibly have to be sorry about? You have never been unkind to me, you’ve never hurt me. You’ve only ever shown me love and compassion. You are the most remarkable person I’ve ever encountered.”
“You have better things to do than put up with someone crying all over you,” I muttered daring to tilt my head back enough to look up into Weyoun’s eyes. He looked almost startled at my statement.
“My dear, you act as though you are a burden to be borne. I assure you, nothing is further from the truth,” he murmured in a pained voice. One of his hands lifted and cupped my cheek. His thumb skimmed gently across my skin wiping away the last of my tears. Leaning into his touch, I let my eyelids flutter shut. I knew I shouldn’t be this open with him - he was the Female Founder’s puppet while she was aboard the station, after all - but I couldn’t help it. Who else could I possibly be vulnerable with? Considering the cruelty and violence of this war surrounding me on a daily basis, was it really so wrong to enjoy a simple moment of self-indulgent intimacy? I raised my hand to cover Weyoun’s and turned my head just far enough to kiss his wrist.
It wasn’t even close to an adequate thank you for all he’d done for me, but it was all I could manage. I knew he’d understand - he always understood me with a startling degree of accuracy, even when I couldn’t express myself correctly or fully.
“Why do you think so little of yourself?” He asked in barely more than a whisper as his eyes slid from our hands to meet my gaze. “You are lovely and kind to everyone, even those like me who don’t deserve it–”
“But you do deserve it. You always have, Weyoun, no matter how the Founders may have treated you,” I said quietly looking up into his eyes. He blinked owlishly at me, and I leaned in, kissing his cheek. “Can you still not see that after all this time, darling?”
“I suppose I...still have a bit of trouble separating myself from the way the Founders created us,” he admitted as a lavender blush colored his cheeks. “Forgive me–”
“Hush. There’s nothing to forgive,” I promise coaxing him into resting his forehead against mine. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I knew his excellent Vorta hearing would still register what I had to say. “We are, always have been, and always will be equals.”
“I believe you,” he murmured as his hands took up a timid grip on my waist. He took a slow, deep breath and as he exhaled, I rested my hands gently on his shoulders. Nothing had technically changed - the war was still raging, my father was still a missing murderer, and Dukat was still playing a tyrannical, slutty version of king of the castle with the station.
And yet...there in Weyoun’s arms, such a fundamental shift had occurred that it felt as though I suddenly could take on the universe. Perhaps it was a part of the Vorta coding which bound them to the Founders that made me feel reassured as I stood there, his own confidence in me bleeding over and restoring my own.
Or perhaps there was another explanation. The relationship that had been developing between us had shown no cracks until Dukat tried to worm his way between us. Even now, I was acutely aware that the Gul had plenty of reasons to try and manipulate me on that front. Why had I ever allowed myself to listen to a single word he said? Was I so afraid of losing Weyoun that I assumed it was just my luck that I would?
I had doubted myself and my judgment regarding him for so long that I suppose I didn’t feel like I deserved to be loved with the kind over unwavering affection Weyoun had shown me. Even as that thought crossed my mind, doubts filtered through from my subconscious that I shouldn’t have allowed myself to take this much liberty with his affection as it was - that I was weak for doing so.
But I needed him, and I loved him. Weyoun had assuaged my fears on that front so many times before, but was that justification enough for continuing?
“Such chaos thrust upon one person... Let me be your shielding."
The soft earnestness surrounding Weyoun's words had me crumbling in his arms. Almost without conscious thought, I tilted my head and caught his lips in a kiss that I hoped said all the words I couldn't muster. My lover didn't hesitate to return the gesture, kissing me with such tenderness that it took my breath away.
Slowly, naturally, our movements gained momentum, becoming hungrier and more desperate by the second. Just as he'd done after my encounter with Keevan, Weyoun easily took control. Something urgent and lurid passed between us, and in a blur of discarded clothing, we fell into our bed.
We'd experimented with each other over the time we'd been together, but we hadn't quite taken that final step. With his fingers pumping between my legs and mine caressing the base of his length and the folds of his slit, he whispered in my ear.
"I want to make love to you. Please, I'm ready. I'm aching for you, my love. I've dreamt of you so many times..."
I couldn't possibly deny him. Why would I even want to after all this time? I loved him, and I would never pressure him into doing more than he was comfortable with. I would, however, be lying if I said that I'd never imagined what our first time together would be like.
My imagination paled in comparison to the sweet sounds he made as he entered me for the first time. His name was a prayer on my lips, just as mine was on his. Our pleasure was reflected, doubled, then increased exponentially by the bond that formed between our minds. We merged so completely that I couldn't tell where Weyoun began and I ended.
The wet slap of skin-on-skin sounded less obscene and more...restorative. We both needed this. Our reasons might have been different, but our desires, our love, stemmed from the same source.
When he finally spilled within my trembling body, tears dampened both our faces. Weyoun's teeth had left bite marks down my neck, and I'd left a few scratches down his back.
Aside from murmured declarations of love between kisses, we didn't speak. What could we say? What could possibly need to be said so desperately that either of us would risk disturbing the peaceful, content atmosphere that had settled over us like a blanket?
Gentle touches, cuddles, and affectionate looks carried us delicately into dreamland that night.
--
The next morning as I blinked hazily into awareness, I thought the Vorta was still asleep. Trailing my fingers ever-so-softly through his mussed, silky, black hair, I couldn't help but smile. He was supposed to be unsettling to the Dominion's enemies and charming in equal measure, but all I could see was how gentle he was. I knew he had it within him to be manipulative, charming, and underhanded all in a matter of moments - that was how the Changelings had cloned him to be - and I'd witnessed it. But there was something satisfying about seeing the head of station's occupying force curled up like a kitten in my arms.
"That feels good." The words breezed from his lips, carried on his breath as easily and lightly as a feather. I couldn't stop the smile that tugged at my lips.
"I won't stop, then," I whispered, and he let out an appreciative hum.
"I meant it, you know. Every Weyoun since our very first iteration over a hundred years ago has seen your face in our dreams. Seeing you on the Defiant...I recognized you immediately."
My hand slowed atop his scalp. My lover's voice was low and nervous, as if he was afraid I'd mock him or accuse him of lying. Instead, I watched as he lifted his head from my chest and looked up at me with wide, gentle eyes.
"But...that was so long ago..." I was confused, definitely, but I wanted to hear him out. Across our bond, I could feel tension, as if Weyoun was taking a chance saying any of this.
"My very first memories are images of you from prior iterations' dreams. They all saw your face so frequently that they knew you were someone vitally important...that the Founders were allowing us visions of a blessing they planned to give us. The fourth Weyoun...he'd almost lost hope the day you met him," he murmured. "Only the important memories - the ones that stand out - are encoded for future iterations to retain. You...your face has survived every activation."
A lump rose in my throat. How was that possible? I'd heard of people having visions they thought were from their deities - hell, even Captain Sisko had visions from the Bajoran Prophets - but I knew for a fact that the Founders weren't gods. Even they couldn't predict the future like that. Otherwise, I had no doubt that they would've stopped my father from mating with a Human.
"In the dreams, you called out to me...said my name...promised you'd find me no matter what. I've never told anyone this before, but in my darkest hours...the moments where my faith in the Founders was at risk of falling apart, I clung to the image of your face hovering over me...and it strengthened me," Weyoun admitted in a whisper as he cupped my cheek, gliding his thumb over my skin. "I-I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."
Unable to make my tongue work, I shook my head and kissed his lips. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? What could I say about that revelation?
I hadn't even begun to sort through the messy tangle of emotions in my chest when the comm chimed.
“Damar to Weyoun.” Of course, there was never a calm, quiet moment on this station, even with it under the Dominion's thumb. The Vorta sighed quietly, the warmth of his breath caressing my skin as softly as his lips had in the wake of our intimacy.
“What is it?” He asked quietly, sounding more reluctant than I’d ever heard him. He didn’t move away from me any more than I did from him. If anyone had been watching, they’d doubtlessly assume that our nude bodies were stuck together beneath the blanket by some immutable, unseen force.
“You’re needed in Security. Now.” The Cardassian sounded smug, a fact which never seemed to bode well in his company. "We've just arrested a saboteur. The Ferengi bartender's brother, Rom."
~*~*~
Dominionese:
Na = water
~*~
Taglist:
@akamitrani @android-boyfriends @attention-bajoranworkers @bigblissandlove1 @darkmattervibes @emilie786 @groovyqueer @horta-in-charge @live-logs-and-proper @slutty-slutty-vulcans @starrynightgardens @toebeans-mcgee @weyounthevorta
#deepspacedukat fic#half-changeling!reader#Weyoun 5#Weyoun 5 x Reader#lieutenant!reader#established relationship
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It’s The Avengers (04x08)
Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)
Season 4 Episode 08: Unfair Practices
Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of the housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.
Warnings: an idiot sonovabich with bad intentions for our girl and a...um...thing we’ve been waiting for?
Word Count: I had no idea that when the gases in your intestines had no way to escape they could make various parts of your body hurt where you never thought gases could reach. Yes I am feeling the acidity in my chest tonight
MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)
"That's that for the class. You may talk to David and I'll be available on Wednesday for any queries."
The camera panned out of the professor's face to take in a smug David leaning on the lectern at the end of the platform.
"Uh, professor, may I talk to you about the Oedipus complex subsection in the chapter?"
The camera focused on Tamikah, the ace student in the class sitting in the front row. "I'd rather clarify my doubts from someone who can make me understand the complexity as a researcher rather than a man baby who thinks the complex is the ultimate truth of the world."
The entire class chuckled. David gave a chuckle with a tik in his jaw. Javier even caught the professor suppressing a smile before indicating for Tamikah to follow him to his office.
"Ugh, women," David whispered, "Everyone please submit your assignments. The grades will be up on Wednesday morning."
The camera turned towards the back of the class to find your figure lost in your notebook, your face resting on your palm while the other hand doodled something on the pages as you tried to hide a smile.
"Earth to Y/N," Yusuf whispered, calling you out of whatever trance you were experiencing before pulling out your assignment from beneath your notebook and walking down the lecture hall towards David.
A millisecond of fear flashed in your eyes and you looked for the camera.
You: *biting your lip* he looked at my notebook, Javi. God, he must be judging me so much right now!
*you look behind the camera* oh! *Open your notebook and show him the doodles*
*camera pans in to show the last page having incoherent scribbles with a couple of horns here and there along with a few flowers scattered across*
*camera pans out*
*silence* *you blink*
*you gasp* what do you mean you don't get it. I could not have been more obvious!
You joined Yusuf near the platform, giving him a friendly slap on the back before wrapping your arm around his shoulder. "Should we grab lunch at Erma's? I'm craving their jelly doughnuts," you asked your friend as you both began to head out of the lecture hall.
The camera made it a point to show the transparency of emotions on David's face when you did that. Yusuf was more than happy to be in your company.
"Please submit your assignment on your own, Miss Y/N," David calls you out in front of the class, "rather than running your errands through your classmates. It reflects how least interested you are about the work you are putting in receiving a good grade."
You ignored him.
Someone in class shouted, "She's not interested in you, man. Move on."
Neither you nor the camera felt the need to turn back and see what David was feeling right now.
The Lounge
The camera sat next to Wanda as she lay her head on the cold kitchenette island all the while groaning. Scott came from the elevator, drenched in sweat and glowing from the workout.
"Upset stomach? I got some tablets in my room ever since Y/N introduced me to those orgasmic Korean recipes."
"No," Wanda whimpered and went back to her groaning.
Gulping down a bottle of cucumber water, Scott took a huge gulp of air before looking back at Wanda. "What's wrong? Magic gone bad?"
The camera panned in on her face. The groaning stopped, her lips pouted the saddest pout imaginable and tears welled up in her eyes. "No," she finally sobbed.
Fear seemed to cloud Scott's eyes as the bottle was carelessly dropped in the sink and Scott bent down, placing his hands gently on her hair to caress it. "Hey! Hey! What happened?"
The tears didn't stop. "Nothing happened," came a small cry out of her before her voice cracked and the sobbing got worse.
Vision: *trying to adjust himself in his seat* Wanda has threatened me not to say anything but I'm worried for her. She had a nightmare yesterday and kept saying 'no!', 'No, you Glupyy bog!'
*shrugs* I don't know which bog is trying to hurt her but *camera pans in onto his serious face* that bog better be ready to...grab these hands.
*looks behind the camera* Oh...catch! That bog better be ready to catch these hands! *shows his hands*
The camera swerved to watch Tony enter the Lounge, pausing his conversation on the phone and observing Wanda.
"I'll call you back." He turned to Scott and pointed towards Wanda's figure with a tilt of his head.
Scott shrugged.
"Should I send for some Sokovian delicacies?" Tony asked her softly. "Or should I teach Vision to stop sleeping while standing in corner of your room?"
"No, he doesn't do that anymore," Wanda wailed through her sobs, wiping her tears but still not getting up from the kitchen island.
"Tony," she gasped a little, forcing the man to bend down and face her, "no matter what happens, all you need to do is give a hug."
Tony tilted his head in confusion. Before he could ask her anything, Wanda's hand came for his collar and pushed his face closer to hers.
"Do you hear me Tony?!" she wailed, swollen eyes bearing into the man. "Just a hug."
Tony gulped and nodded, bringing his arms around to hug her.
"NOT ME, DAMMIT!" Wanda yelled, the lens feeling a little tremble and Tony immediately pulled back, his hands up and away.
University Library
The camera sneakily walked across the library, trying to avoid the students and book racks, looking for someone. One corner of the library had a familiar figure hunched on a huge book opened upon a stack of more books.
"Yeah, I think I found something," you whispered into your cellphone, "I'll text you pictures right away."
Yusuf joined you with three more books.
"Oh, by the way-" you thanked Yusuf through your facial expressions- "Friday could have done this faster than me."
The camera came closer and was able to hear the voice at the other end.
"The comms went down and the ship's system was ridden with malware because SOMEONE thought it would be a great idea to download Minecraft from an unknown pop-up in the ship's system."
You furrowed your brows before the realisation hit you. "Thor."
"I was bored and had no games on my phone!" Thor yelled back.
"Friday's trying to fight the malware and reboot the system but we don't have enough time on our hands right now. These weirdos have started chanting some bizarre ritual and have started shooting at our ship. Text me the pictures and we'll try to figure out how to fight this cult."
"Oh, okay. Is Loki there too?"
It took you a second of locking eyes with the camera to realise what you had just said. "Uh-he said he was going to go to the city with Peter."
All you could hear was incoherent chants in the back while Thor tried to curse the bad guys away.
You facepalmed yourself hard and let out a muted curse. Gripping your lower lip in between your teeth for a stretched second, you blurted, "I needed some menstrual cups."
You: I COULD HAVE SAID ANYTHING ELSE!!! *wide-eyed glaring at the camera* ANY. THING. ELSE!!!! *The camera pans in on every word*
*you groan and hide in your hands*
*The camera pans out to show college kids passing you by with confused looks on their faces* *one of them offers you orange soda*
"Loki's not here," Natasha finally stated.
"Oh, cool." You wanted to bury yourself in your arms. "I'll keep sending you whatever I can find. 'Kay bye."
"Loki as in the God?" Yusuf whispered, sitting right next to you. You nodded. It took you a good few seconds to realise your friend did not know about your family.
"Cool," he exclaimed before you could add anything, "can you thank him from my side the next time you see him? He's been a lot of help in my term project."
Your furrowed brows and tilted head looked at him and then at the camera. And then back at him. "Excuse me? He did what?"
Somewhere in the University Grounds
Natasha ended the call with you and switched off the device blaring the chants and Thor's voice. "Y/N is kind to a fault." She walked towards one of the apartment complexes with the camera following her.
Natasha: Loki really is out with Peter today. And Javier is out with Y/N. Today is the perfect chance for me to do some digging and find out about the missing days of their space travel.
*looks at the person behind the camera* I know you want to know it as much as I do so I expect you to keep mum about what I'm about to do today.
*The camera nods*
Natasha's red hair was now veiled in a golden-coloured wig. Her face was covered behind huge sunglasses and instead of her go-to jeans and shirt, she wore a flower dress.
The apartment manager gave her figure one look before stopping her from getting on the elevator.
"Excuse me. Who are you and where do you think you are going?" the manager was a white lady with pixie-cut blonde hair, a wrinkled face with endless worry lines and rimmed glasses.
"Oh! Hi! I am Dorothy! Javier's mother! I am letting myself in to clean up my precious baby's dorm. He's a good kid but he takes after his father and never cleans up his mess. I'm pretty sure his place is stanking right now. He didn't bring his clothes for a wash the previous weekend. Don't worry Mama's got the keys to his place and she's gonna leave it squeaky clean for her little angel."
Natasha gave her biggest smile and a flawless New Jersey accent to the manager, who clearly was getting uncomfortable with every shoulder touch 'Javier's Mama' was making.
"Would you like to come to help me clean the apartment? The more the better, right? Oh, that reminds me, my baby's out of clean undies."
The manager was screwing her nose now. "No, thank you. Please, just go."
Natasha pressed the elevator button and once against smiled at the flabbergasted manager. She waved her goodbye as the doors closed. "Nice to meet ya!" She announced as the doors clicked close, the New Jersey mom immediately reverting to her resting assassin face.
"Not a word about this goes out." She glared at the camera through her sunglasses.
Walking out of the elevator on the fourth floor, she walked down the hallway and stopped in front of a door.
The camera focused on a device she pulled out of her dress pocket and stuck to the doorknob. The device clicked and whirred, blinking twice with a red light before turning green and clicking the door open for the assassin.
The apartment had a modest living room cum kitchen with three rooms at the end.
Setting the earlier device on the breakfast table, Natasha touched the edge of her sunglasses to switch on the reading mode on them.
"Friday, scan the entire apartment for hard disks, flash drives, memory cards and any electronic equipment with a storage."
"On it, Miss Romanoff," Friday chimed and began the scan right away.
Natasha grabbed two soda cans from the fridge, offering one to the person behind the camera. "And now we wait."
Uni Library 4 PM
"Huh. I had no idea Loki was a bookworm in that way!"
Yusuf chuckled, offering you a sandwich before going back to clicking pictures of any relevant page that Natasha might need.
You were still lost in his laptop, scrolling through the pages of research and citations, not able to believe the layers put into the paper.
"He's amazing!" Yusuf almost fangirled too hard before going back to the usual whisper. "He even loaned me some limited editions and research papers that are either sitting in restricted sections of world libraries or at some rich asshole's home."
The camera swerved from him to you, recording your fingers pausing the scrolling to look up from the screen.
You: *raise a brow* Excuse me???
"Glad that instead of either of those options, it was in Mr Stark's library. How lucky am I to be able to hold the same books that Mr Stark has preserved so well!" Yusuf adds with starry eyes.
You: *wave of realisation* Oh! *smiles* okay. *walks away from the camera to throw the baseball bat in your hand into the nearest storage closet*
You nodded in approval. "Stark's going to kill him but yeah. He's golden for lending you those books." The camera did not miss the little smile growing on your lips that you tried hard to suppress.
"He's a nice guy," Yusuf admitted, leaning back in his seat and smiling. "He often calls me up to ask me how I'm doing and sends me snacks during assignment hours."
You let your head rest in your palm as you looked at Yusuf. "Aw! I didn't know that. That's so sweet."
Yusuf was grinning now. "But I think he does this less for me and more for someone else." He twirled his finger in your direction.
You smacked that twirling finger away. "Yeah, right."
Yusuf licked his lips. "I mean-" he pulled his chair closer to the table, letting his arms rest on the surface and leaning his face in your direction- "he always asks about you. How you are doing? Whether you have eaten. If you are sitting alone somewhere, lost in thoughts. If you are enjoying your company. If you are enjoying your company...too much."
This time you smacked him away from you, the slap on his back resonating through the silence of the library. Both of you did not move for the next ten seconds, wondering if anyone would come and chuck you out of there.
"We should go back to helping Natasha," you whispered eventually, going back to the books in front of you.
"I think I should go back to helping that suppressed scream out of you."
"One more word and my elbow will bring out a scream from your stomach."
Avenger's Facility
The camera focused on the duffel bag Natasha carried through the front doors of the building, heading straight for the security room.
She emptied the contents of the bag on the centre table, letting the platform light up and scan all the storage drives and memory cards.
"Pull up the contents on all of them, Friday."
Friday put up the hologram screen to run all the devices simultaneously.
Half of them had test runs of the documentary. Some had shots of the university campus and some had recordings of campus events.
"Find me the one with Loki and Y/N's time in space. The missing timeline."
Three seconds was all it took to filter out the rest and bring forward the footage with a blank screen.
The camera stood opposite Natasha, recording a haze for where the screen was, looking right through at it at the curious assassin. The silence was deafening as both of them waited.
There was static for a few seconds before the sound of heavy breathing echoed through the security room.
"Do not make me repeat myself," Loki's voice was more of a growl, followed by someone gurgling- as if fighting for their breaths. "Where. Is. She."
The frame that was panned in on Natasha's face gradually noticed something. Her furrowed brows were slowly going back to their resting phase. Her usually pursed lips moved apart in a calculated surprise.
But there was more.
Her figure- earlier leaning on the table wanting to read every little movement on the camera footage- was standing straight and taking a step away from the table.
Curdled laughter resonated through the screen, sending Natasha's eyes wide.
"She's dead, your highness." The mockery in words was made worse by the maniacal laughter that followed.
A boom shook the recording running on the screen, making Natasha jump where she stood. This time, there was horror in the assassin's eyes.
University Campus: 0730 Hours
"Sorry, Yusuf. Had I known everyone was out at some event now, I wouldn't have dragged you into this." You groaned and bent down with your hands folded in front of him.
Yusuf cackled. "Are you kidding me? It was fun! I don't have a sister so I finally know what it's like to tease one about their crush. This is the best day on campus I've had." The boy glowed with happiness, forcing you to mirror his smile.
"Thanks, bro," you chimed.
"For teasing you?"
"For not asking about the Avengers? For being chill about all of this."
He smiled. "Aw, come on. I fangirled about them in front of Loki so I'm good now."
Both of you giggled to your heart's content till it was time for you to leave.
Assuring Yusuf you can go to the parking lot on your own, you bid goodbye and walked under the street lights towards the parking lot with Javi and his camera.
"He's a nice guy, isn't he?" you hummed with a smile, skipping on the pavement.
"Pretty nice," a familiar but unwelcoming voice came from the shrubs that decorated the pavement by the college building.
The camera quickly turned in that direction, moving ahead of you.
"David," your tired voice came from somewhere out of the frame.
David looked at the camera and then behind it.
"You should get out of here, kid. The adults are gonna have some grownup talk."
The camera did not budge where it stood until your voice called for him. "It's okay, Javi. It won't take long."
Javier's camera did not miss the smug smirk David had on his face when you said it wouldn't take long. Standing in the parking lot about a few meters away from you and David, the camera was constantly focused on you while someone's phone keypad was clicking quite fast in the back as if texting someone in a hurry.
"What do you want, David?" It was more of a tired plea than a question.
"What do I want? What do you want, Y/N?"
Your crinkled brows displayed wrinkles of befuddled emotions.
"Submitting your assignments seconds before the deadline. Making the excuses of being out of town just so you can do the extra ones to submit them to me. Being overtly sassy during my lectures even when we both know you aren't. Wearing boots even though you prefer flats. Then coming into my lecture yesterday with your hair flowing in the wind and that blue sundress till your knees. I think I know where this is going, sweet cheeks."
You had to take in a good gulp of breath to shake your whole body in bafflement at him. "What the f*** are you even talking about, David?"
"Oh, I know a flirt wave when I see one, baby."
With the amount of offence your brain had taken, you were barely able to form coherent sentences now. "I did not dress for you, you moron! I dressed for- why am I even explaining myself to you?!"
"Deny it all you want, Y/N. You can't run away from the fact that you are falling for me all over again."
Your offended features went back to their neutral self. Your lips shutting up and your eyes giving him an extremely offensive side, you walked away from him and towards Javi.
But David was quick to grab your arm and pull you back to him. Even before you could let this sink in, his hands were already roaming on the small of your back. "It's okay, babygirl. No need to deny the inevitable," David purred. "You can have me back. You don't have to be so needy about it."
"Oh, F*** OFF, DAVID!!" your patience was reaching its threshold. "Even the tick on the bug under my boot would not reconcile with a trash like you."
You broke away from his hold.
The camera panned in on the fallen face of David as he let your words sink in. "Not everything revolves around you. Something I should've known is not easy for you to understand," you declared while looking right into his eyes.
David's eyes seemed darker than usual now. The street lamps cast an eerie shadow over his face when he stood there frozen for as long as a cricket chirp before grabbing you by the neck.
You never had the time to react with the basic defence skills Natasha had taught you.
Javier's camera almost made a dash for it before coming to an unexpected halt.
David pushed you into the nearest side of a car in the lot, forcing a whimper out of you. "You think I'm a joke?" His grip got stronger, making you gnaw at his hands. "You f****g slut!" the camera caught David bringing your face closer to his, waiting to growl. "You whiny bi-"
"The last person who tried to hurt her ended up with a broken neck."
The camera zoomed in on the shadows behind David, trying to find the source of the voice when it caught a pair of glowing golden eyes with a green hue.
The God stepped into the light, pausing all movement within seven feet of his radius.
Loki never had to spell it out. The mercilessly brutal gaze seared a nauseating feeling into David, compelling him to push you away from him.
You felt your ankle twist, not able to bring back the balance in your leg if not for Loki breaking your fall.
The God placed his hand on your back and let his eyes survey your neck for any injuries.
The camera slowly closed the distance between you and Javi, focusing on Loki's eyes. The sombre concern saw something on you that brought back that nauseating rage in his eyes.
"I should have been more clear for this slow excuse of a human disgrace-" Loki's whisper tried to suppress his lungs as he turned towards David- "broken neck would be too easy a death for him."
The camera was a bit too focused on the colours fading from David's skin to notice why he was suddenly backing away from you and your company.
Loki's back was towards the camera. No way to record what he looked like. Only that he took two steps towards the man to send the latter running for his life while you grabbed the God by the waist.
"Let him be. Loki, stop," you commanded. But within seconds you were begging him when he tried to undo your hold as gently as possible. "Please, let him go."
"He hurt you, Y/N," Loki was not even looking at you.
"I don't care. Just please don't do anything," you kept wrapping your arms around him and blocking his way.
"It's alright," he calmly responded, still trying to walk in his direction, "he won't be able to do anything by sunrise."
The camera caught a wave of fear in your eyes.
Without another thought, you locked your arms around him as tightly as possible and shouted, "Wanda! Take us home!"
With a wave of red plasmic energy, you disappeared before the camera. So did Loki.
Another wave hit the camera and everything turned black.
The Lounge
Scott whistled the theme of La Cucaracha in the kitchenette as he fetched himself an ice cream tub.
"You want one, buddy?" he asked the person behind the camera sitting at the dining table at the other end of the lounge. Fetching another bowl, he walked towards the camera when a wave of red plasmic waves filled the lounge area.
Scott found himself jumping behind the sofa. So did the camera.
But unlike Scott, the camera peeped from behind the sofa to see you and Loki standing in the middle of the lounge while Javi presented himself out of thin air in the kitchenette, bumping into cabinets before finding a steady ground for his shaky legs.
"What? Why did you do that Y/N?" Loki was ticked.
The peripheral of the camera caught Scott raising his head to look at you two with peak curiosity.
"So, I'd rather let you run behind him and beat him to death?" you responded on the same wavelength as the God.
"He deserves it for being such a bloody scum." Loki was on the verge of grinding his teeth now.
"I don't care what he deserves, Loki. Okay? This isn't space! You cannot just go about getting your way here! People are watching you!" Your assertion came out more loudly than you expected.
"People can watch me punch the Midgardian soil out of him! Why should I care who's watching me!!" Loki was enraged now.
Scott scooted back into the shade of the sofa at the first emphatic syllable in Loki's voice.
"BECAUSE I CARE!!" you announced at the limit of your lungs. "I care too much about you to let some awful people brand you something you are not! Okay? I care about you too f*****g much to see you get so riled up by a pathetic loser. I-"
The camera zoomed in on your expression.
The weight of your own words dawned upon you abruptly while Loki stood there in a confused void.
The camera made sure to catch Scott's jaw hitting the floor at your confession while you tried to gather your emotions. You did not speak. It looked like you didn't want to.
"What?" Loki's voice went soft. And that did it for you.
"I like you, Loki," your voice confessed delicately; your fingers pressing the life out of each other, "I like like you. Too much."
#loki#loki x reader#loki x you#loki x y/n#loki fluff#loki fiction#loki series#marvel loki#marvel fluff#marvel fic#mcu loki#mcu fanfiction#mcu fluff#the office au#It's The Avengers#Maladaptive Ninja Returns
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Teruhashi Kokomi ― Schemes
PAIRING: Teruhashi Kokomi/Reader
WORD COUNT: 5.8k
TYPE: Humorous, Fluff, Light Angst, Fake Dating trope
WARNING: Teruhashi’s brother’s creepy behavior is acknowledged and depicted
Kokomi stares at you from across the library while you're cluelessly waiting for her, scrolling through your phone. She smiles to herself in her usual kind way as she thinks how perfect you're going to be for this role. But she's getting too far ahead of herself ― she should start the motions on her plan if she wants to see it succeed, instead of being smug about it beforehand.
Teruhashi clears her throat to get your attention, taking the seat in front of you. "Hi." Ok, that was very bland, but somehow in-character for the image she tries to portray daily.
"Hold on Teruhashi, I'm picking the perfect filter for my selfie." She blinks at your disinterest, in a way mirroring it since she couldn't give less of a shit about your selfie and what filter you were debating on using. Regardless, you flash her the screen and address her in the deadest voice possible. "Do you think this one makes me look hot? Like if you saw it on your Instagram story, would you wanna bang? Be honest."
She usually has a hard time telling whether you're being serious, since you say the dumbest things in the most monotone voice possible. You could be a stoic comedian or moronic enough to embarrass Nendou for all she knows, but either way, she persists in this interaction. "Looks great, you should go with that one! But I wanted to talk to you about something."
"What could possibly be more pressing than my next post?"
A lot, you buffoon, she wants to say, but holds back. "I... need a favor from you," she settles on instead, with her best impression of fake meekness.
To signal that she has your attention, you put your phone away.
"You know how I have a crush on Saiki, right?" She pouts for good measure.
This again. You roll your eyes, much less careful about hiding your callous habits than she is. "Listen, if you want me to throw in a good word for you, I'm telling you the guy would rather watch paint dry than take anything I have to say into consideration."
"No, no! I have something else in mind. I think you'll like it."
Of course you would. She has to memorize and understand everyone in school to keep up with her reputation, and you're someone she speaks to on a more than regular basis, anyway. You like getting involved in useless antics. There's no way you'll turn down something mischievous, like what she's thinking of. Plus, that'd probably be the highlight of your year. You're lucky she chose you, of all people-
"Well?"
Oh right, she's getting ahead of herself again. She has to tell you first. "I want you to help me make him jealous."
You're the perfect candidate for this. Everyone around PK. Academy thinks you're cool because of your 'I'm-too-good-to-react-to-anything' attitude and you're attractive, so it wouldn't be a major hit on her reputation. You already know how she feels about Saiki, so you wouldn't get the wrong idea, though she's sure you'd be happy to date her for real (everyone would be). The students know you two are good friends too, so it wouldn't be out-of-the-blue random.
"... In what world?"
"Fake date me so I can make Saiki jealous," she clarifies, all sunshine and rainbows.
You don't particularly say anything for a while. You just stare at her, but your face is so absent, it borders on judgemental. Instead of picking up on the offense she's supposed to feel, Teruhashi interprets this as you being stunned into silence by her generous offer.
Except you're not good for much, apart from bursting bubbles with your honesty. "What fanfic ass plan is that, huh?"
She puffs her cheeks and frowns in a way she hopes is more endearing than threatening. How dare you find out that she got that idea from a fanfiction! And so what? She could pull it off. However, instead of trying to convince you, she figures she'd have better luck trying to appeal to your desire for chaos. "Come on! It'd be kind of fun, like a conspiracy between us."
"What do you think is going to happen if we do that?"
"Saiki will get jealous."
"No. I'll get death threats from half the people who attend here," you say, unimpressed by her delusions.
"So what? You can't handle it?"
"You're unhinged." By now, though, you're thinking about the potential clownery that could come from this more than you're fearing for your safety. You know Saiki won't care about any of it, but the entertainment? The drama? She has you hooked on this weird idea.
"I'm not unhinged, you know that," she shoots back, giving you a faux innocent look.
You pretend to think about it for a bit. "Alright, fine. I'll help you," in this absolutely unproductive endeavor, but you don't care to finish your sentence either.
"Yay! You're the best," Teruhashi exclaims, despite knowing damn well things would go her way from the very beginning. She makes a show out of giving you a hug, earning stares from the nearby students as you awkwardly pat her on the back like she's a part of your crew or something. You two will work on your acting later.
Well, if some random nobodies were already envious, how challenging could Saiki really be?
___
The plan goes in effect a few days after that. Teruhashi struts up to her two friends in her usual cheerful fashion, except more intense. She's glowing too; well, she always is, but this time, it's too blinding.
The good mood wasn't a farce. However, she would have to lie about what she was really excited about.
"Something good happen to you, Kokomi? Your smile is brighter than usual."
Mera squints her eyes at her friend, struggling to see. "A bit too bright."
"Yes! [L/n] asked me out, so we're dating now." She gives a happy sigh to seal the deal.
"Oh ok," Mera responds with an impressive lack of enthusiasm.
Chiyo squeals, but her response is not what Teruhashi was expecting, if anything at all. "Really?! I always thought you two would be cute together."
"What?" she asks, hoping not to betray any shock or repulsion she may be feeling.
"Well, obviously you and Saiki would've been cute too, but I think you two get along really well, so I'm glad you ended up dating. I feel like you bring out a different side out of that menace. It's kind of like a bad cliche book, but more adorable."
Teruhashi holds herself back from letting her eye twitch. Mera still doesn't care, apart from saying she likes you because you let her eat your leftovers from time to time. Neither of the other two can decide if that's mean or preferable compared to food waste.
___
"I'm just saying, a good fake partner would walk me to my class and kiss me on the cheek and tell me to be safe," Teruhashi says through gritted teeth. She doesn't know if you're being difficult on purpose or if you're just denser than lead, but either way, she wants to kill you right now.
"But why? It's like, just a few doors away from my class. Plus, that's so corny and disgusting," you counter. So much for 'bringing a different side out of that menace'. You're horrible.
"Because what's the point of fake dating if Saiki can't see it, you dunce?!" The words make it out of her mouth before she can even think about it. To play it off, she giggles and looks to the side, trying her best to be cute. Her cheeks redden in embarrassment ― Kokomi hates it when she catches her mask slip. "S-Sorry, I don't know where that came from."
"Whatever," you dismiss, picking your ear with your pinky, though you're grinning at her as if her brief freakout made you proud or something. "I'll do it, but I'm not telling you to be safe in front of everyone. I've got an image too, y'know?"
"Little asshole," she mumbles under her breath, turning away from you.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. Anyway, let's go to class before I'm late."
You're casual when you stroll in the classroom, noticing a few familiar faces, along with Saiki's. His attempts at not glancing in either of your directions are very blatant to you, but you're sure Teruhashi is too deep into la-land to notice that this won't ever work. You're just here for a free ride to the circus at this point.
You make a big deal out of it too, pulling out her chair for her. She sits down with as much practiced grace as she does everything else, though she's a bit taken aback by the gesture, even if she's aware you're doing it in a taunting way. Not that anyone else would understand that, anyway. Truth to be told, she hadn't expected you to double down on the obnoxious public displays of affection.
Kissing her on the cheek earns you a few glares from the losers in her class. Teruhashi swoons fakely despite this being what she commanded you to do earlier. You lean to whisper in her ear so only she can hear, "Be safe, Kokomi."
She raises her eyebrow and flushes a little again when you give her a second peck and leave the room to your own class. Trying not to dwell on it, she appreciates that you're willing to commit to the act in front of everyone, at least, even if the last part was unnecessary. Especially your use of her first name.
___
"That Class-2 bastard sure is lucky, dating Teruhashi," Nendou says, regarding you, because anything involving the school's resident idol is news, apparently. "I'd kill to be one of them."
"Wait, what?" Kaidou asks in response to the last part of that spiel.
"Trust me, there's so many things I'd rather be doing than be either of them right now." Saiki rolls his eyes. Obviously, the entire ordeal has been transparent to him, but reading both of your minds has only made it worse.
He looks in your direction and hears the riveting inner dialogue, Man. I need to scratch me bumhole right now. Haha, in a fake Irish accent you had no reason to be putting on in your head.
"Really? That's what you think about while eating lunch with your fake girlfriend?"
Saiki hadn't given you much consideration before, apart from hearing an out-of-pocket thought here and there. You're the only insane person in this school that's immune to him, not at all fascinated by him, and he's been happy to be away from your radar. On a very surface level, it offended him you found him so bleak since he got used to getting attention by the colorful characters around the school by now, but concluded it was for the best. Except now with Teruhashi's plan, your introduction into his life seems inevitable.
He's not sure if he prefers the dim-witted shit that goes through your head over Kokomi's. Is Saiki looking? Is he looking? He has to be looking right now. Am I eating this cute?
He sighs. "Good grief. It's going to be a long year."
___
"You should start walking me home," she suggests.
"Why? No one can see," you say.
"Well, some members of my fan club follow me home, so I think it'd be suspicious if you didn't. They'd notice," she tells you with a beam on her face.
Your eyes almost bug out from their rightful placement. "Incels follow you home?!"
"They're not incels."
"And what are they? Kokomincels?"
"Don't be rude," she chastises.
"I really think there are other things you should worry about. Like how these strange men from school know where you live, for example." You tilt your head innocently, though you find it funny how protective she is of those weirdos, obviously in case any of them overhear your trash-talking them.
"Shut up!" She punches your shoulder with a bit too much force, causing you to laugh. "Sorry."
"Shiver me timbers, you actually have a personality."
Teruhashi furrows her eyebrows. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Anyway, I don't mind walking you home now that I know you have stalkers prowling the streets or whatever."
"They're not stalkers. They're just preoccupied with me." She smiles at what she just spouted, too, like she believes it.
You shrug after the two of you put on your shoes and prepare to head out of the school. "If that helps you sleep at night. I figure you need some relief because, y'know, creeps-"
"Screw you! Stop that."
Raising an eyebrow, you turn towards her. "Damn girl, where'd you learn that word?"
"I don't want to think of anyone around me in that way. I'd be paranoid all the time," she whispers, scowling at you before trying to force her face into a more neutral position.
"Fairs."
"I wish you wouldn't say 'fairs'. It makes me wanna punt you." You're not that concerned about how happy she seems to reveal her plans of committing atrocities against you, if you have to be honest.
"There, there, I'm sorry," you say, probably disingenuously, before giving her a half-hug while you wrap your arm around her shoulder. "I think Saiki's behind us now and we're in his direct line of sight too, so major win for you."
"These two have to be the most indiscreet fake couple ever. I'm surprised no one has heard them have these conversations yet. Apart from me, the unwillingly omnipresent."
Right, Saiki. She forgot about that for a moment, so she hopes he didn't notice her acting strange earlier. You should stop provoking her. What's the point of this if you're making her look bad? Teruhashi makes a half-hearted attempt at convincing herself that she's mad at you for it, but she can't. "Well, did he seem upset?"
"No, I don't think he paid attention," you say, laughing.
"I did, but it doesn't matter. You're performing a 2.5/10 script in front of a mediocre audience of a single person who's on the brink of falling asleep. Nothing about it is salvageable at this point."
"Try harder to make him jealous, then. I want him to act on his feelings."
"You're kinda out of your mind, but whatever. I like that."
"I'm not! He just needs a push in the right direction... Saiki's a shy guy, but maybe you dating me can awaken his manly rage."
You snort out your nose at her wording. Manly rage? Saiki? That could happen in her dreams, you figure, but it's too unrealistic. "How can you read twenty-four books but not read the room?"
She waves you off with a dismissive gesture of her hand. "I don't read that much." Maybe being kind and perfect isn't that pressing at the moment.
___
"Hey, Kokomi, look," you drawl out, shifting while you're hiding something behind your back.
"What?" she asks, trying to peer at it.
You raise your hand and wait for a second before finding it fit to reveal whatever you're hiding, perhaps to raise the tension. Teruhashi almost scowls and calls you dramatic, but decides against it. Instead, she's left to frown at what you pulled out.
A piece of paper with LEAVE HER ALONE SHITHEAD!!! written in chicken scratch. There's a little red smeared on it, like the person's finger was bleeding, and they wiped it on their message for good measure.
"Do you likey?"
"No, I don't 'likey'," she replies, crossing her arms. Kokomi leans down and adjusts herself, narrowing her eyes like she's analyzing this literature you've presented her. "I don't recognize the handwriting."
You rise an eyebrow. "I didn't figure you would-"
"Well, why wouldn't I? I know almost everyone's handwriting. Even yours," she says, pridefully flipping her hair as a smug smile overtakes her expression.
"That's... interesting." Pretending to not feel weirded out is not your strongest forte. Why does she put so much effort into things that are virtually useless? "Anyway, I just thought it was funny."
"How's that funny?"
"I told you I'd get some kind of threat before Saiki ever gets jealous." You smirk. "So I was right."
"Oh, buzz off! This isn't even a proper threat."
"You should try saying fuck next. The look on the teacher's face will be epic."
Teruhashi pouts and glances away from you. "Hmph. No way."
___
Teruhashi has already instructed you to 'accidentally' meet up with Saiki and his goons once or twice, making it look like you two were already on a date and 'happened' to see them ― which miraculously turned out to be extremely boring and uneventful. You walk her to her house every day (more so on account of your concern rather than the time she requested it), and you've been up to some really annoying antics in school just to appease her. Nothing has worked. You want to girl-he-doesn't-care your way out of this one, but you can feel that she's giving up on the plan too. So when she calls you on a Saturday, you figure it's time for you two to plan out your break up.
However, she just stuns you into silence by saying, "I'm going to the shopping center. We need to go out."
"What, do you have Kokomincels at the shopping center too? Do I have to ward them off with my partner-ly rage?"
"Oh my god, let it go! I was just thinking we could take some cute pictures and hang out." Great, now Teruhashi's whining at you on the phone.
"Eh, I don't know. This is becoming more than a 9-5 job. Now you want me to do this on my free day? Does Saiki even have social media for him to see the pictures?"
Are you immune to her charm or something? She's in disbelief at what she's hearing. Furrowing her brows, she continues, "Don't act like you have something better to do."
You turn back towards your laptop and blink at the empty Google search bar glaring in your direction. Knowing she's right, you decide to lie. "Maybe I do."
"And what is it?"
"Playing... a... a game on the computer?"
"Go outside. Touch grass. How about that?"
"Uh, with my auntie? I'm playing with my auntie."
"If you don't wanna hang out with me, just say so," Teruhashi says, letting out a fake sniffle, activating her trap card labelled manipulation.
Usually such cheap tricks don't work on you and you'd rather laugh at crybabies than sympathize, but you fall for it this time. "No, not like that. We can go out if you want to, I guess."
"Thanks," she sings, joyful all of a sudden, the actress. "You're the best, [Y/n]! Meet me there in an hour."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. To my haters: keep sucking. I'm about to cum."
"Oh my god, EW." With this last shriek, Teruhashi hangs up, and you bask in the moment to feel superior for your own stupidity. Once it turns less amusing though, you stand up from your numbness inducing position and figure it's time to get ready.
___
"This one looks like you," you say, pointing at some weird trinket on display. It's kind of like an old man's head over a centipede's body. You wonder how it got conceived in this world and whose sick mind came up with it, but you appreciate the ugliness.
The shopping center can be occasionally interesting, though neither of you has bought anything. You're broke, but you don't know what Teruhashi's deal is. Everyone offers her discounts and then tells you that you'll have to pay more for hanging around her. As if.
"Shut up. I look like this one," she insists, directing her attention towards a cute bear figurine. She coos at it too, but you're making a face like you couldn't care less.
"Boooring."
"And you're this one." Slyly, she picks up the one that resembles a miscarriage, with a giant head thrice the size of its body.
You tilt your head. "Damn, you really did me like that. But it's true, my mind is quite huge."
"First of all, you did me way worse. And more inaccurate! Ugh... I've had enough of this." Figuring that she won't get any fun out of tormenting you since you always flip her insults to your advantage or brush them off, Teruhashi decides it's time to change locations. "Wanna get some coffee?"
"In the afternoon-"
"Don't be a wuss."
"-as per my schedule."
"I'll have a gingerbread latte," she announces, looking quite happy with her choice.
"Of course you have blue hair and drink that." Your tone borders on condescending, even though she knows damn well you don't even mind her pick.
"Oh my god, do you have to be so smug about everything? What does that even mean? Pretty girls drink pretty drinks."
Ignoring how redundant her last sentence was, you let out a burp that's been building up for a while and Kokomi rolls her eyes and pushes you away. "You ever drank a death cocktail?"
"No?" she answers, scratching her eyebrow.
"Like, uh, monster, coffee, shaved ice and lemonade thrown in together?"
Kokomi shakes her head in disapproval. "That sounds horrible."
"It tastes like horseshit and gives you explosive diarrhea, too," you explain. "That's why it's a cocktail of death. It kills your taste buds."
"Umm, alright."
"Wanna try it?"
"No way!"
"Live a little."
"Don't tell me to live when you're offering me a death cocktail," Teruhashi retorts, obviously irked. You grin at her. "What's so funny, huh?"
"I like it when you relax," you say, taking a strand of her hair to twirl around.
"I'm always relaxed."
This time, your offending finger points at her features rather than a disfigured statuette. "My face when I lie."
She sticks out her tongue. "Would be a beautiful lying face."
____
After taking a few pictures together at the coffee shop, you head towards Kokomi's house, since you still insist on being a decent person. What surprises you, though, is that she pretends to be bashful ― she knows you'll agree because who wouldn't? ― and asks you to hang out at her place for a bit.
When you hear him, you have barely taken off your shoes. "You've got some nerve coming here." You see his feet first, and you recall Teruhashi telling you her parents aren't home, so you're startled by the intrusion.
Scowling, you figure you should ask what this guy's problem is. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Can we not do this right now?" Kokomi whines, turning towards him.
"Who's this tool?" you say, facing away from him like he's not even there and pointing your thumb at him. "He looks kinda familiar."
"Just my annoying brother Makoto-"
He grabs your... finger? And lowers it. You stare at him like he has committed a war crime before he continues his speech from earlier. "The meaning of that is," he starts, switching his mocking grin to a glare, "you have a lot of nerve coming here after I've had to watch you walk with my Kokomi, bringing your disgusting lips to her ear," at this he has the nerve to tap you, "and whispering things that make her laugh."
You shake him off of you with disgust. "Dude, that's your sister. You can't... talk about her like that."
"You've been watching us?" Kokomi yells, shaking a little. Sure, she knew he sneaks into her room when she's not there by now, but this? Doesn't he literally have a job? For how long has this been going on?
"She might be my sister, but I'm tired of pretending there's anyone out here worthy of her besides me," he says with a laugh, then faces Kokomi like she's going to agree with him. She doesn't respond apart from gagging.
It’s reasonable that you want to give his ass a beating, but you're frozen in place. You're not sure what's stopping you; you're so bewildered that he's comfortable enough acting like this in front of both of you. It's like you can't move. So you continue looking at him with repugnance, all your facial muscles tense.
"Well!" Kokomi exclaims with strange cheerfulness. Then she talks a bit too hastily. "Since you're already here and it'd be rude to send you away, let's go make popcorn and watch a movie!"
You're about to go along with what she suggested since it'd probably the best way to deescalate the situation without causing a scene, but you see Makoto reach out to grab her by the forearm, and you finally do the right thing and push him off.
"Come on," you grunt. "Knock that shit off."
In the blink of an eye, it escalates into a tussle. Makoto punches you and you punch him back before kneeing him in the balls, leaving him kinda useless. Kokomi gasps in shock and runs to where you assume the kitchen is, and you make it a point to step over his hunching body carelessly before kicking him in the ribs while he groans in pain in the background.
"The fuck is up with him?" you ask. "Dude's creepy as hell."
"I don't know. He's just kinda weird."
"That goes beyond kinda weird. You do realize that, right?"
"He's pretty much always been like this," she explains with a nervous giggle. "It's better if you ignore him."
"Then you're not mad at me for kicking him in his dick, right?"
"No. You could've stomped on it, and I wouldn't have said anything!"
Leaning against the counter, you tilt your head curiously. She would have let it go, for whatever reason, but now she's telling you she wouldn't have minded whatever consequences you bring onto him.
Like she sensed your confusion, she smiles and says, “Good girls don't snitch."
"Kokomi." Your expression is somber when you address her, and she hasn't seen you look so serious before. It's making her nervous. "You don't need to pretend everything's fine. He was overstepping, like, twelve thousand boundaries."
"I don't know what you're talking about. It's not that big of a deal, really." Despite her insistence, you can see that her lips are quivering already.
“I won’t pry, but you don't need to pretend-"
Before you can even finish your sentence, Teruhashi's whole body trembles as she starts full-on sobbing. Though it does nothing to hide her crying, she brings her hands to her eyes and tries to turn away from you. It's too late though. You already saw her boogers.
"Do you want a hug or something?"
You're not good at this, but that doesn't surprise her. She still finds comfort in your embrace while you draw patterns on her back.
"I do need to pretend, though," she mumbles, stopping you right there.
"And why do you think that?"
"Are you serious?! Would a perfect girl overreact to something so silly, or turn her back on her brother?"
You frown against her forehead. "It's not silly, though. Do your parents know about this?"
"You know, I feel like you're not taking my reasons into consideration right now," she says, pushing you away, balled fists resting against your chest. Then she tries to rub the tears out of her eyes, but it doesn't accomplish anything more than irritate them further.
"I am, I just don't understand why you'd think that," you say. "I mean, I know you like playing a role or whatever. And that this is probably scary to confront, and you'd want to do it on your own time, but being perfect doesn't really include letting someone walk over you, anyway."
"Yes, it does!" she argues, raising her voice. "If you- If you look a certain way and start r-reprimanding people or turning them down, everyone thinks you're a stuck-up bitch! And that you think you can get away with everything just because of your appearance!"
"Yeah, but that shouldn't count when you didn't even do anything wrong." Seeing this conversation isn't coming out all that productive, you switch to admitting something else. "Plus, you're Teruhashi Kokomi. You're the perfect girl no matter what you do, right? I mean, at least, you're perfect to me either way."
You swallow dryly, realizing this is a much more loaded thing to say than you initially thought it would be. As long as it helps, you just hope it isn't too much of a problem.
After wiping one more tear with the back of her hand, Kokomi inhales and leans into you again, circling your waist with her arms. After a while of silence, she speaks again. "Thank you for today."
"Well, are you still down to watch a movie? Or, are you even ok with staying here? We can go somewhere-"
"No. Here's fine," she cuts off your rambling. "I just want you... to hold me like this for a little longer." She sounds so tired.
"Alright."
___
Next week at school, Saiki almost trips over nothing. While he's sitting.
Because he overhears Kokomi think, I wonder if [Y/n] will like what I did with my hair today?
Does that mean he's free from her affections?
Still, she's quick to shake her head and slap her cheeks. [Y/n]?! I meant Saiki. I'm just thinking weird stuff because I'm vulnerable after what happened over the weekend-
"No, you're not. You haven't thought about me at all in two weeks, and when you crashed our get-together a while ago, you were hoping [L/n] would do something stupid the entire time because you were so unengaged in what was going on."
-and then [Y/n] said all those nice things.
You told her nice things? He must be delirious and hallucinating. These can't be real events.
Teruhashi forces herself to throw him a glance, though she gets bored with it quickly enough and her thoughts trail off towards you again. She replays the moment you said 'You're perfect to me either way' in her head over and over while ignoring the whole context behind it because if she even thinks about all that again, she'll probably burst out into tears in class. Swings her legs back-and-forth like a lovesick teenager, even.
Then she realizes what she's doing and snaps out of it like a trance before a terrified, if not grossed out, expression overtakes her. You? She likes you? The same person who talks to her about farting and loogies (she's still too scared to search up what that means) while eating, just to inconvenience her?
The you who definitely doesn't see her in any romantic sense. You've never treated her as anything different from a friend, and you're one of the few people she has met who aren't embarrassingly desperate. And you've seen bits of her real self one too many times. There's no way you would want her.
Despite your abrasive personality, you've been helping her through both ridiculous exploits and legitimate issues. You've been supportive of her in your own strange way all this time, though she didn't realize it. Going as far as to tell her you don't mind her flaws, but then again, you probably just said that to make her feel better.
Kokomi slumps in her seat. It’s too complicated. She shouldn't have proposed this fake dating idea at all.
(Briefly, Saiki wonders if he should interfere. Then he decides it'll be better to let his acquaintances solve their problems without his help for once.)
___
"Hey," you call out with a wave, rising your eyebrows. "You're not being a very good fake girlfriend by avoiding me for over a week."
"Speaking of that," Kokomi replies. "Don't you think it's about time we stop this?"
"Oh? Did you realize Saiki doesn't and will never care? Hallelujah." You make congratulatory jazz hands at her, which she slaps away.
Then she looks at your grin, and her mood worsens. "I don't care about what Saiki thinks anymore, too!"
"That's good for you. So, what's our story? I farted in your face and you had enough? Or maybe we can make up something dramatic, like, you found out I have a negative credit score and kicked me to the curb?"
"You seem happy. Are you that excited about stopping hanging out with me?"
"We've hung out before that," you counter, dismissing her point with a wave of your hand. "I don't need fake dating to do that with you. I don't see why you're mad, anyway. You're the one who wants to stage a break-up for our fictitious relationship. I couldn't care less."
Settling her lips into a tight line, Kokomi tries not to sniffle or react in any other unsavoury way. The harsh reality is, she has gotten too comfortable around you, her mask slipping off more and more ― be it the anger, or the crying, or saying what she means without calculating it beforehand.
You still notice that she's acting off. "What's up?"
"Did you ever want it to be real?" After she drops this question on you, she closes her eyes like it'll prevent you from hearing it, or like it'll save her from ever witnessing your reaction.
"Well, you don't need to tease me."
Her eyes snap open again, widening. You're just standing there, slouching with a frown on your face.
"What? Tease you?" she asks, irritation lacing her tone.
With a vague hand gesture, you continue. "I don't see what else this would be."
"I'm not teasing you! I'm trying to tell you my feelings! This is the first time I've even attempted that, so maybe you could be a little more appreciative." Belatedly, Kokomi realizes what came out of her mouth and clasps her hands over it. "I'm sorry."
"You don't need to snivel and pretend to be sorry around me."
Her face is very red, so you suppose you should spare her, but the other part of you that's a terrible person wants to prolong it.
"Well-"
"Silly. I've always had a crush on you. That's why I thought you were mocking me."
"You did? Or, I mean, do?" It's like she just short-circuited. Though, she realizes she could’ve avoided a sizeable chunk of this mess if she knew this information beforehand. "You should've told me."
"You always brag about how everyone loves you. I figured you'd be able to tell."
"You never expressed any interest in me! And, for the record, a nice girl like me would never mock you for your feelings."
"Sure." You roll your eyes. "Just 'cause I don't act like my life revolves around you?"
"Um. Yes," she deadpans.
You burst out into laughter. "You're so weird, Kokomi."
She averts her gaze to the side. "You really like me? Even though you know I'm two-faced?"
"I don't care, you do you. Do you still like me even when I scratch my ass by rubbing it on the edge of my desk? Exactly."
"Oh my god, ew," she says, backing away from you, though her chuckles betray her.
You smile at her and Teruhashi smiles back, for the first time in a way that seems genuine rather than intending to charm. It's looser around the edges, and she squints her eyes further, and it looks more broken, but honestly? She's never been as beautiful.
#tdlosk x reader#teruhashi kokomi x reader#teruhashi x reader#tdlosk imagine#tdlosk imagines#one shot
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Missing Scenes - A Collection of Jinx, Silco, & Sevika One-Shots
Part 2 - Practice Makes Perfect, Unless You're Jinx, Then You're Already Perfect
Pt1, Pt2, Pt3, Pt4, Pt5, Pt6
AO3 Link
Rating: Teen, mostly SFW (note my blog is not for minors)
Tags: Sevika, Silco, Jinx, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Good Parent Silco, Found Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Humor, Jinx Needs a Hug, Silco Needs a Hug, Sevika Deserves a Raise, Young Jinx
Word count: 2k
Summary: A collection of one-shots set during the time-skip, mostly centered around Jinx growing up as Silco's adopted daughter. Many will likely involve Sevika, whether she likes it or not. Lots of awkward, funny, and good family feels.
Chapters will not necessarily be in chronological order, nor do they require that any other chapter be read for clarity.
AN: This has been posted on AO3 for quite some time. I'm just now getting around to posting it here.
Sevika leaned against the wall just outside the door to Silco's office, sneering down at little Jinx as she walked past her and into the office. Jinx tipped her head back out through the doorway to stick her tongue out at Sevika just before slamming the door behind her.
Jinx trotted over to Silco's desk where he sat in his chair, reviewing paperwork as usual. He set the stack down on the desk, turning his attention to Jinx.
"I know you've been a bit bored being cooped up in here lately and that got me thinking of ways to get you outside," Silco waved a finger around towards the rafters, drawing attention to the multiple doodles scribbled across the beams, an obvious reference to said boredom. "What skills do you have beyond creating explosives?"
"Uhm, well…" Jinx scanned the room as she tried to come up with an answer. "I'm great at drawing!" she exclaimed.
"That you are," Silco replied while eyeing his neon decorated ash tray sitting on the desk before him. "Although that's not quite what I was going for," Silco added flatly, but a tiny tug at the unscarred side of his mouth told Jinx he wasn't upset with her reply, but rather amused. "I was thinking more along the lines of combat skills. Skills that will give you an advantage when in danger," he clarified.
"Ooohhh," Jinx replied. Her eyes scanned the room again before they widened excitedly. "I have great aim with a gun!" She extended her arm, creating the shape of a pistol with her fingers and pretended to take aim at something behind Silco. "Bang!" she added theatrically as she pretended to pull the trigger.
Silco sat back in his chair, brows raised in surprise. "Really?" he replied, though not really doubting her claim. Leaning forward again, he rested his elbows on the desk and his chin on his entwined fingers, pondering.
"Yup!" Jinx replied with a curt nod, her blue braids bouncing. "I had several paint guns and I made a target practice rig for me and Mylo and…" She trailed off, her excitement suddenly fading into distress, her eyes threatening to fill with tears.
Recognizing the signs of what had been fairly frequent episodic breakdowns, Silco quickly intervened. "I bet you're a better shot than anyone here," he replied, giving her a little wink with his blue eye. When he could see a small smile return to her face at the compliment, he continued. "I think you should continue practicing… further perfect that skill," he suggested.
"Really?!" Jinx's mood took another huge swing, at least for the better this time. She bounced in place, clasping her hands together excitedly. "Maybe I can get my targets back up and running!"
Silco nodded. "I think that's a wonderful idea." He paused for a moment, as if contemplating what he was about to say next. "I think someone should accompany you though."
"Like… you?" Jinx questioned, but it sounded more like pleading.
Silco sighed, shaking his head. "I'm sorry Jinx, but not today. I have some important business to tend to."
Jinx's face fell sullen. "Ok," she mumbled, looking at the floor while gently kicking a foot into some imaginary object in front of her.
"I'll take you out for dinner tonight. How's that sound?" Silco offered in consolation.
"Yes! I get to choose where?!" Jinx exclaimed.
Silco nodded.
"But who will come with me to practice then?" Jinx questioned, clearly dreading the answer.
Just outside Silco's office Sevika stood absentmindedly picking at the stubby nails of her flesh hand, her mechanical hand resting against the door frame. She glanced down at Jinx as the door flung open and came stomping out, a sour expression on her face. Sevika smirked, as though enjoying seeing Jinx unhappy. After Jinx had stormed out of sight, Sevika made her way into Silco's office.
"What's her deal?" Sevika sneered as she took a seat on Silco's couch.
"Jinx needs to get out for a while. Get in some practice, hone in on her skills," Silco began matter-of-factly. It wasn't exactly an answer to Sevika's question, at least not yet. Sevika just quietly watched him, arms across her chest, a metal finger slowly tapping her other arm as she listened to him continue his explanation. "She says she's quite good with a gun, used to practice on some hand made targets. I told her she could continue, today, but that she'll need someone with her."
Sevika's tapping suddenly ceased. "Let me guess, that someone is me?" Had she not already worn an eternal look of utter loathing, she certainly would now. When Silco did not reply, she hastily stood, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "Why the hell does it have to be me? I don't use guns. I have nothing to offer her."
"I'm not expecting you to teach her anything, just keep an eye on her. I wouldn't trust her with anyone else," Silco replied.
"Fine," Sevika grumbled, apparently satisfied with the small stroke to her ego, or perhaps it was just that she understood it wasn't wise to argue with Silco.
Silco flicked a hand toward the door, dismissing Sevika before returning to his paperwork.
Down at the empty bar of the Last Drop, Jinx sat at one of the bar stools, swinging her dangling legs as they dangled. Her chin rested on her hands which were sprawled across the counter, still sulking over her assigned baby-sitter for the day.
"Let's get this over with," Sevika snarled as she passed behind Jinx, a freshly lit cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.
Jinx gave a loud harrumph as she slumped off her seat dramatically.
"I don't want to do this any more than you do, brat," Sevika pointed out as they both made their way outside.
"I don't understand why I even need to practice," Jinx whined, kicking a random piece of garbage lying in the middle of the street.
Sevika pulled her cigarette from her mouth, releasing a long plume of smoke as she spoke. "Haven't you ever heard the saying 'practice makes perfect'?"
Jinx rolled her eyes. "Yes, but Silco says I'm already perfect."
Sevika stopped in her tracks, glaring down at Jinx as she unknowingly walked right into her large backside.
"What?!" Jinx exclaimed, staring up at Sevika incredulously.
"You two make me sick," Sevika growled before taking another long drag of her cigarette and continuing down the barren street.
Jinx followed, this time putting more distance between them and mockingly sticking her tongue out at Sevika's back.
When they reached their destination, Jinx excitedly ran to her target practice rig, surprised that after nearly a year of abandonment it was still intact.
She reached across the counter to grab a large box, flipping the lid open to reveal several small guns and a plethora of brightly colored paintballs. "Yes!" she exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air triumphantly.
Sevika found a spot against the wall nearby to lean against, continuing to smoke what was left of her cigarette and glance around the room, looking rather bored and unimpressed.
Jinx hopped over the counter, grabbing two large cables from the floor and coupling them together. Her eyes lit excitedly as she spun around to watch the targets suddenly pop up, shapes of neon colored baddies making their way around the small room in what appeared to be a random pattern. She hopped back over the counter again and began filling two of the guns with the paint-filled ammo.
Just as Sevika was stomping out her finished cigarette, Jinx's little boots stepped into her peripheral. Jinx extended an arm, holding out one of the guns for Sevika.
"I don't use guns," Sevika grumbled.
"Why? Scared I'll do better than you?" Jinx taunted.
"How about we try fists instead?" Sevika retorted.
Jinx rolled her eyes. "You just don't want to get shown up by a kid."
"Give me the damn gun," Sevika snarled, snatching the gun from Jinx's hand. She stomped over to the counter in front of the targets and took aim. Jinx stood several feet behind, watching with a cocky little smile on her face.
“Fuck,” Sevika snarled as her first shot missing the target almost entirely. Jinx’s smile only grew in amusement. Sevika took another shot, this time hitting a target, but just barely. Sevika's grimace was replaced with her own cocky smile, but her victory was quickly squashed as her last several shots missed the targets. “Fucking waste of time,” she cursed as she tossed the empty gun across the counter, knocking the box of ammo to the floor behind the counter.
Jinx made no effort to hide her arrogant smile as she stepped up and aimed her gun. Sevika returned to lean against the wall, arms across her chest as she watched Jinx hit every single target dead on, with what looked to be no effort whatsoever. Jinx spun on her heels, flashing Sevika the most snotty little smile.
Sevika pushed herself off the wall and came to stand within inches of Jinx, towering over her threateningly. Jinx showed no signs of intimidation though, placing her hands on her hips defiantly. The two of them just glared at each other in silence for a moment. Sevika’s mechanical arm suddenly released a long blade at her side, causing Jinx to jump back. Dread fell over Jinx’s face, but only for a moment as she watched Sevika stride over to the counter and lift her blade, sweeping it across the targets in one long swift motion. Jinx watched in awe as the several targets nearest the counter were cleanly sliced through, the top halves falling to the floor in a clang.
“What the hell?!” Jinx exclaimed as she ran and jumped behind the counter to turn off the rig before more damage could occur.
Now it was Sevika’s turn to flash a snarky smile. "Where's that shit eating grin now?"
Silco sat in his desk chair, back to the door of his office as he gazed out the round green window, quietly enjoying a cigar in solitude. He spun in his chair when the door suddenly swung open and closed again with such force that the chain on his table lamp swung and clanked against the glass shade.
Jinx stormed in, fury on her little face as she stomped over to the couch at the side of the room and flopped down dramatically.
“What’s the matter, Jinx,” Silco asked coolly, releasing a puff of smoke before resting his cigar on the side of his decorated ashtray.
Though Jinx’s brows were furrowed in obvious anger, her eyes were starting to fill with tears. “Sevika broke my targets!” she hollered, but it fell somewhat flat as she choked on the last word.
“You out-performed her, didn’t you?” Silco asked knowingly as he stood from his seat and sauntered over to the couch to take a seat beside Jinx.
Jinx’s beady eyes looked up at Silco as she nodded, a tiny smile tugging at her lips. She sniffled, still trying to hold back the tears.
Silco patted Jinx’s head, gently ruffling her blue hair. “Sevika is just a sore loser,” he added.
“Yeah,” Jinx replied, scowl now fully replaced with a proud smirk.
“How about we get you some parts to make a new setup. I think we’ve got some room in the basement where you can put it. It will give you a place to continue experimenting with your other gadgetry as well.” Silco suggested.
Jinx beamed up at her adoptive father. “I would love that!” She threw her arms around him in a bear hug.
Silco gave Jinx a gentle pat on her back. “Alright. Run along, and I’ll come grab you later for dinner, just the two of us.”
“Okay,” Jinx replied, still grinning from ear-to-ear as she skipped out the door.
Next Chapter >
#arcane#jinx#silco#sevika#found family#arcane jinx#arcane silco#arcane sevika#powder#arcane powder#honey writes
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You only post about wolfstar but first you wrote the whole books with remadora and I’d like some headcannons for them please, or even a whole one shot
Anons Request is below, I’ll even post a oneshot for them by the end of the month, but I should clarify I don’t ship remadora. I wrote a cannon compliant reading the books fic because I always wanted a completed one and there isn’t a good one that exists so I wrote my own.
I always got the feeling they were written together to get Teddy to exist, otherwise they have zero chemistry, I can literally count their scenes on one hand, especially in comparison to Wolfstar. I don’t hate them together, I just don’t prefer it, I’m median to it.
The Life and Lies of Remus Lupin and Tonks:
She admits her crush to him after Arthur’s attack, and that scene where Harry sees them arguing in OCCLUMENCY is him explaining to her that he’s to old to be with her.
Which is why she disguises herself as an elder woman and is very stern and serious (not you Sirius!) getting them on the bus.
Neither of them had ever come out and said it but Tonks realized on her own wolfstar was a thing so she quietly accepted it and moved on very soon
Andromeda had foolishly believed Sirius had committed the same crime as everybody else, even after Tonks began to subtly begin hinting otherwise by digging into the case to show her mother otherwise. Dumbledore had plans to try and show Sirius’s innocence before his discrediting but Tonks was still after it for the innocent man who still called her cousin
It causes a rift between them when her mother pretends she never even had other family and Tonks doesn't tell her mother anything, just like Moody and the Order had cautioned her since the beginning
After Sirius dies she tries to come to Remus as just a friend to be there for him, but before she can get a word out he explodes at her. It gets quite foul, he’s really awful to her and says some horrible things about how he’d never love her and she runs to Molly, not her own mother, because Molly knows the truth and Andromeda had yet to apologize to Tonks about Sirius’s fate in the first war even when it was blasted across the papers
Harry shows up before she can get the majority of it out though and only says she admitted her feelings and Remus had brushed her off
Remus goes on pretending like nothing had happened until that Christmas, when Harry reminds him so much of James. How Prongs and Evans used to have the worst fights even after they fell in love, they were so different and loved each other so much…but how could anybody ever look past his furry little problem? Only one person ever had and look what happened…Tonks was to young to know what she was asking for…
When Remus finds out she’s been asking after him to other members of the Order after the Montgomery attack, that she’s actively acknowledging his werewolf side, he goes to confront her again and have a proper talk with her. He apologizes for his temper before but again explains all the reasons they shouldn’t be together, his sickness, his age...
She doesn't accept his apology, but they leave on a semi mutual company. It’s awkward and stilted, but neither are prepared to give ground now
Especially as Remus has never said he didn’t love her back, he just needed time to grieve…
They sleep together for the first time after Dumbledore's death. Tired of being alone, tired of losing people, tired of the world and the last first, and greatest wizard he’d ever known falling, Remus goes to her place.
She makes him tea just the way he had made it for himself a million times, like she’d been watching how he did it all those months at Grimmauld place. She brings him a tray of chocolate biscuits and just sits quietly so he can say whatever he’s come here to say and he kisses her gently, just a question.
She answers very enthusiastically and for just that little while after Dumbledore's funeral he believes somebody other than Padfoot could love him
Then she tells him she’s pregnant. She’s so thrilled and already glowing with the news and he’s just, destroyed. Dead inside. All he can hear in his head is his own screams that night he was bitten and he wants to cry but he won’t hurt her like that again so he buries it all and forces a smile and does the proper thing, asks her to marry him on the spot and she hugs him so tight, it’s the only thing holding him together in that moment from jumping off the astronomy tower himself after what he’s done.
Haha, whoopsies, only half done and needs a part 2
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craigslist > services > lessons & tutoring
✮ SIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER/INTERPRETER (WILL TAKE ANY JOB!)
Looking for any kind of work! Will tutor, teach, quiz--you name it! Recently laid off and all of the copper piping in my apartment building was stolen (unrelated to being laid off). 7+ years experience & certified to teach. Need money for the laundromat. Willing to work for any (reasonable) rate of pay. Serious inquiries only!
(You’ve had a crazy week. Somehow, nothing you've experienced recently is as strange or alarming as what you’re doing now: sitting in a café across from a panda as it asks you to teach sign language to its best friend, Inumaki Toge.)
Inumaki/f!Reader, 21k. Read here or on AO3!
a/n: MINOR SPOILERS in this fic for inumaki in the shibuya arc. has nothing to do with anything that affects the plot a whole ton, but i wanted to disclaim here that if u don't want to know what happens to him in shibuya then... perhaps pass on this one. mentions of shibuya also as a major devastating incident in tokyo but no details other than that. also I know gege did not take this man's good haircut away from him that he had in jjk0... guess what I give it BACK.
a little smut in this bad boy. a little humor. but above all, it’s about communication. tw for discussions of trauma and canon-typical violence!
You’ve had a crazy week. You were laid off from your corporate interpreter job, all copper piping in a six-block radius of your apartment was stolen without a trace which left you without running water, and your ex-boyfriend posted sixteen paragraphs of conspiracy-theory gold regarding the sun’s impending implosion on Facebook, sending your mother into a four-day-long panic attack. Somehow, none of that is as strange or alarming as what you’re doing now: sitting in a café across from a panda with human-level intelligence, a cup of cooling chrysanthemum tea between its hands—paws?—as it asks you to teach sign language to its (human) best friend.
“Is it possible?” the panda asks.
The question could apply to way too many things in this situation. “You’ll have to clarify.”
It—he?—shifts the mug between his paws. He hasn’t taken a sip yet. You wonder if he bought it just to make you comfortable. As if you're meeting a friend instead of a random person that saw your Craigslist ad for a sign language tutor in dire need of work, his response sent from his aptly named email [email protected]. “With his arm," the panda says.
His best friend lost an arm during the Shibuya attack. The panda gave you no more detail than that, and you weren't going to pry.
His question is one you’d been asked many times in the aftermath of what happened in Shibuya, when anyone and everyone that could help rebuild Tokyo was called to the city center. The community tried its best to stitch society back into an uneven imitation of what it once was. You worked with people that had their vocal cords crushed, amputees and older women with arthritis-gnarled knuckles, children that suddenly lost their hearing because of the immeasurable damage done to their delicate eardrums. Can you teach my son to talk? Will my mom be able to speak to me ever again? How will I know when Dad’s in pain if he can’t tell me?
The word choice always struck you as funny. Mindless verbiage. They didn’t need to talk to these people—they needed to communicate with them. You were only seventeen and you were fixing lines of communication like telephone wires.
You stare at your own cup of tea—long emptied over tacit and awkward introductions—and turn the hand-spun clay in a slow circle, as if trying to replicate the process of its creation. It’s better not to think about those days. The money was good. Society has, for the most part, healed. You did your community service and got paid and years have passed, and you don’t need to think about it anymore. “It’d be like if I was holding a bag of groceries with one hand,” you explain to the panda, “and I only had the other to sign with. Doesn’t make it impossible. Just harder.”
He pushes his tea to the side, a decidedly final action. “What’s your rate?”
Your eyes shoot from your cup to the panda, brows a little too high on your face for you to pretend as if the question doesn’t surprise you. You had assumed that anyone responding to your ad would suggest a minimum payment and you’d have no other option than to accept. You need a gym membership. You haven’t been able to shower in a week and the laundry is staring to pile up, too. Maybe the panda will pay you in quarters for the laundromat if you ask nicely.
He obviously realizes you’re having a moral quandary, so instead of letting you simmer in indecisiveness—what does a panda’s gross income look like, exactly?—he suggests an hourly rate that’s much too high for how desperate you are.
“You’re being kind,” you say.
“You told me yourself that it’ll be harder.”
You lick your lips, nervous. Is taking financial advantage of a panda bear considered animal abuse? Or would it fall more under the category of animal manipulation? Can you be fined for that?
“If it’s not enough, I can provide room and board while you—”
“With running water?”
The panda stares at you for a moment, perplexed. “…yes?”
“I’ll do it.”
Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School is located a good thirty minutes by train (and after that, on foot) from your apartment, but you figure if you only have to make the trip once, it's fine. Despite the long commute, the beauty of the campus makes things worth it—what you’d expect from a place that literally claims to be a magical high school.
“Jujutsu?” you’d asked Panda when he called you with the address. “Like—sorcery?”
“Don’t think about it too hard,” Panda told you, and though you weren’t satisfied with that answer at all, you were talking to a panda bear over the phone—and he was the one that called you, so maybe you really shouldn’t think about it too hard.
It’s very traditional, much to your surprise. There are shrines dotted around the campus, their curved roofs dripping with the remnants of this morning’s light rain. It smells of petrichor, grass after a storm, the sickly-sweet rot of fallen leaves trodden into dirt paths.
It’s the first time you’ve been somewhere so rural in a while—maybe since before Shibuya. You went on trips to board meetings in different parts of the country when you were an interpreter, and you saw all sorts of nature outside the train windows, but it was nothing like this. This is wild in the way nature should be. Birds calling to one another off in the distance, branches singing as they brush together in the light wind, your footsteps crunching leaves underfoot.
Panda and Inumaki—your future student—are professors here. An anthropomorphic bear and a man that doesn’t talk. Maybe this isn’t actually a high school. It could be some sort of elaborate performance art that people come to visit. A theme park, to a much lesser extent. Or maybe it’s more devious than that—Panda and his friend making tons of money from rich parents that send their children to a magical sorcery high school to learn absolutely nothing.
Whatever they’re doing, they’re lucky that they get to do it here.
Panda meets you in front of the main building, and you have to remind yourself to not be alarmed that a bear is greeting you and showing you to your rooms like a proprietor at a hot spring. The building does kind of remind you of what you’d find at an onsen—tatami mats, sliding rice-paper doors, intricate wooden designs holding the window panes together that seem reminiscent of some kind of Edo-period noble’s home.
“We get less students every year,” Panda tells you, something which he doesn’t seem happy about—maybe you were right about the rich-family-swindling operation—before opening a more modern door with a lock, revealing your room to you. “This is the wing for our female students, but they’re both out of the country on missio—uh, exchange trips. You shouldn’t really be bothered by anyone.”
There are so many questions you could ask, but you decide to thank Panda again for his kindness and retreat to your room to put your things away (and take advantage of the working shower). “We’ll meet out on the training field in a half hour,” he tells you before you close the door. “In the middle of campus—you can’t miss it.”
Surely enough, it is very hard to miss. The training field stretches for what looks like at least a mile to you, a paved area in the middle where racks of equipment line the edges—practice blades and other weapons you couldn’t name—because not only is this a ‘magic’ school, you found out upon your arrival, but also one that apparently trains kids in combat.
You’re waiting for a man with silver hair to finish sparring with what you can only assume is a student, due to the differences in age and skill between the two of them. The man has to be Inumaki—his fighting style is quick, so agile that sometimes you can hardly see him as more than a blur—but you notice him relying more on his legs to attack, the left arm of his black long-sleeve tied off neatly at the elbow. The way he moves is like dancing—graceful and confident. If you weren’t so against violence, you might even call it beautiful.
The student, a long wooden practice staff between his hands, fights off Inumaki’s blows with less success each time, until he’s finally laid out on the ground by a quick low spin-kick that knocks his feet out from underneath him.
This has to be some kind of government project—you’ve heard of those secret military academies that train young kids in order to use them later on as spies, but the articles you saw about that kind of stuff were usually read with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Inumaki notices you, his silvery hair shining in the sun as he makes his way over. You wonder if he uses expensive shampoo. Olaplex, maybe? Half of his face is covered by the high collar of his shirt—it must be specially made to not fall down during sparring—but the half you can see is arresting: sharp eyes and long lashes, strands of hair from his gelled up bangs falling into his eyes as they become unstuck from sweat and exertion.
“こんぶ.”
The two of you stare at each other for a few long moments. The student behind Inumaki gets up on his feet, brushes dirt off of his uniform pants.
“Kelp…?” you repeat.
He says nothing—just stares at you, guileless, as if the silence is normal. As if saying kelp to someone is a regular conversation starter.
A large hand (paw?) claps you on the back, an overly-chummy gesture that causes you to jump out of your skin. You still have to suppress a shocked yell every time you see an honest-to-god panda bear only a few feet away from you. Panda looks between the two of you for a moment before rubbing the back of his head. “Did I forget to tell you that he only speaks in onigiri ingredients?”
Of course.
You’re going to have your work cut out for you. But, hey—at least you’ll have access to a functional shower and washing machine. The work is worth the pay, right?
You debate that justification more and more every day.
It’s not that Inumaki’s a bad student—in fact, he’s one of the quickest learners you’ve ever had. He has the alphabet memorized in less than a day, and he shows up at the empty classroom Panda has loaned to you as a workspace on time each morning, ready to work, just as you finish brewing a pot of jasmine tea.
There’s no sign of a coffee maker on campus. You haven’t spotted a single bean. When you asked Panda whether Jujutsu High has the funds to invest in a Nespresso machine, he instead offered you some hand-wrapped paper packages of dried jasmine and white tea leaves that crinkled between your fingers. Grown on campus, he said. Like that means anything to you.
The tea gets you through the two-hour morning sessions that Panda put on your dorm room’s firefighter wall calendar (June’s photo involves a lot of shirtless men and a distractingly well-placed hose). You teach from your favorite beginner’s handbook, answering questions from him that are half-spelled out and half-written down on his phone.
He’s careful with the way he curls his fingers, with the purposeful and exact mirroring of your hand movements. You teach him how to use a flat surface to stand in for his missing hand, and he picks it up fluidly, his movements sometimes so quick and skilled that if you happened to meet him on the street and have a conversation with him in sign language, you would assume he’d been using it for a majority of his life.
There’s only one problem: you’re a little bit afraid of him.
His texts and questions are short, unreadable. He doesn’t rely on facial expressions like you’re used to with other people that sign, so it always seems like he’s monotone—detached and judging. He always stares at you, too, his eyes so piercing and bright that it feels like he’s constantly waiting for you to do something without telling you what it is.
There’s also the issue that though lithe, he’s taller than you by quite a few inches, and his presence has such a weighty silence to it that even standing near him is intimidating. Looking up at him makes things worse, so the two of you sit in desks that you’ve turned to face each other in order for you to maintain a certain distance and height. You can’t meet his eyes, training your gaze instead on the movements of his hand, correcting and encouraging him where you can, though you can’t tell if he appreciates the encouragement or not.
You do afternoon sessions as well, after Inumaki has trained with Noya, the only student that isn’t currently out of the country on an exchange trip. You watch, sometimes, transfixed by the fluidity of Inumaki’s movements. Noya gets better with each passing day—even you can see this—but he’s still nothing compared to his teacher.
You’ve been staring too much. Hobbies are difficult to maintain this far out from the city (especially considering the spotty WiFi connection aptly named Panda is a CHEAPSKATE). One of the students currently abroad named it, Panda told you when you asked for the password, and he can’t figure out how to change it to something less... vitriolic. His word.
Your hours away from Inumaki and Panda are spent in a manner that you hope is productive—searching for loopholes in your apartment lease that’ll make you not have to pay rent on account of the pipes situation, reading books you’ve been meaning to get to for months, taking walks down the well-trodden dirt paths that circle the campus.
But there are days where you can’t help but sit on the steps next to the training field and try to follow his quick steps, the ways his body contorts which must take a phenomenal amount of strength. He’s lanky in a good way, not too tall for his long limbs to be awkward, and just from looking at him, you wouldn’t anticipate his athleticism.
On one of these afternoons, Panda—usually dealing with administrative work at this time of day—sits down next to you and scares the living soul out of your bones. “This isn’t working.”
Fear tears into your stomach, a serrated knife freshly sharpened. You knew this was too good to be true. A job where you get free housing, breakfast prepared by staff every morning, and you only teach for four hours a day? It was never going to last.
Inumaki’s attention is drawn from the sparring session, his eyes snapping to Panda’s, allowing Noya get in a cheap shot with his wooden practice staff. “おかか,” he says to Noya, terse, massaging his assaulted shoulder.
“We should start training Noya in more challenging environments.”
Slowly, you let out a sigh of relief, which quickly turns to frustration at Panda’s affinity for making you squirm just a little bit.
“明太子,” Inumaki mutters as he walks over to the steps where you sit. There’s a rare furrow in his brow, perhaps a mirror to your own frustration—though you’re sure he’s used to his best friend’s antics.
“Language, Toge,” Panda scolds. “And in front of the kid?”
Noya shuffles awkwardly behind Inumaki. “I’m gonna be sixteen in May.”
Panda lifts a paw, holding out a finger (toe?) to Noya in a gesture that feels much like a father disciplining his child for getting a B+ in math. “And you’ll have a clean mouth at sixteen just like you did at fifteen. Right?”
Noya provides an emphatic, almost frightened nod.
You’d love to get off campus, but you’re not quite sure if you’re allowed—which is a ridiculous anxiety to have, but so many things about this arrangement feel eggshell-delicate.
“しゃけ,” Inumaki says, and after a moment you realize he’s talking to you.
You look up at him, perplexed—your lessons have been going well, but it takes time for a person learning sign language to start relying on it for communication. Inumaki is used to the onigiri ingredients. It makes sense that he would revert to them. As slow and clear as you can, you sign, I don’t understand.
Inumaki nods, then looks down at his hand with determination in his eyes. Just as slowly as you did, he signs back, graceful fingers curling unsurely around each letter and word. Going too?
It’s simple, and he spells out too instead of using the quick back and forth movement for also that you’d taught him earlier, but seeing him sign without your guidance brings you an indescribable warmth that starts deep in your bones and radiates outwards, as if a sun has sprung into existence inside your ribs.
You smile for what feels like the first time in a long while, your hands moving a little faster to deliver your response than you intend. I’d love to.
Inumaki’s face remains impassive behind his high collar like always, but you think you’re starting to see the edges of the expressions that lie underneath—the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the almost imperceptible raise of his brows. You perceive it as a smile, and though you’re nowhere near fluent in his mannerisms, you have such a strong gut feeling telling you that you’re right.
Hinohara Forest is twenty minutes by car from campus, and somehow, you were roped into driving.
“Consider it a part of the job,” Panda had said, tossing you the keys. “Besides—do you really trust a panda behind the wheel?”
You’d only frowned at him, positive that he was just saying that to get out of driving, but he was right—you really don’t trust a panda to drive you down twisting country roads. Or anywhere, for that matter.
The drive isn’t awful. Noya sleeps, tired from morning training, his head resting against Inumaki’s arm. Light snores filter through the car underneath the white noise of Panda’s music—classical and a little boring.
As you approach the gravel parking lot, Inumaki gently shakes Noya awake. Ahead, the snow-dusted peak of Mt. Mito rises above the forest’s jewel-green canopy, its jagged peak giving it the look of a broken animal tooth stuck into the ground point-up. The sky is a misty blue, but you can see shadowed storm clouds rolling in on the line of the horizon, parting around Mt. Mito in their approach.
Though you’ve never been here, it’s obvious that Panda and Inumaki have. They lead you and Noya off the hiking trail, effortlessly navigating through trees and over fallen branches. You hear rushing water in the distance, the chirping of birds above you, the croaking of what sounds like millions of frogs in tandem.
“Are you sure we don’t have to pay for parking?” you ask Panda for the third time.
He waves a nonchalant paw your way. “The park rangers never come out to check the cars.”
His answer doesn’t give you much relief.
The twittering sound of a songbird rings loud above you, and you look up at the tree canopy to catch a glimpse. This was not the greatest idea for an amateur hiker—your foot suddenly catches on a branch and you stumble, and for a moment you can’t get your foot free and you think you’re going to twist your ankle or worse—but a firm hand is on your elbow, steadying you before you can fall backward.
On instinct, you flinch back from the touch. You turn so quickly to see who’s behind you that you get a little dizzy—your blood sugar’s low. You have to close your eyes for a moment to steady yourself. There are gummy bears in a half-empty packet in your jeans pocket, and you’ll pop a few of them and feel normal, but first you have to open your eyes. You’re suddenly looking up at Inumaki, and you have to stop yourself from flinching again just from the daunting aura of his quiet presence.
“Thank you,” you mumble, your hand coming up to tap your chin on instinct, signing as you say the words aloud.
He nods, walks on ahead, and you let out a breath. There’s about six gummy bears left in the crinkling plastic packet when you pull it out of your pocket, and you decide to treat yourself to three of them because you’ve earned it.
You’re trying really hard not to be embarrassed about almost falling in front of these three incredibly physically able people, but you’re trying even harder to not be embarrassed about the panic you felt being so close to Inumaki. Though you’ve been teaching him for a few weeks now, it feels like you know nothing about him. The lack of understanding you carry for him as a person makes him feel a little more frightening, more like a specter than a fully-fleshed human.
Panda finally leads you all into a clearing, a small waterfall running down a tall, limestone cliff face and trickling into a creek that splits the ground in two. “See?” he asks, proud of himself for—something. “It’ll be great to train here. Obstacles, terrible footing, water—you’ve got this, Toge. I’ll just sit down over here. That hike took it out of me.”
Inumaki gives Panda an unimpressed look, the beginning of a crease just forming between his brows. “おかか.”
“I’m an old bear now,” he claims, sitting heavily on the grass by the edge of the forest. “Let me have my rest.”
As Inumaki and Noya begin to spar, you take up a spot next to Panda, sitting on the soft grass though you know it’ll most likely stain your clothes. You’re not really sure what your purpose is here beyond being the chauffeur, and that makes you feel a little useless. You toy with a piece of grass by your foot until it breaks off from its root, an unsheathed blade that you curl between your fingers. Without looking at Panda, you ask, “What is this really?”
In your peripherals, you see him look at you, but he doesn’t respond.
“Secret military academy? Or do you just scam rich people?” you continue. The grass breaks into pieces as you spread out your fingers against the cool earth beneath you. “I’m not judging. Just asking, I guess.”
Panda hmms the way an old man about to tell you a parable hmms. “The easiest way to look at it is like a cultural practice. One that’s been dying out for decades.” He says that with no grief for the practice—just acceptance that traditions tend to come to unceremonious ends. “It’s our duty to pass it down. Toge and I.”
“Makes it sound like a burden.”
“It was.” He leans forward on his haunches, elbows resting on drawn-up knees. His beady eyes move with Noya across the clearing, a teacher checking his student’s work, even if he’s not the one doing the teaching. “At first. But it’s more rewarding than I thought it could be.”
“I’m guessing there aren’t many others that want to teach?”
“To be honest, there aren’t many of us left. Not after—well.” He sighs in a very human way, almost jarring coming from the mouth of a bear. “It’s a long story.”
His eyes never leave Noya, and for a moment, you quietly spectate alongside Panda.
You find yourself once again watching Inumaki, the way he never loses his footing even when Noya stumbles, easily deflecting blows with his forearm or dodging them entirely. It makes sense that this is the kind of fighting passed down through generations.
“The man that made me… put simply, I owe him a lot more than I’ll ever be able to repay.” Panda’s gaze travels to the high canopy of leaves, swaying a little more violently than they had been when you arrived. He holds a paw out flat and waits for a moment, the sound of Noya’s labored breathing mixing in with the pressured rush of the waterfall. “I should’ve expected rain.”
The wind picks up and a chill slices through the clearing, forcing you to wrap your arms around your middle for warmth. You can smell a storm on the horizon, the air heavy with humidity and anticipation.
Across the creek where the sparring match has been taking place, Inumaki stops so suddenly it’s as if he blinks back into existence. Noya stumbles a little, not expecting his teacher to come to such an abrupt halt. Inumaki steadies Noya with a hand on his shoulder, his eyes a little wider than usual as he looks towards Panda and says, “筋子.”
Even that simple change in his expression makes you anxious. You stand up, nervous energy singing between your veins, Panda quickly following suit. You’re sure you’re safe out here—the biggest danger you could face in the forest would be a bear, and you already have one of those standing right next to you, which for some reason cancels that out as a legitimate danger in your mind.
“I know,” Panda replies, “I heard it too.”
There’s no possible way that Panda got that much information from an onigiri ingredient, but you don’t have to wonder about it for too long. Inumaki gestures at you, and then signs something you don’t quite understand—a thumbs-up motion gesturing towards himself twice.
Self? you sign back, spelling out each letter exaggeratedly to account for the distance. A teaching trick, repeating a student's signing to ask if they've made a mistake without calling it that.
He looks back and forth between Noya beside him and you, and then in what seems like a sudden decision, unzips the collar of his jacket to reveal his face to you. You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t tattoos that follow the curve of his full lips, ending in open circles filled in just enough to emulate a children’s drawing of an eye. It wasn’t an almost pixie-like face either, pointed and pretty, his long lashes resting on the high swell of his cheekbones every time he blinks, the gentle slope of his nose made even softer by the cooling light that filters in through the canopy of leaves above you.
His mouth is pulled into a deep frown, and he signs self at you again, until you realize that he’s trying to communicate with facial expression too, just like you’d gone over in your lessons, and his residual left arm is moving in a way that would imply a forearm crossed over his chest, like he’s trying to mime the full sign to you, and—he’s giving you the sign for danger.
Now you’re in full-on panic mode.
The shadows between the trees seem to fold in on themselves, and a deep chill settles across the clearing. The waterfall roars infinitely louder in the sudden silence—the croaks of frogs and the twitter of birds fading out to nothing, replaced by the sound of your quickening breath.
Panda holds out an arm in front of you, protective, heralding you back towards the tree line. “Toge, take Noya—”
A sudden flood of birds fills the clearing from the forest behind you, all diving at once, their feathers ruffling in the wake of their sheer velocity. It creates a noise akin to cricket legs being rubbed together but deeper, fuller, a sound that rings through your body with violent dread.
The birds hit your sides, knock against your back, and you kneel, arms over your head, taking blows in the chaos that hurt much more than you’d expect from hollow-boned animals.
Your clothes whip around your body, and there are so many of them, enough to obscure your vision—when you dare to open your eyes, Inumaki and Noya completely lost to you across the creek.
Their direction—all towards the east all at once—the birds aren’t diving towards you, you realize. They’re flying away from something.
Something in the trees behind you.
You can barely hear Panda call your name over the sound of the wings, over the wind that follows the birds in quick pursuit, but as they keep flying away from you, all manner of crows and blue jays and robins with little red spots on their chests, you lose the rest of what he’s trying to tell you.
As quickly as they flew into the clearing, the birds disperse, and suddenly free of them, you stand and turn to stare at an equally-disheveled Panda, his beady eyes wide with something you never thought you’d see on his face.
Fear.
The next few seconds move syrupy-slow. Panda is yelling something at you, and the leaves of the forest brush against each other much like the feathers of the birds, creating a cacophonous, disharmonized sound that overlays everything, and something is moving through the forest to your right, snapping branches and crunching leaves beneath its feet and spearing the atmosphere apart with its speed, and you know you need to move but you’re frozen, terrified, watching the bushes and leaves part in the wake of a deep black shadow barreling straight towards you—and then your body is no longer your own.
“Step back.”
You hear the voice so clearly over everything, and it’s familiar in a fleeting way, like a word you can almost remember but can’t quite grasp, a phantom on the tip of your tongue. It feels like you’re suddenly immersed in a bath of thick lotion, smothering and heavy, your skin slick and uncomfortable, your limbs not responding to your brain.
You step back, just like the voice commanded.
In the split second after you move, you see the edge of a shadow, the slimy scales of something with sharp teeth and mangled limbs, and then another crossing your path, and another and another, four beings that exist in the liminal space of the shadows between the light, in the crack underneath the bedroom door, in the sliver of the open closet—monsters you’d expect to see under your bed as a child, suddenly blinking into existence before you until they’re gone again.
You can still see the movements, the depressions in the grass underneath their large feet like a ghost leaving footprints in a horror film, and just as suddenly as you’d been grasped by that invisible force, you’re let go.
You topple backwards, landing on your ass, sitting prone before the waterfall. Mt. Mito rises beyond and far away, its snow-white peak a ghostly apparition against the clouded gray sky. Even the most jagged teeth can rend flesh.
Inumaki strikes before you realize he’s moving—followed by Panda, lunging forward with an agility you’ve never seen from him before, his fist connecting with something you can’t quite make out despite the lack of anything obscuring your vision.
As quickly as it starts, it’s over. Panda wipes a purple substance from his paws, Inumaki says something to Noya, who nods in response.
And then there’s you, left with more questions than you can possibly quantify in this moment, leaning back on your scraped palms and watching, dumbfounded, as Inumaki walks over to you.
He offers a hand to help you up, brows drawn slightly. His head tilts a little, inquisitive, and you watch the movement of his lips revealed by his parted collar as he asks, “たかな?”
His voice is gravely, hoarse, as if he’s been yelling. You think of those words that froze you, that impossibly commanded you to move out of the way of whatever had just run into the clearing. Surely there’s no connection. Surely what you’d just seen had been a hallucination of some sort. You have so many questions but find yourself lacking the words to ask them.
He gestures again to help you up, and you let him. Long fingers wrap around your hand, and though he’s a trained and seasoned fighter, his skin is remarkably soft. He effortlessly helps you stand, zipping his collar back up as soon as he’s sure you’re steady on your feet. He won’t quite look at you, restless energy obvious in the tense set of his shoulders. You’ve never seen him so on edge—maybe from the fight, adrenaline still pulsing through his veins.
Instead of trying to get a gauge on Inumaki’s feelings, you look at Panda—the easier to read of the two—and he offers what you think is supposed to be a reassuring smile. His teeth are sharp and as large as knuckle-bones, and the sight of them all exposed and shining gives you the bad kind of goosebumps. “Never an uneventful day out,” he says, as if everything is normal.
You frown at him. “Tell me what just happened or I’m quitting.”
He considers your words for a few moments, and then lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I won’t find another teacher willing to deal with all this, will I?”
Though you both know the answer to that question, you shake your head definitively.
On the way back to the car, Panda explains the jujutsu world, the decline in cursed energy after the final battle of the last of the special-grade sorcerers. He explains the basics of the strict and archaic rules that were once in place, tells you that the few sorcerers that are left covet jujutsu like a lost art, wiping out the low-grade monsters (curses, Panda calls them) as if they’re doing routine pest control. It was bad luck to run into some weak ones out in the forest, but it was probably a good thing that they were cleared out before a non-sorcerer ran into them. Like you. You can still feel the way the air was almost cut in two by the speed with which they hurtled past you.
“If you found out about this ten-ish years ago,” Panda tells you as you all emerge from the forest’s edge into the parking lot, “the higher ups would’ve wiped your memory completely. Or just killed you.”
Noya stops and makes a noise of surprise, his voice breaking a little when he asks, “They would’ve killed her?”
“しゃけ,” Inumaki helpfully provides, pushing Noya to keep walking with a gentle hand on his back.
“Good thing you came to us now instead of back then, huh?” Panda looks at you out of the corner of his eye, a spark of mischief glittering there.
These people are insane.
Yes, one of them is a giant talking panda bear. Yes, they saved your life from physical embodiments of childhood monsters. Doesn’t mean they’re not completely delusional.
And yet, you can’t deny what you saw.
They know sides of the world that until this day, you’d never have believed existed, and you still don’t quite believe it, but you’re in such shock from what happened in the forest that you can’t find it in you to question much more.
The car won’t start when you try the key in the ignition. It worked perfectly on the way here, but now you turn the key and the engine coughs and sputters before giving up, and this is just the perfect end to the wildest day in history.
“I’ll call Ijichi and ask him to come pick us up,” Panda says from the passenger seat, and you wonder where on earth he could be keeping a cell phone on his person.
Inumaki doesn’t respond—instead, looks out the window into the parking lot from the seat behind Panda, collar pulled up tight. His body language tells you more than he probably intends—the stiffness in his arm, the way his back is tensed, making him sit up too straight. It speaks of anxiety, repressed frustration.
Panda nudges you with his elbow, and you belatedly realize you were staring—you’re still a little disoriented from everything, your mind moving through thick fog as you come to terms with every secret you’ve become privy to in the past twenty minutes. “Come check the engine with me,” Panda tells you.
You comply, leaving the driver’s seat and closing the door behind you, gravel crunching underfoot as you follow Panda to the front of the car. You watch as he lifts the hood—and briefly, you wonder if he’ll surprise you by not only being a panda, but a panda that moonlights as a car mechanic—but even you can spot the issue. Wires from the car have been stripped, their insides missing, leaving only the waxy, plastic coating behind. The entire radiator has been torn apart, its insides strewn about the car’s interior like the remains of a carcass on the side of the road after being picked at by a vulture. The goal was the vital organs. You know exactly what’s missing because the same thing happened to your entire apartment building, leading you to your present situation.
“Shit,” you mutter. “Probably some kids trying to sell copper for quick cash.”
“Hmm,” Panda replies, noncommittal. “Probably.”
A crow flies low above head, its dark wings adding to the shadows of the heavy, looming clouds that creep infinitely closer. There’s something he’s not telling you or something he wants to tell you, and you give him a look to let him know that you know this, and he gives you a look that you can’t quite read because he’s a panda bear.
Panda keeps a paw on the raised hood of the car, like he’s steadying himself. “He used his cursed speech on you.” He says this very quietly, the most serious you’ve ever heard him.
You’re not even sure what he’s talking about, but the words hold such weight that they’re like a cinder-block tied to your ankle, dragging you into deep waters. Dangerous and unknown territory. “I’ve really tried not to ask a lot of questions, Panda, but this is—”
“Toge’s a good man.”
Your throat is scratchy and cotton-dry, the threaded edges of your words catching on their way out. “I never said he wasn’t.”
“You know that this is all real now. Right?”
“Will I be killed if I say yes?”
“I’m being serious,” he says.
“So am I.”
Thunder booms in the distance, an explosive force that seems to ricochet off the mountain peak and echo towards the forest.
“I know it’s real,” you concede.
"Toge’s gift is the ability to curse others with his voice,” Panda says. “He told you to step back.”
You remember the voice. The command that there was no opportunity for you to deny. The absolute control that something else had over your every sense and movement. It was terrifying and awful to experience, but it also meant that you got out of the way in time not to be ripped into shreds. “He saved my life.”
“I’m glad you recognize that.”
You look at Panda. “Where are you going with this?”
“He’s hurt people in the past. Not by choice,” he adds hastily. “I know he worries that it’ll happen again.”
“He saved my life,” you repeat. The words sink in further when they’re said aloud a second time. He saved your life, which means that if he hadn’t stepped in, you could have died. You could be nothing more than a body in a forest right now, something new for the habitat to consume and decompose. You swallow past the lump in your throat. “He saved my life,” you say again, like they’re the only words you can remember, and this time your voice cracks midway through and your face feels hot and you have to stare at the ruined radiator for a few moments before you can look up at Panda.
Drops of rain begin to break on the gravel beneath you. Lightning flashes somewhere close, the smell of burnt-plastic ozone announcing the brunt of the storm. “You should tell him that,” Panda says. He closes the hood and it clicks back into place smooth and quiet, an intimation of how expensive this car really is. “Let’s get inside before it starts coming down.”
It’s not until much later, when you’re lying in your bed at Jujutsu Tech, that you realize you never taught Inumaki how to sign danger.
Humans seek out the knowledge they require—Inumaki sought out to learn that word because it must be one he believes he needs. You’re not entitled to know what happened to Inumaki and Panda that left such grievous scars, internal and external. After Shibuya, many people were left with traumatic reminders of the pain inflicted that day.
Something he’s been through turned him into the sort of man that believes being able to warn others away is a necessity. Though he’s quiet, intimidating, and holds a terrible power within him, you don’t think any kind of person that would learn something to protect others is bad at their core. You think a person like that might even be kind.
Something changes after that day. Inumaki still comes to lessons, still excels in his studies, but he’s not as calm as normal. He always seems restless, fingers tapping on his desk when he’s not signing, his leg bouncing enough to jostle his entire desk. He still takes the jasmine tea every morning, signs good when you ask how he is.
You know better. You’re just not sure how to approach the conversation.
For the past week, you’ve been sitting in on midday training in an effort to fix things. It’s less intimidating when you know exactly why they’re teaching Noya how to fight. Well, not they—Panda teaches the less glamorous things like math and grammar, but also upholds administrative ends as the principal. On this particular day, he’s organizing a sister school event with the principal of the Kyoto branch of Jujutsu Tech.
It’s Inumaki that really shows Noya how to fight, but more importantly, how to defend. They do footwork exercises most days to start, right after your morning signing lessons, and then work on different things depending on the day of the week. There’s agility training, different weapons and their basic movements that Inumaki guides Noya through, workouts designed more for strength, and then your favorite—the endurance training.
It’s not anything about the training that you like specifically. You like how, on days like today when Noya and Inumaki have run about three miles, they’ll take a fifteen-minute break and Inumaki will sit next to you on the steps as he catches his breath and has some water, and you’ll have another chance to work up the courage to thank him for saving your life and maybe make him go back to normal.
You miss his calm silences. His reassuring stillness.
It’s not that you haven’t had the time with him during your lessons. It’s just that once you’re alone with him in the classroom, you’re too nervous to do anything more than teach. At least out here, there’s the wide-open sky above you and another person nearby.
Summer heat has begun to creep into the outskirts of Tokyo, and Inumaki has switched to short-sleeved shirts and a compression sleeve for his residual left arm, though he still wears a deep purple wrap-around scarf to cover the lower half of his face that looks like it would be cozy in the winter, but not so much in the middle of July.
Noya finishes the final lap just before Inumaki, though you suspect Inumaki might let his student win some days just to keep the kid’s spirits up. Noya always smiles so big when he beats Inumaki, as if it’s his own personal goal to surpass his teacher that has no doubt seen and lived through things that Noya will hopefully never have to face.
“しゃけ.” Inumaki gestures towards the steps with a nod, letting Noya take a break, and you’re expecting him to walk straight over to you—but he pauses, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it up to wipe at the sweat on his forehead.
For a moment, all you can look at is the sun making the sweat that coats his skin glisten, accentuating sharp lines of lithe muscle, a body built for endurance rather than strength—and you don’t mean to keep looking, but you notice a bead of sweat that rolls down the center of his chest, and then the cut lines of his abdomen, and then lower, until your eyes catch on a light dusting of silver hair that glints in the gold-leaf sunlight.
You wonder if it would feel nice to put your hand flat against his chest, sweat-slick and sun-heated, just to absorb the warmth second-hand, as if the heat from his skin would do a better job of warming you than light directly from the sun ever could.
Your mouth is dry and his shirt comes down and your eyes are trained on your feet and you think you might actually have a sunburn on your face, maybe? You put your hands on your cheeks and your skin is burning up, and you’re about to make the decision to go back inside before a bottle of water is placed next to the shoe you’re staring at so intently.
Inumaki stands in front of you on the steps, his pretty hair shimmering silver, the same color as—don’t think about it—escaping the gel with which he styled it this morning. For you, he signs, and points to the water.
Maybe you do need some water. It’s hot out here, and sometimes summer makes you feel a little woozy, as if you’re getting drunk off of the hum of cicadas, the whisper of a gentle breeze, the quiet that accompanies a clear blue sky. You twist the cap off the bottle and take a few cool sips, and Inumaki sits next to you.
You think he does it to be polite. Noya often keeps moving on their breaks, walking back and forth on the lines of the training field—to keep his body warmed-up, he told you once, and you realized then that you’d never met a teenager so driven to learn. This leaves you and Inumaki sitting on the steps, and you’re sure he just doesn’t want to be rude by sitting as far away from you as possible.
The sound of fabric shifting catches your attention and you look over at him, taking a drink from his own water bottle, the line of his throat fully exposed, and—maybe this is a good time to thank him. Maybe then you can stop coming out here every day to watch him and Noya train, and you won’t have to see anything else you shouldn’t be seeing and you can finish reading your most recent book.
The issue is that you’re not sure where to start. You don’t want to thank him out of nowhere—no one’s going to believe that a quick thanks for saving my life now let’s go eat lunch is actually genuine.
And you want him to know that it is genuine, especially after your conversation with Panda. You watch as his leg bounces, restless, and for some reason your first instinct is to reach out and stop it, just the pads of your fingers pressed against the light fabric of his joggers at the curve of his knee.
His whole body goes still. You keep your fingers there for maybe a little longer than necessary, trying to collect your thoughts, but your mouth moves without you thinking. “You were the one that told me to step back.”
His brows furrow and his mouth curls into a frown, the most emotive you’ve ever seen him, and for a moment you think you’ve said something wrong until he says, “おかか.” His personal language is still a mystery to you, but he brings his closed fist to his chest, and signs I’m sorry, then repeats the motion when you say nothing.
He looks so guilty even though he did nothing wrong, but you don’t think you’re the person that can assuage him of that kind of guilt. Just to stop him, you reach out and grab his wrist, gentle, stilling his hand in its circular motion. “Thank you. Really.”
You stare at each other for a moment, and you’re able to appreciate the long lashes that frame his bright eyes, the way the guilt in his gaze seems to melt away, if only a little. When he nods, accepting that you’re telling the truth, you pull away.
Now there is a silence between you that feels heavier in some ways and lighter in others. “When did you learn…” you begin to ask, and to finish your question, you sign danger as he had before the attack in the forest. Talking about something the two of you discuss almost every day seems like a good starting point.
There’s the slight curve of a smile on his lips, just exposed over the top of his scarf, and you wonder what he looks like when he’s truly happy. Does he smile with teeth? Does he have dimples? Would his tattoos obscure them if he did? He holds his hand out, palm facing the ground, then moves his fingers up and down, asynchronous. I study.
“Probably won’t need me around for much longer, huh?” you ask, and that realization hits you at the exact moment it comes out of your mouth. What happens after this? Do you just go home? Find another regular job? Hope that the pipes in your building get replaced despite the current scarcity of copper across Japan?
Inumaki watches you, quiet, and you think that he’s much more perceptive than people probably give him credit for. He’s an observer, a presence on the outside looking in. He’s become proficient at noticing little things like the brief panic that suddenly goes through you.
The eye contact is so heavy that you have to break it before it makes you physically explode. “I mean that’s—that’s what we want. The goal is that you won’t need—you know. Me. Or—or any teacher.” You say this to your shoes, nervously rolling the water bottle between your palms.
“筋子.”
The words grab your attention.
When you finally look at him, he slowly signs, Do I scare you?
You don’t want to lie to him, but telling the truth feels difficult, a nicotine-sticky kind of honesty that gums up your lungs when you try to breathe. Noya is out on the field, jogging back and forth from the paved practice area in the middle of the field to the steps. You can hear the dull thud of his feet hitting the grass, the low ring of daytime crickets. Eventually, you sign, Sometimes.
Though his face is half-covered, there’s a minute change that implies a kind of disappointment.
Less now than before, you continue. The truth feels easier when you don’t have to speak it aloud.
He still relies on fingerspelling for the phrases he doesn’t know fluently, and you watch as he spells out, What changed?
“I’m getting to know you,” you tell him. And with some measure of guilt, you admit, It took me a while to realize that you’re so… kind.
His brow furrows, and he mimics the sign he doesn’t understand, his hand held in a thumbs-up motion at his chest and then pushed outwards.
“Kind,” you tell him, repeating the motion with both of your hands.
Though his mouth has retreated back behind the scarf, you see the slight lift of his cheekbones, the way tension seems to leave his face entirely.
Is this what was making him so anxious? Your opinion of him?
A voice comes from the top of the steps, removing you from that train of thought, and you turn to see Panda calling for Inumaki, and beside him—oh, no.
This can’t be happening.
“Kamo?” you ask, and then heat floods to your face as Panda and Inumaki look at you with what is most likely shock for being so familiar with a person that is, apparently, a part of the jujutsu world. “I mean, uh—Noritoshi?”
Your ex stands at the top of the stairs, the looming main building of Jujutsu Tech behind him, and it makes no sense because you dated him for a year and you’ve visited the high school that he works at, and everything there is normal and not magic-y. The last you’d heard from him had been the ridiculous Facebook post about the sun’s implosion that scared your mom so bad she nearly passed out. He’s a conspiracy theorist that teaches English. That’s what he had you believe, anyway.
You stand up too because you feel awkward sitting while Noritoshi is standing, and—your blood sugar is low. Your head swims and your entire consciousness feels dizzy, if that’s even possible, and you still have that small package of gummy bears in your back pocket that you’re going to have to tear into in a moment.
As is common for him, Noritoshi doesn’t seem affected by this development. He simply looks between you and Panda, and asks, “She knows?” Panda begins to tell him what happened in the forest, but Noritoshi cuts him off before he gets too far. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
There are many reasons you broke up with Noritoshi, but his lack of respect for other people should have been the red flag that made you leave him much earlier. You were too empathetic—you always had an excuse for his behavior to explain away his lack of care, but over time, you ran out of both excuses and patience.
“My mom saw your post on Facebook,” you tell him.
He nods sagely. “About the sun?”
“Yes. About the sun.”
“You’re still on Facebook?” Panda asks.
This isn’t going to get you anywhere. “So, you’re not a teacher.”
“Not anymore,” Noritoshi says, and when he smiles, it seems a little cold. That might be your bias interpreting it the way you want to see it. “I’m the principal.”
Panda looks very uncomfortable, and the fact that your own personal drama has made a panda bear uncomfortable feels like some sort of feat, but probably not one you’d brag to your parents or friends about. “He just took over at our sister school in Kyoto, so we’re planning a celebration,” he provides. “Exciting, huh?”
“You lied to me the whole time,” you say to Noritoshi, the both of you ignoring Panda’s desperate bid to change the subject. There’s no love left in your heart for him, and there hasn’t been for a long time—but you have to admit that it hurts to be told that you were lied to for a whole year of your life by the person who, at the time, you trusted the most. The sting of retroactive betrayal makes your words come out with a little more emotion than intended, a hint of your feelings revealed to everyone, but most importantly, Noritoshi, who will grab on to any thread of weakness he can find and pull.
“Well, uh, Toge,” Panda says, addressing Inumaki, now standing close to you but a little withdrawn from the circle the three of you have made, as if he didn’t want to be a part of this conversation in the first place. “I needed to double check the student’s travel itineraries with you. Can we have them back in time for the Mitama summer festival? We can save a lot of money if we use their fireworks display instead of paying for our own.”
Noritoshi gives Panda a dirty look, and you decide to detract yourself from the conversation. Now that attention is off of you, your head swims even more, and you pull the packet of candy from your back pocket and quietly open it, eating two gummy bears and praying that the sugar will kick in sooner than it usually does.
There’s a tap on your shoulder, and you look up at Inumaki, who points to the package of candy and signs with a quick flick of his wrist, May I?
His movements are getting less stiff, you notice, and that brings a small smile to your lips. You nod and take the last one out of the packet, holding it between your index finger and thumb for him to take.
A hand on your elbow takes you off guard, pushing your arm up until your hand is level with Inumaki’s mouth, revealed by his lowered scarf, and without breaking eye contact, he makes you feed him the candy, his soft lips brushing the tips of your fingers, leaving you breathless. Your blood sings in every vein and the dizziness is worse now and you can still feel the ghost of his lips against your fingertips. All you can do is blink up at him and try to figure out when your heart started beating so hard.
His hand stays on your elbow until he swallows the candy, and then he looks over your head, right at your ex-boyfriend, and says, “しゃけ.”
A silence falls on the training field. Noya seems to have stopped running, his footsteps gone quiet. Even the crickets decided that they’ve had enough for the day, leaving only the wind to provide the grating noise of dead leaves scraping across concrete.
“…great! The date’s set, then.” Panda laughs nervously, eyes darting between the three of you. To Inumaki, he pointedly says, “I think Noya’s waiting for you.”
“しゃけ,” Inumaki repeats, and then he’s jogging down the steps towards his student like nothing happened.
It must be a jujutsu sorcerer thing—to do something ridiculous and then pretend that everything is fine. You can still feel the heat in your face, stinging uncomfortably. Though you can’t look him in the eye, you know that Noritoshi is staring you down right now. “I have to… go somewhere,” you say. “Somewhere that’s… not here. For the work I do. For the school. To—to do my work. So goodbye.”
Noritoshi says your name, and you think he’s about to stop you when Panda says, “We should let her go… do the work she has to do. The work that I ask her to do. Anyway, weren’t we talking about the copper shortage?”
They start walking back towards the school, and Noritoshi tells Panda, “It has to do with the sun…”
Mentally thanking Panda for taking pity on you, you turn and leave briskly but not too fast—at least later you’ll be able to claim that you didn’t run away from the situation—but you do take one look back at the practice field where Inumaki and Noya have resumed their endurance training.
At the same moment, Inumaki looks up from correcting Noya’s lunge form, catching your eye, and it’s most likely because of what he just did but his gaze freezes you entirely. You wave, small and awkward, because you can’t quite figure out how to keep walking—but he waves too, just as small, and something about the action makes your heart flutter in its cage. You bite your lip to keep from smiling, put your head down and walk away, back to the dorms.
Your evening lessons with Inumaki are cancelled because Panda needs him to arrange tickets back home for the students that are abroad, and though you sit in your room and try to read your book, it’s hard when all you can think about is the way he looked at you when he waved goodbye. You touch the pad of your index finger to your lips, ruminative. If he wasn’t wearing his scarf, you think you would’ve been able to see him smile.
You wake up sweating, skin overly hot, hair frizzing from the humidity that has found its way into your room. You think that you might be sick for a moment—but there’s such overwhelming silence around you that after a few moments of post-awakening processing, you realize that at some point during the night, the AC was turned off.
The building you’re staying in is old, and you’re positive that the AC unit was put in decades after it was built. The fan is usually a comforting white noise as you fall asleep every night. You hear people moving around further down the hall, probably the skeleton staff that takes care of the maintenance of the building, the cooks and the gardeners and the maids (who have offered to do your laundry, but you politely declined, never having realized how much of a privilege it was to do it yourself until all of your pipes were stolen). The day is beginning around you and though you could take an extra ten minutes to nap, you decide you have to get up.
Things aren’t like they should be. Your electric alarm clock is unlit on your bedside table, but it’s still plugged in when you check it. Your bathroom light won’t turn on when you try the switch. The power must be out for the whole building, you realize, which forces you to get ready for work in the dark.
You’re not sure how the power grids work on campus—you bet it’s a mess, considering most of these buildings are hundreds of years old—but it’s reassuring to have the lights click on in your classroom. The main school building is detached from both of the student housing buildings, though you’re pretty sure the staff housing is connected to the school. You wonder if Inumaki and Panda had power this morning.
That’s answered for you when a few minutes later, Inumaki slides the tatami door open with a booted foot, a drink tray perched on his hand with two clay mugs balancing it out on either side. For the past few weeks, after you mentioned in a lesson that you weren’t a fan of the jasmine tea that Panda foisted off on you, Inumaki has been making you a cup of coffee from Panda’s secret stash every morning, bringing his own cup of tea to simplify things.
You take the tray from him with a quiet thank-you and place it on the desks where you normally sit. Lessons have progressed to the less mechanical-focused parts of signing—most days, the two of you talk for a few hours and as you have conversations, Inumaki will ask questions about signs he doesn’t understand or the structure of specific phrases. You have a guidebook with prompts that you pull from some days, but most of the time you can think of something to ask him just because he teaches at a magic school and his best friend is a panda.
He’s told you about things you never thought you’d discuss with him. His family and the curse marks he was born with (which took you about a week to wrap your head around and fully believe), the power he holds that goes back generations, and then topics where you feel you learn more about him—his favorite movie (somewhat surprisingly an arthouse film about a family trying to grow produce together), the fact that he primarily listens to J-Pop girl groups, how he and Panda became friends when they could hardly communicate at first. That leads to stories about the two of them when they attended the very school at which they teach, and stories about his old professors, and sometimes, when he's feeling very open with you, stories that touch on what happened in Shibuya.
Today, however, it seems that he wants to move on to a different topic of conversation. Noritoshi visited yesterday.
You try not to react, instead gently taking his wrist and correcting him on his sign indicating the past tense. “It should be at chest level, too,” you mumble, eyes focused on where you’re holding his hand.
He lowers his head, trying to get you to make eye contact with him, and once he does, you’re stuck. He’s giving you a look that’s screaming you really dated that guy? and it’s killing you because you ask yourself the same question every time he’s brought up.
“I know,” you say.
With the kind of speed and gracefulness you’ve come to expect from Inumaki, he twists his hand until he can gently squeeze your fingers between his, a single brow arching, another look that reads you know you can do better than that, right?
“I know,” you repeat. “I just got—complacent, I guess. It was comfortable until it wasn’t.”
He squeezes your fingers again, reassuring, then leads your hand to your cup of coffee, cooling and still half-full. He signs, I didn’t like him in high school.
“And now?” you ask.
Just from the way his brows raise, you can tell what his answer is.
“Is that why you did what you did on the training field?” You still remember the feeling of his lips against the tips of your fingers, and sometimes if you think about it for too long it makes you shiver, like a finger is tracing the length of your spine and leaving goosebumps in its wake.
What did I do? he signs—and he’s not that ignorant. He just pretends he is sometimes in order to get away with things. He keeps a straight face under his high collar, but you know that there’s mischief hiding in his words.
Now that you’ve built up the courage to ask the question, you can’t back down. “Inumaki,” you say, a reprimand.
“しゃけ,” he responds.
“They’re paying me to make you sign. So you’re gonna have to sign.”
Salmon, he signs.
“Oh my god.”
He unzips his collar and sips from his mug, and though he’s good at training his expression from the nose up, you can see the slightest curve of his mouth when he puts down the tea.
You flip through your guidebook in order to not have to look at his smug face any longer. “We can focus on future-tense conversations this morning since we’ve practiced it the least—”
Inumaki’s hand hits the guidebook lightly, stopping you from flipping through the pages, and when you look at him, he pulls back to sign, What did you think of me when we first met?
The question makes you hesitate, your heart suddenly beating in your throat. Are you breathing too loud? You might have to breathe quieter. You bring your hands up to sign along with your words, an old teaching habit but also something that makes you feel a little more confident when you speak. “It was—you were fighting Noya. And I thought… um.” Your hands drop to the desk again, and you continue, very quiet, “It was like—like you were dancing.”
You’re staring at your hands now, and Inumaki reaches across the two desks to curl his forefinger under your chin, to tilt your head up so you can see the look he gives you now. It’s expectant, nervous. He’s waiting for you to ask him the same thing.
And you? you sign once he pulls back, the place where his skin touched yours tingling in a way that is both pleasant and nerve-wracking.
He holds his hand up, parallel to his cheek, and waits for a moment before swiping his hand across his face and closing his fist at his chin. So pretty.
There’s a brief moment where time feels frozen, and the late morning sun shines in through the open windows of the classroom, and you and Inumaki are suspended in gold, marble-cast statues meant to live in this moment forever but no other, and then a cloud overtakes the sun and you look down and just try to breathe.
Your hands move restlessly on the desk in front of you, and your face heats, and—he’s really close to you, and you could reach over and touch him, if you wanted. When you look back at him he’s sitting patient, brows drawn a little as he waits for you to respond to his compliment.
His collar is still unzipped, and you tentatively pull one side away from his face. He smiles slowly, and his curse marks rise with the motion. You notice a slight depression in his right cheek, a little pocket formed by his change in expression.
You run your thumb across it and for a moment, his smile falters. He swallows, nervous, nowhere near as cocky as he’d been before, and you wonder if he thinks you were looking at the curse marks. “You have a dimple,” you say, as if he doesn’t already know that about himself, and when his smile creeps back onto his face, you’re treated to the sight once more, and you wonder if he would let you kiss it, just to see how your lips would feel against his skin.
“Am I interrupting?”
The speed with which you lean back in your chair is honestly impressive. You say, “No,” just as Inumaki glares at Panda and says, “しゃけ.”
“Needed to talk to you,” Panda says, and it doesn’t register that he’s talking to you until the room stays silent for a few moments.
There’s a weight in your throat, cold pumice-stone dread. “Oh, yeah. We can, uh—did you want to talk here?”
“My office work?” Panda asks, and now you’re really trying not to freak out on the inside.
You look at Inumaki, who signs don’t worry in a very slight motion, the equivalent to someone speaking under their breath.
With that slightly underwhelming reassurance, you turn back towards Panda. “Sounds great!”
As you follow him down the twisting halls of Jujutsu Tech, you realize that Panda’s your boss, kind of, even though you don’t really have a written contract—just money direct deposited into your account on a schedule—and he walked in on you doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. You’re here to teach, not—do whatever.
It was unprofessional. You know better.
The image of Inumaki signing so pretty with his long, graceful fingers crosses your mind, and heat rushes to your face, syrupy shame following right behind.
In Panda’s office, you sit in the high-backed chair opposite his desk, neatly organized stacks of folders and papers lining the sides that hold information that’s probably classified enough to get you killed for even sneezing on it. It suddenly hits you that you’re about to be fired by a panda.
“You—”
“I’m sorry.” You wince, not meaning to cut Panda off. “Sorry for cutting you off. And—and the other thing. I understand if you have to—you know.”
Panda pauses for a moment to blink at you, perplexed. “I know?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh,” you say. The two of you are quiet. You clear your throat. “You were, uh, saying something?”
Panda nods. “I wanted to ask how long you’re planning to stay.”
“So you are firing me.”
“I’m offering you a permanent position.”
The silence that follows that is somehow more awkward than the previous one.
“Obviously, I’ll need to learn sign language to understand Toge,” Panda continues, “and I think it would be beneficial for Noya and the other students. I can fit it in between my remedial course schedule, and we can officially hire you on as a teacher.”
This is honestly harder for you to believe than everything you’ve learned about the jujutsu world. It’s too good to be true. “At this rate of pay?”
“Yes.”
You nod, trying to make yourself believe that there’s no hidden but at the end of Panda’s sentences, no MTV host waiting behind a tall stack of books in the corner to jump out and tell you that you’ve been punk’d. “You trust me this much? After you found me on Craigslist?”
“Do you remember where you were the day after Shibuya?”
The question takes you off-guard, your breath catching in your throat. Of course you do—you don’t think you could ever forget.
You were freshly seventeen with a certification in sign language and an overzealous tutor that wanted you to change the world. Even before you spent your days in Shibuya teaching, you remember the search parties you'd join that would excavate the rubble, that would walk the streets between creaking buildings to find any survivors. There was too much of the city left in ruin for the police to handle it alone—so everyone helped. You would see a hand sticking out of a pile of stone and whether that person was dead or alive, you would grab it. Seconds mattered back then, precious gems you couldn’t seem to keep from slipping through your fingers.
You tell him that you remember in a voice that doesn’t feel like your own.
“When the higher ups of the jujutsu world still ran everything, they worked with the government to play it off as a terrorist attack,” Panda tells you, “and in a way, it was. It was a part of the final battle of the special-grade sorcerers. Where Toge lost his arm.”
The knowledge that you were so close to Panda and Toge without knowing them until now feels jarring—ships passing in moonlit waters, hulls cracked and splintered after battle, too focused on fixing their own to notice any other.
“The way my brain functions—it’s not exactly like a human’s. There are parts of that day that I can remember with almost too much clarity.” Panda sighs, then rolls a shoulder, causing the leather chair beneath him to creak alarmingly loud. “I did a background check before I offered you the job. Your qualifications checked out, but your face—I remembered you from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. Then we met at the café, and the way you talked about teaching Toge, considering his disability… it clicked. I remembered you from one of the medical tents.”
“You hired me because… you saw me once after Shibuya?”
“I hired you because even if no one can understand what he’s gone through, you saw the aftermath firsthand.” He pauses, and his eyes get this far-off look, and you wonder if Inumaki knows just how much his friend has thought about this—if he knows about the guilt Panda must carry on his shoulders for letting him get so gravely injured. “You saw it all and then you stayed.”
The AC clicks on, the dull ring of fans whirring putting into comparison just how quiet it had been before. Quietly, you tell Panda that you want to continue working at Jujutsu Tech, and he thanks you just as soft.
A thought hits you as you stand to leave, and though it doesn’t feel like the exact right time to ask, you’re not sure when else you’ll be able. “Did they get the power working again in the dorms?”
Panda stares at you blankly. “The power?”
“When I woke up this morning there wasn’t any power in the building,” you say.
“Oh, dear.” Panda stands suddenly, and then walks out of the room like he’s on a mission, and all you can do is follow him down the twisting path to the women’s dorms.
He looks at the keys on his keyring—when did he get that keyring and from where?—and selects the one that opens the first dorm unit. He tries the switch, and when the lights don’t come on, he goes into the bathroom and out of your sight. You’re a little afraid to go in there after him.
You don’t have to wait long, though—soon enough, Panda is storming out of the room, leaving the door open behind him as he heads in the direction of the training field. “I can’t believe I got this careless,” he says to no one in particular.
“What happened?” you ask.
“The copper’s gone.”
This can’t be happening. “Like—the pipes?”
“And the wiring, yes.”
Do you have the worst luck in the world? Does some sort of malevolent god not want you to be able to wash your clothes?
You can hear the sound of hand-to-hand combat as you approach the training field, Noya and Inumaki working on blocking and dodging on the yellowed grass.
“Toge,” Panda calls across the field, “can you draw a veil?”
“たかな?” Inumaki asks, but his hand also turns in a specific way, middle finger curled against his palm, that asks, What’s up?
“The copper curse is on campus.”
“The copper curse?” you ask.
“It’s a curse that absorbs copper,” Panda tells you.
“I… got that.”
"We have to exorcise it before it gets strong enough to absorb from the sun," he says to Inumaki. "It's already eaten half the country's supply. It'll be big."
You have a dreadful, lurking suspicion that you're about to find out something related to a specific Facebook post. "The sun?"
Panda looks back at you, and as if stating a fact, says, "The copper in the sun."
"There's no copper in the sun."
Inumaki glances at you, then at Panda, and Panda glances at Inumaki, then at you.
Your patience is wearing thin. "Is anyone gonna tell me about the sun?"
"The copper found in the sun is a well-kept secret in jujutsu society," Panda says. "And if the curse is able to access that store of copper, the sun could implode."
You cannot believe that Noritoshi was right.
Noya approaches, his practice staff held tight between two hands. “Are we gonna fight it?”
“おかか,” Inumaki says, putting a hand on Noya’s shoulder. To you, he signs, Take care of him?
“Of course,” you say..
Please, he begins to add, but it takes him a moment to figure out the rest of the sentence. Stay safe.
There’s been no time to talk to him between what happened in the classroom and now, and it’s not as important as everything else that’s happening but—you wish you’d had a little more time alone with him this morning, just so you could study the way his face changes when he smiles.
“I will.” You try to smile at him in a way that doesn’t belie your anxiety, but you feel the expression waver on your face. Before you can gauge his reaction, you turn to Noya and say, “Looks like you're stuck protecting me.”
He nods, accepting his duty. “Someone has to.”
Inumaki raises his hand to his chest, index and middle fingers pointed upwards, and after a second, the sun begins to blot out as a tarp-like covering appears in the middle of the sky and begins to grow.
“Is that… the copper curse?” you ask.
Panda shakes his head. “A veil to draw it out. You’ll know the copper curse when you see it. If you do.”
“Does it look like—”
“Copper?” Panda asks. “Yes.”
…of course. “Let’s go, Noya.”
As the sky becomes a black void above you, you hurry Noya into the school building, closing and locking the front doors behind you, as if the flip lock will actually keep any sort of malicious demon out of the building.
In the main hall of the school building, the windows are all delicate glass with intricate wood molding holding each pane in place, and you watch as the veil touches the edge of the horizon, fully cutting the campus off from the rest of the world.
“Are they provoking it?” you ask Noya, who’s come to the window beside you, hands eagerly gripping the windowsill.
He nods, and you can see the excitement in his every movement, though you’re not sure if this is exactly something to be excited about. “The veil traps the curse, which makes them more likely to attack. It’s like fight-or-flight.”
“Are you learning about that with Panda?” you ask, aiming to keep some semblance of normalcy, if only to keep yourself from panicking.
Noya looks at you, unimpressed. “I’m fifteen. Not five.”
“Never mind,” you mutter, gripping the windowsill much like Noya, but for an entirely different reason.
The first footstep sounds like thunder. The floorboards below your feet seem to vibrate with it, shuddering up the bones in your legs, until you’re kneeling before the window just to stop feeling so unsteady on your feet.
“Are you scared?” Noya asks you. You don’t respond, but he seems to make up his mind about your answer anyway. “It’s okay. Inumaki-sensei and Panda have never lost a fight.”
There’s probably so much they haven’t told him yet, even though he’s a teenager—horrors like Shibuya, when Noya wasn’t even old enough to know what was happening. Just from Panda’s brief mention of what happened there, you know they’ve lost fights. Many of them. But something about Noya’s childish hope makes you feel a little more secure.
The curse approaches, and you monitor how far away it is from the school by how loud its footsteps are—but you know it’s finally made it to the training field when Noya gasps, eyes glazed over with excitement.
You look out the window and see nothing—cursed energy has been explained to you many times, but you still don’t understand how it works—although you can see Panda and Inumaki rushing towards where the curse must be.
Panda suddenly seems three times bigger than normal, but it could be the distance tricking your eyes. He lunges at the air where the curse must be—but instead of taking it down, he’s suddenly thrown back as if smacked by a giant hand, hitting the ground hard in the middle of the training field, tearing up the grass.
Inumaki darts forward with alarming speed, primed to attack—and he has absolutely no weapons on him.
“Is he—is he going to punch it?”
Noya frowns at you. “Yeah, Inumaki-sensei has crazy powerful cursed energy.”
That means absolutely nothing to you. “I don’t even—okay. So he’s going to punch it."
As soon as the words are out of your mouth, Inumaki makes contact with what you assume is the curse—but he gets knocked back too, and suddenly everything seems much more real.
“Oh my god.” Your hand claps over your mouth as you see Inumaki hit the ground hard, just like Panda, except Panda is a semi-magical panda and Inumaki is just a guy. “Oh my god. Is he—? Oh my god.”
Your breathing is getting faster, your legs shaking more even though you’re kneeling, and you have to put your forehead against the windowsill and just breathe for a moment, in and out, counting slowly, the footsteps of the copper curse shaking everything around you.
When you look up again, you scream, reeling backwards, because outside of the window there is now a massive copper tube crawling towards the school like some sort of eldritch slug, its metal shell moving impossibly, creaking loudly as it warps and twists in ways that make your skin crawl.
Noya kneels next to you, his staff placed aside as he puts his hand on your shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.” His voice wavers a little, and you can see clear conflict in his eyes that he’s not yet old enough to know how to fully conceal. “They’re powerful sorcerers.”
“Are all curses that big?” you ask, and your voice is hoarse and you try to remember how loud you screamed when you saw the demonic entity crawling towards the school, but your brain is already erasing frames from the past two minutes as if to get ahead of any lasting trauma you'll incur from this.
“Um.” Noya looks out the window at the curse as if to gauge. Without meeting your eyes, he continues, “…yes. Yeah. Yep. They’re all that big.”
This isn’t going nearly as smooth as you hoped it would.
You back up so you’re against the wall opposite the window, and you just watch as the curse keeps moving towards the school with single-minded focus. Panda and Inumaki seem to be fine—thank god—but every attack they lodge has no effect.
Noya still stands at the window, face almost pressed to the glass as he watches the fight progress. “The shell is so thick that they can’t get any good hits in.”
“Please don’t tell me that,” you say.
“Inumaki-sensei is weakening it with his cursed speech,” Noya reassures you. “They’ll have it exorcised in no time.”
But it’s still crawling, and then it turns a little and you realize that you hadn’t even been able to see the whole body. It has two back feet propelling it forwards—you should have made the connection when you still kept hearing footsteps but saw the curse slug-crawling—and with each step, paths are destroyed, bushes are crushed, architecture is weakened and toppled.
Panda manages to get one good hit in, a fact you’re let in on only because of the ear-piercing screech that the curse lets out, followed by words that you don’t understand but that rapidly get louder as the echo towards the school, a litany of why won’t this turn on why isn’t this working why not why not why not someone help me please? someone help me please? someone help me please?
A chill runs through your bones, the words sounding eerily too close to a human voice for comfort.
Noya steps back towards the wall, brows raised, and when you see him swallow nervously you know that something is wrong.
“What?” you ask.
He shakes his head.
Someone help me please?
“Noya, just tell me.”
Someone help me please?
“Noya.”
Someone help me help me help me help me—
“Its energy just… oh, man,” Noya says, and backs up until he’s leaning against the wall too, sliding down it to sit next to you. “It must’ve healed itself somehow.”
With a loud, metallic groan, the copper curse’s body convulses from its tail through its tube-like body and to its front, and when it straightens out, you see a pair of legs under its head, turning it into a quad-pedal beast that is suddenly much faster than it had been a moment ago.
And because your luck has never been great, it begins to walk in the direction of the school.
Noya turns to you on instinct, gripping you tightly, holding you close as if you’ll be able to save him somehow from the curse heading towards you, picking up speed with every step.
Help me help me help me help me—
You hold Noya, his fingers digging into your arms, and his eyes are screwed shut, his face turned hard against the wall, and you keep looking from him to the window—and if this is how you die, killed by the physical embodiment of your apartment’s missing pipes, you’ll admit that there’s no such thing as coincidence right before you’re crushed to death.
“Melt.”
The word seems to radiate through the windows, and glass shatters inwards, one pane at a time. An intense heat blows into the hall, so hot that you have to turn your face away and close your eyes before they dry out. You hold Noya closer to you, a hand on the back of his head, your arm protecting his face from the brunt of the heat—and then as soon as it started, it’s over.
There’s not a pane of glass left whole, and through the smoldering wooden remains of the window molding, you see a pool of copper stretching all the way back to the training field, that same purple liquid you’d seen come from the curses in the clearing spilling out into the grass.
Blood, you realize. Curses bleed.
A massive beast, destroyed with a single word. Bleeding out, melting to death. You didn’t realize how powerful cursed speech could be until this very moment. No wonder Inumaki’s afraid of hurting others.
It’s a burden that someone as kind as him shouldn’t have to carry, though you suspect the burden is also what made him kind.
Noya loosens his grip on your arms finger by finger, and when he’s finally able to pull away from you, he opens his eyes and looks out at the ruin. He lets out a watery sigh and pulls his training staff close to his body with shaky hands. “See?” he asks. “There was nothing to be scared of.”
You stand, and on unsteady feet, you make your way over to the remains of the window. The melting copper is splashed against the walls of the school, hardening and bleeding and crumbling away bit by bit, as if the metal is somehow turning to ash. Out towards the training field, you see Panda, now his normal size, and beside him—held up by him—Inumaki, his face exposed fully, his chin and the front of his training shirt covered in blood.
You lock eyes, and your hands cover your mouth, stopping you from making any kind of noise. You should sign something to him, to let him know that Noya’s okay, that you’re okay, that you want to know if he’s okay. Your hands tighten over your mouth and you can’t wrench them away.
He looks somewhat alert, at least, his eyes darting from you to the damage done to the building until he turns to Panda, says something you’re too far away to hear but probably wouldn’t have understood anyway.
They start heading towards one of the staff buildings, and your phone rings in your pocket. The number is still saved from when he contacted you on Craigslist, Panda(???), and when you pick up he asks, “Are you both safe?”
“Yeah,” you say, your voice breaking on the word. “Inumaki—is he—?”
“I’m taking him to the campus physician,” he responds, and you wish he would give you more information than just that, because it makes your heart beat uncomfortably faster. “Would you bring Noya to my office? I have some packets of hot chocolate in a cookie tin in my desk drawer. He’ll like that.”
“Panda—”
“Worry about yourself for right now,” he tells you, but not unkindly.
You bring Noya to Panda’s office, locating the formerly-secret stash, a cookie tin with not only packets of instant hot chocolate, but a bag of Geneva coffee and six Nespresso pods.
That bastard.
There’s a kettle on the side table, already plugged in, so you boil the water that’s left inside it and take note of the striking absence of a Nespresso machine for the pods. He must keep it hidden. In the cupboard below his desk drawer, maybe?
“We could’ve got seriously hurt back there.” Noya’s sitting in the high-backed chair that you sat in the last time you were in Panda’s office. When you look up from rooting around in Panda’s cupboards, Noya is staring out the window behind the side table, steam rising from the kettle’s spout, and there’s a wistfulness to him that you wouldn’t expect from a teenager. “I know it looked like I wasn’t scared, but I was.”
The kettle whistles, and you walk over to pour the water into one of the ceramic mugs Panda has stacked on the table, the one you choose a chipped power-blue with the words Fresh and Delicious! engraved on its face. “…uh huh.”
He kicks his feet against the carpet, the heels of his boots digging into the gray shag. “When I was little, things were more dangerous. Panda and Inumaki-sensei and a lot of other sorcerers got hurt. A lot of people died.”
The hot chocolate packet tears easily. You stir it into the hot water, little white marshmallows bobbing up and down around the mug’s rim. You’re trying not to look directly at Noya because you think it’ll make him too nervous to continue.
“We have it easy now. And I think that sometimes, it can make me forget. Even with Inumaki-sensei’s arm, he’s such a powerful sorcerer that it doesn’t hold him back.” His feet stop moving, and you do look at him then. His eyes shine and his lips twist and he says, “But I see him sometimes copying the sign language that you do, and I know it’s harder for him because he can’t copy you exactly right, and it reminds me that even though he’s okay now, he still lost something really important. And he got hurt again and I’m mad at myself for not being able to help.”
The chances of Noya making it out of a fight with that copper curse would have been very slim, and you think he knows that as well as you. At his skill level, he would’ve been a hindrance.
And yet, you understand his guilt—the feeling of being useless when there’s so much to do.
You bring him the mug, squatting down so that you’re at his level. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They’re your teachers. They’re supposed to protect you. And when you get stronger, you can return the favor.”
He sits on that for a moment, but eventually accepts the hot chocolate from you and brings it to his lips, unshed tears caught in his eyelashes. He cringes when he takes the first sip. “Did you make this with water instead of milk?”
This is the last favor you do for Panda unless he reveals the location of the Nespresso machine.
Inumaki doesn’t come to your classroom the next morning.
It makes sense—he’s still healing. But then he doesn’t show up the next day, or the next after that, and then once a week has passed you’re getting antsy, unable to focus on anything long enough to be productive. Even your sleep has taken a hit, and since you haven’t had the chance to talk to Panda about the whereabouts of the Nespresso machine, you’re stuck sipping on jasmine tea that you now hate out of spite, watching the sunrise from the steps next to the training field.
Panda gave Noya a week off to go home and visit family while the campus is cleaned up, reconstructed. Overnight, the copper was all gone. You wonder what happened to your pipes. The student dorms still don’t have electricity, so you’re staying in a room in the staff building. You sit out on the training field steps every morning after waiting in the classroom for half an hour in case Inumaki shows up. Each day, you watch clean up teams come in and remove debris, broken glass, the mountains of dirt from the ruined field, and then building crews arriving after to recreate the windows with the wooden molding just as it had been before, to fill in the holes in the field and put sheets of healthy grass over the exposed earth, to plant bushes of pink-and-purple hydrangeas.
You watch, but all you see is Inumaki’s fist closing, so pretty, and you forget that even now, even in times of peace, seconds are still precious.
Within a week, it’s like nothing even happened, except you haven’t seen Inumaki once and Panda has been either busy here or busy visiting the Kyoto campus, and you’re getting sick of this. You’re tired, and lonely, and you just want to know that Inumaki isn’t laying out in a hospital bed somewhere slowly wasting away.
At the end of the week, you wake up and decide that you’ll wait outside the little building behind the school where you’re pretty sure he lives. Is it a little creepy? Yes. But he has to at least come out to get breakfast. Or lunch. You have time to kill—you’ll wait as long as you need to.
Luck, for once, is on your side.
He’s outside when you get there, standing next to a massive trellis that goes half-way up the building, vines of pearl-white jasmine curling up and even further, roots digging into wood and plaster and the brick beneath. There’s a watering can in his hand, royal purple just like the scarf he’s been wearing recently, though he’s not wearing it right now—just his typical summer training clothes, no high collar beneath his white shirt.
A breath of relief fills your lungs until your mind catches up to the sight of Inumaki before you, because he’s safe, he’s okay, and he didn’t bother to tell you, and he’s just outside watering plants as if he’s not even hiding from you, which in itself feels like some kind of slight, because if it’s not a purposeful avoidance of you, then it’s just general ignorance. The ignorance hurts more.
At the sound of your approach, he turns, and he looks shocked to see you, as if you don’t also live on this campus, a two minute walk away, as if you wouldn’t come looking after a while.
You stop when you’re just a few feet away from him. You don’t want to be angry but you’re a little angry for good reason. You’re not going to snap—you’ve been teaching and interpreting for years, and both of those jobs take monumental amounts of patience. But you do have to take a deep breath and count to ten.
Neither of you sign anything. You just look at each other, frozen.
You just want to know what happened, because there was a time just a week ago where talking to him was easy, even enjoyable. And now you’re at a standstill. With careful hands, you sign, What did I do wrong?
His brow furrows deep, and he shakes his head emphatically, signing, Not you.
“Then what?” you ask. “What happened?”
He hesitates, seeming to need time to find the correct words. I saw you after.
“From the window.”
He nods. You looked… His hand goes still, and he looks down at them as if figuring out how to properly use them. You wonder what words are going through his head right now and how many of them are bad, considering the time it’s taking him to finish his sentence. Frightened.
I was, you sign.
It was the wrong thing to say, you realize, because he steps back a little, nods to himself. I’m sorry.
There’s nothing he could possibly be sorry for aside from not telling you earlier that he’s okay, and you don’t think he’s apologizing for that. He won’t look at you directly, eyes fixed on the watering can by the bottom of the trellis.
“Sorry for what?” you ask.
Scared you, he replies.
You realize that this is just like what happened at the forest. He’s not ashamed to use his power, but—you think he’s maybe ashamed that the power he keeps within himself could frighten people. Frighten you.
But it doesn’t, and he’s saved your life more than once, and you take a careful step forward before saying, “I was scared because you were hurt. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to you.”
Silence stretches out between you for a moment, and when you take another tentative step forward, he does too. You can smell the jasmine now that you’re next to the trellis, somehow both sweet and bitter, much like the tea you take in the mornings when Inumaki doesn’t bring you coffee.
“I’m not scared of you,” you tell him. “Never of you.”
He hesitates again, and you wonder if he’s ever had to have conversations like this with people that haven’t known him since childhood. If he’s ever been able to take the time to figure out the communication of his deepest feelings. Carefully, he plucks a jasmine flower off its vine and then gets closer to you, the toes of his shoes just an inch away from yours, tucking the bloom behind your ear. Relying on actions instead of words. When his fingers brush your cheek during their retreat, you feel warm all over.
Please talk to me, you sign.
I’m sorry. When he sees you begin to protest, he clarifies, For worrying you.
Without thinking, you reach up towards his face, taking in the new details that have been revealed to you—until now, you’ve never seen his face all at once, and you trace the soft curve of his jawbone, follow the sharpening line to his chin. “You should be,” you say, but in the way you’ve learned from Panda—honest but not unkind.
He smiles at that, and just that simple expression is like laughter from him, soaking into your bones, removing the weight of the tension that’s been crushing you for this past week.
Tentatively, he signs out words that make heat rush to your face, bolder than you thought he would be—I’m going to kiss you now—but you can tell from the slight quirk of his brow that there’s a question mark tagged on as an afterthought, a chance for you to say no if this isn’t really what you want.
But it is.
He kisses you chastely, a soft brush of lips, and you can feel his breath on your face afterwards, marking the pause, the hesitant consideration of whether to kiss you again or not even though his hand is already resting on your hip, pulling you closer.
You make the decision for him, your hand finding the back of his neck and bringing his lips to yours, gentle and tentative and so, so sweet. You slide your palms across his shoulders and feel a tension there you weren’t expecting. You have the presence of mind to pull back and ask, “Have you done this before?”
There’s a slight blush across his cheeks, a lovely warmth that seems to make him glow. He takes his hand from your hip to sign, Dated anyone? No.
Oh—you’re already so far gone for this man.
You hadn’t even thought about what this could turn into, but knowing that he’s so eager to be with you is endearing. You try to hide the smile that blooms across your face, but you can’t.
So pretty, he signs, just like back in the classroom. He’s got a smile on his face that’s warm enough to rival the sun.
Like you should’ve done the first time he said that, you kiss him again, your thumb caressing his cheek, smoothing over the slight depression of the dimple there.
You think you could stay like this, beneath the jasmine-smothered trellis, kissing Inumaki in the summer sun. Hopefully, he feels the same—but it only takes putting your hand on his chest, feeling the wing-flutter of his heartbeat, to know that he does.
Above Jujutsu Tech’s summer festival, the sky burns a summer-red, the sun setting just beyond the surrounding forests. The training field has been set up with little stands of people cooking and handing out baskets of food, buckets of sparklers for the younger children that are attending—and you realize there are a lot of children, a lot of families.
Panda said that the number of sorcerers has dwindled, but there’s a good fifty in the field, chatting and eating and drinking, and you can sense the kind of close-knit tightness between them, even if they don’t know each other extremely well. It’s a closeness borne of pain, of knowing that they’ve all experienced a type of loss but came back stronger for it.
Panda had a yukata sent to your room last night, with a note saying that there’s no pressure to wear it, but to keep in mind that jujutsu sorcerers are a little traditional.
There are approximately two other people out of the fifty wearing a yukata, and you feel kind of dumb but it’s also really comfortable and probably not something you would have bought for yourself, so. Tradeoffs. If Panda wants it back, he’ll have to take it from your closet.
You got here late—your book took an unexpectedly good turn—and you also weren’t super excited to come to a festival celebrating your ex, though you probably won’t see him. If you’re lucky. This leaves you standing by the steps of the training field where you usually sit at noon, staring out into the crowd and looking for faces you recognize.
A paw slaps you on the back, and you only know it’s a paw just because no one else acts this overly-friendly with you and no one else hits like a truck when they give a simple friendly clap on the back. “You wore it,” Panda says.
You look back at him, and he’s not wearing anything. “Where’s yours?”
“They don’t make yukatas that fit pandas,” he tells you.
“I’m leaving early.”
Panda puts his hands up, as if he’s ever been an innocent party in anything ever. “Hey, it’s not just you.”
He motions behind you, and you see a group of three people walking your way, two men and one woman. The two on the outside you don’t recognize at all, but the man in the middle, you belatedly realize, is Toge. He’s in a black yukata, the ends of his collarbones exposed by the V of the robe’s neckline, and though he has his purple scarf on, most of his face is revealed—and he looks so, so happy.
“Old friends?” you ask.
Panda hmms. “You can call them that.”
You look back at him, a brow raised in question.
“More like family,” he tells you. Without saying anything further, he walks past you, and everyone smiles as they greet him—the kind of smiles that are tired, like there were points in their life when they weren’t sure if they were ever going to smile again. You can see the four of them ten or so years ago, all together at Jujutsu Tech, starting from the beginning to make it to their ends.
The heat is getting to you, and your vision swims a little, making you dizzy. Low blood sugar. You forgot to buy another pack of gummy bears when you were in town last, so you don’t have anything on you, but you’re sure there’s something out on the training field you can eat.
Before you can head that way, something brushes your hand and you jump at the unexpected contact—but it’s Toge. He nods down to where your hands touch, and you realize he wants to link pinkies with you. The smallest physical connection and yet one that feels so achingly important.
“I need to get some food,” you tell him. “You should go see your friends while they’re here.”
He shakes his head, gently pulling your hand towards his face, kissing your knuckles through his scarf. We’ll watch the fireworks with them, he signs, relinking your fingers right after. He nods towards the training field, and you let him guide you, watching as people greet him, sometimes by family name, sometimes by given name. You want to know who all these people are to him. You want to know so much.
And from the way he smiles at you when he sees you looking up at him—the lift of his cheekbones, the happiness in his eyes—you’re sure he’ll be glad to tell you, no matter how long it takes.
To his credit, he’s gotten a lot faster at signing. He unlinks your fingers for only a moment to sign, Dango?
It’s a good idea—the carbs will probably stabilize you a little faster than something sugary. You nod, and he brings you to a stall that has baskets with all colors of dango in it, little rice balls skewered together, sweet and savory, with sauces and without. He raises his eyebrows at you, an expression asking you which one you want.
“Surprise me?”
Close your eyes, he signs.
You do, and the anticipation even for this makes you feel light-headed. Or that’s just the blood sugar. After a moment, you feel something touch your lips softly, and you open your eyes to see—Toge holding out the stick of dango, expecting you to let him feed you.
And you do.
Without breaking eye contact, you slide the first rice ball off the skewer with your teeth, and everything feels a little heady and Toge can’t stop looking at your mouth and maybe it’s not just the low blood sugar making you dizzy.
Thank you, you sign, still chewing. It’s delicious, picked out with an expert eye.
And as you smile at Toge, you suddenly feel a cold presence at your shoulder, and Toge’s looking behind you too, and you turn, slowly, like you’re in a terrible movie and you’ve just used the clichéd line of he’s right behind me, isn’t he?
Not right behind you, but close enough.
The man of the hour, Noritoshi Kamo, walks through the crowd on the training field. It’s obvious he’s seen you and Toge because he keeps looking over at you every six seconds, but he’s acting like things are casual, like he’s really considering the food in the stall three down from yours, like he’s really interested in whatever it is someone he barely knows is saying to him.
“Can we go somewhere else?” you ask.
Toge nods, understanding, but holds up the dango, the gesture asking whether or not you want to keep eating it.
“We can share it on the way,” you tell him, and when he goes to link his pinkie through yours, you readjust, taking his hand, intertwining your fingers and giving him an affectionate squeeze.
You end up walking towards the dorms, holding the stick of dango up to Toge every now and then so he can have some, eating only a little more until the stick is empty and your head no longer swims.
As you reach the tree line where the path you’re walking leads, you turn back, just to see the lights of the little market set up in the training field one more time—and then you balk, because Noritoshi is on the same path, following the two of you for god knows what reason.
You tug Toge’s hand to make him walk faster, and he looks back too, seeing exactly what you saw and picking up his pace.
When you get to the dorm building, you realize you still have the key for your old dorm room, and you’re not sure if Noritoshi was really following you or not, but you unlock the door anyway, pulling Toge inside with you to hide.
You listen at the door, ear pressed to the wood, but you hear nothing. Toge’s hand brushes your side, and you can feel him behind you, a familiar and comforting warmth.
What isn’t familiar is the way he pulls you flush to him, the way the hand on your side seems to squeeze, the way his breath hitches when you lean into his touch.
He kisses down the side of your neck, and the light brush of his lips makes you shiver, but it’s just a show of affection, you think—until the kisses become a little messier, a little less reserved.
He turns you, always surprising you with his strength, until he has your back against the door. He’s already taken his scarf off, and now you know this is intentional, that there’s purpose behind the way he touches you. You can hear footsteps outside, maybe Noritoshi’s, and shouts from people celebrating further away. The first of the test fireworks going off from across the forest at the Mitama festival.
“Your friends are waiting for us,” you tell him, though the way you look between his eyes and his lips doesn’t add to your weak argument.
In reply, he kisses you, open-mouthed and hot, and you respond to him immediately, his tongue sliding against yours. You moan into the kiss, surprised by his sudden boldness. You haven’t gone farther than making out, maybe some over-the-clothes touching thrown in, but Toge rarely kisses you with such intent. He likes things to be slow, passionate, intimate—he’s spent some evenings before bed kissing you for hours before getting too tired to continue.
And it’s not like you mind taking it slow with him, but the way his hand pulls at the tie holding your yukata together behind your back isn’t any measure of slow.
“Hold on,” you manage to breathe between kisses, and he stops, brushes his nose against yours affectionately. There’s a fondness in your chest, glowing outwards, made larger and more encompassing each time he does something small like that. “You want to—right now?”
It’s not like you haven’t talked about it with him before, but—you really want his first time to be a good experience. Not on a whim, like this seems to be.
He pulls back even farther, just enough to sign, We don’t have to.
“Just—why now?”
He flashes you a smile that makes your head go a little fuzzy. You look so nice in the yukata. He fingerspells yukata, and you make a mental note to teach him the word later. He pauses for a moment, then kisses you once, soft, before signing, And you make me happy.
He’s so pretty tonight, bathed in moonlight, silver hair shining. You can’t help the tenderness in your chest, the warmth in your words, when you ask, “Help me take it off?”
This knocks a heavy breath out of him, but he nods, eager, and reaches behind you. His hand fumbles a little with the tie of your yukata, and you look up at him as he works on the knot, complete concentration on his face.
You reach up to kiss the line of his jaw, hands resting gently against his chest, and he gives you a look that says no distractions, his hand still pulling at the ribbon tied behind you. It took you almost thirty minutes to complete the complicated knot, but with some help from you, he’s able to untie it without a hitch.
The ribbon pools around your feet, and your yukata hangs on your shoulders, much less restricting than it was before. You pull lightly at the knot tied at his hip, a question in the tilt of your head, and he nods.
With his permission, you untie his yukata, and yours falls to the ground just before his does, leaving you both in the comfortable clothes you’d worn underneath—though Inumaki didn’t wear a shirt, so he’s just in front of you in a pair of cotton fleece Jujutsu Tech gym shorts, and it makes things much less intense. It makes him feel more like him.
You didn’t realize how nervous you were about this until right now, but you try not to let it get to you, instead sliding a hand across the lithe muscles of Toge’s chest, up the line of his collarbone.
This time, you take the lead, kissing him slowly and leading him to the twin-size bed once he seems relaxed enough. You guide him, sitting him against the headboard so you can climb into his lap, and his hand immediately goes to your thigh, squeezing affectionately.
His breathing is a little heavier than normal as he gazes up at you, and he’s already hard against your inner thigh. He tilts his head up, as if to try to kiss you again, but you bring your hand to his face, a thumb on his soft mouth, and you see the shadow of the curse mark on his tongue when you drag your thumb down his bottom lip. He moans at the touch, not able to tell you whether it’s good for him in anything but the noises he makes.
Firmly, you grip his chin, opening his mouth until you can see the full curse mark. It’s overwhelming, this sense of power you have right now, and something possesses you to press your thumb against his tongue, right between the teeth of the snake. He makes a deep, breathy noise, licking up the pad of your thumb and bucking his hips up into yours, and the sudden pleasure is so unexpected that you curl into him out of instinct, face in the crook of his neck, a moan breathed out against his skin, your hand against the wall behind his head to steady yourself.
Toge pulls you back gently, kissing you and rocking his hips into yours again, and when you let another whine escape, his head slumps back against the headboard, the line of his throat exposed, and the sound he makes is desperate, aching. When he looks back at you he’s communicating something with his brows, running a hand down his face.
“You liked that?” you ask.
He nods, signing frantically, and all you can really understand from the movements is, Wanna hear.
It drives you to kiss him again, slow and deep, the way he likes, and he grinds up against you, every sound you make devoured by him, eliciting his own brand of delicious noises.
“Shit,” you say, a realization just hitting you. “There’s—um. The condoms I have are in my room in the staff building.”
Toge’s face lights up, and he signs for you to wait, gently helping you off of his lap while he roots around in the hidden pocket of his yukata, pulling out a foil-wrapped name-brand condom.
“Oh my god,” you say, “did you plan this?”
The grin he gives you is nowhere near reassuring, but he throws the condom onto the comforter and signs, Brought one just in case.
You don’t really have the time or mental space to unpack how you feel about that, so you just gesture for Toge to come back to the bed, and he lies you back, helping you get out of the remains of your clothes. You try not to be self-conscious, and you find that maybe because it’s Toge, maybe because he knows you’re feeling this way, maybe because of the way he looks at you, it’s easy to be comfortable.
His hand moves hesitantly in front of him, as if he keeps trying to start signing something and then stops himself, and eventually he just shakes his head and kisses up the line of your stomach, up to your neck, biting playfully and making your breathing hitch, until he’s fully on top of you, and his eyes look a little wild, pupils blown dark, lips swollen from your kisses.
His weight is resting on his forearm, so he can’t sign to you, but he asks a question with a raise of his brows that feels a lot like what do you want me to do?
“Sit back,” you tell him, and he does, knees bracketing you in, the powerful muscles of his thighs on full display. You take his hand in yours, and though it makes heat rush to your face, you guide his hand to where you need it most, his eyes fluttering the minute he feels how wet you are for him.
You just want him, plain and simple, and your body is reacting to each and every touch from him as if your sensitivity has been magnified, as if it’s just better because it’s him. And maybe it is.
Foreplay most likely isn’t necessary with the state you’re in, but you still guide his fingers, show him how you like to be touched, show him how to draw the softest moans from your lips.
His eyes dart between your face, your chest, the slick slide of his fingers, and you can see that he’s painfully hard, and you want this to be good for him. Though you’ll miss the feeling, you stop his hand, and he pulls back to sign, Now? You didn’t… He hesitates, as if signing the word is impolite.
“Now,” you say, and the look of eager adoration on his face is almost too much to bear.
He has the foil-wrapped square in his hand, but he puts it down for a second to sign, So pretty, his favorite compliment. You can still see the slickness of his fingers, and that makes your stomach flip just as much as him complimenting you. He seems to notice that your eyes are on that instead of his words, and as if he’s an expert at all of this, he sucks his fingers clean slowly, one-by-one.
“Oh… my god. Toge—please.”
The smile that crosses his face is positively devilish, but he does what you ask of him, and when he’s ready, when he’s pushing into you slowly, when he kisses you so wonderfully soft, you realize that you want so much from him, but you want to give him everything in return. You want to make him happy every day and to exist in the happiness he so selflessly gives to you.
The stretch of him inside you shoots off every nerve-ending in your body, and your legs wrap around him tighter, your kisses devolve into something messier, tongues slick against each other, and his moans turn into desperate whines against your lips as he gets closer and closer.
There are no words exchanged, just the signals you read from each other’s bodies, from the sounds you elicit from each other. You run a hand down his side, sliding it in between your bodies to help yourself get there, and the sounds he makes against you get breathier and breathier until he can’t even keep kissing you—just buries his head in the crook of your neck, and he’s bending you slightly forward, hitting the perfect spot, and you finish just seconds after he does, his hand fisted in the sheets by your head, his lips on your neck, pressing soft kisses until you both come down from your highs.
His face rests against your sternum, and for a long moment, the two of you just lie there and breathe, your fingers carding through his hair. You can hear the end of the fireworks display outside, the sound of applause traveling on the breeze.
He kisses the center of your chest, then your cheek, before getting up. You move to follow, but he shakes his head, leaning down to press a kiss to your hair before going into the adjoining bathroom. He comes back cleaned up, a glass of water in his hand and a damp towel thrown over his forearm.
Toge pushes your hands away when you reach for the towel, instead handing you the water. With utmost gentleness, he makes sure you’re completely taken care of, and when the both of you are dressed again, when he can’t seem to stop pulling at the long ribbon of your yukata (which you’re not retying because it was so annoying the first time), you sign, Sleep in my room tonight?
His eyes widen, and—you don’t have an ulterior motive for any kind of second round. You just want to be close to him. The staff building you’re staying in is also way closer, and you’ll have to discreetly let someone know that the sheets and towels in this room need to be changed. You honestly might do it yourself to save any embarrassment.
You take his hand, and the two of you leave the dorms, beginning the walk down the dirt path towards the staff building. A loud noise sounds from above, startling you, but when you look up, you’re greeted by a beautiful red-and-gold plume of light stretching across the sky. “I guess the fireworks weren’t over.”
Toge shakes his head just as another goes off, this one a deep royal blue that almost blends into the night sky before the light shifts to a shimmering silver. He nods towards the main school building, and he’s right—these are being launched from campus.
A phone rings—Toge’s, and another firework goes off above you, this one all bright reds and pinks, forming the shape of a heart.
“しゃけ,” he says into the receiver, and then you watch the journey of his face from impassive to shocked, a pretty blush across his cheeks. He hangs up just as your phone buzzes.
It’s a text from Panda. Congratulations on the sex!
Immediately, you turn to the man next to you. “Toge.”
He already knows what you’re asking. Saw us leave the dorms on security camera. Your yukata is untied.
You can’t believe that your laziness, which has never betrayed you before, ended up betraying you like this. “So these”—you motion upwards—“are Congratulations-on-the-Sex fireworks?”
Toge sighs heavily, and then nods, his face even more red. He reaches up as if to pull his scarf up, a muscle memory action, but ends up grabbing at air. It’s probably still back in the dorm room, and you’re surprised that he was comfortable enough to forget something usually so important to him.
“I’m—weirdly touched?” You reach out to fix the hem of his yukata, right above his heart, folded half-inside when he put it back on. “You know, that he would spend money on fireworks for this but not a gathering of jujutsu sorcerers?”
He grabs your hand, pulling your knuckles to his lips. He kisses each finger, then lets go so he can sign, Giving him too much credit.
“What, did he find them in the basement or something?”
Leftovers from Christmas Eve, he confirms.
Another firework goes off above the two of you, gold and pink and purple, and Toge wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you a little closer. He nods towards the trail, brows raised, asking whether you want to head to the staff building or wait here as the fireworks go off.
“We can watch for a while,” you say.
The two of you stand there, looking up as Panda fires off the last of the Christmas Eve stash, large golden flowers and dazzling red-and-white sparklers and silver spears that screamed across the sky. You lean into Toge’s warmth, your head on his shoulder, his cheek pressed against your hair.
When it’s been silent for a while and you’re pretty sure Panda’s finished with his display, you quietly say, “You make me happy, too.”
He pulls away a little bit to look down at you, and the corner of his lips tilts up.
“I don’t think I told you. Back there.” You don’t want to talk about it after the Congrats-on-the-Sex fireworks. “But you really do.”
He simply threads his fingers through yours and smiles at you, a sight you’ve become so achingly familiar with, and the two of you walk back to the staff building.
No words need to be exchanged, no quick signs between you—just as you've been teaching him, he's been teaching you. You’re happy to keep learning as long as you can.
#inumaki toge x reader#inumaki x reader#toge inumaki x reader#jjk fic#meant to post this here yesterday but this is why i have been gone for so long....#every waking moment i have had (not at work) has been spent writing this#i will respond to asks like today and tomorrow lmao SORRY i am so bad at that
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Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.
Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.
Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.
As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)
Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.
Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.
Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.
Alright, without further ado:
When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.
She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.
The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.
Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.
Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.
*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.
**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway
***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast
Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.
With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.
Where she doesn’t speak the language.
Faen.
Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.
*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.
School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.
To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.
She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.
So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.
People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.
She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.
Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.
She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.
He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.
He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.
“Hello”, he says.
Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!
"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?
He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.
She gulps.
"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.
He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.
He says something else.
Bella didn’t catch it.
She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.
She should tell him.
It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.
But...
He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.
So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".
He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.
Class ends.
The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?
Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.
She hopes Charlie has an insurance.
An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!
He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.
He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."
He frowns.
That must have been the wrong answer, then.
His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?
*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.
He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.
"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.
The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.
That’s a shame. And weird.
"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.
"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.
The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.
She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,
The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.
*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.
Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?
She’s discharged.
We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.
The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.
Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.
He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!
He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.
(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)
He’s so amazing.
She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.
In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.
He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.
He is silent.
Did she say anything wrong?
(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)
A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.
He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.
Bella is in shock.
She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.
Is she dating a god?
She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.
The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?
He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.
Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.
Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.
She doesn’t get much out of the story.
The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.
The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.
Until her birthday comes around.
She gets a papercut.
Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.
Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.
"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?
"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.
Whachasay?
Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.
...
Vampire?!
Bella’s missed something here.
Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.
“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.
And Carlisle.
Who is a vampire.
Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.
Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.
Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.
"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.
Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.
Jaha.
Jahahaha jaa ha.
That’s… a lot.
She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.
One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.
That works out.
He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.
They can still be together.
But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.
It’s time to finally be honest with him.
So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.
She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.
And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.
Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.
Where did he go?
A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.
She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.
Oh, god.
Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.
She made a mockery of him.
He has every right to leave.
Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.
Bella sinks into a depression.
The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.
The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.
The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.
She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.
Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.
So she saves Edward.
After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.
Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.
She wishes she knew the context.
At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.
He asks her a question.
"Yes," she says.
Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.
But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.
The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.
Not good.
The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.
This is getting terrifying.
The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.
"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.
Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.
*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”
Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.
When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.
"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.
He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.
Well fuck.
"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.
After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.
A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?
People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.
So she nods.
He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.
When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?
Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.
Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.
Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.
#troquantary#norwegian things#bella swan#twilight#twilight meta#twilight renaissance#evighetens kyss#evighetens kyss meta#evighetens kyss renessanse
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Game Night
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader
Word Count: 2.2k
T/W: fluff
A/N: Part 2 of Bingo — a few months later
I am SO SORRY this took me way longer to post than it should have!
Bucky Tag List: @anreeixcobra ❤︎ @tsnelf7 ❤︎ @fandom-princess-forevermore
It was Friday night, which meant one thing: Game Night. Ever since Yori introduced you at Bingo, you made it a tradition in your relationship to play board games on Fridays. For the most part you kept it to fairly modern games, but tonight was going to be a surprise.
Tonight it was your place, 8 o’clock. Bucky showed up with a six pack of root-beer in glass bottles. You added a few to the fridge as he found his usual seat at your apartment table. He waited for you to round the small apartment’s bar and join him. Sliding the glass bottles across the table to Bucky, you smiled, biting in your bottom lip, as he slid your bottle back, now without its top.
Easily he popped the top off his own bottle with his left hand; it was as he was about to take a sip that he caught sight of your look, “what?” he furrowed his eyebrows, questionably.
“So. . . tonight,” you tried not to giggle.
“What?” Bucky asked again, this time finding himself following your smile despite his will not to.
“Tonight is going to be special,” you clasped your hands together, “because I found some stuff that’s as old as you.”
“Wow, thanks,” Bucky said sarcastically, taking a sip, shaking his head, blinking softly as he saw you rush to convince him it would be fun. Sighing deeply, he gave in, “alright, what is it?”
“I’ll be right back,” you twirled on your heel and left the room.
Returning to shaking his head and the glass bottle, he paused after settling the bottle on the table. It’d been a long time since anyone cared about anything actually as old as him. He’d been pretty good at keeping up with the times, a lot of things he knew just got an upgrade, but the thought of something from his actual childhood felt a little heartwarming.
“Okay,” you declared, reentering the room with a stack of vintage boxes in your arms that made Bucky lean back in his chair out of shock, “here we are.”
His jaw dropped a little at what you had brought out as you set the stack on the table. Watching you take a deep breath and exhale with a smirk, he shook his head, this time silently asking “how?” You set your hands atop the stack, rapping your fingers across the top box as you smiled again.
Smoothing your hands out across the box top, you cleared your throat, “no peeking,” bringing Bucky’s attention entirely to you.
“Option number one,” you held up the rectangular shape with severely faded letters across it, “Scrabble, released 1938.” The box very gently met the table, “option number two,” you looked at him attempting not to giggle as you saw him cross his arms over his chest, genuinely listening to you intently, “Sorry! released 1934, Battleship, original pen and paper game,” you clarified, he lifted his eyebrows, impressed, “and last but not least, Monopoly, released 1935.”
“Wow, you uh- you really did your research,” he commented, looking over the stack of authentically vintage boxes.
“Of course,” you shrugged with a smile, “my boyfriend’s 106, if I want to bring back some childhood nostalgia, that requires some research. . . and late hour ebay bidding in our case.”
He nodded, a faint smile showing, before it faded with his next words, “I hope you didn’t do too much research on me,” he looked up, hand resting on Monopoly.
You calmly slid down into the seat across from him and stared with a kind smile still on your lips, reaching to touch his hand, you stroked your thumb against his knuckles, “I’m more of a first hand account, direct source, kind of girl when it comes to people,” the corner of his mouth tugged into a smile.
You knew, just not everything, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared to have another living soul know it all quite yet. Luckily, you were someone who seemed to actually understand that.
“Or,” you announced, lifting a pointer finger, as if requesting a pause whilst you went to a nearby drawer, returning with a much smaller box, “we can get really really old school, even for you” the box met the table top, “standard 52 card deck, English edition, circa 1516. . .obviously not original.”
Bucky chuckled, looking to you, tonguing his cheek, before picking up the cards, “I hate to tell you, but that’s just a little before my time,” he squinted at you, teasingly.
Biting your lip, your shoulders shifted with the giggle that came after his comment, “so, come on,” you sat back down, this time with your elbows on the table and hands laced, to support your resting chin on top of them, “what should I beat your butt in?”
“Oh,” Bucky, attempting to appear insulted, began raising his eyebrows, “you think?”
“Yeah,” you laughed your words while looking at his serious face, “I think, better yet, I know.”
“Well, I don’t know where you get your confidence from. You know you are talking to a local senior Bingo night champion,” he shrugged with a head tilt, as if that was supposed to be a big deal.
“Woooow,” you drew out, smiling uncontrollably.
“But,” he sighed, “okay,” he shook his head once, accepting your challenge, “let’s go, you’re on! Monopoly,” he brought the box towards himself as you set the others on the floor next to your chair.
You watched as he picked up the little metal pieces, examining each one individually. There was an expression you’d never seen before, he was remembering something positive from his past. A memory that sparked a smile that you helped bring about. He surveyed the board, with all its bright colours and familiar street names.
“It’s been-” he paused, looking upward, doing the math in his head, “it’s been 85 years since I played this game,” setting each piece he stopped at the boat, laughing to himself, “you know, Steve used to always be the battleship.”
A soft smile came across your lips, while you watched him remember exactly how to set it up. You picked the Scottie dog and he picked the vintage race car piece.
“Were you always the race car?” you ventured, wanting to know more about his childhood, you knew he didn’t talk about it often.
“Oh,” he glanced to the piece he had just naturally picked up without a thought, “yeah, well, I think,” he gave a quick, but somber smile, before clearing his throat, and actually looking up, “and my sister, whenever she’d actually manage to get mom and dad to let her stay up with us, she’d always be the thimble,” he leaned back in his chair, smiling, “whenever it was her turn to move she’d put it on her finger and hop it down the street names.” He leaned back to the table, “we never made her go to jail, even if she landed on it, Steve would make up some rule that let her skip it.”
“That’s really sweet of you guys,” you said, looking softly at his smile.
“Yeah,” he swallowed, “but don’t think you can skip jail,” he changed his tone, preferring not to dwell on the past even if it was positive.
“Don’t think I’ll be visiting,” you smirk confidently, “better watch out for the money man yourself.”
“Wow, who is this?” he dropped his jaw, “she’s so sarcastic, does Yori know this side of you? Do you sneak jellybeans under the table or something evil like that?”
Laughing, you took your root-beer, “just give me my $1,500 so the smack down can actually begin.”
Two hours later, after a long battle between Boardwalk, control over the railroads, and many, many visits to jail, you sat back, lips quirked, arms across your chest as your little Scottie sat in jail.
“And three thousand, six hundred, and five. . . I’m sorry, but that leaves you,” Bucky set his elbows on the table, wincing at you, “bankrupt.”
“Fine,” you huffed jokingly, giving your best pout,“you win.”
“Aww, c’mon,” Bucky reached out a hand to touch your forearm comfortingly, accompanied by a smile you couldn’t deny.
“You wanna go again?” You offered seriously, resting your hand on top of his tenderly, happy to see him so happy.
“It was really fun, but let’s play something else, this time you pick,” he offered.
Breaking into a smile, you gave a nod, and he asked what you had in mind. It took a moment, you wanted to make this good, and you wanted to see it be a little more of a struggle for him, if you were honest.
“You know, I know it’s later than your. . .original timeline, but there’s this fantastic game called Twister,” you smirked, perking an eyebrow to ask if he was up for it.
“Twister?” He repeated you, tilting his head like a confused puppy, “what’s Twister?”
“I’ll show you, but,” you glanced over to your small apartment living room, “we might need to arrange the furniture a little.”
“Don’t worry,” Bucky stood, “I can handle that.”
Smiling, you stand, “okay, just push it all to one side, I’ll get the game.”
Ten minutes later, shoeless, you both stood looking over the polka dotted sheet on the floor. Nodding happily to yourself, Bucky shook his head almost in fear.
“Make sense?” You asked, having just explained the very simple rules, you turned to face him.
“Oh, I’m sorry I asked,” he sighed, shouldering off his jacket and tossing it onto the couch along with his glove, “yeah, it makes sense,” he set his hands on his hips, pondering this new game intently.
“Okay, you first,” you held up the spinning arrow, and began.
One hand and foot at a time, sometimes struggling to reach the spinner, but you both made it work pretty well. Having kept to one side of the sheet, it came time to get a smidge more twisted.
Bucky managed to keep balanced and spin a green dot with his left arm, conveniently it placed him right over you. As he began to reach for green, he carefully calculated how best to approach the green dot in order to keep his balance. It was a pretty far reach and he’d need to balance himself whilst reaching over you.
“What’s the matter old man, can’t quite move like you used to?” you shamelessly giggled.
Raising his eyebrows at your tone, “ohhh, wow,” Bucky said sincerely, finally placing his left arm over you and to a green dot, now above you he tilted his head sassily, “respect your elders.”
His last sentence only made your giggle turn into a genuine laugh. You closed your eyes and threw your head back a little. Admittedly, Bucky thought it was funny too, but he didn’t laugh, he just took in your smile and the sound of your laugh, enjoying every single moment of it.
When you brought your head back up, you were about to respond sassily, but instead you found his lips meeting yours. With a small squeak of surprise, you relaxed into the kiss, glad that he was finally confident enough with you to take a chance now and then. He tasted like vanilla root beer, which mixed wonderfully with the scent of his cologne you were finally close enough to smell.
It was soft and slow at first, but slowly, with his right hand palming the arch of your back, you eased into his touch, lower back almost meeting the floor as you both sunk down a little. You completely forgot about the game, as you reached your arms around his neck gently. Keeping the kiss close, you felt him hesitate to deepen it, so you gave him a small sign of encouragement, by moving your hand to the side of his neck, naturally bringing him even closer.
You had no idea how long you’d been there, on that polka dot sheet, but it was such bliss that you didn’t even care. Smiling into the kiss, you felt him smile back.
Parting, he pressed his forehead to yours, “I win,” he whispered, lips in a smile.
“What?” was all you could ask, still mesmerised by the kiss.
Bucky motioned his head to his left arm which happened to have been keeping the two of you steady. . . all the while remaining on the green dot. You dropped your arms from around his neck, to the floor, elbows supporting you as you looked up at him, shaking your head.
“That does not count, Bucky,” you tried not to smile as he kept his arm as still as possible.
“What? But my hand’s still on green,” he dramatically gestured to it, making you bite your lip to repress a giggle, trying to match his seriousness.
Shoving his chest directly above you, he feigned an ‘ow!’ before you softly pull him closer again.
“If I kiss you are you gonna hit me again?”
You smirk, “I might if you don’t.”
Bucky smiled, lips almost touching yours, “alright, sorry,” he smiled, voice almost a whisper as his lips brushed against yours, “I’m still learning the rules to this game.”
#spilledkauffie#bucky x y/n#bucky x reader#bucky x you#bucky fic#bucky fanfic#bucy imagine#bucky oneshot#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes fic#bucky barnes fluff#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes one shot#bucky barnes x female reader#bucky barnes#winter solider x you#winter soldier x y/n#winter soldier x reader#winter soldier#james bucky barnes#james buchanan bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#james bucky barnes x reader#winter soldier imagine#winter soldier fluff#james bucky barnes fic#sebastian stan
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Three to tango
story summary: You, Harry, and Florence have a good time in your makeup trailer.
warnings: Language // THIS IS P*RN WITH LIKE ZERO PLOT // Threesome // w|w // spitting // oral (female receiving) // i have no idea what a production company is so don't come for me.
a/n: Brushing off the metaphorical cobwebs and finally getting back into writing! Woo-hoo! Ending could have been better but... meh. Also, I'm posting from mobile. If it looks weird, blame Tumblr ✌😍
REQUESTED: by @iwannaholdyoutight- and @hazgoldenstyles
And also by all these people... sorry it took so long.. 😁
>>><<<
"Stop movin'." You grumbled for the millionth time that morning. Your focus on covering up all these damn tattoos that you loved had become one of the worst things you had to do almost every morning.
"It tickles." He whined as the makeup brush ran over the inside of his arm. He instantly flinched away from the brush the moment it glided against a particularly sensitive spot.
"Harry!" You groaned, your eyes closed in frustration when he shot you the most adorable puppy eyes.
"'M sorry, kitten." He cooed, his lower lip pouted out when you sighed loudly, grabby hands tried to enclose around your waist before you smacked them away.
"H, I gotta get this done or you're gonna miss set time."
"Wanna kiss." Those big green eyes flashed up to you from his spot in your makeup chair and you knew there was no way you could say no.
"One kiss." You clarified, knowing damn well he'd use kissing you as a distraction from being tickled again.
He nodded eagerly before leaning slightly up to your level. Your eyes narrowed, still not sure you could trust that he wasn't going to divert your attention but his lips.
God, his fucking lips.
They looked so memorizing. The light sheen of chapstick he'd applied earlier was still lingering across the plush pink cushions. His tongue wetting them, taunting you to come closer, and it worked.
You were so naive to think he wouldn't do this.
You squeaked as his hands gripped the fleshy curve of your hips. His lips twitched up into a smile against your own when he pulled you forward onto his lap as quickly as he could.
You knew you should have tried to protest a bit more. You should have attempted to keep him on track but when his thigh pressed against your clothed core, you knew you were done for. His tongue licked into your mouth as his hand got a firm grip on the round flesh of your ass.
"I see what you two do in here." That sweet voice floated through the thickening air in your makeup trailer as she opened the door. Your eyes lazily blinked open to see your smug boyfriend smile wide across his face.
Whatever snarky come back that was sitting on the tip of your tongue was quickly choked down to the back of your throat when you looked up to see her wearing that.
Who knew a robe could turn you on so much?
"Damn." Harry finally commented after your not so subtle shifting of your hips against his thigh. Now he completely understood why you'd suddenly gone silent.
"Shut up." She mumbled under her breath. Her cheeks flamed red from your shameless stares.
"You look great, baby." You smiled brightly, your hand extended out for her to take. "Mhm." Harry's quick agreement had both you and Flor rolling your eyes, but a small smile formed at the corner of her lips.
"Wait til you see what he's got to wear." She smiled brightly, her silky soft hand wrapped tightly in yours as she walked towards the both of you.
"Better hurry up then," you practically jumped off Harry's lap, his lust filled eyes quickly turned fearfully as your eager hands reached for your set of brushes. "Hold him down for me."
"Gonna pay for this later, sweetheart." Harry grumbled as Florence's hand held down his arm.
"Sort of counting on that, Harold. Now, be a good boy and hold still."
>>>
The rest of your day had been absolute torture. Your core ached, your underwear were beyond ruined, and you couldn't wait another minute for the both of them to finally be off set.
Instead, the both of them casually took their time, leisurely hanging around to talk to other cast and crew while you were basically jumping out of your skin to get them back into the privacy of your trailer.
After 30 minutes of them both shooting you sweet smiles and well disguised sultry eyes, you'd had enough. Your feet carried you as quickly across the lot to your haven, your fist clenched in your hand almost as tightly as your core.
You were dripping and the both of them knew you were having a hard time keeping your hands to yourself.
It started out innocent enough, Harry's tattoos needed to be touched-up about a million times with the edge of his suit rubbing away the makeup there. You had been practically drooling over the both of them all day but when he saw your legs tighten together, he could help but lay it on thick. His hand rested on the small of your back as he circled around you, nose pressed almost completely against your ear as he whispered a raspy thank you.
Florence was just as bad and she wasn't ever the instigator out of the three of you. She couldn't help it when she heard a soft whimper leave your lips when she brushed a few hairs off your forehead when you were redoing her makeup after lunch.
She smiled sweetly, too sweetly, before those plush lips pressed tightly against your own. Her hand laced around your jaw to pull you tighter into her kiss.
She pulled away from you before you were even close to being done. "Only fair that I get to makeout with you in this chair if Harry gets to do it all the time."
You felt like you could combust from how turned on you were and you were done waiting for them to do something about it.
You practically slammed the door to your trailer behind you, making sure to lock it before laying yourself out across your couch that sat in the corner of your room.
If they weren't going to do something about it, you would. Your hands fumbled around with the pesky pants that covered your legs, until you were finally free enough to touch where you needed.
The sigh of relief, shuddering feeling that ran through your body from the contact you were craving only lasted a moment before you heard a metal key fumbling around with the locks on your door.
"Couldn't wait for us?" Harry chuckled, his keys to your trailer thrown on your table top.
"You two were taking forever!" You glared at him through your open legs.
"Told you she couldn't wait any longer." Florence giggled as she pushed her way past Harry. Her hands on her hips but a smile danced on the corner of her lips.
"Are you two going to help me here or?" You were cocky, impatient, and your fingers weren't anywhere near as good as theirs was.
"Might just watch." Harry shrugged with a smug smile as he plopped down on the end of the couch. The furniture was barely big enough for the three of you to sit normally. His hands moved your legs to lay over top of his own. Your eyes could have shot daggers through him as he loosened his tie, his legs spread wide enough that your hand bumped his thigh with every slow circle around your clit.
"Baby." You whined, your pleading eyes flashing towards Flor. Who was already wearing nothing but a smile, her robe abandoned on the floor, and if you weren't so insanely turned on you would have turned to stick your tongue out to Harry. Gloating that at least one of them was nice enough to help you.
Having sex with them always seemed to be frenzied, blurs of quick paced moments that seemed to fly by.
Her thighs rested on either side of you as Harry peeled away the drenched lacy fabric between your legs.
Her tongue dominating your own as she pulled down your top enough to free your breast. Her hands pinching and kneading across them as your back arched further off the couch.
You could hear Harry mumbling out a slur of curses, followed by the sound of his zipper. Your legs were bumped up and down in time with his strokes along his swollen cock.
"Soaking my leg, kitten." He groaned at the sight of your cunt soaking the thin material of his brown suit.
"Thought you were just gonna watch." Florence chuckled, her perfectly pouty lips swollen from how hard she'd been kissing you. The edges of them barely touching your own as she talked to Harry.
"Was gonna but she's so fuckin' wet, Flor." His voice was deeper than usual, gravelly, slow, "Bet I could jus'...."
Your jaw fell open, your back arched off the couch when his fingers filled you. A wild moan ripped from your lungs when he curled them just right.
You could already feel the cord tightening in your lower stomach. You had been so wound up all day long from looking at them you were practically ready to snap within seconds.
"Awe, poor thing's already about to cum." Florence cooed, her hand around the back of your neck, teasing your jaw with the edge of her nose.
You always loved hated how well they could read you. How their teasing words made your face burn and your pussy flood with need.
When she was harshly shifted down further into your chest, her own sweet sounding moan falling from her lips, you couldn't help your own snide remark, "who's the one going to cum too quickly now?"
She probably would have snapped right back at you but she couldn't utter out anything more than whimpers. You knew the feeling, Harry's tongue had a way of doing that, making you both shut up and he had proudly used it on more than one occasion to get you two to stop bickering about dumb stuff.
Your hand laced through her blonde locks, her lips attached to your neck whenever she could control her mouth long enough to kiss your sweet spots. Your nipples peaked at the contact of her breast against your own, Harry's hand still pumped lazily against your sweet spot, his thumb running tight circles around your clit, and while it wasn't enough, you weren't complaining. You weren't ever sure how he managed to focus on eating one of you out while fingering the other when you knew damn well he was about to combust himself.
You knew she was close when her breathing became erratic, her chest heaving against yours. Her whole body shaking as her orgasm washed across her, her panting barely broke when you felt his warm tongue slipping through your folds.
You moaned at the feeling, your hips instantly shifted downwards, craving every bit of contact you could get from him.
You could feel your walls fluttering around his fingers with every thick swipe of his tongue across your clit. Your eyes barely staying open when soft kisses were pressed lazily against your neck.
Such a contrast to the harsh grasp of Harry's free hand digging into your one thigh. His gruts and groans were only muffled by the deafening sound of your soaking core.
Florence perked up her head from your chest, carefully turning herself completely around. Her legs on either side of your head as she draped herself across you to watch Harry at work.
Her sweet honey only inches from your face and fuck did you want a taste. You wet your lips, hands pushing her thighs down but she wouldn't budge.
Your huff of protest was quickly choked down when Harry's tongue ran tight circles around your clit.
"Gonna share?" That sweet voice asking that innocent question about broke you. Your walls clenched tightly trying to not get Harry to stop his fingers from slipping out of you, almost crying when they did anyway.
"Course, baby."
You squeaked, your legs pushed backwards by your thighs, your body almost folded in half.
"Fuck, you got her soaking the couch."
You were suddenly very appreciative about the fact neither one of them could see the embarrassment burning through your face. Your forehead pressed to Florence's leg as you whined, not wanting them to point how just how turned on you were.
You heard two simultaneous shushing sounds before your lower lips were pulled apart, the cool air licked across your slick, only making you whine louder.
When you heard and felt Harry's spilt against your core you thought you were done for. Lip tucked so tightly between your teeth you could taste the faintest hint of metallic against your tongue.
Then the softest kitten lick had you losing your mind, her tongue collecting all of his saliva on your clit before swirling around your entrance.
"Fuck," you cried, your nails digging crest moons into the flesh of Florence's thighs. "please, just fuck me already!"
"Don't think she can take anymore teasing Flor." Harry chuckled, yeah, chuckled, from between your thighs.
"But I was having fun." She pouted, her tongue stopping its mesmerizing movements.
"Can 'ave fun with her after." Harry said as he started to shed the layers of his suit.
"I'm literally right here!" You complained, your huff of annoyance jammed down your throat when Harry pulled up by your legs. Your face now exposed to his smirking, mischief filled eyes.
"We know, baby," he cooed, almost too sweetly, something about the look behind his eyes made your pussy flutter but your mind anxious about how sore you'd be tomorrow. "Ass up for me."
You eagerly nodded your head, trying to roll over in your place before the tsking clicks of his tongue stopped your movements.
"Like this." He said, pulling you off the couch. Your knees on the hard linoleum floor, your elbows resting on the seat of cushion in front of you. Giving Flor just enough space to sit pretty right in front of you.
Your arms instinctively circling around her thighs, pulling her core down to mouth. Her moans filled the small space around you. Vibrating off the walls with an echo.
"Should 'ave done this in 'ere before." Harry mumbled more to himself than to either one of you as his tip teased your entrance. Your hips swayed instantly at the contact, slowly backing up the little bit you could to feel him slip inside of you.
He hissed, his fingers gripped the round flesh of your ass tightly before he surged forward, stuffing you to the brim with his cock.
"I ruin this pussy 'most everyday and you're still so fuckin' tight." He gritted out through his teeth, your walls clenched down around him at his words.
"Guess you're not fucking her good enough then."
Your eyes widened in disbelief belief, disconnecting from her core so your mouth could gape in shock.
Did she hate you being able to walk?
"That so?"
"'S what I said."
"Kitten," You squeaked when you were lifted by your shoulder, your back against Harry's chest. His hands snaked under your shirt just long enough to rip it off. "you can thank Flor tomorrow for why you won't be able to sit."
"She'll probably be thanking me." The blonde rolled her eyes playfully teasing but enjoying the fact she was getting under his skin.
"Need me to stop, just tap my leg," his deep voice husked into your ear. Your hand tapping his leg, showing him you understood, before you were hurled back in front of Florence's core by the back of your head. "good girl, now lick."
You had Harry go hard on you before but when he sheathed himself fully inside of you in one go, you knew you were really going to be in for it.
Your tongue tried to desperately get Flor off as fast as you could, your fingers slamming into her sweet spot, as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You had a hard time knowing where to focus. Her addictive taste or his marksman worthy precision thrusts into your g-spot.
Your body felt like warm liquid was being pumped through your veins. Both of them gripping onto you at different ends, his hips grinding against your ass as he sat balls deep in your pussy. Her hips dragging against your mouth, fucking herself against your face.
The sound of their collective moans slicked through the sticky, sex filled, air around you. Your mind lost in that space of non-thinking as your body moved back and forth between the two of them.
"Gonna cum all over my cock, sweetheart?" Your walls tightened around him as her fingers dug deeper into the back of your head. Her own cord snapping only moments before your own.
The white burning light washing through your body followed by the familiar gush of fullness in your lower tummy.
"Holy shit," Florence breathed out, her arm dropped across her forehead.
"Why haven't we done that here before?" Harry asked through short breaths.
"'S company property." You mumbled against the couch, your head buried into the soft material as your legs gave out to lay on the heaven-like cold floor below you. "We literally just said fuck you to New Line Cinema."
You heard chuckling from either side of you, both of them still slightly out of breath.
"Hope we don't work with them again then."
#harry styles x reader#florence pugh x reader#harry styles x florence pugh x reader#harry styles x you#Florence pugh x you#Florence pugh x reader#harry styles fanfic#harry styles fanfiction#florence pugh fanfic#florence pugh fanfiction#fanfic#fanfiction#mine#writing#threes company#three to tango#in the middle
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Dirty Paws & Wet Kisses
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (Modern AU)
Words: ~3.7k
Warnings: language, floofs and fluff
Note: if you ever read anything written by me that includes dogs, their names will always be kinda extra or related to historical figures (i.e. my dog is actually named Theodore Roosevelt) and I will try my best to make their names increasingly extra with every fic that involves dogs
You’d argue that your four year old sheperd mix was the most well behaved dog in all of New York until your dying breath.
Most days.
During your weekly trips to the park on Sunday afternoons, she would sit at your feet, lounging in the sun as she watched joggers go by and playfully saying hello to anyone - be they human or dog - that stopped by to pet the pretty pup while you read whatever book you’d picked up from the bookstore earlier that week.
Sure, there were a few times that she would whine and stare down any squirrel that strayed too close to her, but she never left your side.
Maybe that’s why you had grown so complacent, why you’d stopped looping her leash around the bench to secure her to your side and simply kept the leash within your reach beside you on the seat of the bench.
And it was because of that complacency that you were sprinting across the park, chasing your naughty dog and drawing judgemental stares from other park-goers.
“Hazel!” you called after her. “Hazel, I swear to god I’m taking all your toys away when we get home!” Right after you took a nice long bath to soothe your aching muscles. When was the last time you’d run this much?
You lost sight of her when she disappeared around a hedge, and the internal panic that set in was almost worse than the time that you accidentally emailed your creative writing professor the Harry Potter fanfiction you’d written instead of your final paper. (You still got an A on the assignment, but that’s besides the point).
You see her as soon as you round the corner, happily licking at a stranger’s face as she sat between his legs, and-
Holy shit, your dog led you to the most attractive man you’ve ever seen.
The stranger took note of you before you had a chance to say anything, and he raised his brow at you while angling his face away from Hazel’s kisses. “Does this belong to you?” he asked, pinching the tags on Hazel’s collar between his thumb and two fingers. “Hazelnut Mocha.” He snorted. “Is that your dog’s name or your Starbucks order?”
You weren’t sure if it was the amused smile that curled his lips or the quirk of his brow, but his teasing made you feel personally attacked. You crossed your arms across your chest. “Maybe it’s both.”
He shrugged, scratching the spot behind Hazel’s ear. “I suppose that’s one way to never forget your dog’s name or your coffee order.”
You hummed noncommittally before approaching and tugging Hazel away from the handsome stranger. It took considerably more effort than you had thought it would. “I’m really sorry about her,” you apologized. “She’s never like this. I don’t really know what happened.”
He brushed your apology off with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. If a cute girl wants to give me kisses, I certainly won’t complain.” He winked at you, and you wanted to just melt on the spot.
“Well, uh, I should, um-” You cleared your throat, stepping away and dragging a disappointed Hazel along with you. “Again, I’m really sorry. Even if you didn’t mind.”
You turned and hurried away before his smile made your mind any more frazzled.
Two weeks passed before you decided to show your face at the park again, and this time, you were sure to secure Hazel’s leash to your bench, ensuring that there would be no chases across the park and embarrassing encounters with handsome strangers.
The pup resigned herself to her fate and laid at your feet in the grass, her tongue lolling out of her mouth and her golden eyes shining in the sunlight. She greeted the other dogs that passed, and you thought nothing of it until you heard someone call her name.
Well, shit. You knew that voice. That voice had haunted your dreams for three nights straight after the incident two weeks ago.
“How have you been, pretty girl?” he asked, and you hesitantly lifted your gaze from your book to see him knelt in front of you, patting Hazel’s head as she yipped happily and dragged her tongue over his face in sloppy kisses.
Despite your proclivity to stare at handsome men that showered your dog with attention, your eyes were dragged away from the pair when a wet nose nudged your leg. “Well hello there,” you greeted the brown and white dog that sought your attention. You quickly marked your page and returned your book to your bag before petting your newest furry companion. “What’s your name, handsome?”
“Bucky,” the stranger answered.
You glanced up at him briefly before turning your attention back to the brown and white dog. “Aren’t you a handsome boy, Bucky. Yes, you’re so handsome,” you cooed. The stranger chuckled, and you glanced up expecting to see Hazel mauling him with more sloppy kisses, but instead, he was staring at you, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “What?”
“I’m Bucky,” he clarified before nodding towards the dog. “That’s Dodger.”
“And you just assumed that I was talking about you when I called him handsome?”
And in complete contrast to how he had acted in your previous interaction, he actually looked embarrassed, nervously scratching the back of his neck while fending off even more kisses from Hazel. “I seem like a complete asshole, don’t I?” he asked sheepishly.
You laughed. “Well, I mean… Don’t let this go to your head or anything, but I suppose you are kind of handsome, too. You know, in a handsome stranger kind of way.” You felt your cheeks flood with warmth, and you averted your gaze, hoping he didn’t see just how flustered you were after your admission. You tried to breeze past it altogether by giving all of your attention to Dodger once again, petting him and praising him for being such a sweet boy.
After a moment of you and Bucky speaking only to each other’s dogs, you cleared your throat and commented, “I didn’t realize you had a dog. Was he at the park with you the day that Hazel practically assaulted you?”
“He’s not my dog.”
You blinked. “Oh. Is he your girlfriend’s dog?”
And just like that, all hints of embarrassment disappeared from his face. He quirked a brow and smirked at you. “My girlfriend?”
“Or boyfriend,” you added hastily.
He snorted and shook his head. “It depends on who you ask.”
You cocked your head to the side, and the action conjured up an image of Hazel doing the same whenever you would try to hold an actual conversation with her. “Uh, what?”
His gaze flitted to the ground as he smiled an amused little smile that had you biting your lip and shamelessly staring at the man. “It’s a bit of a joke among my friends,” he began. “Dodger is my buddy Steve’s dog. Some of our friends like to make it seem like we’re dating, but we definitely aren’t. We just know each other way too well.” His smile widened when he looked back up at you. “So to answer the question that you indirectly asked-”
You furrowed your brows in confusion. “What?”
“-I’m single, sweetheart.”
You gaped at him, trying to form an appropriate response. This man was frustrating - frustratingly handsome, frustratingly smug, frustratingly able to read you like a goddamn open book. How dare he correctly assume you were trying to figure out if he was single or not?
The sound of a phone ringing interrupted your thought process, and Bucky gave you an apologetic look after glancing down at his phone. “I gotta take this,” he told you. You heard him greet the other person on the other end of the call before calling for Dodger. As he turned to go, he paused for a moment, pressed the phone against the front of his shirt to muffle the receiver, and called over his shoulder. “See you around, Hazel and Hazel’s mom.”
Right. You never gave him your name.
You were cursing yourself for nearly a month for not getting his phone number before he disappeared, and you’d be lying if you didn’t admit that you had a smidge of hope that you’d run into him at the park again... But alas, no luck.
You were starting to think that you’d never see your handsome park stranger - although, he wasn’t really a stranger anymore, was he? - but exactly 37 days after your last encounter with Bucky (aka handsome park stranger), Hazel brought you back together in the most heart attack inducing way she could manage.
You’d been sitting on the patio of your favorite little cafe, catching up with Carol and Val over coffee and fluffy pastries, and Hazel had been behaving herself aside from the occasionally whining and begging when any of you would touch your food.
She was behaving until she wasn’t.
You still don’t really know what set her off, but one moment she was sitting prettily and staring up at you with her golden eyes and the next she was breaking free from her leash and sprinting down the street and out of your sight.
You posted on social media asking everyone to be on the lookout for your Hazel and called your friends to help you search for her. You spent hours walking up and down the city streets and through the park that you frequented with Hazel. You called all of the shelters and animal control to see if anyone had brought Hazel to them instead of calling you. You talked to anyone and everyone that you passed on the street, asking if they’d seen your girl.
You tried so much to get your girl back, but nothing panned out.
You were in tears and your feet were sore from walking all over the goddamn city by the time you and the others returned to your apartment, resigned to wait for someone to contact you. Just as you were about to say goodnight to everyone and turn in for the night (read: cry yourself to sleep), your phone rang, and an unfamiliar number flashed across the screen. You shushed your friends and answered the phone.
Please be someone who found Hazel. Please be someone who found Hazel. Please be someone who found Hazel.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Your heart leapt into your throat at the sound of his voice, and for a moment you forgot that you had just been on the verge of a panic attack. “Take a deep breath for me, okay. I can practically feel you panicking through the phone. I have Hazel. She’s okay.”
“Thank you,” you breathed, nodding at your friends in response to their questioning looks. “Thank you so much, Bucky. Is she okay? Where did you find her? Should I meet you somewhere?”
He chuckled. “She’s fine. A little dirty, but she’s fine. As for where I found here...Well, I think your dog has a little crush on me, sweetheart.”
You grabbed your jacket from the coat rack and slipped it on before grabbing your keys. “What does that mean?”
“I came home and found her wandering around the courtyard at my apartment.” He sounded far too amused with the situation, and you definitely weren’t feeling up to dealing with his smug attitude. “She certainly made herself at home here. I may need to fight for shared custody after this.”
You rolled your eyes. “Just tell me where I should meet you.”
“I’ll send you my address.”
And just as he had told you, as soon as you ended the call, he shared his location with you. You swiftly assured Carol and Val that Hazel was okay, and you asked them to lock up when they left before beginning your walk to Bucky’s apartment.
Ten minutes later, you were sat on the floor of his living room, holding Hazel close to you and alternating between scolding her and telling her how much you love her as you tried to hold your tears at bay. Bucky sat on the couch, arms rested on his knees as he watched the teary-eyed reunion with a small smile curling his lips.
“You know, sweetheart,” he spoke up, drawing your attention away from Hazel, and you finally noticed the muddy paw prints on the front of his white tee. “I’m not much of a dog-person but-”
You gasped, covering Hazel’s floppy ears. “How dare you say such nonsense in front of Hazel!” You pressed a kiss between her eyes, whispering, “It’s okay, girl. Bucky didn’t mean it.”
“I did,” he countered, chuckling when you glared at him. “I’m more of a cat-person, but I suppose I can make an exception for Hazel. After all, she seems pretty attached to me. Not that I can blame her.”
You snorted and rolled your eyes. “She has awful taste in men,” you teased.
“I don’t know,” he argued. “People say that dogs are impeccable judges of character.”
You stood, dusting your jeans off and turned to face Bucky. “Thank you,” you told him, the sincerity clear in your voice. “I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t find her. I- I seriously owe you. Whatever you want, just name it.”
His blue eyes twinkled with mischief, and you immediately regretted your offer. “What about shared custody of Hazel?”
“Whatever you want that’s not that, just name it,” you amended.
“What about a date?” he asked instead.
Your eyes widened in surprise and you gaped like a fish, mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, over and over again as you tried to form a response. You certainly hadn’t been expecting that. He watched you with curious eyes, waiting patiently for your answer. Finally, the gears in your brain began to turn again and you answered, “As flattered as I am, I’m not really looking to date right now.”
Disappointment flashed across his features, but he smiled and all trace of disappointment was gone in an instant. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. You don’t owe me anything for being a decent person and making sure Hazel got back to you.”
You smiled softly at him, your fingers carding through Hazel’s fur. “Thank you, Bucky. Really.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
After that night - and after you and Bucky officially had each other’s numbers - you and he would text throughout the week, and you often sent him pictures of Hazel being increasingly goofy as the days wore on. You’d even invited him to the park one Sunday to see Hazel again, but he’d quickly turned you down, asking for a rain check.
He had a date, after all.
So instead, you took Hazel to the park and sent him pictures of the pretty pup lounging in the sunshine, greeting other dogs that passed by, and even licking the camera lens on your phone when she finally noticed you holding your phone out towards her to get the perfect angle. A smile never failed to appear on your face every time he sent a heart eyes meme in response.
Despite the near constant texting, you didn’t see Bucky again for over three weeks, and you’d only seen him because you had run into his friend Steve at the dog park.
It took a moment for you to realize that the brown and white dog that Hazel had instantly greeted once she’d been released from her leash was Dodger, but as soon as the realization sunk in, you looked around for Bucky.
There weren’t many people present, but you couldn’t find Bucky among the dog parents that lingered around the edges of the dog park.
You crouched down to greet Dodger, scratching him behind the ears and happily accepting his greeting kisses. “Hello, handsome. Is your uncle Bucky here?”
“Y/N?”
You turned your head in the direction of the voice, and you furrowed your brows when you saw a tall blond man that you didn’t recognize. Holy shit, was Hazel a handsome stranger magnet? “Do I know you?” you asked, doing your absolute best to keep your voice steady.
“Right, sorry,” he laughed. “I’m Steve. Bucky’s mentioned you a few times.”
You put two and two together quickly. “You’re Dodger’s dad!”
You spent the better part of the next hour chatting with Steve as Dodger and Hazel chased one another around the enclosed area, and you sent a picture of you and Steve to Bucky, happily claiming that Steve was telling you all of Bucky’s most embarrassing stories. (Bucky had sent a text to Steve within seconds of reading your text, but Steve refused to tell you what Bucky had said all while laughing so hard he nearly cried).
By the time Hazel and Dodger were laying at yours and Steve’s feet, panting and entirely worn out from an afternoon of playing, you were ready to say your goodbyes, but Steve quickly caught your attention before you could go.
“I’m meeting Bucky and a few other friends at the bar in about an hour. Would you be interested in getting a drink?” he asked, smiling so widely at you that you just couldn’t say no.
And that was how, after dropping Hazel off at home and making sure she was fed and had a full bowl of water, you found yourself at a sports bar, slinking through the Friday night crowd towards a table in the back.
You spotted Bucky immediately, and you smiled widely when his eyes widened and he choked on his beer before promptly standing to greet you. “What are you doing here, sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart?” you heard one of the men you didn’t recognize ask the others.
“Y/N,” Steve explained, and as if that was all they needed to know, the other two nodded. Steve smiled up at you, greeting, “Glad you found the place okay.”
Bucky quickly ushered you into the booth, sticking you between him and the only other woman present. As he introduced you to the others - Clint, Sam, and Nat - his arm snaked around your shoulders casually.
“So you’re the famous Y/N,” Sam asked, a teasing smile on his face as his gaze flitted from you to Bucky, and Bucky groaned in response.
You chuckled. “I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘famous’.”
“Oh, trust me,” Sam said, “as much as this guy talks about you, I’d say you’re pretty damn famous in our circle.”
You glanced at Bucky, biting your lip in a futile attempt to hide your amused smile. “Is that right?”
He huffed. “Hazel’s the real famous one, sweetheart.”
“Liar,” Nat accused. She turned to you, one perfectly shaped brow raising. “For weeks, it was Hazel’s mom this and Hazel’s mom that, and after that it was Y/N sent me this picture and Y/N told me this joke. I feel like I already know you, and I just met you.”
“So how’s Hazel?” Bucky asked in a clear attempt to change the topic. “Did she have a fun day with Dodger?”
You spent your evening getting to know Bucky’s friends better, sharing stories about Hazel, and listening intently anytime one of them told you a story about Bucky that had your sides aching from laughter. At the end of the evening, you had four new contacts in your phone and plans to meet up with Nat for lunch the following week.
“Need me to walk you home, sweetheart?” Bucky asked when you walked out together, but you shook your head.
“Nah.” You held up your phone, showing him the screen. “I got an Uber.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, nodding. “Okay. Text me when you get home?”
“Of course.” A red Toyota Camry pulled up to the curb, and after confirming it was the car that was supposed to pick you up, you stepped towards it. Ever the gentleman, Bucky opened the door for you, and you slid into the backseat. “Good night, Bucky.”
It was while you laid in bed that night, unable to sleep while Hazel snored beside you, that you realized that the handsome park stranger - the one that was more of a cat-person but would make an exception for Hazel; the one that was dating Steve depending on who you asked; the one that was constantly talking about you to his friends so much that they felt like they already knew you - had wormed his way into your heart.
Did that make Hazel your wing-woman? She certainly did have a proclivity for bringing you and Bucky together, even in indirect ways.
He was on your mind all night and throughout the following day, and by the time your customary trip to the park rolled around on Sunday afternoon, you were buzzing with anticipation. Would he be there again? Would Hazel inexplicably get loose from her leash and lead you straight to the man that had you feeling like a teenager with a crush again?
As romantic as it might have been, you didn’t want to leave those answers up to fate. Instead, you sent him a text not long after you woke up, letting him know where he could find you if he wanted to see Hazel that afternoon.
Unsurprisingly, it was Hazel that saw Bucky first that afternoon when he arrived at the park, and unsurprisingly, she tore her leash from your grip and sprinted towards him, nearly tackling him as he crouched closer to the ground to greet her.
Surprisingly, you were actually jealous of your dog as you watched her give him sloppy, wet kisses.
“What’s that look for, sweetheart?” Bucky asked, angling his face away from Hazel. “Everything okay?”
“Quick question,” you told him. “Is that date still on the table?”
He grinned at you with that smug grin that you had scoffed at the day you first met, that same smug grin that made your heart flutter in your chest and made your breath catch in your throat and made you want to press kisses to his face and-
“I was wondering when you’d take me up on the offer, sweetheart.”
#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky x reader#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes x female reader#james buchanan barnes#bucky x y/n#bucky barnes fluff#bucky x female reader#bucky imagine#bucky fic#bucky fluff#bucky barnes modern au#marvel reader insert#marvel modern au#bucky modern au#bucky barnes fanfic#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes one shot#bucky barnes reader insert#bucky reader insert
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