#(i know i was like that too when i joined that other friend group buuuuut | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

may-b-a-u-shewritestoo · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2 | | Lamplights and Lonesome Bridge

warnings; mention of assault (being bullied)

word count; 3k

Tapping the end of her pen on her bottom lip, Zuli took a moment to close her eyes and breathe in the fresh air. She sat cross-legged upon her burnt orange blanket on a grassy square outside the Astronomy and Astrophysics building, writing pages and more pages for her thesis.

The transference of energy in the universe and its inability to be created.

So far she’d handwritten sixteen pages, the words just flowing from her mind but now she’d hit a wall. Slowly laying down onto her back, Zuli looked up at the sky. How could it hold so much space? Matter, particles, chemicals, stars, meteors, planets. And yet all she could see was clouds; aerosols consisting of liquid particles and crystals. The sky is just plain azure; like a door hiding so much beyond it. A crisp orange and brown leaf swivelled down from a nearby branch, landing only centimetres from her head.

She was truly fascinated by everything the world and the galaxies had to offer, intrigued by discovery; obsessed with learning. Letting out a deep exhale and closing her eyes, she almost began to drift off; her brain realising it needed a few minutes to reboot and recover. But a ruckus of sarcastic laughter and shouting stirred her from her relaxation.

Sitting up and shielding her eyes from the glowing sun, Zuli looked around to see where the noise was coming from. Sight finally following Sound, her stomach dropped as she noticed what was happening.

All too familiar she recognised five grown seniors underneath the arches by the Mathematics classrooms surrounding somebody, whoever it was being thrown around like a rag doll. Passed between each student, they were being shoved, hit, laughed at and verbally abused. While she knew she could be quite assertive and intimidating, that really only applied to people her age or younger. Seniors were different.

Continuing to watch at the same time as keeping an eye out to see if any staff were walking past.

“Ha ha, won’t be able to read your sappy love letters without these huh?” One older guy shouted, holding up a pair of clear framed glasses. Oh no. Her heart sank. Something began tingling in her stomach, flowing through to her feet and her arms and hands; she grew angry, scared, overwhelmed.

Collecting her textbooks and notepad, Zuli stood up and marched straight over to the group of boys. Adrenaline and dopamine worked evilly beside each other, triggering Zuli’s instincts of fight or flight; both of them somehow coming into play.

“If you don’t leave him the heck alone, I’ll report you to the dean of the CARE team. I know you. You,” Zuli addressed two of the group, “are from Chemistry. You others are from Mathematics. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise. Back off.” She spoke with such a seething tone to her voice, regardless of her being a small 15 year old kid; the boys listened, gathering their things and jogging off in a different direction.

“Spencer?” Zuli’s tone changed immediately, as she whispered to the boy curled up on the floor clutching his bag. His glasses were thrown just a bit away from him so Zuli picked them up, wiped the lenses with the hem of her sweater and handed them back to Spencer. He snatched them, scrambling to get himself together and stood up.

“It’s a silly question, but are you alri-“ Zuli couldn’t even finish the sentence before Spencer ran off, the back of him becoming a small shape as he got further and further away.

Shrugging her own backpack on her shoulders properly and adjusting her own glasses on the bridge of her nose, she tried to tell her brain not to take it personally. She probably wouldn’t want to talk to anybody after being exploited like that in public.

As she took a step forward to follow him, her foot nudged against something thick on the floor. A book covered in tight lavender coloured woven cloth lay on the floor, as if discarded like trash. Picking it up to observe, she noticed it had S.R embroidered down the spine. Holding it to her chest, she looked up to see if Spencer was still visible.

Watching as he became a little dot in the distance, she watched as he stopped underneath a junction of trees. Go left. Go left Spencer. He looked to his right before running off to the left and Zuli sighed with solace.

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

The sunshine and clear sky was quickly a thing of the past as the weather turned into what should be expected of the fall; darkness creeping in early, and light raindrops hitting the ground. And as Zuli creaked open the recognisable doors to the library, it was the rain against the windows that made the soft sound of sniffling even more melancholic.

Following the soft sniffles to where she hoped in foresight Spencer would be, she sighed at the confirmation. Curled up in one of the big leather armchairs in what they’d both christened as ‘their’ corner of the room, Spencer had his knees tucked into his chest and his head tucked into his knees.

Arms wrapped tightly around his legs, he squeezed himself tighter at the sound of soft footsteps creeping toward him. He wanted to be alone. He didn’t want to speak to a dean or a librarian or another student.

But as he peeked underneath his elbow and saw Zuli’s maroon Doc Martens standing by the chair, he lifted his whole head to see her smiling down at him.

“Hey you.” She spoke, for the first time, truly gently.

“Hi.” Spencer sniffed hard, clearing his throat and wiping his eyes with his sweater sleeve and trying to sit up properly.

“You don’t have to get up for me Spencer, I’ll sit over there,” Even though her instinct was telling her to give him a huge hug, she knew he wouldn’t want it, “I think this is yours though.”

Holding out the mysterious book, Spencer’s eyes widened and he let out a breathy chuckle of disbelief.

“I thought they took it,” You shook your head as he took it timidly from your hands, “It was a birthday gift.”

“Wait. Did I miss your birthday?” Zuli asked, eyes widening and mouth open in surprise. Had she been so caught up in her thesis she didn’t notice her own friend’s birthday? As her brain attempted to figure out his birthday, he spoke.

“It’s today.”

“What? Why didn't you say anything?” Zuli supposed also, how hadn’t she noticed from the years before? She would’ve got him gifts, made him some cupcakes, anything.

Spencer shifted in his seat a little, fingernails stretching at a loose bit of cotton on his pants. He was evidently uncomfortable, for reasons that Zuli didn’t know and didn’t want to press on. Looking over Spencer’s shoulder at something happening outside in the hall, Zuli let out a little giggle.

Joining her in looking, Spencer too giggled at the sight of some students carrying a range of pumpkins and running down the hall with them.

A tradition they’d both learned takes place every Halloween at Caltech; students dropping pumpkins from the 9 floors up, watching them smash into tiny pieces at the bottom. It was one of the first things that Zuli and Spencer had done together besides study, laughing at the atmosphere of excitement and madness as the pumpkins shattered on the ground.

Zuli had picked miniscule bits of pumpkin out of Spencer’s hair for hours after.

“Shall we go watch?” She asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and holding onto her bag straps, “It might make you feel a little better.”

Spencer smiled at the doorway before turning to look at Zuli, overwhelmed by her kind soft voice; also wanting both to feel better and see the tradition.

“Let’s go.” Spencer stood up, brushing down his pants and running his hands over his face, removing evidence of his upset minutes ago.

As they both walked towards the doors, Zuli nudged Spencer’s shoulder with her own; getting a little chuckle out of him. Reaching down to turn the doorknob, Zuli leant her full body weight on the door to push it open.

But it wouldn’t. Jiggling the door handle over and over, the realisation creeped in that it wasn’t going to budge. Turning to Spencer, she let out a splutter of anxious giggles, his eyes wide however returning the same laughs.

“Well, looks like we’ve been locked in.” Spencer said, attempting to look through the glass and down the hall in case anyone was still walking around. He knew that everybody would be outside watching the pumpkins, but surely they would’ve seen them both in there.

Looking over to the corner they were sat in, he realised that the chairs were tucked in a corner behind some bookshelves, out of sight from the entrance door. Brilliant.

“Let’s just use the desk phone and call the caretaker or somebody?” Zuli suggested, pulling out her planner from her backpack and heading over to the phone sitting on top of the librarians desk. She’d taken all the emergency numbers of staff and authorities down in case anything ever happened. Preparedness was a relatively strong suit for her.

Spencer paced around the front of the desk as Zuli tried different numbers, stopping only when she began talking to somebody. It wasn’t that he was worried about anything, he adored the library; however he was exhausted and wanted to go to bed. Spending his birthday trapped in a library almost sounded fun, and it was only counting on the fact that Zuli would keep him entertained and busy.

“Okay, that’s fine. No it’s not that bad actually. See you soon. Thank you sir. Bye.” Zuli sighed as she put the phone down, hopping down from where she was sitting on the desk, “They’re sending a caretaker out to come and unlock the doors, but they won’t be for another two to three hours because of the rain.”

“I suppose that’s significantly better than staying here until 7 tomorrow morning.”

“The lady asked if it was cold in here, because the heating turns off at six-ish, buuuuut-“ Zuli unzipped her backpack and pulled out the blanket she was sitting on earlier, “I came prepared. Oh my god! I have an idea!”

Spencer just smiled and pulled his bag strap back over his head, settling it down on a nearby chair as he watched his hyperactive friend begin to push one of the leather chairs forward. He had no idea what she was doing, but whatever it would be he was going to just leave her to it.

*********************************************************“Is your neck hurting too?”

“Yeah. I completely misjudged the size of the blanket, and the distance between the chairs.”

They were both crouched underneath Zuli’s blanket that she had draped over the backs of two chairs; attempting to make a small fort in which they could hide from the cold threatening to creep in. But the blanket was only a small kind of throw, the chairs were absolutely huge and she and Spencer were squeezed so close together they might as well have been fused.

“I’ve got shoulder cramp, how is that even possible?” Zuli chuckled, rolling both shoulders back and wincing. The sudden movement tugged on a part of the blanket dipped behind them, and it soon fell to cover them entirely.

“If a muscle is overused or held in an awkward position over a long period of time, it can spasm. While only temporary, it seems like yours would be in the trapezius muscle, so before it entirely locks up I’d recommend a few stretches.” Spencer spoke, voice muffled by the blanket covering his head.

Bursting out into laughter, Zuli pushed the blanket back off of their heads, letting it sit around their shoulders. Rolling her head around in semi-circles, she sighed as the pain began to drift away. She knew it wasn’t just the way she was sitting, her posture had grown awful. Constantly hunched over books, or telescopes, she barely had time to stand or sit straight.

“Spencer…” Zuli mumbled, her voice coming out in the same way a person would sneak down the hall to the fridge at midnight.

“Mm?”

“May I ask what was so important about your book? Is it a first edition?”

Spencer smiled sadly as he reached for it, the spine poking out of his bag. If only he just told her everything with his mom; she wouldn’t have to ask these things and he wouldn’t have to answer them. He knew she would be kind and considerate - that’s just her in general - but he felt like it was too much to offload to somebody else. He didn’t want a pity party, he didn’t need one. But at the same time, if there was somebody to understand a tiny part of his struggle, it could make it easier. He wasn’t sure what was harder. So he calculated the simplest, vaguest answer possible, so as not to attract any further questions.

“It was a gift from somebody special. My favourite poems, mostly romantic, sonnets etcetera. Those seniors thought it was funny so used their own insecurities to lash out.”

There was a sadness behind his words, Zuli knew he wasn’t saying everything but trusted him enough to know if he wanted to share, he could. Deflecting slightly, her brain held on to the words ‘somebody special’ and ‘romantic’. No, it wouldn’t be something like that, he’d tell her. Surely?

“I feel like I can hear your thoughts, Zuli.” Spencer snapped her out of her thinking, eyebrows furrowed with intrigue, “It’s not what you think at all.”

“No, oh my god, it’s fine, I was just thinking that's all. I want you to feel like you can talk to me if you need to, but also you don’t have to, I just can see that you’re upset by something and I’m here if you-“

“It’s from my mom. She’s um…she’s not well. But she remembered my birthday and sent it to me. I read hundreds of books, but this one means the world to me.”

Zuli watched him with intense eyes. She felt full of adoration, sadness, love and contentment for Spencer. She could see he was hurting, but the lavender book gripped tightly in his fingers clearly brought him fondness. Spencer looked up at Zuli to see why he got no response, to find her smiling with enamour. Two lamplights on the table next to them cast a tuscan glow over the two of them, and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly warm.

“Do you know what?” Zuli sat up quickly, keeping the mood from dipping down and switching it to popping up, “I have something that makes me feel like that.”

Reaching into her own knapsack, she pulled out a medium sized leather book and handed it over to Spencer.

“You can look inside if you want.”

Spencer ran his fingers over the carved outline of a tree on the cover, the flat grain of the leather smooth and cool underneath his fingertips. It was beautifully made, and he could tell from the feel of the leather bindings and the smoothness of the handmade paper. He laid it down in between them both, gesturing for Zuli to open it herself.

She excitedly unravelled the leather strips wound round the outside and opened it up to her cover page. Written in magnificent calligraphy the words;

My Dream Adventures

lazuli aged 6

“It was a gift from my mom too. I’ve written a lot of hopes and dreams here, some of which I’ve achieved and some I’m yet to. She used to say to me that ‘adventure is out there.’” Zuli articulated, flipping the first few pages and pointing at different coloured writings.

“Own a lemonade stand and make fifty dollars.”

“Achieved,” Zuli spoke proudly, “age eleven. Made ninety dollars and bought this new backpack.”

Spencer laughed with true merriment before going back to some of the other scribbles.

“Keep bees and sell my own honey.”

“Yet to.”

“Quite the businesswoman it seems, Zuli.” Spencer giggled at her straightforwardness. Zuli’s smile was wider than the Amazon river, her passion and true self coming out as she expressed herself through her past stories.

“This one looks cool, I like your artwork. To fly a house to Lonesome Bridge and live there forever. Where's the Lonesome Bridge?” Spencer asked, trying to rack his brain and think where this ideal living space was.

“It’s in Utah. I love how you don’t care about how I get there, just where I’m going.” Zuli smiled, looking down at the drawing she’d made as a young kid, a white wooden house with multicoloured balloons poking out of its chimney.

“Not to crush your dreams but how do you expect to fly a house. If I’m not mistaken, Utah is at least six hundred and seventy miles…” Spencer’s voice trailed off as a dark frown dropped over Zuli’s face.

It was replaced with a burst of laughter and an excited flap of Zuli’s hands. “Okay so, I estimated that my dream house would be roughly around one hundred thousand pounds in weight, and if I used balloons that were around six feet in diameter, I’d only need, oh what was it..” She hurried to flip to the next page, covered in scribbles of calculations and more drawings of coloured balloons across the page, “Ah! Thirteen thousand, two hundred and eight balloons.”

Spencer watched as she smiled down at her drawings, continuing to explain how the impossible was actually possible. Although he definitely didn’t have a life threatening disease in which this was a symptom, he felt as if his heart was swelling. Unfamiliar with this feeling, he should’ve been uncomfortable but he couldn’t feel more at ease and peace as he did then.

Zuli felt the same unknowingly to him, her heart pouring out of her mouth within her words as she unravelled her future and shared it all with Spencer. She hoped deep, deep, deep down inside that he would stick around and see these wonderful things with her.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x black!fem!oc #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #tdtb #any feedback is always appreciated #i love y’all

18 notes · View notes

fallinforgyu · 2 years

Note

so in enha my bias WAS jake buuuuut i hardcore swerved and i’m such a heeseung stan w jake as a bias wrecker. tbh it’s so hard to choose 😭😭

but i also stan txt (since their debut actually djakfjaoks i remember being a freshman in high school and getting so excited checking the countdown thing like every day waiting for them to debut). so my bias has changed a lot hahahah used to be beomgyu, then kai, but now i’m such a sucker for soobin. it’s always so hard to choose a bias cause they all wreck me.

tbh i stopped listening to kpop for awhile because i started listening to other stuff (my ult group was exo for a long time lol). but then i started listening to stray kids and got back into kpop. and then i heard about i-land and i really wanted to watch it (cause i love those elimination shows ahahaha i watched the monsta x one and the stray kids one). so i researched enhypen a little bit and then started watching i-land and i fell in love. i joined during the middle of their border:carnival era hehe.

also if you’re still doing it 🥺🥺 based on what you know of me so far who would you ship me with 🥺 i’m very curious to know hahha. for a little more insight about my personality, i’m the oldest child so i love to take care of people no matter if they’re older or younger than me, my friends call me the mom friend, i usually play things safe but i like to step out of my comfort zone with people i’m close to, lots of people have told me they think i’m really a kind person and can be really sweet, i love to sing and dance, and also i love cute subby boys / soft dons 🥺 like i’ve been writing so much soft dom enha and sub enha lol my love language is physical touch but i love to show love to propel through words of affirmation. i’m pretty introverted and can be shy but i’m outgoing and fun with my friends !

i’m so excited to be friends bun <3

omg that's completely understandable!!! every member of the hyung line wrecks me on a daily basis 😭😭 (but good choice biasing heeseung hehehe i'd have to agree with you on that one!!! ❤️❤️)

AAAAAA AND THAT'S SO COOL THAT YOU'VE BEEN A MOA SINCE DEBUT!!! that's so special oh my god :') txt is my ult group but i started stanning them blue hour era (i've actually only been into kpop for about a year and a half 😭) but i switched biases too!! i was actually yeonjun biased when i first got into them which is hard to believe bc gyu is my entire world now </3

BUT OH MY GOD!!! ILAND!!! I LOVE ILAND SO MUCH!!! okay weird question but did you have an iland bias that's different from your enha bias?? bc i biased hanbin even though heeseung technically should've been my bias 😭

and omg yes yes yes i would love to give you a ship!! okay i'm not just saying this because they're your biases, but i really would ship you with soobin and heeseung. they would both absolutely LOVE to date a mom friend, and they would love a sweet and caring s/o. also!! i think they're both switches and both soft doms/sweet subs, so they'd be perfect for you!! 😚😚💕

and i'm so excited to be friends too omg you sound absolutely lovely 🥺❤️❤️

#new bestie = secured!!#bun's moots 💌#seungstrong 💝#bunny's mailbox 📬

3 notes · View notes

dawniebb · 4 years

Text

Face reveal bc yes

So, guys...especially from the Renegades fandom bc i’m the most active there: you saw the title lmao. This will...barely get notes (i wonder if it’ll get notes at all) buuUUUT YEAH LET’S GOOOO (If you’re gonna reblog pls be respectful bc i have issues and btw reblog ONLY if we are mutuals)

THIS IS ME! <3 HELLOOOO!!!

Now, if you want to stop here, do it. If you don’t...well

I’m going to tell you a story about myself and why I decided to post this.

First of all, I’m not celebrating anything. I’m just celebrating me, I guess (?) and in fact I’ve been wanting to do this since my parents got me a She-Ra cake for my 20th birthday back in May, because I loved that thing and felt the physical need to shove that thing into everyone’s faces But I didn’t because I didn’t feel ready enough...then that thought left my mind, and it came back like two weeks ago.

I’ve had mental issues since I was in like...elementary school. I’m sure I had felt depressed before I turned 12; however, the first memory I hold of feeling so, it’s when I was already 12. Because it was then when I realized that I wasn’t just a dumb kid who didn’t know how to make friends xd To this day, I genuinely feel like I was suffering from isolation bullying; you know xd my classmates purposely excluded me from activities, they would find any excuse for not letting me join their work teams and stuff like that; during my last year at elementary school, I only had like one friend, and that one friend and I shared a sort of abusive/toxic relationship, as in: manipulation, “we’re best friends. you should only talk to ME”, and then this friend turned her back at me too, because she decided to join the rest of the group and ignore me.

lol.

And I remember wondering what was I doing wrong. Like, why didn’t people like me; why didn’t they want to hang out with me; why did everyone seem to have friends except me. And then I got trapped into a very...dark place, and I remember being overthinking one day, because I tend to overthink a lot...and I remembered this specific kid who was in the same class as me.

I was in the line for the teacher to check my homework, and this kid, a boy, was behind me.

You see. I’ve always been chubby xd I don’t think I’ve ever been skinny since I was 2 years old or so, because by the time I was in kindergarten my classmates’ moms were already calling me a ‘little meatball’ thinking it was a fucking adorable nickname because Mexican moms can be pretty shitty sometimes don’t let the media stereotypes fool you not all of them are all cheerful and upbeat and when I was in elementary school, for some reason, besides being chubby, I had a really bad posture. And this boy who was behind me started imitating my way of walking and his friends were laughing, so I turned around and asked him wtf his problem was xd and he turned around to his friends and asked “Do you see how hunchback she is?” like I wasn’t even there xd and I genuinely tried to slap him but I couldn’t, and he said “Yo, stop moving because you’re going to cause an earthquake”

And my mom has always felt personally attacked for the fact I’m...u know, fat. She has always been very insistent on the fact I need to lose weight and stuff like that. And her, mixed with my experiences at school, made me feel like I wasn’t enough.

But my mind started saying things like “And u know why you aren’t enough? Because you’re fat”

Because, like, the day of the hunchback insult, when I told the teacher, who was a very shitty teacher btw but i’m not talking about her again today (i’ve already talked about her in MANY of my university papers, because I’m studying to be an English teacher), she turned around at him and said “Don’t listen to HER” and to this day I still don’t know why xd

But it made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Because I was fat.

Lol x2.

To this day, I still don’t know if I have an ED. Like, I genuinely don’t know. But I can safely say that, if I have one, it’s more likely BED... because, through the years, I managed to lose weight when I turned like 15 and I had my quinceañera party, but then first year of high school came and I had a relapse into depression...like, this might come off as a very unpopular opinion, but junior high school was dope for me x’d I remember it as one of the best years in my life, right after my second and third year in high school (high school in Mexico lasts only three years) and so...when I started my first year in high school and got fucking depressed again, I gained ALL that weight back, and even doubled it. During my second year of high school, I met my friends. The friends I still keep with me to this day. And they accepted me like the fucking train wreck I was, failing math like three times in a row and crying about it every single one of those times because I’m pretty sure I have dyscalculia but my parents won’t listen to me they think i’m just lazy when it comes to math even though they know i cant even read a fucking clock . And them, along with my another very close friend who I met via fanfction when I was 12, helped me go through it. Like, I did have some issues with my body during high school, but not as much as you would expect. They were getting pretty bad in my first and second semester, but during the other four my friends managed to stop me from losing my mind, even when it all went to shit in my third year again for different reasons.

Then I graduated from high school, and I made friends there too. Although my best friends are still my friend from fanfiction, my friends from high school and just one of my university friends. And you know...I was left...pretty scarred from the shit that happened during third year of high school, and even if I didn’t feel like I was *that* depressed, I did gain a lot of weight.

Like, the highest I’ve ever been. Then my dad got sick during October from last year, then my two doggies were murdered god i fucking hate my neighbors the same day my dad was released from the hospital and my mom went kinda nuts during December and I wanted to just...yeah.

So I did a lot of emotional eating. Like, y’all don’t understand.

It was like...I would go to uni and eat a brownie. Then chocolates on my way home. THEN a “a snack” like...fucking rice krispies. Then a huge ass meal, with soda bc why not. Then I would have either cookies or hot cheetos as a treat after my huge ass meal,

I’m a short person xd carrying that much weight was making my ribs and back hurt, as well as my legs and feet; my breathing was freaking awful, and there were some days were I got SO paranoid I just said things like “i’m gonna die today” or “out here trying to get diabetes like the rest of your family, aren’t you??” :’) but i didn’t tell anybody. My parents are not really an option in this case, BUT I didn’t tell my friends, because then I would have to explain that I ate a lot and that was something I was EXTREMELY ashamed of.

When February came, I was scared of going out, because I knew I would have to choose what clothes to wear and nothing fit me anymore and, the things that did, looked super stretched on me and, u know, I was sore. My health was getting bad. But I didn’t like to feel that way.

AND I MUST CLARIFY HERE. I’M WORKING ON THAT. I’M ACTUALLY A BODY POSITIVY DEFENDER, I JUST DIDN’T LIKE HOW *I* LOOKED AND, BESIDES, I WAS GETTING SICK. I GENUINELY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE AT SOME POINT. I’M NOT SAYING BEING FAT OR CHUBBY IS DISGUSTING. NO. I BELIEVE ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL. AND IF I’M WRITING THIS IS BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KNOW RECOVERY IS DISGUSTING AND DIFFICULT SOMETIMES AND THAT IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THAT: I’M SORRY. NOBODY SHOULD EVER FEEL LIKE THAT. I SUPPORT YOU. AND I HOPE THINGS GET BETTER. AND NO MATTER WHAT OTHERS SAY, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE TO CHANGE ONLY IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE. BECAUSE IT’S YOUR BODY. KEEP HOLDING ON.

But going back to the story...

My friends used to tell me I looked pretty all the time, which I appreciate a lot to this day. But my parents were like

Me: I’m fat and I look deformed.

Them: I agree.

Because yeah.

Just before the pandemic madness happened, I went on a school trip with my uni friends and one of them triggered my isolation trauma in the worst way possible...and that, somehow, ruined ALL the photos I took throughout the trip. Because I wasn’t enough. Because I was deformed and fat and I looked like an apple. Because nobody wanted to be seen near me. And my personality was shitty.

Like, I should’ve known I was worth it. I’m still worth it and I know that. But I wasn’t less worth it when I was chubbier. And maybe I didn’t look as bad as my head made me believe. But at the time my mental health was extremely awful.

Now, covid happened.

Not gonna lie. Quarantine fucked me up as much as it fucked everyone else, but for me...by not going out, I stopped being near trigger foods, and I was even able to consult a dietitian.

I’ve lost 15 kg since March. And I’ve managed to love my past self, but I love this one because changing it was my decision. Sure, my parents didn’t help a lot, but in the end it was MY decision. I’ve come to accept I was worth it even when I felt disgusted by myself, and all of those awful things people said or did to me, like my friend during that trip...

I didn’t deserve any of those things. Because NO ONE deserves to be treated that way. No one deserves somebody else making fun of them. No one deserves somebody else doing awful things to them that they know damn well that they trigger their childhood trauma. No one deserves to be judged for the way they look.

I was in a very dark place, and sometimes I’m still inside there. And like...during all those times, I kept posting in here.

I remember being next to my dad in the hospital, telling him “Guess what? Supernova drops this week” or “We’re going to watch TDP together, right?” or “Let me talk to you about She-Ra...” ....those were things that like...saved my life for a while, though mostly Supernova. Because, actually, Marissa Meyer has helped me in my fucking darkest years x’d from my third year of high school until now.

Her books didn’t take my depression away, but they did make things a little lighter for me, even when I felt like dying.

And I know this fandom is like..full of minors, so...I don’t know if any of you need to hear this: But you’re worth it.

If you want to change anything in your body, do it because YOU want to.

Because YOU’LL like you better.

Because it’s YOUR body, and it’s the only part of yourself that you and other people can touch.

Nobody should ever tell you you’re worthless because of your weight and your physical appearance. And if they ever do, then they’re the ones who should apologize, not you.

Nobody has the right to mistreat you, abuse you, or use your own body against you.

As for me...my ribs don’t hurt anymore. Nor does my back or my feet, and my breathing is getting better; I took the conscious decision to lose weight but, like I said, now that I’m not in such a dark place, I’m staring to realize that the past me wasn’t as hideous as my mind was making me believe. She was okay; she was broken inside, but she didn’t deserve anything that happened to her, nor did she deserved to treat herself that badly.

I posted my photo just to celebrate that I can finally said I’m not disgusted anymore. I can finally see myself in pictures again. And see my own reflection. Or go through my closet. Or do my makeup, because I LOVE doing my makeup and I was even ashamed of that. I’m not fully okay yet, but I’m healing.

So, if there’s any little Dawnie around here: I hope you give yourself a chance and realize you’re beautiful.

I hope that, if you change, it’s because you wanted to do it.

I hope you know that it’ll get better even if the healing process it’s not that easy.

I hope you know there’s people who love you.

I hope you know that you are beautiful. You were always beautiful and, no matter what path you choose, you’ll always be beautiful.

And worth it.

And human.

And important.

Take care of yourself, because you’re wonderful, no matter your size <3

#personal #VERY PERSONAL LMAO DAWN WHAT HAPPENED THERE U OK?#tw: eating disorders mention #TRIGGER WARNING EATING DISORDER MENTIONS #tw: depression #TRIGGER WARNING DEPRESSION #face reveal #and im gonna tag this bc yes #renegades trilogy #marissa meyer #renegades #archenemies #supernova #also TW: BULLYING

70 notes · View notes

thethreemages · 3 years

Photo

*jfc, my dumb self kept forgetting to post this here after already debuting her on my DA, hhh -.-;*

-Buuuuut yeah, after a long time coming and thinking... I’ve decided to do a complete revamp to one of the oldest members of the main cast (*that I’ve sadly left a lil neglected overtime compared to my other characters* :c), iss Rosabel~ 💕

Hope you all enjoy her new debut! This lil flower child was def in due of an update after all this time, so I had alot of fun putting some more “life” back into her with her upcoming new character role in the story~ 😊 Enjoy!

~(Bio Info Below)~

Rosabel Espinosa (age 18) is an Earth Mage who had quite a promising life going for her back in the days of St. Ravilda's. A straight-A student, class representative, nudged to make it big with the popular kids by her social circle back home... Rosabel was surely fit to become a truly respectable Mage within her own right, as many were sure to think. And indeed, her power to enchant the planet's natural plant-life was quite admirable to see on the field... so, with so many good things going for miss Rosabel... what else could she have asked for? ..Well, in truth... a part of Rosabel truly wasn't as confident as she'd try to play herself off as... as back at home, it was quite a "difficult" house to return to with how distant her parents were in their own social-climbing world. Nothing ever seemed enough for them to be as content with having enough wealth to sustain themselves as a family... no, to truly be "up there" to the big guys was their biggest dream above all. And they made sure to always remind Rosabel of that whenever she "dared" to do as much as come home with a slightly lower grade, forgot to turn in certain assignments from too many all-nighters, or even so much as told-off any of her "dear" popular friends for being nosey lil jerks to her when others' backs were turned. No, she just had to live up to her name as the most "perfect little rose", in their eyes... naturally, leading to Rosabel in question to develop more of a snarkier, uptight shell to others as time went on... Still... even for all of Rosabel's constant schedules at school, even she knew that she needed some form of break from all the pressures... so, curiously one day of seeing a flier to help kickstart up the Ravilda Drama club again, it piqued her interest enough to maybe give it a try. And wouldn't you know... a certain other mage was just as keen to join the club too, in the form of none other than miss Prym Fletcher. You see, ever since the start of their Ravilda school days... there was always something about Prym that always drew Rosabel in to want to compete with. With how she was just so calm, smart, pretty and powerful with all that dark magic? Rosabel would be lying if she said that didn't "stir up" some things in her... of which she insisted meant nothing more than a "challenge" to outdo the young goth in any way she could. And of course, Prym... always being the sly one for a "challenge", was amused enough to accept these lil games which would soon lead to plenty more "back-and-forth" even well up on the stage. Definitely made their plays performed all the more entertaining to watch by certain crowds... and for once, hearing their genuine compliments in both hers and their other club members' performances actually started to make Rosabel feel... "at peace", for once. Little by little, she was relaxing up in her school assignments to not worry so much about good grades... grew patient enough to let other students get the chance at council decisions for once, and even didn't really hang out much with the popular crowd anymore compared to her actual, "true" friends over in Drama Club. Even Prym, as much as Rosabel was still too huffy to admit upfront... turned out to be alot more fun and friendly to be around whenever they actually had some chill moments between shows. Yet... sadly, by the time graduation came around and Prym's group wasted no time heading out to start their Traveling Mage lives, certain feelings were left unsaid on both parties... and now Rosabel was left to pick up the pieces back at her family home, as she hadn't really found the time to think of what she wanted to do for herself... And... for once, things seemed like they were going to be okay... her parents were alot calmer now, their funds were stabilizing, and many were looking to have Rosabel potentially "intern" with them after hearing of all her potential at Ravilda's. All leading up to one fateful night when... low and behold, a young rich man by the name of "Lord Zoras" was all too eager to meet up with Rosabel after his and her parents started to befriend one another over tea. As much as this man was already giving her nerves... Rosabel did her best to remain respectful and even accepted a little dance with him to be polite. All was fine, really... ...until Zoras got too bold in his advances, and Rosabel (being someone who never really "liked" guys in that way to begin with) got so panicked that she smacked him away with a boost of her own magic... causing many stunned looks among the now silent ballroom. Following an even more tense ride home... things only escalated further when her parents started to berate their daughter for "embarrassing" them in front of not just their social group, but also such a "powerful" man as this Lord Zoras. Now knowing the true extent of her parents' greed, and how little they truly cared for her after all this time... Rosabel tearfully made the decision to pack up all she could, sneak out when they weren't looking... and never again look back on the house she once called "home"... From that point, Rosabel spent the next couple of days laying low in trying to leave town... not having much of a goal of exactly where to go among all these mixed, whirlwind emotions. Somehow, she managed to find her way back to the garden areas of St. Ravilda's... deciding to hide out there by some of the sheds until Professor Ramon managed to find her sneaking with some leftover food. As much at it pained her at first to have gotten caught in such a position... seeing the genuine look of concern in Ramon's eyes caused her to break down in confessing what she was going through, and how little she knew what to do with herself now that everything was "ruined"... Ramon... himself relating to Rosabel as he too was in a "similar" position of societal pressures so long ago... was able to comfort her the best he could as he offered to help take her in for the time being, and even offering to the other teachers to give Rosabel some kind of position at the school to keep herself occupied. With enough thinking over and some suggestions by those like Professor Nile and even librarian Capella... Headmaster Auran offered Rosabel the chance to train as an "apprentice" to any number of the current teachers at the school, whilst looking after the younger generations of students who may need some "chaperones" within their own projects. Indeed, it was quite an adjustment to get used to for the young girl... but with enough patience, time, and caring guidance by the other faculty... Rosabel was able to once again relax, and feel content that she found a safe place to truly call "home", once again. ...Still, there may be some days where she thinks back a bit to her former Drama Club members, how they might be doing... and especially of what a certain Dark mage may be up to all the way out in Terra... but well, with all that she's gathered in the safety of Ravilda's welcoming her back, Rosabel prefers to remain content with what she has now... and to make sure she upholds to the promise she made to the Headmaster in always being there to protect and guide her fellow students on the promising paths of Magehood. Even if certain mischevious royals and rich kids tend to make said job a little "tricky" to keep up with sometimes...

#the three mages #my art #rosabel espinosa #other mages #side mages #my OCs #st. ravilda's #st. ravilda faculty #yeeee she's finally here at last~#(again I *did* mean to upload her around the same time as my DA upload buuut tumblr was lowkey being a butt with pic uploads =.=; )#(wouldn't even load up the submission page after 20+ refreshes smhhh)#buuut it worked now thankfully so YAY heres our flower girl~ <3

14 notes · View notes

thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 15

Tides of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because we’re halfway through, whoa-oh I can’t think of a rhyme but we’re in a desert now.

Last times on book: Amri and co are on a quest to unite all the Gelfling clans against the Skeksis. They’ve managed to convince Maudra Ethri of the Sifa to not sail off into the sunset and join the cause. And now they’ve reluctantly hired known thief and smarmy guy Periss of the Dousan to take them on his sand skiff to the Crystal Desert where Maudra Seethi is.

Chapter 15

A storm in the desert, a teeming of Crystal Skimmers, a peril, and some Tavra/Onica content.

Team Naia plus Periss sand sails all day and continues sand sailing when night falls. But people need to sleep so they’ll just leave someone on watch.

Kylan volunteers Amri for first watch. Amri is like ‘hey, rude’ before realizing that Kylan was subtly letting him stay up at night without making a big deal of it in front of the others. And then he’s warmed by this kindness.

Aw, frens.

Some hours later, Naia joins Amri up on the deck because she had a weird, bad dream. She was in the Sog but she was Gurjin. And a message came for Momdra Laesid who reacted in horror to whatever it was. And then Naia woke up.

Amri suggests it could be an omen but Onica is sleeping.

“I’ll ask her when she wakes... You should rest, too, nightbird.”

Amri stood and yawned. Then he added, “Birds die in caves.”

“Nightworm, then.”

“They’re called nurlocs.”

“Go on!”

Hah! Frens!

I love that they’re the kind of friends who bust each others chops.

So Amri goes below deck and I’m confronted with the idea that this sand skiff has a below deck. How big is this thing? I was picturing...... Moana’s boat. But on sand.

Periss’ ship doesn’t just have a lower deck, it has hammocks. Multiple hammocks. Multiple hammocks with multiple hammocks still vacant. At minimum that’s... lessee Kylan, Onica, Periss all sleeping.... There’s a minimum of five but I don’t know if it would be uneven so there’s probably at least six hammocks!

This is a big, small ship and Periss was scooting around all alone in it.

Anyway, Amri gets into a hammock and passes out almost immediately.

He’s woken up in a hurry by Kylan (although its now daytime so he must have been asleep some hours) because there’s a storm and Crystal Skimmers because it doesn’t rain in the desert but when it rains it pours.

Also, they’re in the basin now so its just endless sand in all directions.

To their right, the sky ended in a cloud of gray dust crackling with lightning rolled like a monster with fire in its teeth. It boiled, unleashed and unconstrained like a whirlpool, in the wide desert.

Also, Crystal Skimmers. Darkened ones.

Geez, I feel like we haven’t deal with the darkening in a while. It barely come up, if at all, during the Sifa stuff. Because of ocean, I guess? I mean, if the darkening works by seeing some darkened crystal veins all that open ocean means that only the deep sea creatures are gonna get darkened and they’re probably bonkers already.

Anyway.

The approaching sand clouds teemed with horrific golden creatures. Their diamond-shaped bodies were bigger than the skiff, the size of the three-masted Sifa ships, with rough, ragged manes and long barbed tails. The creatures crashed out of the sands turned up b the storm to the left and the right and all around them, snapping with enormous gaping mouths.

If you remember the giant flying manta rays that the Dousan use to travel, then its those guys.

They seem huge so I wouldn’t want to deal with a rabid one of them, let alone a teeming of them.

Seasoned desert traveler Periss also decides that the storm isn’t natural either. He would have been able to navigate around it except for the Crystal Skimmers ambushing them.

One of the Crystal Skimmers side swipes the skiff’s starboard float and then gets tangled up in the ropes and starts dragging the boat around.

Periss recognizes this Crystal Skimmer as Hanja, who has the remains of a Dousan harness on its back. He begs Hanja to calm herself but Onica says that she can’t be reached since she’s seen the darkness. And that they’ll need to cut free or get dragged to death.

Seasoned boat traveler Onica takes charge. She and Periss go out to cut the ropes at the bow and stern where the Skimmer harness tangled.

They succeed in cutting the lines but before Amri can pull Onica back into the boat

Just as the starboard float glanced off the racing sand below, another Skimmer burst from below them. Amri felt Onica’s fingernails rip against his palm as the Skimmer snagged her in its enormous mouth, tearing her from his grasp.

ONICA NOOOO!

You’re too delightful to die! We barely know ye!

Okay okay okay Crystal Skimmers don’t have teeth so she’s not getting chewed but its got her good and it doesn’t feel the pain as she stabs it in the lips with her knife because its so maddened by the darkness.

And it keeps diving into the sand with Onica in its mouth which as far as experiences go I imagine is like being in a tumble drier full of sandpaper.

Periss follows the Crystal Skimmer but its flying too high and he says that Onica will have to fly down to them, winged girl Gelfing that she is.

“She can’t fly.”

The tiny, numb voice came from the folds of Amri’s cloak.

“What?”

“She lost her wings in a storm,” Tavra said. “She can’t fly.”

Oh no! Is that her Dark Backstory that we left the Sifa plot without learning? The thing that filled Ethri with much regret?

Naia decides she’ll fly up to the Skimmer and save Onica but her wings are so dried out from the desert that she probably can’t fly and if she did, her wings would probably be destroyed.

Geez, there’s a lot more to having wings than I had ever considered.

Amri decides he’ll do it instead.

But what of his no wings? Necessity is the mother of invention, probably. Amri pulls off two of those fins (that have already been noted to be roughly the size of Gelfling wings) and ties them to his back.

Buuuuut he doesn’t know how to fly. So Amri’s plan has a part 2. He tells Tavra to take over his body like she did before.

OH! That’s coming back up! And her being a spider is plot relevant in a lot of surprising ways this book.

“Amri, I didn’t do it on purpose before,” Tavra protested. “It was an accident! I don’t know how!”

“Well,” he growled, “you’re going to have to figure it out!”

He leaped and spread his arms.

The wind picked up like a hand, thrusting him into the sky. The gusts were like waves, coming from every direction, knocking him and twirling him higher and higher. He had no idea how to navigate, how to fall - how to fly. All he could do was try to keep his arms from breaking as the wind battered and beat him.

“You and Onica made a promise!”

“But I can’t --”

“Are you going to break your promise?”

Oof. Going for the hard-hitting emotional low blow, Amri? You can be mean when needs must, especially for the guy who wants to be the funny friend.

Can’t argue that it works because it works.

Amri is suddenly slam dunked into a dreamfast with Tavra for some important exposition dreamfasting.

A memory of a storm at sea with Onica’s ship broken to bits and her clinging to it as it breaks into smaller bits, holding Tae safe in her arms while the wreckage of the ship and the hail of the storm tear her wings to shreds.

Amri as Tavra fights her way through the storm, scoops up the two Sifa and flies them from the wreckage.

Promise me, someday we’ll sail away.

Tavra and Onica sat together on a misty shore, watching the tide bring in shards of crystalline ice. The seafarer’s lantern glowered nearby, dimly lighting the fog that surrounded them like a protective blanket. They were hidden there, by the silver mist. Or at least they could pretend they were, just for this moment.

To a place where no one can find us. Where there are no Sifa... no Vapra...

Their hands touched palm to palm, fingers weaving together.

Where it doesn’t matter. Where we can just be... one.

I’ve said before that I was 99% sure that Onica and Tavra were dating with all the saying it without actually saying it about their relationship. But, uh, I’m now 200% sure.

This is about as explicit as you can get without having one of them say girlfrens.

Anyway, the dreamfast ends and Amri finds that he’s flying. Or rather, Tavra is flying Amri. Like he’s a giant robot and she’s a plucky anime youth. Mobile Suit Amri.

Tavra is such a good flier even when flying with some juryrigged wings and she’s responding so intuitively to the winds that Amri briefly thinks that the storm had just quieted down since it seems less severe.

But when they reach the Crystal Skimmer, seeing Onica hanging limply in its mouth knocks Tavra out of sorts. The improvised wings get ripped off by the wind and Amri has to climb the Skimmer’s mane towards its mouth.

Now that the drift has ended, I’ll comment that the thing they did, Tavra piloting Amri to take advantage of all the physical skills she has. Its an interesting way to use the two of them. And its an interesting extension of Amri deciding to take up Tavra’s sword to take her role in the group despite having zero experience in swordery or fighting. But as an ultimate move, its probably unhealthy. Since Amri’s deal is that he feels useless and like he doesn’t contribute much to the group. If he starts thinking of himself as just a convenient meat puppet, that’s not great for his self-image.

Can’t deny that it got them 90% towards saving Onica but Amri has to do the last 10%.

The Skimmer dives into the sand - which we can now confirm from the POV character’s POV is an awful experience that crushes and scrapes and suffocates - but Amri manages to pull Onica free right when the creature dives towards the sand again.

He stood, tried desperately to find Periss’ skiff, but it was impossible. All he could see was gold and black, the storm and the din and the deafening howls of the Skimmers. He pulled Onica with him, trudging - any direction, it didn’t matter, he only wanted to be anywhere else. The sand burned his eyes, washed against his ankles, then his knees. He tried to listen, but its voices were too many. Millions of screaming sand-crystals, earth moving like water, singing in a tongue he couldn’t understand.

He turned as the ground shook. A Skimmer erupted under his feet, and Amri’s own scream was lost as the beast’s black maw swallowed them alive.

Geez, there’s just way too much getting eaten by giant beasts in this chapter.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Tides of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Amri #Naia #Tavra #Onica #Kylan #Periss

3 notes · View notes

sammywolfgirl · 3 years

Note

Awhile ago you answered an ask about some Rin fact-oids

How about some fun facts about the other boys?

And maybe Neon J as well?

Hmmm well I think the original post was in realation to an ask meme buuuuut I can do some fun facts about the other boys and neon J!

Zimelu-

It wasn’t just a joke that he’s on every sports team, he actually is. If there’s a sports team for it in the school he’s on that team. His schedule must be busy lol

He doesn’t spend too much time at home, if he’s not hanging out at neon’s place he’s hanging at a friends place, before that he would hang with a group of dudes who you will meet at some point ;)

Zimelu doesn’t have many friends, but the few he has he would actually fight someone for. When you got his trust he is pretty loyal.

Zim’s actually a pretty good team player, it’s just he’s stubborn and if he doesn’t like you he will not show any respect, gotta earn that from him.

Purl-Hew-

He’s on the chess team and any other academic teams that like do competitions (I think there’s a spelling one and math one? Idk I wasn’t on it but I know they exist)

He probably was nominated to be like a hall monitor at some point but he turned it down since it’d conflict with his schedule.

He is very much a teachers pet, it more in a ‘he asks for extra credit and reminds the teacher about tests’ and not a ‘will snitch on anyone misbehaving’ sort of way.

He really wants a pet, he’s been asking about keeping a bearded dragon, but his parents have yet to allow that.

Haym-

This man has so many siblings and cousins like holy shit. He’s a middle child amongst it all.

He made his clubhouse himself. He’s been building it up for a few years now. His family doesn’t know about it and never will.

He found Lemon Lime as a full grown dog he soon figured out he was trained and even had some service dog training. He is still incredibly baffled as to why he was abandoned.

Haym is the type of kid who tries to be friendly with everyone, he also knows everyone’s name, you a new kid at school? What’s your name and what do you like because haym is going to memorize it.

Haym knows everyone’s birthdays and makes it a personal duty of his to get them a card or a small gift. Nobody gets to feel left out on their birthday on his watch.

Eloni-

If it wasn’t clear before he has anxiety, namely social anxiety, though he is generally more nervous than most. He’s been trying to learn more coping habits with the help of Kayane

He’s part of the Tec crew in the drama club, so he knows his way around electronics and stage lights.

He also wanted to join the robotics club but got nervous and anxious and just decided not to, he is still interested in robotics though.

Eloni is probably an empath, he’s really sensitive to others feelings and likes to help calm others down if he can, though that anxiety of his keeps him from helping in most cases, he’s too terrified to say the wrong thing and make everything worse.

Neon j-

He’s been around a while, he was involved in the border wars, though he was more focused on research of magic and technology than fighting.

When he became a cyborg he doubled down on that research during his recovery because he wanted to be useful.

He built Marcie and Sven himself, both to perfect an ai program and also because he was lonely. (I’m debating whether or not he based their looks off of people he knew during his war days)

Compared to canon neon j this guy is a lot les confident. Still loud and proud but he’s more likely to let his anxieties get the best of him.

1010 Heros wasn’t his first attempt at a hero team, he’s got several beta devices still lying around. Most of them don’t work anymore though

Aaaand that’s what I got hope you liked it ^_^

#it me #1010 heros au

6 notes · View notes

iamsaha · 4 years

Text

Friend

Finnegan pulled her skirt up to show off some more leg and undid an extra button to show more cleavage. She frowned. The expensive push-up bra she had gotten - after telling herself that it was a work expense - was extremely uncomfortable. As if every dollar she had sunk into it was eager to remind her that it should have been spent on something else.

“Hey, Finn.” Roan came into the locker room, already in the process of tearing her shirt off. “Slow night.”

“Yeah? That’s good. Could use one.” Finnegan applied her lip balm, smacked her lips, and turned to face her friend. The brunette was massaging her own feet with a look of bliss on her face. “You alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine.” Roan smiled. “The night is slow but the day was packed. Especially this afternoon.”

“Lucky me then.”

“Yep.” Roan sighed as she got up to get changed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Finn. We’re both working the night shift.”

“Goodnight.” Finnegan hugged her friend and left the locker room. The dark hallway smelled of fried food, alcohol, and a slight hint of the lemon-scented cleaning product used to clean the floors. It was a combination of smells that Finnegan had hated at first when she first started working at Buck’s but now, after five years, it was something she could think of fondly. She thought it was weird she could do that but she didn’t question it. It’s always nice to have something to think of positively.

“Hey, gorgeous. Didn’t see you come in.”

“Well I didn’t want you to see me before I got all pretty.” Finnegan smiled at Cooper as he stuck his head out the kitchen door. “What do you think?” She twirled for him.

“You’d turn a gay man straight, Finn.” Cooper nodded approvingly.

“Well did I?”

“Nope!”

“Fuck you then.” Finnegan punched his shoulder and headed towards the main room. Roan was right. It was a slow night. She could count a grand total of ten customers in the restaurant’s fairly large main room. The majority, a loud group of five, weren’t even in her section. She watched for a second to see how they were treating the new girl, Shelly, as she dropped off their food. Their eyes wandered but that’s about it. Since adventurous eyes were encouraged in their workplace, Finnegan kept moving. As she passed them, one called out to her.

“How about you join us, sweetheart?”

“I’d love to but we’re not allowed to spoil our customers.” Finnegan winked at him. “Not too much anyway.” She lifted her skirt up to show off her thigh before letting it drop. That got her a cheer but otherwise the men left her alone. It was always risky pulling a move like that. Some took it as an invitation to get physically friendly. But most of the men at Buck’s were polite and knew what was allowed and what wasn’t. For the ones that didn’t, there’s a gentleman standing by the door that was very protective of his female coworkers.

“Good evening, sir, I hope you haven’t had to wait too long.” Finnegan said when she got to her first table for the night. “My name is Finnegan and I’ll be your waitress tonight. You can call me Finn.”

“It’s fine.” The man said. “Is Roan not in tonight?”

“Her shift just ended.” Finnegan frowned apologetically. “She your favorite?”

“I just had her a week ago, which was my first time here. I’m sure you can be my favorite.”

“I’m sure I can be.” Finnegan brightened up like he had just made her day and moved to stand by him, her hip resting against his upper arm. She put her arm around his shoulder and leaned over. “So what can I get started for you...?”

“Greg.”

“Greg! That was my high school volleyball coach’s name. Had the biggest crush on him.” Finnegan said. “What can I get you, Greg?”

“Just get me a diet coke for now, Finn.” Greg said. “Haven’t looked at the menu much.”

“Well how about I suggest an appetizer for ya?”

“Sure.”

She leaned closer and ‘casually’ pushed her breasts against the side of his head. “Our chef Cooper makes the best mozzarella sticks. I don’t know what he breads the cheese with but I think it’s drugs. And the marinara sauce that you get to dip with is to die for. ”

“Then I would love some of those.”

“I’ll get that right out for you, Greg.” She started the order on her tablet and put in what he had asked for. She squeezed his shoulder and went to the soda fountain to get his coke. On the way back she greeted customers that had just been seated. “I’ll be right with you gentleman.” She winked at them and they smiled back. She made sure to sway her hips a little extra on the remaining few steps to Greg. “Here’s your diet coke, sir.”

“Thank you.” Greg took a sip of the drink. “I think I’ll have Buck’s Burger.”

“Fries or onion rings on the side?” Finnegan asked. “Or a mix of both for just a dollar extra?”

“Neither, Finn. Trying to watch what I eat.” Greg shook his head. “Shouldn’t have said yes to those mozzarella sticks.”

“Well since you’re being smart and taking care of yourself,” Finnegan said. “You want a turkey patty for that burger instead of beef?”

“Does it cost extra?”

“Buck fifty buuuuut,” Finnegan said. “I do love a man that takes care of himself.”

“Turkey patty it is then, Finn.” Greg laughed. “You’re gonna get every penny out of me, aren’t you?”

“Well not every penny. I do want you to come back.” Finnegan grinned. “Just as much as you wanna give me.”

“Fair enough, honey.” Greg handed her the menu. “Now get this outta my sight before I get tempted by the other things on there.”

“Your appetizer will be here in a second.” Finnegan took the menu, dropped it off at the hostess’ podium, and returned to the two men that had recently arrived. “How y’all doing? My name’s Finnegan and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Call me Finn.” She said. “Or call me sweetie if that’s what you want.”

“W-w-we’ll call you F-Finn.” One man said, trying to seem like he wasn’t staring at her cleavage.

“Booo.” She said playfully. “How about you, sir? Will you call me Finn too?”

“I’ll call you sweetie, sweetie.” The other man said. He seemed at least a decade older than the first. “Lighten up Mike. You just hurt her feelings.”

“Oh. S-s-sorry.” Mike blushed and looked down.

“Don’t worry about it, Mike. Call me whatever makes you comfortable.” Finn smiled and patted his back. “What can I get you two to drink?”

“Got any new IPAs?”

“Electric Jellyfish.” Finnegan said. “Has a nice citrus flavor to it and our chef swears he can taste a hint of mango.”

“Two pints of that then!”

“J-j-just one.” Mike said. “I’ll h-h-have a water. With l-l-lemon.”

“It’s your birthday, Mikey. Come on.”

“I drove us here, Jake.”

“Ooo responsible. Love it. Happy birthday, Mike!” Finnegan smoothly interrupted before Jake could argue. “A pint of Electric Jellyfish for one cutie and a glass of water with lemon for the birthday cutie. Any appetizers?”

“Y’all still have those crab cakes? I didn’t see it on the menu but I’m hoping anyway.” Jake asked. Mike looked pleased at being called ‘birthday cutie’.

“Wow you’re a frequent customer aren’t you, Jake? Yes in fact we do still have the crab cakes. Secret menu item now.” Finnegan smiled. “How come I haven’t seen your smile around before?”

“Was out of town for a long while, Finn.” Jake said. “Came back just for my brother’s birthday.”

“That’s so nice of you, Jake.” Finnegan crooned. “Well I’ll get those crab cakes started and be right back with your drinks.”

“Enjoyin’ those mozzarella sticks, Greg?” She asked on the way to the bar. He gave her an appreciative nod and she winked in return. It was when Sal was pouring the beer for her that she saw that another man had been seated at her section. He was wearing a hoodie and seemed intent on keeping his hands in the kangaroo pocket in the front. On her walk back to Jake and Mike’s table, she noticed the new guest take a hand out for a brief moment. Finnegan thought she saw heavy bandages but the hand was put away just as quickly as it was brought out. “Here you go. Do you know what you want to eat? Or should I give y’all more time?”

“Some more time. Please.” Mike said. “Sweetie.”

“I think you’re the sweetie, Mike.” Finnegan winked. “I’ll be back in five.”

“How about sooner because we’ll miss you?” Jake grinned.

“As you wish.” Finnegan curtsied, being sure to tip her cleavage in Mike’s direction. Birthday boy deserved it. And she wanted to earn back the money she spent on the bra. Then, she walked over to her new guest. “Hello! Welcome to Buck’s. I’ll be your waitress Finnegan but please call me Finn. What’s your name?”

“Barry.” He said, keeping his head bowed but looking up at her from under the hood.

It worried Finnegan that he was keeping himself concealed but his table was close to the entrance. When she glanced at Brent, he nodded his head subtly. Satisfied that she’d be safe she returned her attention to Barry. “Very nice to meet you, Barry. What do you want to drink?”

“Water.”

“Just water? Not even a soda?” Finnegan smiled. “Our food goes well with sugary, bubbly drinks.”

“Water is fine.”

“Suit yourself, Barry.” Finnegan shrugged. “Any appetizers or do you need more time to look at the menu?”

“Time.” Barry said. “Please.”

“Sure thing, honey.” Finnegan smiled. “I’m a fan of those beer battered fish and chips you can find in the specials but I’ll get you whatever you ask for.” Instead of patting or squeezing his shoulder like she normally would have done, she tapped the table and smiled again. Before going to check on Shelly, she walked over to Brent. “Hey, baby.”

“Evening, Finn.” Brent nodded at her and gave the slightest of smiles. “How’s your sister?”

“Awww that’s so sweet of you to remember. She’s out of the hospital now. Trying to rest up but my new nephew isn’t letting her.” Finnegan said. “Keeps wanting his mama’s milk.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Listen. I know you already noticed but,” Finnegan lowered her voice just in case. “Keep an eye on the guy in the hoodie, will ya? I hate profiling him like that. But him hiding his face rubs me the wrong way.”

“You got it.”

“Thank you, Brent. You are the best.” She blew him a kiss and walked over to Shelly who was attempting to balance five drinks on a platter. “Oh sweetie here. Let me help you.”

“No no. I got it. I have to practice.” Shelly frowned stubbornly. “Thanks though.”

“If you say so. How’s your table treating you? Eyes only?”

“One put his hand on my ass.”

“Which one?” Finnegan tensed. “I’ll have Brent talk to him.”

“No no it’s okay. His friend hit him for me.” Shelly shook her head rapidly. “And it’s my fault anyway. I don’t know what’s too far and flirted with him a little extra.”

“Shelly. Sweetheart.” Finnegan sighed. “It is absolutely not your fault! You understand me? The rules here are simple. You flirt. You tease your body a little. But our customers are not allowed to grope you. They come here to look at something nice and get some extra attention while they eat good food. If they want to grope a woman they can get a prostitute or a stripper willing to bend the rules. Buck’s girls do not provide that service.”

“Okay, Finn.” Shelly smiled gratefully. “Thank you. I’m gonna go serve them now.”

“Remember, Brent is there for a reason. He’s our friend not our customers’.” Finnegan headed to Greg who had just been served his burger. “Well, Greg. How’s that burger treating you?”

“Treating me better than my ex wife.” Greg chuckled. “Wasn’t sure if I’d like the turkey patty but it’s damn good.”

“Well screw her if a patty is better!” Finnegan laughed with him.

“What’s that sauce on here? Never had anything like it.”

“Well that’s Buck’s secret! Even Cooper doesn’t know what’s in it and he made you that burger.” Finnegan said, then pointed over to a shelf situated next to the bar. On it were bottles of Buck’s Sauce. “You wanna take a bottle home with you?”

Greg looked over at the shelf, then pointed at the shirt rack next to it. “I’ll come back for the burger. But I think I will get myself a t-shirt. I should get the word out.”

“That would mean so much to me, Greg.” Finnegan grinned. “What size does a big strong man like you wear? A large?”

“Extra large, sweet heart.” Greg chuckled. “I wasn’t kidding about watching what I eat. I need to.”

“Oh hush you’re handsome.”

“I said I was fat, not ugly.” Greg winked.

That got a genuine laugh out of Finnegan. “Truer words have never been spoken. I’ll drop the shirt off in a minute.” She squeezed his shoulder and walked over to Mike and Jake’s table. “Well, gentleman. Enjoying those crab cakes?”

Mike hurriedly swallowed. “Delicious!”

Jake took his time chewing and swallowing, but he did smile at her. “Just like I remembered.”

“Wonderful!” Finnegan said. “Are you ready to order your main course?”

“Yep.” Jake said. “Mikey go ahead and tell her.”

“Oh. Uhm.” Mike’s face didn’t blush when he looked at her but his ears did turn lobster red. “I’ll have Buck’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich w-with fries on the side. A-and Jake wants the Southerner Chicken Sandwich. With fries. Fries.”

“Two chicken sandwiches for my boys, coming right up.” She placed the order on her tablet, then smiled at Mike. “I like your tattoos, Mike.”

“Th-thank you.”

“He’s a tattoo artist.” Jake chimed in.

“Really? That’s amazing!”

“I’m an a-p-prentice still.” Mike corrected. “Not official.”

“Well you’ll need to practice on someone then, right?” Finnegan asked. “Why not me?”

“You have tattoos?” Mike glanced at her pale hands and arms.

“Where they are is a secret.” Finnegan winked but she did pull her collar to the side, slightly, revealing a hint of ink. “Write your shop’s name down when y’all pay the bill. I’ll come and check you out. See if we can work out a design.”

“C-cool. Thank you.”

“Told you coming here would be a good idea.” Jake grinned. “You just got a customer.”

“You sure did.” Finnegan squeezed Mike’s shoulder. “Alright I’ll be back in a bit. Need me to get a refill for that beer, Jake?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jake got up, stuffing the last crab cake into his mouth. “Gonna head to the bathroom, Mike.”

Finnegan waved at Mike, winked at Greg as she passed him, and arrived at Barry’s table. “Well Mr. Barry. What can I get for you?”

“The fish and chips.”

“Sure!” Finnegan smiled. She noticed him peek at her before looking away. “No appetizers?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Suit yourself, Barry.” Finnegan shrugged. “It’ll be out in a little bit, alright?”

“Okay.” Barry nodded. “And a soda. Please.”

“Ahh changed your mind, did ya?” Finnegan said. “What kind of bubbly goodness do you want?”

“Dr. Pepper.”

“Man of excellent taste.” Finnegan gave him a thumbs up and patted the table. “I’ll be right back with that.”

She was getting that drink when Jake approached her. “Hey, Finn.”

“Hey, Jake.” Finnegan said. “Need something?”

“Just wanted to thank you for being so nice to Mike.” Jake said. “If you couldn’t tell, he’s a little awkward around women. It’s why I brought him here.”

“Well of course, Jake!” Finnegan smiled, leaning on the counter and facing him. “And he’s not that awkward. A little shy maybe. But it’s cute.”

“I’ve tried telling him that women aren’t scary but…” Jake sighed and shrugged. “Hopefully tonight helps a little.”

“I’m sure it will. I’m glad I can help.” Finnegan grabbed the fresh beer as Sal handed it to her. “And here’s that beer you wanted.” Finnegan watched him go, then headed to Barry’s table. “One Dr. Pepper for you, Mr. Barry.”

“Thank you.” Barry said. “Finn.”

“You’re welcome.” Finnegan said. “Anything else I can do for ya? You’ve got a good view of the tv so I can change the channel for ya, if you’d like.”

“That’s fine. I have my phone.” Barry gestured with his chin at his phone. The screen was filled with text.

“Oooo what are you reading?”

“Wheel of Time.” Barry said, tone hesitant. “It’s a series by…”

“Robert Jordan.” Finnegan finished. “I haven’t read it but it’s on my list.”

“Really?”

Though she couldn’t see his face that well, Finnegan was sure he looked shocked. “What? Can’t a pretty girl like me enjoy some fantasy?”

“You can. It’s just…”

“Surprising?” Finnegan laughed. “I know. I get it all the time. But I’m a fantasy nerd just like you.” She looked around then leaned over conspiratorially and whispered. “I’ve got a Brass Allomantic symbol tattoo on my waist. Do you know what that means?”

“Soother.”

“Yep!” Finnegan cheered. “Sanderson is an absolute genius, isn’t he?”

“He is.” Barry nodded.

“Well I’ll leave you to read. Don’t wanna get in the way of that. I know how annoyed I get when people interrupt my storytime.” Finnegan stood back up normally. “Your dinner will be here soon.”

“Thank you, Finn.”

Finnegan winked then went to grab an extra-large shirt for Greg. “Here ya go, Greg. And since you were being smart and taking care of your health, the shirt is on the house.”

“Really?” Greg beamed. “Can you do that?”

“Buck is flexible with his favorites.” Finnegan said. “And I’m his number one.”

“Seems like a great guy.”

“Only ones better than him are his customers.”

“You’re never off, are you?” Greg laughed. “With the customer pleasing.”

“Oh Greg I am always on.” Finnegan winked. “Anything else I can get for you?”

“Well I want a milkshake. But I wouldn’t want to disappoint you so I’ll just have the check.”

“Yay! Good man.” Finnegan jumped in place and clapped her hands together, pretending to not notice the attention it got from him. “I’ll be back with your check. The t-shirt will be on there, for our own inventory purposes, but you’re not going to be charged. If it seems like you were, though, let me know!”

“Thank you, Finn.”

Finnegan headed to Jake and Mike’s table after grabbing Greg’s check and dropping it off. “How are you boys doing?”

“Well I’m doing great.” Jake laughed, putting his sandwich down. “How about you, Mikey?”

“G-g-good.” Mike sniffled. He looked as though he had been crying.

“Awww Mikey… I assumed you could handle spice since you asked for it.” Finnegan held back a chuckle. “We usually do a complementary slice of cake or pie for birthday boys but we can do a milkshake instead. It’ll calm your tongue down. Vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry?”

“Vanilla.” Mike sniffled again. “Please.”

“Oh wow I’m so surprised you picked vanilla.” Finnegan smirked.

“Could I get a milkshake too? Chocolate.” Jake asked, watching her put in the order.

“You aren’t the birthday boy, Jake. You’ll be charged for that one.”

“Really?” Jake frowned exaggeratedly.

“Yep.” Finnegan frowned in response as a fake apology.

“Ah it’s fine. Bring me one anyway. Along with the check.”

“Sure! Be back soon, boys.” She walked over to Greg’s table and, when he caught sight of her, began dragging her feet in as slowly as she could without looking stupid. “Do you really have to go?”

“My dogs are waiting for me. So yes.” Greg smiled. “I had a good time tonight, Finn. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Give your pups extra belly rubs on my behalf.” Finnegan picked up his card along with the check. “And please do come back! Hopefully I’m the one that gets to wait on you.”

“I hope so too.”

After double checking that he hadn’t been charged for the t-shirt, Finnegan swiped his card. With his receipt printed, she returned to Greg’s table, once again walking as slowly as she could to it once they made eye contact. “Here you go, Greg. Drive safe.”

“Will do.” Greg said. “Listen. I know all the attention you give us and everything is part of your job. But it’s still really nice. And it feels authentic.”

“Wouldn’t feel right to me if I wasn’t being authentic, Greg.” Finnegan said. “It is my job. But I enjoy doing it.”

“I believe you.”

Finnegan hugged him from the side, once again pressing her breasts to his head, and walked to Barry’s table. “Mr. Barry.”

“Finn.”

“How are the fish and chips?” Finnegan asked. “As good as I promised?”

“Mhm.” Barry nodded. “Thank you.”

“I knew it! That’s what I always get when I eat here. Cooper is a genius cook.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Oh! Didn’t know that.” Finnegan raised an eyebrow. “Well that makes you family. Sort of. How come we haven’t seen each other before?”

“Been a long time since I came here.” Barry said after a few moments of silence.

Finnegan assumed it had something to do with the bandages he kept hiding. “Ah. Well. Good to have you back, Mr. Barry.”

“Good to be back.”

Finnegan felt she could get him to talk more if she pressed him but decided against it. “After my other two customers leave, do you mind if I join you? I can take my dinner break early.”

“Oh. Sure.” Barry looked up at her in shock and she caught sight of a scarred face. He jerked his head back down immediately. “If you want.”

“Dinner is more fun with company.” Finnegan said. “Want me to bring over any dessert for you to have something to eat while I do?”

“Apple pie. If you have it.”

“We sure do!” Finnegan patted the table then went to grab the two milkshakes that were waiting for Jake and Mike. Once she had those, along with their check, she returned to the boys. “Here you go! One vanilla and one chocolate. Happy birthday, Mikey!”

Mike grabbed his and began sucking on the straw immediately. Jake laughed. “He says thanks.”

“Thank you…” Mike added quietly.

“You’re welcome. Are you the type to enjoy people singing happy birthday or….” She saw the look on his face. “No. Gotcha.”

“Aw come on.” Jake threw his hands in the air. “You being uncomfortable is the best part.”

“Birthday boy gets to pick.” Finnegan put the check in front of Jake. “And birthday boy’s brother pays, right?”

“Right.” Jake sighed heavily. He took his wallet out and gave her the card and check.

“Aren’t you gonna look at the check?”

“I trust a girl that works for Buck.” Jake smiled.

“Good policy. We’re the best.” Finnegan smiled back, then walked away to charge him. Despite her rush to get back to Barry, Finnegan checked to be sure Jake was being billed for the right items before swiping his card. Once that was done, she returned. “Remember. Write down your tattoo shop’s name, Mike!”

“I will.” Mike said. His milkshake was almost done.

“Careful! Don’t want you getting a brain freeze.” Finnegan patted his back playfully before giving him a pen to write with. “Alright then. You boys have a safe night, alright?”

“You too, Finn.” Jake said. “That’s what Brent over there is for, right?”

Finnegan laughed, gave them both a side hug, and grabbed the check from Greg’s table. She raised both eyebrows in surprise at the extremely generous tip he had left her before heading to the kitchen. “Hey, Cooper!”

“Hey, Finnegan.” Cooper didn’t look up from the burgers he was grilling.

“Your friend Barry is here. I’m serving him.”

“Is he? Cool.” Cooper smiled. “Been convincing him for weeks. Don’t bill him, by the way. His meal’s on me.”

“You got it.” Finnegan nodded. “Any chance I can be nosy and you can tell me what he’s hiding?”

“No chance, Finn.”

“Ahh that’s fine.” Finnegan shrugged. “Tell me this though. Is he a good guy?”

“The best.”

“In that case, could you have some fish and chips sent over to his table for me? I’m taking my dinner break with him.”

“Little early for a dinner break, don’t you think?”

“Who’s gonna stop me? The only one here with seniority over me is you.” Finnegan pouted. “You gonna stop me, Coop?”

“Nope.”

“Love ya.” Finnegan said. “I’m gonna grab a slice of pie for him as well.”

“Help yourself.”

Pie in hand, she returned to Barry. “Either you’re not enjoying your meal or you’re a slow eater.”

“Slow eater.” Barry said. As if to demonstrate, he took a single bite out of a fry that was small enough for him to eat whole.

“I’m a vacuum.” Finnegan put his pie to the side. “Thanks for letting me join you.”

“Thank you.” Barry said. “Didn’t know that happened here.”

“There aren’t any rules against it.” Finnegan said. “Just as long as we don’t go past our break time. Also helps that you’re a friend of Cooper. Wouldn’t be comfortable doing this with a customer I don’t know.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know Cooper though.” Finnegan winked. “A friend of Cooper is a friend of mine. He doesn’t make friends easily.”

Barry chuckled. “No. He doesn’t.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Since we were kids. Fifth grade.”

“Wow!” Finnegan exclaimed. “Only people I’ve been friends with since I was a kid are my parents.”

“I got lucky.” Barry said. “How long have you been working here?”

“Five years once we get to April 15th.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thank you. I love this job.”

“Easy to tell.”

“Is that so?”

“You’re very enthusiastic and friendly.” Barry said. “Hard to fake.”

“Never underestimate a girl working customer service.” Finnegan laughed. “But you’re right. Only days I’m not genuine is when I’m not feeling alright. But if I’m good on the inside? Every smile you get comes from the heart.”

Their conversation mainly revolved around the various fantasy worlds they wished they could visit, if not live in. Even the dystopian societies had a draw to them due to the amazing magic that happened there. Barry seemed interested in anything that took him away from whatever was happening in his life. He never blatantly said it. But Finnegan could pick up on his escapist fantasies, perhaps because she could directly empathize.

“You’ve been here awhile.” Barry said, after the conversation lulled for a few moments. “You want to stay at Buck’s?”

“Saving up for grad school.” Finnegan said. “If I get into the local school I’ll still keep working here though. Girls gotta eat, right?”

“And buy new books.”

“Yes, sir.” Finnegan smiled and tipped her glass to him. She then saw that a new group get seated in her section. “Well shit. Looks like my break is over.”

Barry looked over to where she was looking and sighed. “Ah. Okay. It was nice talking to you.”

“Booooo.” Finnegan pouted as she got up. “Only nice?”

“Great, Finn.” Barry laughed. “It was great. Could I get the check?”

“Nope.”

“...huh?” “Coop is paying for ya.”

“He doesn’t have to do that…”

“He wants to, silly.” Finnegan said. “Next time you come in, you can pay for his dinner.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Finnegan could feel his smile. “Elbow bump goodbye?”

“Elbow bump see you later.” Barry held his elbow out and she bumped it with hers. “Thank you for tonight, Finn. I really needed it. I hope to see you again when I come in.”

“You’re very welcome Barry.” Finnegan smiled at him. “And you will if you’re lucky.” They bumped elbows again and Finnegan watched him go. She sighed, stretched, and walked to the new group of customers. “Welcome to Buck’s, gentleman! I’m Finnegan, you can call me Finn, and I’ll be your waitress tonight. How y’all doing?”

-Saha

2 notes · View notes

playerstarlight · 5 years

Text

velia announcement is dropped.

[ kael to izabel ] iz iz iz, did u hear??? bout vla? [ izabel to kael ] what’s a vla?

the first time she even heard the game was from her younger brother. starlight’s scene has always been more on the horror side if she’s playing video games -- which really wasn’t often. her younger brothers, especially kael, were always more into video games. usually the kind didn’t matter but he a fascination with a world outside of the real one. something izabel never exactly understood but there were times when she felt the passion that the eight year old boy exhibited for some dumb game amusing, even enduring. especially as he talked about becoming the best player -- better than betas. really, it was his own fault izabel hatched the plan to play the game to be one step ahead of him in skills and levels. too bad that would never really happen.

one month before velia is released.

[ kael to izabel ] izzzzzzzzzy. dads still syin no [ kael to izabel ] thugh u culd tlk to him? [ izabel to kael ] it’s a video game kael not the end of the world [ kael to izabel ] buuuuut izzzzzz [ izabel to kael ] cant u wait ur birthday is coming up rght? dad might get it then [ kael to izabel ] thas two far it wnt be fun thn !!! [ izabel to kael ] *too [ izabel to kael ] three weeks is not far moron & if its not gonna be fun in three weeks why get it ?? [ kael to izabel ] thets not he poit

this is a conversation she would end up having with him nearly everyday until may. he was not about to give up on this one video game -- something she really didn’t understand. but little did he know, she was already talking to their dad, setting this entire thing up as some kind of early birthday gift with of course, the unknown knowledge that she was going to be there to ensure that the game was actually appropriate for eight year old -- nearly nine -- to play. she has this entire plan on getting on before he does, working on the skills and just being a far better player than he will be -- all to get under his skin as revenge for the constant messages about this game. which meant she had to get her own copy and headset for this game. a pain really -- and a regret later down the road.

velia release date.

[ kael to izabel ] ha ! i new u wuld talk too dad! [ izabel to kael ] *to [ izabel to kael ] and i have no idea what you are referencing

throughout the day her phone was buzzing with messages from her brother, her parents, the family group chat. everyone had something to say about this velia game, and her kid brother was just so damn excited to get it. her stepmom spent that day letting izabel know the exact moment they were going to reveal the gift to the kid, even sending her a video of him opening the gift. while her dad swore he wasn’t going to let her brother get on until after lunch which gave her some time to set up the trap, or at least set up her own game and get going on building whatever skills or shit the thing even had. fuck, how does one even play things like that? izabel has always been one for horror games, never tried it in a virtual reality world. she wasn’t too focused on the time, wasn’t paying any mind that it was after lunch, after the point where she should be meeting up with him -- wherever that was supposed to be but she told her parents that she’ll find a way. that’s what izabel did, figured shit out.

not anymore.

at first, the players around her just thought it was a bug. the logout button will quickly return. sure there are people out there going crazy over how it’s not there! somebody's getting fired. but those jokes were quickly left aside as panic set in when they were all gathered at this town square. when his voice came on to inform that that this was the real game -- getting out, surviving velia. death was apart of it and you either lived to see the real world again or die. there was no way out but up the floors, clearly them all one by one, working together. funny how all of that turned out now.

the town square filled with every single player meant that there were far too many players to push through the crowd and find one little eight year old kid. her panic wasn’t about the logout button, it wasn’t about the prospect of dying inside a video game -- it was about kael. she was suppose to be looking out for him -- making sure he was going to do fine in this game, teasing him with her level. she was suppose to look so cool with skills higher than his own. but how could she do that if he wasn’t there? if she can’t find him? how will she know he’s safe, away from any harm? god damn it, she needs to find him, to make sure that he’ll survive this. he’s eight years old for fuck’s sake. this game was a mistake. helping her brother get it was a mistake. she has to fix this -- it’s her job as an older sister. her responsibility.

and yet everywhere she looked, he wasn’t there.

present day.

leaving behind luna? a mistake. but one she would make it again if it meant that joining unity would help her find her brother through those orphanages that house so many kids and just be able to be around them who may even know her brother and where he could be. the only sacrifice she would have to make is losing her friend? so be it. it was a sacrifice she had to make. no matter how hard that actually was, no matter how much she wished she could fix things. perhaps starlight could have done something different, perhaps she should have asked luna to join her -- but she wasn’t thinking. no, she was only thinking about herself. selfish, she knows, and so does luna now.

everything that luna says about her is always right. the other had the natural ability to look past her bullshit and see who she really is -- selfish, cruel. everything that her guild doesn’t stand for and yet that’s exactly who she is. unity was far too good, too kind, too caring. the members in the guild were far better people than she ever could be, that she ever was. just because her cursor is green doesn’t mean she’s without flaws.

every moment she spends inside the guild was just another moment to add to her feeling like a fraud inside her own skin. and with her younger brother not being anywhere in sight, this was getting draining. the game, the players, the floors. everything. she hasn’t felt normal since -- well, since seeing abby again. but even that was short lived. normal wasn’t something she knew anymore.

and here she was nowhere closer to finding her brother. all of this was for nothing. pushing away all those she gave a damn about and for what? nothing. absolutely zip. there were the comments here and there, rumors that turned up to be false, players who had the same appearance as her brother for the most part but in the end, weren’t him. was he even still out there or was she just looking for a ghost?

damn, it’s been a while since she felt like this -- this hopelessness. the empty pit in her stomach she feels every time she swallows, the dread she gets every time she wakes -- if she does end up sleeping that night. the burning desire to just -- keep going. not stopping for a second. pushing herself until there is nothing else she can do. nothing left inside of her. but maybe she was already at the latter point. last time she had felt this way where it was overwhelming was when she was with ben -- before they had rebuilt their lesson for the twentith time at least. he seemed to always be there when she really needed him and well, now -- she was thinking selfishly again. if she could turn messages off, she would have done so by now. but instead, she let it sit there. let the messages build up. once again, pushing him away. just like she did with anyone that ever grown too close. distance was much better. distance allowed people not to care. and she cannot keep caring. all caring does is hurt and that’s one pain she’s tired of constantly having.

it’s been three years. three years of this bullshit. three years of being stuck in a game and what does she have to show it? she was meant to find her brother on the launch day just to mess with him -- joining the game to make fun of him only to be here with him, no where to be found. every other player is accounted for, online or not. she would have found him by now. maybe everyone is right. maybe he was dead.

and every time that thought even starts to come up, she forces it back down -- but not this time. this time is different. this time, she believes it. after all, thanatos never has given her a reason not to trust them. things that they have heard, rumors they passed along -- they were right for the most part, those rumors just never lead to her brother standing in front of her. but rather to someone else, another boy lost and forgotten. and now, she’s questioning that a rumor will never hold an ounce of truth.

because this wasn’t a rumor. no one can fake this. written in the library -- it was plain and simple. an obituary pops up and the familiar name, one that she had once spent long hours to help him learn to write each individual letter. a name she’s said in many different tones, with the occasion full name annoyance. a name written in block letters above a door in some house in ohio. or maybe it’s not anymore.

after all. he’s been dead for three years.

this was exactly why she never bothered to come to the library and use the database. she was always afraid of finding exactly this. afraid that searching his name in the library, this would be what comes up. afraid to know that the last years of searching, avoiding, pushing everyone and everything to the side just so the chance to find him was all for nothing. afraid to learn that everything that happened was her fault. she wasn’t there.

and now that’s exactly what she learned.

this information just leaves her -- empty. enraged. tired. this game does nothing but take and take and take. she can’t remember the last conversation that she had with him -- one that wasn’t over the phone. can’t remember his voice. is that what just happens? you forgot those little things you thought you could never forget -- things you thought you wouldn’t care enough to miss?

the day she went to the library -- she just left without a single word. without any further communication towards -- anyone, including ben. including those in her guild. though the latter wasn’t exactly odd for her but she always checked in. how long can she go without speaking to anyone? two days? five? maybe that random player -- goldengurlz -- would be the last one she speaks to before she runs out. runs out of arrows. runs out of healing potions. doesn’t matter which one happens first. was her new little mission now was to just use whatever she must up in her inventory and throw herself into a fight that there was no positive outcome for her? probably. maybe. it’s not like she was thinking straight anymore.

but what she was currently thinking about was creating the most damage she could before going out in flames. use everything that she must before a strike made her turn into dust like she’s seen so many others become. if she really wanted to do some damage to this damn game before she’s out of arrows, out of bullshiting her way through the days, it seemed to her that this was the best, and only, way out now. after all,

it’s not like she has anything left to live for.

#veliasad #—°. ♛ ⁞ development.#death tw #death mention tw #depression tw #// veliasad is just bc i thought it was funny #also sidenote: star is gonna be ... mia for a while (probably for like a day bc i love her and have some things planned #BUT #i hope you all cried #and have a good friday #ps. i queue this for midnight my time friday so if its not friday for u #then #sux to sux #jokes i love u #unless ur dani #i made this icon especially for today #that is all

10 notes · View notes

psychosistr · 5 years

Text

A Playful Spark- Chapter 5, Present Day

Summary: Quackerjack returns to the hideout he shares with his electrifying partner and some interesting facts come to light when they have a conversation regarding their names...

Notes: Final chapter! Hope everyone enjoyed the short but (mostly) sweet and fluffy ride xD

-First Chapter-

<-Previous Chapter

~Age: No Longer Sure~

Quackerjack kicked open the door of his current hideout with a chuckle, a bag of stolen goodies hoisted over his shoulder. “Oh Sparky, I’m hoo~ooome!” He called up towards the top of the lighthouse.

“Don’t call me Sparky!” Came the immediate reply of his electrically themed partner in crime from up the stairs.

Quackerjack giggled to himself as he hauled the loot up the stairs so he could show it off to the other super villain.

The insane toy making enthusiast had been introduced to the amped-up lightbulb liberator through another super villain named Negaduck, who, together with Quackerjack, his partner Megavolt, and their cohorts Dr.Bushroot and the Liquidator, formed a terrifying group dubbed “The Fearsome Five” that briefly took over St. Canard and regularly committed great acts of theft and mayhem throughout the town.

While he didn’t see the others as regularly outside of Fearsome Five (Fearsome Four if Negaduck was absent) work, he’d formed a rather special bond with the charged menace and found himself spending more and more time with the rodent. They worked exceptionally well together, able to match each other’s strengths and weaknesses quite well.

It also didn’t hurt that Megavolt was just as insane as Quackerjack AND that he shared the jester’s love of puns, jokes, and theatrics.

Aside from their bond as villains, though, Quackerjack couldn’t help but feel a certain kind of kinship with the unhinged rat that he hadn’t felt with anyone in a particularly long time. Even outside of causing mayhem and destruction, he liked spending time with the other villain doing whatever either one of them felt like in that particular moment. It didn’t take long at all for the two to become partners in more than one way…

As he reached the top of the stairs and tossed the bag into the room carelessly, Quackerjack finally got a good look at his electrifying counterpart.

The yellow-wearing rat was currently hard at work on some blueprints for a new gadget that he said would give them control of every electronic lock in the city- allowing them to steal its most heavily guarded items with ease. Megavolt had a strained look of concentration on his face as he frantically scribbled across the paper, likely trying to jot everything down before he forgot about it again.

With a mischievous smirk, Quackerjack snuck over to his distracted partner and placed his hands over the other villain’s goggles to cover his eyes. “Guess who, Sparky?”

“Quackyyy!” Megavolt groaned in frustration as he pulled the toy maker’s hands off of his goggles. “I told you to stop calling me Sparky!” As if in counterpoint to his claims, or as a demonstration of his nickname, a small spark of electricity jumped from his whiskers when he turned to glare at the duck.

“Aww, lighten up, Megsy!” Quackerjack teased, putting his hands on the other’s fluffy cheeks so he could squish them together. “Sparky’s a great nickname!”

“No, it’s annoying.” Megavolt said while swatting the other’s hands away with a pout. He then folded his arms and looked away, clearly sulking. “Can’t you call me something else since we’re, you know, dating?” He paused, blinked twice as if something just occurred to him, then looked back up at Quackerjack with a confused expression. “We..are dating, right, Jackie? Or is that something I just thought up?”

Quackerjack giggled quietly and wrapped his arms around his partner’s neck with an amused smile. “Yeah, Megs, we’re dating.” Megavolt’s short-term amnesia problem had made the first few months of their relationship interesting, resulting in many times where Quackerjack had to remind him of the TRUE nature of their partnership. He didn’t mind repeating himself a few times- after all, it just meant he got to do little things like give Megavolt a first kiss all over again! “Besides,” He continued after giving the rodent a smooch on the tip of his long nose. “If we weren’t dating, you wouldn’t know my name!”

He let go of the confused rat and walked over to where he’d left his stolen goodies, pulling out an equally mixed assortment of valuables, money, and snacks. He found one of his favorite chocolate bars and peeled the wrapper off so he could take a big bite, humming in satisfaction as he ate.

“I know your name?” Megavolt asked, walking over to join Quackerjack and take out the loot. He grabbed a chocolate bar as well and peeled it open to take a bite.

“Mhm, you said it a minute ago- you called me Jackie.” Quackerjack explained, finishing his chocolate bar and tossing the wrapper aside carelessly.

“I did?” Megavolt questioned, still looking confused. “I thought I called you Quacky?” He finished his candy as well and tossed the wrapper aside in a similar fashion.

“You did, but you called me Jackie, too.” Quackerjack paused briefly to think over a rather crucial bit of information. “Say, Megsy, I don’t think we ever actually TOLD each other our names, did we?”

“Did we?” Megavolt wondered aloud, trying hard to remember if they had or not. “We must have, right? How else would I know YOURS?”

Quackerjack shrugged. “Could’ve just been a lucky guess. Buuuuut-” He cartwheeled over to the still confused rodent and pointed at him dramatically. “You should tell me your name, too, Sparky!”

Megavolt gave his companion a half-hearted glare. “If I do, will you quit calling me Sparky for five minutes?” When Quackerjack just shrugged again with a giggle, Megavolt rolled his eyes. “Fiiiiiine. But you have to promise not to laugh!”

“Sure thing, sparkles.” Quackerjack teased with a chuckle, one hand moving so he could cross his fingers behind his back.

Megavolt grimaced at the irritating pet name and hesitated a moment more before glancing away and finally revealing his name. “…It’s..It’s Elmo…”

Quackerjack’s previous chuckling came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

A simple name. Four letters, two syllables.

A once familiar word he hadn’t said aloud in who knew how long.

“El..mo..?” He repeated the name back, his voice trembling as he stared at the rat in disbelief.

There’s no way…

He couldn’t be…

“Yeah, yeah..” Megavolt said irritably. “I know, it’s a dorky name. Go ahead and get it out of your syst-AAAH!” He yelped when the clown suddenly tackled him to the ground, hovering over him with a strangely desperate and bewildered look on his face. “Owww!” He whined from the pain of hitting the ground, reaching around to rub the back of his head. “What was that for Quack..er..jack..?” He trailed off when he finally took notice of the way the duck was looking at him. “What???”

Quackerjack didn’t answer his friend at first. Instead, he just reached down with shaking hands and began to remove the other’s hat and goggles.

Everything else about him fit: The name, the rest of his face, the engineering brilliance, the fascination with electricity, the way they got along so well, his sense of humor-

He wanted so desperately for his assumption to be true, but he HAD to be sure.

Once he finally had the confused rat’s hat and goggles off of his head for a change, he let out a choked gasp. “Elmo..”

There was no mistaking it..

The brown hair and the shape of his head confirmed it.

He may have changed a little due to age and his eyes had shrunken quite a bit, but he really WAS Elmo Sputterspark.

While he was busy being blown away by this revelation, Megavolt was getting frustrated from his position beneath the jester on the floor. “You’re weirding me out, Quackerjack..more than usual..can you just get o-?” His complaining stopped when the bird above him suddenly wrapped both arms around the electric rat in a tight embrace and he buried his face against a yellow-clad shoulder. “Quacky..?” He asked with a frown, clearly confused by the other’s extra-weird behavior.

Quackerjack’s body began to tremble as he held onto the smaller man, almost as if he were afraid to let go. “Heh..heheh..ehehaha..” A sudden giggle-fit consumed him that rapidly escalated into full-blown manic laughter. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAHAHHAHAH!”

Megavolt finally had enough of the duck’s odder-than-usual behavior and managed to sit up, giving the duck a light shove so that he began to roll around on the floor during his laughing fit. “I don’t get it- what’s so funny?” He asked with an annoyed pout.

“LIFE!” Quackerjack answered breathlessly between his loud bouts of laughter. “Life is HILARIOUS, Elmo! LIFE! Woohoohoohaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!” The insane clown eventually gained enough control over himself again to sit back up and give the beyond-confused electrophile a proper explanation. He did so by reaching into the chest area of his costume and pulling out something that was carefully preserved in a plastic baggy. “Do you remember this?” He asked, handing the object over to Megavolt.

“??” The rodent took the offered bag with a curious tilt of his head. He saw that inside the baggy was a worn out photograph of a young rat boy and an older duck boy dressed as a pair of prisoners with the words “Jackie and Elmo, PARTNERS IN CRIME!” around the white boarder. “This..This is..me..and..” Megavolt stared at the image for several seconds before something seemed to click in his mind and he turned to the smiling duck with wide eyes. “You…” Unfortunately, he seemed to get the wrong meaning from the picture because this time he was the one to tackle the other to the ground. He held the grinning madman by the front of his shirt while his other hand held the picture tightly. “Where did you get this?! I swear, if you hurt him, I’m gonna-!!”

“Slow your roll, Mo.” Quackerjack giggled, thinking the other looked so cute when he was all protective and angry like that. “I’m not THAT much of a masochist- I wouldn’t hurt myself over a picture.”

Megavolt apparently still didn’t get the meaning behind the other’s words, electricity sparking along the hand that was holding the duck’s colorful costume serving as a clear sign of his frustration. “What are you talking about, Quackerjack?”

With a smile that was slightly less insane than his usual ones, Quackerjack brought his hands up towards his bizarre hat-mask combination. “You don’t have to call me that, y’know. I already told you, Mo-” He pushed the fabric up enough to reveal his face to the other super villain. “Call me Jackie.”

Megavolt stared long and hard at the face below him before, with a blink that left his eyes wider than before, a jolt of electricity visibly passed up his body and through his hair- as if the realization was trying to physically manifest itself. “!!” He dropped the picture and brought a quivering hand to the clown’s face, touching it as though he wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was real or not. “J..Jackie…?”

Quackerjack grinned up at the stunned rat and placed one of his own hands over the one on his face. “Took you THAT long to get it, Mo? Guess you really did fry your brain, huh?”

“You-You were wearing a mask!” The rodent looked slightly embarrassed over being called out in such a way. “How was I supposed to know it was you?!”

“Are you kidding me?” Quackerjack asked as he sat up abruptly, knocking both of them over in the other direction so he was on top again. “I used the same name as my toy company! How could you not know?! And why didn’t you ever come visit me, you jerk?! I was worried sick!”

“I…I forgot..” Megavolt admitted with a frown, bringing a hand to his head as a look of pain crossed his face. “I couldn’t remember where you lived..or where I lived..I couldn’t remember where to find you or what your company was called..I barely remembered my own name, but I…I tried so hard to make sure I at least remembered YOU..I-I couldn’t remember your voice, but I tried to hold on to your face..” He opened his eyes and looked up at his closest friend in the world with an expression full of pain and remorse. “I’m…I’m sorry, Jackie…I tried..I-I really..”

“Elmo..” Quackerjack’s expression softened as he sat back up, pulling the other into his arms the same way he had so many times when they were younger. A hand instinctively found its way to the other’s slightly singed hair and pet it in a familiar, soothing motion. “It’s alright, buddy..we’re together now..” He hugged him tighter and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ve got my partner in crime again.” He tilted both of their heads down so that their foreheads could touch and he closed his eyes with a peaceful smile on his face.

“Heh, me too.” Megavolt said with a small smile, wrapping his own arms around the older duck and holding onto him just as tightly. “…Hey..Jackie..?”

“Yeah, Mo?” Quackerjack asked while opening one eye so he could look into the other’s shrunken pupil.

The sight that greeted him was a bright smile on that familiar-yet-new face. “Guess I’m finally old enough to take you out for that drink, huh?”

“Pfft! Hahahaha!” The question earned a snort of laughter from the duck. “I guess you are, kid!” He jumped up to his feet agilely, pulling the maniacal rat up with him. “C’mon, let’s paint the town red!” He joked while pulling his red mask/hat back into place.

“We’ll light up the night!” Megavolt cackled in agreement, putting his own hat and goggles back on and sparking brightly with electricity while taking Quackerjack’s hand in his own.

Jumping down the stairs two at a time while Megavolt walked at a steady pace beside him, Quackerjack couldn’t resist bringing up something that he felt needed to be said. “Oh yeah, by the way- I kicked your old man’s butt.”

Megavolt let out a loud laugh at that. “Really? Great! He was a jerk!…At least, I think he was…”

Quackerjack chuckled in agreement. “Yeah, he was. He punched me, so I kicked his butt…and his head, guts, ribs, and chest. Your parents refused to come back after that, for some reason.” He giggled gleefully as he remembered the feeling of beating the obnoxious rodent with such primal rage. He was suddenly jerked to a halt when he realized that the voltage junkie behind him had stopped moving. “Hm?” He tipped his head all the way back so he could see Megavolt upside down behind him. “What’s up, Megsy?”

Megavolt had a dark scowl on his face, eyes narrowed. “He HIT you?!” Sparks began flying off of his body as he seethed in anger. “Ooooh, if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll-!!” He didn’t even finish his threat, he just let out a frustrated shout and shot electricity out in a wide burst around himself and Quackerjack.

The crackling energy tickled as it raced across the duck’s body, like it always did whenever his partner let loose. He was more than used to it and often enjoyed the feeling, but, for some reason, it seemed especially attractive to him in that moment.

“Ya know, Mo..” He began with a giggle, wrapping his arms around the other villain’s shoulders. “You’re kinda cute when you’re crazy.” He pulled the startled rodent that was still standing a couple steps above him into a surprise kiss.

At first, Megavolt was too startled to do anything, but his body guided him in the proper way to kiss his partner back while his mind was still catching up. When they eventually broke apart for air, Megavolt had dull waves of static circulating around his body that were being passed along to Quackerjack’s own, causing their respective fur and feathers to fluff up slightly.

“You’re cute when you’re crazy, too, Jackie.” He said with a slightly unhinged grin. “And I love you for it.”

Quackerjack returned the grin with a less-than-sane smile of his own. “Love ya too…Sparky.” He finished with a hysteric laugh at the glare the other man shot him.

Together, the pair ventured out into the night with plans to muscle their way into a fancy restaurant and, likely, steal the wallets and valuables of the rich customers while they were there.

Many things had changed for them over the years: Neither had gotten what they dreamed of in life. Neither of them had a family or a home to go back to. Neither of them were sane, and probably never would be again.

However, those things mattered far less than what had remained the same between them:

They were still the best of friends and partners in crime, no matter what life threw at them.

<-Previous Chapter

End Notes: Decided to keep the last chapter short but sweet. This was a lot of fun to write and it was fun revisiting one of my first ever villain ships. I have plans for future fics involving these two, as well as my other favorite villainous ship from the Fearsome Five XD

Also, since this is the end, just wanted to share the fact that I partially based the events of this fic off of the relationship between my cousin and his husband. They met when they were kids, with my cousin being about 8-9 years younger than his future husband. They were close friends growing up and, around the time he got into high school, my cousin started to realize that he was gay and, at the time, the only one he told was his best friend, who also came out to him as being gay.

My cousin ended up developing a crush on his friend and eventually told him, but his friend had to turn him down because of his age. They got separated for a while and lost touch just because of school and work and life- my cousin finished high school early and went to college and his friend’s company had him move out of state, plus it was before the big boom of social media so they didn’t have as many ways to keep in touch.

They met up again years later in a gay bar in New York and started flirting with each other, and eventually started going out. It wasn’t until they’d been dating for a few months that they finally realized who the other was: My cousin’s then-boyfriend came over to his apartment to pick him up for a date and, while he was waiting for him, he looked at the pictures my cousin had on his wall and shelves and stuff, and spotted one of the two of them from when they were kids.

Needless to say, they had a big “OH MY GOD, IT’S YOU?!!!!” moment before they broke down laughing and caught each other up on their lives. They’ve been together for over twenty years now and they were one of the couples that rushed to the courthouse as soon as gay marriage became legal in New York XD

#quackervolt #quackerjack #megavolt #quackerjack/megavolt #dwd #darkwing duck #childhoodfriends!AU #Playful Spark

5 notes · View notes

canyousevmyheavydirtysoul · 5 years

Text

Love Actually. (Brendon Urie/Josh Dun x Reader)

For: @K-Winchester_02 on Wattpad

Request: (To start off, I’ve got nothing against Debby or Sarah, I actually really like them. So in this one we’ll just pretend they kinda don’t exist.) The reader lives alone and she’s been kind of down most of Christmas Eve, then she calls over her best friend Josh to hang out if he isn’t busy. He goes over, they talk, laugh and do best friend stuff like movies, popcorn, and cuddling. Brendon (the guy who has secretly liked her for a while) comes over because he didn’t want her to be alone on Christmas. She’s happy to see him (she’s secretly liked him too) but then he sees josh and gets the wrong idea, he gets kinda sad and she gets confused, a little but of drama happens, the best friend saves the day, and it can end all cute like cuddling in front of the fireplace or something……sorry if the request was super long lol

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED.

Note: Nice to know that you guys still trust me with Brendon/Josh x Reader stories lmao

Having no family around meant that the Christmas season was not exactly something you looked forward to, because everyone can agree that being alone during Christmas was not an ideal scenario.

True, you wouldn’t be alone on Christmas Day, since your friends had decided to do a ‘Friendmas’ this year. But choosing to spend the 25th with friends meant that everyone had dedicated Christmas Eve to spending time with their families.

Everyone except you, of course.

So there you were, vegetating on your sofa under a mass of blankets while some or other generic Christmas movie played on the TV. Blowing a raspberry, you started fiddling with your hair as you reached for your phone.

The clock showed that it was only 4:45pm and you groaned at the thought of suffering through loneliness for the rest of the day. You remembered that your best friend Josh had told you that his flight back from Columbus would be arriving at 2:45pm; that was two hours ago and you were certain that he was all settled from his trip already – since he’d only been gone for two days – so you decided to take a chance and call him to see if he wanted to come over and keep you company.

Much to your delight, he answered your call on the second ring and readily agreed to join you, even citing that he’d bring a hoard of food along with him. Sure enough, when the doorbell rang a mere twenty minutes later, you opened the front door to see Josh with a mountain of snacks in his arms and a Christmas hat on his head.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he smirked.

You folded your arms and cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not a very nice thing to call a lady.”

He pretended to look around. “I don’t see any ladies anywhere.”

You dropped your jaw and slapped him on the shoulder; he laughed and pushed his way past you and into the living room area.

“So,” he dropped the snacks on the coffee table before falling into your spot from earlier, “what are we going for? Home Alone? Elf? The Grinch?”

“Anything, as long as it’s not Love Actually,” you rolled your eyes and plopped down next to Josh, nudging him to move up a little and pulling the blanket over you, “That movie makes me want to throw up.”

“Hey, it’s a great movie,” he defended with a frown.

“Yeah,” you wheezed, opening up a bag of candy and popping some into your mouth, “if you have someone to be with. To us single folk, it’s utterly depressing.”

Josh smirked cheekily at you. “So what you’re saying is that you just need someone to date, and then you’ll be perfectly fine with watching the greatest Christmas movie ever made?”

You tossed him a tired look. “Yeah, sure.”

“What about Brendon?” he suggested, reclining into the plush material of the furniture. “Don’t think I don’t notice the way you check him out. You’re totally into him.”

Despite feeling extremely embarrassed by your friend’s words, you knew that you couldn’t deny them, so you clicked your tongue and struck him against the arm again.

“Shut up. Yes, alright, he’s incredibly hot and I sometimes daydream about those puffy lips buuuuut,” you took a break from your ramble to breath deeply and arch your brows before dropping your shoulders and sighing sadly, “there’s no chance that he feels the same, so there’s no point in any of it.”

“You don’t know that,” Josh scoffed, looking you up and down, “He could be on his way down here to confess his love to you right now, for all we know.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah,” you snorted, shuffling on the sofa so that you could snuggle into Josh’s side, “And in which fanfiction is that, exactly?”

Brendon was on his way down to your house right now to confess his love to you.

Okay, not exactly.

The whole ‘confessing his love’ part wouldn’t be happening (not today, at least), but he was on his way to you, along with take-out from your favourite restaurant, a bottle of your alcohol of choice, and some dessert from the best bakery in the city.

A little while ago when your friend group had been discussing their plans for Christmas Eve, you mentioned that you would be spending it alone, and his heart broke a little.

He didn’t want you to be alone, especially not during the festive season, so he made the decision that after he spent some time with his family, he’d be showing up at your door to keep you company.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the fact that you would already have company.

Brendon parked his car next to the sidewalk and gathered all of the goods he’d brought before starting up the pathway to your door. He couldn’t stop the enormous smile on his face, or the uprising of butterflies in his stomach that accompanied the thought of seeing you; it happened every time.

He reached out, about to press the bell, when he happened to glance through the window and catch sight of something that made his smile disappear instantaneously and that killed every last one of the butterflies.

With a harsh swallow, he turned and started making his way back to his car.

With narrow eyes, Josh manoeuvred his head to try and better see through the window from the awful vantage point that was your sofa.

“(Y/N), hey, I think I saw Brendon outside,” he nudged you with his elbow, still looking through the glass.

“Ha ha,” you droned, “very funny.”

“I’m serious!”

With a slight frown, you looked at Josh – who was in fact serious – before sighing and getting up to check. You opened the front door and stepped outside just in time; Brendon had opened the door to his car and was about to climb in.

“Brendon, wait!” you called out to him, quickly stepping off the porch and onto the pathway.

At the sound of your voice, his head snapped up; the butterflies returned the moment he laid eyes on you. Slowly, he shut the door and shuffled forward to meet you halfway up the path.

“Hi,” you greeted breathlessly, smiling up at him.

“Hi,” he couldn’t help but smile back.

“What are you doing here? I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m… always happy to see you but… shouldn’t you be with your family right now?” you quizzed, a bit confused with his presence.

“Yeah, I, uh,” he cleared his throat and creased his brow, “I left early ‘cause I knew you’d be alone and well… I didn’t want you to be.”

You felt your heart grow two sizes. “Oh, Bren, that’s so sweet,” you gushed, smiling again.

“But I see you’re already on a date, so I’ll leave,” he nodded marginally and took a few steps backwards; you reached out to grab him, shaking your head.

“A date? No. God, no. Josh and I are best friends, nothing more. I asked him over because I was bored. But if I knew you’d be here, I woulda kicked him to the curb a long time ago,” you chuckled, and Brendon sighed in relief.

“So, that means that you’re available?” he grinned, tilting his head down and looking at you through his lashes.

You grinned back. “One hundred percent.”

“Wonderful. I’ll get the food.” He jutted a thumb over his shoulder, at the car.

You nodded and waited for him to collect the eats. You felt your phone buzz in your pocket and you reached for it, seeing that there was a text from Josh with a picture attached.

He had lit the candles that you only kept around for display purposes and had turned down the lights, ensuring that the living room was basking in a romantic glow. You noticed that the sofa had also been pulled out to its sleeper-couch form, and the blankets and pillows had been propped up in a way that made it perfect for cuddling. And as an added bonus, the little jackass had even set up Love Actually on the TV.

You shook your head in disbelief and smiled to yourself as you read the message.

Huh, would ya look at that? Who woulda guessed that I’m a psychic? ;)

Merry Christmas, (Y/N). Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. x

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

Taglist:

@darknessdancing

@raversam

@username-number-01834

@untilyouburnallofthewitches

@underscoredarcy

70 notes · View notes

littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

Note

If you watched fairy tail and/or my hero academia, do you have headcanons about Oscar acting like tamaki or hibiki towards his teammates/friends and Ruby?

‘Sup Mojo. I know about Fairy Tail but I’ve never watched it or followed the manga. I am a fan of My Hero Academia; the anime though. I don’t follow the manga unfortunately. In terms ofthe MHA anime, I’ve only seen 2/3 seasons that are out. Haven’t settled down towatch S3 as yet. I do recognize and know a wee bit about Tamaki though. I knowhe’s part of the Big 3, right? Again, haven’t watched S3 as yet so all I knowabout Tamaki is that he’s super shy and awkward with meeting new people.

Going off of that, I can see why you wouldthink Tamaki for Oscar. However I feel like Oscar was only super shy back in V5when he first met everyone for the first time. Back in V5, Oscar was shy andjumpy at times with everyone. However he’s become more comfortable aroundeveryone a lot better now and any shred of shyness he had before has softlydiminished. He can still be awkward at times especially when put on the spot.But beyond that, I think Oscar has slowly come out of his shell in terms of hisinteractions with his teammates/friends.

He isn’t completely out of his shell as yet but he’sgetting there. This is why I’m interested to see how Oscar will fit working on a huntsmen team. It’s why I’m such an advocate for a TeamJNPR Revival with Oscar taking Pyrhha’s originalspot.

Watching Oscar learn to fight as part of a huntsmen team would be a wonderful learning experience for him and Ihonestly believe that Oscar’splace is destined to be with JNR. I understand thatJNR are only the secondary support team for Team RWBY however I’ve always favoured their team rapport over RWBY’s since I feel likeJaune, Nora and Ren have a stronger, tighter, family dynamic when compared to RWBY.

I felt a much stronger bond between JNR thanRWBY mainly because, unlike RWBY, JNR know what it’s like to lose one of theirown. Team RWBY have only been separated from each other; divided by islands andoceans but I never had any doubt that RWBY wouldn’t be united.

JNPR however have lost one of their own. They’vehad to deal with the pain and grief of losing someone who was once an intricatemember of their little family. They’ve all had to come to terms with theacknowledgement that their lost comrade was never coming back. JNR has sufferedthat blow which is why I want to see them finally rise from it. As hinted inV6, I think it can be safe to say that JNR have all unanimously accepted Pyrhha’sdeath; especially Jaune as the leader, closest person to Pyrhha and the one whowas devastated by her loss the most. As of now, JNR is in a place to move onand start to rebuild their team from the ground up, starting with find themselves a fourthmember---someone who can make them feel whole again. A worthy successor toPyrrha.

This is why I’m liking the idea of part of V7’s storyfocusing on JNPR’sRevival. I have this small headcanon where as soon asthe group arrive in Atlas and reunite with General Ironwood, RWBY, JNR and Oscar are all enrolled temporarily atAtlas Academy to continue pursuing theirhuntsmen training while they are staying within the kingdom.

Atlas is a chance to see our young heroesbecome students again---exchangestudents for that matter technically since they’restudents from one academy training at another and experiencing the culture shock that comes with it.

What if…while training at Atlas, JNR israndomly assignment a fourth team member while Oscar is placed on another huntsmen team as theirfourth member. Let’s say, JNR’s assigned fourth member was someone who graduated at the top of theirclass at combat school and was considered the best student at AtlasAcademy---similar credentials as Pyrhha. However unlike Pyrhha, this fourthmember lacked the humility and compassion that made Pyrhha a great person outsideof just being a great huntress. This huntsman was arrogant and constantly triedto upstage and undermine, not just Jaune as the team leader but Ren and Nora as well. Basicallyimagine a pompous, self-proclaimed one man huntsmen team being pushed to workwith JNR. So naturally this person isn’t a good fit for JNR but they are forcedto work with them while they’re at Atlas.

One the other side of the spectrum, poorOscar is going through his own fair share of issues because his teammates arethree of the laziest people Oscar has ever had the misfortune of working with.And unfortunately for Oscar, he’s designated the leader of this team purely because none of his teammates wanted the positionand responsibility. So Oscar struggles to lead a huntsman team that refuse tolisten and work with him while dealing with his own shortcomings of not being astrong enough fighter. The good news is Oscar is technically the strongestfighter on his team. However the bad news is that that is purely due in part tohis teammates being too idle to fight. Picture Oscar being stuck with a bunch of snooty grunts who only became huntsmenfor the potential money rather than actually wanting to help people and onlygot into Atlas because of their family name or something to that extent.

So neither JNR nor Oscar are happy being with theirrespective teams assigned to them. But it is this experience that additionallymakes Oscar’s bond with JNR grow; particular with Jaune. One thing I’ve wantedto done for the Shovel knight FRIEND-ship is Jaunementoring Oscar or at least aiding to shapehim into a better huntsman like what Pyrhha did for him.

Picture…Jaune offering to coach Oscar on his potentialleadership skills. Picture…Oscar having private sessions with bothRuby and Jaune. While Ruby assisted Oscar in strengthening his combatskills, Jaune helped Oscar with her strategicalleadership skills.

We did get to see Jaune acknowledge Oscar’skeen eyes and tactical talent back with Cordovin. Perhaps this was a sign that Jaunemay help nurture that side of Oscar in the future. Jaune has always been asolid strategist. As a matter of fact, I’d like to think that it was histactical skills and ability to command others to execute those strategiesflawlessly was what impressed Ozpin enough to appoint Jaune as leader of JNPR.

Jaune is a strong tactician so I’d love to see Jaunementor Oscar on that, bringing out that side of him as well as the two bond andrealize they share good chemistry in that regard.

Imagine Jaune and Oscar growing so close astacticians that they’re able to read off of each other on thebattlefield---tell what move the other is going to make before they can evenvoice it. This is great because it can make Oscar a good second in command forJaune (when he joins JNR)---a role which Pyrhha used to fill.

Pyrhha was Jaune’sright hand---the person who helped him out the most. His secondin command who Jaune trusted and depended on. Noraand Ren are Jaune’slegs---the two people who are his pillars of support andkeep him grounded all the time. Till this day, Renora are still Jaune’s strong supportivepair but Jaune is still missing his arm.

All the more reason why I think Oscar would be a good fit to become Jaune’s righthand man. Yes he may be younger and inexperienced.But so was Jaune when he first became leader. Pyrhha was there to help bringout Jaune’s greatness and I’d imagine that if Oscar joins JNR, Jaune will bethere to bring out Oscar’s greatness.

Words cannot fathom how much I want to see V7 focusing on building upon JNR’s interactionswith Oscar. Even if we don’t get my hunch about JNR andOscar being slapped with different people before realizing they are a perfectfit together coming to fruition, at least have V7 give us more moments of Oscarjust bonding with JNR more---especially Jaune all culminating with him working togetherwith them on the battlefield and finally solidifying that he was their missingpiece all along.

I want V7to be about Oscar proving to JNR that he is the one destined to resurrect theirteam--ironic since he’s the incarnation of an immortal soul. I don’t want anothercharacter to tell JNR that they should take Oscar in. I don’t want another cheap shot like Rubybeing the arrow that had to spell out for JNR why they should let Oscar jointhem.

No! I want JNR to each and all acknowledge Oscar oftheir own accord and make that realization for themselves. No outsideinfluence. Just these three coming to see that this young farm boy is the onethey need to make them complete again.

That’s what I want for JNPR’s side of the storyfor V7. As usual, this is just myperspective. Nonetheless I hope it comes true to someextent.

Oh! As for RoseGarden in terms of Oscar’s interactions with Ruby, similar to JNR, I expect V7 to focus on building the friendship side of Oscar’s ties to Ruby. We know Oscar cares a lot for Ruby but I don’t think he realizes his crush on Ruby yet. I feel like Oscar’s crush will be a factor that won’t come into play until like a another volume or so. Like maybe V8. If the Schnee Family Affairs and the Crimes of the SDC subplot is stretched for 2 volumes then I can see Oscar’s feelings for Ruby not coming into play until like V8 or so. Especially not until he joins JNR so that he can someone like Nora spell it out for him and help him to realize it for himself. Buuuuut....again, this is just me XD

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

#squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #jaune arc #ruby rose #team jnr #team jnpr #rwby rosegarden #rwby theories #rwby V7 theories #mojo72400

26 notes · View notes

jerrychos-blog · 6 years

Text

Bear Hugs

pairing: Gavin Reed x Reader

word count: 1964

a/n: might as well kill two birds with one stone, right? fluffy gavin with his partner at the station, he’s probs a little ooc, buuuuut i personally think he’d be a lot more laid back and soft when dating someone

***

When you were younger, you hated hugs. You hated any sort of affection, or touching, really. You never let your mother brush through your hair, never held hands with your friends or hugged them. You barely tolerated letting your grandparents kiss your forehead when they came to visit. People became concerned when they saw you squirm away from your father’s touch, his comments that this was just how you were not doing anything to ease their minds. It wasn’t a lie though. There was nothing concerning about your home life, no abuse from your parents. You just simply did not like being touched.

And people respected that, for the most part.

It was the same all through middle school, and through high school as well. Your friends were fine with it, even the ones who preferred to be more physical with others. The issues start to arise with those you dated. While some respected your boundaries, asking if it was okay to touch you before doing so, others wanted to be able to just hold your hand or kiss you whenever they wanted.

Your last few relationships in high school had been a little too physical for your liking, and had ended rather badly, so you opted out of dating for the rest of your junior year.

Senior year passed without dating as well, as did your college years.

When you joined the police force, it was a bit harder to get around not being touched, but you managed. You worked at Detroit’s 7th precinct police station, so you regularly ran into officers from Detroit’s central police department. You had even become friends with some of them. There was one detective you seemed to run into with unusual, some might even say concerning, frequency.

It seemed like Gavin Reed showed up everywhere you went. It was a weird coincidence that you both always seemed to be in the same place at the same time, but it had allowed you to get to know the man.

It certainly helped with easing in to the new setting when you were transferred to Detroit’s central station. The station had an opening for a detective position, and you had recently been promoted, so you snagged it while you could. The station had been fairly empty when you first arrived, making settling in and beginning your work a quick task. Captain Fowler had assigned you to an ongoing case, giving you the information and a desk across from your new partner. You had been looking through the case files for about an hour when you heard footsteps approaching.

“Well, long time no see, sweetheart,” a familiar voice says, accompanied with a friendly punch to the shoulder. You clear your throat and lean away from the touch, looking up to see Gavin standing next to you, a cocky smirk on his face.

“Do you mind not doing that?”

“What, standing here?”

“No, punching me.”

“Wuss, it wasn’t even that hard.” “No, it’s not that, I just. Don’t like being touched. Never have, dunno if I ever will.”

Gavin shrugs, moving to sit at the desk across from yours.

“Whatever you say. Anyways, Fowler told me I’d be getting a new partner, didn’t know it’d be you.” “Yeah, we always seem to wind up in the same place, huh? Pretty weird that we’re partners now.”

***

You’d been working with Gavin for about five months, and the two of you got along pretty well. There were times when you scolded him for his behavior towards others, finding it to be a tad bit too harsh, but other than that, he was nice to be around. He had done pretty well at respecting your boundaries, only needing to be gently reminded a few times when it slipped his mind. Lately, though, you had been strangely okay with his friendly nudges, almost wanting them.

He had noticed, but never questioned it. If he was being honest, he liked the contact. Gavin had started to develop feelings for you, so any bit of closeness was welcomed, and he didn’t want to fuck up any chances he had with you by pushing it.

There had been a slow day at the station, so you and Gavin had decided to go grab lunch at a nearby café. When you had finished eating, you went back to his car, deciding to just sit and talk as you still had some time to kill.

“How long do you think this case is gonna go on for? I feel like we’re not making any progress,” you sigh, slouching down in the passenger seat. There’s no response, and you glance over to the man beside you.

“Gavin? Did you hea-”

“Do you want to go on a date?”

“I, do I… What?”

“I said do you want-”

“I heard what you said Gavin. I… Shit, I don’t know.”

“Right, forget I asked, then,” he huffs, shifting to look out the window.

“Woah, hey, it’s not that I don’t want to, trust me Gavin, I… I think I like you, I just haven’t dated since high school. I had a few bad relationships and I was just turned off by the idea of dating I guess.” He’s silent for a moment, processing what you’ve just told him.

“Would you want to try again? Just to see if anything has changed?”

“I think I’d be willing to try, if it was with you, yeah,” you smile, closing your eyes.

“I trust you.”

***

A year had passed since Gavin asked you out, and you were still going strong. You were surprised to see how much you had missed dating, that special closeness you don’t quite get with friends. What surprised you even more was that you had grown to love, to crave his touch. You especially loved his hugs. The first hug had been during an investigation, about 4 months into your relationship.

The suspect was deemed dangerous and high on red ice. You and Gavin had been called to the scene, and everything had gone downhill from there. The two officers who had gone into the building before you had been shot down, and both were being wheeled off to an ambulance when you arrived. The next group to enter the building consisted of seven people rather than two, including Gavin and yourself.

You carefully made your way through the building, taking up a spot in the front of the group. When you reached the room the suspect was hiding in, all hell broke loose. He shot in your direction, hitting the officer next to you, and you dove for cover behind a nearby table. Two more officers went down, and you took a chance, running towards the suspect at full speed. He took a shot at you, barely missing your head, and before he could take another you had tackled him.

Another officer came over to help you cuff the man, taking him away once the cuffs were secure. You felt arms around you, pulling you into a bear hug, and you stiffened.

“Jesus christ don’t fucking do that again okay? Scared the shit outta me; thought you got shot or somethin’, thought I was gonna lose you…” Gavin mumbles into your hair, taking in a deep breath. He holds you for another minute before pulling away, his hands still on your arms.

“Are you okay? It looked close, it didn’t actually hit you, did it?” he gives you a quick once over.

“I-I’m okay,” you stutter, still a bit shaken up from the situation. You rub your arms, and glance down at the floor.

“Hey Gav?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Can you… Can you please hug me again? I… I dunno, I just really liked it, I guess.” He immediately pulls you back in, a soft smile on his face.

***

Ever since then, you had requested a hug at least once every day, and Gavin loved to deliver. They made you incredibly happy and he loved seeing you bouncing with joy after he’d hug you. You had been more open to affection since then, accepting kisses here and there, and even cuddling with the man on occasion. He always made sure to ask if you were alright with it first, though. That was one promise he had made to himself. You said you had trusted him, and he was going to do everything he could to keep your trust, goddamnit.

One particularly stressful day had you sitting at your desk, running a hand through your hair in frustration. The station was fairly busy, and the noise only added to your tension. Someone cleared their throat behind you, and you sighed, choosing to ignore whoever it was. They cleared their throat again, a bit louder this time.

“Go away, I’m busy,” you snapped, turning your head to see who it was. “Oh shit, Gav, I’m sorry, didn’t realize it was you.”

“S’alright. Stressed?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, turning to face him fully, “this new case has just been getting to me. We can’t find any leads, absolutely none, but I-I mean you’ve looked at the information we have, there’s so much of it! And no leads, it’s pissing me off!” You run a hand down your face.

“Sorry, I’m just… This is getting to me way more than it should.”

Gavin holds one arm out, the other behind his back, and he motions for you to get up. You do, and bury your face in his chest, arms reaching up to wrap around his neck. He wraps his arms tight around you, one resting around your shoulders and the other across your back. You breath in the scent of his cologne and sigh, a content smile coming to your lips. He presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head, and the two of you stand there for awhile, content, the noise of the station forgotten for a moment.

When you pull away, it’s obvious you’ve calmed down a bit. Your shoulders are slouched a bit more, posture more relaxed.

“Thanks, Gavin,” you give him a smile, and turn to sit down again, but a hand is on your shoulder to stop you.

“Uh-uh, I’m not done with you yet,” he chides, giving you a smug grin. You raise an eyebrow at him and rest a hand on your hip.

“Alright then, what else did you need?”

He pulls a large bouquet of flowers out from behind his back, holding them out to you, and you gasp.

“Gavin, they’re gorgeous, oh my gosh, thank you!” You gently grab them, and bring them up to your face to smell them.

“I’m glad you like them, I uh, actually put some effort into looking into the meaning of them.”

“Oh? And what exactly do they mean, then?”

“Well there are red roses there, I think you know what those mean. Those white ones with the pink ends are amaryllis flowers. Those are supposed to symbolize radiant beauty. The white ones are carnations, they show pure love. The salmon colored ones are chrysanthemums, and they represent perfection. Because you are a beautiful, perfect person and I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Gavin grins, nothing but admiration for you in his eyes.

You tear up, setting the flowers down and going to hug him again. You hug him for a long time, silently hoping Fowler doesn’t yell at the two of you. Gavin picks you up and sets you on the edge of your desk, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“And now,” he smirks, and you know the next sentence can’t be good, “a hug and a kiss for every day so far that I’ve loved you, and for every day that you’ve made me the happiest man alive.”

You grin at him and pull him into another hug. “Better get started then, I think that might take awhile.”

#gavin reed x reader #gavin x reader #dbh gavin x reader #dbh x reader #detroit become human

726 notes · View notes

starlighttaek8 · 6 years

Text

Game Over (2/?)

Author's note: This is a collab with @nothing-but-kpop-dreams. We had a great time writing this story and working with her has been awesome. We hope that you really like this story, so please, let us know what you think.

Genre: Angst/Fluff (Leo x reader)

Summary: Your dream of being a professional dancer was now a reality. All the more worthwhile was the fact that you are a back up dancer for your best friend's group. So everything was perfect right? Wrong! Your emotions take a hit after forming a crush on a particular someone...

All Parts

Word count: 1.5k

It was now day 10 of being an actual back-up dancer.

You loved it.

It was tiring, and it was definitely an intense schedule, but you loved it. Not only did you get to dance all day, but you also got to hang out with your best friend.

Your usual routine had gone something like this :

1. Practice with fellow back-up dancers until lunch

2. Skip lunch with fellow back-up dancers

3. Crash Vixx’s practice

4. Eat lunch with Vixx

Afterwards, the rest of the dancers would join in and everyone would do the dance together.

Even in cases where you didn’t work with Vixx, but the other artists under the company, you would always have a meal with at least Hyuk, whether it be lunch or a late night meal at a nearby restaurant.

Hyuk wasn’t your only friend though. You had befriended many of the other backup dancers, and even some of the girls in Gugudan.

More importantly though, you seemed to be winning over the rest of Vixx.

Thanks to Hyuk, you were already on their good side, and in general all the guys were pretty friendly, except for Leo.

His cold demeanor didn’t really surprise you, and you kind of figured this would be the case based on shows that they have been guests on.

He always seemed annoyed by your presence, but you held on to the idea that he was just the type that took awhile to warm up to new people.

His lack of expression around you only made you want to try harder to get him to like you.

It was a new mission, so to speak, for you.

It was 1:23 and you and Vixx just about finished your lunch together in the practice room.

“You ready for a day with US MEN Y/N?!?” Ravi grunted all “manly” as he began flexing in the mirror.

“Because of that whole -uh- whatever that was, I’m ready for this practice to be over.” you said sarcastically making N and Hongbin laugh.

“Oh did you mean this?!?” Ravi laughs as instead of flexing in the mirror, like the first disturbing show, he decides to stand in front of you.

Way.

Too.

Close.

“Bet you can’t handle all of this!” he continues, laughing more until he steps away and to a more appropriate distance.

“More like I don’t want to handle any of that.”

This only caused a roar out of everyone, even a small chuckle out of Leo.

“Oh please Y/N, I see right through you.” Ravi smirked, making his way back towards you. “I see you.” he nodded, and while his head was still up, he winked.

“I notice the way you look at me when we are all eating. You’ve fallen for me. I get it.” He said, biting his lip in what was supposed to be a sexy way as he stopped right in front of you.

“Like hell she did!” Hyuk’s voice rang throughout the room and soon Ravi’s body went flying.

The poor, unsuspecting boy let out a shrill shriek when he was grabbed from behind by the maknae, and practically thrown across the room.

Now everyone was in tears, even Ravi (don’t worry it was from laughing).

“What did I say Hyung? Five foot radius! You are not allowed within five feet of Y/N.” Hyuk only said after catching his breath. “And go back to the gym! You’re so heavy!”

“Hey, we just ate!” was Ravi’s only defense.

“And Ravi, maybe you should look into getting glasses, Y/N never stares at you, cuz she stares at me!” N winked.

“What did you say?!?” Hyuk gasped. “She does NOT!”

“She doesn’t stare at you, she stares at me!” Hongbin insisted.

“No, it’s me she likes!” Ken shouted above everyone.

You only laughed in the corner seeing how triggered Hyuk was getting over everyone’s comments. “She doesn’t like any of you!”

“Why are you saying that?!? You guys only wish she liked you!!"

You only looked over at Leo with an exasperated look on your face as you rolled your eyes. He and you were the only ones not taking part in picking on Hyuk.

But, when you looked over at him, his small smile disappeared. In all attempts to keep up with your mission, you made yourself say something to him.

“How do you handle them all?”

Leo didn’t really say anything. He only gave the smallest head shake as he looked back over at the bickering mess that was ⅚ of the Vixx members.

“But I am at least her bias! I know that! Right Y/N?” Ravi called out to bring you back into the mess.

“HEck no.” you just laughed.

“Ha!” Hyuk laughed, sticking his tongue in Ravi’s face. “I am the one that is her bias, cuz I’m her best friend.”

“No you aren’t!” you singsonged.

His head suddenly whipped towards you. He stared at you with puppy eyes. “I’m not?!?” he whimpered, looking crushed.

“Nope!”

“Cuz it’s me!” N declared

“No it’s me!” Hongbin shouted.

“No and no.” you said with a smile

“So it’s me!” Ken was already doing a happy dance.

“Not you either.” you giggled. “My bias is Leo!”

You started laughing uncontrollably. This was yet again a part of your plan to get him to be friends with you.

“WHat?!?” they all panicked. Even Leo looked at you in shock.

“Why?!?” they cried.

You made your way up to Leo “Uh- just look at him!” you explained throwing your hands near his face. “Do you not see this?”

There was a hint of red that filled his cheeks as he stood like a statue. His eyes bounced between each member and you, and he didn’t seem too comfortable with you that close to him.

“Taekwoon hyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!” Hyuk shouted, breaking the awkward silence as he began to charge at him. “Three feet apart! “ he reminded. (All members were to be no less than within three feet of you, except Ravi. Ravi was the least trusted and had to be farther away from you.)

Hyuk’s attempts to pounce on his hyung were thwarted when Leo’s iron fist landed on his shoulder. Hyuk was down in less than half a second, whimpering and grabbing his arm.

“Can we just start practice already?” Leo mumbled under his breath as he walked away from you without a second glance.

After practice you felt like a zombie. Like the aforementioned mythical undead, you felt dead… buuuuut not really.

You shuffled past your fellow dancers and made your way to your water bottle. Chugging it all down as if water was going out of style.

“Woah! Slow down there Y/N.” Ravi said from behind you. “It’s not like anyone else is trying to take it away from you.” He joked as if he was not gasping for air himself.

You were too busy drinking to give him a proper comeback. You simply squinted him down as he walked past you and grabbed his own bottle.

“Hey, we getting food?” Hyuk huffed as he came up to you.

“Only after you shower! Look at you, you’re soaked in sweat. This is why I like practicing with Gugudan, none of them sweat pools like you guys.”

“Hey, hey, hey take a look at yourself!” N sassed “You are just as sweaty as we are.”

“That’s only cuz we are in here with you guys. You all are so gross you make the rest of us gross. Right guys?” You called out to your fellow back-up dancers for support. “We are never this sweaty with Gugudan?”

A chorus of “Yeah”’s and “Sure”’s come from your fellow dancers as they exited the practice room, not really paying attention to the conversation, but also not caring. They were too tired to deal with anything.

One of the other dancers, though, decided to listen in and throw some shade as well, saying,

“Yeah with GuGudan they get it right on the first try so we don’t have to work as hard reworking the same move 30 times.”

You chuckled and gave a high five to your fellow dancer. “Love you Jieun!” You said after her as she walked away like a savage queen.

“You know what, because of that, you are paying for dinner.” Hyuk said.

“Then, you best be in the mood for McDonald’s cuz I only got money for a four piece nugget, be prepared to share, you biscuit.”

“Wow I am so looking forward to that.” he said sarcastically. “Guys did you just hear Y/N’s amazing offer? Who wants in? Leo?” he called out to the only member close by. “What about you?! You want one of my two chicken nuggets?”

“Oh if Leo is coming he is for sure getting two chicken nuggets!” you say. “Eo, how does dinner on me sound? Want to join us?” you offer in a more serious manner.

“No.” he said almost instantly with just the blankest of expression. Then he just walked out the practice room most likely to the showers.

You looked over at Hyuk just so confused at to why Leo was so closed off with you. Hyuk only gave you a simple shrug, one that said:

“He is just tired.”

A/N: @tanithrea Thank you for liking our story! If anyone else would like to be tagged just ask in the comments!

46 notes · View notes

feyland · 6 years

Text

Initiative

I’m supposed to be working on my fic for the Bishop Myriel fundraiser buuuuut I also can’t get this concept out of my head. Blame @mardisoir for encouraging me. Read on AO3. Companion piece to Devil’s Backbone

“You pass through the seven gates from the palace, to the edge of the cliff that marks the border of Limbo. From below, you can hear what sounds like a massive windstorm. You can’t tell if the wailing is just the wind, or if there are voices underneath it.”

“Hang on, I want to see if I can tell that or not,” Joly said, interrupting Grantaire’s monologue.

“Alright, roll Perception.”

Joly shook the die in his cupped hands, blowing on it for luck, as he always did.

“16!”

“Alright, you can tell that the wailing is, shockingly, coming from the people who are in literal Hell. Anyway, before you can start down into the second circle, Virgil holds out a hand to make you pause. ‘I must warn you,’ he says, ‘I can guide you through the horrors of this place, but as I have no corporeal form, I cannot help you stave off any enemies. If you are attacked and killed, you will be trapped in that circle forever. Be wary. The living were never meant to see this place.’”

“So basically whenever we get into a fight, he’s going to be on the sidelines just yelling, like, ‘KICK HIS ASS!’ at us?” Bossuet asked.

“Oh, for sure,” said Grantaire, grinning. “And you know he’ll be all, ‘If I were alive I would have beaten that zombie in one move, too bad I can’t prove it.’”

Gavroche let out an impatient breath, rolling his eyes. “Can we PLEASE get to the part where we fight some things? We’ve been talking to those boring old dudes for like YEARS.”

“Okay, fine, geez, forgive me for all my creative world building.”

“You mean the world building you lifted from Dante?” Jehan said, a wicked smile on their face.

“Oh shut up Jehan. You almost peed yourself when you figured out what I was doing,” Grantaire shot back. “Anyway. You start down the steep, narrow path. As you descend, the howling gets louder, and you can feel the force of the wind picking up with every step. By the time you reach the bottom, it’s blowing so hard that your speed is reduced by half. Around you, you can see the tortured spirits being blown around roughly, alone with a significant amount of dust. Their cries combine with the howling wind, resulting in a horrible symphony of hopelessness that drowns out any other sound.”

“I want to roll Perception,” Montparnasse said. Beside him, Jehan beamed. It was the first campaign session they had managed to lure Montparnasse to. A new arc of the longstanding adventure Grantaire had started over a year before seemed the perfect place to integrate someone new. Montparnasse had danced around the suggestion of joining for several weeks, but Jehan had noticed the increasing interest in which Montparnasse had listened to their retellings of sessions.

“I wish I had had the opportunity to play when I was a kid,” they had sighed as they lay in bed with Montparnasse one night. “I played a lot of pretend, but it was mostly by myself. Sometimes I still get amazed that I have friends who like to do dorky shit with me. I’m not the weirdo talking to themself, making things up alone anymore. I’m a weirdo in a group, which is much more fun.”

Montparnasse had kissed their forehead, letting his thoughts take shape as Jehan fell asleep curled into his side. The next morning, he had dropped down next to them on the couch and asked for help filling out his character sheet.

Soon after, Montparnasse’s tiefling warlock joined Jehan’s drow ranger, Bossuet’s dwarf fighter, Joly’s elf cleric, and Gavroche’s dragonborn barbarian in an adventure of Grantaire’s making. A fitting one, Montparnasse had said, since he was already destined to end up in Hell.

“That’s a 17 plus 2,” he said to Grantaire, smirking.

“Alright, fine, you hear under very loud screaming wind the sound of something scraping alone the stone, like massive nails. Do you let anyone know?”

“Obviously. Ranavalona is true neutral, not true idiot.”

“Alright, so you say, ‘Hey I hear some weird claw-like noises,’ just as a stench of decay hits you. Out of the dust, a figure is looming. It’s a twisted version of a humanoid, huge and skeletal, gaunt skin stretched over sharp bone. It has wings like a giant insect, talons as long as short swords on its hands and feet, and a long, skeletal, scorpion tail tipped with red. This is a bone devil, and it’s your welcoming committee to Hell. Roll initiative.”

“Oh shiiiiiiit,” Bossuet said as they all reached for their dice.

Jehan snuck a glance at Montparnasse as he scrolled through the spell list on his phone. The intensity on his face made them smile. As flippant as he could be, Jehan recognized the ambition and competitiveness breaching the facade.

“Joly, you’re up,” Grantaire said once an order had been established.

“Okay, I cast Magic Circle around us. It creates a 10 foot wide, 20 foot high cylinder around us. The fiend type creature can’t enter the circle through non-magical means, and has disadvantage on attacks against any of us while we’re inside it.”

“Sweet. Nice set up,” Grantaire said. “Gav, you go.”

“I go into a rage and charge it!”

“If you do that, you’ll be out of Joly’s protective circle.”

“Whatever, man! Archibald Cunningham Pickles ain’t afraid of no bone devil!”

“Alright, roll to hit.”

The delight in Gavroche’s face as he landed blows on the devil was infectious, with even Montparnasse cracking a smile his way. Gavroche had been giddy with mirth when Montparnasse had joined the group, all too ready to mock the learning curve of a new player. Even so, there was pride in his expression when Montparnasse asked him for advice, drawing on Gavroche’s frankly astounding memory for details from the Player’s Handbook.

“The bone devil is going to go next-”

“What’s its name?” Bossuet interrupted.

“Uh, Virgil pops up beside you and says, ‘Oh shit sons, this is Cromslor the Foul’, and then he peaces out again because he's totally useless to you right now other than apparently having a great memory of the name of every single monster in the underworld. Anyway, Cromslor is going to go, and he has three attacks. First one’s aimed at you, Gav. He’s gonna try and swipe you with his claws. 14 against AC?”

“Ha! Miss! Eat shit, Cromslor!” Gavroche crowed.

“Well then he’s aiming his second hit your way too…and that’s a 22. I assume that get you?”

“Shit!”

“Watch your fucking mouth, kid. Cromslor rakes his huge, dirty, unmanicured claws across your chest, catching you for 8 slashing damage.”

“I have resistance to slashing! So that’s only 4! Suck it, Cromslor!”

“Yeah, Cromslor, get wrecked,” echoed Bossuet.

“Just for that, his last attack is coming your way, Bo,” Grantaire said with a wicked grin. “And he saved his best for last. He’s going to try and get you with his horrifying bone tail. That’s an 18.”

“That hits,” sighed Bossuet.

“But he has disadvantage because of Joly’s spell so…oh, dang, that’s a nat 20; he gets you either way. He whips his butt around, and just fuckin nails you, man. That’s, shit, 13 piercing damage, and I need you to make a constitution save to see if you’re poisoned or not.”

“Dwarves have advantage against poison…ha! 16! Does that save?”

“Shockingly, for once in your goddamn life, you actually saved against something,” Grantaire said. “He still knocked you on your ass, though. Don’t get an ego over it. Montparnasse, your turn.”

“I cast…Hunger of Hadar. A dark gateway opens in a 20-foot sphere around the devil. It’s blinded and deafened as it’s encased in a warp of time and space. It takes 2d6 cold damage, and it has to succeed a dexterity save or else take acid damage from the ‘milky, otherworldly tentacles’ that rub against it.”

A beat of silence, followed by Grantaire’s quiet, “holy shit.”

“That’s some Lovecraftian material right there,” said Jehan.

“I picked the wrong class,” said Bossuet in awe.

“Parnasse is into tent porn!” Gavroche exclaimed, delighted.

“Gav! You shouldn’t know what that is!” Joly moaned.

The game descended into madness. Hysterical laughter and the shrieks of being too deeply invested in the fantasy filled the apartment. Jehan’s lightning arrows managed to hit their target, but also caught Bossuet’s character at the same time. Wails of betrayal were voiced as Bossuet swore revenge, a promise that was challenged on account of his poor hit record, immediately exemplified as he rolled a critical fail on his attack against the bone devil. By the time Gavroche landed the final blow, cleaving the creature’s rotting head from its neck, the group was nearly in tears with laughter, working to catch their breaths as though they had fought the battle themselves.

Montparnasse’s defences, Jehan noticed, were nowhere to be seen.

#dungeons and dragons #Les Miserables #Jehanparnasse #Jehan #Montparnasse #Grantaire #Joly #Bossuet #Gavroche #d&d #les mis

48 notes · View notes